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"... Wait a moment while I fetch you some
mellow wine, so that you may first make a libation to Zeus and the other immortals and then, if you like, enjoy
a drink yourself. Wine is a great comfort to a weary man ..." [Hecabe 1
to Hector
1. Homer, Iliad
6.260]
"O Cyclops, son of the sea-god, come see what
kind of divine drink this is that Greece provides from its vines,
the gleaming cup of Dionysus." [Odysseus
to Polyphemus
2. Euripides, Cyclops
415]
Polyphemus
2: Who is this Dionysus? Is he worshipped as
a god?
Odysseus:
Yes, the best source of joy in life for
mortals.
[Euripides, Cyclops
521]
"This is the effect of your wine—for wine is a crazy thing. It sets the wisest man singing and
giggling like a girl; it lures him on to dance and it makes him
blurt out what were better left unsaid." [Odysseus
to Eumaeus
1. Homer, Odyssey
14.464]
"Moi je suis Bacchus qui pressure pour les
hommes le nectar délicieux." [Ludwig van Beethoven (on the
7th Symphony)] |
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This is a god who gives pleasure to mankind: he discovered honey,
and the vine and its cultivation. But some say that it was Aristaeus
who discovered honey, and that he competed with his honey against
the wine
of Dionysus 2, Zeus giving
the first prize to wine.
Dionysus 2 was attended by SATYRS
and MAENADS,
whom he formed into an army, making a campaign all over the
inhabited world as far as India. During his wars, it is told, he
arrayed himself in suitable arms and in the skin of panthers, but in
times of peace during his festive gatherings, he wore
bright-coloured, luxurious, and effeminate garments. It is said that
Dionysus 2 loves the panther because it is the most excitable of
animals, and leaps like a Maenad.
He instructed all men in the knowledge of his rites, and some
affirm that King Oeneus 2 of Calydon
was the first to receive a vine-plant from Dionysus 2. On the other
hand, he punished severely those who opposed him (like Lycurgus 1
and Pentheus
1).
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Semele
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Zeus
fell in love with Semele,
daughter of Cadmus
and Harmonia 1, and consorted with her, but Hera was
jealous, and in order to delude her husband's mistress, the goddess
took the shape of the girl's nurse Beroe 3, persuading her to ask Zeus to
come to her as he comes to Hera, so
that she would know what pleasure it is to sleep with a god. At her
suggestion then, Semele
made this fatal request to Zeus, and
being unable to endure divine presence, was smitten by a thunderbolt
and gave birth to Dionysus 2 prematurely. This is how Semele
died, but later her son Dionysus 2 brought her up from the Underworld,
named her Thyone 1, and ascended with her to heaven, where she was
made immortal by Zeus.
[About the pregnancy of Semele
see also Zagreus below.] |
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Childhood |
After Semele's
death, Zeus
carried the abortive child in his thigh, and when Dionysus 2 was
born, Zeus
brought him to Nysa in Arabia where he was reared by NYMPHS.
It is also said that Hermes
entrusted Dionysus 2 to Athamas
1 and Ino (Semele's
sister), and persuaded them to rear him as a girl. But Hera, or
the Erinye Tisiphone 1, drove them mad in such a way that Athamas
1 hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer, killing him; and Ino
cast herself into the sea, together with her little son
Melicertes.
Also the CORYBANTES
are named as guardians of Dionysus 2 in his growing days, and the
daughters of Atlas that
are called the HYADES 1
or NYMPHS DODONIDES are sometimes said to have been the nurses of
Dionysus 2, and to have been put to flight by Lycurgus 1, king of
the Edonians (Thrace) or the Arabians, who was the first to expel
Dionysus 2. Others say that the NYMPHS LAMUSIDES took care of the
child Dionysus 2, and that they were maddened by Hera.
And if one is to believe Silenus,
he himself protected the child Dionysus
2 from the wrath of Hera.
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Silenus, protector of the child Dionysus
2 | |
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Hera
persecutes him |
Hera
hated Dionysus 2 so much that she promised Artemis
to the giant Alcyoneus 1 if he would fight against him. And to the
giant Chthonius 4 she promised Aphrodite
for performing the same task. Hera
incited also the giant Peloreus against Dionysus 2, and to the giant
Porphyrion 1 she promised Hebe as his
wife if he would fight against the god.
Hera,
they say, drove Dionysus 2 mad, and with his mind in disorder, he
came to a large swamp that he could not cross. He was there met by
two asses, and one of them carried him across the water so that he
could reach a temple of Zeus. When
Dionysus 2 came to the temple, he was freed at once from his
madness, and feeling gratitude for the asses he put them among the
stars (Asellus Borealis, and Asellus Australis in Cancer), and gave
human voice to the Ass that had carried him. This Ass is said to be
the saddle-ass of Silenus,
the Satyr adviser and instructor of Dionysus 2. |
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Education completed |
Later the god came to Cybela in Phrygia
where Rhea
1, the mother of the gods, purified him and taught him the rites
of initiation. |
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Lycurgus 1 |
Dionysus 2 then came to the land of the Edonians, who lived
beside the river Strymon in Thrace and were ruled by Lycurgus 1.
This king was the first to insult, persecute and expel Dionysus 2.
