Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink, turning pale!"
Keats.
However, Bacchus was often found to be inspired by sentiments of a profoundly tender nature. Coressus, one of his favourite priests,
having unhappily formed a violent attachment to a maiden named Callirhoe, found his love returned with hatred, and the more he sought to impress her with his affection, the more hateful did he become. Unable to gain her, the priest sought the aid of his God, who, to avenge his sufferings, struck the Calydonians with a continual drunkenness, many of them dying of it as of a disease. In the height of their misery they sought the oracle, which declared that their calamity would not cease, until Callirhoe was sacrificed, unless some one could be found to pay the penalty for her.
The oracle must be obeyed: but who would be the substitute? Parents wept, and kindred mourned, but none would offer in her stead: and the hour arrived when the unhappy maiden, guilty only of not loving, was crowned and led to the altar, where he who had once been her lover, stood ready to be her slayer. At sight of her, his passion, which had slumbered for a while, burst forth anew, and in an agony of transport, rather than strike one so loved, he
determined to be her substitute, and on the instant slew himself in her stead.
"Great father Bacchus, to my song repair,