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Son, first, of Zeus, and of Persephone whom Zeus woos, in the form of a serpent–the white, golden-haired child, the best-beloved of his father, and destined by him to be the ruler of the world, grows up in secret. But one day, Zeus, departing on a journey in his great fondness for the child, delivered to him his crown and staff, and so left him–shut in a strong tower. Then it came to pass that the jealous Here sent out the Titans against him. They approached the crowned child, and with many sorts of playthings enticed him away, to have him in their power, and then miserably slew him– hacking his body to pieces, as the wind tears the vine, with the axe Pelekus, which, like the swords of Roland and Arthur, has its proper name. The fragments of the body they boiled in a great cauldron, and made an impious banquet upon them, afterwards carrying the bones to Apollo, whose rival the young child should have been, thinking to do him service. But Apollo, in great pity for this his youngest brother, laid the bones in a grave, within his own holy place. Meanwhile, Here, full of her vengeance, brings to Zeus the heart of the child, which she had snatched, still beating, from the hands of the Titans. But Zeus delivered the heart to Semele; and the soul of the child remaining awhile in Hades, where Demeter made for it new flesh, was thereafter born of Semele–a second Zagreus–the younger, or Theban Dionysus.

NOTES

[1] “Hymn to Aphrodite,” lines 264-72 (Greek text). The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn- White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.

[2] “Hymn to Pan,” lines 16ff. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.

[3] Transliteration: deisidaimones. Liddell and Scott definition: “fearing the gods,” in both a good and bad sense–i.e. either pious or superstitious.

*There were some who suspected Dionysus of a secret democratic interest; though indeed he was liberator only of men’s hearts, and eleuthereus only because he never forgot Eleutherae, the little place which, in Attica, first received him.

[5] E-text editor’s transliteration: pyrigenes. Liddell and Scott definition: “born of fire.”

[6] Transliteration: Oinophoria . . . Anthesteria. Liddell and Scott definition of Anthesteria: “The Feast of Flowers, the three days’ festival of Bacchus at Athens, in the month Anthesterion.”

[7] Transliteration: eskiatrofekos. Liddell and Scott definition: participle of skiatropheo, “to rear in the shade.”