diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4035-8.txt | 7374 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4035-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 174518 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 7390 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4035-8.txt b/4035-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5e6256 --- /dev/null +++ b/4035-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7374 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Greek Studies: A Series of Essays +by Walter Horatio Pater +(#3 in our series by Walter Horatio Pater) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words +are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they +need about what they can legally do with the texts. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below, including for donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + +Title: Greek Studies: A Series of Essays + +Author: Walter Horatio Pater + +Release Date: May, 2003 [Etext #4035] +[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule] +[The actual date this file first posted = 10/19/01] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Greek Studies: A Series of Essays +by Walter Horatio Pater +******This file should be named 4035-8.txt or 4035-8.zip****** + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after +the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +https://gutenberg.org +http://promo.net/pg + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 +or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of July 12, 2001 contributions are only being solicited from people in: +Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, +Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, +Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North +Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising +will begin in the additional states. Please feel +free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork +to legally request donations in all 50 states. If +your state is not listed and you would like to know +if we have added it since the list you have, just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in +states where we are not yet registered, we know +of no prohibition against accepting donations +from donors in these states who approach us with +an offer to donate. + + +International donations are accepted, +but we don't know ANYTHING about how +to make them tax-deductible, or +even if they CAN be made deductible, +and don't have the staff to handle it +even if there are ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541, +and has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal +Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum +extent permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the +additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +*** + + +Example command-line FTP session: + +ftp ftp.ibiblio.org +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07/27/01*END* + + + + + + + + + + + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. + + + + + +GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS + +By WALTER HORATIO PATER + +E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. +Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 10-17-01 + + +DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES + +[1] I DISCLAIM ALL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, COSTS AND +EXPENSES, INCLUDING LEGAL FEES, AND + +[2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR +FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU +GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +THE E-TEXTS ON THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO WARRANTIES +OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE E-TEXTS OR +ANY MEDIUM THEY MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF +MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the +exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above +disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have +other legal rights. + + + +GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS +WALTER HORATIO PATER + +NOTES BY THE E-TEXT EDITOR: + +Reliability: Although I have done my best to ensure that the text you +read is error-free in comparison with an exact reprint of the +standard edition--Macmillan's 1910 Library Edition--please exercise +scholarly caution in using it. It is not intended as a substitute +for the printed original but rather as a searchable supplement. My +e-texts may prove convenient substitutes for hard-to-get works in a +course where both instructor and students accept the possibility of +some imperfections in the text, but if you are writing a scholarly +article, dissertation, or book, you should use the standard hard-copy +editions of any works you cite. + +Pagination and Paragraphing: To avoid an unwieldy electronic copy, I +have transferred original pagination to brackets. A bracketed +numeral such as [22] indicates that the material immediately +following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I +have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation. + +Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an e- +text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation. + +Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated +Pater's Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, +it can be viewed at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a +Victorianist archive that contains the complete works of Walter Pater +and many other nineteenth-century texts, mostly in first editions. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + + +GREEK STUDIES: A SERIES OF ESSAYS + +WALTER PATER + +London: Macmillan, 1910. (The Library Edition.) + +E-text Editor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. + +Electronic Version 1.0 / Date 10-12-01 + +Disclaimer of Damages for All Texts on This Web + +E-text Editor's Note + +Preface by Charles Shadwell + +A Study of Dionysus: The Spiritual Form of Fire and Dew: 9-52 + +The Bacchanals of Euripides: 53-80 + +The Myth of Demeter and Persephone I. 81-112 + +The Myth of Demeter and Persephone II. 113-151 + +Hippolytus Veiled: A Study from Euripides: 152-186 + +The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture--I. The Heroic Age of Greek Art: +187-223 + +The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture--II. The Age of Graven Images: 224- +250 + +The Marbles of Aegina: 251-268 + +The Age of Athletic Prizemen: A Chapter in Greek Art: 269-end + + + + + +PREFACE BY CHARLES L. SHADWELL + +[1] THE present volume consists of a collection of essays by the +late Mr. Pater, all of which have already been given to the public in +various Magazines; and it is owing to the kindness of the several +proprietors of those Magazines that they can now be brought together +in a collected shape. It will, it is believed, be felt, that their +value is considerably enhanced by their appearance in a single +volume, where they can throw light upon one another, and exhibit by +their connexion a more complete view of the scope and purpose of Mr. +Pater in dealing with the art and literature of the ancient world. + +The essays fall into two distinct groups, one dealing with the +subjects of Greek mythology and Greek poetry, the other with the +history of Greek sculpture and Greek architecture. But these two +groups are not wholly distinct; they mutually illustrate one another, +and serve to enforce Mr. Pater's conception of the essential [2] +unity, in all its many-sidedness, of the Greek character. The god +understood as the "spiritual form" of the things of nature is not +only the key-note of the "Study of Dionysus"* and "The Myth of +Demeter and Persephone,"* but reappears as contributing to the +interpretation of the growth of Greek sculpture.* Thus, though in +the bibliography of his writings, the two groups are separated by a +considerable interval, there is no change of view; he had already +reached the centre of the problem, and, the secret once gained, his +mode of treatment of the different aspects of Greek life and thought +is permanent and consistent. + +The essay on "The Myth of Demeter and Persephone" was originally +prepared as two lectures, for delivery, in 1875, at the Birmingham +and Midland Institute. These lectures were published in the +Fortnightly Review, in Jan. and Feb. 1876. The "Study of Dionysus" +appeared in the same Review in Dec. 1876. "The Bacchanals of +Euripides" must have been written about the same time, as a sequel to +the "Study of Dionysus"; for, in 1878, Mr. Pater revised the four +essays, with the intention, apparently, of publishing them +collectively in a volume, an intention afterwards abandoned. [3] The +text now printed has, except that of "The Bacchanals," been taken +from proofs then set up, further corrected in manuscript. "The +Bacchanals," written long before, was not published until 1889, when +it appeared in Macmillan's Magazine for May. It was reprinted, +without alteration, prefixed to Dr. Tyrrell's edition of the Bacchae. +"Hippolytus Veiled" first appeared in August 1889, in Macmillan's +Magazine. It was afterwards rewritten, but with only a few +substantial alterations, in Mr. Pater's own hand, with a view, +probably, of republishing it with other essays. This last revise has +been followed in the text now printed. + +The papers on Greek sculpture* are all that remain of a series which, +if Mr. Pater had lived, would, probably, have grown into a still more +important work. Such a work would have included one or more essays +on Phidias and the Parthenon, of which only a fragment, though an +important fragment, can be found amongst his papers; and it was to +have been prefaced by an Introduction to Greek Studies, only a page +or two of which was ever written. + +[4] This is not the place to speak of Mr. Pater's private virtues, +the personal charm of his character, the brightness of his talk, the +warmth of his friendship, the devotion of his family life. But a few +words may be permitted on the value of the work by which he will be +known to those who never saw him. + +Persons only superficially acquainted, or by hearsay, with his +writings, are apt to sum up his merits as a writer by saying that he +was a master, or a consummate master of style; but those who have +really studied what he wrote do not need to be told that his +distinction does not lie in his literary grace alone, his fastidious +choice of language, his power of word-painting, but in the depth and +seriousness of his studies. That the amount he has produced, in a +literary life of thirty years, is not greater, is one proof among +many of the spirit in which he worked. His genius was "an infinite +capacity for taking pains." That delicacy of insight, that gift of +penetrating into the heart of things, that subtleness of +interpretation, which with him seems an instinct, is the outcome of +hard, patient, conscientious study. If he had chosen, he might, +without difficulty, have produced a far greater body of work of less +value; and from a worldly point of view, he would have been wise. +Such was not his understanding [5] of the use of his talents. Cui +multum datum est, multum quaeretur ab eo. Those who wish to +understand the spirit in which he worked, will find it in this +volume. C.L.S. + +Oct. 1894. + +NOTES + +2. *See p. 34. + +2. *See p. 100. + +2. *See pp. 220, 254. + +3. *"The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture" was published in the +Fortnightly Review, Feb. and March 1880; "The Marbles of Aegina" in +the same Review in April. "The Age of Athletic Prizemen" was +published in the Contemporary Review in February of the present year. + + + + + +A STUDY OF DIONYSUS: +THE SPIRITUAL FORM OF FIRE AND DEW + +[9] WRITERS on mythology speak habitually of the religion of the +Greeks. In thus speaking, they are really using a misleading +expression, and should speak rather of religions; each race and class +of Greeks--the Dorians, the people of the coast, the fishers--having +had a religion of its own, conceived of the objects that came nearest +to it and were most in its thoughts, and the resulting usages and +ideas never having come to have a precisely harmonised system, after +the analogy of some other religions. The religion of Dionysus is the +religion of people who pass their lives among the vines. As the +religion of Demeter carries us back to the cornfields and farmsteads +of Greece, and places us, in fancy, among a primitive race, in the +furrow and beside the granary; so the religion of Dionysus carries us +back to its vineyards, and is a monument of the ways and thoughts of +people whose days go by beside the winepress, and [10] under the +green and purple shadows, and whose material happiness depends on the +crop of grapes. For them the thought of Dionysus and his circle, a +little Olympus outside the greater, covered the whole of life, and +was a complete religion, a sacred representation or interpretation of +the whole human experience, modified by the special limitations, the +special privileges of insight or suggestion, incident to their +peculiar mode of existence. + +Now, if the reader wishes to understand what the scope of the +religion of Dionysus was to the Greeks who lived in it, all it +represented to them by way of one clearly conceived yet complex +symbol, let him reflect what the loss would be if all the effect and +expression drawn from the imagery of the vine and the cup fell out of +the whole body of existing poetry; how many fascinating trains of +reflexion, what colour and substance would therewith have been +deducted from it, filled as it is, apart from the more aweful +associations of the Christian ritual, apart from Galahad's cup, with +all the various symbolism of the fruit of the vine. That supposed +loss is but an imperfect measure of all that the name of Dionysus +recalled to the Greek mind, under a single imaginable form, an +outward body of flesh presented to the senses, and comprehending, as +its animating soul, a whole world of thoughts, surmises, greater and +less experiences. + +[11] The student of the comparative science of religions finds in the +religion of Dionysus one of many modes of that primitive tree-worship +which, growing out of some universal instinctive belief that trees +and flowers are indeed habitations of living spirits, is found almost +everywhere in the earlier stages of civilisation, enshrined in legend +or custom, often graceful enough, as if the delicate beauty of the +object of worship had effectually taken hold on the fancy of the +worshipper. Shelley's Sensitive Plant shows in what mists of +poetical reverie such feeling may still float about a mind full of +modern lights, the feeling we too have of a life in the green world, +always ready to assert its claim over our sympathetic fancies. Who +has not at moments felt the scruple, which is with us always +regarding animal life, following the signs of animation further +still, till one almost hesitates to pluck out the little soul of +flower or leaf? + +And in so graceful a faith the Greeks had their share; what was crude +and inane in it becoming, in the atmosphere of their energetic, +imaginative intelligence, refined and humanised. The oak-grove of +Dodona, the seat of their most venerable oracle, did but perpetuate +the fancy that the sounds of the wind in the trees may be, for +certain prepared and chosen ears, intelligible voices; they could +believe in the transmigration of souls into mulberry and laurel, mint +and hyacinth; and the dainty Metamorphoses of Ovid [12] are but a +fossilised form of one morsel here and there, from a whole world of +transformation, with which their nimble fancy was perpetually +playing. "Together with them," says the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, +of the Hamadryads, the nymphs which animate the forest trees, "with +them, at the moment of their birth, grew up out of the soil, oak-tree +or pine, fair, flourishing among the mountains. And when at last the +appointed hour of their death has come, first of all, those fair +trees are dried up; the bark perishes from around them, and the +branches fall away; and therewith the soul of them deserts the light +of the sun."+ + +These then are the nurses of the vine, bracing it with interchange of +sun and shade. They bathe, they dance, they sing songs of +enchantment, so that those who seem oddly in love with nature, and +strange among their fellows, are still said to be nympholepti; above +all, they are weavers or spinsters, spinning or weaving with airiest +fingers, and subtlest, many-coloured threads, the foliage of the +trees, the petals of flowers, the skins of the fruit, the long thin +stalks on which the poplar leaves are set so lightly that Homer +compares to them, in their constant motion, the maids who sit +spinning in the house of Alcinous. The nymphs of Naxos, where the +grape-skin is darkest, weave for him a purple robe. Only, the ivy is +never transformed, is visible as natural ivy to the last, pressing +the [13] dark outline of its leaves close upon the firm, white, quite +human flesh of the god's forehead. + +In its earliest form, then, the religion of Dionysus presents us with +the most graceful phase of this graceful worship, occupying a place +between the ruder fancies of half-civilised people concerning life in +flower or tree, and the dreamy after-fancies of the poet of the +Sensitive Plant. He is the soul of the individual vine, first; the +young vine at the house-door of the newly married, for instance, as +the vine-grower stoops over it, coaxing and nursing it, like a pet +animal or a little child; afterwards, the soul of the whole species, +the spirit of fire and dew, alive and leaping in a thousand vines, as +the higher intelligence, brooding more deeply over things, pursues, +in thought, the generation of sweetness and strength in the veins of +the tree, the transformation of water into wine, little by little; +noting all the influences upon it of the heaven above and the earth +beneath; and shadowing forth, in each pause of the process, an +intervening person--what is to us but the secret chemistry of nature +being to them the mediation of living spirits. So they passed on to +think of Dionysus (naming him at last from the brightness of the sky +and the moisture of the earth) not merely as the soul of the vine, +but of all that life in flowing things of which the vine is the +symbol, because its most emphatic example. At Delos he bears a son, +from whom [14] in turn spring the three mysterious sisters Oeno, +Spermo, and Elais, who, dwelling in the island, exercise respectively +the gifts of turning all things at will into oil, and corn, and wine. +In the Bacchae of Euripides, he gives his followers, by miracle, +honey and milk, and the water gushes for them from the smitten rock. +He comes at last to have a scope equal to that of Demeter, a realm as +wide and mysterious as hers; the whole productive power of the earth +is in him, and the explanation of its annual change. As some embody +their intuitions of that power in corn, so others in wine. He is the +dispenser of the earth's hidden wealth, giver of riches through the +vine, as Demeter through the grain. And as Demeter sends the airy, +dainty-wheeled and dainty-winged spirit of Triptolemus to bear her +gifts abroad on all winds, so Dionysus goes on his eastern journey, +with its many intricate adventures, on which he carries his gifts to +every people. + +A little Olympus outside the greater, I said, of Dionysus and his +companions; he is the centre of a cycle, the hierarchy of the +creatures of water and sunlight in many degrees; and that fantastic +system of tree-worship places round him, not the fondly whispering +spirits of the more graceful inhabitants of woodland only, the nymphs +of the poplar and the pine, but the whole satyr circle, intervening +between the headship of the vine and the mere earth, the grosser, +less human [15] spirits, incorporate and made visible, of the more +coarse and sluggish sorts of vegetable strength, the fig, the reed, +the ineradicable weed-things which will attach themselves, climbing +about the vine-poles, or seeking the sun between the hot stones. For +as Dionysus, the spiritual form of the vine, is of the highest human +type, so the fig-tree and the reed have animal souls, mistakeable in +the thoughts of a later, imperfectly remembering age, for mere +abstractions of animal nature; Snubnose, and Sweetwine, and Silenus, +the oldest of them all, so old that he has come to have the gift of +prophecy. + +Quite different from them in origin and intent, but confused with +them in form, are those other companions of Dionysus, Pan and his +children. Home-spun dream of simple people, and like them in the +uneventful tenour of his existence, he has almost no story; he is but +a presence; the spiritual form of Arcadia, and the ways of human life +there; the reflexion, in sacred image or ideal, of its flocks, and +orchards, and wild honey; the dangers of its hunters; its weariness +in noonday heat; its children, agile as the goats they tend, who run, +in their picturesque rags, across the solitary wanderer's path, to +startle him, in the unfamiliar upper places; its one adornment and +solace being the dance to the homely shepherd's pipe, cut by Pan +first from the sedges of the brook Molpeia. + +Breathing of remote nature, the sense of which [16] is so profound in +the Homeric hymn to Pan, the pines, the foldings of the hills, the +leaping streams, the strange echoings and dying of sound on the +heights, "the bird, which among the petals of many-flowered spring, +pouring out a dirge, sends forth her honey-voiced song," "the crocus +and the hyacinth disorderly mixed in the deep grass"+--things which +the religion of Dionysus loves--Pan joins the company of the Satyrs. +Amongst them, they give their names to insolence and mockery, and the +finer sorts of malice, to unmeaning and ridiculous fear. But the +best spirits have found in them also a certain human pathos, as in +displaced beings, coming even nearer to most men, in their very +roughness, than the noble and delicate person of the vine; dubious +creatures, half-way between the animal and human kinds, speculating +wistfully on their being, because not wholly understanding themselves +and their place in nature; as the animals seem always to have this +expression to some noticeable degree in the presence of man. In the +later school of Attic sculpture they are treated with more and more +of refinement, till in some happy moment Praxiteles conceived a +model, often repeated, which concentrates this sentiment of true +humour concerning them; a model of dainty natural ease in posture, +but with the legs slightly crossed, as only lowly-bred gods are used +to carry them, and with some puzzled trouble of youth, you might wish +for a moment [17] to smoothe away, puckering the forehead a little, +between the pointed ears, on which the goodly hair of his animal +strength grows low. Little by little, the signs of brute nature are +subordinated, or disappear; and at last, Robetta, a humble Italian +engraver of the fifteenth century, entering into the Greek fancy +because it belongs to all ages, has expressed it in its most +exquisite form, in a design of Ceres and her children, of whom their +mother is no longer afraid, as in the Homeric hymn to Pan. The puck- +noses have grown delicate, so that, with Plato's infatuated lover, +you may call them winsome, if you please; and no one would wish those +hairy little shanks away, with which one of the small Pans walks at +her side, grasping her skirt stoutly; while the other, the sick or +weary one, rides in the arms of Ceres herself, who in graceful +Italian dress, and decked airily with fruit and corn, steps across a +country of cut sheaves, pressing it closely to her, with a child's +peevish trouble in its face, and its small goat-legs and tiny hoofs +folded over together, precisely after the manner of a little child. + +There is one element in the conception of Dionysus, which his +connexion with the satyrs, Marsyas being one of them, and with Pan, +from whom the flute passed to all the shepherds of Theocritus, alike +illustrates, his interest, namely, in one of the great species of +music. One form of that wilder vegetation, of which the Satyr race +is the soul made visible, is the reed, which [18] the creature plucks +and trims into musical pipes. And as Apollo inspires and rules over +all the music of strings, so Dionysus inspires and rules over all the +music of the reed, the water-plant, in which the ideas of water and +of vegetable life are brought close together, natural property, +therefore, of the spirit of life in the green sap. I said that the +religion of Dionysus was, for those who lived in it, a complete +religion, a complete sacred representation and interpretation of the +whole of life; and as, in his relation to the vine, he fills for them +the place of Demeter, is the life of the earth through the grape as +she through the grain, so, in this other phase of his being, in his +relation to the reed, he fills for them the place of Apollo; he is +the inherent cause of music and poetry; he inspires; he explains the +phenomena of enthusiasm, as distinguished by Plato in the Phaedrus, +the secrets of possession by a higher and more energetic spirit than +one's own, the gift of self-revelation, of passing out of oneself +through words, tones, gestures. A winged Dionysus, venerated at +Amyclae, was perhaps meant to represent him thus, as the god of +enthusiasm, of the rising up on those spiritual wings, of which also +we hear something in the Phaedrus of Plato. + +The artists of the Renaissance occupied themselves much with the +person and the story of Dionysus; and Michelangelo, in a work still +remaining in Florence, in which he essayed [19] with success to +produce a thing which should pass with the critics for a piece of +ancient sculpture, has represented him in the fulness, as it seems, +of this enthusiasm, an image of delighted, entire surrender to +transporting dreams. And this is no subtle after-thought of a later +age, but true to certain finer movements of old Greek sentiment, +though it may seem to have waited for the hand of Michelangelo before +it attained complete realisation. The head of Ion leans, as they +recline at the banquet, on the shoulder of Charmides; he mutters in +his sleep of things seen therein, but awakes as the flute-players +enter, whom Charmides has hired for his birthday supper. The soul of +Callias, who sits on the other side of Charmides, flashes out; he +counterfeits, with life-like gesture, the personal tricks of friend +or foe; or the things he could never utter before, he finds words for +now; the secrets of life are on his lips. It is in this loosening of +the lips and heart, strictly, that Dionysus is the Deliverer, +Eleutherios; and of such enthusiasm, or ecstasy, is, in a certain +sense, an older patron than Apollo himself. Even at Delphi, the +centre of Greek inspiration and of the religion of Apollo, his claim +always maintained itself; and signs are not wanting that Apollo was +but a later comer there. There, under his later reign, hard by the +golden image of Apollo himself, near the sacred tripod on which the +Pythia sat to prophesy, was to be seen a strange object--a sort [20] +of coffin or cinerary urn with the inscription, "Here lieth the body +of Dionysus, the son of Semele." The pediment of the great temple +was divided between them--Apollo with the nine Muses on that side, +Dionysus, with perhaps three times three Graces, on this. A third of +the whole year was held sacred to him; the four winter months were +the months of Dionysus; and in the shrine of Apollo itself he was +worshipped with almost equal devotion. + +The religion of Dionysus takes us back, then, into that old Greek +life of the vineyards, as we see it on many painted vases, with much +there as we should find it now, as we see it in Bennozzo Gozzoli's +mediaeval fresco of the Invention of Wine in the Campo Santo at Pisa- +-the family of Noah presented among all the circumstances of a Tuscan +vineyard, around the press from which the first wine is flowing, a +painted idyll, with its vintage colours still opulent in decay, and +not without its solemn touch of biblical symbolism. For differences, +we detect in that primitive life, and under that Greek sky, a nimbler +play of fancy, lightly and unsuspiciously investing all things with +personal aspect and incident, and a certain mystical apprehension, +now almost departed, of unseen powers beyond the material veil of +things, corresponding to the exceptional vigour and variety of the +Greek organisation. This peasant life lies, in unhistoric time, +behind the definite forms with which poetry and a refined [21] +priesthood afterwards clothed the religion of Dionysus; and the mere +scenery and circumstances of the vineyard have determined many things +in its development. The noise of the vineyard still sounds in some +of his epithets, perhaps in his best-known name--Iacchus, Bacchus. +The masks suspended on base or cornice, so familiar an ornament in +later Greek architecture, are the little faces hanging from the +vines, and moving in the wind, to scare the birds. That garland of +ivy, the aesthetic value of which is so great in the later imagery of +Dionysus and his descendants, the leaves of which, floating from his +hair, become so noble in the hands of Titian and Tintoret, was +actually worn on the head for coolness; his earliest and most sacred +images were wrought in the wood of the vine. The people of the +vineyard had their feast, the little or country Dionysia, which still +lived on, side by side with the greater ceremonies of a later time, +celebrated in December, the time of the storing of the new wine. It +was then that the potters' fair came, calpis and amphora, together +with lamps against the winter, laid out in order for the choice of +buyers; for Keramus, the Greek Vase, is a son of Dionysus, of wine +and of Athene, who teaches men all serviceable and decorative art. +Then the goat was killed, and its blood poured out at the root of the +vines; and Dionysus literally drank the blood of goats; and, being +Greeks, with quick and mobile sympathies, [22] deisidaimones,+ +"superstitious," or rather "susceptible of religious impressions," +some among them, remembering those departed since last year, add yet +a little more, and a little wine and water for the dead also; +brooding how the sense of these things might pass below the roots, to +spirits hungry and thirsty, perhaps, in their shadowy homes. But the +gaiety, that gaiety which Aristophanes in the Acharnians has depicted +with so many vivid touches, as a thing of which civil war had +deprived the villages of Attica, preponderates over the grave. The +travelling country show comes round with its puppets; even the slaves +have their holiday;* the mirth becomes