Note 1 — RICHARD WAGNER’S PROSE WORKS. BY BASIL CRUMP. VOLUME I.

Dionysus was the productive or bountiful power of Nature, and the earlier and pure conception of him was of a beauteous but manly figure, attended by the Graces and presiding over dramatic representations of Nature’s mysteries. It was only in later times that he appeared as Bacchus, the God of wine and intoxication, attended by Bacchantes, and presiding over sensual and drunken orgies.