"Bacchanalia" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swelled louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the concert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but for the absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancient bacchanalia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who had ensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was not suspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that the spirits of the dead really assembled that night ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Bacchanalia. In Latin countries, the three days before Ash Wednesday are given up to boisterous outdoor merriment, which frequently degenerates into coarse and licentious revelry. Hence, the expression "Bacchanalia" Carnival. In order to counteract these abuses, the Jesuits at Macerata in Italy, introduced, in 1556, some special devotions during the three days. The Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament was held in the church, this custom was adopted by St. Charles Borromeo, in Milan; and it gradually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... to the most splendid palace, its numberless grades from the lowest to the most refined and cultivated; it has its special amusements and public places of meeting, its police, its hospitals, its prisons and its literature."[110] "We no longer celebrate the festival of Osiris, the Bacchanalia and the Indian orgies of the spring month; but in Paris and other large cities, under the black cloak of night, behind the walls of 'public' and 'private' houses, people give themselves over to orgies and Bacchanalia that the boldest ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... at both ends to the under jaw of the animal, formed the bridle. When they had delivered their loads, they paraded the fort with an air of independence. It was not long however before they became clamorous for spiritous liquors; and the evening presented such a bacchanalia, including the women and the children, as I never before witnessed. Drinking made them quarrelsome, and one of the men became so infuriated, that he would have killed another with his bow, had not ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... seen but dancing, drunkenness, debauchery, and all that the most abandoned licentiousness can conceive of gross and abominable. And this an entire people, reputed the wisest of all Greece, not only suffered, but admired and practised. I say an entire people; for Plato, speaking of the Bacchanalia, says in direct terms, that he had seen the whole city of Athens drunk ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin |
