Dionysus, Hades and Soma: The Greek Lunar Cycle Part 2 of 3
The crucial “eye-poking” motif, always present in a similar form in the Lunar Cycle, is not absent from the Greek version either. Just as it is performed by the young Perceval in Chretien's Grail poem, by the youths in the kingdom of the Young Son Aengus, and perpetrated on the son of Osiris in the Egyptian case, so the eye poking is connected to the son of the Soma God Dionysus in the Greek case (in Vedic and Norse cases it is not directly connected to the Young Son(s)). Due to the apparent Egyptian influence on the Dionysus mythos, this son of the Greek god could be taken as repeating the lunar power of the father in the manner that Younger Horus does in relation to his father Osiris. Dionysus' son's name, meaning “wine drinker” or “wine-rich” relates him intimately to his father, to the vegetative power of the vine, and to the lunar liquid itself. The character of this son, then, could be impacted by a non-Indo-European influence of some kind, whether Egyptian or simply pre-Greek — however, we must remember that the Indo-European Young Son or Horse Twin god is also generally known for being a soma drinker (and distributer), thus the degree of outside influence on his character is indeterminate.
This son of Dionysus is Oenopion, who just like his doubles, the Horse Twins, is one of a pair of twins, his twin brother being Staphylus. When the hunter and giant Orion comes to Oenopion's kingdom, he assaults and attempts to violate Oenopion's daughter, Merope. Compare this assault to Thjazi abducting Iðunn in the Germanic parallel case, as well as the fact that Thjazi too is a giant and we have mentioned the questionable epithet skaut-giarn from the Eddic poem Hyndluljóð. In response to the assault of his daughter, Oenopion stabs Orion in the eye, blinding him. Thus Oenopion, this Young Son of the lunar god Dionysus, as in the parallel cases, pierces the eye of the assailant hunter, just as Perceval stabs the eye of the thieving Red Knight, the youths under the watch of Aengus poke out Midir's eye, and as Thjazi (whose crime is both a theft and assault of a goddess) too has his eyes removed after his offense. Orion is said then to carry Cedalion, the servant of Hephaestus, around on his shoulders, whereas Thjazi carries Loki through the sky in the form of an eagle.
As with the case of Soma, ancient commentators such as Diodorus Siculus believed there to have originally been several “Dionysuses.” These of course could have been several gods who were similar but distinct, or several instances of the same identical god, and these were then theoretically combined under the name of Dionysus to form the unitary mythos that has been left to us. In the Norse case we also named Njörðr, Kvasir and possibly Mímir as associated gods who were all connected to the mythos of the sacred waters and to the mead cycle and who could theoretically correspond to some of the separate gods who were combined in the Vedic and Greek cases. Njörðr as lord of waters and wealth generally and as the husband of the Sun Princess, Kvasir as an embodiment of the mead/soma itself and who is killed and consumed as Dionysus also is, and Mímir as the keeper of the specialized waters of illumination and arguably of an underworld domain, could each then correspond to different aspects of Dionysus/Soma, or, in the case of Mímir, of Yama overlapping Soma. There are, however, various ways we can conceptualize this relation.
Perusing the details of Dionysus’ mythos, we tally several other connections between him and the other Soma gods. Like Njörðr, Dionysus is also connected with the sea. Once, he hides in it, while another time he punishes a ship of sailors by turning them into dolphins. He stays with the daughters of Nereus in the Erythraian Sea, under the waves, "sprawled among the seaweed in Thetis’ bosom" (Dionysiaca 21.170). He is believed to have washed up in a chest on a beach of Brasia. Certain of his attendants were called the "sea women," or Halia. He arrives by ship during the Anthesteria, a central festival in his honor. He was called "god of the sea" and "god of the seacoast," the former in Pasagae and the latter in Chios, Sparta, and Sicyon. His grottoes and temples were often in marshes (Pausanias 2.23.1) (Athenaios 11.465 A). And as previously mentioned, he was considered a lord of all moisture, of the liquid element generally.
As Njörðr is, Dionysus is also associated with the wind, called “roarer” in this connection. He is also well-known for having two forms: the older and the younger Dionysus. This well matches the Chyavana tale wherein he begins as an aged ascetic before being renewed in youth, and this again reflects the waning and then renewal of the moon. The previously encountered “wasteland” motif may also be present in Dionysus' mythos. When wine is banned by Lycurgus, Dionysus makes the king's land become a wasteland, and only renews it after Lycurgus is ritualistically killed.
