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Teiresias

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. [270] 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, [275] 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 [280] 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, [285] 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, [290] 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> 1Dionysus from her hostility. But in time, [295] 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

1 A line of text has apparently been lost here.

2 The account given in lines 292f. of the development of this legend is based on the similarity between the Greek words for hostage (ὅμηρος) and thigh (μηρός).

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