excessive; they hide their +faces under grotesque masks of bark, or stain them with wine-lees, or +potters' crimson even, like the old rude idols painted red; and carry +in midnight procession such rough symbols of the productive force of +nature as the women and children had best not look upon; which will +be frowned upon, and refine themselves, or disappear, in the feasts +of cultivated Athens. + +Of the whole story of Dionysus, it was the episode of his marriage +with Ariadne about which ancient art concerned itself oftenest, and +with most effect. Here, although the antiquarian [23] may still +detect circumstances which link the persons and incidents of the +legend with the mystical life of the earth, as symbols of its annual +change, yet the merely human interest of the story has prevailed over +its earlier significance; the spiritual form of fire and dew has +become a romantic lover. And as a story of romantic love, fullest +perhaps of all the motives of classic legend of the pride of life, it +survived with undiminished interest to a later world, two of the +greatest masters of Italian painting having poured their whole power +into it; Titian with greater space of ingathered shore and mountain, +and solemn foliage, and fiery animal life; Tintoret with profounder +luxury of delight in the nearness to each other, and imminent +embrace, of glorious bodily presences; and both alike with consummate +beauty of physical form. Hardly less humanised is the Theban legend +of Dionysus, the legend of his birth from Semele, which, out of the +entire body of tradition concerning him, was accepted as central by +the Athenian imagination. For the people of Attica, he comes from +Boeotia, a country of northern marsh and mist, but from whose sombre, +black marble towns came also the vine, the musical reed cut from its +sedges, and the worship of the Graces, always so closely connected +with the religion of Dionysus. "At Thebes alone," says Sophocles, +"mortal women bear immortal gods." His mother is the daughter of +Cadmus, himself marked out by [24] many curious circumstances as the +close kinsman of the earth, to which he all but returns at last, as +the serpent, in his old age, attesting some closer sense lingering +there of the affinity of man with the dust from whence he came. +Semele, an old Greek word, as it seems, for the surface of the earth, +the daughter of Cadmus, beloved by Zeus, desires to see her lover in +the glory with which he is seen by the immortal Hera. He appears to +her in lightning. But the mortal may not behold him and live. +Semele gives premature birth to the child Dionysus; whom, to preserve +it from the jealousy of Hera, Zeus hides in a part of his thigh, the +child returning into the loins of its father, whence in due time it +is born again. Yet in this fantastic story, hardly less than in the +legend of Ariadne, the story of Dionysus has become a story of human +persons, with human fortunes, and even more intimately human appeal +to sympathy; so that Euripides, pre-eminent as a poet of pathos, +finds in it a subject altogether to his mind. All the interest now +turns on the development of its points of moral or sentimental +significance; the love of the immortal for the mortal, the +presumption of the daughter of man who desires to see the divine form +as it is; on the fact that not without loss of sight, or life itself, +can man look upon it. The travail of nature has been transformed +into the pangs of the human mother; and the poet dwells much on the +pathetic incident of death in childbirth, making [25] Dionysus, as +Callimachus calls him, a seven months' child, cast out among its +enemies, motherless. And as a consequence of this human interest, +the legend attaches itself, as in an actual history, to definite +sacred objects and places, the venerable relic of the wooden image +which fell into the chamber of Semele with the lightning-flash, and +which the piety of a later age covered with plates of brass; the Ivy- +Fountain near Thebes, the water of which was so wonderfully bright +and sweet to drink, where the nymphs bathed the new-born child; the +grave of Semele, in a sacred enclosure grown with ancient vines, +where some volcanic heat or flame was perhaps actually traceable, +near the lightning-struck ruins of her supposed abode. + +Yet, though the mystical body of the earth is forgotten in the human +anguish of the mother of Dionysus, the sense of his essence of fire +and dew still lingers in his most sacred name, as the son of Semele, +Dithyrambus. We speak of a certain wild music in words or rhythm as +dithyrambic, like the dithyrambus, that is, the wild choral-singing +of the worshippers of Dionysus. But Dithyrambus seems to have been, +in the first instance, the name, not of the hymn, but of the god to +whom the hymn is sung; and, through a tangle of curious etymological +speculations as to the precise derivation of this name, one thing +seems clearly visible, that it commemorates, namely, the double birth +of the vine-god; that [26] he is born once and again; his birth, +first of fire, and afterwards of dew; the two dangers that beset him; +his victory over two enemies, the capricious, excessive heats and +colds of spring. + +He is pyrigenês,+ then, fire-born, the son of lightning; lightning +being to light, as regards concentration, what wine is to the other +strengths of the earth. And who that has rested a hand on the +glittering silex of a vineyard slope in August, where the pale globes +of sweetness are lying, does not feel this? It is out of the bitter +salts of a smitten, volcanic soil that it comes up with the most +curious virtues. The mother faints and is parched up by the heat +which brings the child to the birth; and it pierces through, a wonder +of freshness, drawing its everlasting green and typical coolness out +of the midst of the ashes; its own stem becoming at last like a +tangled mass of tortured metal. In thinking of Dionysus, then, as +fire-born, the Greeks apprehend and embody the sentiment, the poetry, +of all tender things which grow out of a hard soil, or in any sense +blossom before the leaf, like the little mezereon-plant of English +gardens, with its pale-purple, wine-scented flowers upon the leafless +twigs in February, or like the almond-trees of Tuscany, or Aaron's +rod that budded, or the staff in the hand of the Pope when +Tannhäuser's repentance is accepted. + +And his second birth is of the dew. The fire of which he was born +would destroy him in [27] his turn, as it withered up his mother; a +second danger comes; from this the plant is protected by the +influence of the cooling cloud, the lower part of his father the sky, +in which it is wrapped and hidden, and of which it is born again, its +second mother being, in some versions of the legend, Hyé--the Dew. +The nursery, where Zeus places it to be brought up, is a cave in +Mount Nysa, sought by a misdirected ingenuity in many lands, but +really, like the place of the carrying away of Persephone, a place of +fantasy, the oozy place of springs in the hollow of the hillside, +nowhere and everywhere, where the vine was "invented." The nymphs of +the trees overshadow it from above; the nymphs of the springs sustain +it from below--the Hyades, those first leaping maenads, who, as the +springs become rain-clouds, go up to heaven among the stars, and +descend again, as dew or shower, upon it; so that the religion of +Dionysus connects itself, not with tree-worship only, but also with +ancient water-worship, the worship of the spiritual forms of springs +and streams. To escape from his enemies Dionysus leaps into the sea, +the original of all rain and springs, whence, in early summer, the +women of Elis and Argos were wont to call him, with the singing of a +hymn. And again, in thus commemorating Dionysus as born of the dew, +the Greeks apprehend and embody the sentiment, the poetry, of water. +For not the heat only, but its solace--the freshness of the [28] cup- +-this too was felt by those people of the vineyard, whom the prophet +Melampus had taught to mix always their wine with water, and with +whom the watering of the vines became a religious ceremony; the very +dead, as they thought, drinking of and refreshed by the stream. And +who that has ever felt the heat of a southern country does not know +this poetry, the motive of the loveliest of all the works attributed +to Giorgione, the Fête Champêtre in the Louvre; the intense +sensations, the subtle and far-reaching symbolisms, which, in these +places, cling about the touch and sound and sight of it? Think of +the darkness of the well in the breathless court, with the delicate +ring of ferns kept alive just within the opening; of the sound of the +fresh water flowing through the wooden pipes into the houses of +Venice, on summer mornings; of the cry Acqua frésca! at Padua or +Verona, when the people run to buy what they prize, in its rare +purity, more than wine, bringing pleasures so full of exquisite +appeal to the imagination, that, in these streets, the very beggars, +one thinks, might exhaust all the philosophy of the epicurean. + +Out of all these fancies comes the vine-growers' god, the spiritual +form of fire and dew. Beyond the famous representations of Dionysus +in later art and poetry--the Bacchanals of Euripides, the statuary of +the school of Praxiteles--a multitude of literary allusions and local +[29] customs carry us back to this world of vision unchecked by +positive knowledge, in which the myth is begotten among a primitive +people, as they wondered over the life of the thing their hands +helped forward, till it became for them a kind of spirit, and their +culture of it a kind of worship. Dionysus, as we see him in art and +poetry, is the projected expression of the ways and dreams of this +primitive people, brooded over and harmonised by the energetic Greek +imagination; the religious imagination of the Greeks being, +precisely, a unifying or identifying power, bringing together things +naturally asunder, making, as it were, for the human body a soul of +waters, for the human soul a body of flowers; welding into something +like the identity of a human personality the whole range of man's +experiences of a given object, or series of objects--all their +outward qualities, and the visible facts regarding them--all the +hidden ordinances by which those facts and qualities hold of unseen +forces, and have their roots in purely visionary places. + +Dionysus came later than the other gods to the centres of Greek life; +and, as a consequence of this, he is presented to us in an earlier +stage of development than they; that element of natural fact which is +the original essence of all mythology being more unmistakeably +impressed upon us here than in other myths. Not the least +interesting point in the study of him is, that he illustrates very +clearly, not only the [30] earlier, but also a certain later +influence of this element of natural fact, in the development of the +gods of Greece. For the physical sense, latent in it, is the clue, +not merely to the original signification of the incidents of the +divine story, but also to the source of the peculiar imaginative +expression which its persons subsequently retain, in the forms of the +higher Greek sculpture. And this leads me to some general thoughts +on the relation of Greek sculpture to mythology, which may help to +explain what the function of the imagination in Greek sculpture +really was, in its handling of divine persons. + +That Zeus is, in earliest, original, primitive intention, the open +sky, across which the thunder sometimes sounds, and from which the +rain descends--is a fact which not only explains the various stories +related concerning him, but determines also the expression which he +retained in the work of Pheidias, so far as it is possible to recall +it, long after the growth of those later stories had obscured, for +the minds of his worshippers, his primary signification. If men +felt, as Arrian tells us, that it was a calamity to die without +having seen the Zeus of Olympia; that was because they experienced +the impress there of that which the eye and the whole being of man +love to find above him; and the genius of Pheidias had availed to +shed, upon the gold and ivory of the physical form, the blandness, +the breadth, the smile of the open sky; the mild [31] heat of it +still coming and going, in the face of the father of all the children +of sunshine and shower; as if one of the great white clouds had +composed itself into it, and looked down upon them thus, out of the +midsummer noonday: so that those things might be felt as warm, and +fresh, and blue, by the young and the old, the weak and the strong, +who came to sun themselves in the god's presence, as procession and +hymn rolled on, in the fragrant and tranquil courts of the great +Olympian temple; while all the time those people consciously +apprehended in the carved image of Zeus none but the personal, and +really human, characteristics. + +Or think, again, of the Zeus of Dodona. The oracle of Dodona, with +its dim grove of oaks, and sounding instruments of brass to husband +the faintest whisper in the leaves, was but a great consecration of +that sense of a mysterious will, of which people still feel, or seem +to feel, the expression, in the motions of the wind, as it comes and +goes, and which makes it, indeed, seem almost more than a mere symbol +of the spirit within us. For Zeus was, indeed, the god of the winds +also; Aeolus, their so-called god, being only his mortal minister, as +having come, by long study of them, through signs in the fire and the +like, to have a certain communicable skill regarding them, in +relation to practical uses. Now, suppose a Greek sculptor to have +proposed to himself to present [32] to his worshippers the image of +this Zeus of Dodona, who is in the trees and on the currents of the +air. Then, if he had been a really imaginative sculptor, working as +Pheidias worked, the very soul of those moving, sonorous creatures +would have passed through his hand, into the eyes and hair of the +image; as they can actually pass into the visible expression of those +who have drunk deeply of them; as we may notice, sometimes, in our +walks on mountain or shore. + +Victory again--Niké--associated so often with Zeus--on the top of his +staff, on the foot of his throne, on the palm of his extended hand-- +meant originally, mythologic science tells us, only the great victory +of the sky, the triumph of morning over darkness. But that physical +morning of her origin has its ministry to the later aesthetic sense +also. For if Niké, when she appears in company with the mortal, and +wholly fleshly hero, in whose chariot she stands to guide the horses, +or whom she crowns with her garland of parsley or bay, or whose names +she writes on a shield, is imaginatively conceived, it is because the +old skyey influences are still not quite suppressed in her clear-set +eyes, and the dew of the morning still clings to her wings and her +floating hair. + +The office of the imagination, then, in Greek sculpture, in its +handling of divine persons, is thus to condense the impressions of +natural things into human form; to retain that early mystical sense +of water, or wind, or light, in the [33] moulding of eye and brow; to +arrest it, or rather, perhaps, to set it free, there, as human +expression. The body of man, indeed, was for the Greeks, still the +genuine work of Prometheus; its connexion with earth and air asserted +in many a legend, not shaded down, as with us, through innumerable +stages of descent, but direct and immediate; in precise contrast to +our physical theory of our life, which never seems to fade, dream +over it as we will, out of the light of common day. The oracles with +their messages to human intelligence from birds and springs of water, +or vapours of the earth, were a witness to that connexion. Their +story went back, as they believed, with unbroken continuity, and in +the very places where their later life was lived, to a past, +stretching beyond, yet continuous with, actual memory, in which +heaven and earth mingled; to those who were sons and daughters of +stars, and streams, and dew; to an ancestry of grander men and women, +actually clothed in, or incorporate with, the qualities and +influences of those objects; and we can hardly over-estimate the +influence on the Greek imagination of this mythical connexion with +the natural world, at not so remote a date, and of the solemnising +power exercised thereby over their thoughts. In this intensely +poetical situation, the historical Greeks, the Athenians of the age +of Pericles, found themselves; it was as if the actual roads on which +men daily walk, went up and on, into a visible wonderland. + +[34] With such habitual impressions concerning the body, the physical +nature of man, the Greek sculptor, in his later day, still free in +imagination, through the lingering influence of those early dreams, +may have more easily infused into human form the sense of sun, or +lightning, or cloud, to which it was so closely akin, the spiritual +flesh allying itself happily to mystical meanings, and readily +expressing seemingly unspeakable qualities. But the human form is a +limiting influence also; and in proportion as art impressed human +form, in sculpture or in the drama, on the vaguer conceptions of the +Greek mind, there was danger of an escape from them of the free +spirit of air, and light, and sky. Hence, all through the history of +Greek art, there is a struggle, a Streben, as the Germans say, +between the palpable and limited human form, and the floating essence +it is to contain. On the one hand, was the teeming, still fluid +world, of old beliefs, as we see it reflected in the somewhat +formless theogony of Hesiod; a world, the Titanic vastness of which +is congruous with a certain sublimity of speech, when he has to +speak, for instance, of motion or space; as the Greek language itself +has a primitive copiousness and energy of words, for wind, fire, +water, cold, sound--attesting a deep susceptibility to the +impressions of those things--yet with edges, most often, melting into +each other. On the other hand, there was that limiting, controlling +tendency, [35] identified with the Dorian influence in the history of +the Greek mind, the spirit of a severe and wholly self-conscious +intelligence; bent on impressing everywhere, in the products of the +imagination, the definite, perfectly conceivable human form, as the +only worthy subject of art; less in sympathy with the mystical +genealogies of Hesiod, than with the heroes of Homer, ending in the +entirely humanised religion of Apollo, the clearly understood +humanity of the old Greek warriors in the marbles of Aegina. The +representation of man, as he is or might be, became the aim of +sculpture, and the achievement of this the subject of its whole +history; one early carver had opened the eyes, another the lips, a +third had given motion to the feet; in various ways, in spite of the +retention of archaic idols, the genuine human expression had come, +with the truthfulness of life itself. + +These two tendencies, then, met and struggled and were harmonised in +the supreme imagination, of Pheidias, in sculpture--of Aeschylus, in +the drama. Hence, a series of wondrous personalities, of which the +Greek imagination became the dwelling-place; beautiful, perfectly +understood human outlines, embodying a strange, delightful, lingering +sense of clouds and water and sun. Such a world, the world of really +imaginative Greek sculpture, we still see, reflected in many a humble +vase or battered coin, in Bacchante, and Centaur, and Amazon; [36] +evolved out of that "vasty deep"; with most command, in the +consummate fragments of the Parthenon; not, indeed, so that he who +runs may read, the gifts of Greek sculpture being always delicate, +and asking much of the receiver; but yet visible, and a pledge to us, +of creative power, as, to the worshipper, of the presence, which, +without that material pledge, had but vaguely haunted the fields and +groves. + +This, then, was what the Greek imagination did for men's sense and +experience of natural forces, in Athene, in Zeus, in Poseidon; for +men's sense and experience of their own bodily qualities--swiftness, +energy, power of concentrating sight and hand and foot on a momentary +physical act--in the close hair, the chastened muscle, the perfectly +poised attention of the quoit-player; for men's sense, again, of +ethical qualities--restless idealism, inward vision, power of +presence through that vision in scenes behind the experience of +ordinary men--in the idealised Alexander. + +To illustrate this function of the imagination, as especially +developed in Greek art, we may reflect on what happens with us in the +use of certain names, as expressing summarily, this name for you and +that for me--Helen, Gretchen, Mary--a hundred associations, trains of +sound, forms, impressions, remembered in all sorts of degrees, which, +through a very wide and full experience, they have the power of +bringing with [37] them; in which respect, such names are but +revealing instances of the whole significance, power, and use of +language in general. Well,--the mythical conception, projected at +last, in drama or sculpture, is the name, the instrument of the +identification, of the given matter,--of its unity in variety, its +outline or definition in mystery; its spiritual form, to use again +the expression I have borrowed from William Blake--form, with hands, +and lips, and opened eyelids--spiritual, as conveying to us, in that, +the soul of rain, or of a Greek river, or of swiftness, or purity. + +To illustrate this, think what the effect would be, if you could +associate, by some trick of memory, a certain group of natural +objects, in all their varied perspective, their changes of colour and +tone in varying light and shade, with the being and image of an +actual person. You travelled through a country of clear rivers and +wide meadows, or of high windy places, or of lowly grass and willows, +or of the Lady of the Lake; and all the complex impressions of these +objects wound themselves, as a second animated body, new and more +subtle, around the person of some one left there, so that they no +longer come to recollection apart from each other. Now try to +conceive the image of an actual person, in whom, somehow, all those +impressions of the vine and its fruit, as the highest type of the +life of the green sap, had become incorporate;--all the scents and +colours of its flower and fruit, and [38] something of its curling +foliage; the chances of its growth; the enthusiasm, the easy flow of +more choice expression, as its juices mount within one; for the image +is eloquent, too, in word, gesture, and glancing of the eyes, which +seem to be informed by some soul of the vine within it: as Wordsworth +says, + +Beauty born of murmuring sound +Shall pass into her face-- + +so conceive an image into which the beauty, "born" of the vine, has +passed; and you have the idea of Dionysus, as he appears, entirely +fashioned at last by central Greek poetry and art, and is consecrated +in the Oinophoria and the Anthestêria,+ the great festivals of the +Winepress and the Flowers. + +The word wine, and with it the germ of the myth of Dionysus, is older +than the separation of the Indo-Germanic race. Yet, with the people +of Athens, Dionysus counted as the youngest of the gods; he was also +the son of a mortal, dead in childbirth, and seems always to have +exercised the charm of the latest born, in a sort of allowable +fondness. Through the fine-spun speculations of modern ethnologists +and grammarians, noting the changes in the letters of his name, and +catching at the slightest historical records of his worship, we may +trace his coming from Phrygia, the birthplace of the more mystical +elements of [39] Greek religion, over the mountains of Thrace. On +the heights of Pangaeus he leaves an oracle, with a perpetually +burning fire, famous down to the time of Augustus, who reverently +visited it. Southwards still, over the hills of Parnassus, which +remained for the inspired women of Boeotia the centre of his +presence, he comes to Thebes, and the family of Cadmus. From Boeotia +he passes to Attica; to the villages first; at last to Athens; at an +assignable date, under Peisistratus; out of the country, into the +town. + +To this stage of his town-life, that Dionysus of "enthusiasm" already +belonged; it was to the Athenians of the town, to urbane young men, +sitting together at the banquet, that those expressions of a sudden +eloquence came, of the loosened utterance and finer speech, its +colour and imagery. Dionysus, then, has entered Athens, to become +urbane like them; to walk along the marble streets in frequent +procession, in the persons of noble youths, like those who at the +Oschophoria bore the branches of the vine from his temple, to the +temple of Athene of the Parasol, or of beautiful slaves; to +contribute through the arts to the adornment of life, yet perhaps +also in part to weaken it, relaxing ancient austerity. Gradually, +his rough country feasts will be outdone by the feasts of the town; +and as comedy arose out of those, so these will give rise to tragedy. +For his entrance upon this new stage of his career, his coming into +the town, is from the [40] first tinged with melancholy, as if in +entering the town he had put off his country peace. The other +Olympians are above sorrow. Dionysus, like a strenuous mortal hero, +like Hercules or Perseus, has his alternations of joy and sorrow, of +struggle and hard-won triumph. It is out of the sorrows of Dionysus, +then,--of Dionysus in winter--that all Greek tragedy grows; out of +the song of the sorrows of Dionysus, sung at his winter feast by the +chorus of satyrs, singers clad in goat-skins, in memory of his rural +life, one and another of whom, from time to time, steps out of the +company to emphasise and develope this or that circumstance of the +story; and so the song becomes dramatic. He will soon forget that +early country life, or remember it but as the dreamy background of +his later existence. He will become, as always in later art and +poetry, of dazzling whiteness; no longer dark with the air and sun, +but like one eskiatrofêkôs+--brought up under the shade of Eastern +porticoes or pavilions, or in the light that has only reached him +softened through the texture of green leaves; honey-pale, like the +delicate people of the city, like the flesh of women, as those old +vase-painters conceive of it, who leave their hands and faces +untouched with the pencil on the white clay. The ruddy god of the +vineyard, stained with wine-lees, or coarser colour, will hardly +recognise his double, in the white, graceful, mournful figure, +weeping, chastened, lifting up his arms in yearning+ [41] affection +towards his late-found mother, as we see him on a famous Etruscan +mirror. Only, in thinking of this early tragedy, of these town- +feasts, and of the entrance of Dionysus into Athens, you must +suppose, not the later Athens which is oftenest in our thoughts, the +Athens of Pericles and Pheidias; but that little earlier Athens of +Peisistratus, which the Persians destroyed, which some of us perhaps +would rather have seen, in its early simplicity, than the greater +one; when the old image of the god, carved probably out of the stock +of an enormous vine, had just come from the village of Eleutherae to +his first temple in the Lenaeum--the quarter of the winepresses, near +the Limnae--the marshy place, which in Athens represents the cave of +Nysa; its little buildings on the hill-top, still with steep rocky +ways, crowding round the ancient temple of Erechtheus and the grave +of Cecrops, with the old miraculous olive-tree still growing there, +and the old snake of Athene Polias still alive somewhere in the +temple court. + +The artists of the Italian Renaissance have treated Dionysus many +times, and with great effect, but always in his joy, as an embodiment +of that glory of nature to which the Renaissance was a return. But +in an early engraving of Mocetto there is for once a Dionysus treated +differently. The cold light of the background displays a barren +hill, the bridge and towers of [42] an Italian town, and quiet water. +In the foreground, at the root of a vine, Dionysus is sitting, in a +posture of statuesque weariness; the leaves of the vine are grandly +drawn, and wreathing heavily round the head of the god, suggest the +notion of his incorporation into it. The right hand, holding a great +vessel languidly and indifferently, lets the stream of wine flow +along the earth; while the left supports the forehead, shadowing +heavily a face, comely, but full of an expression of painful +brooding. One knows not how far one may really be from the mind of +the old Italian engraver, in gathering from his design this +impression of a melancholy and sorrowing Dionysus. But modern +motives are clearer; and in a Bacchus by a young Hebrew painter, in +the exhibition of the Royal Academy of 1868, there was a complete and +very fascinating realisation of such a motive; the god of the +bitterness of wine, "of things too sweet"; the sea-water of the +Lesbian grape become somewhat brackish in the cup. Touched by the +sentiment of this subtler, melancholy Dionysus, we may ask whether +anything similar in feeling is to be actually found in the range of +Greek ideas;--had some antitype of this fascinating figure any place +in Greek religion? Yes; in a certain darker side of the double god +of nature, obscured behind the brighter episodes of Thebes and Naxos, +but never quite forgotten, something corresponding to this deeper, +more refined idea, [43] really existed--the conception of Dionysus +Zagreus; an image, which has left, indeed, but little effect in Greek +art and poetry, which criticism has to put patiently together, out of +late, scattered hints in various writers; but which is yet +discernible, clearly enough to show that it really visited certain +Greek minds here and there; and discernible, not as a late after- +thought, but as a tradition really primitive, and harmonious with the +original motive of the idea of Dionysus. In its potential, though +unrealised scope, it is perhaps the subtlest dream in Greek religious +poetry, and is, at least, part of the complete physiognomy of +Dionysus, as it actually reveals itself to the modern student, after +a complete survey. + +The whole compass of the idea of Dionysus, a dual god of both summer +and winter, became ultimately, as we saw, almost identical with that +of Demeter. The Phrygians believed that the god slept in winter and +awoke in summer, and celebrated his waking and sleeping; or that he +was bound and imprisoned in winter, and unbound in spring. We saw +how, in Elis and at Argos, the women called him out of the sea, with +the singing of hymns, in early spring; and a beautiful ceremony in +the temple at