Oops, I can't type, that should be Autonoe!
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Rebecca Seiferle <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 1, 2003 9:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bj?lfskvi?a / Beowulf
Yes, it was Actaeon who surprised Artemis while bathing
and who stopped to contemplate her, for which she turned
him into a stag so that he was torn to pieces by his own
dogs, since he was a huntsman. And, oddly this is all
part of the same family's story, for Actaeon was the son
of Autunoe, another of the daughters of Cadmus, and
his father was Aristaeus, the 'Pan' of Thessaly, so both
of these stories of extreme punishment for intruding
upon divine mysteries occur in the same family.
And, well, Dionysius changed: from a rustic god of wine,
in his first incarnations he's depicted as a rustic, bearded, middle-aged man,
and the festivals were much more violent, for instance, the Argrionia celebrated
in Boeotia where the Bacchantes would immolate a young boy.
Human sacrifice was also practiced at other places to be
replaced later by replaced by flagellations. It was only
after his 'stay' among the Persians that he was depicted
as an androygynous adolescent in Lydian dress, and that his
cult took on the orgiastic rites of the Phrygian god Sabazius
who was associated with serpents and nocturnal festivals.
He often absorbed other local gods, and in Persia became
associated with a kind of orgiastic delirium and also
the attributes of being a "conquering" divinity. Just as
later in association with the Eleusinian mysteries, he became
as Plutarch described him "The god who is destroyed, who disappears,
who relinquishes life and then is born again" and then, with
the advent of the Romans, Bacchus. The suspicion of his rites
is probably not unconnected to the Greek hostility to Persian
influence, for among the other things going on in The Bacchae,
there's that concern with political power, the orthodoxy of rule,
of who of these two, Pentheus and Dionysius, is the rightful
'ruler'.
Well, I don't know if there's such a word "androgyneity," usually
just "androgyny" is used, but, heck, I'm all in favor of new words!
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Oct 2, 2003 9:32 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Re: Bj?lfskvi?a / Beowulf
Thanks for that discussion, Rebecca - wasn't Actaeon also torn to
pieces by Artemis, after surprising her when she was bathing, and
torn to pieces by dogs? So many extreme punishments in these
stories, for transgressions or intrusions into divine mysteries. And
that switch again from gentle to murderous. Yes, part of Dionysus'
beauty is his androgyneity, if there is such a word; beautiful young
men often have that quality.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Blog
http://alisoncroggon.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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