Dionysus in the Homeric Hymns. - Universidad de Morón

UM-Thesaurus IV (22)
Introduction
This communication intends to trace some
signs of Dionysian configuration in the context of
Homer’s poems to Dionysus. 1
It is also in line with the research work of
which I am the Director. 2
We will analyze the two hymns in his honor,
the hymns I and XXVI, with the exception of the
Hymn VII, because it is worth a more detailed
study of the episode related, which will let us
trace an identity sign deserving special attention
throughout our research line: the cruelty the god
is capable of inflicting on those who ignore him.
The narration is in keeping with one of the many
theomachias that the mythical narrative offers
when it comes to laying the foundations for the
distance separating men and gods and the tragic
fate of those mortals who exceed their own limit.
The Hymn I, which presents extracts, will refer
us to Dionysus´ possible and diverse birthplaces,
so as to deal with another identity mark that
concerns us: his foreignness, which apparently is
not only related to epiphanies and appearance
modes, but also to certain birth marks.
Finally, the Hymn XXVI will offer the image of
young Dionysus, being cared by his wet nurses,
as a way to avoid the cruelty that Hera might
inflict on him. The attempt is to express different
forms of hostility and to refer to the persecution
game like another identity mark.
In each case, the thread of the interpretation
consists in hanging together the traits that make
Dionysus a peculiar divinity in the general
economy of the Olympic lineage.
1 We will use the Edition of ´Himnos Homéricos y la
Batracomaquia´ from Biblioteca Básica Gredos, whose
General Introduction corresponds to José García López,
Madrid, 2001. (Hymns I, XXVI)
2 Director of the Research Project submitted before the
Research Institute of the Faculty of Philosophy, Educational
Sciences and Humanities of the University of Morón.
Subject: “The Self and The Otherness in Archaic Greece.
Negative figures of the Other: Artemis, Gorgo and the
avenging Erinias". Category: A. 05005/06. Secretariat for
Scientific and Technological Research.
Dionysus in the Homeric Hymns.
The singularity of a presence.
The god’s marks: territories, epithets, plants and
women
What we know as Homeric poems consists of a
collection of thirty-four poems, of varied
extension, written in different periods within the
VII BC and V AD centuries and passed on later.
Their composition seems to respond to pieces to
be recited or sung in literary contests in the
framework of cultural festivities. These
recitations, aimed at worshipping a god, might
possibly form part of a repertoire of proems that
the rhapsodes themselves used to introduce their
narrations. “Thus, prooímion would be what
precedes (pro-) or preludes a longer song (oime),
in which the exploits of heroes and gods were
narrated” 3 .
Without any doubt, they are songs in honor of
gods or heroes and the adjective Homeric refers to
their style, metrics and language, which are
usually very similar to the structures we may find
in the Illiad and the Odyssey.
Regarding authorship, each poem may be the
product of one author or different authors, and
“on the other hand, due to the complex and late
history of the transmission of these compositions,
as we will see when dealing with this aspect, it
seems that although the authorship problem
exists, it has been abandoned and is an open
subject” 4 .
In general terms, the authors seem to belong to
the so-called rhapsodic schools, which have a
long-standing tradition in Greece and are
associated to the composition and recitation of
epic works, offered in literary agones taking place
during religious festivities.
All the hymns are addressed to the Greek
divinities, mainly the Olympic ones, and offer a
large number of data and religious and
mythological information, which turn them into
an essential source. Some divinities are poetically
extolled in more than one opportunity; in the case
3 García López, José, Introducción General en Himnos
Homéricos. La Batracomiomaquia, Biblioteca Básica Gredos,
p. IX
4 Ibid., p. X.
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UM-Thesaurus IV (22)
of Dionysus, this could be observed on three
occasions.
The composition date of the Hymn I is difficult
to determine, since, in addition to the usual
difficulties of the hymns, in this case we are
dealing with fragments. The first fragment makes
reference to his birth, a controversial issue in the
case of Dionysus and a habitual hymn topic as an
introduction to divinities.
“…for some say that at Dracanum; and some,
on windy Icarus; some, in Naxos; and others by
the deep-eddying river Alpheus pregnant Semele
bore you, Taurine, divine son, to Zeus the
thunder-lover.” (Hymn I, 1-5).
