Dionysus went up to the stage located in the middle of his temple. His followers hushed as he situated himself at the center and held his thyrsus in front of him.
“My joyous friends, it is lovely to see all of you once again. I thank you for taking the time off your busy schedules to come and do some merrymaking with me, but then again, that is why all of you are part of this cult, is it not?
“I shall once again tell my unfortunate tale, starting from when the envious goddess Hera asked Zeus to reveal his true form to my dearest mother Semele. The goddess’ rage knows no bounds and nearly eliminates me from this world, but I thank my father, a ruler who is a coward towards his wife, for sewing me on his thigh and allowing me to see the wonders of the world.
“Of course, Hera’s hatred towards me never went away, so my father thought it would be best that I shall be raised by Silenus and the caring nymphs of Mount Nysa, an area that is in the far southeast and out of sight from Olympus. The noble half-horse taught me all that I know now, most especially in cultivating grapes. From there, I created wine, a prodigious invention of mine, and shared my knowledge to the eastern parts of the world. In exchange for winemaking, I have learned and adapted the culture of the Eastern world.
“Unfortunately, the jealous goddess thought it was the best opportunity to destroy me once and for all. She inflicted madness upon me as I drank wine with the king of Egypt, so now I become wild in my drunken state. Then at Thetis and Peleus’ wedding, Hera accused me of speaking some barbarous language and called me an outsider, making all other gods follow suit. If that wasn’t enough, she possessed mortals and spread stories about how there was a barbarous race while she pointed to me as I read aloud an ancient Phoenician text.
“The other gods may have ostracized me for living my life this way - calling me an outsider, a fraud, a mortal, a nobody - but I no longer see the satisfaction in trying to prove my worth to them. Eastern knowledge is the reason why I have given up on the idea of vengeance - a cursed feeling that has been the cause of heroes’ downfalls - and that the best revenge is to show them, especially the malicious goddess, that I am enjoying life to the fullest, no matter how many insults or diseases they throw at me. I will show them that I am stronger than they are. And I will show them that their discrimination against other races will be their undoing.
“For now, let us all enjoy each other’s company, friends from all around the world. Let’s make a toast to happiness, to enjoying life and washing away all our worries. All of you only live once. Cheers to the feast.”
“To the Feast!”
ANALYSIS
For the narrative, I chose Dionysus to show the aetiogical myth of Racial Difference because he has a background of being considered as an outsider by the Olympian Gods. However, I do not want to focus on his half-god half-man lineage because the situation is hard to apply within humans. So, I looked into the place that Dionysus was brought up in and found that it was located somewhere in the south or east. That is where I stemmed the idea of racial difference and I wanted to highlight this part of Dionysus’ upbringing. In Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, he mentions that the mountain Hermes took Dionysus is Asian Nysa (3.29). Another reference mentions that Mt. Nysa is located somewhere between Phoenicia and Greece (Homeric Hymn 1 to Dionysus, line 8). There are other sources that situate Mt. Nysa in other parts of the world, so I condensed those information by stating that the mountain is located southeast from Greece.
In Pausanias’ Description of Greece 3, he mentions that Dionysus was first taken to Ino, Semele’s sister, before he was taken away again and brought to Nymphai. I removed that account from his story so that there will be more difference with his cultural upbringing. In addition to Dionysus growing up in Mt. Nysa, the Bibliotheca 3 mentions that “he traversed Thrake and the whole of India and set up pillars there” (Pseudo-Apollodorus, 34). This is where I got the inspiration of him travelling around Asia to spread his creation of wine-making.
I portrayed Hera as the main antagonist of the myth because she was the reason that his mother Semele died in the first place. She told Zeus to reveal his true form to the mortal, who died because she could not handle his power (Pseudo-Apollodorus, 26-28). She continuously sought out for Dionysus, even inflicting madness into him so that he wanders around Egypt and Syria. This is where I got the inspiration of Hera inflicting madness into Dionysus, but I changed it into when he was actually in Egypt so that I can show Dionysus rapport with the king. To increase the tension between Hera and Dionysus, I included the scene of Peleus and Thetis’ wedding because all of the gods were gathered in Olympus and Hera was enraged that Paris did not pick her as the fairest goddess (The Cypria: Fragment 1). In the myth, Hera uses the word ‘barbarous’ to describe a different language that is not Greek. According to Pruitt, the word ‘barbarian’ comes from the ancient Greek word “bárbaros,” which meant babbler. The article also mentions the word was used to address Egyptians and Phoenicians among others. Hence, it would not be uncommon for the word to be said by an ancient Greek goddess.
Dionysus is the narrator of the story to make it more personal and heartfelt. As he is the god of festivity, I made the setting as one of his parties for his cults so that he can openly speak about his tragic history as well as address the concern of racial discrimination.
Works Cited
Evelyn-White, Hugh G., translator. “The Cypria.” Hesiod, Homeric Hymns.: Epic Cycle. Homerica, Harvard University Press, 2002.
Evelyn-White, Hugh G., translator. “Homeric Hymns 1: to Dionysus” Hesiod, Homeric Hymns.: Epic Cycle. Homerica, Harvard University Press, 2002.
Pruitt, Sarah. “Where Did the Word ‘Barbarian’ Come from?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 19 May 2016, www.history.com/news/where-did-the-word-barbarian-come-from.
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 29-34. Translated by J.G. Frazer
S., Jones W H, et al., translators. “Book 3.” Pausanias: Description of Greece, Harvard University Press, 1971.
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