Delphi, which, as we know, he shares with Apollo, +described by Plutarch, represents his mystical resurrection. Yearly, +about the time of the shortest day, just as the light begins to +increase, [44] and while hope is still tremulously strung, the +priestesses of Dionysus were wont to assemble with many lights at his +shrine, and there, with songs and dances, awoke the new-born child +after his wintry sleep, waving in a sacred cradle, like the great +basket used for winnowing corn, a symbolical image, or perhaps a real +infant. He is twofold then--a Döppelganger; like Persephone, he +belongs to two worlds, and has much in common with her, and a full +share of those dark possibilities which, even apart from the story of +the rape, belong to her. He is a Chthonian god, and, like all the +children of the earth, has an element of sadness; like Hades himself, +he is hollow and devouring, an eater of man's flesh--sarcophagus--the +grave which consumed unaware the ivory-white shoulder of Pelops. + +And you have no sooner caught a glimpse of this image, than a certain +perceptible shadow comes creeping over the whole story; for, in +effect, we have seen glimpses of the sorrowing Dionysus, all along. +Part of the interest of the Theban legend of his birth is that he +comes of the marriage of a god with a mortal woman; and from the +first, like merely mortal heroes, he falls within the sphere of human +chances. At first, indeed, the melancholy settles round the person +of his mother, dead in childbirth, and ignorant of the glory of her +son; in shame, according to Euripides; punished, as her own sisters +allege, for impiety. The death of Semele [45] is a sort of ideal or +type of this peculiar claim on human pity, as the descent of +Persephone into Hades, of all human pity over the early death of +women. Accordingly, his triumph being now consummated, he descends +into Hades, through the unfathomable Alcyonian lake, according to the +most central version of the legend, to bring her up from thence; and +that Hermes, the shadowy conductor of souls, is constantly associated +with Dionysus, in the story of his early life, is not without +significance in this connexion. As in Delphi the winter months were +sacred to him, so in Athens his feasts all fall within the four +months on this and the other side of the shortest day; as Persephone +spends those four months--a third part of the year--in Hades. Son or +brother of Persephone he actually becomes at last, in confused, half- +developed tradition; and even has his place, with his dark sister, in +the Eleusinian mysteries, as Iacchus; where, on the sixth day of the +feast, in the great procession from Athens to Eleusis, we may still +realise his image, moving up and down above the heads of the vast +multitude, as he goes, beside "the two," to the temple of Demeter, +amid the light of torches at noonday. + +But it was among the mountains of Thrace that this gloomier element +in the being of Dionysus had taken the strongest hold. As in the +sunny villages of Attica the cheerful elements of his religion had +been developed, so, in those [46] wilder northern regions, people +continued to brood over its darker side, and hence a current of +gloomy legend descended into Greece. The subject of the Bacchanals +of Euripides is the infatuated opposition of Pentheus, king of +Thebes, to Dionysus and his religion; his cruelty to the god, whom he +shuts up in prison, and who appears on the stage with his delicate +limbs cruelly bound, but who is finally triumphant; Pentheus, the man +of grief, being torn to pieces by his own mother, in the judicial +madness sent upon her by the god. In this play, Euripides has only +taken one of many versions of the same story, in all of which +Dionysus is victorious, his enemy being torn to pieces by the sacred +women, or by wild horses, or dogs, or the fangs of cold; or the +maenad Ambrosia, whom he is supposed to pursue for purposes of lust, +suddenly becomes a vine, and binds him down to the earth +inextricably, in her serpentine coils. + +In all these instances, then, Dionysus punishes his enemies by +repaying them in kind. But a deeper vein of poetry pauses at the +sorrow, and in the conflict does not too soon anticipate the final +triumph. It is Dionysus himself who exhausts these sufferings. +Hence, in many forms--reflexes of all the various phases of his +wintry existence--the image of Dionysus Zagreus, the Hunter--of +Dionysus in winter--storming wildly on the dark Thracian hills, from +which, like Ares and Boreas, he originally descends into [47] Greece; +the thought of the hunter concentrating into itself all men's +forebodings over the departure of the year at its richest, and the +death of all sweet things in the long-continued cold, when the sick +and the old and little children, gazing out morning after morning on +the dun sky, can hardly believe in the return any more of a bright +day. Or he is connected with the fears, the dangers and hardships of +the hunter himself, lost or slain sometimes, far from home, in the +dense woods of the mountains, as he seeks his meat so ardently; +becoming, in his chase, almost akin to the wild beasts--to the wolf, +who comes before us in the name of Lycurgus, one of his bitterest +enemies--and a phase, therefore, of his own personality, in the true +intention of the myth. This transformation, this image of the +beautiful soft creature become an enemy of human kind, putting off +himself in his madness, wronged by his own fierce hunger and thirst, +and haunting, with terrible sounds, the high Thracian farms, is the +most tragic note of the whole picture, and links him on to one of the +gloomiest creations of later romance, the werewolf, the belief in +which still lingers in Greece, as in France, where it seems to become +incorporate in the darkest of all romantic histories, that of Gilles +de Retz. + +And now we see why the tradition of human sacrifice lingered on in +Greece, in connexion with Dionysus, as a thing of actual detail, and +[48] not remote, so that Dionysius of Halicarnassus counts it among +the horrors of Greek religion. That the sacred women of Dionysus +ate, in mystical ceremony, raw flesh, and drank blood, is a fact +often mentioned, and commemorates, as it seems, the actual sacrifice +of a fair boy deliberately torn to pieces, fading at last into a +symbolical offering. At Delphi, the wolf was preserved for him, on +the principle by which Venus loves the dove, and Hera peacocks; and +there were places in which, after the sacrifice of a kid to him, a +curious mimic pursuit of the priest who had offered it represented +the still surviving horror of one who had thrown a child to the +wolves. The three daughters of Minyas devote themselves to his +worship; they cast lots, and one of them offers her own tender infant +to be torn by the three, like a roe; then the other women pursue +them, and they are turned into bats, or moths, or other creatures of +the night. And fable is endorsed by history; Plutarch telling us +how, before the battle of Salamis, with the assent of Themistocles, +three Persian captive youths were offered to Dionysus the Devourer. + +As, then, some embodied their fears of winter in Persephone, others +embodied them in Dionysus, a devouring god, whose sinister side (as +the best wine itself has its treacheries) is illustrated in the dark +and shameful secret society described by Livy, in which his worship +ended at Rome, afterwards abolished by solemn act of the senate. [49] +He becomes a new Aidoneus, a hunter of men's souls; like him, to be +appeased only by costly sacrifices. + +And then, Dionysus recovering from his mid-winter madness, how +intensely these people conceive the spring! It is that triumphant +Dionysus, cured of his great malady, and sane in the clear light of +the longer days, whom Euripides in the Bacchanals sets before us, as +still, essentially, the Hunter, Zagreus; though he keeps the red +streams and torn flesh away from the delicate body of the god, in his +long vesture of white and gold, and fragrant with Eastern odours. Of +this I hope to speak in another paper; let me conclude this by one +phase more of religious custom. + +If Dionysus, like Persephone, has his gloomy side, like her he has +also a peculiar message for a certain number of refined minds, +seeking, in the later days of Greek religion, such modifications of +the old legend as may minister to ethical culture, to the perfecting +of the moral nature. A type of second birth, from first to last, he +opens, in his series of annual changes, for minds on the look-out for +it, the hope of a possible analogy, between the resurrection of +nature, and something else, as yet unrealised, reserved for human +souls; and the beautiful, weeping creature, vexed by the wind, +suffering, torn to pieces, and rejuvenescent again at last, like a +tender shoot of living green out of the hardness and stony darkness+ +[50] of the earth, becomes an emblem or ideal of chastening and +purification, and of final victory through suffering. It is the +finer, mystical sentiment of the few, detached from the coarser and +more material religion of the many, and accompanying it, through the +course of its history, as its ethereal, less palpable, life-giving +soul, and, as always happens, seeking the quiet, and not too anxious +to make itself felt by others. With some unfixed, though real, place +in the general scheme of Greek religion, this phase of the worship of +Dionysus had its special development in the Orphic literature and +mysteries. Obscure as are those followers of the mystical Orpheus, +we yet certainly see them, moving, and playing their part, in the +later ages of Greek religion. Old friends with new faces, though +they had, as Plato witnesses, their less worthy aspect, in certain +appeals to vulgar, superstitious fears, they seem to have been not +without the charm of a real and inward religious beauty, with their +neologies, their new readings of old legends, their sense of mystical +second meanings, as they refined upon themes grown too familiar, and +linked, in a sophisticated age, the new to the old. In this respect, +we may perhaps liken them to the mendicant orders in the Middle Ages, +with their florid, romantic theology, beyond the bounds of orthodox +tradition, giving so much new matter to art and poetry. They are a +picturesque addition, also, to the exterior of Greek life, with [51] +their white dresses, their dirges, their fastings and ecstasies, +their outward asceticism and material purifications. And the central +object of their worship comes before us as a tortured, persecuted, +slain god--the suffering Dionysus--of whose legend they have their +own special and esoteric version. That version, embodied in a +supposed Orphic poem, The Occultation of Dionysus, is represented +only by the details that have passed from it into the almost endless +Dionysiaca of Nonnus, a writer of the fourth century; and the imagery +has to be put back into the shrine, bit by bit, and finally +incomplete. Its central point is the picture of the rending to +pieces of a divine child, of whom a tradition, scanty indeed, but +harmonious in its variations, had long maintained itself. It was in +memory of it, that those who were initiated into the Orphic mysteries +tasted of the raw flesh of the sacrifice, and thereafter ate flesh no +more; and it connected itself with that strange object in the Delphic +shrine, the grave of Dionysus. + +Son, first, of Zeus, and of Persephone whom Zeus woos, in the form of +a serpent--the white, golden-haired child, the best-beloved of his +father, and destined by him to be the ruler of the world, grows up in +secret. But one day, Zeus, departing on a journey in his great +fondness for the child, delivered to him his crown and staff, and so +left him--shut in a strong tower. Then it came to pass that the +jealous Here sent [52] out the Titans against him. They approached +the crowned child, and with many sorts of playthings enticed him +away, to have him in their power, and then miserably slew him-- +hacking his body to pieces, as the wind tears the vine, with the axe +Pelekus, which, like the swords of Roland and Arthur, has its proper +name. The fragments of the body they boiled in a great cauldron, and +made an impious banquet upon them, afterwards carrying the bones to +Apollo, whose rival the young child should have been, thinking to do +him service. But Apollo, in great pity for this his youngest +brother, laid the bones in a grave, within his own holy place. +Meanwhile, Here, full of her vengeance, brings to Zeus the heart of +the child, which she had snatched, still beating, from the hands of +the Titans. But Zeus delivered the heart to Semele; and the soul of +the child remaining awhile in Hades, where Demeter made for it new +flesh, was thereafter born of Semele--a second Zagreus--the younger, +or Theban Dionysus. + +NOTES + +12. +"Hymn to Aphrodite," lines 264-72 (Greek text). The Homeric +Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn- +White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; +London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. + +16. +"Hymn to Pan," lines 16ff. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with +an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. +Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann +Ltd. 1914. + +22. +Transliteration: deisidaimones. Liddell and Scott definition: +"fearing the gods," in both a good and bad sense--i.e. either pious +or superstitious. + +22. *There were some who suspected Dionysus of a secret democratic +interest; though indeed he was liberator only of men's hearts, and +eleuthereus only because he never forgot Eleutherae, the little +place which, in Attica, first received him. + +26. +E-text editor's transliteration: pyrigenês. Liddell and Scott +definition: "born of fire." + +38. +Transliteration: Oinophoria . . . Anthestêria. Liddell and +Scott definition of Anthestêria: "The Feast of Flowers, the three +days' festival of Bacchus at Athens, in the month Anthesterion." + +40. +Transliteration: eskiatrofêkôs. Liddell and Scott definition: +participle of skiatropheo, "to rear in the shade." + + + +THE BACCHANALS OF EURIPIDES + +[53] So far, I have endeavoured to present, with something of the +concrete character of a picture, Dionysus, the old Greek god, as we +may discern him through a multitude of stray hints in art and poetry +and religious custom, through modern speculation on the tendencies of +early thought, through traits and touches in our own actual states of +mind, which may seem sympathetic with those tendencies. In such a +picture there must necessarily be a certain artificiality; things +near and far, matter of varying degrees of certainty, fact and +surmise, being reflected and concentrated, for its production, as if +on the surface of a mirror. Such concrete character, however, Greek +poet or sculptor, from time to time, impressed on the vague world of +popular belief and usage around him; and in the Bacchanals of +Euripides we have an example of the figurative or imaginative power +of poetry, selecting and combining, at will, from that mixed and +floating mass, weaving the many-coloured threads together, blending +the various phases of legend--all the light and shade of the [54] +subject--into a shape, substantial and firmly set, through which a +mere fluctuating tradition might retain a permanent place in men's +imaginations. Here, in what Euripides really says, in what we +actually see on the stage, as we read his play, we are dealing with a +single real object, not with uncertain effects of many half-fancied +objects. Let me leave you for a time almost wholly in his hands, +while you look very closely at his work, so as to discriminate its +outlines clearly. + +This tragedy of the Bacchanals--a sort of masque or morality, as we +say--a monument as central for the legend of Dionysus as the Homeric +hymn for that of Demeter, is unique in Greek literature, and has also +a singular interest in the life of Euripides himself. He is writing +in old age (the piece was not played till after his death) not at +Athens, nor for a polished Attic audience, but for a wilder and less +temperately cultivated sort of people, at the court of Archelaus, in +Macedonia. Writing in old age, he is in that subdued mood, a mood +not necessarily sordid, in which (the shudder at the nearer approach +of the unknown world coming over him more frequently than of old) +accustomed ideas, conformable to a sort of common sense regarding the +unseen, oftentimes regain what they may have lost, in a man's +allegiance. It is a sort of madness, he begins to think, to differ +from the received opinions thereon. Not that he is insincere or +ironical, but that he tends, in the [55] sum of probabilities, to +dwell on their more peaceful side; to sit quiet, for the short +remaining time, in the reflexion of the more cheerfully lighted side +of things; and what is accustomed--what holds of familiar usage-- +comes to seem the whole essence of wisdom, on all subjects; and the +well-known delineation of the vague country, in Homer or Hesiod, +one's best attainable mental outfit, for the journey thither. With +this sort of quiet wisdom the whole play is penetrated. Euripides +has said, or seemed to say, many things concerning Greek religion, at +variance with received opinion; and now, in the end of life, he +desires to make his peace--what shall at any rate be peace with men. +He is in the mood for acquiescence, or even for a palinode; and this +takes the direction, partly of mere submission to, partly of a +refining upon, the authorised religious tradition: he calmly +sophisticates this or that element of it which had seemed grotesque; +and has, like any modern writer, a theory how myths were made, and +how in lapse of time their first signification gets to be obscured +among mortals; and what he submits to, that he will also adorn +fondly, by his genius for words. + +And that very neighbourhood afforded him his opportunity. It was in +the neighbourhood of Pella, the Macedonian capital, that the worship +of Dionysus, the newest of the gods, prevailed in its most +extravagant form--the [56] Thiasus, or wild, nocturnal procession of +Bacchic women, retired to the woods and hills for that purpose, with +its accompaniments of music, and lights, and dancing. Rational and +moderate Athenians, as we may gather from some admissions of +Euripides himself, somewhat despised all that; while those who were +more fanatical forsook the home celebrations, and went on pilgrimage +from Attica to Cithaeron or Delphi. But at Pella persons of high +birth took part in the exercise, and at a later period we read in +Plutarch how Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, was devoted +to this enthusiastic worship. Although in one of Botticelli's +pictures the angels dance very sweetly, and may represent many +circumstances actually recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, yet we +hardly understand the dance as a religious ceremony; the bare mention +of it sets us thinking on some fundamental differences between the +pagan religions and our own. It is to such ecstasies, however, that +all nature-worship seems to tend; that giddy, intoxicating sense of +spring--that tingling in the veins, sympathetic with the yearning +life of the earth, having, apparently, in all times and places, +prompted some mode of wild dancing. Coleridge, in one of his +fantastic speculations, refining on the German word for enthusiasm-- +Schwärmerei, swarming, as he says, "like the swarming of bees +together"--has explained how the sympathies of mere numbers, as such, +the random catching on [57] fire of one here and another there, when +people are collected together, generates as if by mere contact, some +new and rapturous spirit, not traceable in the individual units of a +multitude. Such swarming was the essence of that strange dance of +the Bacchic women: literally like winged things, they follow, with +motives, we may suppose, never quite made clear even to themselves, +their new, strange, romantic god. Himself a woman-like god,--it was +on women and feminine souls that his power mainly fell. At Elis, it +was the women who had their own little song with which at spring-time +they professed to call him from the sea: at Brasiae they had their +own temple where none but women might enter; and so the Thiasus, +also, is almost exclusively formed of women--of those who experience +most directly the influence of things which touch thought through the +senses--the presence of night, the expectation of morning, the +nearness of wild, unsophisticated, natural things--the echoes, the +coolness, the noise of frightened creatures as they climbed through +the darkness, the sunrise seen from the hill-tops, the disillusion, +the bitterness of satiety, the deep slumber which comes with the +morning. Athenians visiting the Macedonian capital would hear, and +from time to time actually see, something of a religious custom, in +which the habit of an earlier world might seem to survive. As they +saw the lights flitting over the mountains, [58] and heard the wild, +sharp cries of the women, there was presented, as a singular fact in +the more prosaic actual life of a later time, an enthusiasm otherwise +relegated to the wonderland of a distant past, in which a supposed +primitive harmony and understanding between man and nature renewed +itself. Later sisters of Centaur and Amazon, the Maenads, as they +beat the earth in strange sympathy with its waking up from sleep, or +as, in the description of the Messenger, in the play of Euripides, +they lie sleeping in the glen, revealed among the morning mists, were +themselves indeed as remnants--flecks left here and there and not yet +quite evaporated under the hard light of a later and commoner day--of +a certain cloud-world which had once covered all things with a veil +of mystery. Whether or not, in what was often probably coarse as +well as extravagant, there may have lurked some finer vein of ethical +symbolism, such as Euripides hints at--the soberer influence, in the +Thiasus, of keen air and animal expansion, certainly, for art, and a +poetry delighting in colour and form, it was a custom rich in +suggestion. The imitative arts would draw from it altogether new +motives of freedom and energy, of freshness in old forms. It is from +this fantastic scene that the beautiful wind-touched draperies, the +rhythm, the heads suddenly thrown back, of many a Pompeian wall- +painting and sarcophagus-frieze are originally derived; and that +melting languor, that perfectly [59] composed lassitude of the fallen +Maenad, became a fixed type in the school of grace, the school of +Praxiteles. + +The circumstances of the place thus combining with his peculiar +motive, Euripides writes the Bacchanals. It is this extravagant +phase of religion, and the latest-born of the gods, which as an +amende honorable to the once slighted traditions of Greek belief, he +undertakes to interpret to an audience composed of people who, like +Scyles, the Hellenising king of Scythia, feel the attraction of Greek +religion and Greek usage, but on their quainter side, and partly +relish that extravagance. Subject and audience alike stimulate the +romantic temper, and the tragedy of the Bacchanals, with its +innovations in metre and diction, expressly noted as foreign or +barbarous--all the charm and grace of the clear-pitched singing of +the chorus, notwithstanding--with its subtleties and sophistications, +its grotesques, mingled with and heightening a real shudder at the +horror of the theme, and a peculiarly fine and human pathos, is +almost wholly without the reassuring calm, generally characteristic +of the endings of Greek tragedy: is itself excited, troubled, +disturbing--a spotted or dappled thing, like the oddly dappled fawn- +skins of its own masquerade, so aptly expressive of the shifty, +twofold, rapidly-doubling genius of the divine, wild creature +himself. Let us listen and watch the strange masks coming and going, +for a while, [60] as far as may be as we should do with a modern +play. What are its charms? What is still alive, impressive, and +really poetical for us, in the dim old Greek play? + +The scene is laid at Thebes, where the memory of Semele, the mother +of Dionysus, is still under a cloud. Her own sisters, sinning +against natural affection, pitiless over her pathetic death and +finding in it only a judgment upon the impiety with which, having +shamed herself with some mortal lover, she had thrown the blame of +her sin upon Zeus, have, so far, triumphed over her. The true and +glorious version of her story lives only in the subdued memory of the +two aged men, Teiresias the prophet, and her father Cadmus, apt now +to let things go loosely by, who has delegated his royal power to +Pentheus, the son of one of those sisters--a hot-headed and impious +youth. So things had passed at Thebes; and now a strange +circumstance has happened. An odd sickness has fallen upon the +women: Dionysus has sent the sting of his enthusiasm upon them, and +has pushed it to a sort of madness, a madness which imitates the true +Thiasus. Forced to have the form without the profit of his worship, +the whole female population, leaving distaff and spindle, and headed +by the three princesses, have deserted the town, and are lying +encamped on the bare rocks, or under the pines, among the solitudes +of Cithaeron. And it is just at this point that the divine child, +[61] supposed to have perished at his mother's side in the flames, +returns to his birthplace, grown to manhood. + +Dionysus himself speaks the prologue. He is on a journey through the +world to found a new religion; and the first motive of this new +religion is the vindication of the memory of his mother. In +explaining this design, Euripides, who seeks always for pathetic +effect, tells in few words, touching because simple, the story of +Semele--here, and again still more intensely in the chorus which +follows--the merely human sentiment of maternity being not forgotten, +even amid the thought of the divine embraces of her fiery bed-fellow. +It is out of tenderness for her that the son's divinity is to be +revealed. A yearning affection, the affection with which we see him +lifting up his arms about her, satisfied at last, on an old Etruscan +metal mirror, has led him from place to place: everywhere he has had +his dances and established his worship; and everywhere his presence +has been her justification. First of all the towns in Greece he +comes to Thebes, the scene of her sorrows: he is standing beside the +sacred waters of Dirce and Ismenus: the holy place is in sight: he +hears the Greek speech, and sees at last the ruins of the place of +her lying-in, at once his own birth-chamber and his mother's tomb. +His image, as it detaches itself little by little from the episodes +of the play, and is further characterised by the [62] songs of the +chorus, has a singular completeness of symbolical effect. The +incidents of a fully developed human personality are superinduced on +the mystical and abstract essence of that fiery spirit in the flowing +veins of the earth--the aroma of the green world is retained in the +fair human body, set forth in all sorts of finer ethical lights and +shades--with a wonderful kind of subtlety. In the course of his long +progress from land to land, the gold, the flowers, the incense of the +East, have attached themselves deeply to him: their effect and +expression rest now upon his flesh like the gleaming of that old +ambrosial ointment of which Homer speaks as resting ever on the +persons of the gods, and cling to his clothing--the mitre binding his +perfumed yellow hair--the long tunic down to the white feet, somewhat +womanly, and the fawn-skin, with its rich spots, wrapped about the +shoulders. As the door opens to admit him, the scented air of the +vineyards (for the vine-blossom has an exquisite perfume) blows +through; while the convolvulus on his mystic rod represents all +wreathing flowery things whatever, with or without fruit, as in +America all such plants are still called vines. "Sweet upon the +mountains," the excitement of which he loves so deeply and to which +he constantly invites his followers--"sweet upon the mountains," and +profoundly amorous, his presence embodies all the voluptuous +abundance of Asia, its beating [63] sun, its "fair-towered cities, +full of inhabitants," which the chorus describe in their luscious +vocabulary, with the rich Eastern names--Lydia, Persia, Arabia Felix: +he is a sorcerer or an enchanter, the tyrant Pentheus thinks: the +springs of water, the flowing of honey and milk and wine, are his +miracles, wrought in person. + +We shall see presently how, writing for that northern audience, +Euripides crosses the Theban with the gloomier Thracian legend, and +lets the darker stain show through. Yet, from the first, amid all +this floweriness, a touch or trace of that gloom is discernible. The +fawn-skin, composed now so daintily over the shoulders, may be worn +with the whole coat of the animal made up, the hoofs gilded and tied +together over the right shoulder, to leave the right arm disengaged +to strike, its head clothing the human head within, as Alexander, on +some of his coins, looks out from the elephant's scalp, and Hercules +out of the jaws of a lion, on the coins of Camarina. Those +diminutive golden horns attached to the forehead, represent not +fecundity merely, nor merely the crisp tossing of the waves of +streams, but horns of offence. And our fingers must beware of the +thyrsus, tossed about so wantonly by himself and his chorus. The +pine-cone at its top does but cover a spear-point; and the thing is a +weapon--the sharp spear of the hunter Zagreus--though hidden now by +the fresh leaves, and that button of pine-cone (useful also to dip in +[64] wine, to check the sweetness) which he has plucked down, coming +through the forest, at peace for a while this spring morning. + +And the chorus emphasise this character, their songs weaving for the +whole piece, in words more effective than any painted scenery, a +certain congruous background which heightens all; the intimate sense +of mountains and mountain things being in this way maintained +throughout, and concentrated on the central figure. "He is sweet +among the mountains," they say, "when he drops down upon the plain, +out of his mystic musings"--and we may think we see the green +festoons of the vine dropping quickly, from foot-place to foot-place, +down the broken hill-side in spring, when like the Bacchanals, all +who can, wander out of the town to enjoy the earliest heats. "Let us +go out into the fields," we say; a strange madness seems to lurk +among the flowers, ready to lay hold on us also; autika ga pasa +choreusei+--soon the whole earth will dance and sing. + +Dionysus is especially a woman's deity, and he comes from the east +conducted by a chorus of gracious Lydian women, his true