Two more territories are listed: “And others
yet, lord, say you were born in Thebes” (5) and
finally, “There is a certain Nysa, a very high
mountain, far from Phoenice, near the streams of
Aegyptus ...” (8-10)
As it can be observed, beyond the controversies
regarding Dionysus´ mother country, a polemic
issue that critics have dealt with on numberless
opportunities, the poem gives geographical
information on the territory, with a certain
pedagogical approach. For instance, Dracanum is
a hill on Icarus Island, near Samos, while Naxos
is one of the Cyclades Islands and Alpheus is a
river of Elis, being all of them Dyonisian cult
regions. The mention of Thebes is directly related
to his birth in the land of his mother, King
Cadmus´ beautiful Cadmean daughter, the
princess who got emotionally involved with
Zeus, the father of men and gods; she was mortal,
he was immortal; the relationship built up within
the field of ontological asymmetries which
separate men from gods; we all know the
consequences of the relationship, resulting from
the jealousy experienced by the legitimate wife of
Zeus, Hera.
Nysa has been etymologically associated with
nymphs, the sweet goddesses that were in charge
of upbringing Dionysus, who, after his birth, was
sewn into the thigh of Zeus, where his gestation
was completed after his mother’s death caused by
Zeus´ lightning. Nysa is the name of a sacred
range of mountains located in faraway lands, a
product of the imagination, and important to
trace the god’s characteristics, considering that
Dionysus´ name is related to the etymological
roots of the word, for instance the root nysus.
After a long debate on the origin of Dionysus,
regarding the hypothesis of his Tracian or
Phrygian mother country, Otto considers the
hypothesis of his coming from Phrygia or Tracia
little convincing and does admit very old
knowledge of the Dionysian religion by the
Greeks.
“Be favorable, O Taurine, Inspirer of frenzied
women! We, the Aedes, sing of you as we begin
and as we end a strain, and none forgetting you
may call holy song to mind. And so, be glad,
Dionysus, Insewn, with your mother Semele
whom men call Thyone” (8-12), as the poem goes
to indicate the noble lineage of his birth, beyond
the heterogeneous union referred to. The epithet
Taurine is part of an identity mark of the god,
who is usually identified with the bull. In fact, he
always appears accompanied by animals; the bull
is, together with the donkey and the billy goat,
the symbol of fertility and fertilizing pleasure.
The bull is also the animal that the maenads
quarter in the ritual that characterizes them as
god worshippers. Thus, fierce bulls lean their
heads under the violent hands of those women,
seized with madness, but capable of the greatest
miracle: to attain liberation, katharsis, in the same
act of mania.
It is the Taurine because the strength caused by
the intoxicating wine is similar to the bull’s
fierceness, an image that is present before the
eyes of the followers when they invoke the god in
their initiation ceremonies. There appears the
Taurus-Dionysus, the god-animal, a divinity
closer than the distant Apollo, and with whom it
seems to be possible to have a closer
communication. That is, indeed, the Taurine’s
promise: a closer contact that promises to forget
for a while the mortal condition. His bellowing is
also the bull’s bellowing. Dionysus Bromius is the
mark of an uncontrollable rage.
Euripides himself refers to the similarityidentity,
when the chorus is in charge of calling
on the god so that he turns into a bull; even
Pentheus sees him like that in his incipient
delirium, or when he calls him Bromius, the one
who bellows.
The chorus mentions the name in the same
proem: “From Asia, having abandoned Tmolus, I
hasten to a pleasant task, a toil that brings no
weariness, in honour of Bromius, thus celebrating
the bacchanalia with the evohé” (The Bacchantes).
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The taurine reference from the mouth of the
chorus appears in The Bacchantes, 1017: “Appear,
O Bacchus, to our eyes as a bull or serpent with a
hundred heads, or take the shape of a lion
breathing flame!”
From another view, the mentioned verses are
another sign of identity, which will accompany
the god in his epiphanic drifting: his capacity to
drive women crazy. The maenads are the first
victims of the discourtesy the cities have before
the god, by not recognizing and not doing honor
to him. The women get mad because of
Bromius´doing, and his mother, Semele-Thione
(maenad) appears like a mythical archetype of a
possessed woman.
The relationship of Dionysus with women goes
through a complex field, but what is undeniable
is the repeated presence of the feminine in his
configuration as a divinity.
