Note 1051 — Chapter VIII · DIONYSOS.

Dr Kretschmer (Aus der Anomia p. 23) has shown that in all probability the second half of the name Dionysos (-νυσος) means ‘son’ or ‘young man’: it is the cognate of Lat. nurus and of Gr. νύμφη, which in the compound κακόνυμφος (Eur. Alc. 206, 990) appears in masculine form. On the fragment of an early black-figured vase signed by Sophilos, three nymphs appear with the inscription Νῦσαι which seems equivalent to κόραι or νύμφαι or παρθένοι (A. Mitt. XIV. Taf. i.). Aristophanes seems to have vaguely felt or imagined some connection between the last half of the word and Nysa, the birthplace of the god, in his Νυσήιον Διὸς Διόνυσον (Ran. 215) echoed by Apollonius Rhodius in Διὸς Νυσήιον υἷα (Arg. IV. 1132). Dionysos then is practically either Διόσκουρος, a term of wide application, or possibly child of the tribe of Dioi (see p. 372). Dr Kretschmer further points out that the fluctuation in inscriptions between ι and ε (Δεόνυσος and Διόνυσος) is best accounted for by Thracian origin, as the Thracians appear to have had a vowel which was not exactly either, and was indifferently rendered in Greek by both. Probably then, though not certainly, Dionysos brought his name with him from the North.