sisters-- +Bassarids, clad like himself in the long tunic, or bassara. They +move and speak to the music of clangorous metallic instruments, +cymbals and tambourines, relieved by the clearer notes of the pipe; +and there is a strange variety of almost imitative sounds for such +music, in their very [65] words. The Homeric hymn to Demeter +precedes the art of sculpture, but is rich in suggestions for it; +here, on the contrary, in the first chorus of the Bacchanals, as +elsewhere in the play, we feel that the poetry of Euripides is +probably borrowing something from art; that in these choruses, with +their repetitions and refrains, he is reproducing perhaps the spirit +of some sculptured relief which, like Luca della Robbia's celebrated +work for the organ-loft of the cathedral of Florence, worked by +various subtleties of line, not in the lips and eyes only, but in the +drapery and hands also, to a strange reality of impression of musical +effect on visible things. + +They beat their drums before the palace; and then a humourous little +scene, a reflex of the old Dionysiac comedy--of that laughter which +was an essential element of the earliest worship of Dionysus--follows +the first chorus. The old blind prophet Teiresias, and the aged king +Cadmus, always secretly true to him, have agreed to celebrate the +Thiasus, and accept his divinity openly. The youthful god has +nowhere said decisively that he will have none but young men in his +sacred dance. But for that purpose they must put on the long tunic, +and that spotted skin which only rustics wear, and assume the thyrsus +and ivy-crown. Teiresias arrives and is seen knocking at the doors. +And then, just as in the medieval mystery, comes the [66] inevitable +grotesque, not unwelcome to our poet, who is wont in his plays, +perhaps not altogether consciously, to intensify by its relief both +the pity and the terror of his conceptions. At the summons of +Teiresias, Cadmus appears, already arrayed like him in the appointed +ornaments, in all their odd contrast with the infirmity and staidness +of old age. Even in old men's veins the spring leaps again, and they +are more than ready to begin dancing. But they are shy of the +untried dress, and one of them is blind--poi dei choreuein; poi +kathistanai poda; kai krata seisai polion;+ and then the difficulty +of the way! the long, steep journey to the glens! may pilgrims boil +their peas? might they proceed to the place in carriages? At last, +while the audience laugh more or less delicately at their aged +fumblings, in some co-operative manner, the eyes of the one combining +with the hands of the other, the pair are about to set forth. + +Here Pentheus is seen approaching the palace in extreme haste. He +has been absent from home, and returning, has just heard of the state +of things at Thebes--the strange malady of the women, the dancings, +the arrival of the mysterious stranger: he finds all the women +departed from the town, and sees Cadmus and Teiresias in masque. +Like the exaggerated diabolical figures in some of the religious +plays and imageries of the Middle Age, he is an impersonation of +stupid impiety, one of those whom the gods willing to [67] destroy +first infatuate. Alternating between glib unwisdom and coarse +mockery, between violence and a pretence of moral austerity, he +understands only the sorriest motives; thinks the whole thing +feigned, and fancies the stranger, so effeminate, so attractive of +women with whom he remains day and night, but a poor sensual +creature, and the real motive of the Bacchic women the indulgence of +their lust; his ridiculous old grandfather he is ready to renounce, +and accuses Teiresias of having in view only some fresh source of +professional profit to himself in connexion with some new-fangled +oracle; his petty spite avenges itself on the prophet by an order to +root up the sacred chair, where he sits to watch the birds for +divination, and disturb the order of his sacred place; and even from +the moment of his entrance the mark of his doom seems already set +upon him, in an impotent trembling which others notice in him. Those +of the women who still loitered, he has already caused to be shut up +in the common prison; the others, with Ino, Autonoe, and his own +mother, Agave, he will hunt out of the glens; while the stranger is +threatened with various cruel forms of death. But Teiresias and +Cadmus stay to reason with him, and induce him to abide wisely with +them; the prophet fittingly becomes the interpreter of Dionysus, and +explains the true nature of the visitor; his divinity, the completion +or counterpart of that of Demeter; his gift of prophecy; [68] all the +soothing influences he brings with him; above all, his gift of the +medicine of sleep to weary mortals. But the reason of Pentheus is +already sickening, and the judicial madness gathering over it. +Teiresias and Cadmus can but "go pray." So again, not without the +laughter of the audience, supporting each other a little grotesquely +against a fall, they get away at last. + +And then, again, as in those quaintly carved and coloured imageries +of the Middle Age--the martyrdom of the youthful Saint Firmin, for +instance, round the choir at Amiens--comes the full contrast, with a +quite medieval simplicity and directness, between the insolence of +the tyrant, now at last in sight of his prey, and the outraged beauty +of the youthful god, meek, surrounded by his enemies, like some fair +wild creature in the snare of the hunter. Dionysus has been taken +prisoner; he is led on to the stage, with his hands bound, but still +holding the thyrsus. Unresisting he had submitted himself to his +captors; his colour had not changed; with a smile he had bidden them +do their will, so that even they are touched with awe, and are almost +ready to admit his divinity. Marvellously white and red, he stands +there; and now, unwilling to be revealed to the unworthy, and +requiring a fitness in the receiver, he represents himself, in answer +to the inquiries of Pentheus, not as Dionysus, but simply as the +god's prophet, [69] in full trust in whom he desires to hear his +sentence. Then the long hair falls to the ground under the shears; +the mystic wand is torn from his hand, and he is led away to be tied +up, like some dangerous wild animal, in a dark place near the king's +stables. + +Up to this point in the play, there has been a noticeable ambiguity +as to the person of Dionysus, the main figure of the piece; he is in +part Dionysus, indeed; but in part, only his messenger, or minister +preparing his way; a certain harshness of effect in the actual +appearance of a god upon the stage being in this way relieved, or +made easy, as by a gradual revelation in two steps. To Pentheus, in +his invincible ignorance, his essence remains to the last unrevealed, +and even the women of the chorus seem to understand in him, so far, +only the forerunner of their real leader. As he goes away bound, +therefore, they too, threatened also in their turn with slavery, +invoke his greater original to appear and deliver them. In pathetic +cries they reproach Thebes for rejecting them--ti m' anainei, ti me +pheugeis;+ yet they foretell his future greatness; a new Orpheus, he +will more than renew that old miraculous reign over animals and +plants. Their song is full of suggestions of wood and river. It is +as if, for a moment, Dionysus became the suffering vine again; and +the rustle of the leaves and water come through their words to +refresh it. The [70] fountain of Dirce still haunted by the virgins +of Thebes, where the infant god was cooled and washed from the flecks +of his fiery birth, becomes typical of the coolness of all springs, +and is made, by a really poetic licence, the daughter of the distant +Achelous--the earliest born, the father in myth, of all Greek rivers. + +A giddy sonorous scene of portents and surprises follows--a distant, +exaggerated, dramatic reflex of that old thundering tumult of the +festival in the vineyard--in which Dionysus reappears, miraculously +set free from his bonds. First, in answer to the deep-toned +invocation of the chorus, a great voice is heard from within, +proclaiming him to be the son of Semele and Zeus. Then, amid the +short, broken, rapturous cries of the women of the chorus, +proclaiming him master, the noise of an earthquake passes slowly; the +pillars of the palace are seen waving to and fro; while the strange, +memorial fire from the tomb of Semele blazes up and envelopes the +whole building. The terrified women fling themselves on the ground; +and then, at last, as the place is shaken open, Dionysus is seen +stepping out from among the tottering masses of the mimic palace, +bidding them arise and fear not. But just here comes a long pause in +the action of the play, in which we must listen to a messenger newly +arrived from the glens, to tell us what he has seen there, among the +Maenads. The singular, somewhat sinister beauty of this speech, and +a [71] similar one subsequent--a fair description of morning on the +mountain-tops, with the Bacchic women sleeping, which turns suddenly +to a hard, coarse picture of animals cruelly rent--is one of the +special curiosities which distinguish this play; and, as it is wholly +narrative, I shall give it in English prose, abbreviating, here and +there, some details which seem to have but a metrical value:-- + +"I was driving my herd of cattle to the summit of the scaur to feed, +what time the sun sent forth his earliest beams to warm the earth. +And lo! three companies of women, and at the head of one of them +Autonoe, thy mother Agave at the head of the second, and Ino at the +head of the third. And they all slept, with limbs relaxed, leaned +against the low boughs of the pines, or with head thrown heedlessly +among the oak-leaves strewn upon the ground--all in the sleep of +temperance, not, as thou saidst, pursuing Cypris through the +solitudes of the forest, drunken with wine, amid the low rustling of +the lotus-pipe. + +"And thy mother, when she heard the lowing of the kine, stood up in +the midst of them, and cried to them to shake off sleep. And they, +casting slumber from their eyes, started upright, a marvel of beauty +and order, young and old and maidens yet unmarried. And first, they +let fall their hair upon their shoulders; and those [72] whose +cinctures were unbound re-composed the spotted fawn-skins, knotting +them about with snakes, which rose and licked them on the chin. +Some, lately mothers, who with breasts still swelling had left their +babes behind, nursed in their arms antelopes, or wild whelps of +wolves, and yielded them their milk to drink; and upon their heads +they placed crowns of ivy or of oak, or of flowering convolvulus. +Then one, taking a thyrsus-wand, struck with it upon a rock, and +thereupon leapt out a fine rain of water; another let down a reed +upon the earth, and a fount of wine was sent forth there; and those +whose thirst was for a white stream, skimming the surface with their +finger-tips, gathered from it abundance of milk; and from the ivy of +the mystic wands streams of honey distilled. Verily! hadst thou seen +these things, thou wouldst have worshipped whom now thou revilest. + +"And we shepherds and herdsmen came together to question with each +other over this matter--what strange and terrible things they do. +And a certain wayfarer from the city, subtle in speech, spake to us-- +'O! dwellers upon these solemn ledges of the hills, will ye that we +hunt down, and take, amid her revelries, Agave, the mother of +Pentheus, according to the king's pleasure?' And he seemed to us to +speak wisely; and we lay in wait among the bushes; and they, at the +time appointed, began moving their wands for the Bacchic dance, [73] +calling with one voice upon Bromius!--Iacchus!--the son of Zeus! and +the whole mountain was moved with ecstasy together, and the wild +creatures; nothing but was moved in their running. And it chanced +that Agave, in her leaping, lighted near me, and I sprang from my +hiding-place, willing to lay hold on her; and she groaned out, 'O! +dogs of hunting, these fellows are upon our traces; but follow me! +follow! with the mystic wands for weapons in your hands.' And we, by +flight, hardly escaped tearing to pieces at their hands, who +thereupon advanced with knifeless fingers upon the young of the kine, +as they nipped the green; and then hadst thou seen one holding a +bleating calf in her hands, with udder distent, straining it asunder; +others tore the heifers to shreds amongst them; tossed up and down +the morsels lay in sight--flank or hoof--or hung from the fir-trees, +dropping churned blood. The fierce, horned bulls stumbled forward, +their breasts upon the ground, dragged on by myriad hands of young +women, and in a moment the inner parts were rent to morsels. So, +like a flock of birds aloft in flight, they retreat upon the level +lands outstretched below, which by the waters of Asopus put forth the +fair-flowering crop of Theban people--Hysiae and Erythrae--below the +precipice of Cithaeron."-- + +A grotesque scene follows, in which the [74] humour we noted, on +seeing those two old men diffidently set forth in chaplet and fawn- +skin, deepens into a profound tragic irony. Pentheus is determined +to go out in arms against the Bacchanals and put them to death, when +a sudden desire seizes him to witness them in their encampment upon +the mountains. Dionysus, whom he still supposes to be but a prophet +or messenger of the god, engages to conduct him thither; and, for +greater security among the dangerous women, proposes that he shall +disguise himself in female attire. As Pentheus goes within for that +purpose, he lingers for a moment behind him, and in prophetic speech +declares the approaching end;--the victim has fallen into the net; +and he goes in to assist at the toilet, to array him in the ornaments +which he will carry to Hades, destroyed by his own mother's hands. +It is characteristic of Euripides--part of his fine tact and +subtlety--to relieve and justify what seems tedious, or constrained, +or merely terrible and grotesque, by a suddenly suggested trait of +homely pathos, or a glimpse of natural beauty, or a morsel of form or +colour seemingly taken directly from picture or sculpture. So here, +in this fantastic scene our thoughts are changed in a moment by +the singing of the chorus, and divert for a while to the dark-haired +tresses of the wood; the breath of the river-side is upon us; beside +it, a fawn escaped from the hunter's net is flying swiftly in [75] +its joy; like it, the Maenad rushes along; and we see the little head +thrown back upon the neck, in deep aspiration, to drink in the dew. + +Meantime, Pentheus has assumed his disguise, and comes forth tricked +up with false hair and the dress of a Bacchanal; but still with some +misgivings at the thought of going thus attired through the streets +of Thebes, and with many laughable readjustments of the unwonted +articles of clothing. And with the woman's dress, his madness is +closing faster round him; just before, in the palace, terrified at +the noise of the earthquake, he had drawn sword upon a mere fantastic +appearance, and pierced only the empty air. Now he begins to see the +sun double, and Thebes with all its towers repeated, while his +conductor seems to him transformed into a wild beast; and now and +then, we come upon some touches of a curious psychology, so that we +might almost seem to be reading a modern poet. As if Euripides had +been aware of a not unknown symptom of incipient madness (it is said) +in which the patient, losing the sense of resistance, while lifting +small objects imagines himself to be raising enormous weights, +Pentheus, as he lifts the thyrsus, fancies he could lift Cithaeron +with all the Bacchanals upon it. At all this the laughter of course +will pass round the theatre; while those who really pierce into the +purpose of the poet, shudder, as they see the victim thus grotesquely +clad going to his doom, [76] already foreseen in the ominous chant of +the chorus--and as it were his grave-clothes, in the dress which +makes him ridiculous. + +Presently a messenger arrives to announce that Pentheus is dead, and +then another curious narrative sets forth the manner of his death. +Full of wild, coarse, revolting details, of course not without +pathetic touches, and with the loveliness of the serving Maenads, and +of their mountain solitudes--their trees and water--never quite +forgotten, it describes how, venturing as a spy too near the sacred +circle, Pentheus was fallen upon, like a wild beast, by the mystic +huntresses and torn to pieces, his mother being the first to begin +"the sacred rites of slaughter." + +And at last Agave herself comes upon the stage, holding aloft the +head of her son, fixed upon the sharp end of the thyrsus, calling +upon the women of the chorus to welcome the revel of the Evian god; +who, accordingly, admit her into the company, professing themselves +her fellow-revellers, the Bacchanals being thus absorbed into the +chorus for the rest of the play. For, indeed, all through it, the +true, though partly suppressed relation of the chorus to the +Bacchanals is this, that the women of the chorus, staid and temperate +for the moment, following Dionysus in his alternations, are but the +paler sisters of his more wild and gloomy votaries--the true +followers of the mystical Dionysus--the real chorus of Zagreus; the +idea that their [77] violent proceedings are the result of madness +only, sent on them as a punishment for their original rejection of +the god, being, as I said, when seen from the deeper motives of the +myth, only a "sophism" of Euripides--a piece of rationalism of which +he avails himself for the purpose of softening down the tradition of +which he has undertaken to be the poet. Agave comes on the stage, +then, blood-stained, exulting in her "victory of tears," still quite +visibly mad indeed, and with the outward signs of madness, and as her +mind wanders, musing still on the fancy that the dead head in her +hands is that of a lion she has slain among the mountains--a young +lion, she avers, as she notices the down on the young man's chin, and +his abundant hair--a fancy in which the chorus humour her, willing to +deal gently with the poor distraught creature. Supported by them, +she rejoices "exceedingly, exceedingly," declaring herself +"fortunate" in such goodly spoil; priding herself that the victim has +been slain, not with iron weapons, but with her own white fingers, +she summons all Thebes to come and behold. She calls for her aged +father to draw near and see; and for Pentheus himself, at last, that +he may mount and rivet her trophy, appropriately decorative there, +between the triglyphs of the cornice below the roof, visible to all. + +And now, from this point onwards, Dionysus himself becomes more and +more clearly discernible [78] as the hunter, a wily hunter, and man +the prey he hunts for; "Our king is a hunter," cry the chorus, as +they unite in Agave's triumph and give their sanction to her deed. +And as the Bacchanals supplement the chorus, and must be added to it +to make the conception of it complete; so in the conception of +Dionysus also a certain transference, or substitution, must be made-- +much of the horror and sorrow of Agave, of Pentheus, of the whole +tragic situation, must be transferred to him, if we wish to realise +in the older, profounder, and more complete sense of his nature, that +mystical being of Greek tradition to whom all these experiences--his +madness, the chase, his imprisonment and death, his peace again-- +really belong; and to discern which, through Euripides' peculiar +treatment of his subject, is part of the curious interest of this +play. + +Through the sophism of Euripides! For that, again, is the really +descriptive word, with which Euripides, a lover of sophisms, as +Aristophanes knows, himself supplies us. Well;--this softened +version of the Bacchic madness is a sophism of Euripides; and +Dionysus Omophagus--the eater of raw flesh, must be added to the +golden image of Dionysus Meilichius--the honey-sweet, if the old +tradition in its completeness is to be, in spite of that sophism, our +closing impression; if we are to catch, in its fulness, that deep +undercurrent of horror which runs below, all through [79] this masque +of spring, and realise the spectacle of that wild chase, in which +Dionysus is ultimately both the hunter and the spoil. + +But meantime another person appears on the stage; Cadmus enters, +followed by attendants bearing on a bier the torn limbs of Pentheus, +which lying wildly scattered through the tangled wood, have been with +difficulty collected and now decently put together and covered over. +In the little that still remains before the end of the play, destiny +now hurrying things rapidly forward, and strong emotions, hopes and +forebodings being now closely packed, Euripides has before him an +artistic problem of enormous difficulty. Perhaps this very haste and +close-packing of the matter, which keeps the mind from dwelling +overmuch on detail, relieves its real extravagance, and those who +read it carefully will think that the pathos of Euripides has been +equal to the occasion. In a few profoundly designed touches he +depicts the perplexity of Cadmus, in whose house a god had become an +inmate, only to destroy it--the regret of the old man for the one +male child to whom that house had looked up as the pillar whereby +aged people might feel secure; the piteous craziness of Agave; the +unconscious irony with which she caresses the florid, youthful head +of her son; the delicate breaking of the thing to her reviving +intelligence, as Cadmus, though he can but wish that she might live +on for ever in her visionary enjoyment, [80] prepares the way, by +playing on that other horrible legend of the Theban house, the +tearing of Actaeon to death--he too destroyed by a god. He gives us +the sense of Agave's gradual return to reason through many glimmering +doubts, till she wakes up at last to find the real face turned up +towards the mother and murderess; the quite naturally spontaneous +sorrow of the mother, ending with her confession, down to her last +sigh, and the final breaking up of the house of Cadmus; with a result +so genuine, heartfelt, and dignified withal in its expression of a +strange ineffable woe, that a fragment of it, the lamentation of +Agave over her son, in which the long-pent agony at last finds vent, +were, it is supposed, adopted into his paler work by an early +Christian poet, and have figured since, as touches of real fire, in +the Christus Patiens of Gregory Nazianzen. + +NOTES + +64. +Transliteration: autika ga pasa choreusei. E-text editor's +translation: "Straightway all the earth shall dance." Euripides, +Bacchae 114. Euripidis Fabulae, ed. Gilbert Murray, vol. 3. +Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. + +66. +Transliteration: poi dei choreuein; poi kathistanai poda; kai +krata seisai polion. Translation: "Where must I dance? Where must +I stand and shake my white locks?" Euripides, Bacchae 184-85. +Euripidis Fabulae, ed. Gilbert Murray, vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon +Press, 1913. + +69. +Transliteration: ti m' anainei, ti me pheugeis. Translation: +"Why do you reject me, why do you run from me?" Bacchae 519. Euripidis +Fabulae, ed. Gilbert Murray, vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913. + + + +THE MYTH OF DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE: I + +[81] No chapter in the history of human imagination is more curious +than the myth of Demeter, and Kore or Persephone. Alien in some +respects from the genuine traditions of Greek mythology, a relic of +the earlier inhabitants of Greece, and having but a subordinate place +in the religion of Homer, it yet asserted its interest, little by +little, and took a complex hold on the minds of the Greeks, becoming +finally the central and most popular subject of their national +worship. Following its changes, we come across various phases of +Greek culture, which are not without their likenesses in the modern +mind. We trace it in the dim first period of instinctive popular +conception; we see it connecting itself with many impressive elements +of art, and poetry, and religious custom, with the picturesque +superstitions of the many, and with the finer intuitions of the few; +and besides this, it is in itself full of [82] interest and +suggestion, to all for whom the ideas of the Greek religion have any +real meaning in the modern world. And the fortune of the myth has +not deserted it in later times. In the year 1780, the long-lost text +of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter was discovered among the manuscripts +of the imperial library at Moscow; and, in our own generation, the +tact of an eminent student of Greek art, Sir Charles Newton, has +restored to the world the buried treasures of the little temple and +precinct of Demeter, at Cnidus, which have many claims to rank in the +central order of Greek sculpture. The present essay is an attempt to +select and weave together, for those who are now approaching the +deeper study of Greek thought, whatever details in the development of +this myth, arranged with a view rather to a total impression than to +the debate of particular points, may seem likely to increase their +stock of poetical impressions, and to add to this some criticisms on +the expression which it has left of itself in extant art and poetry. + +The central expression, then, of the story of Demeter and Persephone +is the Homeric hymn, to which Grote has assigned a date at least as +early as six hundred years before Christ. The one survivor of a whole +family of hymns on this subject, it was written, perhaps, for one of +those contests which took place on the seventh day of the Eleusinian +festival, and in which a bunch of [83] ears of corn was the prize; +perhaps, for actual use in the mysteries themselves, by the +Hierophantes, or Interpreter, who showed to the worshippers at +Eleusis those sacred places to which the poem contains so many +references. About the composition itself there are many difficult +questions, with various surmises as to why it has remained only in +this unique manuscript of the end of the fourteenth century. +Portions of the text are missing, and there are probably some +additions by later hands; yet most scholars have admitted that it +possesses some of the true characteristics of the Homeric style, some +genuine echoes of the age immediately succeeding that which produced +the Iliad and the Odyssey. Listen now to a somewhat abbreviated +version of it. + +"I begin the song of Demeter"--says the prize-poet, or the +Interpreter, the Sacristan of the holy places--"the song of Demeter +and her daughter Persephone, whom Aidoneus carried away by the +consent of Zeus, as she played, apart from her mother, with the deep- +bosomed daughters of the Ocean, gathering flowers in a meadow of soft +grass--roses and the crocus and fair violets and flags, and +hyacinths, and, above all, the strange flower of the narcissus, which +the Earth, favouring the desire of Aidoneus, brought forth for the +first time, to snare the footsteps of the flower-like girl. A +hundred [84] heads of blossom grew up from the roots of it, and the +sky and the earth and the salt wave of the sea were glad at the scent +thereof. She stretched forth her hands to take the flower; thereupon +the earth opened, and the king of the great nation of the dead sprang +out with his immortal horses. He seized the unwilling girl, and bore +her away weeping, on his golden chariot. She uttered a shrill cry, +calling upon her father Zeus; but neither man nor god heard her +voice, nor even the nymphs of the meadow where she played; except +Hecate only, the daughter of Persaeus, sitting, as ever, in her cave, +half veiled with a shining veil, thinking delicate thoughts; she, and +the Sun also, heard her. + +"So long as she could still see the earth, and the sky, and the sea +with the great waves moving, and the beams of the sun, and still +thought to see again her mother, and the race of the ever-living +gods, so long hope soothed her, in the midst of her grief. The peaks +of the hills and the depths of the sea echoed her cry. And the +mother heard it. A sharp pain seized her at the heart; she plucked +the veil from her hair, and cast down the blue hood from her +shoulders, and fled forth like a bird, seeking Persephone over dry +land and sea. But neither man nor god would tell her the truth; nor +did any bird come to her as a sure messenger. + +"Nine days she wandered up and down upon the earth, having blazing +torches in her hands; [85] and, in her great sorrow, she refused to +taste of ambrosia, or of the cup of the sweet nectar, nor washed her +face. But when the tenth morning came, Hecate met her, having a +light in her hands. But Hecate had heard the voice only, and had +seen no one, and could not tell Demeter who had borne the girl away. +And Demeter said not a word, but fled away swiftly with her, having +the blazing torches in her hands, till they came to the Sun, the +watchman both of gods and men; and the goddess questioned him, and +the Sun told her the whole story. + +"Then a more terrible grief took possession of Demeter, and, in her +anger against Zeus, she forsook the assembly of the gods and abode +among men, for a long time veiling her beauty under a worn +countenance, so that none who looked upon her knew her, until she +came to the house of Celeus, who was then king of Eleusis. In her +sorrow, she sat down at the wayside by the virgin's well, where the +people of Eleusis come to draw water, under the shadow of an olive- +tree. She seemed as an aged woman whose time of child-bearing is +gone by, and from whom the gifts of Aphrodite have been withdrawn, +like one of the hired servants, who nurse the children or keep house, +in kings' palaces. And the daughters of Celeus, four of them, like +goddesses, possessing the flower of their youth, Callidice, +Cleisidice, Demo, and Callithoe the eldest of them, coming to draw +water that they [86] might bear it in their brazen pitchers to their +father's house, saw Demeter and knew her not. The gods are hard for +men to recognise. + +"They asked her kindly what she did there, alone; and Demeter +answered, dissemblingly, that she was escaped from certain pirates, +who had carried her from her home and meant to sell her as a slave. +Then they prayed her to abide there while they returned to the +palace, to ask their mother's permission to bring her home. + +"Demeter bowed her head in assent; and they, having filled their +shining vessels with water, bore them away, rejoicing in their +beauty. They came quickly to their father's house, and told their +mother what they had seen and heard. Their mother bade them return, +and hire the woman for a great price; and they, like the hinds or +young heifers leaping in the fields in