Hymn to Dionysus

 The Homeric Hymn to Dionysus is essentially a horror story, Now it's ture that Dionysus is supernaturally beautiful rather than an eldritch horror in appearence, but the result is the same. You could replace Dionysus with a squamous sea creature or giant eyeless penguin. The only thing that disguises this is the genre and the viewpoint. The genre of the Homeric Hymns varies a little bit, but its purpose to glorify the God; in order to do so one cannot turn the god into a monster. Consider, however, the story from the viewpoint of the helmsman on the pirate ship. There is no indication that he is morally superior to his shipmates except on that one point of recognizing the God. From his perspective, the pirate ship on which he is a crewmember, although perhaps not one who is treated the best, is docked at the bottom of cliff in a land where they knew they could find wealth and expensive hostages to ransom. They spot a beautiful youth, clearly not of common stock, who has foolishly decided to hang out in his sexy adolescent glory next to the sea. The seashore is the traditional place for pirates to abduct young princes and princesses and sell them in slavery - if you examine the characters in the Odyssey, even the chief slaves of Odysseus are originally of noble stock, although perhaps a petty variety. Although Dionysus is probably safer on the cliff than the princess of Phaeacia was on the boeach when Odysseus washed up, the cliffs were either not that big or the pirates had experience abducting beautiful young boys from challenging terrain. The later speculation of the crew about the destination of this young noble suggests a common excursion to foreign lands across the sea. This is consistent with the existence of pirates. If there is not extensive sea trafficc, there are no job opportunities for corsairs! Once the pirates have brought the marvelous being upon their own ship, in order to exploit him commercially, they are acting fundamentally no different than a scientist bringing a sample back to base camp or exploration vessel or a dreary town in New England. Once Dionysus easily frees himself from his bonds while mocking the sailors, the Helmsman recognizes that this is no ordinary aristocrat.