Off His Ass
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0Drunkenly weaving, slow-moving donkeys are the number one cause of highway accidents. It’s a fact, look it up.
It struck me today that Dionysus is sort of like the Juan Valdez of booze. Clearly a huge hit at frat parties.
Dionysus, Greek God of wine, of wine making, and of ritual madness among other things was seen as an important figure amongst the Greeks and his rituals helped to inspire much of the work in the Greek Theater. In early art and literature, the Greeks depicted this (predominantly) fun-loving God as a bearded man, strong and jovial, always with a jug of wine to pour for his followers and friends. As time went on, Dionysus became a young man, beautiful and effeminate, but always with wine ready to flow. There were many stories about this important deity and plays about him were not uncommon. He had many symbols including ivy, asses (donkeys), panthers, the thyrsus (a kind of staff), grapes, vines, and wine, all of which factored into the imagery used to portray him on vessels and in sculpture and which went into the descriptions of him in plays and stories.
Dionysus was a cult classic amongst the Greek pantheon, so to speak. While his origins remain a little muddy (there is some speculation that he arrived amongst the Greeks from foreign parts) there is no doubting the strength of the more focused religions that sprang up around him. Like other deities worshiped by the people of Greece and the surrounding islands, Dionysus gathered many people that chose to focus on his particular mysteries. The resulting cults were some of the most long lasting among the Greek pantheon. Unsurprisingly, as the god of drunkenness and revelry, Dionysus maintained a substantial following well into the Christian ages until the crackdown on pagan religions forced it to dissolve or disappear from history in the 4th century CE.
Surprisingly enough to people that don’t study comparative religion/mythology or mythology in general, Dionysus is a somewhat controversial figure. Within Greek myth, he represents a controversial archetype known as the “Dying and Returning God”, ie- a deity that returns from the dead, a relatively unique position in the Greek pantheon (though Persephone’s situation is somewhat similar), but one that he shares with other notable religious figures like the Egyptian Osiris and the Christian Jesus. There have been debates amongst scholars about the validity of such an archetype, as it is reductionist and implies connections when there are none. I’m inclined to agree that it’s not very accurate.
This brings me to one of my pet-peeves in the world of comparative religion/mythology. There have been a number of conspiracy theories floated about the Christian religion (and others, though they are no longer relevant in today’s world) as a result of this archetype, the movie Zeitgeist, and several books that parrot similar ideas. I’ve read a lot of claims about how the Egyptian Horus was copied directly by the Christian religion or how Dionysus was the basis for Jesus and the wine thing and so on and so forth. Having studied greek myth and having read a substantial amount of E. A. Wallis Budge’s translations of Egyptian hieroglyphs, I can honestly say it’s pretty bunk and I can’t stand it. People are often grabbed by sensational nonsense, particularly about things they don’t know anything about, the more obscure the better, and it’s frustrating. Rather than thinking it out and realizing that yeah, there are similarities and that there are, very likely, borrowed elements within every religion, to say that Christianity is some vast conspiracy of plagiarized mythological material is ignorant at best and downright asinine at worst.
All of these religions are beautiful and interesting in their own ways, even if you don’t and never will believe in them yourself. They offer symbolism and stories that are poignant and powerful and that are deeply interesting to study from an outside perspective. Dionysus is just one figure amongst a vast group of mythological figures from the Jewish Moses to the Chinese god dragon Yinglong. It is important to respect each religion as unique even while noting similarities that crop up amongst them. To understand how religions influence one another and how they generate new symbolic concepts is to understand something very fundamental about humanity, and to reduce this to conspiracy theories is not doing any of it justice.
I guess there is one thing to be said for both Jesus and Dionysus, however. They both offered humanity loads of free booze. If you decide to partake of THAT particular mystery, please don’t drive, donkey or otherwise. Just sleep it off where you are.
I’m sure they’d both appreciate it.
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I really admire your view on religion – finding beauty beyond one’s own views is just so hard to do, and it is so fantastic to see that you do that very thing!
Why thank you! One of my other pet peeves is confirmation bias. While it’s difficult to avoid it entirely, I do my best to listen openly to what other people are saying and to think it through, logically, myself. It’s more important than ever, what with the polarized nature of discourse in many countries today, for people to be able to have a legitimate discussion about differing views. Ideally, there would be some middle ground people could reach but by abandoning confirmation bias and expanding one’s view of how people come to their opinions (even if you don’t agree with them), it’s a lot easier to at least not hate other people for their viewpoints.
donkeying under influence?
This is just awesome. Both the comic and the commentary!
“Dionysus was a cult classic amongst the Greek pantheon, so to speak.”
That was brilliant. I lol’d.
Plus anything with Dionysus is potentially comedy gold. I hope we see more of him.
I tend to agree re: “comparative” religion, but if you’re reading Budge, you’re missing out on nearly 100 years of scholarship– ie, the vast majority of egyptology. Be careful– I’ve heard tell that his translations are occasionally just flat-out wrong, due to what materials were available to him vs what we have now.
You’re right, there are discrepancies, I’ve read some other texts on Egyptian myth as well, but mentioned him specifically because he’s the one that these conspiracy theories rely on. Even with some incorrect translation and scholarship, what he came up with doesn’t feature the nonsense portrayed by conspiracy theorists. That’s all I’m saying
Next comic idea for you, Scott: “Dire Owls and Zombies” ;D
Isn’t it a little early to be that drunk? The sky is so bright blue. Who knows, I guess, when you are talking about the inventor of the orgy…
Heeeeeyyyyy. Waitasecond. I could have sworn Dionysus was a young man first, and then evolved into a fat dude, more or less following the ancient Greek’s transitions of the perception and acceptance of male beauty. The youthful and lovely almost boy-girl god of androgyny, and also having a good time, during the times that youthful beauty was popular, then as the image of manly masculinity became more popular and accepted he began to change into the fat, bearded drunk dude, more of a humourous figure who’d lost all of his initial power (and, and I don’t know if this is relevant, but older Dionysus also looks like the stereotype of a eunuch or castrati, who tended to all become overweight. Don’t know if they existed in ancient greek).
But do correct me if I’m wrong.
Beard or otherwise depends on the version you see of him (lacking a beard is a way to portray a young lad, after all); however, you are right in that the very classic image of the old man riding an ass is actually a companion of Dionysus and one of his tutors, more or less, the original Silenus (Σειληνός).
This is correct ^
Early artwork depicted him as a bearded fellow, strong and not very old. As time went on and perceptions of Dionysus changed, he became younger, lost his beard, and was made more effeminate. I’m not entirely sure why this is the case, but I suspect it has to do with changing attitudes toward the god and the strength of the religious sects surrounding him as things went on. As I said in the blog post, his cults were some of the most long lasting and influential of the Greek Pantheon.
The image we have of Dionysus today, as the fat fellow on the donkey, is actually Silenus, and is largely due to Disney’s depictions of this character, I suspect.
Thanks! Learning is fun!
Is this comic supposed to be a reference to Black Sheep? Either way, good stuff as always.
This is unrelated to this comic, but I thought you might like it : a series of illustrations about Greek mythology, by Graham Annable :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grickle/sets/72157627270705623/
(it’s still in progress)
Hilarious comic, interesting blog post
I don’t think it is fair to wipe out comparative theology based on the ideal that all religions have their own beauty. Beauty can be shared and can spring from the same source and can later turn into something else, all the while keeping its beauty, but just transforming it into something new and beautiful.
There is a lot to be said about the similarities between myths that cannot be so easily waived aside.