Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/19

.] of feeling found expression: rapid transitions from gaiety to pathos, and from coarse merriment to passionate enthusiasm, were regarded as appropriate qualities in compositions consecrated to the god of wine. This licence and variety, and this exemption from all restraint, are the causes which rendered the Dionysiac choral poetry the most favourable material for the development of a new form of art, and which enabled it to give birth to such dissimilar creations as tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama.

In his various wanderings and adventures Dionysus was generally accompanied by a motley troop of mythical beings, who represented in various ways the vigorous forces of nature, and the passions and emotions of the human mind, and were therefore suitable companions for the god of vegetable fruitfulness, and of wine and poetry and music. Foremost among these followers were the Satyrs, the inhabitants of forest and mountain—rude beings, half-human half-animal in shape, with shaggy hair, pointed ears, and shanks like a horse or goat. In disposition they were a cowardly and sensual race, but at the same time lively, frolicsome, and good-humoured; and the quaint and fanciful names which they bore, such as Ivy, Revel, Fun, Lustful, and Dithyramb, may remind one of Oberon's fairy followers, Cobweb and Mustard Seed, Mistress Squash and Master Peascod.

The Bacchantes were hardly less constant in their attendance upon the god. They are represented in ancient paintings as