Semele in the context of "Eurynome"

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (/daɪ.əˈnaɪ.səs/ ; Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος Diónysos) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Ancient Greek: Βάκχος Bacchos) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphism, he was variously a son of Zeus and Persephone; a chthonic or underworld aspect of Zeus; or the twice-born son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. The Eleusinian Mysteries identify him with Iacchus, the son or husband of Demeter. Most accounts say he was born in Thrace, traveled abroad, and arrived in Greece as a foreigner. His attribute of "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults, as he is a god of epiphany, sometimes called "the god who comes".

Theophany (Ancient Greek: θεοφάνεια, romanized: theopháneia, lit. 'appearance of a deity') is an encounter with a deity that manifests in an observable and tangible form. It is often confused with other types of encounters with a deity, but these interactions are not considered theophanies unless the deity reveals itself in a visible form. Traditionally, the term "theophany" was used to refer to appearances of the gods in ancient Greek and Near Eastern religions. While the Iliad is the earliest source for descriptions of theophanies in classical antiquity, the first description appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In numerous creation stories, a deity or deities speak with many kinds of animals, often prior to the formation of dry land on earth.

The Apollonian and the Dionysian are philosophical and literary concepts represented by a duality between the figures of Apollo and Dionysus from Greek mythology. Its popularization is widely attributed to the work The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche, though the terms had already been in use prior to this, such as in the writings of poet Friedrich Hölderlin, historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and others. The word Dionysian occurs as early as 1608 in Edward Topsell's zoological treatise The History of Serpents. The concept has since been widely invoked and discussed within Western philosophy and literature.

In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo, son of Leto, is the god of the sun, art, plague and disease, of rational thinking and order, and appeals to logic, prudence and purity and stands for reason. Dionysus, son of Semele, is the god of wine, dance and pleasure, of irrationality and chaos, representing passion, emotions and instincts. The ancient Greeks did not consider the two gods to be opposites or rivals, although they were often entwined by nature.

Jupiter et Sémélé (1894–95; English, Jupiter and Semele) is a painting by the French Symbolist artist Gustave Moreau (1826–1898). It depicts a moment from the classical myth of the mortal woman Semele, mother of the god Dionysus, and her lover, Jupiter, the king of the gods. She was treacherously advised by the goddess Juno, Jupiter's wife, to ask him to appear to her in all his divine splendor. He obliged, but, in so doing, brought about her violent death by his divine thunder and lightning. The painting is a representation of "divinized physical love" and the overpowering experience that consumes Semele as the god appears in his supreme beauty which has been called "quite simply the most sumptuous expression imaginable of an orgasm".

Of this work, Moreau himself wrote, "Semele, penetrated by the divine effluence, regenerated and purified by this consecration, dies struck by lightning and with her dies the genius of terrestrial love, the genius with the goat hooves."

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (/daɪ.əˈnaɪ.səs/ ; Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος Diónysos) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Ancient Greek: Βάκχος Bacchos) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partook of his mysteries were believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.

His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphism, he was variously a son of Zeus and Persephone; a chthonic or underworld aspect of Zeus; or the twice-born son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. The Eleusinian Mysteries identify him with Iacchus, the son or husband of Demeter. Most accounts say he was born in Thrace, traveled abroad, and arrived in Greece as a foreigner. His attribute of "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults, as he is a god of epiphany, sometimes called "the god who comes".

In Greek mythology, Eurydice (/jʊəˈrɪdɪsi/; Ancient Greek: Εὐρυδίκη, romanized: Eurydíkē, lit. 'wide justice', derived from εὐρύς, eurýs, 'wide' and δίκη, díkē, 'justice'), may refer to the following characters:

• Eurydice, one of the 50 Nereids, sea-nymph daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris.
• Eurydice, wife of King Aeolus of Aeolia and mother of his sons, Sisyphus, Salmoneus and Cretheus. She may be identical to Enarete, the daughter of Deïmachus, who was commonly called the mother of these progeny.
• Eurydice, a Libyan princess as one of the 50 Danaïdes, daughter of King Danaus and the naiad Polyxo, who married (and murdered) Dryas.
• Eurydice, one of the Cadmiades, the six daughters of Cadmus and Harmonia in a rare version of the myth. Her sisters were Ino, Agaue, Semele, Kleantho and Eurynome.
• Eurydice, a Spartan princess as the daughter of King Lacedaemon. She was the mother of Danae by her husband King Acrisius of Argos.
• Eurydice, daughter of Adrastus, wife of Ilus, and mother of King Laomedon.
• Eurydice, wife of Neleus, mother of Thrasymedes.
• Eurydice, an Elean princess as the daughter of King Pelops of Pisa. She was the wife of Electryon, and grandmother of Heracles.
• Eurydice, wife of Orpheus who attempted to bring her back from the Underworld.
• Eurydice, wife of King Creon of Thebes and mother of Haemon, Menoeceus and Megara.
• Eurydice, eldest daughter of Clymenus and wife of Nestor.
• Eurydice, an Argive princess as the daughter of King Amphiaraus and Eriphyle, and thus, sister to Alcmaeon, Amphilochus, Demonassa, Alcmena and Alexida.
• Eurydice, wife of King Lycurgus (of Nemea) and mother of Opheltes.
• Eurydice, wife of Aeneas, according to Lescheos and writer of the epic poem Cypria.