Once there, Cadmus suddenly fell weary and was filled with an insupportable dread. He called up to the skies.
‘For the last thirty years I have known in my heart that in killing that cursed water snake I killed any chance of happiness for me or my wife. Ares is remorseless. He will not rest until I am as flat on the earth as a snake. If it will calm him and bring more peace to my troubled life then let me end my life sliding through the dust. Let it be so.’fn13
No sooner were those words out of his mouth than his unhappy prayer became an unhappy reality. His body began to shrink sideways and stretch lengthways, his skin to blister and form smooth scales, and his head to flatten into a diamond shape. The tongue that had shouted that dreadful wish to the heavens now flicked and darted out from between two fangs. The man who was once Cadmus, Prince of Tyre and King of Thebes, fell writhing to the ground, a common snake.
Harmonia let out a great howl of despair.
‘Gods have pity!’ she cried. ‘Aphrodite, if you are my mother show love now and let me join upon the earth the one I love. The fruits of the world are dust to me. Ares, if you are my father show mercy. Zeus if, as some say, you are my father then, in the name of all creation, take pity, I beg you.’
It was, however, none of those three who heard her prayers, but merciful Athena who transformed her into a snake. Harmonia glided through the dust after her serpent-husband and they coiled about each other with love.
The pair lived out their days in the shadows of a temple sacred to Athena, only showing themselves when they needed to heat their blood in the noonday sun. When the end came, Zeus returned them to their human shapes in time to die. Their bodies were taken to be buried with great ceremony in Thebes, and Zeus sent two great serpents to guard their tombs for eternity.
We will leave Cadmus and Harmonia to their everlasting rest. They died quite unaware that their youngest daughter, Semele, had, in their absence, unleashed a force into the world that would change it for ever.
Twice Born
The Eagle Lands
After Cadmus and Harmonia departed on their travels, their son-in-law Pentheus reigned in Thebes.fn1 He was not a strong king, but he was honest and did the best he could with the limited store of character and cunning on which he was able to call. While the city-state flourished well enough under him, he needed always to look over his shoulder to the children of Cadmus, his brothers- and sisters-in-law, whose greed and ambition posed a constant threat. Even his wife Agave seemed contemptuous of him and anxious for him to fail. His youngest sister-in-law, Semele, was the only one with whom he felt at all at ease, in truth because she was less worldly than her brothers Polydorus and Illyrius, and nothing like as ambitious for wealth and position as her sisters Agave, Autonoë and Ino. Semele was a beautiful, kindly and generous girl, content with her life as a priestess at the great temple of Zeus.
One day she sacrificed to Zeus a bull of especially impressive size and vigour. The offering complete, she took herself off to the River Asopos to wash the blood from her. It so happened that Zeus, pleased with the sacrifice and intending anyway to look in on Thebes to see how the city prospered, was flying over the river at the time in his favourite guise of an eagle. The sight of Semele’s naked body glistening in the water excited him hugely and he landed, turning himself quickly back into his proper form. I say ‘proper form’, for when the gods chose to reveal themselves to humans they presented themselves in a reduced, manageable guise that did not dazzle or overawe. Thus the figure that stood on the riverbank smiling at Semele appeared human. Large, stunningly handsome, powerfully built and possessed of an unusual radiance, but human all the same.
Crossing her arms over her breasts Semele called out, ‘Who are you? How dare you sneak up upon a priestess of Zeus?’
‘A priestess of Zeus, are you?’
‘I am. If you mean any harm to me I will cry out to the King of the Gods and he will rush to my aid.’
‘You don’t say so?’
‘You may be sure of it. Now leave.’
But the stranger came closer. ‘I am well pleased with you, Semele,’ he said.
Semele backed away. ‘You know my name?’
‘I know many things, loyal priestess. For I am the god you serve. I am the Sky Father, the King of Olympus. Zeus, the all-powerful.’
Semele, still half in the river, gasped and fell to her knees.
‘Come now,’ said Zeus, striding through the water towards her, ‘let me look into your eyes.’
It was splashy, frenzied and wet, but it was real love-making. When it was over Semele smiled, blushed, laughed and then wept, leaning her head on Zeus’s chest and sobbing without cease.
‘Don’t cry, dearest Semele,’ said Zeus, running his fingers through her hair. ‘You have pleased me.’
‘I’m sorry, my lord. But I love you and I know all too well that you can never love a mortal.’
Zeus gazed down at her. The eruption of lust he had felt was all over, but he was surprised to feel the stirrings of something deeper, glowing like embers in his heart. A god who operated in vertical moments with no real thought for consequences along the line, he really did experience just then a great wellspring of love for the beautiful Semele, and he told her so.
‘Semele, I do love you! I love you sincerely. Believe me now when I swear by the waters of this river that I will always look after you, care for you, protect you, honour you.’ He cupped her face in his hands and bent forward to bestow a tender kiss on her soft, receptive lips. ‘Now, farewell, my sweet. Once every new moon I will come.’
Dressed in her gown, her hair still damp and her whole being warm and bright with love and happiness, Semele walked back across the fields towards the temple. Looking up, a hand shading her eyes, she saw an eagle sweep and soar through the sky, seemingly into the sun itself, until the dazzle of it made her eyes water and she was forced to look away.
The Eagle’s Wife
Zeus meant well.
Those three words so often presaged disaster for some poor demigod, nymph or mortal. The King of the Gods did love Semele and he really meant to do his best by her. In the fervour of his new infatuation he managed conveniently to forget the torments Io had endured, maddened by the gadfly sent by his vengeful wife.
Alas, Hera may no longer have had Argus of the hundred eyes to gather intelligence for her, but she had thousands of eyes in other places. Whether it was one of the jealous sisters, Agave, Autonoë or Ino, who spied on Semele and whispered to Hera the story of the love-making in the river, or whether it was one of the Queen of Heaven’s own priestesses, is not known. But find out Hera did.
So it was that, one afternoon, Semele, returning with romantic sentiment to the place of her regular amorous encounters with Zeus, encountered a stooping old woman leaning on a stick.
‘My, what a pretty girl,’ croaked the old woman, slightly overdoing the cracked and cackling voice of a miserable crone.
‘Why thank you,’ said the unsuspicious Semele with a friendly smile.
‘Walk with me,’ said the hag, pulling Semele towards her with her cane. ‘Let me lean upon you.’
Semele was polite and considerate by nature in a culture where the elderly were in any case accorded the greatest attention and respect, so she accompanied the old woman and endured her roughness without complaint.
‘My name is Beroë,’ said the old woman.
‘And I am Semele.’
‘What a pretty name! And here is Asopos,’ Beroë indicated the clear waters of the river.
‘Yes,’ assented Semele, ‘that is the river’s name.’