The adoptive father of Dionysus, often associated with the Satyr, Silenus is one of the major spirits of the forest. Often drunk, he mingles with the Maenads in the procession of his son, the dismembered god, the god of vital intoxication and theater. He is said to possess incomparable wisdom, which he nonetheless refuses to share. King Midas, eager to acquire his knowledge, imprisoned him in order to obtain his truth under duress. It is reported that Silenus made this statement to him: “The best thing for man would be not to be born, and if he is born, to die as soon as possible…” To hear only the truth of absolute pessimism is to disregard the context of imprisonment and to miss the terrible irony of the sentence. Silenus is not pessimistic; he is drunk, drunk on life and death, like the forest that shelters him.