spring, fulfilled with the +pasture, holding up the folds of their raiment, sped along the hollow +road-way, their hair, in colour like the crocus, floating about their +shoulders as they went. They found the glorious goddess still +sitting by the wayside, unmoved. Then they led her to their father's +house; and she, veiled from head to foot, in her deep grief, followed +them on the way, and her blue robe gathered itself as she walked, in +many folds about her feet. They came to the house, and passed +through the sunny porch, where their mother, Metaneira, was [87] +sitting against one of the pillars of the roof, having a young child +in her bosom. They ran up to her; but Demeter crossed the threshold, +and, as she passed through, her head rose and touched the roof, and +her presence filled the doorway with a divine brightness. + +"Still they did not wholly recognise her. After a time she was made +to smile. She refused to drink wine, but tasted of a cup mingled of +water and barley, flavoured with mint. It happened that Metaneira +had lately borne a child. It had come beyond hope, long after its +elder brethren, and was the object of a peculiar tenderness and of +many prayers with all. Demeter consented to remain, and become the +nurse of this child. She took the child in her immortal hands, and +placed it in her fragrant bosom; and the heart of the mother +rejoiced. Thus Demeter nursed Demophoon. And the child grew like a +god, neither sucking the breast, nor eating bread; but Demeter daily +anointed it with ambrosia, as if it had indeed been the child of a +god, breathing sweetly over it and holding it in her bosom; and at +nights, when she lay alone with the child, she would hide it secretly +in the red strength of the fire, like a brand; for her heart yearned +towards it, and she would fain have given to it immortal youth. + +"But the foolishness of his mother prevented it. For a suspicion +growing up within her, she awaited her time, and one night peeped in +upon [88] them, and thereupon cried out in terror at what she saw. +And the goddess heard her; and a sudden anger seizing her, she +plucked the child from the fire and cast it on the ground,--the child +she would fain have made immortal, but who must now share the common +destiny of all men, though some inscrutable grace should still be +his, because he had lain for awhile on the knees and in the bosom of +the goddess. + +"Then Demeter manifested herself openly. She put away the mask of +old age, and changed her form, and the spirit of beauty breathed +about her. A fragrant odour fell from her raiment, and her flesh +shone from afar; the long yellow hair descended waving over her +shoulders, and the great house was filled as with the brightness of +lightning. She passed out through the halls; and Metaneira fell to +the earth, and was speechless for a long time, and remembered not to +lift the child from the ground. But the sisters, hearing its piteous +cries, leapt from their beds and ran to it. Then one of them lifted +the child from the earth, and wrapped it in her bosom, and another +hastened to her mother's chamber to awake her: they came round the +child, and washed away the flecks of the fire from its panting body, +and kissed it tenderly all about: but the anguish of the child ceased +not; the arms of other and different nurses were about to enfold it. + +"So, all night, trembling with fear, they [89] sought to propitiate +the glorious goddess; and in the morning they told all to their +father, Celeus. And he, according to the commands of the goddess, +built a fair temple; and all the people assisted; and when it was +finished every man departed to his own home. Then Demeter returned, +and sat down within the temple-walls, and remained still apart from +the company of the gods, alone in her wasting regret for her daughter +Persephone. + +"And, in her anger, she sent upon the earth a year of grievous +famine. The dry seed remained hidden in the soil; in vain the oxen +drew the ploughshare through the furrows; much white seed-corn fell +fruitless on the earth, and the whole human race had like to have +perished, and the gods had no more service of men, unless Zeus had +interfered. First he sent Iris, afterwards all the gods, one by one, +to turn Demeter from her anger; but none was able to persuade her; +she heard their words with a hard countenance, and vowed by no means +to return to Olympus, nor to yield the fruit of the earth, until her +eyes had seen her lost daughter again. Then, last of all, Zeus sent +Hermes into the kingdom of the dead, to persuade Aidoneus to suffer +his bride to return to the light of day. And Hermes found the king +at home in his palace, sitting on a couch, beside the shrinking +Persephone, consumed within herself by desire for her mother. A +doubtful smile passed over [90] the face of Aidoneus; yet he obeyed +the message, and bade Persephone return; yet praying her a little to +have gentle thoughts of him, nor judge him too hardly, who was also +an immortal god. And Persephone arose up quickly in great joy; only, +ere she departed, he caused her to eat a morsel of sweet pomegranate, +designing secretly thereby, that she should not remain always upon +earth, but might some time return to him. And Aidoneus yoked the +horses to his chariot; and Persephone ascended into it; and Hermes +took the reins in his hands and drove out through the infernal halls; +and the horses ran willingly; and they two quickly passed over the +ways of that long journey, neither the waters of the sea, nor of the +rivers, nor the deep ravines of the hills, nor the cliffs of the +shore, resisting them; till at last Hermes placed Persephone before +the door of the temple where her mother was; who, seeing her, ran out +quickly to meet her, like a Maenad coming down a mountain-side, dusky +with woods. + +"So they spent all that day together in intimate communion, having +many things to hear and tell. Then Zeus sent to them Rhea, his +venerable mother, the oldest of divine persons, to bring them back +reconciled, to the company of the gods; and he ordained that +Persephone should remain two parts of the year with her mother, and +one third part only with her husband, in the kingdom of the dead. So +Demeter suffered [91] the earth to yield its fruits once more, and +the land was suddenly laden with leaves and flowers and waving corn. +Also she visited Triptolemus and the other princes of Eleusis, and +instructed them in the performance of her sacred rites,--those +mysteries of which no tongue may speak. Only, blessed is he whose +eyes have seen them; his lot after death is not as the lot of other +men!" + +In the story of Demeter, as in all Greek myths, we may trace the +action of three different influences, which have moulded it with +varying effects, in three successive phases of its development. +There is first its half-conscious, instinctive, or mystical, phase, +in which, under the form of an unwritten legend, living from mouth to +mouth, and with details changing as it passes from place to place, +there lie certain primitive impressions of the phenomena of the +natural world. We may trace it next in its conscious, poetical or +literary, phase, in which the poets become the depositaries of the +vague instinctive product of the popular imagination, and handle it +with a purely literary interest, fixing its outlines, and simplifying +or developing its situations. Thirdly, the myth passes into the +ethical phase, in which the persons and the incidents of the poetical +narrative are realised as abstract symbols, because intensely +characteristic examples, of moral or spiritual conditions. [92] +Behind the adventures of the stealing of Persephone and the +wanderings of Demeter in search of her, as we find them in the +Homeric hymn, we may discern the confused conception, under which +that early age, in which the myths were first created, represented to +itself those changes in physical things, that order of summer and +winter, of which it had no scientific, or systematic explanation, but +in which, nevertheless, it divined a multitude of living agencies, +corresponding to those ascertained forces, of which our colder modern +science tells the number and the names. Demeter--Demeter and +Persephone, at first, in a sort of confused union--is the earth, in +the fixed order of its annual changes, but also in all the accident +and detail of the growth and decay of its children. Of this +conception, floating loosely in the air, the poets of a later age +take possession; they create Demeter and Persephone as we know them +in art and poetry. From the vague and fluctuating union, in which +together they had represented the earth and its changes, the mother +and the daughter define themselves with special functions, and with +fixed, well-understood relationships, the incidents and emotions of +which soon weave themselves into a pathetic story. Lastly, in +proportion as the literary or aesthetic activity completes the +picture or the poem, the ethical interest makes itself felt. These +strange persons--Demeter and Persephone--these marvellous incidents-- +the translation into Hades, the seeking [93] of Demeter, the return +of Persephone to her,--lend themselves to the elevation and +correction of the sentiments of sorrow and awe, by the presentment to +the senses and the imagination of an ideal expression of them. +Demeter cannot but seem the type of divine grief. Persephone is the +goddess of death, yet with a promise of life to come. Those three +phases, then, which are more or less discernible in all mythical +development, and constitute a natural order in it, based on the +necessary conditions of human apprehension, are fixed more plainly, +perhaps, than in any other passage of Greek mythology in the story of +Demeter. And as the Homeric hymn is the central expression of its +literary or poetical phase, so the marble remains, of which I shall +have to speak by and bye, are the central extant illustration of what +I have called its ethical phase. + +Homer, in the Iliad, knows Demeter, but only as the goddess of the +fields, the originator and patroness of the labours of the +countryman, in their yearly order. She stands, with her hair yellow +like the ripe corn, at the threshing-floor, and takes her share in +the toil, the heap of grain whitening, as the flails, moving in the +wind, disperse the chaff. Out in the fresh fields, she yields to the +embraces of Iasion, to the extreme jealousy of Zeus, who slays her +mortal lover with lightning. The flowery town of Pyrasus--the wheat- +town,--an ancient place in Thessaly, is her sacred precinct. But +when [94] Homer gives a list of the orthodox gods, her name is not +mentioned. + +Homer, in the Odyssey, knows Persephone also, but not as Kore; only +as the queen of the dead--epainê Persephonê+--dreadful Persephone, the +goddess of destruction and death, according to the apparent import of +her name.+ She accomplishes men's evil prayers; she is the mistress +and manager of men's shades, to which she can dispense a little more +or less of life, dwelling in her mouldering palace on the steep shore +of the Oceanus, with its groves of barren willows and tall poplars. +But that Homer knew her as the daughter of Demeter there are no +signs; and of his knowledge of the rape of Persephone there is only +the faintest sign,--he names Hades by the golden reins of his +chariot, and his beautiful horses. + +The main theme, then, the most characteristic peculiarities, of the +story, as subsequently developed, are not to be found, expressly, in +the true Homer. We have in him, on the one hand, Demeter, as the +perfectly fresh and blithe goddess of the fields, whose children, if +she has them, must be as the perfectly discreet and peaceful, +unravished Kore; on the other hand, we have Persephone, as the wholly +terrible goddess of death, who brings to Ulysses the querulous +shadows of the dead, and has the head of the gorgon Medusa in her +keeping. And it is only when these two contrasted images have been +[95] brought into intimate relationship, only when Kore and +Persephone have been identified, that the deeper mythology of Demeter +begins. + +This combination has taken place in Hesiod; and in three lines of the +Theogony we find the stealing of Persephone by Aidoneus,*--one of +those things in Hesiod, perhaps, which are really older than Homer. +Hesiod has been called the poet of helots, and is thought to have +preserved some of the traditions of those earlier inhabitants of +Greece who had become a kind of serfs; and in a certain shadowiness +in his conceptions of the gods, contrasting with the concrete and +heroic forms of the gods of Homer, we may perhaps trace something of +the quiet unspoken brooding of a subdued people--of that silently +dreaming temper to which the story of Persephone properly belongs. +However this may be, it is in Hesiod that the two images, +unassociated in Homer--the goddess of summer and the goddess of +death, Kore and Persephone--are identified with much significance; +and that strange, dual being makes her first appearance, whose latent +capabilities the poets afterwards developed; among the rest, a +peculiar blending of those two contrasted aspects, full of purpose +for the duly chastened intelligence; death, resurrection, +rejuvenescence.--Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust! + +[96] Modern science explains the changes of the natural world by the +hypothesis of certain unconscious forces; and the sum of these +forces, in their combined action, constitutes the scientific +conception of nature. But, side by side with the growth of this more +mechanical conception, an older and more spiritual, Platonic, +philosophy has always maintained itself, a philosophy more of +instinct than of the understanding, the mental starting-point of +which is not an observed sequence of outward phenomena, but some such +feeling as most of us have on the first warmer days in spring, when +we seem to feel the genial processes of nature actually at work; as +if just below the mould, and in the hard wood of the trees, there +were really circulating some spirit of life, akin to that which makes +its energies felt within ourselves. Starting with a hundred +instincts such as this, that older unmechanical, spiritual, or +Platonic, philosophy envisages nature rather as the unity of a living +spirit or person, revealing itself in various degrees to the kindred +spirit of the observer, than as a system of mechanical forces. Such +a philosophy is a systematised form of that sort of poetry (we may +study it, for instance, either in Shelley or in Wordsworth), which +also has its fancies of a spirit of the earth, or of the sky,--a +personal intelligence abiding in them, the existence of which is +assumed in every suggestion such poetry makes to us of a sympathy +between the ways [97] and aspects of outward nature and the moods of +men. And what stood to the primitive intelligence in place of such +metaphysical conceptions were those cosmical stories or myths, such +as this of Demeter and Persephone, which springing up spontaneously +in many minds, came at last to represent to them, in a certain number +of sensibly realised images, all they knew, felt, or fancied, of the +natural world about them. The sky in its unity and its variety,--the +sea in its unity and its variety,--mirrored themselves respectively +in these simple, but profoundly impressible spirits, as Zeus, as +Glaucus or Poseidon. And a large part of their experience--all, that +is, that related to the earth in its changes, the growth and decay of +all things born of it--was covered by the story of Demeter, the myth +of the earth as a mother. They thought of Demeter as the old Germans +thought of Hertha, or the later Greeks of Pan, as the Egyptians +thought of Isis, the land of the Nile, made green by the streams of +Osiris, for whose coming Isis longs, as Demeter for Persephone; thus +naming together in her all their fluctuating thoughts, impressions, +suspicions, of the earth and its appearances, their whole complex +divination of a mysterious life, a perpetual working, a continuous +act of conception there. Or they thought of the many-coloured earth +as the garment of Demeter, as the great modern pantheist poet speaks +of it as the "garment of God." Its [98] brooding fertility; the +spring flowers breaking from its surface, the thinly disguised +unhealthfulness of their heavy perfume, and of their chosen places of +growth; the delicate, feminine, Prosperina-like motion of all growing +things; its fruit, full of drowsy and poisonous, or fresh, reviving +juices; its sinister caprices also, its droughts and sudden volcanic +heats; the long delays of spring; its dumb sleep, so suddenly flung +away; the sadness which insinuates itself into its languid +luxuriance; all this grouped itself round the persons of Demeter and +her circle. They could turn always to her, from the actual earth +itself, in aweful yet hopeful prayer, and a devout personal +gratitude, and explain it through her, in its sorrow and its promise, +its darkness and its helpfulness to man. + +The personification of abstract ideas by modern painters or +sculptors, of wealth, of commerce, of health, for instance, shocks, +in most cases, the aesthetic sense, as something conventional or +rhetorical, as a mere transparent allegory, or figure of speech, +which could please almost no one. On the other hand, such symbolical +representations, under the form of human persons, as Giotto's Virtues +and Vices at Padua, or his Saint Poverty at Assisi, or the series of +the planets in certain early Italian engravings, are profoundly +poetical and impressive. They seem to be something more than mere +symbolism, [99] and to be connected with some peculiarly sympathetic +penetration, on the part of the artist, into the subjects he intended +to depict. Symbolism intense as this, is the creation of a special +temper, in which a certain simplicity, taking all things literally, +au pied de la lettre, is united to a vivid pre-occupation with the +aesthetic beauty of the image itself, the figured side of figurative +expression, the form of the metaphor. When it is said, "Out of his +mouth goeth a sharp sword," that temper is ready to deal directly and +boldly with that difficult image, like that old designer of the +fourteenth century, who has depicted this, and other images of the +Apocalypse, in a coloured window at Bourges. Such symbolism cares a +great deal for the hair of Temperance, discreetly bound, for some +subtler likeness to the colour of the sky in the girdle of Hope, for +the inwoven flames in the red garment of Charity. And what was +specially peculiar to the temper of the old Florentine painter, +Giotto, to the temper of his age in general, doubtless, more than to +that of ours, was the persistent and universal mood of the age in +which the story of Demeter and Persephone was first created. If some +painter of our own time has conceived the image of The Day so +intensely, that we hardly think of distinguishing between the image, +with its girdle of dissolving morning mist, and the meaning of the +image; if William Blake, to our so great delight, makes the morning +stars [100] literally "sing together,"--these fruits of individual +genius are in part also a "survival" from a different age, with the +whole mood of which this mode of expression was more congruous than +it is with ours. But there are traces of the old temper in the man +of to-day also; and through these we can understand that earlier +time--a very poetical time, with the more highly gifted peoples--in +which every impression men received of the action of powers without +or within them suggested to them the presence of a soul or will, like +their own--a person, with a living spirit, and senses, and hands, and +feet; which, when it talked of the return of Kore to Demeter, or the +marriage of Zeus and Here, was not using rhetorical language, but +yielding to a real illusion; to which the voice of man "was really a +stream, beauty an effluence, death a mist." + +The gods of Greek mythology overlap each other; they are confused or +connected with each other, lightly or deeply, as the case may be, and +sometimes have their doubles, at first sight as in a troubled dream, +yet never, when we examine each detail more closely, without a +certain truth to human reason. It is only in a limited sense that it +is possible to lift, and examine by itself, one thread of the network +of story and imagery, which, in a certain age of civilisation, wove +itself over every detail of life and thought, over every name in the +past, and almost every place in [101] Greece. The story of Demeter, +then, was the work of no single author or place or time; the poet of +its first phase was no single person, but the whole consciousness of +an age, though an age doubtless with its differences of more or less +imaginative individual minds--with one, here or there, eminent, +though but by a little, above a merely receptive majority, the +spokesman of a universal, though faintly-felt prepossession, +attaching the errant fancies of the people around him to definite +names and images. The myth grew up gradually, and at many distant +places, in many minds, independent of each other, but dealing in a +common temper with certain elements and aspects of the natural world, +as one here, and another there, seemed to catch in that incident or +detail which flashed more incisively than others on the inward eye, +some influence, or feature, or characteristic of the great mother. +The various epithets of Demeter, the local variations of her story, +its incompatible incidents, bear witness to the manner of its +generation. They illustrate that indefiniteness which is +characteristic of Greek mythology, a theology with no central +authority, no link on historic time, liable from the first to an +unobserved transformation. They indicate the various, far-distant +spots from which the visible body of the goddess slowly collected its +constituents, and came at last to have a well-defined existence in +the popular mind. In this sense, Demeter appears to one in [102] her +anger, sullenly withholding the fruits of the earth, to another in +her pride of Persephone, to another in her grateful gift of the arts +of agriculture to man; at last only, is there a general recognition +of a clearly-arrested outline, a tangible embodiment, which has +solidified itself in the imagination of the people, they know not +how. + +The worship of Demeter belongs to that older religion, nearer to the +earth, which some have thought they could discern, behind the more +definitely national mythology of Homer. She is the goddess of dark +caves, and is not wholly free from monstrous form. She gave men the +first fig in one place, the first poppy in another; in another, she +first taught the old Titans to mow. She is the mother of the vine +also; and the assumed name by which she called herself in her +wanderings, is Dôs--a gift; the crane, as the harbinger of rain, is +her messenger among the birds. She knows the magic powers of certain +plants, cut from her bosom, to bane or bless; and, under one of her +epithets, herself presides over the springs, as also coming from the +secret places of the earth. She is the goddess, then, at first, of +the fertility of the earth in its wildness; and so far, her +attributes are to some degree confused with those of the Thessalian +Gaia and the Phrygian Cybele. Afterwards, and it is now that her +most characteristic attributes begin to concentrate themselves, [103] +she separates herself from these confused relationships, as specially +the goddess of agriculture, of the fertility of the earth when +furthered by human skill. She is the preserver of the seed sown in +hope, under many epithets derived from the incidents of vegetation, +as the simple countryman names her, out of a mind full of the various +experiences of his little garden or farm. She is the most definite +embodiment of all those fluctuating mystical instincts, of which +Gaia,* the mother of the earth's gloomier offspring, is a vaguer and +mistier one. There is nothing of the confused outline, the mere +shadowiness of mystical dreaming, in this most concrete human figure. +No nation, less aesthetically gifted than the Greeks, could have thus +lightly thrown its mystical surmise and divination into images so +clear and idyllic as those of the solemn goddess of the country, in +whom the characteristics of the mother are expressed with so much +tenderness, and the "beauteous head" of Kore, then so fresh and +peaceful. + +In this phase, then, the story of Demeter appears as the peculiar +creation of country-people of a high impressibility, dreaming over +their work in spring or autumn, half consciously touched by a sense +of its sacredness, and a sort of [104] mystery about it. For there +is much in the life of the farm everywhere which gives to persons of +any seriousness of disposition, special opportunity for grave and +gentle thoughts. The temper of people engaged in the occupations of +country life, so permanent, so "near to nature," is at all times +alike; and the habitual solemnity of thought and expression which +Wordsworth found in the peasants of Cumberland, and the painter +François Millet in the peasants of Brittany, may well have had its +prototype in early Greece. And so, even before the development, by +the poets, of their aweful and passionate story, Demeter and +Persephone seem to have been pre-eminently the venerable, or aweful, +goddesses. Demeter haunts the fields in spring, when the young lambs +are dropped; she visits the barns in autumn; she takes part in mowing +and binding up the corn, and is the goddess of sheaves. She presides +over all the pleasant, significant details of the farm, the +threshing-floor and the full granary, and stands beside the woman +baking bread at the oven. With these fancies are connected certain +simple rites; the half-understood local observance, and the half- +believed local legend, reacting capriciously on each other. They +leave her a fragment of bread and a morsel of meat, at the cross- +roads, to take on her journey; and perhaps some real Demeter carries +them away, as she wanders through the country. The incidents of +their yearly labour become to [105] them acts of worship; they seek +her blessing through many expressive names, and almost catch sight of +her, at dawn or evening, in the nooks of the fragrant fields. She +lays a finger on the grass at the road-side, and some new flower +comes up. All the picturesque implements of country life are hers; +the poppy also, emblem of an inexhaustible fertility, and full of +mysterious juices for the alleviation of pain. The countrywoman who +puts her child to sleep in the great, cradle-like, basket, for +winnowing the corn, remembers Demeter Courotrophos, the mother of +corn and children alike, and makes it a little coat out of the dress +worn by its father at his initiation into her mysteries. Yet she is +an angry goddess too, sometimes--Demeter Erinnys, the goblin of the +neighbourhood, haunting its shadowy places. She lies on the ground +out of doors on summer nights, and becomes wet with the dew. She +grows young again every spring, yet is of great age, the wrinkled +woman of the Homeric hymn, who becomes the nurse of Demophoon. Other +lighter, errant stories nest themselves, as time goes on, within the +greater. The water-newt, which repels the lips of the traveller who +stoops to drink, is a certain urchin, Abas, who spoiled by his +mockery the pleasure of the thirsting goddess, as she drank once of a +wayside spring in her wanderings. The night-owl is the transformed +Ascalabus, who alone had seen Persephone eat that morsel [106] of +pomegranate, in the garden of Aidoneus. The bitter wild mint was +once a girl, who for a moment had made her jealous, in Hades. + +The episode of Triptolemus, to whom Demeter imparts the mysteries of +the plough, like the details of some sacred rite, that he may bear +them abroad to all people, embodies, in connexion with her, another +group of the circumstances of country life. As with all the other +episodes of the story, there are here also local variations, +traditions of various favourites of the goddess at different places, +of whom grammarians can tell us, finally obscured behind the greater +fame of Triptolemus of Eleusis. One might fancy, at first, that +Triptolemus was a quite Boeotian divinity, of the ploughshare. Yet +we know that the thoughts of the Greeks concerning the culture of the +earth from which they came, were most often noble ones; and if we +examine carefully the works of ancient art which represent him, the +second thought will suggest itself, that there was nothing clumsy or +coarse about this patron of the plough--something, rather, of the +movement of delicate wind or fire, about him and his chariot. And +this finer character is explained, if, as we are justified in doing, +we bring him into closest connexion with that episode, so full of a +strange mysticism, of the Nursing of Demophoon, in the Homeric hymn. +For, according to some traditions, none other [107] than Triptolemus +himself was the subject of that mysterious experiment, in which +Demeter laid the child nightly, in the red heat of the fire; and he +lives afterwards, not immortal indeed, not wholly divine, yet, as +Shakspere says, a "nimble spirit," feeling little of the weight of +the material world about him--the element of winged fire in the clay. +The delicate, fresh, farm-lad we may still actually see sometimes, +like a graceful field-flower among the corn, becomes, in the sacred +legend of agriculture, a king's son; and then, the fire having +searched out from him the grosser elements on that famous night, all +compact now of spirit, a priest also, administering the gifts of +Demeter to all the earth. Certainly, the extant works of art which +represent him, gems or vase-paintings, conform truly enough to this +ideal of a "nimble spirit," though he wears the broad country hat, +which Hermes also wears, going swiftly, half on the airy, mercurial +wheels of his farm instrument, harrow or plough--half on wings of +serpents--the worm, symbolical of the soil, but winged, as sending up +the dust committed to it, after subtle firing, in colours and odours +of fruit and flowers. It is an altogether sacred character, again, +that he assumes in another precious work, of the severer period of +Greek art, lately discovered at Eleusis, and now preserved in the +museum of Athens, a singularly refined bas-relief, in which he +stands, a firm and serious youth, between Demeter and [108] +Persephone, who places her hand as with some sacred influence, and +consecrating gesture, upon him. + +But the house of the prudent countryman will be, of course, a place +of honest manners; and Demeter Thesmophoros is the guardian of +married life, the deity of the discretion of wives. She is therefore +the founder of civilised order. The peaceful homes of men, scattered +about the