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Teiresias
Whenever a wise man takes a good occasion for his speech, it is not a great task to speak well. You have a rapid tongue as though you were sensible, but there is no sense in your words.
A man powerful in his boldness, one capable of speaking well, becomes a bad citizen in his lack of sense. This new god, whom you ridicule, I am unable to express how great he will be throughout
Hellas
. For two things, young man,
270
are first among men: the goddess Demeter—she is the earth, but call her whatever name you wish; she nourishes mortals with dry food; but he who came afterwards, the offspring of Semele, discovered a match to it, the liquid drink of the grape, and introduced it
275
to mortals. It releases wretched mortals from grief, whenever they are filled with the stream of the vine, and gives them sleep, a means of forgetting their daily troubles, nor is there another cure for hardships. He who is a god is poured out in offerings to the gods,
280
so that by his means men may have good things. And do you laugh at him, because he was sewn up in Zeus’ thigh? I will teach you that this is well: when Zeus snatched him out of the lighting-flame, and led the child as a god to
Olympus
,
285
Hera wished to banish him from the sky, but Zeus, as a god, had a counter-contrivance. Having broken a part of the air which surrounds the earth, he gave this to Hera as a pledge
protecting the real
1
Dionysus from her hostility. But in time,
290
mortals say that he was nourished in the thigh of Zeus, changing the word, because a god he had served as a hostage for the goddess Hera, and composing the story.
2
295
Whenever a wise man takes a good occasion for his speech, it is not a great task to speak well. You have a rapid tongue as though you were sensible, but there is no sense in your words.
A man powerful in his boldness, one capable of speaking well, becomes a bad citizen in his lack of sense. This new god, whom you ridicule, I am unable to express how great he will be throughout
Hellas
. For two things, young man,
270
are first among men: the goddess Demeter—she is the earth, but call her whatever name you wish; she nourishes mortals with dry food; but he who came afterwards, the offspring of Semele, discovered a match to it, the liquid drink of the grape, and introduced it
275
to mortals. It releases wretched mortals from grief, whenever they are filled with the stream of the vine, and gives them sleep, a means of forgetting their daily troubles, nor is there another cure for hardships. He who is a god is poured out in offerings to the gods,
280
so that by his means men may have good things. And do you laugh at him, because he was sewn up in Zeus’ thigh? I will teach you that this is well: when Zeus snatched him out of the lighting-flame, and led the child as a god to
Olympus
,
285
Hera wished to banish him from the sky, but Zeus, as a god, had a counter-contrivance. Having broken a part of the air which surrounds the earth, he gave this to Hera as a pledge
protecting the real
1
Dionysus from her hostility. But in time,
290
mortals say that he was nourished in the thigh of Zeus, changing the word, because a god he had served as a hostage for the goddess Hera, and composing the story.
2
295
Bacchae. Euripides. T. A. Buckley (Translator). London. 1850.
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