had learned to appease their
hunger without too painful efforts we breathed into their hearts the
love of beauty.

"They raised up pyramids, obelisks, towers, colossal statues which
smiled stiff and uncouth, and genetic symbols. Having learnt to know us
or trying at least to divine what manner of beings we were, they felt
both friendship and fear for us. The wisest among them watched us with
sacred awe and pondered our teaching. In their gratitude the people of
Greece and of Asia consecrated to us stones, trees, shadowy woods;
offered us victims, and sang us hymns; in fact we became gods in their
sight, and they called us Horus, Isis, Astarte, Zeus, Cybele, Demeter,
and Triptolemus. Satan was worshipped under the names of Evan, Dionysus,
Iacchus, and Lenaeus. He showed in his various manifestations all the
strength and beauty which it is given to mortals to conceive. His eyes
had the sweetness of the wood-violet, his lips were brilliant with the
ruby-red of the pomegranate, a down finer than the velvet of the peach
covered his cheeks and his chin: his fair hair, wound like a diadem and
knotted loosely on the crown of his head, was encircled with ivy. He
charmed the wild beasts, and penetrating into the deep forests drew to
him all wild spirits, every thing that climbed in trees and peered
through the branches with wild and timid gaze. On all these creatures
fierce and fearful, that lived on bitter berries and beneath whose hairy
breasts a wild heart beat, half-human creatures of the woods--on all he
bestowed loving-kindness and grace, and they followed him drunk with joy
and beauty. He planted the vine and showed mortals how to crush the
grapes underfoot to make the wine flow. Magnificent and benign, he fared
across the world, a long procession following in his train. To bear him
company I took the form of a satyr; from my brow sprang two budding
horns. My nose was flat and my ears were pointed. Glands, like those of
the goat, hung on my neck, a goat's tail moved with my moving loins, and
my hairy legs ended in a black cloven hoof which beat the ground in
cadence.

"Dionysus fared on his triumphal march over the world. In his company I
passed through Lydia, the Phrygian fields, the scorching plains of
Persia, Media bristling with hoar-frost, Arabia Felix, and rich Asia
where flourishing cities were laved by the waves of the sea. He
proceeded on a car drawn by lions and lynxes, to the sound of flutes,
cymbals, and drum