Semela in Bakhovo rojstvo

Besedilo

Semela in Bakhovo rojstvo

Opinion was divided: to some the goddess seemed too harsh; others praised her, calling her severity worthy of her virgin purity. Both sides found reasons for their view. Jupiter’s wife alone spoke less of blame or approval than of her joy at the ruin of Agenor’s house, and turned the hatred roused by her Tyrian rival against all her kin. Now a fresh grievance joined the old: she learned with anguish that Semele was pregnant with great Jupiter’s child. She was about to unleash her angry tongue, but said, “What have I gained by all my scolding?

I must attack the woman herself, destroy her—if I am rightly called Juno the greatest, if it befits my right hand to hold a jeweled scepter, if I am queen, and Jupiter’s sister and wife—his sister, at least. But perhaps she is content with a stolen love, and this affront to our marriage is brief? She is pregnant—that was all we needed! Her swelling womb carries the plain proof of her guilt, and she means to become a mother by Jupiter alone, an honor scarcely granted me: such is her faith in her beauty. I will make that faith betray her.

I am no daughter of Saturn unless her own Jupiter sends her down into the waters of Styx.” With these words she rose from her throne and, hidden in a tawny cloud, came to Semele’s threshold. She did not disperse the cloud until she had taken an old woman’s shape, laid gray hair upon her temples, furrowed her skin with wrinkles, and bent her limbs to walk with trembling steps. She made her voice old too, and was the very image of Beroe, Semele’s nurse from Epidaurus.

Then, drawing her into conversation and talking at length, she brought them to Jupiter’s name, and sighed. “I hope it is Jupiter,” she said, “but I fear everything: many men have entered chaste bedchambers under the names of gods. Yet even being Jupiter is not enough: let him give proof of his love. If he truly is the god, ask him to embrace you in all the power and majesty with which lofty Juno welcomes him, and first to put on the emblems of his might.”

With words like these Juno had schooled the unsuspecting daughter of Cadmus. Semele asked Jupiter for a gift, without saying what it was. “Choose,” the god replied. “You shall be refused nothing. And to make you trust me more, let the powers of the Stygian torrent witness my oath: even the gods fear and worship that river.” Delighting in her own doom, too powerful in her wishes, destined to perish through her lover’s indulgence, Semele said, “As Saturn’s daughter is accustomed to embrace you when you enter the bonds of love, so give yourself to me.” The god tried to silence her lips as she spoke, but her hasty words had already flown into the air.

He groaned: she could not undo her wish, nor could he unswear his oath. And so, in deepest sorrow, he climbed the heights of heaven, drawing with him clouds that followed his will. To these he added rainstorms, lightning mingled with winds, thunder, and the inescapable thunderbolt. Yet he tried, as far as he could, to lessen his own strength. He did not arm himself now with the fire that had struck down hundred-handed Typhoeus: there was too much savagery in that.

There is another, lighter thunderbolt, into which the Cyclopes’ hands put less fury and flame, less wrath; the gods call it their second weapon. He took this and entered the house of Agenor. Her mortal body could not withstand the tumult of heaven, and she burned in his bridal gifts. The infant, still unformed, was snatched from his mother’s womb and, tender as he was, sewn into his father’s thigh—if the tale deserves belief— to complete the time he should have spent within his mother.

His aunt Ino secretly tended him in his earliest cradle; then he was given to the nymphs of Nysa, who hid him in their caves and nourished him with milk.