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

The Greeks Love Love

Hello, audiobook aficionados! Did everyone have a splendid Valentine’s Day?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. In my opinion, either you are a part of a couple and Valentine’s Day is this sudden pressure to be spontaneously romantic for all the world to observe, or  you are single and feel like stoning that disgustingly happy couple whose Facebook profile picture is them making out with your ex. Ahem. Or you could be one of those rare emotionally healthy people that just isn’t bothered with it one way or the other, in which case, I salute you for your maturity.

But hey, what better day to talk about Greek mythology? The Greeks were captivated by love. They believed in different kinds of love--eros, the physical, passionate love; philios, brotherly love (yes, the city of Philadelphia really does mean "The City of Brotherly Love"); and agape, all-consuming selfless love. I guess they were smart to use different words so their world was less confusing.


Eros, the son of Aphrodite (you might more readily recognize his Roman form, Cupid), was said to be responsible for people falling in love—and after Ares blinded him in a rage, he had to wear a blindfold; hence, love is blind. But even Eros himself eventually succumbed to love, and it’s really quite a sweet story.

Psyche, a beautiful young princess, was practically worshiped by her hometown for being so stunningly pretty—some people went so far as to say she was better-looking than Aphrodite herself. Guess who got pissed off by that? So Aphrodite, in revenge, told her son to cause Psyche to fall in love with the grossest, creepiest guy he could find, and Eros, ever the dutiful son, agreed. But, after taking one look at Psyche, he himself was smitten, and—rebelling against his mother—pricked himself with his own arrow.

Psyche’s hometown, meanwhile, suddenly gets the feeling that the gods are angry with them for their devotion to their princess. Her family tells her that a terrible dragon has demanded her for his bride, and that she must go to the top of the mountain and wait for him, in order to save their kingdom. Terrified but dutiful, she does as she is told. Aeolus, the god of the wind, brings her to the top of a mountain where an enormous cave is—except it’s more like a mansion, all nicely furnished with invisible servants keeping everything neat. And when night falls, she meets her husband—who, much to her surprise, sounds and feels like an ordinary man, though she can’t tell for sure in the dark. Eros only visits her in complete darkness because he doesn’t want her to know who he is, for fear that his mother will find out—and if Psyche saw him in the light, she would notice his very distinctive wings.

And so the two have a pretty shnazzy honeymoon. Heck, he’s the god of love. But Psyche’s jealous older sisters visit her, and begin to poison her mind against her husband—so, desperate to see who he is, she waits until he is asleep and lights a candle. Finally understanding his reluctance to be seen, but completely enamored at the sight of him, Psyche sighs. And—just her luck—Eros wakes up. Thinking that she meant to betray him, he flies off.

To win him back—and prove herself worthy to Aphrodite—the goddess of love puts Psyche through all kinds of pointless but impossible tasks, much like the Labors of Hercules, but she usually gets some supernatural aid and pulls it off. One of them, for instance, is sorting out this massive pile of grains before sundown—Demeter, unwilling to help directly but pitying the girl, sends a bunch of ants to help her out.


Another of her tasks is to go to the Underworld and (Aphrodite being the vain, jealous goddess she is) ask Persephone to give the goddess some of her beauty. It seems that being so jealous, angry, and resentful for an extended period of time had sapped the love goddess of some of her natural beauty. (Notice that, like many Greek heroes such as Orpheus and Hercules, Psyche descends to the Underworld and survives. Feminist hero, anyone?) Persephone is kind of insulted by the request, but she isn’t angry with the messenger, so she gives Psyche a box and tells her she’s cooperating, but not to look inside it herself.

Well, much like Pandora, Psyche’s curiosity burned. Going against the Queen of the Underworld’s injunction, she looks inside the box, where—instead of a bit of Persephone’s beauty—a curse comes out at her that makes her fall into a deep sleep.

And guess what brings her back to life? A kiss from her beloved. So much better than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, though, because Psyche proved her love by being willing to fight for it, and the two of them live happily ever after, with even Mother-in-Law grudgingly admitting that Psyche proved herself worthy by her devotion.


Whew. Such a convoluted story. Hope it brightened your day if you were feeling gloomy, or enhanced your warm-and-fuzzy feelings if they were already pleasant. Haha. ;) Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
--Meg