land, in their security--Demeter represents these fruits of +the earth also, not without a suggestion of the white cities, which +shine upon the hills above the waving fields of corn, seats of +justice and of true kingship. She is also in a certain sense the +patron of travellers, having, in her long wanderings after +Persephone, recorded and handed down those omens, caught from little +things--the birds which crossed her path, the persons who met her on +the way, the words they said, the things they carried in their hands, +einodia symbola+--by noting which, men bring their journeys to a +successful end; so that the simple countryman may pass securely on +his way; and is led by signs from the goddess herself, when he +travels far to visit her, at Hermione or Eleusis. + +So far the attributes of Demeter and Kore are similar. In the +mythical conception, as in the religious acts connected with it, the +mother and the daughter are almost interchangeable; [109] they are +the two goddesses, the twin-named. Gradually, the office of +Persephone is developed, defines itself; functions distinct from +those of Demeter are attributed to her. Hitherto, always at the side +of Demeter and sharing her worship, she now appears detached from +her, going and coming, on her mysterious business. A third part of +the year she abides in darkness; she comes up in the spring; and +every autumn, when the countryman sows his seed in the earth, she +descends thither again, and the world of the dead lies open, spring +and autumn, to let her in and out. Persephone, then, is the summer- +time, and, in this sense, a daughter of the earth; but the summer as +bringing winter; the flowery splendour and consummated glory of the +year, as thereafter immediately beginning to draw near to its end, as +the first yellow leaf crosses it, in the first severer wind. She is +the last day of spring, or the first day of autumn, in the threefold +division of the Greek year. Her story is, indeed, but the story, in +an intenser form, of Adonis, of Hyacinth, of Adrastus--the king's +blooming son, fated, in the story of Herodotus, to be wounded to +death with an iron spear--of Linus, a fair child who is torn to +pieces by hounds every spring-time--of the English Sleeping Beauty. +From being the goddess of summer and the flowers, she becomes the +goddess of night and sleep and death, confuseable with Hecate, the +goddess of midnight [110] terrors--Korê arrêtos,+ the mother of the +Erinnyes, who appeared to Pindar, to warn him of his approaching +death, upbraiding him because he had made no hymn in her praise, +which swan's song he thereupon began, but finished with her. She is +a twofold goddess, therefore, according as one or the other of these +two contrasted aspects of her nature is seized, respectively. A +duality, an inherent opposition in the very conception of Persephone, +runs all through her story, and is part of her ghostly power. There +is ever something in her of a divided or ambiguous identity: hence +the many euphemisms of later language concerning her. + +The "worship of sorrow," as Goethe called it, is sometimes supposed +to have had almost no place in the religion of the Greeks. Their +religion has been represented as a religion of mere cheerfulness, the +worship by an untroubled, unreflecting humanity, conscious of no +deeper needs, of the embodiments of its own joyous activity. It +helped to hide out of their sight those traces of decay and +weariness, of which the Greeks were constitutionally shy, to keep +them from peeping too curiously into certain shadowy places, +appropriate enough to the gloomy imagination of the middle age; and +it hardly proposed to itself to give consolation to people who, in +truth, were never "sick or sorry." But this familiar view of Greek +religion is based on a consideration of a part only of what is known +[111] concerning it, and really involves a misconception, akin to +that which underestimates the influence of the romantic spirit +generally, in Greek poetry and art; as if Greek art had dealt +exclusively with human nature in its sanity, suppressing all motives +of strangeness, all the beauty which is born of difficulty, +permitting nothing but an Olympian, though perhaps somewhat wearisome +calm. In effect, such a conception of Greek art and poetry leaves in +the central expressions of Greek culture none but negative qualities; +and the legend of Demeter and Persephone, perhaps the most popular of +all Greek legends, is sufficient to show that the "worship of sorrow" +was not without its function in Greek religion; their legend is a +legend made by and for sorrowful, wistful, anxious people; while the +most important artistic monuments of that legend sufficiently prove +that the Romantic spirit was really at work in the minds of Greek +artists, extracting by a kind of subtle alchemy, a beauty, not +without the elements of tranquillity, of dignity and order, out of a +matter, at first sight painful and strange. + +The student of origins, as French critics say, of the earliest stages +of art and poetry, must be content to follow faint traces; and in +what has been here said, much may seem to have been made of little, +with too much completion, by a general framework or setting, of what +after [112] all are but doubtful or fragmentary indications. Yet +there is a certain cynicism too, in that over-positive temper, which +is so jealous of our catching any resemblance in the earlier world to +the thoughts that really occupy our own minds, and which, in its +estimate of the actual fragments of antiquity, is content to find no +seal of human intelligence upon them. Slight indeed in themselves, +these fragmentary indications become suggestive of much, when viewed +in the light of such general evidence about the human imagination as +is afforded by the theory of "comparative mythology," or what is +called the theory of "animism." Only, in the application of these +theories, the student of Greek religion must never forget that, after +all, it is with poetry, not with systematic theological belief or +dogma, that he has to do. As regards this story of Demeter and +Persephone, what we actually possess is some actual fragments of +poetry, some actual fragments of sculpture; and with a curiosity, +justified by the direct aesthetic beauty of these fragments, we feel +our way backwards to that engaging picture of the poet-people, with +which the ingenuity of modern theory has filled the void in our +knowledge. The abstract poet of that first period of mythology, +creating in this wholly impersonal, intensely spiritual way,--the +abstract spirit of poetry itself, rises before the mind; and, in +speaking of this poetical age, we must take heed, before all things, +in no sense to misconstrue the poets. + +NOTES + +94. +Transliteration: epainê Persephonê. Translation: "dread +Persephone." See, for example, Odyssey, Book 10.490 and 563. + +94. +"According to the apparent import of her name"; Pater likely +refers to the etymology of "Persophone"--"bringer of destruction." + +95. *Theogony, 912-14: + ++Transliteration: + +Autar ho Dêmêtros polyphorbês es lechos êlthen +ê teke Persephonên leukôlenon, hên Aidôneus +hêrpasen hês para mêtros, edôke de mêtieta Zeus. + ++Translation: "And he came to bountiful Demeter’s bed, / and she +gave birth to white-armed Persephone, whom Aidoneus / took from her +mother’s side; but Zeus, wise counsellor, gave her to him." Hesiod. +The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Theogony. Cambridge, MA., Harvard +University Press. London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. + +103. *In the Homeric hymn, pre-eminently, of the flower which grew up +for the first time, to snare the footsteps of Kore, the fair but +deadly Narcissus, the flower of narkê, the numbness of death. + +108. +Transliteration: einodia symbola. Translation: "signs along +the roadside." + +110. +Transliteration: Korê arrêtos. Translation: "Korê the +mysterious, the horrible ." + + + +THE MYTH OF DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE: II + +[113] THE stories of the Greek mythology, like other things which +belong to no man, and for which no one in particular is responsible, +had their fortunes. In that world of floating fancies there was a +struggle for life; there were myths which never emerged from that +first stage of popular conception, or were absorbed by stronger +competitors, because, as some true heroes have done, they lacked the +sacred poet or prophet, and were never remodelled by literature; +while, out of the myth of Demeter, under the careful conduct of +poetry and art, came the little pictures, the idylls, of the Homeric +hymn, and the gracious imagery of Praxiteles. The myth has now +entered its second or poetical phase, then, in which more definite +fancies are grouped about the primitive stock, in a conscious +literary temper, and the whole interest settles round the images of +the beautiful girl going down into the darkness, and the weary woman +who seeks her lost daughter--divine persons, then sincerely believed +in by the majority of the Greeks. The Homeric hymn [114] is the +central monument of this second phase. In it, the changes of the +natural year have become a personal history, a story of human +affection and sorrow, yet with a far-reaching religious significance +also, of which the mere earthly spring and autumn are but an analogy; +and in the development of this human element, the writer of the hymn +sometimes displays a genuine power of pathetic expression. The whole +episode of the fostering of Demophoon, in which over the body of the +dying child human longing and regret are blent so subtly with the +mysterious design of the goddess to make the child immortal, is an +excellent example of the sentiment of pity in literature. Yet though +it has reached the stage of conscious literary interpretation, much +of its early mystical or cosmical character still lingers about the +story, as it is here told. Later mythologists simply define the +personal history; but in this hymn we may, again and again, trace +curious links of connexion with the original purpose of the myth. +Its subject is the weary woman, indeed, our Lady of Sorrows, the +mater dolorosa of the ancient world, but with a certain latent +reference, all through, to the mystical person of the earth. Her +robe of dark blue is the raiment of her mourning, but also the blue +robe of the earth in shadow, as we see it in Titian's landscapes; her +great age is the age of the immemorial earth; she becomes a nurse, +therefore, holding Demophoon in her bosom; [115] the folds of her +garment are fragrant, not merely with the incense of Eleusis, but +with the natural perfume of flowers and fruit. The sweet breath with +which she nourishes the child Demophoon, is the warm west wind, +feeding all germs of vegetable life; her bosom, where he lies, is the +bosom of the earth, with its strengthening heat, reserved and shy, +offended if human eyes scrutinise too closely its secret chemistry; +it is with the earth's natural surface of varied colour that she has, +"in time past, given pleasure to the sun"; the yellow hair which +falls suddenly over her shoulders, at her transformation in the house +of Celeus, is still partly the golden corn;--in art and poetry she is +ever the blond goddess; tarrying in her temple, of which an actual +hollow in the earth is the prototype, among the spicy odours of the +Eleusinian ritual, she is the spirit of the earth, lying hidden in +its dark folds until the return of spring, among the flower-seeds and +fragrant roots, like the seeds and aromatic woods hidden in the +wrappings of the dead. Throughout the poem, we have a sense of a +certain nearness to nature, surviving from an earlier world; the sea +is understood as a person, yet is still the real sea, with the waves +moving. When it is said that no bird gave Demeter tidings of +Persephone, we feel that to that earlier world, ways of communication +between all creatures may have seemed open, which are closed to us. +It is Iris who brings to Demeter the message of Zeus; [116] that is, +the rainbow signifies to the earth the good-will of the rainy sky +towards it. Persephone springing up with great joy from the couch of +Aidoneus, to return to her mother, is the sudden outburst of the +year. The heavy and narcotic aroma of spring flowers hangs about +her, as about the actual spring. And this mingling of the primitive +cosmical import of the myth with the later, personal interests of the +story, is curiously illustrated by the place which the poem assigns +to Hecate. This strange Titaness is, first, a nymph only; +afterwards, as if changed incurably by the passionate cry of +Persephone, she becomes her constant attendant, and is even +identified with her. But in the Homeric hymn her lunar character is +clear; she is really the moon only, who hears the cry of Persephone, +as the sun saw her, when Aidoneus carried her away. One morning, as +the mother wandered, the moon appeared, as it does in its last +quarter, rising very bright, just before dawn; that is, in the words +of the Homeric hymn--"on the tenth morning Hecate met her, having a +light in her hands." The fascinating, but enigmatical figure, +"sitting ever in her cave, half-veiled with a shining veil, thinking +delicate thoughts," in which we seem to see the subject of some +picture of the Italian Renaissance, is but the lover of Endymion-- +like Persephone, withdrawn, in her season, from the eyes of men. The +sun saw her; the moon saw her not, but heard her cry, and is [117] +ever after the half-veiled attendant of the queen of dreams and of +the dead. + +But the story of Demeter and Persephone lends itself naturally to +description, and it is in descriptive beauties that the Homeric hymn +excels; its episodes are finished designs, and directly stimulate the +painter and the sculptor to a rivalry with them. Weaving the names +of the flowers into his verse, names familiar to us in English, +though their Greek originals are uncertain, the writer sets +Persephone before us, herself like one of them--kalykôpis+--like the +budding calyx of a flower,--in a picture, which, in its mingling of a +quaint freshness and simplicity with a certain earnestness, reads +like a description of some early Florentine design, such as Sandro +Botticelli's Allegory of the Seasons. By an exquisite chance also, a +common metrical expression connects the perfume of the newly-created +narcissus with the salt odour of the sea. Like one of those early +designs also, but with a deeper infusion of religious earnestness, is +the picture of Demeter sitting at the wayside, in shadow as always, +with the well of water and the olive-tree. She has been journeying +all night, and now it is morning, and the daughters of Celeus bring +their vessels to draw water. That image of the seated Demeter, +resting after her long flight "through the dark continent," or in the +house of Celeus, when she refuses the red wine, or again, solitary, +in her newly-finished [118] temple of Eleusis, enthroned in her +grief, fixed itself deeply on the Greek imagination, and became a +favourite subject of Greek artists. When the daughters of Celeus +come to conduct her to Eleusis, they come as in a Greek frieze, full +of energy and motion and waving lines, but with gold and colours upon +it. Eleusis--coming--the coming of Demeter thither, as thus told in +the Homeric hymn, is the central instance in Greek mythology of such +divine appearances. "She leaves for a season the company of the gods +and abides among men;" and men's merit is to receive her in spite of +appearances. Metaneira and others, in the Homeric hymn, partly +detect her divine character; they find charis+;--a certain gracious +air--about her, which makes them think her, perhaps, a royal person +in disguise. She becomes in her long wanderings almost wholly +humanised, and in return, she and Persephone, alone of the Greek +gods, seem to have been the objects of a sort of personal love and +loyalty. Yet they are ever the solemn goddesses,--theai semnai,+ +the word expressing religious awe, the Greek sense of the divine +presence. + +Plato, in laying down the rules by which the poets are to be guided +in speaking about divine things to the citizens of the ideal +republic, forbids all those episodes of mythology which represent the +gods as assuming various forms, and visiting the earth in disguise. +Below the [119] express reasons which he assigns for this rule, we +may perhaps detect that instinctive antagonism to the old Heraclitean +philosophy of perpetual change, which forces him, in his theory of +morals and the state, of poetry and music, of dress and manners even, +and of style in the very vessels and furniture of daily life, on an +austere simplicity, the older Dorian or Egyptian type of a rigid, +eternal immobility. The disintegrating, centrifugal influence, which +had penetrated, as he thought, political and social existence, making +men too myriad-minded, had laid hold on the life of the gods also, +and, even in their calm sphere, one could hardly identify a single +divine person as himself, and not another. There must, then, be no +doubling, no disguises, no stories of transformation. The modern +reader, however, will hardly acquiesce in this "improvement" of Greek +mythology. He finds in these stories, like that, for instance, of +the appearance of Athene to Telemachus, in the first book of the +Odyssey, which has a quite biblical mysticity and solemnity,--stories +in which, the hard material outline breaking up, the gods lay aside +their visible form like a garment, yet remain essentially +themselves,--not the least spiritual element of Greek religion, an +evidence of the sense therein of unseen presences, which might at any +moment cross a man's path, to be recognised, in half disguise, by the +more delicately trained eye, here or there, by one and not by [120] +another. Whatever religious elements they lacked, they had at least +this sense of subtler and more remote ways of personal presence. + +And as there are traces in the Homeric hymn of the primitive cosmical +myth, relics of the first stage of the development of the story, so +also many of its incidents are probably suggested by the +circumstances and details of the Eleusinian ritual. There were +religious usages before there were distinct religious conceptions, +and these antecedent religious usages shape and determine, at many +points, the ultimate religious conception, as the details of the myth +interpret or explain the religious custom. The hymn relates the +legend of certain holy places, to which various impressive religious +rites had attached themselves--the holy well, the old fountain, the +stone of sorrow, which it was the office of the "interpreter" of the +holy places to show to the people. The sacred way which led from +Athens to Eleusis was rich in such memorials. The nine days of the +wanderings of Demeter in the Homeric hymn are the nine days of the +duration of the greater or autumnal mysteries; the jesting of the old +woman Iambe, who endeavours to make Demeter smile, are the customary +mockeries with which the worshippers, as they rested on the bridge, +on the seventh day of the feast, assailed those who passed by. The +torches in the hands of Demeter are borrowed from the same source; +and the shadow in which she is [121] constantly represented, and +which is the peculiar sign of her grief, is partly ritual, and a +relic of the caves of the old Chthonian worship, partly poetical-- +expressive, half of the dark earth to which she escapes from Olympus, +half of her mourning. She appears consistently, in the hymn, as a +teacher of rites, transforming daily life, and the processes of life, +into a religious solemnity. With no misgiving as to the proprieties +of a mere narration, the hymn-writer mingles these symbolical +imitations with the outlines of the original story; and, in his +Demeter, the dramatic person of the mysteries mixes itself with the +primitive mythical figure. And the worshipper, far from being +offended by these interpolations, may have found a special +impressiveness in them, as they linked continuously its inner sense +with the outward imagery of the ritual. + +And, as Demeter and her story embodied themselves gradually in the +Greek imagination, so these mysteries in which her worship found its +chief expression, grew up little by little, growing always in close +connexion with the modifications of the story, sometimes prompting +them, at other times suggested by them. That they had a single +special author is improbable, and a mere invention of the Greeks, +ignorant of their real history and the general analogy of such +matters. Here again, as in the story itself, the idea of +development, of degrees, of a slow [122] and natural growth, impeded +here, diverted there, is the illuminating thought which earlier +critics lacked. "No tongue may speak of them," says the Homeric +hymn; and the secret has certainly been kept. The antiquarian, +dealing, letter by letter, with what is recorded of them, has left +few certain data for the reflexion of the modern student of the Greek +religion; and of this, its central solemnity, only a fragmentary +picture can be made. It is probable that these mysteries developed +the symbolical significance of the story of the descent into Hades, +the coming of Demeter to Eleusis, the invention of Persephone. They +may or may not have been the vehicle of a secret doctrine, but were +certainly an artistic spectacle, giving, like the mysteries of the +middle age, a dramatic representation of the sacred story,--perhaps a +detailed performance, perhaps only such a conventional +representation, as was afforded for instance by the medieval +ceremonies of Palm Sunday; the whole, probably, centering in an image +of Demeter--the work of Praxiteles or his school, in ivory and gold. +There is no reason to suppose any specific difference between the +observances of the Eleusinian festival and the accustomed usages of +the Greek religion; nocturns, libations, quaint purifications, +processions--are common incidents of all Greek worship; in all +religious ceremonies there is an element of dramatic symbolism; and +what we really do see, through those scattered notices, [123] are +things which have their parallels in a later age, the whole being not +altogether unlike a modern pilgrimage. The exposition of the sacred +places--the threshing-floor of Triptolemus, the rocky seat on which +Demeter had rested in her sorrow, the well of Callichorus--is not so +strange, as it would seem, had it no modern illustration. The +libations, at once a watering of the vines and a drink-offering to +the dead--still needing men's services, waiting for purification +perhaps, or thirsting, like Dante's Adam of Brescia, in their close +homes--must, to almost all minds, have had a certain natural +impressiveness; and a parallel has sometimes been drawn between this +festival and All Souls' Day. + +And who, everywhere, has not felt the mystical influence of that +prolonged silence, the mystic silence, from which the very word +"mystery" has its origin? Something also there undoubtedly was, +which coarser minds might misunderstand. On one day, the initiated +went in procession to the sea-coast, where they underwent a +purification by bathing in the sea. On the fifth night there was the +torchlight procession; and, by a touch of real life in him, we gather +from the first page of Plato's Republic that such processions were +popular spectacles, having a social interest, so that people made +much of attending them. There was the procession of the sacred +basket filled with poppy-seeds and pomegranates. There was the day +of rest, after [124] the stress and excitement of the "great night." +On the sixth day, the image of Iacchus, son of Demeter, crowned with +myrtle and having a torch in its hand, was carried in procession, +through thousands of spectators, along the sacred way, amid joyous +shouts and songs. We have seen such processions; we understand how +many different senses, and how lightly, various spectators may put on +them; how little definite meaning they may have even for those who +officiate in them. Here, at least, there was the image itself, in +that age, with its close connexion between religion and art, +presumably fair. Susceptibility to the impressions of religious +ceremonial must always have varied with the peculiarities of +individual temperament, as it varies in our own day; and Eleusis, +with its incense and sweet singing, may have been as little +interesting to the outward senses of some worshippers there, as the +stately and affecting ceremonies of the medieval church to many of +its own members. In a simpler yet profounder sense than has +sometimes been supposed, these things were really addressed to the +initiated only.* + +We have to travel a long way from the Homeric hymn to the hymn of +Callimachus, who writes in the end of Greek literature, in the third +century before Christ, in celebration of the procession of the sacred +basket of Demeter, not [125] at the Attic, but at the Alexandrian +Eleusinia. He developes, in something of the prosaic spirit of a +medieval writer of "mysteries," one of the burlesque incidents of the +story, the insatiable hunger which seized on Erysichthon because he +cut down a grove sacred to the goddess. Yet he finds his +opportunities for skilful touches of poetry;--"As the four white +horses draw her sacred basket," he says, "so will the great goddess +bring us a white spring, a white summer." He describes the grove +itself, with its hedge of trees, so thick that an arrow could hardly +pass through, its pines and fruit-trees and tall poplars within, and +the water, like pale gold, running from the conduits. It is one of +those famous poplars that receives the first stroke; it sounds +heavily to its companion trees, and Demeter perceives that her sacred +grove is suffering. Then comes one of those transformations which +Plato will not allow. Vainly anxious to save the lad from his ruin, +she appears in the form of a priestess, but with the long hood of the +goddess, and the poppy in her hand; and there is something of a real +shudder, some still surviving sense of a haunting presence in the +groves, in the verses which describe her sudden revelation, when the +workmen flee away, leaving their axes in the cleft trees. + +Of the same age as the hymn of Callimachus, but with very different +qualities, is the idyll of Theocritus on the Shepherds' Journey. +Although it is possible to define an epoch in mythological [126] +development in which literary and artificial influences began to +remodel the primitive, popular legend, yet still, among children, and +unchanging childlike people, we may suppose that that primitive stage +always survived, and the old, instinctive influences were still at +work. As the subject of popular religious celebrations also, the +myth was still the property of the people, and surrendered to its +capricious action. The shepherds in Theocritus, on their way to +celebrate one of the more homely feasts of Demeter, about the time of +harvest, are examples of these childlike people; the age of the poets +has long since come, but they are of the older and simpler order, +lingering on in the midst of a more self-conscious world. In an +idyll, itself full of the delightful gifts of Demeter, Theocritus +sets them before us; through the blazing summer day's journey, the +smiling image of the goddess is always before them; and now they have +reached the end of their journey:-- + +"So I, and Eucritus, and the fair Amyntichus, turned aside into the +house of Phrasidamus, and lay down with delight in beds of sweet +tamarisk and fresh cuttings from the vines, strewn on the ground. +Many poplars and elm-trees were waving over our heads, and not far +off the running of the sacred water from the cave of the nymphs +warbled to us; in the shimmering branches the sun-burnt grasshoppers +were busy with their talk, and from afar the little owl cried softly, +out of [127] the tangled thorns of the blackberry; the larks were +singing and the hedge-birds, and the turtle-dove moaned; the bees +flew round and round the fountains, murmuring softly; the scent of +late summer and of the fall of the year was everywhere; the pears +fell from the trees at our feet, and apples in number rolled down at +our sides, and the young plum-trees were bent to the earth with the +weight of their fruit. The wax, four years old, was loosed from the +heads of the wine-jars. O! nymphs of Castalia, who dwell on the +steeps of Parnassus, tell me, I pray you, was it a draught like this +that the aged Chiron placed before Hercules, in the stony cave of +Pholus? Was it nectar like this that made the mighty shepherd on +Anapus' shore, Polyphemus, who flung the rocks upon Ulysses' ships, +dance among his sheepfolds?