Semele (Σεμέλη) is from the Phrygian *zemelo* (earth). **Theban princess, mortal lover of Zeus, mother of the god Dionysus**. **Tricked by the jealous Hera into demanding to see Zeus in his true form, she was incinerated by his lightning** — but Zeus rescued the unborn Dionysus from her ashes and sewed him into his thigh until birth. **Later raised from Hades by her son to become the goddess Thyone on Olympus**.
Featured in Euripides's *Bacchae* and Handel's opera *Semele* (1744).
Semele reduces to five — the number of Dionysus's mother.