Ancient Art and Ritual

took place early in April, so that the time itself makes us suspect that its ceremonies were connected with the spring. But w

agery, the lowest form of "imitation;" but he divined that a structure so complex as Greek tragedy must have arisen out of a

began with the leaders of the band, with the Queen of the May, and with the "Death" or the "Winter."

e improvisation-the one (tragedy) origin

ival closely akin to those we have just been discussing. The Dithyramb was, to begin with, a spring ritual; and when Aristotle tells us tragedy arose out of the Dithyramb, he gives us, though perha

ery. The Greeks themselves had forgotten that the word Dithyramb meant a leaping, inspired dance. But they had not forgotten on what occasion that dance was danced. Pi

r city, where many feet are treading and incense steams: in sacred Athens come to the holy centre-

ever the chamber of the purple-robed Hours is opened, and nectarous flowers lead in the fragrant spring. Then, then, are flung over the immortal Earth, lovel

ew Earth." The song might have been sung at a "Carrying-in of Summer." The Hor?, the Seasons, a chorus of maidens, lead in

e Rising-up form. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is carried below the Earth, and rises up again year by year. On Greek vase-paintings20 the scene occurs again and again. A m

place where to-day on Easter Tuesday the hills are covered with throngs of dancing men, and specially women, Pausanias21 saw near the City Hearth a rock called "Anaklethra, 'Place of Calling-up,'

ing rites, in which, in some pantomimic dance,

the food-supply. Plutarch22 tells us of a festival held every nine years at Delphi. It was called from the name of the puppet used Charila, a word which originally meant Spring-Maiden, and is connected wi

of Charila is brought in. When they had all received their share, the king struck the image with his sandal, the leader of the Th

ilar rites go on to-day in Bulgaria

e do not know the exact date at which it was celebrated. It had its sequel in another festival at Delphi called Her

ch is known to the Thyiades, but from the rites that are done in

ed puppet Charila, the Spring-Maiden, was brought up from th

eant any great ravenous hunger, and the very intensity and monstrosity of the word takes us back to days when famine was a grim reality. When Plutarch was archon he had, as chief official, to perform the ceremony at the Prytaneion, or Common Hearth. A slave was taken, beaten with rods of a magical plant, and driven out of doors to the words: "Out with Ox-hunger! In with Wealth and Health!" Here we see the a

ceremonies to promote fertility and the food supply may begin at any moment after the earth is ploughed and the seed sown. The sowing of the seed is its death and burial; "that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." When the death and burial are once accomplished the

n. The Dithyramb is a Spring Song at a Spring Festival, and the importa

yramb? Happily yes, and the next p

his Odes, asks a

pear the Grace

ll-driving

ing Song, a primitive rite. Formerly it was considered to be a rather elaborate form of lyric poetry invented comparatively late. But, even allowing it is the Spring Song, are we much further

ey are, in the words of the Collect, the "Givers of all grace," that is, of all increase physical and spiritual. But why do they want to come driving in a Bull? It is easy to see why the Givers of all grace lead the Dithyr

be clear. Plutarch, the first anthropologist, wrote a little treatise called Greek Questions, in which he tells us all the strange out-of-the-way rites and customs he saw in Greece, and then asks himself what they meant. In his 36th Question he asks: "Why do the wome

-time,25 O

oly temp

with thy

h thy bull-

ll, Nobl

oning the Bull; and the Bull, garlanded and filleted, rushing towards them, driven by the Graces, pr

ll' himself? ... or is it that many hold the god is the beginner of sowing and ploughing?" We have seen how a kind of daimon, or spirit, of Winter or Summer arose from an a

fier?" And we find to our amazement that the sanctifier is a Bull. A Bull who not only is holy himself, but is so holy that he has power to make others holy, he is the Sanctifier; and,

elfare. The Bull's sanctified life began with the opening of the agricultural year, whether with the spring or the autumn ploughing we do not know. The dedication of the Bull was a high solemnity. He was led in procession, at the head of which went the chief priest and priestess of the city. With them went a herald and the sacrificer, and two bands of youths and maidens. So holy was the Bull that nothing unlucky might come near him; the youths and maidens m

nurturing, the luck of the State, which is their own luck. So through autumn and winter the Bull lives on, but early in April the end comes. Again a great procession is led forth, the senate and the priests walk in it, and with them come representatives of each class of the State-children and young boys,

