Dionysos

We live in an age of science and technology and pride ourselves in being logical and pragmatic people. In other words, we hail from the Apollonian age and are the inheritors of Apollonian civilization. Or so we think until dear old Dionysos, known to both Greeks and Romans in antiquity by the name of Bacchus, decides to prove us wrong for when the god of wine rises from the depths of our being and makes havoc of the Apollonian order rare indeed are those who can escape his overwhelming power and appeal. And even those few do so at their own peril for resistance to natural urges for the sake of honour or false prudishness often leads to terrible neuroses, pent-up anger that eventually explodes, and an early grave.

Dionysos was the last of the gods to enter Mt. Olympos, and it took a while before he was duly recognized by both mortals and immortals. There has always been an initial resistance to this son of Zeus and Semele and the reason for it is to be found in our own reluctance or refusal to recognize the wild forces that lurk in us all and which sooner or later overwhelm us if we do not admit of their preeminence. Christianity and modern civilization in general have tended to denigrate the Bacchanalian forces that rule our emotions. As early as 186 B.C. the Roman Senate suppressed all Bacchic societies throughout Italy for it was thought they were conspiring against the state. And ever since men and women of all cultures have gone to great lengths to either banish or emasculate the Dyonisian forces of our psyche in an attempt to hold high its opposite pole, that of Apollonian reason and control. Even today, a life of noble simplicity and quiet grandeur is considered by most to be preferable to one of debauchery. But the most fervent of Stoics have been known to fall prey against their own volition to the irresistible call of the wild.

And as Euripides so well knew, the immortal gods know the weaknesses of mortal men as much as their own for in his famous play, the Bacchae, he writes, "The gods are cuuning: they lie in wait a long march of time to trap the impious." And with Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy in the nineteenth century began the Dionysian revolt, followed by the father of modern psycho-analysis, who brought into the open the dark forces that desperately yearn to emerge from our Unconscious. And Jung went one daring step further by proclaiming as Dionysian the basic structure of our psyche. Henceforth, the hysterical, the sensual, the untamed and bizarre aspects of our nature were to be brought forth to the conscious level and no longer reviled. Jung was however only stating the obvious: Dionysis reigns supreme among men and will do so forever in spite of all attempts to suppress him. This is precisely what the ancient myths have been telling us and which has been backed up by modern history and psychology.

The Greek poet, Kazantzakis, who in modern times a second Odyssey, to rival that of Homer, and in which he warned, "The Bull, the underground Dionysian power, has been unleashed". It reminds us of the wise Tiresias' warning in days gone by to the king of Thebes: "This new divinity whom you ridicule -- words cannot describe how great will be his power throughout Hellas... Listen to me... Do not reseume that mere power has influence with men. Do not be wise in your diseased imagination. Welcome the god to the land, pour libations, wreathe your head, revel."

What is true of all the other gods also applies to Bacchus. He does not hesitate to destroy those who try to hold him in bondage but protects and shows benevolence to those who acknowledge his divinity and power. He who shows obedience is promised an abundance of wine, of vines with swelling grapes, of ivy, of honey that trickles down copiously, of milk and water in plenty. Mighty and mysterious forces of the universe are released that can work great miracles among men or bring ruin and destruction if improperly used or abused.

Dionysos is the god of ecstasy, dance and song; he is also Lysios, 'the looserner', the 'liberator'. He turns hardness into plasticity and flexibility; he frees men from sexual inhibitions and bondages of any kind. He lifts the veil of illusion and makes us see the true reality. He releases from the very depths of our being untapped sources of infinite vitality that gush forth as wine, milk and honey. The world of boredom, of make-believe, of prejudices and hypocrisy, the world of smugness we think of as being so superior, the only conceivable one is torn asunder to reveal a totally new, an absolutely exhilarating fourth dimension that transcends all our previous experiences. The primeval world has stepped into the foreground, the elemental forms of everything have emerged and been laid bare for every one to see and enjoy. But with the infinite rapture that is let loose also comes infinite terror which shatters the innocent picture of a well-ordered humdrum universe. This is not a fantasy world, the fairy land of Alice in Wonderland but the real and at times brutal world that hides behind the veil of appearances. Those who partake of the Bacchanalian dance, beware! For the ecstasy that liberates can also bring madness, death and dissolution.

Everything in the universe obeys the basic binary principle, the inexorable and immutable law of opposites, the Ying and Yang, etc. And the gods do not escape the primary creative force that predates them. The double nature of Dionysos exemplifies the double nature of wine which is a gift of intoxicated delight the god gives to the mortals, a delight so irresistible that even the Centaurs were conquered by it. But the same delight can soon turn into the madness of the 'god of horror'. Students of Plato will recall that in the Laws, the greatest of Greek philosophers recognized the dual nature of wine and sought to limit its dangers by prescribing its use according to age. He too, as can be seen there, was all too aware of the inherent power of wine to liberate men from the 'dryness of old age', and is in a way grateful to Dionysos for having 'bestowed on us a comfortable medicine that might renew our youth". Then as now, this 'comfortable medicine' Plato refers to can restore man's youthful spirit and make him sing of joy and happiness.