While the Soma god generally weds a daughter or descendant of the Sun god, and Chyavana indeed marries the great-grand-daughter of the Sun god, Dionysus weds Ariadne, who is indeed grand-daughter of the Sun, Helios. Ariadne also gives birth to twins (Oenopion and Staphylus), perhaps reflecting or doubling the birth of the Horse Twins which we have seen in other branches. Ariadne goes to the underworld and then returns, as Rhiannon does, and is made deathless and unaging, just as the princess Surya is said to be made immortal by her union with Soma in the Rig Veda hymn "Surya's Bridal." Dionysus ultimately places Ariadne's crown in the sky as stars, as Njörðr's wife Skaði has her father's eyes placed in the heavens as stars. After his blinding and recovery, Orion is also placed in the sky as a constellation upon his death, at the request of the goddesses, just as the eyes of Skaði's father Thjazi are so treated upon his death, at the request of Skaði. As with Irish Midir's and Norse Njörðr's marriages, Dionysus and Ariadne's marriage is not a purely happy one. Indeed, a similar drama develops as that found in Irish Midir's myth with his wives Fuamnach and Etain, who come into physical and magical conflict. For Ariadne and Dionysus' second wife, a princess from India, develop a rivalry and also come into conflict as well. Ovid says: “Among the captive girls of surpassing beauty was a princess whom Bacchus [Dionysus] liked too much. His loving wife wept and, as she paced the curving beach, delivered words like these, disheveled: ‘Come, waves, listen again to identical sobs. Come, sand, absorb again my weeping. I recall my cry” (Ovid, Fasti 3.459). In addition, Dionysus threatens Ariadne's previous husband Theseus and wins her from him, whereas Midir also must win Etain back from her then husband, Eochu Airem.
Dionysus is associated both with satyrs and music, while Soma is closely tied to the similar wild musical and sexual beings the Gandharvas. Interestingly, Hephaestus gives Dionysus two silver bowls, while the Grail (a salver) and a silver serving dish are both seen side by side in the Grail procession, and the silver bowls themselves may again be symbols of the moon.
When Dionysus is born, Hermes rescues him from the flame and gives him honey (common for birth rituals, but also an ingredient associated with the mead). We will see in a subsequent chapter how Hermes is the "Gandharva," who, as with the case of Welsh Pwyll, is the protege of the Soma god and thus very closely associated with him as his guardian and attendant. There is even a vase painted with the image of Hermes, Dionysus, and Ariadne, in which Hermes is gesturing at Ariadne, as if giving her to Dionysus. This again reaffirms the close connection of Hermes with Dionysus (as the Gandharva is similarly connected with Soma), Hermes as his attendant, and also reminds us of the Welsh scene in which the Gandharva Pwyll sleeps next to but protects the virginity of Arawn's wife until the return of Arawn.
Hephaestus and Dionysus
Of further interest is the fact that, just as the fire god Manawydan plays an important role in the latter portion of the Welsh Lunar Cycle, so the Greek fire god Hephaestus also appears in an important episode of Dionysus' myth. In this episode, Hephaestus, having been thrown from Olympos by Hera, returns to Hera with a gift of a finely-wrought golden throne. The throne is a trap, however, and when Hera sits upon it she is bound to it by invisible restraints. The other gods cry out for Hephaestus to release her. Only when Dionysus steps in and gets Hephaestus drunk with wine is he able to return him to Olympus and get him to free Hera. The theme of a great queen of the gods being frozen to the spot and imprisoned when she touches a finely made, magical, golden object once again reminds us of the manner in which Welsh Rhiannon is imprisoned in the Otherworld when she touches the golden bowl. At the same time, Hera sitting on the chair that triggers the crisis reminds us also of Pryderi sitting on the mound Gorsedd Arberth and triggering the enchanted wasteland, which event immediately precedes him and Rhiannon being trapped in the Otherworld by the golden bowl. This motif of the treacherous seat is reflected in the later Grail legends as the chair Siege Perilous, which kills anyone who sits on it and is not worthy of it.