Some have said that Charops 4, the grandfather of Orpheus,
warned Dionysus 2 of Lycurgus 1's plot against him, and when they
met in battle Dionysus 2 conquered the Thracians, and killed their
king. But others have said that Lycurgus 1 was maddened by the god,
and committed suicide. In any case, this is how Charops 4 became
king in Thrace; for Dionysus 2, out of gratitude for his aid, handed
over the kingdom to him, and instructed him in the secret rites of
the initiations. Later the son of Charops 4, Oeagrus, took over both
the kingdom and the initiatory rites.
According to others, Dionysus 2, being persecuted by Lycurgus 1,
took refuge in the sea with the Nereid Thetis, while the MAENADS
and SATYRS
that attended him were taken prisoners. Later the MAENADS
were released and Dionysus 2 drove Lycurgus 1 mad, so that he struck
his own son dead with an axe, imagining that he was lopping a branch
of a vine; and before he recovered his mind, he cut off his son's
extremities.
Still others say that the MAENADS
almost killed Lycurgus 1, who was saved by Hera and
made immortal, but first, they add, he was driven mad by Zeus so
that no other man should be as proud as he.
It is also told that the Edonians themselves bound him to horses
which rent him in pieces, because they believed Dionysus 2, who had
said that the land would not bear fruit until Lycurgus 1 was put to
death. |
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Pentheus
1 |
Having come to Thebes,
Dionysus 2 induced the Theban women to abandon their houses, and
rave in Bacchic frenzy on Mount Cithaeron, which is between Boeotia
and Attica. King Pentheus
1, a man with strange ideas about law and order, attempted to
put a stop to these proceedings, declaring that Dionysus 2 was no
god, but he was torn limb from limb either by his mother, who
believed him to be a wild beast, or by the MAENADS.
King Pentheus
1 was son of Echion 2, one of the so called SPARTI,
and of Agave 2, one of the daughters of Cadmus,
the founder of Thebes.
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Argos
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After Thebes,
Dionysus 2 came to Argos, and
because they did not wish to honor him, he drove the women mad, and
they devoured the infants whom they carried at their breasts.
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Pirates |
On another occasion, Dionysus 2 desired to sail from Icaria to
Naxos. He then hired a Tyrrhenian pirate ship. But when the god was
on board, they sailed not to Naxos but to Asia, intending to sell
him as a slave. So Dionysus 2 turned the mast and oars into snakes,
and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes so that the
SAILORS went mad, and leaping into the sea, were turned into
dolphins. Others say that Dionysus 2 came on board after these
SAILORS, having leapt ashore, captured him, stripped him of his
possessions, and tied him with ropes. |
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Ariadne
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When Theseus
came to Crete, Ariadne,
falling in love with him, offered to help him if he would agree to
carry her away to Athens,
and have her to wife. Theseus
having agreed on oath to do so, she asked Daedalus
to disclose the way out of the labyrinth. And at his suggestion she
gave Theseus
a thread when he went in. Having found the Minotaur,
he killed him, and gathering the thread he made his way out again.
By night he arrived with Ariadne
at Naxos, where Dionysus 2 fell in love with Ariadne
and carried her off, when deserted by Theseus.
He brought her to Lemnos
where she had children by him. Some say that Ariadne
had children by Theseus
as well.
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Ariadne's
final fate |
Ariadne's
final fate is most uncertain. Some affirm that she was killed by Artemis,
for something that Dionysus 2 told the goddess. Others declarte that
she was turned into stone when Perseus
1 shook in front of her the face of Medusa
1. Still others assert that she hung herself because she was
abandoned by Theseus.
It is also told that Theseus
and Ariadne,
coming from Crete,
were driven out of their course by a storm to Cyprus. Ariadne
was then big with child, and Theseus
set her on shore alone, while he was borne out to sea again by the
storm. Ariadne
was taken into the care of the Cyprian women, who helped her during
the pangs of travail, and gave her burial when she died before her
child was born. Yet others say that Ariadne
was made immortal by Zeus, and
that Dionysus 2 set the Crown among the stars as a memorial of the
dead Ariadne.
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Other loves |
Aura 2, a Phrygian huntress unacquainted with love, daughter of
the Titan Lelantus and the Oceanid Periboea 8, was ravished by
Dionysus 2 while asleep. She had twins but killed one of the
children and in despair she threw herself into the river Sangarius,
and was transformed into a fountain by Zeus.
Nicaea was a huntress and nymph of Astacia with whom Hymnus fell
in love. She grew angry and killed him as he was declaring his love
for her. However, having drunk wine, she
later fell asleep and Dionysus 2 took her maidenhood. |
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Others with identical name |
Zagreus or Dionysus 1, son of Zeus by Persephone
or Demeter
(the first of two or maybe three Dionysus), was killed by the TITANS
who destroyed him with an infernal knife, cutting him into pieces.
For some time he appeared in different shapes, but finally
collapsed. It is also said that the TITANS
boiled him, but his members were brought together by Demeter,
and he experienced a new birth. It is said as well that the son of
Zeus and
Persephone
was dismembered by the TITANS,
and that Zeus gave
his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in
a drink, and she was thus made pregnant. Iacchus, the son of Aura 2,
was honoured as a god next after the son of Persephone
and after Semele's
son (Dionysus 2). Later the Athenians honoured all the three
together. |
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