Semele

Semele was a princess of Thebes, a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of the god Dionysus by Zeus. She died when Zeus came to her in his thunder and lightning, and her son was saved from the fire. Dionysus later brought her up from the Underworld to live among the gods, where she was known as Thyone (Hesiod, Theogony 940–942; Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3, 3.5.3).

Semele's Family

Hesiod says that Harmonia, the daughter of golden Aphrodite, bore Cadmus four daughters, Ino, Semele, Agave and Autonoe, and a son, Polydorus, in well-crowned Thebes (Theogony 975–978). Pausanias remarks that of Cadmus’ daughters Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus and Ino for being a divinity of the sea (Description of Greece 9.5.2). In the Iliad, Zeus names her together with Alcmene among the women of Thebes whom he had loved, and says that Semele bore Dionysus, a joy to mortals (Iliad 14.323–325).

Zeus and Semele

Zeus loved Semele and slept with her without Hera knowing (Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3). When Hera found out that Semele was with child, she laid a trap for her. In Ovid’s account the goddess, burning with anger, took the form of Beroe, Semele’s old nurse from Epidaurus, and spoke to her of Zeus: how could she be sure that her lover was really Jupiter? Many men had entered chaste beds under the names of gods. Let him prove it by coming to her as he came to Juno (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.259–286). Hyginus also has Juno appear as the nurse Beroe, and persuade Semele to ask Jupiter to come to her as he came to Juno, so that she would know what it was to lie with a god (Hyginus, Fabulae 179). Apollodorus says only that Semele was deceived by Hera (Library 3.4.3).

Semele asked Zeus for a gift without saying what it was. Zeus told her to choose, and swore by the Styx, the oath that even the gods fear, that he would refuse her nothing. Only then did she name her wish. Zeus, grieved, could not take back his oath (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.287–301). Her sisters did not believe her story. After her death they spread the report that Semele had lain with a mortal man and falsely blamed Zeus for it, and that she had been struck by lightning for the lie (Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3; Euripides, Bacchae 26–31).

The Death of Semele

In Ovid, Zeus rose into the sky and gathered clouds, storm and lightning, but tried to lessen his power. He did not take the weapon with which he had cast down the hundred-handed Typhoeus, but another, lighter bolt forged by the Cyclopes. Semele’s mortal body could not bear the heavens’ tumult and she was burned in the gift of her marriage (Metamorphoses 3.298–309). Apollodorus says that Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot with thunder and lightning and launched a thunderbolt; Semele died of fright (Library 3.4.3).

Euripides begins the Bacchae with Dionysus standing in Thebes before his mother’s tomb near the palace, where the ruins still smoulder with the flame of Zeus; Cadmus had made the place sacred and untrodden, and Dionysus has covered it with vines (Bacchae 1–12). Pausanias says that the Thebans still showed a chamber, said to have been Semele’s, which no one was allowed to enter (Description of Greece 9.12.3).

The Birth of Dionysus

The unborn child was saved. Apollodorus says that Zeus snatched the premature baby from the fire and sewed it into his thigh, and that at the proper time he undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus. He entrusted him to Hermes, who took him to Ino and Athamas and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl; Hera was angry and drove them mad (Library 3.4.3). Ovid also has Zeus sew the baby into his thigh; Ino, his mother’s sister, brought him up secretly in his first years, and then the Nysaean nymphs hid him in their caves and gave him milk (Metamorphoses 3.310–315). Hesiod says that Semele, a mortal, bore Dionysus to Zeus, “immortal by mortal; and now both are gods” (Theogony 940–942).

The ancient writers disagreed about where he was born. The Homeric Hymn to Dionysus mentions Dracanum, Icarus, Naxos, the river Alpheus and Thebes, and declares that those who say so are lying: Zeus bore him far from men, hiding him from Hera (Homeric Hymn 1.1–7). Pausanias reports a local story from Brasiae, in Laconia, in which Cadmus found Semele after she had given birth and put her and the child into a chest; the chest was washed ashore at Brasiae, where Semele was buried and Dionysus brought up (Description of Greece 3.24.3).

Semele in the Underworld

Apollodorus says that Dionysus brought his mother up from Hades, named her Thyone, and ascended to heaven with her (Library 3.5.3). The Homeric Hymn to Dionysus ends by greeting him together with his mother Semele, “whom men call Thyone” (Homeric Hymn 1.20–21), and Pindar speaks of Zeus visiting the bed of white-armed Thyone (Pythian 3.98–99). Pindar also says that Semele, though she died in the roar of the thunderbolt, lives among the Olympians, and that Pallas Athena, Zeus and her ivy-crowned son love her (Olympian 2.25–27).

The descent to Hades was placed at different places. Pausanias says that the Argives show the Alcyonian Lake at Lerna, through which Dionysus went down to bring up Semele, guided by Palymnus (Description of Greece 2.37.5); at Troezen, in a temple with altars to the gods under the earth, it was said that Semele was brought out of Hades by Dionysus, though Pausanias adds that he could not believe she had died at all, being the wife of Zeus (Description of Greece 2.31.2).

Semele Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 940–942, 975–978; Homer, Iliad 14.323–325; Homeric Hymn 1 to Dionysus 1–7, 20–21; Pindar, Olympian 2.25–27, Pythian 3.98–99; Euripides, Bacchae 1–12, 26–31; Apollodorus, Library 3.4.3, 3.5.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.253–315; Hyginus, Fabulae 179; Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.31.2, 2.37.5, 3.24.3, 9.5.2, 9.12.3.

See Also: Zeus, Hera, Dionysus, Cadmus, Harmonia, Ino, Athamas, Hermes, Thebes