The freeing of Hera from this enchanted imprisonment, just like the freeing of Rhiannon and the disenchanting of the wasteland (or the same in the Samvarana tale) is brought about by an action that can only be performed by the fire god. The Greek gods are in despair to get Hephaestus to come back to Olympus to free Hera, until Dionysus steps in to bring about this fire god's return. In the Welsh and Indian versions the need for the instrumental action of the fire god to end the crisis implies something to do with the sacrificial fire, generally pointing toward a renewal of the sacrifice, which is made explicit rather than symbolic in the Samvarana version, in which Samvarana must return to his sacrificial rites (with his bride) to cause the rain to fall once more and to heal the wasteland. Welsh fire god Manawydan in his version must discover the captors of Rhiannon and Pryderi and then force them to release the queen and her son, compelling them to lift the enchantment on the land at the same time. As such it would not be amiss to see Dionysus' pouring out of the sacred wine into the the belly of the fire god, making him drunk, and then sending him up to the gods, as an allegory for the soma or wine sacrifice itself. “After making him drunk Dionysos brought him to heaven," says Pausanias (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 1.20.3). The sacred wine is poured into the fire (Hephaestus), it becomes "drunk" and takes the offering up to the gods on Olympos, and only this, as in the other cases, frees the Great Queen and solves the crisis that her imprisonment or absence has brought about. This scene is found in many ancient depictions, with Dionysus leading a drunken Hephaestus on a donkey toward Olympos. This image would then be an image of the soma/wine sacrifice itself, a fire sacrifice fueled by the burnt offering of the sacred liquid, which has the power to free the gods and goddesses from obstruction, allow them to operate for the benefit of the world, and heal the wasteland. This is the mythic embodiment of the ancient understanding that the sacrifice made possible existence, the new day, flourishing, etc.
If we are confident from the connections between Dionysus and Soma discussed thus far, we may attempt to further “read into” the other Dionysus myths in this fashion, required as we are to recognize that the Greek myths often have come down to us in cryptic form, elaborated by creative license of the famous greek poets and altered by syncretisms with the other dominant cultures in and around the Mediterranean. As such, we may be permitted to attempt to speculate and to actively try to find an instance of the “Aesir-Vanir War” in the Dionysian myths. If this motif is not instead to be found in the myths of the Greek Horse Twin gods, the Dioskouroi, then there are a couple of other possible candidates, confrontations or battles that Dionysus is known to take part in. The most interesting of these possibilities may be Dionysus' campaign into India. The Indians, known for their spiritual elevation and for their wise Brahmin priests, could in this case be given as a symbol for the (priestly) “1st function,” in the Dumezilian sense, that function against which the “Aesir-Vanir War” is fought by the 3rd function gods. Dionysus’ fighting and overcoming of these Indians could then be the Soma god once again confronting and overcoming the first function, as Njörðr does in the Norse case. This interpretation may also be reinforced by the fact that Dionysus also fights against Poseidon in this war. Key to this connection is the fact that, in many places, Poseidon seems to take the role of the first function Vedic god Varuna, lord of water. For instance, when the Mitraic hero Theseus is born, Poseidon seems to be made a double of his father Aegeus, while when the Mitraic hero Yudhishthira is born, his father Pandu's double or spiritual father is Varuna, thus drawing an equivalency between Poseidon and Varuna. Varuna is a temperamental god who is the lord of all water, while Poseidon is temperamental lord of the sea. Poseidon is eldest son of Cronus and was the king of the gods before Zeus was, evidenced by the archaeological records of the Mycenaean period, while Varuna was the eldest and first chief of the gods who eventually yielded this kingship to Mitra and then Indra. Thus, while an expansion on this idea would require a separate explication, it is by no means out of the way to say that Poseidon could here be taking the role of the 1st Function sovereign, which we see Oðinn take in the Norse Aesir-Vanir War. We would then see Dionysus' fighting and overcoming of both the 1st function priestly and 1st function sovereign principles in this war.
A couple final notes to consider: Dionysus was originally associated with the three Charites, or Graces. Chief among these three is Aglaea, meaning “shining one,” who becomes Hephaestus' wife. Shining is not a rare adjective for a deity, but it is after all a specific epithet we see frequently associated with the various Sun Princesses/Daughters of the Sun in the various branches, while the number three also matches the number of goddesses connected to this cycle in the Norse myth: Iðunn, Skaði, Gerðr. Hence it very likely the Graces too are another iteration or cryptic reflection of the same solar daughters, or that they are in some way connected. Hermes, the Greek Gandharvic god, as we will see in a later section, is himself said by Nonnus to be wedded to one of the Graces, Peitho. A Mycenean seal ring shows two females dancing next to a male figure, who is interpreted as either Hermes or Dionysus. A relief at the colony of Thasos from the beginning of the 5th century BCE shows the Charites with Hermes and a female who is believed to be Peitho or Aphrodite, and a 4th century vase from Apulia also shows Hermes and Peitho together. However, the fact that both the Fire god and the Gandharvic god are said to marry Graces could reflect the repeated pattern we have seen, that one of the Sun Princesses is almost always transferred from one of the husbands to the other in the Lunar Cycle. If the Greek case follows the others, Hephaestus and Hermes could have originally been married to the same Grace, and over time these wives could have been made separate. Lastly, one of Dionysus' epithets is “completely hidden,” one interpretation of which could be the moon at its minimum, at the transition to the New Moon, hidden in darkness. Alternately, the Rig Veda says that Soma is “hidden” (RV, 1.23.14).
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