There are various other versions of his transgression: The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and pseudo-Apollodoran Bibliotheke state that his offense was that he was a rival of Zeus for Semele, his mother's sister, whereas in Euripides ' Bacchae he has boasted that he is a better hunter than Artemis:

Different tellings also diverge in the hunter's transgression, which is sometimes merely seeing the virgin goddess naked, sometimes boasting he is a better hunter than she, or even merely being a rival of Zeus for the affections of Semele.

Another variation is when Hera persuades Semele to force Zeus to show himself in his real form.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, thus semi-divine or heroic: and as son of Zeus and Persephone or Demeter, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic and possibly identical with Iacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The name " Semele ", like other elements of Dionysiac cult ( e. g., thyrsus and dithyramb ), is not Greek but Thraco-Phrygian ;, derived from a PIE root meaning " earth ".

There is no suggestion in the text that Semele is a virgin, however.

The most usual setting for the story of Semele is the palace that occupied the acropolis of Thebes, called the Cadmeia.

In another myth, when his mother, Semele, is killed, the care of young Dionysus falls into the hands of her sisters, Ino, Agave, and Autonoe, who later are depicted as participating in the rites and taking a leadership role among the other maenads.

Ariadne ( Etruscan Areatha ) is paired with Dionysus ( Etruscan Fufluns ) on engraved bronze Etruscan bronze mirrorbacks, where the Athenian culture-hero Theseus is absent, and Semele ( Etruscan Semla ), as mother of Dionysus, may accompany the pair, lending a particularly Etruscan air of family authority.

Due to the curse the witch-queen put on her, Madam Semele is unable to see Yvaine, but agrees to transport Tristran the rest of the way to Wall, as she is going there to attend the market herself.

Una informs Madam Semele that she ( Una ) will soon be free, as her enslavement is due to end when the moon loses her child ( Yvaine ), if it happens in a week when two Mondays come together ( the marriage of Victoria and Monday ).

Alcmene is mentioned also in The Frogs, Semele in Thesmophoriazusae.

Semele ( HWV 58 ) is a 1743 opera ( initially presented as an oratorio ) in three acts by George Frideric Handel.

It is based on the classical myth of Semele, mother of Dionysus.

:" ... the music of Semele is so full of variety, the recitative so expressive, the orchestration so inventive, the characterization so apt, the general level of invention so high, the action so full of credible situation and incident — in a word, the piece as a whole is so suited to the operatic stage — that one can only suppose its neglect to have been due to an act of abnegation on the part of opera companies.

But the amorous topic of Semele, which is practically a creation of the late Restoration Period, transparently drew on Greek myths, not Hebrew laws, and so it displeased those attending for a different kind of uplift.

Semele is an opera by John Eccles.

The libretto is by William Congreve, drawing on the Greek myth of Semele.

The appearance of Zeus to Semele, is more than a mortal can stand and she is burned to death by the flames of His power.

Of course, though Zeus no longer marries, he still has affairs with many other women, such as Semele, mother of Dionysus, Danae, mother of Perseus, Leda, mother of Castor and Polydeuces and Helen, and Alkmene, the mother of Heracles, who married Hebe.

Aphrodite, who married Hephaistos, nevertheless had an affair with Ares to have Eros ( Love ), Phobos ( Fear ), Deimos ( Cowardice ), and Harmonia ( Harmony ), who would later marry Cadmus to sire Ino ( who with her son, Melicertes would become a sea deity ), Semele ( Mother of Dionysos ), Autonoë ( Mother of Actaeon ), Polydorus, and Agave ( Mother of Pentheus ).

Flying over the scene in the guise of an eagle, Zeus fell in love with Semele and afterwards repeatedly visited her secretly.

Zeus ' wife, Hera, a goddess jealous of usurpers, discovered his affair with Semele when she later became pregnant.

In Dionysiaca 7. 110 he classifies Zeus's affair with Semele as one in a set of twelve, the other eleven women on whom he begot children being Io, Europa, the nymph Pluto, Danaë, Aigina, Antiope, Leda, Dia, Alcmene, Laodameia, mother of Sarpedon, and Olympias.

Drawing from an Etruscan mirror: Semele embracing her son Dionysus, with Apollo looking on and a satyr playing an aulos

In his poem on the Roman calendar, Ovid ( d. 17 CE ) identifies this goddess with Semele:

At Thebes, Cadmus and Harmonia began a dynasty with a son Polydorus, and four daughters, Agave, Autonoë, Ino and Semele.

Some accounts say that he was reassembled and resurrected by Demeter ; others, that Zeus fed his heart to Semele in a drink, making her pregnant with Dionysus.

He explains the story of his birth, how his mother Semele had enamoured the god Zeus, who had come down from Mount Olympus to lie with her.

Ino, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, had an end just as tragic as her siblings: Semele died while pregnant with Zeus ' child, killed by her own pride and lack of trust in her lover ; Agave killed her own son, King Pentheus, while struck with Dionysian madness, and Actaeon, son of Autonoe, the third sibling, was torn apart by his own hunting dogs.

Semele, during her pregnancy with Dionysus, was destroyed by the sight of the splendor of Zeus.

In these, it was he that directed Hera's attention to Zeus's many affairs, including one of his most famous, that with the Theban princess Semele.

On their first encounter, Semele drugs the witch-queen's food with a magical substance that causes her to speak only the truth, thus forcing her to blurt out the truth of the fallen star.

They share a meal and Madam Semele gives witch-queen meat cooked with Limbus grass, which causes anyone who tastes it to speak nothing but the truth, forcing the witch-queen to reveal the true purpose of her journey.

Upon parting company with the ship and its crew, Tristran and Yvaine encounter Madam Semele.

Eccles also wrote an all-sung English opera Semele with text by Congreve, but it was not staged until the 20th century.

Semele was performed in Washington, DC, in 1980, and at Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1985, on the latter occasion with Kathleen Battle in the title role and John Nelson conducting.

Zurich Opera in Switzerland mounted Semele in 2007 as a vehicle for Cecilia Bartoli, with Birgit Remmert and Charles Workman as Juno and Jupiter and William Christie conducting.

Eccles's work should not be confused with the 1744 opera Semele by George Frideric Handel, also based upon Congreve's libretto.

* An alternative name for Semele in Greek mythology

A proposed resolution of these conflicting versions involves considering an early Lysias, Elishah ( maybe the founder of Portalegre in 1900 BC ) and Lusus ( having as mortal father king Siceleo of Iberia, grandson of Atlante / Atlas, founder of Atlantis, to be a possible descendant of Elishah, and possibly having Bacchus as his real and divine father ) as coming in between this and another Lysias son of Bacchus ( who in this version is clearly the son of Semele who conquered Iberia, not the son of Jupiter and Io who conquered India or the son of Jupiter and Proserpina who was an agrarian and herding culture hero ), who was of a different cast but with the similarity of name to the above claimed be their reincarnation and became the new separate king of the Lusitanians since Lusus.

Alternatively, Lysithea is another name for Semele, daughter of Cadmos and Harmonia ; sister to Agave, Autonoë, Ino, and Polydorus ; mother of Dionysos by Zeus ( and who became Thyone after being rescued from Hades by her divine son ).