Zagreus.

[badstar]

I've had two dreams of "Zagreus". And they were both nearly identical. The first happened last month, right after the Dionysus dream, the second was today.

In both dreams, I'm going about my daily life, having normal conversations with people...but random words are replaced with the name "Zagreus"...for example, I'd be buying somehting in a store and the casheri will say "That will be thirty-two dollars and twenty-six Zagreus, please." Or I'll run into a freiend and they'll greet me with "How the Zagreus are you?" This continues throughout the dream.

http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Zagreus.html

ZAGREUS was the "first-born Dionysos," a god of the Orphic Mysteries. He was a son of Zeus and Persephone, who the god seduced in the guise of a serpent. After he was Zeus set him upon the throne of heaven armed with lightning bolts. The Titanes, inspired by the jealous goddess Hera, sneaked into Olympos, tricked the godling into setting aside the lightning bolts with the temptation of toys, then seized and dismembered him with knives. Zeus recovered the child's heart and making it into a potion, fed it to his love Semele. From the drink she conceived the younger Dionysos, as a reincarnation of the first.

Comments

[unixslut.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I have had that name "whispered" to me several times, and found it tripping off my lips in prayer. I didn't know it was an early form of Dionysus (at least not consciously... I may have read something about it a long time ago).

[sherarara.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I read the sources listed, and they are curiously late - I remember something vaguely in the back of my head (which probably means I read it in a commentary or something) that Zagreus was possibly a Minoan deity later assimilated to Dionysus in the Orphaic cults. I also seem to remember that Demeter herself was the mother . . . Weird! Probably just means those crazy Greeks couldn't decide if it was mum or Kore ;)

Don't suppose you know any better source material than what's listed on the link page?

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Hmm..not immediately offhand, I just threw up that link. It's by no means exhaustive. And I'm not especially familiar with Zagreus.

What you're saying sounds familiar though, I think I may have read somethign to that effect in one of Karl Kerenyi's books. I'll dig around later this evening and see what I can find and post it here if you're interested.

[sherarara.livejournal.com]

Sweet. If you just post me a citation, that would be great. I'm sure that the department library will have Kerenyi stuff.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

ok...Zagreus is mentioned very briefly in Kerenyi's Gods of the Greeks on page 114 in the section titled "Orphic Stories", mentioned as being known to Minos on page 201

There's also Kerenyi's Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Zagreus is discussed on page 80-89, within the section titled "The Cretan Core of the Dionysus Myth"...skimming over it I see a brief mention of Orphic myth on page 81. Also discussed on page 110 is the question of Persephone or Demeter as his mother, then Persephone as his mother on 114, Another discussion of Minoan connection on 193, more mention of Orphic connection on page 267-270.