The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

24 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[016]Dionysusrepresented in theform of a bull.worshippers; for Plutarch, writing to console his wife on thedeath of their infant daughter, comforts her with the thought ofthe immortality of the soul as taught by tradition and revealedin the mysteries of Dionysus. 64 A different form of the myth ofthe death and resurrection of Dionysus is that he descended intoHades to bring up his mother Semele from the dead. 65 The localArgive tradition was that he went down through the Alcyonianlake; and his return from the lower world, in other words hisresurrection, was annually celebrated on the spot by the Argives,who summoned him from the water by trumpet blasts, whilethey threw a lamb into the lake as an offering to the warder ofthe dead. 66 Whether this was a spring festival does not appear,but the Lydians certainly celebrated the advent of Dionysus inspring; the god was supposed to bring the season with him. 67Deities of vegetation, who are supposed to pass a certain portionof each year under ground, naturally come to be regarded as godsof the lower world or of the dead. Both Dionysus and Osiris wereso conceived. 68A feature in the mythical character of Dionysus, which at firstsight appears inconsistent with his nature as a deity of vegetation,is that he was often conceived and represented in animal shape,especially in the form, or at least with the horns, of a bull. Thus heis spoken of as “cow-born,” “bull,” “bull-shaped,” “bull-faced,”“bull-browed,” “bull-horned,” “horn-bearing,” “two-horned,”“horned.” 69 He was believed to appear, at least occasionally,64 Plutarch, Consol. ad uxor. 10. Compare id., Isis et Osiris, 35; id., De EDelphico, 9; id., De esu carnium, i. 7.65 Pausanias, ii. 31. 2 and 37. 5; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 5. 3.66 Pausanias, ii. 37. 5 sq.; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35; id., Quaest. Conviv. iv.6. 2.67 Himerius, Orat. iii. 6, xiv. 7.68 For Dionysus in this capacity see F. Lenormant in Daremberg et Saglio,Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, i. 632. For Osiris, seeAdonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 344 sq.69 Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35; id., Quaest. Graec. 36; Athenaeus, xi. 51, p. 476