Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

by Stephen Fry

With a peal of thunder Zeus returned to flesh and blood and plucked the fetus from Semele’s belly. It was too young to breathe the air, so Zeus took a knife and sliced open his thigh and tucked the embryo inside. Holding it tight within this makeshift womb Zeus knelt down to sew the child safely into his warm flesh.134 THE NEWEST GOD Three months later Zeus and Hermes traveled to Nysus on the north coast of Africa, an area that lies, it is generally believed, somewhere between Libya and Egypt. There Hermes cut open the stitching on Zeus’s thigh and delivered him of a son, DIONYSUS.135 The infant was suckled by the rain nymphs of Nysus;136 and, once weaned, was tutored by potbellied Silenus, who was to become his closest companion and follower—a kind of Falstaff to the young god’s Prince Hal. Silenus had his own train of followers too, the sileni—satyr-like creatures forever associated with antic riot, rout, and revelry.