Margaret thought it majestic. She said he belonged properly to Thessaly, and was identified with its scenery. She told several little stories about him. That of his sailing round the rock of Prometheus, in a golden cup borrowed of Jupiter, was the least known. She told the story from Ovid, the glowing account of his death, of the recognition by delighted Jove. She said Wordsworth’s “Tour in Greece” gave her great materials for thought.
Then she turned to Bacchus.
To show in what manner she supposed Bacchus to be the answer or complement to Apollo, she mentioned the statement of some late critic upon the relation of Ceres and Persephone to each other.
Persephone was the hidden energy, the vestal fire, vivifying the universe. Ceres was the productive faculty, external, bounteous. They were two phases of one thing. It was the same with Apollo and Bacchus. Apollo was the vivifying power of the sun; its genial glow stirred the earth, and its noblest product, the grape, responded.
She spoke of the Bacchanalian festivals, of the spiritual character attributed to them by Euripides, showing that originally they were something more than gross orgies.
Mrs. Clarke (Ann Wilby) said that they licensed the wildest drunkenness in Athens.
I said that was at a later time than Euripides undertook to picture. Were they identical with the Orphic? Did Orpheus really bring them from Egypt?
Margaret would accept that for a beginning.
E. P. P. thought that next winter we might have a talk about Roman Mythology.