Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/238

224 Diodorus says that barbarians still practise the rite of adoption by a fictitious birth. Men who returned home safely after they were believed to be dead had to undergo a similar ceremony. Bachofen therefore explains the names and myths of the "double-mothered Dionysus" as relics of the custom of the couvade, and of the legal recognition of children by the father, after a period of kinship through women only. This theory is put by Lucian in his usual bantering manner. Poseidon wishes to enter the chamber of Zeus, but is refused admission by Hermes.

"Is Zeus en bonne fortune?" he asks.

"No, the reverse. Zeus has just had a baby."

"A baby! why there was nothing in his figure . . . ! Perhaps the child was born from his head, like Athene?"

"Not at all—his thigh; the child is Semele's."

"Wonderful God! what varied accomplishments! But who is Semele?"

"A Theban girl, a daughter of Cadmus, much noticed by Zeus."

"And so he kindly was confined for her?"

"Exactly!"

"So Zeus is both father and mother of the child."

"Naturally! And now I must go and make him comfortable."

We need not necessarily accept Bachofen's view. This learned author employed indeed a widely comparative method, but he saw everything through certain mystic speculations of his own. It may be