The enthusiasm of victory and exaltation in the worship of Dionysus tended of course to connect with him whatsoever was joyous and jubilant in life.  He was the god of all joy.  Hence the fable which makes him the author and giver of wine to men.  Wherever he goes, he is surrounded by the clustering vine and ivy, hinting of his summer glory and of his kingly crown.  Thus, the line of his conquests leads through the richest fields of Southern Asia,—­through the incense-breathing Arabia, across the Euphrates and the Tigris, and through the flowery vales of Cashmere to the Indian garden of the world:  and as from sea to sea he establishes his reign by bloodless victories, he is attended by Fauns and Satyrs and the jovial Pan; wine and honey are his gifts; and all the earth is glad in his gracious presence.  Hence he was ever associated with Oriental luxuriance, and was worshipped even among the Greeks with a large infusion of Oriental extravagance, though tempered by the more subdued mood of the West.

But that depth of Grecian genius, which made it possible for Greece alone of all ancient nations to develop tragedy to anything like perfection, insured also even in the most impassioned life the most profound solemnity.  Into the praises of Apollo, joyous as they were,—­where, to the exultant anthem was joined the evolution of the dance beneath the vaulted sky, as if in his very presence,—­for the sun was his shechinah,—­there enters an element of solemnity, which, in certain connections, is almost overwhelming:  as, for instance, in the first book of the “Iliad,”—­where, after the pestilence which has sent up an endless series of funeral pyres,—­after the strife of heroes and the return of Chryseis to her father, the priest of the angry Apollo,—­after the feast and the libation from the wine-crowned cups, there follow the apotropoea, and the Grecian youths unite in the song and the dance, which last, both the joyous paean and the tread of exultant feet, until the setting sun.  I know of nothing which to an equal degree suggests this element of solemnity, that is almost awe-inspiring from its depth, short of the jubilant procession of saints, in the Apocalypse, with palms in their hands.

This element is also evident in the worship of Dionysus,—­so that the inspiration of joy must not be taken for the frenzy of intoxication, though the symbol of the vine has often led to just this misapprehension.  Besides, Dionysus must not be too closely identified with the Bacchanalian orgies, which were only a perversion of rites which retained their original purity in the Eleusinia:  and this latter institution, it must be remembered, was from the first under the control of the state,—­and that state at the time the most refined on the face of the earth.

Surely, it is not more difficult to give a pure and spiritual significance to a vintage-festival or to the symbolic wine-cup of Dionysus, than in the rhapsodies of a Persian or Hindu poet to symbolize the attraction between the Divine Goodness and the human soul by the loves of Laili and Majnum, or of Crishna and Radha,—­to say nothing of the exalted symbolism attached to the love of Solomon for his Egyptian princess, and sanctioned by the most delicate taste.