Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was a mortal woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus' wife, Hera, a jealous and prudish goddess, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Therefore he came to her wreathed in bolts of lightning; mortals, however, could not look upon an undisguised god without dying, and she perished in the ensuing blaze. Zeus rescued the foetal Dionysus by sewing him into his thigh. A few months later, Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria, where Zeus went to release the now-fully-grown baby from his thigh. In this version, Dionysus is borne by two "mothers" (Semele and Zeus) before his birth, hence the epithet dimētōr (of two mothers) associated with his being "twice-born".

In the Cretan version of the same story, which Diodorus Siculus follows, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the Greek underworld. Diodorus' sources equivocally identified the mother as Demeter. A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. It is said that he was mocked by the Titans who gave him a thyrsus (a fennel stalk) in place of his rightful sceptre. Zeus drove the Titans away with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate him in the womb of Semele, hence he was again "the twice-born". Other versions claim that Zeus gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her.

The rebirth in both versions of the story is the primary reason why Dionysus was worshipped in mystery religions, as his death and rebirth were events of mystical reverence. This narrative was apparently used in several Greek and Roman cults, and variants of it are found in Callimachus and Nonnus, who refer to this Dionysus with the title Zagreus, and also in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.

The myth of the dismemberment of Dionysus by the titans, is alluded to by Plato in his Phaedo (69d) in which Socrates claims that the initiations of the Dionysian Mysteries are similar to those of the philosophic path. Late Platonists such as Damascius explore the implications of this at length.

相關(guān)中文閱讀（摘自百度百科）

古希臘神話里的酒神狄奧尼索斯(Dionysus)是葡萄酒與狂歡之神，也是古希臘的藝術(shù)之神。據(jù)最流行的傳說，他是宙斯(Zeus)和西姆萊公主(Semele)所生的兒子。宙斯的妻子赫拉(Hera)是只醋壇子，凡是宙斯與別人相愛，她一定要作陷害性的報復(fù)。赫拉勸誘懷了孕的西姆萊公主請求宙斯現(xiàn)出本相，以證明愛情的神圣性。原來，宙斯與人間女子相愛時，都以化身出現(xiàn)。在西姆萊的請求下，宙斯表示同意。宙斯是希臘宗教和神話里的主神，他的威力太大，西姆萊這個凡間女子無法承受，結(jié)果被雷霆擊死。宙斯從西姆萊的腹中取出未足月的胎兒，縫入自己的大腿。宙斯在這段時間里成了瘸腿。兒子足月后出生，意思是“宙斯瘸腿”。這樣，狄奧尼索斯出生過兩次。

狄奧尼索斯的生死神奇?zhèn)髡f以及他同美女阿里阿德涅的婚姻，使得他在有些地方，人們幾乎把他和太陽神阿波羅(Apollo)同等對待。酒神的表征是一個由常春藤、葡萄蔓和葡萄果穗纏繞而成的花環(huán)，一支杖端有松果形物的圖爾索斯杖和一只叫坎撤洛斯的雙柄大酒杯。在早期的繪畫藝術(shù)中，他被描繪成一個蓄須男子，但后來又變成了一個有女性味道的青年男子，并常由女祭司們陪伴和長笛演奏者們簇期著。希臘國家博物館的古幣館中陳列著一枚鑄有狄奧尼索斯頭像的古希臘錢幣。酒神面帶希臘眾神所共有的平靜表情，他的頭發(fā)用葡萄蔓結(jié)成發(fā)髻，葡萄葉裝飾著他的前額，猶如頭戴王冠。

早在公元前7世紀(jì)，古希臘就有了“大酒神節(jié)”(Great Dionysia)。每年3月為表示對酒神狄奧尼索斯的敬意，都要在雅典舉行這項活動。人們在筵席上為祭祝酒神狄奧尼索斯所唱的即興歌，稱為“酒神贊歌”(Dithyramb)。與比較莊重的“太陽神贊歌”相比，它以即興抒情合唱詩為特點，并有蘆笛伴奏，朗然起舞的酒神贊歌受到普遍的歡迎。到公元前6世紀(jì)左右，酒神贊歌開始負(fù)盛譽，并發(fā)展成由50名成年男子和男孩組成的合唱隊、在科林斯的狄奧尼索斯大賽會上表演競賽的綜合藝術(shù)形式。偉大的酒神贊歌時代也是偉大的希臘抒情合唱詩盛行的時代，井導(dǎo)致了古希臘戲劇、音樂藝術(shù)的發(fā)展。古希臘的悲劇、喜劇和羊人劇都源于“大酒神節(jié)”。