Ariadne and Dionysus

Ariadne and Dionysus. Foreword. The Greek legends, as we know them from Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient sources, have their origins in the Bronze Age about the time of the thirteenth century B.C., which is when many scholars think something resembling the Trojan War may have taken place. The biblical Abraham may be of the same period. It was a time when the concept of Earth as the great Mother-Goddess, immanent in all things as all things were in Her, was being replaced throughout the region by the idea of an external Sky God, probably introduced by the marauding nom- adic tribes coming down from the north. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the principle of matriarchy was being replaced by patriarchy. The transformation was slow and spor- adic but eventually complete, at least on the surface. The legends, repeated by story-tellers for centuries before they were written down, probably with many deviations from the original, were meant to be pleasing to men. It has been my object to imagine the same events from the point of view of the women concerned. To this end I have added "fictional" material of my own. The more familiar version of the story of Ariadne and Dionysus is that she married him after being abandoned by Theseus. Dionysus was either man or god, as with many of the old myth- ical characters. I have imagined that she gave birth to him. Some may complain of the way I tell it, but after so long a time, who knows? In all the legends there are different known versions. Myth is constantly being re-interpreted in the light of contemporary attitudes. We use the present to re-imagine the past. What matters in this story is that the essence of mysticism, inherent in the idea of the Earth-Goddess, was not lost but preserved through Dionysus, then Orpheus and the semi-secret Orphic religion which involved a mental attitude of self-denial and seriousness in religious matters, requiring ethics of a high standard. We can ignore the crudities of practice which, as in most religions, went with it. Its ideal was accepted by Plato, later revived by the neo-platonists both pagan and christian, and reappears today. Prologue. Of Ariadne, priestess of the Earth, first princess, then annointed queen of Crete - how she for love of Theseus broke the faith; how he abandoned her upon the rocks at Dia, some call Naxos; how she died so disillusioned and deceived in love but in her death gave spirit to a son some say by Theseus, others by the grace and holy breath of the impregnant Earth, whom I named Dionysus; how he came to keep alive within our secret hearts the knowledge that abides - my story tells. For Ariadne's body I lament. Her spirit went wherever spirits go, drawn back into the matrix of desire. I, Nysa, her most intimate and maid, lost love, lost sister and lost counterpart, lay coral on her eyes to keep them closed. What Theseus wanted, Theseus now possessed - the crown of Crete. He had no parting grief at leaving her abandoned on the rocks, while she in trusting sleep, quite unaware, dreamed of the baby she was soon to bear. He sailed away to Attica, his home, where on his father's death, which must be soon, he would be king of Attica and Crete. Tables are turned. Once Crete ruled Attica, now Attica rules Crete and a new God makes Goddess Earth his wife, subservient, like a wild plant translanted by the roots to flower but palely in captivity. Her realm, de-natured and de-spirited, endures the mis-use of humanity. By leaving Knossos and her island Crete my Ariadne forfeited the right to matrilinear inheritance - such was the law - so Theseus took the crown, usurped it, you might say, but legally. I'd warned her what this meant, not for herself alone, but for the breaking of the faith. Possessed by love, she took no heed of me. She gave away her country to a man, now her priestesses must give way to priests. She offered up herself and lost her life - an unintended sacrificial act that had its end in Dionysus' birth. And so she lay, in palor of cold death, as beautiful as ever in her life, wrapped in her pure white coronation robe, her long-legged body on the black goat-skins, her yellow tresses covering her breasts and on her brow the bridal coronet of golden vine-leaves made by Daedalus, the master craftsman, artist, and a sage. So I have laid her out, as best I can. I take her orphaned babe as my own son to rear him safely in a secret cave high on the hill that later bears my name, Nysa, the lame one, as I give the boy the name of Dionysus, the lame god - which in a mortal form he surely is - so he shall bear the name of me myself. He's beautiful to look at, like the dawn, this sunny child of night. I keep him hid, since Theseus, if he learns the boy survives, will see in him a claimant to the crown and make some plan to do away with him. Lame in one foot, and also lame in mind - as there are some who say - so much there is I cannot understand by thinking it, but I can feel, oh yes, how I can feel and how I sense the fundamental truths for which there are no words, and so no thoughts. Faith is of feeling, that I surely know, while thinking is a questioner of faith. Oh sing a dirge for Ariadne dead! But sing a paean for her living son born for a messenger of love and joy! Was she divine? I like to think she was. In any case custom would have it so through sacred matrilinear descent. And what of Dionysus, born of her? Was he the God mythology has made or just a man demented by the truth and by the loss of faith in Goddess Earth? My reason hesitates, my heart believes he was for his brief life the Goddess' son, born as a man but with the Goddess' heart, caring, compassionate, with a delight eternal as eternal energy. So long ago, but clear as present day. 1. Oh Ariadne, oh my heart of hearts! Oh measure of the fatal self-deceit that is the price of living consciousness! I have not ceased to miss you all these years. There have been other joys, but none surpassed our love, as shadows only serve to mark the measure of the light's intensity. I can still see you as you proudly walked, your golden hair long and luxuriant, wavy, yet coarse and somehow animal, your feet set firmly, flatly on the ground, your robe that clung to each long calf and thigh, your hanging arms unswinging, head held high, your movement always slow, deliberate, taller than I, a daughter of the Earth - and that is better than remembering your body as you died, de-spirited and drained of blood from helpless hemorrhage. Did I say died? Her people worshipped her as mortal avatar of Goddess Moon, the Great Earth Spirit's daughter in the sky - who in her phases, youth, maturity, then lessening into the dark of night, as strong in winter when the sun is weak what time the seed-corn rests in buried jars in readiness for semination day - gives life, gives growth, gives death and then rebirth into the risks and raptures, tragedies and triumphs that result from our own deeds or from the accidents of time and space that we experience, deserved or not. A story started that she hung herself, wishing to terminate her mortal life and go back to the garden of pre-birth. Not true of course, but I encouraged it the while I had my Dionysus hid. So widely was this fantasy believed that farmers hung her effigy on trees hoping thereby that her divinity would bring the crops to great fertility - a logic which I never understood, but strange the ways of superstitious minds. Incarnate mortal, mortally she died of mortal ill, and in her mortal death she bore the son who in his turn would die to undergo his metamorphosis and out of darkness then appear again as mediator between life and death. In my recall time plays so little part. I have no sense ever of hurrying although I know I very often must, to dress her, braid her hair, so often late for some occasion of the ritual - the ritual that is no more observed, but her and Dionysus' memory lives on, in secret, in the mystery. 2. First Minos, as we called the king, was dead, slain not in ritual but in cold blood before his eight-year's reign was due to end, by one man who personified the new, imposing its possession on the old. Then Pasiphae too, the queen, was dead, died in her bed of poison that she took, died of herself, in her own bed, of shame, of outrage at the Greek god's dominance - or so it was announced. It's all the same. Then Ariadne, both her parents dead, was queen. Now she, deceived by man, is dead, but is dead only in her fleshly form. Daughter she never had. The line is dead. Death is the deal of human ignorance, the misdirected devilry of men. Time was, I've heard it said, the women killed some of their sons at birth, and of the rest those who weren't sacrificed in ritual might grow to slay their fathers in their turn.

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