INTERPRETATION.
Semele is the personification of a fertile soil in spring which brings forth the productive vine. Bacchus is regarded as the spiritual form of the new vernal life, the sap of vegetation as manifest in the juice of the grape.
The orgies were but a poetic incarnation of blithe, spiritual youth. The idea of Bacchus is not a simple one. His many titles have given rise to an almost endless number of variations of his story which are in many cases inconsistent and complicated.