kind of irregular
wild poetry, not divided into strophes or constructed with any evolution
of the theme, but imitative of the enthusiasm created by the use of
wine, by what passed as the Dionysiac delirium. It was accompanied on
some occasions by flutes, on others by the lyre, but we do not know
enough to conjecture the reasons of the choice of instrument. Pindar, in
whose hands the ode took such magnificent completeness, is said to have
been trained in the elements of dithyrambic poetry by a certain Lasus of
Hermione. Ion, having carried off the prize in a dithyrambic contest,
distributed to every Athenian citizen a cup of Chian wine. In the
opinion of antiquity, pure dithyrambic poetry reached its climax in a
lost poem. _The Cyclops_, by Philoxenus of Cythera, a poet of the 4th
century B.C. After this time, the composition of dithyrambs, although
not abandoned, rapidly declined in merit. It was essentially a Greek
form, and was little cultivated, and always without success, by the
Latins. The dithyramb had a spectacular character, combining verse with
music. In modern literature, although the adjective "dithyrambic" is
often used to describe an enthusiastic movement in lyric language, and
particularly in the ode, pure dithyrambs have been extremely rare. There
are, however, some very notable examples. The _Baccho in Toscana_ of
Francesco Redi (1626-1698), which was translated from the Italian, with
admirable skill, by Leigh Hunt, is a piece of genuine dithyrambic
poetry. _Alexander's Feast_ (1698), by Dryden, is the best example in
English. But perhaps more remarkable, and more genuinely dithyrambic
than either, are the astonishing improvisations of Karl Mikael Bellman
(1740-1795), whose Bacchic songs were collected in 1791 and form one of
the most remarkable bodies of lyrical poetry in the literature of
Sweden. (E. G.)

DITTERSBACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, 3
m. by rail S.E. from Waldenburg and 50 m. S. W. from Breslau. It has
coal-mines, bleach-fields and match factories. Population (1905) 9371.

DITTERSDORF, KARL DITTERS VON (1739-1799), Austrian composer and
violinist, was born in Vienna on the 2nd of November 1739, his father's
name being Ditters. Having shown as a child marked talent for the
violin, he was allowed to play in the orchestras of St Stephen's and the
_Schottenkirche_, where he attracted the attention of a notable patron
of music, Prince Joseph Frederic