--A cup like this ye poured out now upon +the altar of Demeter, who presides over the threshing-floor. May it +be mine, once more, to dig my big winnowing-fan through her heaps of +corn; and may I see her smile upon me, holding poppies and handfuls +of corn in her two hands!" + +Some of the modifications of the story of Demeter, as we find it in +later poetry, have been supposed to be due, not to the genuine action +of the Greek mind, but to the influence of that so-called Orphic +literature, which, in the generation succeeding Hesiod, brought, from +Thessaly and Phrygia, a tide of mystical ideas into the Greek [128] +religion, sometimes, doubtless, confusing the clearness and +naturalness of its original outlines, but also sometimes imparting to +them a new and peculiar grace. Under the influence of this Orphic +poetry, Demeter was blended, or identified, with Rhea Cybele, the +mother of the gods, the wilder earth-goddess of Phrygia; and the +romantic figure of Dionysus Zagreus, Dionysus the Hunter, that most +interesting, though somewhat melancholy variation on the better known +Dionysus, was brought, as son or brother of Persephone, into her +circle, the mystical vine, who, as Persephone descends and ascends +from the earth, is rent to pieces by the Titans every year and +remains long in Hades, but every spring-time comes out of it again, +renewing his youth. This identification of Demeter with Rhea Cybele +is the motive which has inspired a beautiful chorus in the Helena-- +the new Helena--of Euripides, that great lover of all subtle +refinements and modernisms, who, in this play, has worked on a +strange version of the older story, which relates that Helen had +never really gone to Troy at all, but sent her soul only there, apart +from her sweet body, which abode all that time in Egypt, at the court +of King Proteus, where she is found at last by her husband Menelaus, +so that the Trojan war was about a phantom, after all. The chorus +has even less than usual to do with the action of the play, being +linked to it only by a sort of parallel, which may be understood, +[129] between Menelaus seeking Helen, and Demeter seeking Persephone. +Euripides, then, takes the matter of the Homeric hymn into the region +of a higher and swifter poetry, and connects it with the more +stimulating imagery of the Idaean mother. The Orphic mysticism or +enthusiasm has been admitted into the story, which is now full of +excitement, the motion of rivers, the sounds of the Bacchic cymbals +heard over the mountains, as Demeter wanders among the woody valleys +seeking her lost daughter, all directly expressed in the vivid Greek +words. Demeter is no longer the subdued goddess of the quietly- +ordered fields, but the mother of the gods, who has her abode in the +heights of Mount Ida, who presides over the dews and waters of the +white springs, whose flocks feed, not on grain, but on the curling +tendrils of the vine, both of which she withholds in her anger, and +whose chariot is drawn by wild beasts, fruit and emblem of the earth +in its fiery strength. Not Hecate, but Pallas and Artemis, in full +armour, swift-footed, vindicators of chastity, accompany her in her +search for Persephone, who is already expressly, korê arrêtos+--"the +maiden whom none may name." When she rests from her long wanderings, +it is into the stony thickets of Mount Ida, deep with snow, that she +throws herself, in her profound grief. When Zeus desires to end her +pain, the Muses and the "solemn" Graces are sent to dance and sing +before her. It is then [130] that Cypris, the goddess of beauty, and +the original cause, therefore, of her distress, takes into her hands +the brazen tambourines of the Dionysiac worship with their Chthonian +or deep-noted sound; and it is she, not the old Iambe, who with this +wild music, heard thus for the first time, makes Demeter smile at +last. "Great," so the chorus ends with a picture, "great is the +power of the stoles of spotted fawn-skins, and the green leaves of +ivy twisted about the sacred wands, and the wheeling motion of the +tambourine whirled round in the air, and the long hair floating +unbound in honour of Bromius, and the nocturns of the goddess, when +the moon looks full upon them." + +The poem of Claudian on the Rape of Proserpine, the longest extant +work connected with the story of Demeter, yet itself unfinished, +closes the world of classical poetry. Writing in the fourth century +of the Christian era, Claudian has his subject before him in the +whole extent of its various development, and also profits by those +many pictorial representations of it, which, from the famous picture +of Polygnotus downwards, delighted the ancient world. His poem, +then, besides having an intrinsic charm, is valuable for some +reflexion in it of those lost works, being itself pre-eminently a +work in colour, and excelling in a kind of painting in words, which +brings its subject very pleasantly almost to the eye of the reader. +The mind of this late votary [131] of the old gods, in a world +rapidly changing, is crowded with all the beautiful forms generated +by mythology, and now about to be forgotten. In this after-glow of +Latin literature, lighted up long after their fortune had set, and +just before their long night began, they pass before us, in his +verses, with the utmost clearness, like the figures in an actual +procession. The nursing of the infant Sun and Moon by Tethys; +Proserpine and her companions gathering flowers at early dawn, when +the violets are drinking in the dew, still lying white upon the +grass; the image of Pallas winding the peaceful blossoms about the +steel crest of her helmet; the realm of Proserpine, softened somewhat +by her coming, and filled with a quiet joy; the matrons of Elysium +crowding to her marriage toilet, with the bridal veil of yellow in +their hands; the Manes, crowned with ghostly flowers yet warmed a +little, at the marriage feast; the ominous dreams of the mother; the +desolation of the home, like an empty bird's-nest or an empty fold, +when she returns and finds Proserpine gone, and the spider at work +over her unfinished embroidery; the strangely-figured raiment, the +flowers in the grass, which were once blooming youths, having both +their natural colour and the colour of their poetry in them, and the +clear little fountain there, which was once the maiden Cyane;--all +this is shown in a series of descriptions, like the designs in some +unwinding tapestry, like Proserpine's own [132] embroidery, the +description of which is the most brilliant of these pictures, and, in +its quaint confusion of the images of philosophy with those of +mythology, anticipates something of the fancy of the Italian +Renaissance. + +"Proserpina, filling the house soothingly with her low song, was +working a gift against the return of her mother, with labour all to +be in vain. In it, she marked out with her needle the houses of the +gods and the series of the elements, showing by what law, nature, the +parent of all, settled the strife of ancient times, and the seeds of +things disparted into their places; the lighter elements are borne +aloft, the heavier fall to the centre; the air grows bright with +heat, a blazing light whirls round the firmament; the sea flows; the +earth hangs suspended in its place. And there were divers colours in +it; she illuminated the stars with gold, infused a purple shade into +the water, and heightened the shore with gems of flowers; and, under +her skilful hand, the threads, with their inwrought lustre, swell up, +in momentary counterfeit of the waves; you might think that the sea- +wind flapped against the rocks, and that a hollow murmur came +creeping over the thirsty sands. She puts in the five zones, marking +with a red ground the midmost zone, possessed by burning heat; its +outline was parched and stiff; the threads seemed thirsty with the +constant sunshine; on either side lay the two zones proper for human +life, [133] where a gentle temperance reigns; and at the extremes she +drew the twin zones of numbing cold, making her work dun and sad with +the hues of perpetual frost. She paints in, too, the sacred places of +Dis, her father's brother, and the Manes, so fatal to her; and an +omen of her doom was not wanting; for, as she worked, as if with +foreknowledge of the future, her face became wet with a sudden burst +of tears. And now, in the utmost border of the tissue, she had begun +to wind in the wavy line of the river Oceanus, with its glassy +shallows; but the door sounds on its hinges, and she perceives the +goddesses coming; the unfinished work drops from her hands, and a +ruddy blush lights up in her clear and snow-white face." + +I have reserved to the last what is perhaps the daintiest treatment +of this subject in classical literature, the account of it which Ovid +gives in the Fasti--a kind of Roman Calendar--for the seventh of +April, the day of the games of Ceres. He tells over again the old +story, with much of which, he says, the reader will be already +familiar; but he has something also of his own to add to it, which +the reader will hear for the first time; and, like one of those old +painters who, in depicting a scene of Christian history, drew from +their own fancy or experience its special setting and accessories, he +translates the story into something very different from the Homeric +hymn. The writer of the Homeric [134] hymn had made Celeus a king, +and represented the scene at Eleusis in a fair palace, like the +Venetian painters who depict the persons of the Holy Family with +royal ornaments. Ovid, on the other hand, is more like certain +painters of the early Florentine school, who represent the holy +persons amid the more touching circumstances of humble life; and the +special something of his own which he adds, is a pathos caught from +homely things, not without a delightful, just perceptible, shade of +humour even, so rare in such work. All the mysticism has +disappeared; but, instead, we trace something of that "worship of +sorrow," which has been sometimes supposed to have had no place in +classical religious sentiment. In Ovid's well-finished elegiacs, +Persephone's flower-gathering, the Anthology, reaches its utmost +delicacy; but I give the following episode for the sake of its +pathetic expression. + +"After many wanderings Ceres was come to Attica. There, in the +utmost dejection, for the first time, she sat down to rest on a bare +stone, which the people of Attica still call the stone of sorrow. +For many days she remained there motionless, under the open sky, +heedless of the rain and of the frosty moonlight. Places have their +fortunes; and what is now the illustrious town of Eleusis was then +the field of an old man named Celeus. He was carrying home a load of +acorns, and wild berries shaken down from the [135] brambles, and dry +wood for burning on the hearth; his little daughter was leading two +goats home from the hills; and at home there was a little boy lying +sick in his cradle. 'Mother,' said the little girl--and the goddess +was moved at the name of mother--'what do you, all alone, in this +solitary place?' The old man stopped too, in spite of his heavy +burden, and bade her take shelter in his cottage, though it was but a +little one. But at first she refused to come; she looked like an +old woman, and an old woman's coif confined her hair; and as the man +still urged her, she said to him, 'Heaven bless you; and may children +always be yours! My daughter has been stolen from me. Alas! how +much happier is your lot than mine'; and, though weeping is +impossible for the gods, as she spoke, a bright drop, like a tear, +fell into her bosom. Soft-hearted, the little girl and the old man +weep together. And after that the good man said, 'Arise! despise not +the shelter of my little home; so may the daughter whom you seek be +restored to you.' 'Lead me,' answered the goddess; 'you have found +out the secret of moving me;' and she arose from the stone, and +followed the old man; and as they went he told her of the sick child +at home--how he is restless with pain, and cannot sleep. And she, +before entering the little cottage, gathered from the untended earth +the soothing and sleep-giving poppy; and as she gathered it, it is +said that she [136] forgot her vow, and tasted of the seeds, and +broke her long fast, unaware. As she came through the door, she saw +the house full of trouble, for now there was no more hope of life for +the sick boy. She saluted the mother, whose name was Metaneira, and +humbly kissed the lips of the child, with her own lips; then the +paleness left its face, and suddenly the parents see the strength +returning to its body; so great is the force that comes from the +divine mouth. And the whole family was full of joy--the mother and +the father and the little girl; they were the whole household.* + +Three profound ethical conceptions, three impressive sacred figures, +have now defined themselves for the Greek imagination, condensed from +all the traditions which have now been traced, from the hymns of the +poets, from the instinctive and unformulated mysticism of primitive +minds. Demeter is become the divine sorrowing mother. Kore, the +goddess of summer, is become Persephone, the goddess of death, still +associated with the forms and odours of flowers and fruit, yet as one +risen from the dead also, presenting one side of her ambiguous nature +to men's gloomier fancies. Thirdly, there is the image of Demeter +enthroned, chastened by sorrow, and somewhat advanced in age, +blessing the earth, in her joy at the return of Kore. The myth has +[137] now entered on the third phase of its life, in which it becomes +the property of those more elevated spirits, who, in the decline of +the Greek religion, pick and choose and modify, with perfect freedom +of mind, whatever in it may seem adapted to minister to their +culture. In this way, the myths of the Greek religion become parts +of an ideal, visible embodiments of the susceptibilities and +intuitions of the nobler kind of souls; and it is to this latest +phase of mythological development that the highest Greek sculpture +allies itself. Its function is to give visible aesthetic expression +to the constituent parts of that ideal. As poetry dealt chiefly with +the incidents of the story, so it is with the personages of the +story--with Demeter and Kore themselves--that sculpture has to do. + +For the myth of Demeter, like the Greek religion in general, had its +unlovelier side, grotesque, unhellenic, unglorified by art, +illustrated well enough by the description Pausanias gives us of his +visit to the cave of the Black Demeter at Phigalia. In his time the +image itself had vanished; but he tells us enough about it to enable +us to realise its general characteristics, monstrous as the special +legend with which it was connected, the black draperies, the horse's +head united to the woman's body, with the carved reptiles creeping +about it. If, with the thought of this gloomy image of our mother +the earth, in our minds, we take up one of those coins [138] which +bear the image of Kore or Demeter,* we shall better understand what +the function of sculpture really was, in elevating and refining the +religious conceptions of the Greeks. Looking on the profile, for +instance, on one of those coins of Messene, which almost certainly +represent Demeter, and noting the crisp, chaste opening of the lips, +the minutely wrought earrings, and the delicately touched ears of +corn,--this trifling object being justly regarded as, in its +aesthetic qualities, an epitome of art on a larger scale,--we shall +see how far the imagination of the Greeks had travelled from what +their Black Demeter shows us had once been possible for them, and in +making the gods of their worship the objects of a worthy +companionship in their thoughts. Certainly, the mind of the old +workman who struck that coin was, if we may trust the testimony of +his work, unclouded by impure or gloomy shadows. The thought of +Demeter is impressed here, with all the purity and proportion, the +purged and dainty intelligence of the human countenance. The mystery +of it is indeed absent, perhaps could hardly have been looked for in +so slight a thing, intended for no sacred purpose, and tossed lightly +from hand to hand. But in his firm hold on the harmonies of the +human face, the designer of this tranquil head of [139] Demeter is on +the one road to a command over the secrets of all imaginative pathos +and mystery; though, in the perfect fairness and blitheness of his +work, he might seem almost not to have known the incidents of her +terrible story. + +It is probable that, at a later period than in other equally +important temples of Greece, the earlier archaic representation of +Demeter in the sanctuary of Eleusis, was replaced by a more beautiful +image in the new style, with face and hands of ivory, having +therefore, in tone and texture, some subtler likeness to women's +flesh, and the closely enveloping drapery being constructed in +daintily beaten plates of gold. Praxiteles seems to have been the +first to bring into the region of a freer artistic handling these shy +deities of the earth, shrinking still within the narrow restraints of +a hieratic, conventional treatment, long after the more genuine +Olympians had broken out of them. The school of Praxiteles, as +distinguished from that of Pheidias, is especially the school of +grace, relaxing a little the severe ethical tension of the latter, in +favour of a slightly Asiatic sinuosity and tenderness. Pausanias +tells us that he carved the two goddesses for the temple of Demeter +at Athens; and Pliny speaks of two groups of his in brass, the one +representing the stealing of Persephone, the other her later, annual +descent into Hades, conducted thither by the now pacified mother. +All alike have perished; though perhaps some [140] more or less faint +reflexion of the most important of these designs may still be traced +on many painted vases which depict the stealing of Persephone,--a +helpless, plucked flower in the arms of Aidoneus. And in this almost +traditional form, the subject was often represented, in low relief, +on tombs, some of which still remain; in one or two instances, built +up, oddly enough, in the walls of Christian churches. On the tombs +of women who had died in early life, this was a favourite subject, +some likeness of the actual lineaments of the deceased being +sometimes transferred to the features of Persephone. + +Yet so far, it might seem, when we consider the interest of this +story in itself, and its importance in the Greek religion, that no +adequate expression of it had remained to us in works of art. But in +the year 1857, the discovery of the marbles, in the sacred precinct +of Demeter at Cnidus, restored to us an illustration of the myth in +its artistic phase, hardly less central than the Homeric hymn in its +poetical phase. With the help of the descriptions and plans of Mr. +Newton's book,* we can form, as one always wishes to do in such +cases, a clear idea of the place where these marbles--three statues +of the best style of Greek sculpture, now in the British Museum--were +found. Occupying a ledge of rock, looking towards the sea, at the +base of a [141] cliff of upheaved limestone, of singular steepness +and regularity of surface, the spot presents indications of volcanic +disturbance, as if a chasm in the earth had opened here. It was this +character, suggesting the belief in an actual connexion with the +interior of the earth (local tradition claiming it as the scene of +the stealing of Persephone), which probably gave rise, as in other +cases where the landscape presented some peculiar feature in harmony +with the story, to the dedication upon it of a house and an image of +Demeter, with whom were associated Kore and "the gods with Demeter"-- +hoi theoi para Damatri+--Aidoneus, and the mystical or Chthonian +Dionysus. The house seems to have been a small chapel only, of +simple construction, and designed for private use, the site itself +having been private property, consecrated by a particular family, for +their own religious uses, although other persons, servants or +dependents of the founders, may also have frequented it. The +architecture seems to have been insignificant, but the sculpture +costly and exquisite, belonging, if contemporary with the erection of +the building, to a great period of Greek art, of which also it is +judged to possess intrinsic marks--about the year 350 before Christ, +the probable date of the dedication of the little temple. The +artists by whom these works were produced were, therefore, either the +contemporaries of Praxiteles, whose Venus was for many centuries the +glory of [142] Cnidus, or belonged to the generation immediately +succeeding him. The temple itself was probably thrown down by a +renewal of the volcanic disturbances; the statues however remaining, +and the ministers and worshippers still continuing to make shift for +their sacred business in the place, now doubly venerable, but with +its temple unrestored, down to the second or third century of the +Christian era, its frequenters being now perhaps mere chance comers, +the family of the original donors having become extinct, or having +deserted it. Into this later arrangement, clearly divined by Mr. +Newton, through those faint indications which mean much for true +experts, the extant remains, as they were found upon the spot, permit +us to enter. It is one of the graves of that old religion, but with +much still fresh in it. We see it with its provincial superstitions, +and its curious magic rites, but also with its means of really solemn +impressions, in the culminating forms of Greek art; the two faces of +the Greek religion confronting each other here, and the whole having +that rare peculiarity of a kind of personal stamp upon it, the place +having been designed to meet the fancies of one particular soul, or +at least of one family. It is always difficult to bring the every- +day aspect of Greek religion home to us; but even the slighter +details of this little sanctuary help us to do this; and knowing so +little, as we do, of the greater mysteries of [143] Demeter, this +glance into an actual religious place dedicated to her, and with the +air of her worship still about it, is doubly interesting. The little +votive figures of the goddesses, in baked earth, were still lying +stored in the small treasury intended for such objects, or scattered +about the feet of the images, together with lamps in great number, a +lighted lamp being a favourite offering, in memory of the torches +with which Demeter sought Persephone, or from some sense of inherent +darkness in these gods of the earth; those torches in the hands of +Demeter being indeed originally the artificial warmth and brightness +of lamp and fire, on winter nights. The dirae or spells,--katadesmoi+- +-binding or devoting certain persons to the infernal gods, inscribed +on thin rolls of lead, with holes, sometimes, for hanging them up +about those quiet statues, still lay, just as they were left, +anywhere within the sacred precinct, illustrating at once the +gloomier side of the Greek religion in general, and of Demeter and +Persephone especially, in their character of avenging deities, and as +relics of ancient magic, reproduced so strangely at other times and +places, reminding us of the permanence of certain odd ways of human +thought. A woman binds with her spell the person who seduces her +husband away from her and her children; another, the person who has +accused her of preparing poison for her husband; another devotes one +who has not restored a borrowed [144] garment, or has stolen a +bracelet, or certain drinking-horns; and, from some instances, we +might infer that this was a favourite place of worship for the poor +and ignorant. In this living picture, we find still lingering on, at +the foot of the beautiful Greek marbles, that phase of religious +temper which a cynical mind might think a truer link of its unity and +permanence than any higher aesthetic instincts--a phase of it, which +the art of sculpture, humanising and refining man's conceptions of +the unseen, tended constantly to do away. For the higher side of the +Greek religion, thus humanised and refined by art, and elevated by it +to the sense of beauty, is here also. + +There were three ideal forms, as we saw, gradually shaping themselves +in the development of the story of Demeter, waiting only for complete +realisation at the hands of the sculptor; and now, with these forms +in our minds, let us place ourselves in thought before the three +images which once probably occupied the three niches or ambries in +the face of that singular cliff at Cnidus, one of them being then +wrought on a larger scale. Of the three figures, one probably +represents Persephone, as the goddess of the dead; the second, +Demeter enthroned; the third is probably a portrait-statue of a +priestess of Demeter, but may perhaps, even so, represent Demeter +herself, Demeter Achaea, Ceres Deserta, the mater dolorosa of the +Greeks, a type not as yet [145] recognised in any other work of +ancient art. Certainly, it seems hard not to believe that this work +is in some way connected with the legend of the place to which it +belonged, and the main subject of which it realises so completely; +and, at least, it shows how the higher Greek sculpture would have +worked out this motive. If Demeter at all, it is Demeter the +seeker,--Dêô+--as she was called in the mysteries, in some pause of +her restless wandering over the world in search of the lost child, +and become at last an abstract type of the wanderer. The Homeric +hymn, as we saw, had its sculptural motives, the great gestures of +Demeter, who was ever the stately goddess, as she followed the +daughters of Celeus, or sat by the well-side, or went out and in, +through the halls of the palace, expressed in monumental words. With +the sentiment of that monumental Homeric presence this statue is +penetrated, uniting a certain solemnity of attitude and bearing, to a +profound piteousness, an unrivalled pathos of expression. There is +something of the pity of Michelangelo's mater dolorosa, in the wasted +form and marred countenance, yet with the light breaking faintly over +it from the eyes, which, contrary to the usual practice in ancient +sculpture, are represented as looking upwards. It is the aged woman +who has escaped from pirates, who has but just escaped being sold as +a slave, calling on the young for pity. The sorrows of her long +wanderings seem to have passed into the marble; [146] and in this +too, it meets the demands which the reader of the Homeric hymn, with +its command over the resources of human pathos, makes upon the +sculptor. The tall figure, in proportion above the ordinary height, +is veiled, and clad to the feet in the longer tunic, its numerous +folds hanging in heavy parallel lines, opposing the lines of the +peplus, or cloak, which cross it diagonally over the breast, +enwrapping the upper portion of the body somewhat closely. It is the +very type of the wandering woman, going grandly, indeed, as Homer +describes her, yet so human in her anguish, that we seem to recognise +some far descended shadow of her, in the homely figure of the roughly +clad French peasant woman, who, in one of Corot's pictures, is +hasting along under a sad light, as the day goes out behind the +little hill. We have watched the growth of the merely personal +sentiment in the story; and we may notice that, if this figure be +indeed Demeter, then the conception of her has become wholly +humanised; no trace of the primitive cosmical import of the myth, no +colour or scent of the mystical earth, remains about it. + +The seated figure, much mutilated, and worn by long exposure, yet +possessing, according to the best critics, marks of the school of +Praxiteles, is almost undoubtedly the image of Demeter enthroned. +Three times in the Homeric hymn she is represented as sitting, once +by the fountain at the wayside, again in the house of Celeus, and +[147] again in the newly finished temple of Eleusis; but always in +sorrow; seated on the petra agelastos,+ which, as Ovid told us, the +people of Attica still called the stone of sorrow. Here she is +represented in her later state of reconciliation, enthroned as the +glorified mother of all things. The delicate plaiting of the tunic +about the throat, the formal curling of the hair, and a certain +weight of over-thoughtfulness in the brows, recall the manner of +Leonardo da Vinci, a master, one of whose characteristics is a very +sensitive expression of the sentiment of maternity. It reminds one +especially of a work by one of his scholars, the Virgin of the +Balances, in the Louvre, a picture which has been thought to +represent, under a veil, the blessing of universal nature, and in +which the sleepy-looking heads, with a peculiar grace and refinement +of somewhat advanced life in them, have just this half-weary posture. +We see here, then, the Here of the world below, the Stygian Juno, the +chief of those Elysian matrons who come crowding, in the poem of +Claudian, to the marriage toilet of Proserpine, the goddess of the +fertility of the earth and of all creatures, but still of fertility +as arisen out of death;* and therefore she is not without a certain +pensiveness, having seen the seed fall into the ground and die, many +times. Persephone is returned to her, and the hair [148] spreads, +like a rich harvest, over her shoulders; but she is still veiled, and +knows that the seed must fall into the ground again, and Persephone +descend again from her. + +The statues of the supposed priestess, and of the enthroned Demeter, +are of more than the size of life; the figure of Persephone is but +seventeen inches high, a daintily handled toy of Parian marble, the +miniature copy perhaps of a much larger work, which might well be +reproduced on a magnified scale. The conception of Demeter is +throughout chiefly human, and even domestic, though never without a +hieratic interest, because she is not a goddess only, but also a +priestess. In contrast, Persephone is wholly unearthly, the close +companion, and even the confused double, of Hecate, the goddess of +midnight terrors,--Despoena,--the final mistress of all that lives; +and as sorrow is the characteristic sentiment of Demeter, so awe of +Persephone. She is compact of sleep, and death, and flowers, but of +narcotic flowers especially,--a revenant, who in the garden of +Aidoneus has eaten of the pomegranate, and bears always the secret of +decay in her, of return to the grave, in the mystery of those +swallowed seeds; sometimes, in later work, holding in her hand the +key of the great prison-house, but which unlocks all secrets also; +(there, finally, or through oracles revealed in dreams;) sometimes, +like Demeter, the poppy, emblem of sleep and death by its [149] +narcotic juices, of life and resurrection by its innumerable seeds, +of the dreams, therefore, that may intervene between falling asleep +and waking. Treated as it is in the Homeric hymn, and still more in +this statue, the image of Persephone may be regarded as the result of +many efforts to lift the old Chthonian gloom, still lingering on in +heavier souls, concerning the grave, to connect it with impressions +of dignity and beauty, and a certain sweetness even; it is meant to +make men in love, or at least at peace, with death. The Persephone +of Praxiteles' school, then, is Aphrodite-Persephone, Venus-Libitina. +Her shadowy eyes have gazed upon the fainter colouring of the under- +world, and the tranquillity, born of it, has "passed into her face"; +for the Greek Hades is, after all, but a quiet, twilight place, not +very different from that House of Fame where Dante places the great +souls of the classical world; Aidoneus himself being conceived, in +the highest Greek sculpture, as but a gentler Zeus, the great +innkeeper; so that when a certain Greek sculptor had failed in his +portraiture of Zeus, because it had too little hilarity, too little, +in the eyes and brow, of the open and cheerful sky, he only changed +its title, and the thing passed excellently, with its heavy locks and +shadowy eyebrows, for the god of the dead. The image of Persephone, +then, as it is here composed, with the tall, tower-like head-dress, +from which the veil depends--the corn-basket, [150] originally +carried thus by the Greek women, balanced on the head--giving the +figure unusual length, has the air of a body bound about with grave- +clothes; while the archaic hands and feet, and a certain stiffness in +the folds of the drapery, give it something of a hieratic character, +and to the modern observer may suggest a sort of kinship with the +more chastened kind of Gothic work. But quite of the school of +Praxiteles is the general character of the composition; the graceful +waving of the hair, the fine shadows of the little face, of the eyes +and lips especially, like the shadows of a flower--a flower risen +noiselessly from its dwelling in the dust--though still with that +fulness or heaviness in