Zeus managed to impregnate the mortal Semele with Dionysus. There was just one problem: Zeus was married to someone else besides Semele, and her name was Hera (you know, the head honcho of all Greek goddesses).
While other gods had plenty of dalliances outside of wedlock, Zeus was perhaps the premier philanderer on top of Mount Olympus.
“Hera, always jealous of his many affairs, visited Semele in disguise and convinced her to put Zeus to the test (implying that her lover was really just an ordinary man in disguise — the same motif as later crops up in this story),” Martin says. “So Semele begged Zeus to come to her showing himself as he really was — and he did, in the form of a lightning bolt. He incinerated her on the spot.”
There’s no doubt that’s harsh. But even if he killed his son’s mortal parent, he didn’t want to lose his semi-divine son. He snatched the infant Dionysus from her womb and completed the growth process by sewing him into his own thigh.
Another version of the myth gives the god a different mother: Persephone. While his love for frivolity may not make him the most likely offspring for the queen of the Underworld, Dionysus knew his way around Hades’ domain, no matter who his mother might have been.