“O Dionysus, Son of God,do you see our sufferings?Do you see your faithfulin helpless agony before the oppressor?O Lord, come down from Olympus,shake your golden thyrsusand stifle the murderer's insolent fury.”

“O Dionysus, we feel you near,stirring like molten lavaunder the ravaged earth,flowing from the wounds of your treesin tears of sap,screaming with the rageof your hunted beasts.”

“Young man, two are the forces most precious to mankind.The first is Demeter, the Goddess.She is the Earth -- or any name you wish to call her -- and she sustains humanity with solid food.Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin, bringing the counterpart to bread: wineand the blessings of life's flowing juices.His blood, the blood of the grape,lightens the burden of our mortal misery.Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour outto offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed.”

“Come, God -- Bromius, Bacchus, Dionysus -- burst into life, burstinto being, be a mighty bull,a hundred-headed snake,a fire-breathing lion. Burst into smiling life, oh Bacchus!”

“I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.”

“What mortal claims, by searching to the utmost limit, to have found out the nature of God, or of his opposite, or of that which comes between, seeing as he doth this world of man tossed to and fro by waves of contradiction and strange vicissitudes?”

“Do not grieve so much for a husband lost that it wastes away your life.”