October 2010
“Dionysos was anxious to descend into Haides, but did not know the way. Thereupon a certain man, Prosymnos by name, promises to tell him; though not without reward … It was a favour of lust, this reward which Dionysos was asked for. The god is willing to grant the request; and so he promises, in the event of his return, to fulfil the wish of Prosymnos, confirming the promise with an oath. Having learnt the way he set out, and came back again. He does not find Prosymnos, for he was dead. In fulfilment of the vow to his lover Dionysos hastens to the tomb and indulges his unnatural lust. Cutting off a branch from a fig-tree which was at hand, he shaped it into the likeness of a phallus, and then made a show of fulfilling his promise to the dead man.”
—Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2.30
“And to Hekate Chthonia, before who even the dogs tremble as she moves among the graves and the dark blood of the dead./Then the earth began to bellow, trees to dance and howling dogs in glimmering light advance, Ere Hecate came.”
—Idylls, Theocritus/The Aeneid, Virgil, late C1st BCE, trans. J. Dryden (via shivian)
“In a hole dug in the earth, nine lavish offerings of wine and gifts of springtime milk, Actaean drops of honey, and blood that pleases ghosts.”
—The Thebaid: Seven against Thebes, Publius Papinius Statius (via shivian)
