Semele

Hera disguised herself as Semele’s old nurse and caused her to doubt that her lover was truly Zeus. Semele was the daughter of Cadmus, founder and king of Thebes, and Harmonia. Zeus had fallen in love with her and had promised to grant whatever she asked. When he next came to her, Semele requested that he appear in the same manner as when he had courted Hera, in his full divine form.

Zeus could not refuse. He came to Semele’s bedchamber in a chariot, surrounded by thunder and lightning, and hurled a thunderbolt. Semele died as the storm reached her. Zeus took their unborn child from the fire. The child was Dionysus, who was at the sixth month of gestation.

Zeus sewed Dionysus into his thigh. When the appointed time came, he opened the stitches and brought the child to birth. He then gave Dionysus to Hermes. Hermes took him to Ino and Athamas, who agreed to raise him as a girl.

After Semele’s death, her other daughters spread a different account. They claimed that Semele had slept with a mortal and had falsely blamed Zeus, and that the thunderbolt had struck her because of this lie. Another account says that Zeus had impregnated Semele in the form of an eagle, then gave birth to Dionysus from his thigh in Anatolia. In that version, Dionysus later found his first female followers there. A separate tradition makes Dionysus the holy child of Persephone at Eleusis.

Dionysus descended through Lerna to Tartarus, carrying a gift of myrtle for Persephone. He offered it to her in exchange for the release of his dead mother, Semele. Persephone agreed, and Semele left the realm of the dead with her son.

Semele had been a Theban princess and the mortal lover of Zeus. Hera, jealous of Zeus, caused Semele to doubt her lover’s identity. When Zeus next visited her, Semele asked him to appear in his full divine form. Zeus had sworn to grant her request, so he revealed himself. The sight consumed Semele in fire. Zeus rescued their unborn child, placed him in his thigh, and after nine months Dionysus emerged. He was taken to the Nysaean Nymphs for raising. Another account says that his mother’s sister, Ino, raised him.

After growing to adulthood, Dionysus established his power throughout the world. He later ascended to Heaven and took his place among the great gods. To bring Semele with him, he led her from Tartarus and into Artemis’s temple at Troezen. There, he changed her name to Thyone. He then presented her to the other Olympians under this new name, so that she could join the divine company without provoking resentment among the dead.

Thyone became Semele’s immortal identity. Dionysus took his place at Zeus’s right hand, and Hestia gave up her seat at the high table for him. In this way, the mortal Semele, destroyed by the sight of Zeus’s divinity, returned from the Underworld and entered Olympus as a goddess.