This is not unlike shopping in a large department store, where we come upon more and more words that we find interesting, and would like to use.

The editors asked me to collect some of these words, and to share them with our readers. They say "it's important", but I know better. They just won't let an old man take it easy.

A word that seems to come up more and more often around here is: Bacchanalia.

While we "moderns" think that everything we do is bigger and better than it was in antiquity, this is not the case when it comes to festivities. We believe today that our idea of orgies describe human behavior at its wildest. Mardi Gras parades and fraternity parties are pale imitations of the originals.

Bacchanalia derives from Bacchus, the god revered by
the Romans. To the Greeks he was known as Dionysus. He was the greatest deity in the Greek world. It is from this god we learn that he came to represent the life-giving and intoxicating power of nature. His power was naturally and fittingly symbolized by wine. He became known as the god of wine and ecstasy.

His followers were the Bacchants, roving bands of women who had abandoned their families and taken to the hills. In works of art they were represented in animal skins, wearing crowns of ivy in disheveled hair, and carrying staffs entwined with leaves. They danced in frenzy in torchlight to the rhythm of flutes and kettledrums.

When the orgies were introduced into Rome, they became known as Bacchanalia . In Rome the rites started out as
secret gatherings for women only. After men were admitted to these gatherings they became real orgies. These became increasingly notorious for drunkenness and debauchery of all kinds. Things progressed to the point where the Roman senate issued a decree prohibiting Bacchanalia.

Even words we use every day have origins we hardly imagine, and one in a similar vein to Bacchanalia is Carnival.

This festival of merrymaking before Lent originated in Rome, probably as a compromise that the Christian Church made with the annual pagan feast of Saturnalia.

In its early days the feast began on January sixth, the
day of Epiphany, and lasted through Shrove Tuesday. The days of revelry were enthusiastically welcomed as an offset to the upcoming days of fasting and penance to be observed during Lent. Some of the Renaissance popes were great patrons and promoters of carnival festivities, but later they restricted the merrymaking to the last few days before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

The carnival spread to other Italian cities, and then to France, Spain, Germany and Austria.Today the festivity is limited to Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (literally "fat Tuesday). Masked revelers sing, frolic, and parade in the streets. It does not become a bacchanalia. French colonists introduced Mardi Gras into America, where its most famous celebration is in New Orleans.

The word carnival first appeared in English about the middle of the sixteenth century and is taken from the Italian carnevale . The obvious etymology would derive this from the Latin words carne and vale meaning "farewell to flesh". Other considerations give it a less colorful derivation. It comes from the word carne meaning meat and levare meaning to take away. The practice of abstaining from eating meat during Lent seems to be the ultimate inspiration for carnival , and not in bidding it farewell.

May 19, 1996 Michael W. Paparella All Rights Reserved

mpaparel@shore.intercom.net

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