The Messed Up Story of the Wine Dude's Birth (aka Mardi Gras)

Hello! I hope everybody had a lovely Mardi Gras.

For those of you who don't celebrate it, Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday, depending on your preference) is a day of partying, immoderation, and merriment for Christians before Ash Wednesday, which starts the fasting season of Lent. What better day to talk about Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and the spirit of the party?

Mardi Gras embodies everything that the wine god represents—costumes, masquerade, music, dancing, singing, parades, extravagance, decadence, and essentially eating, drinking, and being merry. No Greek party was complete without a toast to Dionysus and invoking his presence. He is the patron of theater, too, so the Greek theater masks (you’ve probably seen them: one smiling, one frowning) are some of his symbols, besides grapevines and wine. He is the god of ecstasy—not the drug, the feeling—and euphoria, both of which were said to be invoking his spirit. He is also the patron of epiphany; that is, the rush of intuitive realization when things suddenly fall into place.

Satyrs, the human-goat hybrids, follow Dionysus’ command, since he is kind of a woodland nature god, with powers over all fruit-bearing plants, though grapes are his specialty. Leopards (and sometimes tigers) are his sacred animal, and they pull his chariot. The color purple is also sacred to him.

Dionysus was actually a demigod—his father was Zeus, the sleazy king of the gods, and his mother was Semele, a mortal woman. The story of his birth and ‘rebirth’ is pretty strange, and varies widely from source to source, but this is the simplest version: After Semele became pregnant, Zeus’s wife Hera went into a jealous rage (what else is new?) and formulated a plot of revenge. She disguised herself as a midwife so that she could gain Semele’s confidence, and then started to plant thoughts in her mind: If Zeus really loved her, if Semele really was special to him, then he would reveal his true divine form to her.

Eventually, Semele took the bait and demanded this from Zeus, to feed her ego. Zeus, having already sworn by the River Styx, an unbreakable vow, to give her whatever she asked for, had no choice but to grant her wish. He revealed his divine form, a sight which no mortal could behold without turning to ashes—but as Semele was dying, Zeus saved their unborn child by (this is the weird part) sewing him into the flesh of his thigh until it was time for him to be born. I guess I’m not going to wonder about the logistics of that.

Bacchus Consoling Ariadne, a sculpture I saw at the Chicago art museum that really moved me

And, lest you think that he’s just a shallow womanizing playboy, Dionysus was a married man—surprisingly happily married by Greek god standards. He made Ariadne, Princess of Crete, his immortal wife on Olympus, whisking her away after demigod Theseus broke her heart. Seeing her weeping wretchedly on the beach of Naxos, where the so-called hero abandoned her, Dionysus was moved with pity and comforted her—and fell in love with her. They ended up having eleven kids together. While I’m sure Dionysus has plenty of capacity for eros, I guess it’s directed completely or almost completely towards his wife—which, compared with his father Zeus, really speaks volumes about his affection for her.

On a similar note, Dionysus was not just about lighthearted fun and frolicking in the meadow. The Greeks recognized the dark side to drunkenness and excess. Dionysus is also the god of madness—at his will, he could literally make you raving mad for the rest of your life. Basically, don’t make him angry.

So, on that happy note, have a great week! See you next Wednesday.
--Meg