All this grief and search, this longing and crying for the absent, this
final restoration and the bliss of new possession, is set forth by the
youths and damsels-now in slow and now in vehement action, but always
with infinite grace.

Melissa threw her whole soul into the dance while Demeter was seeking the
lost Persephone, her thoughts were with her brothers; and she laughed as
heartily as any one at the jests with which Iambe cheered the stricken
mother. And when the joy of meeting was to find expression, she need not
think of anything but the fact that the youth who held out his hand to
her loved her and cared for her. In this, for the moment, lay the end of
all her longing and seeking, the fulfillment of every wish; and as the
chorus shouted, "Iakchos!" again and again, her soul seemed to have taken
wings.

The reserve of her calm and maidenly nature broke down; in her ecstasy
she snatched from her shoulder the wreath of ivy with which Diodoros had
decked her, and waved it aloft. Her long hair had fallen loose in the
dance and flowed wildly about her, and her shout of "Iakchos!" rang clear
in the night air.

The youth she loved gazed at her with ravished eyes, as at some miracle;
she, heedless of the others, threw her arms round his neck, and, as he
kissed her, she said once more, but loud enough now to be heard from
afar, "The world is a banqueting-hall!" and again she joined in the shout
of "Iakchos!" her eyes bright with excitement. Cups filled high with
wine now circulated among the mad-cap mystics; even Melissa refreshed
herself, handing the beaker to her lover, and Diodoros raised to his
mouth that place on the rim which her lips had touched.