‘I heard tell,’ here the old woman’s voice lowered into a harsh whisper, ‘that a priestess of Zeus was seduced here. Right here in the reeds.’
Semele went silent, but the flush that spread instantly up her neck to her cheeks betrayed her as completely as any spoken words.
‘Oh, my dear!’ screeched the crone. ‘It was you! And now that I look, I can see your belly. You are with child!’
‘I … I am …’ said Semele with a becoming mixture of diffidence and pride. ‘But … if you can keep a secret …?’
‘Oh, these old lips never tell tales. You may tell me anything you wish, my dear.’
‘Well, the fact is that the father of this child is – none other than Zeus himself.’
‘No!’ said Beroë. ‘You don’t say so? Really?’
Semele gave a very affirmative nod of the head. She did not like the old woman’s sceptical tone. ‘Truly. The King of the Gods himself.’
‘Zeus? The great god Zeus? Well, well. I wonder … No, I mustn’t say.’
‘Say what, lady?’
‘You seem such a sweet innocent. So trusting. But, my dear, how can you know that it was Zeus? Isn’t that exactly what some wicked seducer might say just to win you?’
‘Oh no, it was Zeus. I know it was Zeus.’
‘Bear with an old woman and describe him to me, my child.’
‘Well, he was tall. He had a beard. Strong. Kindly …’
‘Oh no, I’m sorry to say so, but that is hardly the description of a god.’
‘But it was Zeus, it was! He turned himself into an eagle. I saw it with my very own eyes.’
‘That’s a trick that can be taught. Fauns and demigods can do it. Even some mortal men.’
‘It was Zeus. I felt it.’
‘Hm …’ Beroë sounded doubtful. ‘I have lived amongst the gods. My mother is Tethys and my father Oceanus. I raised and nursed the young gods after they were reborn from Kronos’s stomach. It’s true. I know their ways and their natures and I tell you this, my daughter. When a god manifests himself or herself as they truly are it is like a great explosion. A wondrous thing of force and fire. Unforgettable. Unmistakable.’
‘And that’s just what I felt!’
‘What you felt was no more than the ecstasy of mortal love-making. Depend upon it. Tell me now, will this lover of yours come to you again?’
‘Oh, yes indeed. He visits me faithfully every change of the moon.’
‘If I were you,’ said the old woman, ‘I would make him promise to reveal himself to you as he really is. If he is Zeus you will know it. Otherwise I fear you have been made a fool of, and you are far too lovely and trusting and sweet-natured for that to be allowed. Now, leave me to contemplate the view. Shush, shush, go away.’
And so Semele left the crone, growing more and more hotly indignant all the while. She could not help it, but this warty and wrinkled old creature had got under her skin. So typical of old age to try to take away any pleasure that youth might feel. Her own sisters, Autonoë, Ino and Agave, had disbelieved her when she told them proudly of how she loved Zeus and Zeus loved her. They had shrieked with incredulous mocking laughter and called her a gullible fool. And now this Beroë doubted her story too.
Yet maybe, just maybe there was something in what her sisters and the old witch said. Gods surely had more to them than warm flesh and solid muscle, appealing as those were? ‘Well,’ Semele said to herself, ‘two more nights and there’ll be a new moon in the sky, and then I can prove that nasty interfering old hag wrong.’
Had Semele chanced to turn and look back towards the river, she might have witnessed the extraordinary sight of that nasty interfering old hag, now youthful, beautiful, magisterial and imperious, rising up to the clouds in a purple and gold chariot drawn by a dozen peacocks. And had she the gift of second sight, Semele might have been granted a vision of the actual BEROË, innocent old nurse of the gods, living out her life miles away in respectable retirement on the coast of Phoenicia.fn2
The Manifestationfn3
It was with some impatience that, on the night of the new moon, Semele paced up and down by the banks of River Asopos, awaiting her lover. He arrived at last, this time as a stallion – black, glossy and fine, galloping through the fields towards her as the sun set in the west behind him, seeming to set his mane on fire. Oh, how she loved him!
He let her stroke his flanks and palm his hot nostrils before he transformed himself into the shape she knew and loved so well. Hugging and holding him hard, she began to cry.
‘My darling girl,’ said Zeus, his finger running down to her belly, where it traced the outline of their child, ‘not weeping again? What am I doing wrong?’
‘You really are the god Zeus?’
‘I am.’
‘Will you promise to grant any wish?’
‘Oh, must you really?’ said Zeus with a sigh.
‘It’s nothing – not power or wisdom or jewels, or anything like that. And I don’t want you to destroy anyone. It’s a small thing, really it is.’
‘Then,’ said Zeus, chucking her affectionately under the chin, ‘I will grant your wish.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise. I promise by this river – no, I’ve already sworn one thing by it. I shall promise you by the great Stygian stream herself.’fn4 Raising his hand with mock solemnity, he intoned, ‘Beloved Semele, I swear by sacred Styx that I will grant your next wish.’
‘Then,’ said Semele with a deep breath, ‘show yourself to me.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I want to see you as you really are. Not as a man, but as a god, in your true divinity.’
The smile froze on Zeus’s face. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘Anything but that! Do not wish such a thing. No, no, no!’
It was the tone of voice that gods often used when they realized they had been trapped into a rash promise. Apollo cried out in the same way, you will remember, when Phaeton called upon him to honour his oath. Suspicion flared up in Semele.
‘You promised, you swore by Styx! You swore, you swore an oath!’
‘But my darling girl, you don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘You swore!’ Semele actually stamped her foot.
The god looked up at the sky and groaned. ‘I did. I pledged my word and my word is sacred.’
As he spoke Zeus began to gather himself into the form of a great thundercloud. From the centre of this dark mass flashed the brightest light imaginable. Semele looked on, her face breaking into a broad and ecstatic smile of joy. Only a god could change like this. Only Zeus himself could grow and grow with such dazzling fire and golden greatness.
But the brightness was becoming so fierce, so terrible in the ferocity of its glare, that she threw up an arm to shade her eyes. Yet still the brilliance intensified. With a crack so loud that her ears burst and filled with blood, the radiance exploded in bolts of lightning that instantly struck the girl blind. Deaf and sightless she staggered backwards, but too late to avoid the blazing force of a thunderbolt so powerful that it split her body open, killing her at once.
Above him, around him, inside him, Zeus heard the triumphant laughter of his wife. Of course. He might have known. Somehow Hera had tricked this poor girl into forcing the awful promise from him. Well, she would not get their child. With a peal of thunder Zeus returned to flesh and blood and plucked the foetus from Semele’s belly. It was too young to breathe the air, so Zeus took a knife and sliced open his thigh and tucked the embryo inside. Holding it tight within this makeshift womb Zeus knelt down to sew the child safely into his warm flesh.fn5
The Newest God
Three months later Zeus and Hermes travelled to Nysus on the north coast of Africa, an area that lies, it is generally believed, somewhere between Libya and Egypt. There Hermes cut open the stitching on Zeus’s thigh and delivered him of a son, DIONYSUS.fn6 The infant was suckled by the rain nymphs of Nysus;fn7 and, once weaned, was tutored by pot-bellied Silenus, who was to become his closest companion and follower – a kind of Falstaff to the young god’s Prince Hal. Silenus had his own train of followers too, the sileni – satyr-like creatures for ever associated with antic riot, rout and revelry.