Birth, Childhood, Origins of Dionysus

Birth, Childhood, Origins of Dionysus

• Dionysus- Bacchus• Son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of Cadmus.• Hera appeared to Semele as an old woman and

convinced her to ask her lover to appear in full glory.

• Semele was burned, the unborn child, divine, was not destroyed, Zeus sewed him up in his thigh, from which he was born.

• Hermes rescued the baby from the ashes and brought the baby to the nymphs of Nysa.

Death of Semele, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), painting of 1636, Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts

Meaning of his birth-Features of Dionysus

• Definitely a latecomer to the Olympian pantheon.

• Origins lie in northern Greece- Thrace, and possibly in Phrygia.

-God of vegetation, particularly the wine

-Followed by Satyrs, Maenads.

Hermes delivers the infant Dionysos to Papposilenos and nymph: Phiale Painter, ca 430 BC

Statue of Silenus with baby Dionysus Roman copy after a statue attributed to Lysippos, original ca 310-300 BC

Euripides’Bacchae

• Play opens with Dionysus, who comes with anger to Thebes, as his mother’s integrity and his own divinity are questioned.

• Sisters of Semele claim (and Pentheus agrees) that she became pregnant with a mortal

Family of CADMUS

CADMUS-HARMONIA

AUTONOE INO AGAVE SEMELE (m. ZEUS)

PENTHEUS DIONYSUS

Euripides’BACCHAE-Structure

• Cadmus-retired king, and Teiresias, seer/priest welcome the new god

• Pentheus- a cousin of Dionysus- challenges the new god

• A guard brings the exotic stranger• Progression from political to psychological to

physical fragmentation SPARAGMOS.• Ferocious finale as Agave with the maenads kills

her son

• Agave returns to her senses, and recognizes her deed as she holds the head of her son, not of the lion.

• Conclusion affirms power of Dionysus.• The play and nature of Dionysian religion• Ecstasis, trance. Religious congregation (thiasos)• Bacchae or maenads are female devotees, women who

become possessed. In mythology, nymphs rather than real women. Attribute: they carry the thyrsus, a pole wreathed with ivy or wine leaves.

• Male counterparts are the SATYRS (horse’s tails.ears, goat’s beard and horns), later art has them more humanized. Sexuality and dance.

• Sileni-not easily distinguished from satyrs. Silenus, the tutor of Dionysus.

• Dionysus marriage with Ariadne, after she is deserted by Theseus.

Nature of Dionysiac Religion

• Dionysus not only the god of wine. He is referred to as “blossom-bringer, fruit-bringer”.

• Significance of his marriage to Ariadne (=very holy one). Ariadne was deserted by Theseus in the island of Naxos, and Dionysus takes her. In myth Ariadne is a Cretan princess, the daughter of Minos and Pasiphae. Abandoned by a man to be found by a god

• In religion, Ariadne was an archetypal goddess of feritility> significance of this “archetypal” marriage.

• “Orgia” not orgies, but acts of devotion, experience of communion with the divine, which transformed the human into a bacchus.

• Mountains/dancing/ritual/sympathetic magic• Comparative study on ecstatic dance• (American Shakers, Jewish Hasidim, Siberian

shamans, south italian tarantati)

Nature of ecstatic dance

• Possession• Spreads like “wildfire” Bacchae 778, and becomes

obsession• Tanzkrankheit (dance illness) in Europe 14th-17th

centuries.• Religious connections with cults (e.g. St. Paul, St.

John cults).• Communication with the divine, communication

of the personal, trance. Political implications. Psychological explanation.

Sparagmos (tearing to pieces)

• Referred to in the regulations of the Dionysiac cult at Miletus (Asia Minor) 276 B.C. Late writers explain that it commemmorates the day when the infant Dionysus was himself torn into pieces.

• Usual victin was a bull, or wild goats.• Frazer’s view that the victim transfers vital powers to the

worshipper.• By NO means does that constitute evidence of

cannibalism. The play at the extreme. Myth vs history• 11th -12 th century Byzantine play Christus patiens (the

Suffering Christ) crucifixion story in tragedy form, lines from the Bacchae.

Dionysus, god of theater

• God of transformation

• Festival of Dionysia

• Group of three tragedies and a satyr play (burlesque of mythic theme, satyrs were the chorus).

• Comedies on the 4th day

Birth of tragedy

• Aristotle Poetics: From those who “led off the dithyramb” The dithyramb a hymn to Dionysus, later any hymn. Chorus was composed of satyrs, tragedy =goat song

Tragedy from ritual celebration of god Dionysus• Tragedy grew of mystery cults• Of cult of the dead, ritual mourning• Politics/religion. Thespis introduced prologue, speech, a

first actor.• Use of mask• Nietsche (Apollonian vs. Dionysiac, dialogue vs choral)

Dionysus and Maenad (Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia)

Dionysos on a ship- kylix by Exekias, ca 540 BC- Museum Antikes Kleinkunst of Munich-Read Homeric

Hymn to Dionysus (hymn 7)

Dionysos on a donkey-archaic

Dionysos- Harvard University Museum

Dinoysos, Satyrs, and Maenads: Late Archaic

Dionysos and Maenad: Early Classical- Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum

Dionysos seated: Classical

Dionysos Pursuing Ariadne-

Dionysos and Ariadne. University of Mississipi Collection

Dionysos and Ariadne - Detail

Head of Dionysos: Roman mosaic, 1st century AD

Birth of Dionysos: Pompeiian wall painting, 1st century AD

Dionysos and Herakles: Antioch (Roman) mosaic, ca 50-115 AD Marble, limestone, and glass tesserae, 189.2 x 111.8 cm.

Worcester Art Museum

Drinking contest between Dionysos and Herakles: Antioch (Roman) mosaic, ca 250-300 AD

Dionysos: Roman relief, 2nd century AD

Michelangelo Bacchus 1497

Bacchus and Ariadne: Titian, 1520-23, London National Gallery. Titian follows closely narratives of Catullus and

Ovid. Note the statue of satyr twisted with snakes (modeled after Laokoon statue)- Dionysus effeminate

Laokoon by Agesandros, Polydoros, and Athanadoros of

Rhodes (150-50 B.C., 50 A.D.?)

Ariadne, Venus and Bacchus 1576, by Tintoretto, Palazzo Ducale, Venice

Staatsgallerie in Stuttgart- Giambattista Pittoni 1678-1767

Bacchus and Ariadne: Bertin, Nicolas, c 1710-15