The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

26 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)choice of the particular bull, 78 which probably represented thedeity himself; for at his festivals he was believed to appear in bullform. The women of Elis hailed him as a bull, and prayed him tocome with his bull's foot. They sang, “Come hither, Dionysus, tothy holy temple by the sea; come with the Graces to thy temple,rushing with thy bull's foot, O goodly bull, O goodly bull!” 79The Bacchanals of Thrace wore horns in imitation of their god. 80According to the myth, it was in the shape of a bull that he wastorn to pieces by the Titans; 81 and the Cretans, when they actedthe sufferings and death of Dionysus, tore a live bull to pieceswith their teeth. 82 Indeed, the rending and devouring of live bullsand calves appear to have been a regular feature of the Dionysiacrites. 83 When we consider the practice of portraying the god as abull or with some of the features of the animal, the belief that heappeared in bull form to his worshippers at the sacred rites, andthe legend that in bull form he had been torn in pieces, we cannotdoubt that in rending and devouring a live bull at his festival theworshippers of Dionysus believed themselves to be killing thegod, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood.Dionysus as a goat.Live goats rent anddevoured by hisworshippers.Another animal whose form Dionysus assumed was the goat.One of his names was “Kid.” 84 At Athens and at Hermion he wasworshipped under the title of “the one of the Black Goatskin,” anda legend ran that on a certain occasion he had appeared clad in the371-373.77 Gazette Archéologique, v. (1879) pl. 3.78 Pausanias, viii. 19. 2.79 Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 36; id., Isis et Osiris, 35.80 J. Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 1236.81 Nonnus, Dionys. vi. 205.82 Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, 6.83 Euripides, Bacchae, 735 sqq.; Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs, 357.84 Hesychius, s.v. Ἔριφος ὁ ∆ιόνυσος, on which there is a marginal gloss ὁμικρὸς αἴξ, ὁ ἐν τῷ ἔαρι φαινόμενος, ἤγουν ὁ πρώϊμος; Stephanus Byzantius,s.v. Ἀκρώρεια.