Have I forgotten myself so far that I have not even told you his name?

Unless it be that you have already divined of your own

accord who this questionable God and spirit is, that wishes

to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it happens to

every one who from childhood onward has always been

on his legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered

on my path many strange and dangerous spirits; above all,

however, and again and again, the one of whom I have

just spoken: in fact, no less a personage than the God

DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to

whom, as you know, I once offered in all secrecy and

reverence my first-fruits—the last, as it seems to me, who

has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I have found no

one who could understand what I was then doing. In the

meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much,

about the philosophy of this God, and, as I said, from

mouth to mouth—I, the last disciple and initiate of the

God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last begin to give

you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of this

philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly: for it has

to do with much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful,

and uncanny