Bacchanalia

a short story and response to Ovid

The Dance of the Bacchantes (Charles Gleyre, 1849)

Harmonia was the first to notice that they were hiding a phallus. A crude and protruding thing, but still small when adjusted for scale. There in the woods she had found them, circling it and dancing. Grape vines grew from the ground and the trees, extending and never stopping. The initiates ate of the vines, and drank from a small sack of goat's skin whose contents seemed to be infinite.

Some of their faces were contorted in pain; others, in bliss—washed out. Some lay unconscious, stomped on by dancers whose limbs looked like they had strings. So many near the phallus had their hands outstretched; weeping, laughing, praying, singing—and many more still, were on the ground thrashing, groaning in a mass orgy.

"Some foreign god has come to our shores," she said to her sisters, back at the temple. "An oriental thing and they worship his penis," spitting each word out. Eurydike and Drosis stared at her—both now halting their looms.

Large Eurydike then stood up, "Heathens! They've abandoned our Pallas! Each procession lighter than last and many oxen gone! I've smelled an incense in the night too! This explains it all!"

"We risk the city's ruin," said Harmonia, rapidly pacing. "When was it last that we saw our lady? Or even felt her near?"

Drosis now spoke, the most measured of the three: "Her indifference, for now, is preferred to her wrath. But this is a thing to address."

"We should just kill them all!" Said Eurydike, quick to anger. "How dare they! How dare they!!"

But Drosis sighed, controlling herself. "We ought to finish this work before we do anything else," she said. "A new cloak for her statue. The next procession is near."

Harmonia swallowed her protest and cast her eyes away, biting her lip until it drew blood, but still not saying a word. Eurydike, likewise, hesitated . . . unwilling to test her sister. And so the three sat, looming away at the gold and saffron robe.

"You all remember Perseus," said Drosis, calm and measured. "The favorite of our Pallas, and of our people too? Harmonia, so lovely, now tends to the head he severed." One sighed and the other scoffed, tired of this story. "Frightful things, he saw too. But he always kept his wit. Neither shaking in silence nor raging." So Drosis rankled her sisters, with nearly no expression. But both saw, for just a moment, a very subtle smirk.

"Dear sister, tell me, when if ever . . . was a threat allowed by Diomedes? Was he not always into the fray, prompted by Pallas or not? But oh! I always forget . . . you're so much like Ulysses." Yanking the cloth, Eurydike continued, "waiting around for a year."

And with that, the two bickered. Drosis aloof and sarcastic, Eurydike blunt and crude; they jabbed each other, back and forth.

"Truly, I despise you both!" Rang Harmonia's voice. "One arrogant, and the other brash—listen to what I've to say!" And so they did. Still looming, working the ends of the cloth. "I believe this god is the one in Thebes!" But there her story ended.

The crash of a cymbal nearly burst their ears, making their palms fly up. And again, an even louder crash, this time paired with drums. And in their laps, their work tools spun, suddenly sprouting vines. And these wrapped around their chairs and legs. Squeezing, reaching up. Harmonia shrieked, Eurydike thrashed, but Drosis calmly cut them. And as the temple doors flung open, she freed her sisters too.

Sideways, she glanced the new entrants. "Oh? A paltry mob." Frothing at the mouth; crawling over each other and down—the mass of bodies lined up in two uneven columns. And down descended a boy, she thought. Or perhaps a girl; so androgyne. A wreath of ivy atop his head; exalting with a thyrsus.

With every step he took, a new sprout of grapevine grew. And they morphed as if four seasons passed—grapes ripe, then falling off. These shriveled then upon the ground, down to mush and nothing. "What bitch is this," he said . . . his voice from two directions, "working on my feast day?"

"Devotees of your sister . . . if you truly hail from Zeus."

He smiled—Bacchus, lifted by ivy. But only a paltry few feet. His adherents meanwhile frothed behind him, banging their drums or writhing.

"All must hail me, Jupiter's son . . . risen again from my father's thigh, and after the titan's gnashing."

"Unholy and I don't believe it," shouted Harmonia from the back. "Leave this sacred ground!" Already Drosis had gotten her bow, and Eurydike her large, great-hammer.

The alleged god now frowned and waved, producing a feast from his hand. "You will partake or be like me; separated, assembled." Needless to say their response.

Eurydike and Drosis in the fray, buying their sister time. Eurydike swinging her hammer, and Drosis picking them off—the mass of initiates rushed them still, with Bacchus laughing above.

The head of Medusa had long been losing its power. So into a shield they had fixed it, with a contraption to close its eyes. Harmonia, the dexterous, proved best in its complex usage, timing the lever on it with the minute breakdown of the zodiac. And for one second, every minute, Harmonia froze them as stone. And Eurydike with her hammer . . . smashed up three or four.

Bacchus laughed, clutching his stomach. But for a whole hour they focused and fought; ignoring exhaustion and sweat. It was then that the head of Medusa sputtered, eyes opened but no effect.

They stood there in dreadful silence.

"Hark!" Said Bacchus. "Do you want to be a bat or lynx? A golden cup? Or a goat's-skin flask? Should we separate and cook you up? Turn *you* three into the feast?"

"Harmonia, fetch your dagger," said Drosis to her sister. "All the dead are mindless shades, except those felled in battle."

And this time when he waved his hand, all the bacchantes were yanked. And all of those both living and dead were slammed together at one point. They formed up, screaming; their bones twisting and breaking. And after a gruesome minute, they merged into one mass. This vile thing—this tower of flesh—somehow looked human and not. But separately, their voices spoke, swearing eternal bliss.

"How dare our Pallas abandon us!" shouted Eurydike. And worried she'd spew some blasphemy next, Drosis whipped her head.

But the rebuke never left her lips.

Beyond her sister, at the top of the steps, was an overlarge mirror. And in it she saw the three, but also something else. Behind her shoulder, staring back, was a Woman with fiery eyes.

Drosis turned to see Her, shaking in disbelief.

"You!!" cried Harmonia, "why are you looking at me?! Use that clever brain of yours! I've no plans to hand!"

Thoroughly confused, Drosis turned to sprint. And thrown down by the slamming mass, her body pushed the mirror.

It turned and caught the light of dawn, reflecting the Sun's rays. And as they struck the inhuman mass, all of it fell apart. Bodies, limbs, organs, all—spilling like children's blocks.

The sisters looked down at them. Some were still alive! Quivering and raging still, they called for wine and meat.

"Wine," said Drosis, "is that what you truly want?" They writhed, affirming loudly.

Drosis looked at Bacchus, his face confused and pale. Behind him stood her Lady. Their eyes met and she felt a mischief in Her gleaming eyes.

". . . I have lots of wine."

Frothing, foaming at the mouth, they barked and called out, "where?!"

"There," she pointed. At little Bacchus, "coursing through his body."

And before the god could protest or run, the mob was upon him like dogs. Ripping and gnashing with their teeth, gulping down the red.