The marriage of Semele to Athamas is being celebrated in Thebes. Semele seeks to postpone the ceremony, for she is in love with Jupiter. It is interrupted and Semele is carried off to Cithaeron. In her palace there, Semele revels in the love of Jupiter, who brings her as companion her sister Ino. Juno, enraged by her husband's infidelity, calls on the god of sleep to arouse...
SYNOPSIS:
The marriage of Semele to Athamas is being celebrated in Thebes. Semele seeks to postpone the ceremony, for she is in love with Jupiter. It is interrupted and Semele is carried off to Cithaeron. In her palace there, Semele revels in the love of Jupiter, who brings her as companion her sister Ino. Juno, enraged by her husband's infidelity, calls on the god of sleep to arouse Jupiter with a dream so erotic that he can refuse no request that Semele might make; then, in Ino's guise, she counsels Semele to demand that Jupiter come to her not in mortal form by as the Mighty Thunderer - only thus, she says, can Semele secure immortality. This Semele duly does when Jupiter, eager for her embrace, approaches her. Bound by his oath to comply with her request, he has to obey; inevitably, she is consumed by his fire. The people of Thebes mourn her but celebrate the birth from her ashes of a new deity, Bacchus.
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