Semele

Family: Thebes · Role: mythic figure · First appears: Euripides, The Phœnician Virgins — Scene 9

Semele, a mythic figure of Thebes, was loved by Zeus, who was “formerly inflamed with the love of Semele.” At Thebes, Aphrodite caused her death through the lightning, and Semele became the parent of Dionysus. In another account, Zeus says he had married Semele, while Dionysus publicly identifies himself as “the son of Semele, the son of Jove!”

Semele was the daughter of Cadmus and the sister of Agave, Autonoe, and Ino. After her death, Dionysus drove her sisters and Agave to madness; Hera is named as her enemy, with the remains of Semele’s house and the memory of Zeus’s fire described as an insult against her. Antigone recalls dancing Semele’s sacred step on the mountains while dressed in the skin of the Theban fawn.

Relationship record

Life events

• Zeus becomes inflamed with love for Semele.(Euripides, Hippolytus — Scene 4)
  • With: Zeus
  • “how that Jove was formerly inflamed with the love of Semele”
• Aphrodite causes Semele’s death through a cruel fate.(Euripides, Hippolytus — Scene 4 · 📍 Thebes)
  • With: Aphrodite
  • “by the forked lightning, by a cruel fate, did she put to eternal sleep the parent of the Jove-begotten Bacchus”
• Zeus married Semele.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 2)
  • With: Zeus
  • “having married Semele here”
• Dionysus publicly identifies himself as Semele’s son and Zeus’s son.(Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 3)
  • With: Dionysus Zeus
  • “Io, Io, I say again! I, the son of Semele, the son of Jove!”

Euripides, The Phœnician Virgins — Scene 9

• with Antigone (Antigone performed a sacred dance associated with Semele.) “ANT. To whom I formerly, clad in the skin of the Theban fawn, danced the sacred step of Semele on the mountains, conferring a thankless favor on the Gods?”

Euripides, Hippolytus — Scene 4

• with Zeus (Zeus's stated love for Semele.) “they know indeed, how that Jove was formerly inflamed with the love of Semele”
• enemies with Aphrodite (The passage attributes Semele's death to Aphrodite.) “For by the forked lightning, by a cruel fate, did she put to eternal sleep the parent of the Jove-begotten Bacchus, when she was visited as a bride.”
• child: Dionysus (Semele is identified as Dionysus's parent.) “the parent of the Jove-begotten Bacchus”
• courtship with Zeus (Zeus is described as inflamed with love for Semele.) “they know indeed, how that Jove was formerly inflamed with the love of Semele;”

Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 1

• parent: Cadmus “whom formerly Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, brought forth, delivered by the lightning-bearing flame.”
• siblings with Agave “Upon this, Bacchus excited his mother Agave, together with the sisters of Semele, Autonoe and Ino, to madness”
• siblings with Autonoe “the sisters of Semele, Autonoe and Ino”
• siblings with Ino “the sisters of Semele, Autonoe and Ino”
• enemies with Hera “the remnants of the house smoking, and the still living name of Jove's fire, the everlasting insult of Juno against my mother.”

Euripides, The Bacchæ — Scene 2

• married with Zeus “No, but having married Semele here,--”
• with Zeus (The passage records Semele's falsely claimed nuptials with Zeus.) “He says he is the God Bacchus, [He was once on a time sown in the thigh of Jove, ] who was burned in the flame of lightning, together with his mother, because she falsely claimed nuptials with Jove.”

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Extracted from the original text of Greek Tragedy. Made with Rho MD.