Roberto Calasso: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony

Then Artemis appeared with a sneer. She mocked Aura for walking slowly and heavily, the way pregnant women do. Where was that swift, light step she’d had? And where would Aura be without her speed? She asked her what gifts her lover, Dionysus, had left her. Had he given her some rattles by any chance, for their children to play with? Then she disappeared. Aura continued to wander about. Soon she felt the first birth pains. They went on and on. While Aura was suffering, Artemis appeared again to mock her. She gave birth to twins. Dionysus was proud but afraid that Aura might kill them. He called the huntress Nikaia. He had played the wine trick on her too, raped her in her sleep and deserted her just as he had Aura. And she too had borne him a child, a daughter, Teleté, which means “initiation,” “ultimate achievement.”

Repetition, for a god, is a sign of majesty, necessity’s seal. Nikaia, the magnificent girl who had once had blood gushing from the throat of a harmless herdsman merely because he’d dared speak a few words of love to her, was now working at a loom like any poor woman. (Should Dionysus have given her Ariadne’s spindle perhaps?) But now Nikaia would be able to see that another huntress had come to the same sorry end. Now she could take comfort, Dionysus said, in the thought that she formed part of a divine order. But her role did not end there: she must become the god’s accomplice, help him save at least one of those twins Aura was about to kill. The world, the whole world, the world far away from the woods, the world of temples, ships, and markets, was awaiting the arrival of two new creatures: one was Nikaia’s own daughter, Teleté; the other was one of those twins now in the hands of a pain-crazed Aura.

Aura lifted the two newborn babies to the sky, to the wind that had carried her through life when she ran, and dedicated them to the breeze. She wanted them dashed to pieces. She offered them to a lioness, to have them gobbled up. But a panther came into the lair: tenderly, the animal licked the two infant bodies and fed them, while two snakes protected the entrance to the cave. Then Aura took one of the twins in her hands, threw him in the air, and, when he fell in the dust, leaped on him to tear him to pieces. Terrified, Artemis intervened: she took the other child and, holding a baby in her arms for the first time in her life, fled into the forest.

Aura was alone again. She went down to the banks of the Sangarius, threw her bow and quiver into the river, then dived in herself. The waves covered her body. Water squirted from her breasts. Artemis gave the surviving child to Dionysus. The father took the two babies born from the two girls he had raped in their sleep and brought them to the place where the rites of the mysteries were celebrated. Even Athena clutched the little boy to her virgin breast. Then she handed the child to the Bacchants of Eleusis. In Attica they lit torches in his honor. He was called Iacchus, “the new being who appeared in Eleusis.” Those who had the fortune to see him became happy. Those who didn’t, didn’t even know what happiness means.

But Dionysus’s wanderings and conquests were over now. It was time for him to climb up to Olympus. He would still find himself thinking of Ariadne sometimes. He took a garland of flowers up the mountain in remembrance. Then he sat down at the table of the Twelve. His seat was next to Apollo’s.

Dionysus’s first love was a boy. His name was Ampelos. He played with the young god and the satyrs on the banks of the Pactolus in Lydia. Dionysus noticed the way his long hair fell on his neck, the light that glowed from his body as he climbed out of the water. When he saw him wrestling with a satyr and their feet became knotted together, he was jealous. He wanted to be the only one to fight with Ampelos. They were “erotic athletes.” They threw each other to the ground, and Dionysus loved it when Ampelos got him down and sat on his naked belly. Then they would wash the dust and sweat from their skins, swimming in the river. They invented new games. Ampelos always won. He plaited a crown of snakes and put it on his head the way he’d seen his friend do. He also imitated Dionysus by wearing a mottled tunic. He learned to talk to bears, lions, and tigers. Dionysus encouraged him, but there came the day when he warned him too: you needn’t fear any wild beast, he said, but watch out for the horns of the cruel bull.

Dionysus was alone one day when he witnessed a scene he felt must be an omen. A horned dragon appeared among the rocks. On his back he was carrying a deer. He tipped the creature off onto a stone altar and plunged a horn into its defenseless body. A pool of blood formed on the stone. Dionysus watched and felt grieved, but along with his grieving came an overwhelming desire to laugh, as if his heart were being split in two. Then he found Ampelos again, and they went on wandering about and hunting together as usual. Ampelos used to like playing his reed pipes, and he played badly. But Dionysus never tired of praising him, because while he praised he would watch him. Sometimes Ampelos would remember Dionysus’s warning about the bull, but it made less and less sense. By now he knew all the wild animals, and they were all his friends: why on earth shouldn’t the bull be a friend too? And one day, when he was out on his own, he met a bull among the rocks. The animal was thirsty, its tongue hanging out. The bull drank, then stared at the boy, then belched, and a stream of saliva dribbled from his mouth. Ampelos tried to stroke his horns. He made himself a rush whip and a sort of bridle. He arranged a mottled pelt over the bull’s back and mounted it. For a few moments he experienced a sense of elation no other animal had ever given him. But Selene was jealous. She saw him from on high and sent a gadfly. Irritated, the bull began to gallop, trying to escape that awful sting. Ampelos could no longer control the beast. A last jolt threw him to the ground. There was a dry, cracking sound as his neck snapped. The bull dragged him on, its horn sinking deeper and deeper into the boy’s flesh.

Dionysus found Ampelos in the dust, covered in blood, but still beautiful. Gathered in a circle, the satyrs began to mourn over him. But Dionysus couldn’t join in with them. It wasn’t in his nature to weep. And he realized that he wouldn’t be able to follow Ampelos into Hades, because he was immortal. Over and over he promised himself he’d kill the whole bull species with his thyrsus. Eros, who had disguised himself as a shaggy satyr, came over to console him. He told him a love sting could only be cured by the sting of another love. So he should look elsewhere. When a flower has been cut, the gardener plants another one. But now Dionysus was crying for Ampelos. It was a sign that something had happened that would change his nature, and the nature of the world.

At that moment the Hours were hurrying toward the house of Helios, the sun. There was a sense that something new was about to take place on the celestial wheel. It was time to consult the tablets of Harmony, where Phanes’ primordial hand had inscribed the events of this world in their order. Helios pointed to them where they hung on a wall of his house. The Hours looked at the fourth tablet: it showed the Lion and the Virgin, and Ganymede holding a cup. They interpreted the image: Ampelos would become the vine. He who had brought tears to the god who never wept would also bring delight to the world. Upon hearing which, Dionysus recovered. When the grapes born from Ampelos’s body were mature, he picked the first bunches and, with a gesture he seemed to know of old, squeezed them gently in his hands. He watched as a red stain spread across his fingers. Then he licked them. He thought, Ampelos your end demonstrates the splendor of your body. Even in death you haven’t lost your rosy color.