Bull, let them divide it up among t

ly flesh is not offered to a god, it is eaten-to every man his portion-by each and every

was set on its feet and yoked to a plough as though it were ploughing. The Death is followed by a Resurrection. Now this is all-important. We are so accustomed to think of sacrifice as the death, the giving up, the renouncing of something. But sacrifice does not mean "death" at all. It means making holy, sanctifying; and holiness was to primitive man just special strength and life. What they wanted from the Bu

blicly tried and condemned the axe that struck the blow. But their best hope, their strongest desire, was that he had not, could not, really have died. So this intense

ood-supply, they thought their daily dinner was secure. Anyhow the emotion that had issued in the pantomime was dead, though from sheer habit the pantomime went on. Probably some of the less educated among them thought there "might be something in it," and anyhow it was "as well to be

ir principal clothing; part of their taxes are paid in bear's fat. The Aino men spend the autumn, winter and spring in hunting the Bear. Yet we are told the Ainos "worship the Bear"; they apply to it the name Kamui, which has been translated god; but it is a word applied to all strangers, and so only means what catches attention, and hence is formidable. I

dromena, his rites; and most of all his great spring and autumn rite, the dromenon of the Bear

ast, then later he is fed on his favourite food, fish-his tastes are semi-polar. When he is at his full strength, that is, when he threatens to

woman of the house who had suckled the Bear sat by herself, sad and silent, only now and then she burst into helpless tears. The ceremony began with libations made to the fire-god and to the house-god set up in a corner of the house. Next the master and some of the guests left the hut and offered libations in front of the Bear's cage. A few drops were presented to him in a saucer, which he promptly upset. Then the women

at the top into spiral shavings. Five new wands with bamboo leaves attached to them are set up for the festival; the leaves according to the Ainos mean that the Bear may come to life again. These wands are specially interesting. The

yaks, not far away in Eastern Siberia, the Bear is led about the villages, and it is held to be specially important that he should be dragged down to the river, for this will ensure the village a plentiful supply of fish. He is then, among the Gilyaks,

ands, a stick placed in his mouth, and nine men press his neck against a beam; he dies without a sound. Meantime the women and girls, who stand behind the men, dance, lament, and beat the men who are killing their Bear. The body of the dead Bear is then laid on a mat before the sacred wands. A sword and quiver, taken from the wands, are hung about

nd eaten raw. The flesh and the rest of the vitals are kept for the day next but one, when it is divided among all persons present at the feast. It is what the Greeks call a dais, a meal divided or distributed. While the Bear is being dismembered the girls dance, in front of the sacred wands, and the old women again lament. The Bear's brain is extracted from his head and eaten, and the skull, severed from the skin, is hu

t far from the village. There all the bones except the skull are buried. After that a young tree is felled a few inches above the ground, its stump is cleft, and the skull wedged into the cleft. When the grass grows over the spot the skull disappears a

nomads, later for agriculturists; the Tree for a forest folk. On the Bear and the Bull and the Tree are focussed the desire of the whole people. Bear and Bull and Tree are sacred, that is, set apart, because full of a special life and strength intensely desired. They

Bull-God. The growth of this idea, this conception, must have been much helped by the fact that in some places the dancers attendant on the holy Bull dressed up as bulls and cows. The women worshippers of Dionysos, we are told, wore bulls' horns in imitation of the god, for they represented him in pictures as having a bull's head. We know that a man does not turn into a bull, or a bull into a man, the line of demarcation is clearly drawn; but the rustic has no such conviction even to-day. That crone, his aged aunt, may any day c

nd now why, on the day before the tragedies were performed at Athens, the young men (epheboi) brought in not only the human figure of the god, but also a Bull

e most important of all for the understanding of art, and especiall

s, and another-the birth of Dionysos, I suppose-is called Dithyramb." Plato is not much interested in Dithyrambs. To him they are just a particular kind of choral song; it is doubtful if he even

oet is going to describe the birth of Dionysos he calls the god by the

hyrambos, Ba

.

