Hymn to Dionysus

This post will have both the short and long versions of his hymn. One copy that I had of the hymn was very long, though this one is short on both versions. As always I get this from The Perseus Digital Library.

[1] ... For some say, at Dracanum; and some, on windy Icarus; and some, in Naxos, O Heaven-born, Insewn¹; and others by the deep-eddying river Alpheus that pregnant Semele bare you to Zeus the thunder-lover. [5] And others yet, lord, say you were born in Thebes; but all these lie. The Father of men and gods gave you birth remote from men and secretly from white-armed Hera. There is a certain Nysa, a mountain most high and richly grown with woods, far off in Phoenice, near the streams of Aegyptus ...

[10] “and men will lay up for her² many offerings in her shrines. And as these things are three,³ so shall mortals ever sacrifice perfect hecatombs to you at your feasts each three years.”
The Son of Cronos spoke and nodded with his dark brows. And the divine locks of the king flowed forward [15] from his immortal head, and he made great Olympus reel. So spake wise Zeus and ordained it with a nod.

Be favorable, O Insewn, Inspirer of frenzied women! we singers sing of you as we begin and as we end a strain, and none forgetting you may call holy song to mind. [20] And so, farewell, Dionysus, Insewn, with your mother Semele whom men call Thyone.

1 Dionysus, after his untimely birth from Semele, was sewn into the thigh of Zeus.

2 sc. Semele. Zeus is here speaking.

3 The reference is apparently to something in the body of the hymn, now lost.

Second Hymn to Dionysus

[ 1] I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired Nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father and fostered and nurtured him carefully [5] in the dells of Nysa, where by the will of his father he grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in his train [10] with him for their leader; and the boundless forest was filled with their outcry.

And so hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season, and from that season onwards for many a year.