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[Illustration]
Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes, had yielded to the licentious
Jupiter, and felt within her the effect of her indiscretion. Jealous at the
object who had again taken her lord's affections, Juno sought for some mode
in which to punish her, and taking the form of a nurse, suggested the
desire of beholding the king of the Gods, arrayed in all his celestial
glory. In vain did Jupiter, when pressed by Semele, implore her not to ask
him to assume that form, which was too much for mortal eye to bear. Woman's
wit and woman's fondness prevailed, and, in a moment of weakness, the God
swore by the Styx, he would perform her request, and by this oath he was
forced to abide. Armed with thunder, as a proof of his divinity, and in all
the glory and majesty of his godhead, he presented himself to the
presumptuous mortal, who, unable to bear his presence, fell scorched by his
thunderbolt.
Jupiter, however, took the infant which Semele bore him, and confided it to
the guardianship of the nymphs of the mountain of Nysa, who, for their care
of the son of Jupiter, in process of time, were translated into heaven.
When Bacchus, for thus was he {56} named, had grown out of their guidance,
Silenus became his preceptor and foster-father. This god, who is generally
represented as fat and jolly, riding on an ass, crowned with flowers, and
always intoxicated, could scarcely be considered as a tutor from whom
Bacchus was likely to derive much good. In spite of the education he
received through the medium of this being, however, the love of glory shone
forth conspicuously in Bacchus.
After having valiantly combatted for Jupiter against the Giants when they
invaded Olympus, he undertook his celebrated expedition into the East, to
which he marched at the head of an army, composed of men as well as of
women, all inspired with divine fury, armed with thyrsuses, and bearing
cymbals, and other musical instruments. The leader was drawn in a chariot
by a lion and a tiger, and was accompanied by Pan, Silenus, and all the
satyrs. His conquests were easy and without bloodshed; the people easily
submitted, and gratefully elevated to the rank of a god, the hero who
taught them the use of the Vine, the cultivation of the earth, and the
manner of making honey; amidst his benevolence to mankind, he was
relentless in punishing all want of respect to his divinity. The refusal of
Pentheus to acknowledge the godhead of Bacchus was fatal. He forbad his
subjects to pay adoration to this new God, and when the Theban women had
gone out of the city to celebrate his orgies, he ordered the God himself
who conducted the religious multitude, to be seized. His orders were
obeyed, but the doors of the prison in which Bacchus was confined, opened
of their own accord. Pentheus became more irritated, and commanded his
soldiers to destroy the band of Bacchanals. Bacchus, however, inspired the
monarch himself with an ardent desire of witnessing the orgies.
Accordingly he hid himself in a wood on Mount Cithoeron, from whence he
hoped to view all the ceremonies unperceived. But his curiosity proved
fatal; he was descried by the Bacchanals, who rushed upon him. His mother
was the first to attack him, her example was instantly followed by his two
sisters, and his body was torn to pieces.
As Bacchus was returning triumphantly in his ship, from the conquest we
have recorded, crowned with vine leaves, and flushed with victory, in
passing near a beautiful island, he heard a plaintive {57} voice and beheld
a female, who implored him to yield her his support.
[Illustration]
"Oh! think of Ariadne's utter trance,
Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor,
Who left her gazing on the green expanse,
That swallowed up his track; oh! what could mate her
Even in the cloudy summit of her woe,
When o'er the far sea-brine she saw him go!
"For even now she bows and bends her gaze,
O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum
Its waves by weary thousands; all her days,
Dismally doom'd! meanwhile the billows come,
And coldly dabble with her quiet feet,
Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet.
And thence into her lap have boldly sprung,
Washing her weedy tresses to and fro,
That round her crouching knees have darkly hung,
But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow:
Like a lone beacon on a desert coast
Showing where all her hope was wrecked and lost."