Book 4

Summary

The Daughters of Minyas (I): Dercetis and Nais

[miniature, fol. 89v: people with censers worshipping the golden idol of bacchus]

{A}bove, you heard in the story how Pentheus suffered because of Bacchus, whom he held in contempt. Everyone who knew this was moved by the matter to perform new rites. All of the Ismenides and the Theban women honored Bacchus with rites and worshipped him as a god; they burned incense on the altars in his temples and sang, “Euhoe! Euhoe!” [1–13]

[miniature, fol. 89v: the minyades hard at work, weaving]

But this was not at all the case with Alcithoë or her sisters, the daughters of Minyas. Not even on account of the death of Pentheus, who had been slaughtered, nor of the tragic submersion of the sailors Bacchus had caused to drown, did they deign to mend their ways of holding the god and his power in contempt. They showed no honor, no reverence to him or his rites. Rather, they went on naively despising his feast and considered him low-born, saying that he had never been Jupiter’s son, as those who performed his rites were claiming. They had confidantes and chambermaids who were just as arrogant and proud as they were, and who shared their opinion. [14–31]

The priests were celebrating with great devotion the feast of Bacchus and commanded the people to celebrate it solemnly, and that all of the women together, whether ladies or maidens, serving wenches or maidservants, refrain from laboring and come to the temple to pray during this solemn feast; that each one let her hair down, wear on her head wreaths made of vine leaves, and that each one cover her breasts with animal skins and carry in her hands a green and leafy wand – and that anyone who disobeyed would anger the new god and incur ill-fortune for it. [32–49]

The women performed rites for the new god with great reverence and named him by many names: Liber, Bromius, Lyaeus, Son of Two Mothers, Nyctelius, Nyseus, the Unshorn, Thyoneus, Born of Fire, Planter of the Vine, Euhan, Iacchus, Eleleus and father and Bacchus, and by so many other different names that I cannot put them all in verse.