"And so he kindly was confined for her?"
"Exactly!"
"So Zeus is both father and mother of the child?"
"Naturally! And now I must go and make him comfortable."*
* Dial. Deor., xi.
We need not necessarily accept Bachofen's view. This learned author employed indeed a widely comparative method, but he saw everything through certain mystic speculations of his own. It may be deemed, however, that the authors of the myth of the double birth of Dionysus were rather in the condition of men who practise the couvade than capable of such vast abstract ideas and such complicated symbolism as are required in the system of Preller. It is probable enough that the struggle between the two systems of kindred—maternal and paternal—has left its mark in Greek mythology. Undeniably it is present in the Eumenides of Æschylus, and perhaps it inspires the tales which represent Hera and Zeus as emulously producing offspring (Athene and Hephaestus) without the aid of the opposite sex.*
In any case, Dionysus, Semele's son, the patron of the vine, the conqueror of India, is an enigmatic figure of dubious origin, but less repulsive than Dionysus Zagreus.
Even among the adventures of Zeus the amour which resulted in the birth of Dionysus Zagreus was conspicuous. "Jupiter ipse filiam incestavit, natum hinc Zagreum."** Persephone, fleeing her hateful lover, took the shape of a serpent, and Zeus became the male dragon. The story is on a footing with the Brahmanic myth of Prajapati and his daughter as buck and doe. The Platonists explained the legend, as usual, by their "absurd symbolism ".***
The child of two serpents, Zagreus, was born, curious as it may seem, with horns on his head. Zeus brought him up in secret, but Hera sent the Titans to kill him. According to Clemens Alexandrinus**** and other authorities, the Titans won his heart with toys, including the bull-roarer or turn-dun of the Australians.**** His enemies, also in Australian fashion, daubed themselves over with pipeclay.(v)* By these hideous foes the child was torn to pieces, though, according to Nonnus, he changed himself into as many beasts as Proteus by the Nile, or Tamlane by the Ettrick.
* Roscher's Lexikon, p. 1046.
** Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 547, quoting Callimachus and
Euphoric
*** Ibid., p. 550.
**** Admon., p. 11; Nonnus, xxiv. 43; ap. Aglaoph., p. 555.
(v) Custom and Myth, p. 39.
(v)*Cf. Demosthenes, Pro. Or., 313; Lobeck, pp. 556, 646,
700.