[I suspect that few people who know anything about the wine and party god, Dionysus/ Bacchus, and the female Bacchanalian worship of him, know that he was a god of prophecy as well, sufficiently respected to share prophesying duties with Apollo at the cave of Delphi.]
Dionysus as Pictured in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
This sculpture of the god in bas relief
Is so effeminate the sculptor had
To pull the drapery down to show the chief
Assets of fertility. More than a tad
Unshowy, they are, tiny balls and cock.
Perhaps that’s why the god holds up a stick,
A long, long sceptre made of hardest rock
That has an artichoke-like head, as thick
As any man could want his glans to be.
This sort of makes up for the flabby pecs
And abdomen which look too much like brie
To drive the women into frenzied sex.
..Still, he’s the one who made the Bacchants cry,
….“Euoi! Come inside us! Prophesy!”