/lit/ - Literature

>>16982841
he also refuted "meatheads" in he same sentence

I've arrived here in the land of Thebes,
I, Dionysus, son of Zeus, born to him
from Semele, Cadmus' daughter, delivered
by a fiery midwife—Zeus' lightning flash.
Yes, I've changed my form from god to human,
appearing here at these streams of Dirce,
the waters of Ismarus. I see my mother's tomb—
for she was wiped out by that lightning bolt.
It's there, by the palace, with that rubble,
the remnants of her house, still smoldering
from Zeus' living fire—Hera's undying outrage
against my mother. But I praise Cadmus. [10]
He's made his daughter's shrine a sacred place.
I have myself completely covered it
with leafy shoots of grape-bearing vines.
I've left the fabulously wealthy East,
lands of Lydians and Phrygians,
Persia's sun-drenched plains, walled towns in Bactria.
I've moved across the bleak lands of the Medes,
through rich Arabia, all Asian lands,
along the salt-sea coast, through those towns
with their beautifully constructed towers,
full of barbarians and Greeks all intermingled.
Now I've come to Thebes, city of Greeks, [20]
only after I've set those eastern lands
dancing in the mysteries I established,
making known to men my own divinity.

What can it be, therefore, that has made the souls forget the god who is their father and be ignorant of themselves and him even though they are parts of the intelligible world and completely belong to it?
The starting point for their evil is, then, audacity, generation, primary difference, and their willing that they belong to themselves. Since they appeared actually to take pleasure in their autonomy, and to have made much use of their self-motion, running in the opposite direction and getting as far away from home as possible, they came not to know even that they themselves were from the intelligible world. They were like children who at birth are separated from their fathers and, being raised for a long time far away, are ignorant both of themselves and of their fathers. They can, then, no longer see their father or themselves, and they dishonour themselves, due to their ignorance of their lineage, honouring instead other things, in fact, everything more than themselves. They marvel at these things and are awestruck by them; they love them and are dependent on them; they severed themselves as much as possible from the things from which they turned away and which they dishonoured.