ORGY (through

See also:

• FRENCH
• FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850– )
• FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678)

French from

See also:

• LAT

Lat. orgia, Gr. 6pyca, in derivation connected probably with 'ipyov,

See also:

• WORK

work; cf. Lat. operare, to

See also:

• SACRIFICE (from Lat. sacrificium; sacer, holy, and facere, to make)

sacrifice)  , a term originally denoting the secret rites or ceremonies connected with the worship of certain deities, especially those of Dionysus-Bacchus . The Dionysiac orgies, which were restricted to women, were celebrated in the winter among the Thracian hills or in spots remote from city life . The women met, clad in fawn-skins, with hair dishevelled, swinging the thyrsus and beating the cymbal; they danced and worked themselves up to a state of mad excitement . The holiest rites took place at night by the light of torches . A bull, the representative of the god, was torn in pieces by them as Dionysus-Zagreus had been torn; his bellowing reproduced the cries of the suffering god . The women tore the bull with their teeth, and the eating of the raw flesh was a necessary part of the ritual . Some further rites, which varied in different districts, represented the resurrection of the god in the spring . On Mount Parnassus the women carried back Dionysus-Licnites, the child cradled in the winnowing fan . The most famous festival of the kind was the Tpi€ropls celebrated every second winter on Parnassus by the women of Attica and Phocis . The celebrants were called Maenads or Bacchae . The ecstatic enthusiasm of the Thracian women, KXc roves or MiµaXAoues, was especially distinguished . The wild dances, songs, drinking and other " orgiastic " ceremonies which were characteristic of these rites have given rise to the use of the word "orgy " for any drunken, wild revel or festivity (see DIONYSUS and MYSTERY) .