From his upbringing by the Nymphs to the
episodes of harsher mania, women become a
central element in Dionysian epiphany. They, the
Bacchantes, are the faithful worshippers of a god
that punishes them with the purpose of saving
them, pursues them to make them free in a
unique and sublime act of approachingassimilation
to the divinity. 5 They are the
followers of Dionysus and, above all, the
privileged women initiated into his rites on the
mountain.
Following this, we propose to consider the
Hymn XXVI, also dedicated to Dionysus. The
main subject is the god’s upbringing, which
brings about two topics already mentioned; on
one hand, the traumatic birth considering the
heterogeneity of his parents, and the feminine
presence since he was a child, accompanied by
the Nymphs, his wet-nurses.
A third element to be considered, and traceable
in the verses of the analyzed hymn, is the
reference to the god’s adorned head as a
distinctive trait of his personality, which creates a
point of contact with the vegetation as an identity
core. Let’s have a look at the verses: “I begin to
sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying
5 We evoke here the hypothesis formulated by Louis Gernet
regarding the double assimilation-approaching movement
which seems to support the anthropological field of archaic
religion, as they are the two movements tending to erase the
natural distance that separates mortals from immortals.
god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele.
The rich-haired Nymphs received him in their
bosoms from the lord his father.” (Hymn XXVI, 1-
4) and “His head adorned with his own black
bunches” (Hymn I, 2). The same reference to his
hair. In one case adorned with ivy and in the
other case with vine. In both cases, it is intended
to trace Dionysus´ manifestation in vegetation, an
intense association that places the god in the
framework of a generating and productive
power. According to Otto, “In the vine grows
Dionysus´ madness and it spreads to everybody
who enjoys his miraculous juices. That is why it is
the most notable symbol of the god, the best
guarantee of his presence.” 6 Although it is the
vine which seems to accompany him intensely,
the contact with the nature world goes beyond
the limits of the vine and, together with it, the ivy
is the god’s favorite plant, which adorns and
characterizes him.
The vine and the ivy are near relatives which
have developed differently but are undeniably
close. In many traditions of Dionysiac cult, the
ivy is present in wreath shape, encircling the
thyrsus, thus protecting the god during his birth
to save him from the flames that surrounded her
unfortunate mother; it got tangled in the house of
his grandfather, Cadmus, so that the strength of
the branches might protect him from the
earthquake that struck the palace; hence the
Thebans considered it sacred the column covered
by ivy that had been consecrated to the god, and
called him “the one surrounded by columns” or
perikionios (Διονυσος Περικιονιος). 7
The ivy and the vine are similar regarding their
growth processes and both suffer a phenomenal
transmutation. The vine looks dead in the cold
season until the heat coming from the sun rays
intensifies its greenness, thus producing an
ardent juice. It turns from a dry and sterile plant
into a wonderfully prodigious one. Regarding the
ivy, it offers its shady stems and climbing
branches. But later, its stems become straighter
and its leaves take on other characteristics, while
its flowers and fruit come out. According to Otto,
“Like Dionysus, it could well be called the twiceborn.”
8
6 Otto, Quoted work, p. 113.
7 Ibid., p. 114.
8 Ibid., p. 114.
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UM-Thesaurus IV (22)
There have been mentioned so far some of the
characteristics of two plants, strongly associated
to the vegetative aspect of Dionysus, who
proudly gathers them on his divine head.
His birth is the new topic to be developed,
because of the presence of the Nymphs. The myth
relates Zeus´ need to deliver his son to the
custody of the beautiful wet-nurses who will
teach him the value of the woods, as the first
topos familiar to the child.
Hera’s jealousy and the premature death of
Semele, struck by a lightning, make it necessary
the Nymphs´custody. The hymn reminds the
glory of his birth, without forgetting the status of
his father Zeus, the illustrious, and his mother,
the glorious Cadmean, always remembered by
any hymn mentioning her.
However, the rich-haired Nymphs received
him in their bosoms from Zeus himself, his
father, and “fostered and nurtured him carefully
in the dells of Nysa, where by the will of his
father he grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, being
reckoned among the immortals” (Hymn XXVI, 4-
7). Besides the presentation of his wet-nurses,
here come some important data. The singularity
of Dionysus´ birth, due to the heterogeneous
status of his parents, his father-immortal and her
mother-mortal, does not sully the divine nature
of the son, always recognized by his father and
the immortals. Dionysus has always had a place
among them and Zeus has taken him in his lap
with saving plans; hence the express mention to
the father’s will and the place among the
immortals.