Song and dance, with 'more spirit and less bashfulness', are the primary expressions of Dionysian emotion. Legend has it that Bacchus sang and danced while still in his mother's womb. The reed-pipe, the drums and the cymbals are all instruments of the god, accompanying the dance of his Maenads. And Bacchus is not only a Greek god as some would have it but rather a universal god that influences all men and all cultures. For example, everyone is familiar with the dancing of the Whirling dervishes and the Jewish Hsidim, the Siberian Shaman and Shiva the Cosmic dancer. They all belong to the same tradition, their dancing fervour springs from the same source, that of immortal Dionysos.

Music and dance come from the depths of life and from the same elemental depths come also inspired art and prophecy. Poets of all people know that they are often inspired by strange forces that well up inside them but which seem to spring from an outside elemental power that partakes of the inspiration of the Muses. And the Muses seem to inspire best when the poet is under the influence of intoxicating wine or after a whiff of marijuana or hashish. When one reads Baudelaire and of his life, one is transported into a world of poetic beauty and imagination that has scarcely been equalled to this day. The poet must have been truly inspired by these same elemental forces that occasionally break out of the Unconscious and unleashes a torrent of poetic creativity.

Dionysos embodies this madness of the supreme moment of creation, of the enchanted moment when man is flung out of his habitual world, his settled thoughts and feelings, his ordered existence, and dives into the cosmic depths in which the forces of life dwell. 'This madness which is called Dionysos is no sickness, but a companion of life at its healthiest.'

It is interesting to point out that in ancient Greece, the god's most ardent supporters and worshippers were the women whose lives were traditionally most confined. Ancient mythology abounds in stories about Argive women, Athenian women, Rhodian women who are 'pricked to leave their looms and shuttles', and who, ripped loose from their uneventful orderly domestic lives and made merry by the god of wine, change into enraptured, manic dancers in the wild fastnesses of the mountains. They are said to gird themselves with snakes and give suck to fawns and wolf cubs as if they were infants at the breast. Fire does not burn them and no weapons of iron can wound them, and the snakes lick up the sweat from their heated cheeks without harming them. Fierce bulls fall to the ground, victims to numberless, tearing, female hands, and sturdy trees are torn up by the roots with their combined effort.

In the Bacchae of Euripides, Dionysos is portrayed as 'serene and dignified' until Pentheus, the king of Thebes, brings about the tragedy's manic destruction through his blind rationalism. The king insists on a practical approach but what are spears and armour against the elemental forces which Pentheus chokes off and does not want to yield to? The outcome is all too obvious. Nothing can resist Dionysos. There is always a paradox in all living beings that make them incline sometimes towards enlightenment and sometimes towards destruction, towards life and death. How many times how we heard the notion that all men harbour in their innermost selves a certain death wish. Climbers of Mt. Everest who defy the natural elements and measure themselves against next to impossible odds, report experiencing a kind of exuberance, the indescribable 'high' of the great heights, on reaching the summit, that is greatly reminiscent of Bacchanalian ecstasy. Only those who have experienced it know what they are talking about.

Dionysos is the god who holds life and death together. As the only Olympian god to be born of a mortal mother, he is from the beginning more closely associated with death than any other god except Hades. His mother died by the fire of Zeus' lightning bolts while he was still in her womb and he was born a second time from Zeus himself, which strenthens even more his connection to the great mystery of life and death whose solution may never be found until the gods themselves let us into their secret. Eternal is the truth that those who cling to life lose it just as fast and are dealt an ordeal of pain and death, whereas those who yield to the forces of nature and the will of the Olympian gods overflow with rapture and vitality.

There is a Dionysian life force which persists through the ages. He is the one who thrusts men into new adventures, a new life unto which they can only be born by dying to their past and to everything they cling to for security. Nowhere is this more clearly and more movingly that in the myth of Dionysos and Ariadne, the woman whom the god of women chooses and to whom he remains faithful -- the only faithful husband among the amorous gods.But alas! as it usually happens in the lives of most men, before she can be united with Dionysos forever in inexhaustible abundance, she has to go through great trials and tribulation and, according to some versions, through death itself. In this context it would be relevant to recall Monteverdi's opera,Arianna, which so captured the public imagination that it became an overnight success. The Cretan princess, daughter of King Minos, wakes on a lonely beach on Naxos to discover that Theseus, the man whose life she has saved, has abandoned her. We are all familiar with the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and it will suffice here to say that his desertion of Ariadne is the necessary prelude to her relationship with Dionysos, who embodies the transcendent in her.

'I will never love again, and therefore in some sense I will never live again,' cries the deserted Ariadne in Richard Strauss' opera. At the moment of her deepest despair, Dionysos is heard singing off-stage. She hails him as the longed-for messenger of death. But when he appears before her, she recognizes in him her true lover for whom, transformed through her pain, she is now ready. The opera ends with a ravishing love duet; the myth ends with Ariadne's ascent to heaven in the god's chariot. Her suffering and lamentation are transformed into bliss in the god's arms.

As we can see, Dionysos' influence still runs strong even in the modern world as evidenced by immortal creations by artists, composers and poets alike. Ariadne's thread is the symbolic counterpart of Dionysos' mask: it connects this world with the other, the outer with the inner, mortality with eternity. Ariadne's cult on Naxos, with its festivals of joy and of lament, encapsulates the spirit of this most potent of gods: sorrow, terror, even death, are all in the service of a greater life, free from rationalist principles and conventional traditions. Dionysos, born of Zeus, and son of Semele, embodies life in the round, forever becoming, forever renewing itself, forever dying and being reborn.

 

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