CLA204H1 Lecture : February 14th 2012.docx
Document Summary
God of wine and ecstasy; god who makes you lose your mind. Symbols: thyrsus (wand with ivy wrapped around it), grapevine, ivy, leopard skin, panther, lion. Patron of drama-dionysos is closely associated with drama. Remember how zeus had an affair with a mortal woman, semele. Hera was jealous and tells semele to ask zeus to appear to her in his divine form. He does and semele burns to death because mortals can"t look at the sight of an undisguised god without dying. Hermes takes the fetus and brings him to zeus. Zeus then sews him into his thigh and gives birth to him. **dionysus is a god that"s born twice; first through semele, then once more through zeus** There"s another version to this myth that tells a similar story. **in this version, hera is once again jealous of the offspring that zeus has with other women so she convinces the titans to kill dionysus.
