Thigh birth

Hermes holds the rescued Dionysus (copy of an ancient statue from the Greek Olympia , Pushkin Museum Moscow , 2007)

Leg birth refers to a process in the Greek mythology , in which the god Zeus to Dionysus ( god of wine and fertility brings) to the world after him for three months sewn in his thigh was wearing.

myth

Zeus, ruler of Mount Olympus , had previously killed his mother, his lover Semele . She was the daughter of the goddess of harmony ( Harmonia ) and the king of Thebes ( Kadmos ). Semele had wanted to see Zeus in his true form, to check whether he was really himself. For this she had been incited by Hera , the jealous wife (and sister) of Zeus. However, Semele did not know that the actual appearance of Zeus is lightning . When Zeus finally shows himself to her in his "full splendor", Semele burns as if struck by lightning, and with her also her palace in the city of Thebes. However, the child in her womb is saved by the patron god Hermes , and Zeus sews his son into his own thigh to carry him to term.

So finally Dionysus is born, called Bacchus by the Romans , the only immortal god of a human mother. He is also the god of dance , theater , intoxication , ecstasy and madness (see Dionysus Eleuthereus ), and he discovered viniculture and its pressing on Mount Nysa (his birthplace) . Dionysus therefore enjoyed great veneration among the Olympian gods , among his many followers in the Greek and later also in the Roman cultural area. In his honor a lively Dionysus cult flourished over many centuries with famous festivals, the Dionysia (see also wine in ancient mythology ). From the original cult singing, dancing and sacrificial rituals developed later, the Greek tragedy and the Greek comedy , first in religious contexts.

Another birth myth of Zeus is his "head birth " of Athena , the founding goddess of the Greek city of Athens .

interpretation

According to the god of wine , the thigh birth is seen as a mythological image for the ennobling of the grapevine , in which a new noble branch is joined with an old plant stem ( grafting ). The sewing of Dionysus corresponds to one of his epithets : Eiraphiotes "who was sewn in", for example in leather wineskins .

In 1975, the religious scholar Karl Kerényi distinguished between different mythological layers in the thighbirth. Fundamental is the symbolism of the thigh as a male phallus , which is to be sacrificed as part of annual fertility cults for connection with the female: "The invention of a birth from the thigh [...] cruelly emphasized the eternal, necessary self-sacrifice of the male vital force to the female sex: a sacrifice that was made for the whole human race. "

literature

Heinrich Heydemann : Dionysus' birth and childhood. Niemeyer, Halle an der Saale 1885 (arranges and explains many art depictions of the Dionysian natal legend ; PDF file; 9.5 MB; 59 pages as scans at tpsalomonreinach.mom.fr ).

Karl Kerényi : The thigh birth and the idol with the mask. In: Same: Dionysus. Archetype of indestructible life. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-608-91686-5 , pp. 170–179 (first published in 1975; in-depth analysis of the mythological layers of the thigh birth; side views in the Google book search).

Web links

Commons : Birth of Dionysus (mosaic) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Aaron J. Atsma: Birth & Nursing Of Dionysus Baccheus. In: Theoi Project. New Zealand, accessed November 21, 2013 (English, many translated original sources on Dionysus' birth; 2000–2011).

Individual evidence

↑ Libraries of Apollodor 3, 4, 3

↑ Herbert Bannert: Valdis Leinieks, The City of Dionysus. A Study of Euripides' Bakchai. Stuttgart - Leipzig: BG Teubner 1996. In: Commission for ancient literature and Latin tradition: Reviews. Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna, accessed on November 21, 2013 (German, the following quote is the only reference to the thighbirth in the very subject-related book review): "The interpretation of the thighbirth as a symbol for the ennobling of the vine, the grafting of a new rice on an old trunk with the help of the vintner's knife and the ocular cut is a plausible, because ostensibly coherent and immediately understandable explanation. It goes back to the explanation of vase pictures that K. Kerényi used. All other interpretations are unsatisfactory (193 f.). "

↑ ^a ^b Karl Kerényi : The thigh birth and the idol with the mask. In: Same: Dionysus. Archetype of indestructible life. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-608-91686-5 , p. 172 (for the first time 1975; side view in the Google book search): “The birth from the father's thigh was linked to the epithet of Dionysus Eiraphiotes and became the victim not made by himself, but father Zeus. Eiraphiotes actually means one "who has been sewn in". [...] The invention of a birth out of the thigh had its function in Greece: the concealment of what the god did on his own body as a lavish gift. The myth cruelly emphasized the eternal, necessary self-sacrifice of the male life force to the female sex: a sacrifice that was made for the whole human race. "

^ Max Ortner: Greco-Roman understanding of religion and mystery cults as building blocks of the Christian religion. University of Vienna 2009, p. 84 (doctoral thesis; the following quote is the only reference in the book to the thighbirth; online at readbag.com ; PDF download; 2.4 MB ): "The unborn child is then placed in the thigh of Zeus ( as a male womb) and born a second time from the thigh. […] The thigh wound of God is related to castration and death in the context of initiations. ”
See also the template from 1977: Walter Burkert : Greek religion of the archaic and classical epoch. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, pp. 254–255 (first in 1977; the following quote is the only reference in the book to the thigh birth; online ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this note. at scribd.com ): "[...] the unborn child is carried in the thigh of Zeus as in a" male womb "and is born a second time from the thigh. [...] the thigh brings erotic, also homoerotic associations. The thigh wound is related to castration and death, apparently also related to initiations. [...] The birth of Dionysus, celebrated in the dithyramb, his first epiphany coincides with an "unspeakable sacrifice", which corresponds to the sacrifice of the bull in cultic reality. "@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / de.scribd.com

[1] Libraries of Apollodor 3, 4, 3

[Bannert-Aufpfropfen-2] Herbert Bannert: Valdis Leinieks, The City of Dionysus. A Study of Euripides' Bakchai. Stuttgart - Leipzig: BG Teubner 1996. In: Commission for ancient literature and Latin tradition: Reviews. Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna, accessed on November 21, 2013 (German, the following quote is the only reference to the thighbirth in the very subject-related book review): "The interpretation of the thighbirth as a symbol for the ennobling of the vine, the grafting of a new rice on an old trunk with the help of the vintner's knife and the ocular cut is a plausible, because ostensibly coherent and immediately understandable explanation. It goes back to the explanation of vase pictures that K. Kerényi used. All other interpretations are unsatisfactory (193 f.). "

[Kerenyi_1975-172-3] Karl Kerényi : The thigh birth and the idol with the mask. In: Same: Dionysus. Archetype of indestructible life. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-608-91686-5 , p. 172 (for the first time 1975; side view in the Google book search): “The birth from the father's thigh was linked to the epithet of Dionysus Eiraphiotes and became the victim not made by himself, but father Zeus. Eiraphiotes actually means one "who has been sewn in". [...] The invention of a birth out of the thigh had its function in Greece: the concealment of what the god did on his own body as a lavish gift. The myth cruelly emphasized the eternal, necessary self-sacrifice of the male life force to the female sex: a sacrifice that was made for the whole human race. "