Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Book III - Juno Punishes Semele

"Bk III:253-272 Juno sets out to punish Semele

The debate is undecided: to some the punishment is more violent than just, merely for seeing the face of a goddess, others approve it and call it fitting because of her strict vow of virginity, and both can make a case. Only Jupiter’s wife was saying nothing, neither of praise or blame. She was glad of the disaster that had come down on the house of Agenor, and had transferred her hatred from Europa, to those who were allied to the Tyrian girl by birth. Then there was a fresh wrong added to the first. She was grieved by the fact that Semele was pregnant, with the seed of mighty Jove. Swallowing words of reproach, she said ‘What, in truth, have I gained from frequent reproaches? I must attack her. If I am rightly to be called most powerful Juno, if it is right for me to hold the jewelled sceptre in my hand, if I am queen, and sister and wife of Jove, sister at least, then it is her I must destroy. Yet I think she is content with her secret, and the injury to my marriage will be brief. But she has conceived – and that damages me – and makes her crime visible in her swollen belly, and wants, what I have barely achieved, to be confirmed as the mother of Jupiter’s child, so great is her faith in her beauty. I will render that faith hollow. I am not Saturnia if she does not plunge into the Stygian waters, overwhelmed by Jove himself.’

Bk III:273-315 Semele is consumed by Jupiter’s fire.

At this she rose from her seat and cloaked in a dark cloud she came to Semele’s threshold. But before she removed the cloud she disguised herself as an old woman, ageing her hair, ploughing her skin with wrinkles, and walking with bowed legs and tottering steps. She made her voice sound old and was herself BeroĆ«, Semele’s Epidaurian nurse. So, when they came to Jupiter’s name, in the midst of their lengthy gossiping, she sighed, and said ‘I hope, for your sake, that it really is Jupiter, ‘but I am suspicious of all that sort of thing. Many men have entered the bedrooms of chaste women in the name of the gods. It’s not good enough for him merely to be Jove: he must give a proof of his love if it truly is him. Beg him to assume all his powers before he embraces you, and be just as glorious as when Juno welcomes him on high.

With such words Juno gulled the unsuspecting daughter of Cadmus. Semele asked Jupiter for an unspecified gift. ‘Choose!’ said the god, ‘Nothing will be refused, and, so that you may believe it more firmly, I swear it by the Stygian torrent, that is the divine conscience, the fear, and god, of all the gods.’ Pleased by her misfortune, too successful, and doomed to be undone by her lover’s indulgence, Semele said ‘As Saturnia is used to your embrace, when you enter into the pact of Venus, give yourself to me!’ The god would have stopped her lips as she spoke: but her voice had already rushed into the air." - The Metamorphoses



This part is about when Juno, Jupiters spouse finds out that Semele is pregnant with her Jupiter's child.

The entire book is about relationships

But watch what Semele says when Juno tries to fight with her

"Pleased by her misfortune, too successful, and doomed to be undone by her lover’s indulgence, Semele said ‘As Saturnia is used to your embrace, when you enter into the pact of Venus, give yourself to me!’ The god would have stopped her lips as she spoke: but her voice had already rushed into the air." - The Metamorphoses

Semele practically admits to Juno that Jupiter also slept with Saturnia and Venus.

Besides Jupiter sleeping with Saturnia and Venus he is also having a child with Semele and Juno finds out.

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