A Hunting Accident Recalls Another Ancient Myth

Dionysus image © Clipart.com

Another in the ongoing saga of "nothing new under the sun" [see Blind Men Hunting] also involves deer and hunting. According to Boy Killed in Hunting Accident, a boy from Buffalo, Minnesota died in a hunting accident on Saturday because he was mistaken for a deer -- this despite the fact that the victim was wearing blaze orange jacket and pants. How could he be mistaken? Could it be an hallucination? If so, it happened before, in Greek mythology, when the king of Thebes was mistaken for a wild animal.

Maenad image © Clipart.com

Dionysus was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Semele, the aunt of the king of Thebes, Pentheus. Dionysus came to Thebes as an adult to punish his aunts for refusing to believe his father was a god. The women become worshipers of Dionysus, or Maenads, and engaged in frenzied, drunken behavior as befits celebration of a wine god. Pentheus disapproved and forbade such worship; however, he could not keep the maenads -- not even his mother Agave -- from their celebration. Pentheus went after the women in the woods, but the women, who were in an ecstatic trance, did not recognize him. They thought Pentheus a wild animal and tore him apart.

The worshipers of Dionysus are also called Bacchae or Bacchantes. There is a play of that name by Euripides that recounts this grisly story.

• Dionysus
• Dionysus - The God a Foolish Mortal Imprisoned
• Why is Agave Punished in the Bacchae?
• Euripides Plays Online