Selene and Dionysos

I have found quite a few things exciting about Lady Selene (seriously, can we praise Theoi.com enough?), after getting the nudge from her (or Someone Else) to look more into her myths. And man did I find a lot!

In Nonnus’ Dionysiaca Selene appears numerous times. In the Titanomachy, Typhoeus faces off against at one point Selene, who is described as pulling a chariot with white oxen, and the patterns on the moon come from the blows he made on the diadem Selene wears (basically, battle scars). Also a nice description of apparently Selene ripping open Typhoeus’s throat.

“[The monster Typhoeus laid siege to heaven, challenging the rule of Zeus :] Many a time he [Typhoeus] took a bull at rest from his rustic plowtree and shook him with a threatening hand, bellow as he would, then shot him against Selene the Moon like another moon, and stayed her course, then rushed hissing against the goddess, checking with the bridle her bulls’ white yoke-straps, while he poured out the mortal whistle of a poison-spitting viper. But Titanis Mene [Selene] would not yield to the attack. Battling against the Gigante’s heads, like horned to hers [Selene was pictured with horns and a disc between them which formed the circle of the moon, with these she locked horns with one of Typhoeus’ bull heads], she carved many a scar on the shining orb of her bull’s horn [i.e the smooth white surface of the moon was scarred by this battle]; and Selene’s radiant cattle bellowed amazed at the gaping chasm of Typhaon’s throat.”

There is also another mention of when Dionysos and his followers and fleeing the wrath of Pentheus.

“Mene [Selene the Moon] helped Bromios [Dionysos], attacking Pentheus with her divine scourge; the frenzied reckless fury of distracting Selene joining in displayed many a phantom shape to maddened Pnetheus [who became lunatic or moon-struck], and made the dread son of Ekhion forget his earlier intent, while she deafened his confused ears with the bray of her divine avenging trumpet, and she terrified the man.”

Nonnus even makes the claim of Selene being connected to lunacy and Dionysos’ Bakkhic rites, which is not surprising. Lunacy is a form of madness connected to the moon. Although Theoi says its a late classical claim, there is no reason it was just never written about before (we’ve lost tonnes of information from that time), and maybe in the span of ancient Greece that might be young, but in the history of the world? That makes it pretty damn old.

“Dionysos waited for darksome night, and appealed in these words to circle Mene (Moon) in heaven : `O daughter of Helios, Mene of many turnings, nurse of all! O Selene, driver of the silver car! If thou art Hekate of many names, if in the night thou doest shake thy mystic torch in brandcarrying hand, come nightwanderer . . . If thou art staghunter Artemis, if on the hills thou dost eagerly hunt with fawnkilling Dionysos, be thy brother’s helper now! . . . I am being chased out of Thebes [by Pentheus] . . . a mortal man, a creature quickly perishing, an enemy of god, persecutes me. As a being of night, help Dionysos of the night, when they pursue me! If thou art Persephoneia, whipperin of the dead, and yours are the ghosts which are subservient to the throne of Tartaros, let me see Pentheus a dead man, and let Hermes thy musterer of ghosts lull to sleep the tears of Dionysos in his grief. With Tartarean whip of thy Tisiphone, or furious Megaira, stop the foolish threats of Pentheus . . .’
To this appeal Mene answered on high : `Night-illuminating Dionysos, friend of plants, comrade of Mene, look to your grapes; my concern is the mystic rites of Bakkhos, for the earth ripens the offspring of your plants when it receives the dewy sparkles of unresting Selene. Then do you, dancing Bakkhos, stretch out your thyrsos and look to your offspring; and you need not fear a race of puny men, whose mind is light, whose threats the whips of the Eumenides [Erinyes] repress perforce. With you I will attack your enemies. Equally with Bakkhos I rule distracted madness. I am the Bakkhic Mene, not alone because in heaven I turn the months, but because I command madness and excite lunacy. I will not leave unpunished earthly violence against you . . .’
Such was the answer of the goldenrein deity to Bromios. But while Bakkhos yet conversed with circling Mene, even then Persephone was arming her Erinyes.”

Also numerous times Dionysos is compared to Selene,

“Orontes [an Indian chief] proud of his armament struck Bakkhos on the top of his head, but wounded him not; he grazed the sharp horn of Bromios all for nothing. For Lord Dionysos wore on that invulnerable head . . . the shape of the bullfaced Selene the Moon . . . Lyaios wore the heavenly image of the cow’s eye Selene, a growth of divine horns which cannot be broken, which enemies cannot shake.”

or his mother is compared to Selene,

“[A Naiad compares the fair Semele to Selene :] I spy a silverfooted maiden stretched under the streams of my river! I believe Selene bathes in the Aonian [Theban] waves on her way to Endymion’s bed on Latmos, the bed of a sleepless shepherd; but if she has prinked herself out for her sweet shepherd, what’s the use of Asopos after the Okeanos stream? And if she has a body white as the snows of heaven, what mark of the Moon has she? A team of mules unbridled and a mule-cart with silver wheels are there on the beach, but Selene knows not how to put mules to her yokestrap–she drives a team of bulls!

or even Selene getting pissed at Aphrodite for making Harmonia (the mother of Semele) and Kadmus fall in love

“When Mene [Selene the Moon] saw the girl [Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite] following a stranger [Kadmos, her bridegroom] along the shore above the sea, and boiling under fiery constraint, she reproached Kypris [Aphrodite] in mocking words : `So you make war even upon your children, Kypris! Not even the fruit of your womb is spared by the goad of love! Don’t you pity the girl you bore, hardheart? What other girl can you pity then, when you drag your own child into passion?–Then you must go wandering too, my darling. Say to your mother, Paphian’s child, `Phaethon mocks you, and Selene puts me to shame.’ Harmonia, love-tormented exile, leave to Mene her bridegroom Endymion, and care for your vagrant Kadmos. Be ready to endure as much trouble as I have, and when you are weary with lovebegetting anxiety, remember lovewounded Selene.’”

This one is kind of sad, but Ampelos brags to Selene that he is like her in that he now has horns and is riding a ferocious bull. Selene Does Not Approve:

“[Ampelos, love of Dionysos, riding on the back of a wild bull :] He shouted boldly to the fullfaced Moon (Mene)–`Give me best, Selene, horned driver of cattle! Now I am both–I have horns and I ride a bull!’ So he called out boasting to the round Moon. Selene looked with a jealous eye through the air, to see how Ampleos rode on the murderous marauding bull. She sent him a cattlechasing gadfly; and the bull, pricked continually all over by the sharp sting, galloped away like a horse through pathless tracts . . . [it then threw him and gorged him to death].”

Kadmos, the grandfather of Dionysos, dedicates one of the first gates of the new-founded Thebes to Selene:

“He [Kadmos founder of Thebes] dedicated the seven gates [of the new-founded city] to the seven planets. First towards the western clime he allotted the Onkaian Gate to Mene [Selene the Moon] brighteyes, taking the name from the honk of cattle, because Selene herself, bullshaped, horned, driver of cattle, being triform is Tritonis Athene.”

Now Theoi.com does say that Ariadne and Selene were equated earlier in history, but with no reference. Nor does it make sense (I’ve not heard of Ariadne being “originally a moon goddess”) so I’m taking that with a hunk of sea salt. I also can’t find anything with “moon” or “Selene” on Ariadne’s page either, so.

There are also numerous mentions of Selene being bull-faced, or having bulls as steeds, or bull-horns, etc. Just use your search feature on her page and you’ll find ‘em.

Next I will be making a what I assume to be a shorter post of possible connections between Kybele and Selene.