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"Long-haired Semele, who
died in the roar of the thunderbolt, lives among
the Olympians; Pallas is her constant friend, and indeed
so is father
Zeus, and she is loved by her
ivy-crowned son." [Pindar, Olympian
Odes
2.25]
"Where'er you walk, cool
gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade.
Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall
rise,
And all things flourish where'er you turn your
eyes." [Jupiter
(Zeus), in Handel's aria
from
'Semele']
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Some are famous for their remarkable lives,
others for their remarkable deaths. Little is known
about Semele's life except that
Zeus loved her. But she,
forgetting her mortal condition, wished to see him
in the same guise as when he meets
Hera, and when the god
showed himself she perished. For this extraordinary
way of dying, she is well known worldwide. Later,
through the love of her son, she was brought up
from the Underworld
and made immortal, which is not less remarkable.
And these things are so curious, odd, exceptional,
strange and surprising, that practically no one
expects to ever witness nothing like them.
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Fortunes and
misfortunes of the House of Cadmus
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House of Cadmus
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There would have been no House of
Cadmus, had not
Zeus abducted
Europa from Phoenicia.
For it was looking for her that he came first to
Delphi and then to
Boeotia, making himself master of the latter. And
in this territory he founded the city of
Thebes, became the city's
first king, and having married Harmonia 1, daughter
of Ares and
Aphrodite, had sons
and daughters by her.
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Cadmus' fate
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Cadmus and his
daughters were both fortunate and unfortunate. For
he was a great king and a learned one, having
invented the alphabet and other useful things, but
on the other hand he spent his last years in exile
and was also turned into a serpent, which is the
punishment he received for having enjoyed the glory
of killing one. Yet he was sent to the
Elysian Fields after
his death.
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Autonoe 2's fate
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His daughter Autonoe 2 was also fortunate, for
she married Aristaeus, a man who knew the arts of
healing and of prophecy, and who discovered honey
and later received immortal honours. But on the
other hand, she had to grieve for the death of her
beloved son Actaeon, and
owing to her pain she left
Thebes and emigrated to a
place near Megara. As to
Actaeon, some have said
that his fate was due to the anger he awoke in
Zeus for wooing Semele.
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Ino's fate
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Cadmus' daughter Ino
married King Athamas 1,
but being his second wife, she was jealous of his
first wife's children and plotted against them. Ino
could get rid of them, but afterwards, and because
she and her husband took care of the child
Dionysus 2, she was
driven mad, killing herself and her little son
Melicertes. Yet they were made immortal and became
sea-deities.
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Agave 2's fate
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Also Agave 2, daughter of
Cadmus, seemed to have a
promising life. For she married Echion 2, who was a
member of the powerful clan of the
SPARTI, and had by him
Pentheus 1, who became
king of Thebes after
Cadmus. And this king,
who was the apple of his mother's eye, Agave 2
killed while she raved in Bacchic frenzy, for
Dionysus 2 took her
mind away, and she tore
Pentheus 1 limb from
limb.
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Semele
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Loved by Zeus, hated by
Hera
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As for Cadmus'
daughter Semele, Zeus fell
in love with her. He promised her, as lovers often
do, to give her whatever she asked, and
Hera persuaded Semele to
ask Zeus to appear before
her as the god does when he meets his own wife,
knowing that Semele, being a mortal, could not
endure the majesty of divine presence. And in order
to do this, Hera came in
the shape of Semele's nurse Beroe 3, and having
come to the point through gossiping, she told the
girl:
"Many,
pretending to be gods, have found entrance into
modest chambers. But to be
Zeus is not enough; make him prove his
love ... as great and glorious as he is when
welcomed by
Hera, so great and glorious, pray him
grant you his embrace ..." [Disguised
Hera to Semele. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
3.281]
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Death of Semele
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So Zeus, who could not
take his promise back, appeared in her chamber with
lightnings and thunderings. And as he also launched
a thunderbolt making her perish of fright, he had
to snatch the sixth-month abortive child
Dionysus 2, whom
Semele untimely brought forth, from the fire that
killed her, sewing it in his thigh. It is also said
that along with the hurled thunderbolt there fell a
log from heaven, which later
Cadmus' son Polydorus 2
adorned with bronze.
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Semele's suspicion
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But some have said that
Zeus, who loved Semele for
her unusual beauty, had intercourse with her
without speech, and that for that reason Semele
thought that the god despised her. This suspicion
was, they say, the reason behind Semele's fatal
request.
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Zeus' wish for an
immortal son
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Yet others have said that the reason why
Zeus killed Semele before
she could give birth, was that he wished the child
to be born of two immortals, thus being itself
immortal from its very birth. So as his mothers'
womb was rent apart, the child
Dionysus 2 came forth
so brilliantly, they say, that he made the flame
look dim.
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Semele pregnant through drinking
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Still others have told that he who is called
Zagreus or Dionysus 1, son either of
Zeus and
Demeter, or of
Zeus and
Persephone, was
cruelly destroyed by the
TITANS, who cut him into
pieces with an infernal knife, boiling him
thereafter. But Zeus, they
say, gave the bits of Zagreus' heart to Semele in a
drink, and she was thus made pregnant. So
Hera, having assumed the
shape of Semele's nurse Beroe 3, told the girl to
ask Zeus to come to her as
he comes to his own wife, so that she would know
what pleasure it is to sleep with a god, and the
girl, following her suggestion, made the fatal
request that caused her death.
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Malevolent sisters
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When Semele's sisters learned what happened,
they did not exercise benevolence, but instead
spread the rumour that Semele had consorted with
some mortal lover falsely accusing
Zeus, and that was why,
they said, Semele was blasted by thunder.
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Cadmus exhorts to tell
lies
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This was denied by
Cadmus, who had decided,
whatever the truth was, to protect his daughter's
reputation. And as his determination on this matter
was so obvious, there were those who thought that
he himself had fabricated the story of the
love-affair between his daughter and
Zeus, for he also exhorted
others to leave their conviction, and tell lies:
"Even if, as
you say,
Dionysus is not a god, call him one; and
tell a glorious falsehood, so that Semele might
seem to have borne a god, and honor might come to
all our race."
[Cadmus to
Pentheus 1. Euripides,
Bacchanals
335]
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Curious Laconian account
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The Laconians have said that when Semele gave
birth to her son by Zeus,
Cadmus put both mother
and child into a chest, which was washed up by the
waves in Laconia. Semele was already dead, but they
brought up the child themselves, or so they have
claimed.
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Her son avenges her
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In time the twice-born
Dionysus 2 (for he
first came forth from Semele's womb when she died,
and later he came out from
Zeus' thigh) arrived to
Thebes, avenged her
mother and punished those who refused to
acknowledge him as a god:
"For this city
must learn, even if it is unwilling, that it is not
initiated into my Bacchic rites, and that I plead
the case of my mother, Semele, in appearing
manifest to mortals as a divinity whom she bore to
Zeus."
[Dionysus 2.
Euripides,
Bacchanals
40]
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Made immortal
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Afterwards, Dionysus
2 was allowed by Zeus
to bring back his mother from the
Underworld. And he
descended to Hades
from a place located in Argolis, being helped by
Hypolipnus, or as some call him, Polymnus, who
showed him the entrance, which was a bottomless
pool called the Alcyonian Lake. And having named
her mother Thyone 1, he ascended up with her to
heaven.
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