DIONYSUS, PAN, ECHO, AND NARCISSUS 275The Death ofSemele. By Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640); oil on panel, 1636, IOV2 X 157> in.
Both Semele and Zeus are shown under extreme emotion—she, as death approaches, and
he, rising from her couch with pity and horror, knowing her coming agony. He holds
the thunderbolt back in his left hand, and his eagle grips it in its beak. (Brussels, Musées
Royaux des Beaux Arts.)
of the rites in a literal sense, the sublimity and terror of the spiritual message
are inescapable and timeless.
The play opens with Dionysus himself, who has come in anger to Thebes;
his mother's integrity has been questioned by her own relatives, and the mag-
nitude and power of his very godhead have been challenged and repudiated;
the sisters of Semele claim (and Pentheus agrees) that she became pregnant be-
cause she slept with a mortal and that Cadmus was responsible for the story
Cadmus-Harmonia1 rh 1
Autonoë Ino Agave Semele m. Zeus
I I
Pentheus Dionysus
Figure 13.1. The Children of Cadmus. A fuller genealogy for the House of Cadmus is
given in Figure 17.3.