History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [17]
There are many forms of the Dionysus myth. In one of them, Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Persephone; while still a boy, he is torn to pieces by Titans, who eat his flesh, all but the heart. Some say that the heart was given by Zeus to Semele, others that Zeus swallowed it; in either case, it gave rise to the second birth of Dionysus. The tearing of a wild animal and the devouring of its raw flesh by Bacchae was supposed to re-enact the tearing and eating of Dionysus by the Titans, and the animal, in some sense, was an incarnation of the god. The Titans were earth-born, but after eating the god they had a spark of divinity. So man is partly of earth, partly divine, and Bacchic rites sought to make him more nearly completely divine.
Euripides puts a confession into the mouth of an Orphic priest, which is instructive:16
Lord of Europa's Tyrian line,
Zeus-born, who holdest at thy feet
The hundred citadels of Crete,
I seek to Thee from that dim shrine,
Roofed by the Quick and Carven Beam,
By Chalyb steel and wild bull's blood,
In flawless joints of Cypress wood
Made steadfast. There is one pure stream
My days have run. The servant I,
Initiate, of Idaean Jove;17
Where midnight Zagreus18 roves, I rove;
I have endured his thunder-cry;
Fulfilled his red and bleeding feasts;
Held the Great Mother's mountain flame,
I am set free and named by name
A Bacchos of the Mailed Priests.
Robed in pure white I have borne me clean
From man's vile birth and coffined clay,
And exiled from my lip alway
Touch of all meat where Life hath been.
Orphic tablets have been found in tombs, giving instructions to the soul of the dead person as to how to find his way in the next world, and what to say in order to prove himself worthy of salvation. They are broken and incomplete; the most nearly complete (the Petelia tablet) is as follows:
Thou shalt find on the left of the House of Hades a Well-spring.
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this well-spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory,
Cold water flowing forth, and there are Guardians before it,
Say: 'I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know yourselves.
And lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.'
And of themselves they will give thee to drink from the holy well-spring,
And thereafter among the other heroes thou shalt have lordship….
Another tablet says:—'Hail, Thou who hast suffered the suffering … Thou art become God from Man.' And yet in another:—'Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.'
The well-spring of which the soul is not to drink is Lethe, which brings forgetfulness; the other well-spring is Mnemosyne, remembrance. The soul in the next world, if it is to achieve salvation, is not to forget, but, on the contrary, to acquire a memory surpassing what is natural.
The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of 'enthusiasm', of union with the god. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.
Certain definitely Bacchic elements survived wherever Orphism had influence. One of these was feminism, of which there was much in Pythagoras, and which, in Plato, went so far as to claim complete political equality for women. 'Women as a sex,' says Pythagoras, 'are more naturally akin to piety.' Another Bacchic element was respect for violent emotion. Greek tragedy grew out of the