, and coming

f thine own

.

rs danced f

ed thee, Baccho

he birth of Dionysos is in the spring, the ti

e succession of annual holy Bulls once perceived, then remembered, generalized, conceived. But the god conceived will surely always be made in the image, the mental image, of the fact perceived. If, then, we have a song and dance of the birth of Dionysos, shall we not, as in the Christian religion, have a child-god, a

e when, Homer says, "youth is most gracious." This is the Dionysos that we know in statuary, the fair, dreamy youth sunk in reverie; this is the Dionysos whom Pentheus despised and insulted because of his you

r. They were quite mistaken; Dithyrambos, modern philology tells us, is the Divine Leaper, Dancer, and Lifegiver. But their false etymology is important to us, because

ull-God, the Tree-God, arises from a dromenon, a rite,

ed, it is dead and buried. We turn to anthropology for help, and find this, t

ood, there is no definite moment when he suddenly emerges as a man. Little by little as his education advances he is admitted to the social privileges of the circle in which he is born. He goes to school, enters a workshop or a university, and finally adopts a trade or a profession. In the case of girls, in whose upbringing primitive savagery is apt to linger, there is still, in certain social strata a ceremony known as Coming Out

h him condensed into a few days, weeks, or sometimes months of tremendous educational emphasis-of what is called "initiation," "going in," that is, entering the tribe. The ceremonies vary, but the gist is always substantially the same. The boy is to put away childish thing

motion that centres about it issues in dromena, "rites done." These rites are very various, but they all p

ire that every boy, just before circumcision, must be born again. "The mother stands up with the boy crouching at her

dressed in stringy bark fibre lies down in a grave. He is covered up lightly with sticks and earth, and the grave is smoothed over. The buried man holds in his hand a small bush which seems to be growing from the ground, and other bushes are stuck in the

ingly dead men, their bodies covered with blood and entrails, which are really those of a dead pig

en and children think it is the devils. Then the priest enters the shed with the boys, one at a time. A dull thud of chopping is heard, a fearful cry rings out, and a sword dripping with blood is thrust out through the roof. This is the token that the boy's head has been cut off, and that the devil has taken him away to the other world, whence he will return born again. In a day or two the men who act as sponsors to the boys return daubed with mud, and in a half-fainting state like messengers from another world. They bring the good news that the devil has restored the boy

boys have to sit in a row cross-legged, without moving a muscle, with their hands stretched out. The chief takes a trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the hand of each lad, he speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of spirits.

h Australia it is generally believed that at initiation a monstrous being called Katajalina, like the Kronos of the Greeks, swal

with angry growls. Usually they fail to find him, but he comes back at last himself. He is met and conducted to the ceremonial lodge, and there, in company with the rest of the Bears, dances solemnly his first appearance. Disappearance and reappearance is as common a rite in initiation as simulated killing and resurrection, and has the same object. Both are rites of transition, of passing from one state to another. It has often been remarked, by students of ancient Greek and other cere

eek language. The general Greek word for rite was tělětē. It was applied to all mysteries, and sometimes to marriages and funerals. But it has nothing to do with death. It comes from a root meaning "to grow up." The word tělětē means rite of growing up, becoming complete. It meant at first maturity, then rite of maturity, then by a natural extension any rite of

on of tribal initiation, the rite of the new, the second birth. He was Dionysos.

ties, where young women are but of secondary account, he will necessarily be a young man. Where emotion centres round tribal initiation he will be a young man just initiated, what the Greeks called a kouros, or ephebos, a youth of quite different socia

the young sheep. At Athens in spring and autumn alike "they carry out the Eiresione, a branch of olive woun

sione

nd fat

f honey and

-cup stron

ay drink a

as called Korythalia,34 "Branch of blooming youth." The you

safely call it, that is at once a spring-song and a young man-song. The god here invoke

et and gleaming; thou art come at the head of thy Daimones. To D

as the Greeks called him, is there in the body, but from the succession of leaders year by year they have imaged a spirit leader greatest of all. He is "lord of all that is wet and gleaming," for the May bough, we remember, is drenched with dew and water that

grew up and was ini

ear and Dikè to possess mankind, and all wild livi

he order of the world, the way of life. It is through this way, this order, that the seasons go round. As long as the seasons observe this order there is fruitfu

for fleecy flocks, and leap for fields

o leap high in the air crying, "Flax, grow." The leaping of the youths of the Cretan hymn is just the utterance of their tense desire. They have grown up, and

our sea-borne ships, and for our yo

h, but their magic is the same, and the strength that holds them together is the b

ing Festival in his beautiful carved central seat, looked across the orchestra, he would see facing him a stone f

h the stately tragedies we know-with Agamemnon and Iphigenia and Orestes and Hippolytos? That is the question before us, and the answer will lead us to the very heart of our subject. So far we have seen that ritual arose from the presentation and emphasis of emotion-emotion felt mainly about food. We

tics,

hemis, p. 4

, 43

st. Gr?

Op.

t. Symp

nd on an emendation to me convinci

I

y Themis

Prolegomen

egomena

ism and Exogamy,

den Bough,

den Bough,

en Bough,2

y Themis