Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

294 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK maturity. The fearful power displayed by the god is the
, J—^- influence which the grape exercises on man. Its juice may
flow as a quiet stream, filling the air with sweet odours, but
as men drink of it its aspect is changed, and it becomes like
a wild beast urging them to their destruction. But the
penalty thus inflicted upon the Tyrrhenian mariners is strictly
for their evil treatment of the god, whose character is merely
jovial, and by no means designedly malignant. Nor is the
god himself invested with the majesty of the supreme Zeus,
or of Phoibos or Poseidon, although the helmsman says that
either of these gods may possibly have taken the form of the
youthful Dionysos. But before we find ourselves in his-
torical Hellas a complete change has taken place. Dionysos
is now the horned Zagreos after his death and resurrection,
and the myth of the son of Semele is anticipated or repeated
by the legend of this child of Persephone, whom his father
Zeus places beside him on his throne. In this, as in other
cases, the jealousy of Here is roused, and at her instigation
the Titans slay Zagreos, and cutting up his limbs, leave only
his heart, which Athene carries to Zeus. This heart is given
to Semele, who thus becomes the mother of Dionysos. This
slaughter and cutting up of Zagreos is only another form of
the rape of Persephone herself. It is the stripping off of
leaves and fruits in the gloomy autumn which leaves only
the heart or trunk of the tree to give birth to the foliage of
the coming year, and the resurrection of Zagreos is the
return of Persephone to her mother Demeter. Henceforth
with Demeter, who really is his mother also, Dionysos be-
l
comes a deity of the first rank and into his mythology are
;
introduced a number of foreign elements, pointing to the
comparatively recent influence exercised by Egypt and Syria
on the popular Hellenic religion. The opposition of the
Thrakian Lykourgos and the Theban Pentheus to the frenzied
rites thus foisted on the cultus of Dionysos is among the few
indications of historical facts exhibited in Hellenic mythology.
Dionysos In the Homeric hymn the Tyrrhenian mariners avow their
an "
i 1^01^ 011 of taking Dionysos to Egypt, or Ethiopia, or the
derer^
Hyperborean land ; and this idea of change of abode becomes
i Gvote, ffl$t t Greece, i. 31,