The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
Like the other gods of vegetation whom we have been considering, Dionysus
was believed to have died a violent death, but to have been brought to
life again; and his sufferings, death, and resurrection were enacted in
his sacred rites. The Cretan myth, as related by Firmicus, ran thus. He
was said to have been the bastard son of Jupiter (Zeus), a Cretan king.
Going abroad, Jupiter transferred the throne and sceptre to the child
Dionysus, but, knowing that his wife Juno (Hera) cherished a jealous
dislike of the child, he entrusted Dionysus to the care of guards upon
whose fidelity he believed he could rely. Juno, however, bribed the
guards, and amusing the child with toys and a cunningly-wrought
looking-glass lured him into an ambush, where her satellites, the Titans,
rushed upon him, cut him limb from limb, boiled his body with various
herbs and ate it. But his sister Minerva, who had shared in the deed, kept
his heart and gave it to Jupiter on his return, revealing to him the whole
history of the crime. In his rage, Jupiter put the Titans to death by
torture, and, to soothe his grief for the loss of his son, made an image
in which he enclosed the child’s heart, and then built a temple in his
honour.(1047) In this version a Euhemeristic turn has been given to the
myth by representing Jupiter and Juno (Zeus and Hera) as a king and queen
of Crete. The guards referred to are the mythical Curetes who danced a
war-dance round the infant Dionysus as they are said to have done round
the infant Zeus.(1048) Pomegranates were supposed to have sprung from the
blood of Dionysus,(1049) as anemones from the blood of Adonis and violets
from the blood of Attis. According to some, the severed limbs of Dionysus
were pieced together, at the command of Zeus, by Apollo, who buried them
on Parnassus.(1050) The grave of Dionysus was shown in the Delphic temple
beside a golden statue of Apollo.(1051) Thus far the resurrection of the
slain god is not mentioned, but in other versions of the myth it is
variously related. One version, which represented Dionysus as a son of
Demeter, averred that his mother pieced together his mangled limbs and
made him young again.(1052) In others it is simply said that shortly after
his burial he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven;(1053) or that
Zeus raised him up as he lay mortally wounded;(1054) or that Zeus
swallowed the heart of Dionysus and then begat him afresh by Semele,(1055)
who in the common legend figures as mother of Dionysus. Or, again, the
heart was pounded up and given in a potion to Semele, who thereby
conceived him.(1056)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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