The nymphs represent an inaugural
feminine presence in Dionysus´ life, while they
mean a mythical foundation mark: the selfsacrificing
bringing-up as a female trait. They are
the perfect wet-nurses, able to take him into their
bosom and taking care of him, before being
themselves who acquire ecstatic marks and turn
into a frenzied chorus of followers, as stated in
the second part of the Hymn, when it says: “But
when the goddesses had brought him up, a god
oft hymned, he already wandered continually
through the woody valleys, thickly wreathed
with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in
his train with him for their leader; and the
boundless forest was filled with their outcry.”
(Hymn XXVI, 8-11).
A first mark places us in the Nymph-wet nurse:
the territory mark. Like a mother, the divine wet-
nurses teach the child the first topos, in the place
where the first steps are taken and he becomes
familiar with the first geography that marks a
man for the rest of his life; indeed, the wandering
through the woods and their darkness will be the
identity traits of the divinity, a lover of
cosmopolitanism implied in nomadism and
inhabitant of the peculiar geography of the wood
as a scenario of ritual complexity.
But they are also the ones who double their first
identity and turn into bacchantes. Nymph-dancer
that accompanies the grown-up god in his
frenzied dance; identity double that, like
Dionysus himself, depicts more than a multicolor
personality trait.
According to Otto: “it is evident that the
Thiades, who, like them, take care of Dionysus
and like them go dancing all over the heights,
play the role of divine women and represent in
the cult their behavior, which is partly maternal,
partly ecstatic, and always related to nature.” 9
Mother-maenad, the Nymphs seem to give rise to
a mythical double, where life and death,
tenderness and horror, light and shadow seem to
dance in the same frenzied turmoil which marks
Dionysian singularity.
Dionysus is, of course, the one in charge of
leading his followers, as it corresponds to whom
holds the most genuine divine mark, while “the
clamor seized on the huge woods” (11)
The final part of the chant shows the intonation
at the end of a party; as it is stated by the
invocation and wait for a new festivity, once the
cycle of seasons is over. “And so hail to you,
Dionysus, god of abundant clusters. Grant that
we may come again rejoicing to this season, and
from that season onwards for many years. (Hymn
XXVI, 12-15).
Conclusions
This work has been an attempt to go through
Dionysus´ peculiarities from the interpretation
offered by the Hymns. The marks are those
habitually found in divinity and the topics
familiar to Dionysian depiction are gathered in
the hymns: his traumatic birth and the stances
regarding his origin, the epithets typical of him,
Taurine and Bromius, and the number of
connections involved.
9 Ibid., p. 64.
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We have also investigated, as an identity mark,
the link between Dionysus and the vegetative
nature to enhance the value of two emblematic
plants, the vine and the ivy, which, together with
the previous topic, place Dionysus in close
communication with the natural world, both the
animal and the vegetal sphere, picturing that
god’s dual nature where life and death seem to
complement each other.
Finally it is remarked the presence of women, a
frequent close contact which makes up the god’s
singularity. In this opportunity, the Nymphs´
figure explains the link and opens the intrinsic
duality to Dionysus himself: wet-nurses and
dancers, substitute mothers and first bacchantes
in an isomorphic identity double from the
doubles shown by Dionysus himself.
Bibliography
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Gernet, Louis. 1981. Antropología de la Grecia Antigua.
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Nilsson, Martín P. 1969. Historia de la religiosidad griega.
Gredos, Madrid.
Otto, Walter. 1997. Dioniso. Mito y Culto, Siruela,
Madrid
Sissa, Giulia and Detienne, Marcel. 1990. La vida
cotidiana de los dioses griegos. Ediciones Temas de
Hoy, Madrid.
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Antigua Ariel, Barcelona.
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dioses, los hombres. F.C.E, Bs. As.
María Cecilia COLOMBANI
Faculty of Philosophy, Educational Sciences and
Humanities. University of Morón.
Faculty of Humanities. Mar del Plata National University.
mcolombani@unimoron.edu.ar
***
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