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its birth; but the burden thus rendering the father lame, 

 and giving him pain, the child was thence called Dionysus. 

 When born, he was committed for some years to be nursed 

 by Proserpina ; and when grown up, appeared with such an 

 effeminate face that his sex seemed somewhat doubtful. He 

 also died and was buried for a time, but afterward revived. 

 W hen a youth, he first introduced the cultivation and dress 

 ing of vines, the method of preparing wine, and taught the 

 use thereof; whence becoming famous, he subdued the world, 

 even to the utmost bounds of the Indies. He rode in a char 

 iot drawn by tigers: there danced about him certain deformed 

 demons called Cobali, etc. ; the Muses also joined in his train. 

 He married Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus. The ivy 

 was sacred to him. He was also held the inventor and in- 

 stitutor of religious rites and ceremonies, but such as were 

 wild, frantic, and full of corruption and cruelty. He had 

 also the power of striking men with frenzies. Pentheus 

 and Orpheus were torn to pieces by the frantic women at 

 his orgies, the first for climbing a tree to behold their out 

 rageous ceremonies, and the other for the music of his harp. 

 But the acts of this god are much entangled and confounded 

 with those of Jupiter. 



This fable seems to contain a little system of morality, so 

 that there is scarce any better invention in all ethics. Un 

 der the history of Bacchus is drawn the nature of unlawful 

 desire, or affection and disorder; for the appetite and thirst 

 of apparent good is the mother of all unlawful desire, though 

 ever so destructive; and all unlawful desires are conceived 

 in unlawful wishes or requests, rashly indulged or granted 

 before they are well understood or considered; and when the 

 affection begins to grow warm, the mother of it (the nature 

 of good) is destroyed and burned up by the heat. And 

 while an unlawful desire lies in the embryo, or unripened 

 in the mind, which is its father, and here represented by 

 Jupiter, it is cherished and concealed, especially in the in 

 ferior part of the mind, corresponding to the thigh of the 

 body, where pain twitches and depresses the mind so far 



