Bakkhanal I
Olympianismos :: Practice :: Hymns
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Bakkhanal I
Impart, Lyaié, me Thy Mind
and aid me the right words to find
to speak of Thee — the Greatest God
Thou right deserv’st th’ initiates’ laud
A fool thinks that Thou art but one
born into Thebes, a Kadmian son,
who led the Theban ladies out
to Kithairon, midst screams and shouts.
Indeed, however, Thou wert there,
I think, with Kadmos’ daughter fair,
to where Thou’dst come from eastern cave,
attended there in Nysiads’ glade,
and from Thy rides through India,
the Median hills, and Bactria,
where Thou’dst commenced to spread Thy fame
and valid rites done in Thy name.
To Greece, Thou turn’dst when Thou had done
Thy mission’s work ‘neath orient sun,
and sent Thyself to Kadmos’ home
when after Phrygia Thou hadst roamed.
There calledst Thou to the Theban maids
— as nymphs, them unto Thee Thou badest!
Yet truly, Lord, I do not know
if to these nymphines Thou didst show
Thyself, or hasten Pentheus’ doom,
or leave him butchered, lacking tomb,
or whether these are but a tale
of mortal mouths whose tongues have failed
to speak Thy hidden, secret Word
but told instead a fiction heard.
But Lord, I think Thou werest not there
nor e’er did mortal body bear
for Thou art God, who suffers not
the loathsome body’s age and rot.
Lyaié, perhaps Thou camedst to Thebes
when Semele received her seed
— Thy heart, by Jove inlaid in her,
by which Thy cultus she’d profer.
Then by Thy numen, all the maids
flew to Boeotian mountains’ shade
to dance and sing, bereft of care
for mortal shell that spirits bear,
and draw sweet nectars out of stones
which nourish not the thoughtless bones
But Psykhe! — is she not a maid
whom, Lord, Thou call’st into the glade
undying, of salvation’s land
that waits beyond the western strand?
And do not we embodied souls
arise to hearken to Thy call
and nectar draw from noxious turf,
relinquishing the fatal earth?
So call’st Thou, Lord, souls unto Thee
and from the prison’s walls Thou freest
the ones who will renounce their hoards
of lethal things — hear me, my Lord!
Deliver them who with their eyes
by av’rice blind from Virtue fly.
Aid them drop bogus pieties,
be Bakkhants in sobriety.
X:APR:MMXIII
by Erodius
and aid me the right words to find
to speak of Thee — the Greatest God
Thou right deserv’st th’ initiates’ laud
A fool thinks that Thou art but one
born into Thebes, a Kadmian son,
who led the Theban ladies out
to Kithairon, midst screams and shouts.
Indeed, however, Thou wert there,
I think, with Kadmos’ daughter fair,
to where Thou’dst come from eastern cave,
attended there in Nysiads’ glade,
and from Thy rides through India,
the Median hills, and Bactria,
where Thou’dst commenced to spread Thy fame
and valid rites done in Thy name.
To Greece, Thou turn’dst when Thou had done
Thy mission’s work ‘neath orient sun,
and sent Thyself to Kadmos’ home
when after Phrygia Thou hadst roamed.
There calledst Thou to the Theban maids
— as nymphs, them unto Thee Thou badest!
Yet truly, Lord, I do not know
if to these nymphines Thou didst show
Thyself, or hasten Pentheus’ doom,
or leave him butchered, lacking tomb,
or whether these are but a tale
of mortal mouths whose tongues have failed
to speak Thy hidden, secret Word
but told instead a fiction heard.
But Lord, I think Thou werest not there
nor e’er did mortal body bear
for Thou art God, who suffers not
the loathsome body’s age and rot.
Lyaié, perhaps Thou camedst to Thebes
when Semele received her seed
— Thy heart, by Jove inlaid in her,
by which Thy cultus she’d profer.
Then by Thy numen, all the maids
flew to Boeotian mountains’ shade
to dance and sing, bereft of care
for mortal shell that spirits bear,
and draw sweet nectars out of stones
which nourish not the thoughtless bones
But Psykhe! — is she not a maid
whom, Lord, Thou call’st into the glade
undying, of salvation’s land
that waits beyond the western strand?
And do not we embodied souls
arise to hearken to Thy call
and nectar draw from noxious turf,
relinquishing the fatal earth?
So call’st Thou, Lord, souls unto Thee
and from the prison’s walls Thou freest
the ones who will renounce their hoards
of lethal things — hear me, my Lord!
Deliver them who with their eyes
by av’rice blind from Virtue fly.
Aid them drop bogus pieties,
be Bakkhants in sobriety.
X:APR:MMXIII
by Erodius
Olympianismos :: Practice :: Hymns
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