the brow, as of sleepy people, which, in the +delicate gradations of Greek sculpture, distinguish the infernal +deities from their Olympian kindred. The object placed in the hand +may be, perhaps, a stiff, archaic flower, but is probably the partly +consumed pomegranate--one morsel gone; the most usual emblem of +Persephone being this mystical fruit, which, because of the multitude +of its seeds, was to the Romans a symbol of fecundity, and was sold +at the doors of the temple of Ceres, that the women might offer it +there, and bear numerous children; and so, to the middle age, became +a symbol of the fruitful earth itself; and then of that other seed +sown in the dark under-world; and at last of that whole hidden +region, so thickly sown, which Dante visited, Michelino painting him, +[151] in the Duomo of Florence, with this fruit in his hand, and +Botticelli putting it into the childish hands of Him, who, if men "go +down into hell, is there also." + +There is an attractiveness in these goddesses of the earth, akin to +the influence of cool places, quiet houses, subdued light, +tranquillising voices. What is there in this phase of ancient +religion for us, at the present day? The myth of Demeter and +Persephone, then, illustrates the power of the Greek religion as a +religion of pure ideas--of conceptions, which having no link on +historical fact, yet, because they arose naturally out of the spirit +of man, and embodied, in adequate symbols, his deepest thoughts +concerning the conditions of his physical and spiritual life, +maintained their hold through many changes, and are still not without +a solemnising power even for the modern mind, which has once admitted +them as recognised and habitual inhabitants; and, abiding thus for +the elevation and purifying of our sentiments, long after the earlier +and simpler races of their worshippers have passed away, they may be +a pledge to us of the place in our culture, at once legitimate and +possible, of the associations, the conceptions, the imagery, of Greek +religious poetry in general, of the poetry of all religions. + +NOTES + +117. +Transliteration: kalykôpis. Liddell and Scott definition: +"Like a flower-bud, blushing, roseate." + +118. +Transliteration: charis. Liddell and Scott definition: +"favour, grace ... loveliness." + +118. +Transliteration: theai semnai. Translation: "august +goddesses." + +124. *The great Greek myths are, in truth, like abstract forces, +which ally themselves to various conditions. + +129. +Transliteration: korê arrêtos. Translation: "Korê the +mysterious, the horrible." Another meaning of arrêtos, as Pater +points out, is "unsaid, not to be spoken." + +136. *With this may be connected another passage of Ovid-- +Metamorphoses, v. 391-408. + +138. *On these small objects the mother and daughter are hard to +distinguish, the latter being recognisable only by a greater delicacy +in the features and the more evident stamp of youth. + +140. *A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and +Branchidae. + +141. +Transliteration: hoi theoi para Damatri. Pater's translation: +"the gods with Demeter." + +143. +Transliteration: katadesmoi. Liddell and Scott definition: "a +tie or band: a magic knot, love-knot." + +145. +Transliteration: Dêô. Liddell and Scott definition: the verb +dêô means "I shall find," while the proper noun refers to Demeter. + +147. +Transliteration: petra agelastos. Translation: "sullen rock." + +147. *Pallere ligustra, / Exspirare rosas, decrescere lilia vidi. + + + +HIPPOLYTUS VEILED: A STUDY FROM EURIPIDES + +[152] CENTURIES of zealous archaeology notwithstanding, many phases +of the so varied Greek genius are recorded for the modern student in +a kind of shorthand only, or not at all. Even for Pausanias, +visiting Greece before its direct part in affairs was quite played +out, much had perished or grown dim--of its art, of the truth of its +outward history, above all of its religion as a credible or +practicable thing. And yet Pausanias visits Greece under +conditions as favourable for observation as those under which later +travellers, Addison or Eustace, proceed to Italy. For him the +impress of life in those old Greek cities is not less vivid and +entire than that of medieval Italy to ourselves; at Siena, for +instance, with its ancient palaces still in occupation, its public +edifices as serviceable as if the old republic had but just now +vacated them, the tradition of their primitive worship still unbroken +in its churches. Had the opportunities in which Pausanias was [153] +fortunate been ours, how many haunts of the antique Greek life +unnoticed by him we should have peeped into, minutely systematic in +our painstaking! how many a view would broaden out where he notes +hardly anything at all on his map of Greece! + +One of the most curious phases of Greek civilisation which has thus +perished for us, and regarding which, as we may fancy, we should have +made better use of that old traveller's facilities, is the early +Attic deme-life--its picturesque, intensely localised variety, in the +hollow or on the spur of mountain or sea-shore; and with it many a +relic of primitive religion, many an early growth of art parallel to +what Vasari records of artistic beginnings in the smaller cities of +Italy. Colonus and Acharnae, surviving still so vividly by the magic +of Sophocles, of Aristophanes, are but isolated examples of a +widespread manner of life, in which, amid many provincial +peculiarities, the first, yet perhaps the most costly and telling +steps were made in all the various departments of Greek culture. +Even in the days of Pausanias, Piraeus was still traceable as a +distinct township, once the possible rival of Athens, with its little +old covered market by the seaside, and the symbolical picture of the +place, its Genius, visible on the wall. And that is but the type of +what there had been to know of threescore and more village +communities, each having its own altars, its special worship and +[154] place of civic assembly, its trade and crafts, its name drawn +from physical peculiarity or famous incident, its body of heroic +tradition. Lingering on while Athens, the great deme, gradually +absorbed into itself more and more of their achievements, and passing +away almost completely as political factors in the Peloponnesian war, +they were still felt, we can hardly doubt, in the actual physiognomy +of Greece. That variety in unity, which its singular geographical +formation secured to Greece as a whole, was at its utmost in these +minute reflexions of the national character, with all the relish +of local difference--new art, new poetry, fresh ventures in political +combination, in the conception of life, springing as if straight from +the soil, like the thorn-blossom of early spring in magic lines over +all that rocky land. On the other hand, it was just here that +ancient habits clung most tenaciously--that old-fashioned, homely, +delightful existence, to which the refugee, pent up in Athens in the +years of the Peloponnesian war, looked back so fondly. If the +impression of Greece generally is but enhanced by the littleness of +the physical scene of events intellectually so great--such a system +of grand lines, restrained within so narrow a compass, as in one of +its fine coins--still more would this be true of those centres of +country life. Here, certainly, was that assertion of seemingly small +interests, which brings into free play, and gives his utmost value +[155] to, the individual; making his warfare, equally with his more +peaceful rivalries, deme against deme, the mountain against the +plain, the sea-shore, (as in our own old Border life, but played out +here by wonderfully gifted people) tangible as a personal history, to +the doubling of its fascination for those whose business is with the +survey of the dramatic side of life. + +As with civil matters, so it was also, we may fairly suppose, with +religion; the deme-life was a manifestation of religious custom and +sentiment, in all their primitive local variety. As Athens, +gradually drawing into itself the various elements of provincial +culture, developed, with authority, the central religious position, +the demes-men did but add the worship of Athene Polias, the goddess +of the capital, to their own pre-existent ritual uses. Of local and +central religion alike, time and circumstance had obliterated much +when Pausanias came. A devout spirit, with religion for his chief +interest, eager for the trace of a divine footstep, anxious even in +the days of Lucian to deal seriously with what had counted for so +much to serious men, he has, indeed, to lament that "Pan is dead":-- +"They come no longer!"--"These things happen no longer!" But the +Greek--his very name also, Hellen, was the title of a priesthood--had +been religious abundantly, sanctifying every detail of his actual +life with the religious idea; and as Pausanias goes on his way he +finds many a remnant of that [156] earlier estate of religion, when, +as he fancied, it had been nearer the gods, as it was certainly +nearer the earth. It is marked, even in decay, with varieties of +place; and is not only continuous but in situ. At Phigaleia he +makes his offerings to Demeter, agreeably to the paternal rites of +the inhabitants, wax, fruit, undressed wool "still full of the sordes +of the sheep." A dream from heaven cuts short his notice of the +mysteries of Eleusis. He sees the stone, "big enough for a little +man," on which Silenus was used to sit and rest; at Athens, the +tombs of the Amazons, of the purple-haired Nisus, of Deucalion;--"it +is a manifest token that he had dwelt there." The worshippers of +Poseidon, even at his temple among the hills, might still feel the +earth fluctuating beneath their feet. And in care for divine things, +he tells us, the Athenians outdid all other Greeks. Even in the days +of Nero it revealed itself oddly; and it is natural to suppose that +of this temper the demes, as the proper home of conservatism, were +exceptionally expressive. Scattered in those remote, romantic +villages, among their olives or sea-weeds, lay the heroic graves, the +relics, the sacred images, often rude enough amid the delicate +tribute of later art; this too oftentimes finding in such retirement +its best inspirations, as in some Attic Fiesole. Like a network over +the land of gracious poetic tradition, as also of undisturbed +ceremonial usage surviving late for those who cared to seek it, the +[157] local religions had been never wholly superseded by the worship +of the great national temples. They were, in truth, the most +characteristic developments of a faith essentially earth-born or +indigenous. + +And how often must the student of fine art, again, wish he had the +same sort of knowledge about its earlier growth in Greece, that he +actually possesses in the case of Italian art! Given any development +at all in this matter, there must have been phases of art, which, if +immature, were also veritable expressions of power to come, +intermediate discoveries of beauty, such as are by no means a mere +anticipation, and of service only as explaining historically larger +subsequent achievements, but of permanent attractiveness in +themselves, being often, indeed, the true maturity of certain amiable +artistic qualities. And in regard to Greek art at its best--the +Parthenon--no less than to the art of the Renaissance at its best-- +the Sistine Chapel--the more instructive light would be derived +rather from what precedes than what follows such central success, +from the determination to apprehend the fulfilment of past effort +rather than the eve of decline, in the critical, central moment which +partakes of both. Of such early promise, early achievement, we have +in the case of Greek art little to compare with what is extant of the +youth of the arts in Italy. Overbeck's careful gleanings of its +history form indeed [158] a sorry relic as contrasted with Vasari's +intimations of the beginnings of the Renaissance. Fired by certain +fragments of its earlier days, of a beauty, in truth, absolute, and +vainly longing for more, the student of Greek sculpture indulges the +thought of an ideal of youthful energy therein, yet withal of +youthful self-restraint; and again, as with survivals of old +religion, the privileged home, he fancies, of that ideal must have +been in those venerable Attic townships, as to a large extent it +passed away with them. + +The budding of new art, the survival of old religion, at isolated +centres of provincial life, where varieties of human character also +were keen, abundant, asserted in correspondingly effective incident-- +this is what irresistible fancy superinduces on historic details, +themselves meagre enough. The sentiment of antiquity is indeed a +characteristic of all cultivated people, even in what may seem the +freshest ages, and not exclusively a humour of our later world. In +the earliest notices about them, as we know, the people of Attica +appear already impressed by the immense antiquity of their occupation +of its soil, of which they claim to be the very first flower. Some +at least of those old demes-men we may well fancy sentimentally +reluctant to change their habits, fearful of losing too much of +themselves in the larger stream of life, clinging to what is +antiquated as the work of centralisation goes on, needful as that +work was, [159] with the great "Eastern difficulty" already ever in +the distance. The fear of Asia, barbaric, splendid, hardly known, +yet haunting the curious imagination of those who had borrowed thence +the art in which they were rapidly excelling it, developing, as we +now see, in the interest of Greek humanity, crafts begotten of +tyrannic and illiberal luxury, was finally to suppress the rivalries +of those primitive centres of activity, when the "invincible armada" +of the common foe came into sight. + +At a later period civil strife was to destroy their last traces. The +old hoplite, from Rhamnus or Acharnae, pent up in beleaguered Athens +during that first summer of the Peloponnesian war, occupying with his +household a turret of the wall, as Thucydides describes--one of many +picturesque touches in that severe historian--could well remember the +ancient provincial life which this conflict with Sparta was bringing +to an end. He could recall his boyish, half-scared curiosity +concerning those Persian ships, coming first as merchantmen, or with +pirates on occasion, in the half-savage, wicked splendours of their +decoration, the monstrous figure-heads, their glittering freightage. +Men would hardly have trusted their women or children with that +suspicious crew, hovering through the dusk. There were soothsayers, +indeed, who had long foretold what happened soon after, giving shape +to vague, supernatural terrors. And then he had crept [160] from his +hiding-place with other lads to go view the enemies' slain at +Marathon, beside those belated Spartans, this new war with whom +seemed to be reviving the fierce local feuds of his younger days. +Paraloi and Diacrioi had ever been rivals. Very distant it all +seemed now, with all the stories he could tell; for in those +crumbling little towns, as heroic life had lingered on into the +actual, so, at an earlier date, the supernatural into the heroic. +Like mist at dawn, the last traces of its divine visitors had then +vanished from the land, where, however, they had already begotten +"our best and oldest families." + +It was Theseus, uncompromising young master of the situation, in +fearless application of "the modern spirit" of his day to every phase +of life where it was applicable, who, at the expense of Attica, had +given Athens a people, reluctant enough, in truth, as Plutarch +suggests, to desert "their homes and religious usages and many good +and gracious kings of their own" for this elect youth, who thus +figures, passably, as a kind of mythic shorthand for civilisation, +making roads and the like, facilitating travel, suppressing various +forms of violence, but many innocent things as well. So it must +needs be in a world where, even hand in hand with a god-assisted +hero, Justice goes blindfold. He slays the bull of Marathon and many +another local tyrant, but also exterminates that delightful creature, +the Centaur. The Amazon, whom Plato will [161] reinstate as the type +of improved womanhood, has no better luck than Phaea, the sow-pig of +Crommyon, foul old landed-proprietress. They exerted, however, the +prerogative of poetic protest, and survive thereby. Centaur and +Amazon, as we see them in the fine art of Greece, represent the +regret of Athenians themselves for something that could never be +brought to life again, and have their pathos. Those young heroes +contending with Amazons on the frieze of the Mausoleum had best make +haste with their bloody work, if young people's eyes can tell a true +story. A type still of progress triumphant through injustice, set on +improving things off the face of the earth, Theseus took occasion to +attack the Amazons in their mountain home, not long after their +ruinous conflict with Hercules, and hit them when they were down. +That greater bully had laboured off on the world's highway, carrying +with him the official girdle of Antiope, their queen, gift of Ares, +and therewith, it would seem, the mystic secret of their strength. +At sight of this new foe, at any rate, she came to a strange +submission. The savage virgin had turned to very woman, and was +presently a willing slave, returning on the gaily appointed ship in +all haste to Athens, where in supposed wedlock she bore King Theseus +a son. + +With their annual visit--visit to the Gargareans!--for the purpose of +maintaining their [162] species, parting with their boys early, these +husbandless women could hardly be supposed a very happy, certainly +not a very joyous people. They figure rather as a sorry measure of +the luck of the female sex in taking a hard natural law into their +own hands, and by abnegation of all tender companionship making shift +with bare independence, as a kind of second-best--the best +practicable by them in the imperfect actual condition of things. But +the heart-strings would ache still where the breast had been cut +away. The sisters of Antiope had come, not immediately, but in +careful array of battle, to bring back the captive. All along the +weary roads from the Caucasus to Attica, their traces had remained in +the great graves of those who died by the way. Against the little +remnant, carrying on the fight to the very midst of Athens, Antiope +herself had turned, all other thoughts transformed now into wild +idolatry of her hero. Superstitious, or in real regret, the +Athenians never forgot their tombs. As for Antiope, the conscience +of her perfidy remained with her, adding the pang of remorse to her +own desertion, when King Theseus, with his accustomed bad faith to +women, set her, too, aside in turn. Phaedra, the true wife, was +there, peeping suspiciously at her arrival; and even as Antiope +yielded to her lord's embraces the thought had come that a male child +might be the instrument of her anger, and one day judge her cause. + +[163] In one of these doomed, decaying villages, then, King Theseus +placed the woman and her babe, hidden, yet secure, within the Attic +border, as men veil their mistakes or crimes. They might pass away, +they and their story, together with the memory of other antiquated +creatures of such places, who had had connubial dealings with the +stars. The white, paved waggon-track, a by-path of the sacred way to +Eleusis, zigzagged through sloping olive-yards, from the plain of +silvered blue, with Athens building in the distance, and passed the +door of the rude stone house, furnished scantily, which no one had +ventured to inhabit of late years till they came there. On the +ledges of the grey cliffs above, the laurel groves, stem and foliage +of motionless bronze, had spread their tents. Travellers bound +northwards were glad to repose themselves there, and take directions, +or provision for their journey onwards, from the highland people, who +came down hither to sell their honey, their cheese, and woollen +stuff, in the tiny market-place. At dawn the great stars seemed to +halt a while, burning as if for sacrifice to some pure deity, on +those distant, obscurely named heights, like broken swords, the rim +of the world. A little later you could just see the newly opened +quarries, like streaks of snow on their russet-brown bosoms. Thither +in spring-time all eyes turned from Athens devoutly, intent till the +first shaft of lightning gave signal for the departure of the [164] +sacred ship to Delos. Racing over those rocky surfaces, the virgin +air descended hither with the secret of profound sleep, as the child +lay in its cubicle hewn in the stone, the white fleeces heaped warmly +round him. In the wild Amazon's soul, to her surprise, and at first +against her will, the maternal sense had quickened from the moment of +his conception, and (that burst of angry tears with which she had +received him into the world once dried up), kindling more eagerly at +every token of manly growth, had at length driven out every other +feeling. And this animal sentiment, educating the human hand and +heart in her, had become a moral one, when, King Theseus leaving her +in anger, visibly unkind, the child had crept to her side, and +tracing with small fingers the wrinkled lines of her woebegone brow, +carved there as if by a thousand years of sorrow, had sown between +himself and her the seed of an undying sympathy. + +She was thus already on the watch for a host of minute recognitions +on his part, of the self-sacrifice involved in her devotion to a +career of which she must needs drain out the sorrow, careful that he +might taste only the joy. So far, amid their spare living, the +child, as if looking up to the warm broad wing of her love above him, +seemed replete with comfort. Yet in his moments of childish +sickness, the first passing shadows upon the deep joy of her +motherhood, she teaches him betimes to soothe [165] or cheat pain-- +little bodily pains only, hitherto. She ventures sadly to assure him +of the harsh necessities of life: "Courage, child! Every one must +take his share of suffering. Shift not thy body so vehemently. +Pain, taken quietly, is easier to bear." + +Carefully inverting the habits of her own rude childhood, she learned +to spin the wools, white and grey, to clothe and cover him +pleasantly. The spectacle of his unsuspicious happiness, though at +present a matter of purely physical conditions, awoke a strange sense +of poetry, a kind of artistic sense in her, watching, as her own +long-deferred recreation in life, his delight in the little +delicacies she prepared to his liking--broiled kids' flesh, the red +wine, the mushrooms sought through the early dew--his hunger and +thirst so daintily satisfied, as he sat at table, like the first-born +of King Theseus, with two wax-lights and a fire at dawn or nightfall +dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly +weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace +of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that +unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the +father's, the step-mother's jealousy, the mockery of those half- +brothers to come? Ah! how perilous for happiness the sensibilities +which make him so exquisitely happy now! Before they started on +their dreadful visit to the Minotaur, says Plutarch, the women told +their [166] sons many tales and other things to encourage them; and, +even as she had furnished the child betimes with rules for the solace +of bodily pain, so now she would have brought her own sad experience +into service in precepts for the ejection of its festering power out +of any other trouble that might visit him. Already those little +disappointments which are as the shadow beside all conscious +enjoyment, were no petty things to her, but had for her their pathos, +as children's troubles will have, in spite of the longer chance +before them. They were as the first steps in a long story of +deferred hopes, or anticipations of death itself and the end of them. + +The gift of Ares gone, the mystic girdle she would fain have +transferred to the child, that bloody god of storm and battle, +hereditary patron of her house, faded from her thoughts together with +the memory of her past life--the more completely, because another +familiar though somewhat forbidding deity, accepting certainly a +cruel and forbidding worship, was already in possession, and reigning +in the new home when she came thither. Only, thanks to some kindly +local influence (by grace, say, of its delicate air), Artemis, this +other god she had known in the Scythian wilds, had put aside her +fierce ways, as she paused awhile on her heavenly course among these +ancient abodes of men, gliding softly, mainly through their dreams, +with abundance of salutary touches. Full, in truth, of [167] +grateful memory of some timely service at human hands! In these +highland villages the tradition of celestial visitants clung fondly, +of god or hero, belated or misled on long journeys, yet pleased to be +among the sons of men, as their way led them up the steep, narrow, +crooked street, condescending to rest a little, as one, under some +sudden stress not clearly ascertained, had done here, in this very +house, thereafter for ever sacred. The place and its inhabitants, of +course, had been something bigger in the days of those old mythic +hospitalities, unless, indeed, divine persons took kindly the will +for the deed--very different, surely, from the present condition of +things, for there was little here to detain a delicate traveller, +even in the abode of Antiope and her son, though it had been the +residence of a king. + +Hard by stood the chapel of the goddess, who had thus adorned the +place with her memories. The priests, indeed, were already departed +to Athens, carrying with them the ancient image, the vehicle of her +actual presence, as the surest means of enriching the capital at the +expense of the country, where she must now make poor shift of the +occasional worshipper on his way through these mountain passes. But +safely roofed beneath the sturdy tiles of grey Hymettus marble, upon +the walls of the little square recess enclosing the deserted +pedestal, a series of crowded imageries, in the devout spirit [168] +of earlier days, were eloquent concerning her. Here from scene to +scene, touched with silver among the wild and human creatures in dun +bronze, with the moon's disk around her head, shrouded closely, the +goddess of the chase still glided mystically through all the varied +incidents of her story, in all the detail of a written book. + +A book for the delighted reading of a scholar, willing to ponder at +leisure, to make his way surely, and understand. Very different, +certainly, from the cruel-featured little idol his mother had brought +in her bundle--the old Scythian Artemis, hanging there on the wall, +side by side with the forgotten Ares, blood-red,--the goddess reveals +herself to the lad, poring through the dusk by taper-light, as at +once a virgin, necessarily therefore the creature of solitude, yet +also as the assiduous nurse of children, and patroness of the young. +Her friendly intervention at the act of birth everywhere, her claim +upon the nursling, among tame and wild creatures equally, among men +as among gods, nay! among the stars (upon the very star of dawn), +gave her a breadth of influence seemingly coextensive with the sum of +things. Yes! his great mother was in touch with everything. Yet +throughout he can but note her perpetual chastity, with pleasurable +though half-suspicious wonder at the mystery, he knows not what, +involved therein, as though he awoke suddenly in some distant, +unexplored region of her person and activity. [169] Why the lighted +torch always, and that long straight vesture rolled round so +formally? Was it only against the cold of these northern heights? + +To her, nevertheless, her maternity, her solitude, to this virgin +mother, who, with no husband, no lover, no fruit of her own, is so +tender to the children of others, in a full heart he devotes himself- +-his immaculate body and soul. Dedicating himself thus, he has the +sense also that he becomes more entirely than ever the chevalier of +his mortal mother, of her sad cause. The devout, diligent hands +clear away carefully the dust, the faded relics of her former +worship; a worship renewed once more as the sacred spring, set free +from encumbrance, in answer to his willing ministries murmurs again +under the dim vault in its marble basin, work of primitive Titanic +fingers--flows out through its rocky channel, filling the whole +township with chaste thoughts of her. + +Through much labour at length he comes to the veritable story of her +birth, like a gift direct from the goddess herself to this loyal +soul. There were those in later times who, like Aeschylus, knew +Artemis as the daughter not of Leto but of Demeter, according to the +version of her history now conveyed to the young Hippolytus, together +with some deepened insight into her character. The goddess of +Eleusis, on a journey, in the old days when, as Plato says, [170] men +lived nearer the gods, finding herself with child by some starry +inmate of those high places, had lain down in the rock-hewn cubicle +of the inner chamber, and, certainly in sorrow, brought forth a +daughter. Here was the secret at once of the genial, all-embracing +maternity of this new strange Artemis, and of those more dubious +tokens, the lighted torch, the winding-sheet, the arrow of death on +the string--of sudden death, truly, which may be thought after all +the kindest, as prevenient of all disgraceful sickness or waste in +the unsullied limbs. For the late birth into the world of this so +shadowy daughter was somehow identified with the sudden passing into +Hades of her first-born, Persephone. As he scans those scenes anew, +an awful surmise comes to him; his divine patroness moves there as +death, surely. Still, however, gratefully putting away suspicion, he +seized even in these ambiguous imageries their happier suggestions, +satisfied in thinking of his new mother as but the giver of sound +sleep, of the benign night, whence--mystery of mysteries!--good +things are born softly, from which he awakes betimes for his +healthful service to her. Either way, sister of Apollo or sister of +Persephone, to him she should be a power of sanity, sweet as the +flowers he offered her gathered at dawn, setting daily their purple +and white frost against her ancient marbles. There was more +certainly than the first breath of day in them. Was there [171] here +something of her person, her sensible presence, by way of direct +response to him in his early devotion, astir for her sake before the +very birds, nesting here so freely, the quail above all, in some +privileged connexion with her story still unfathomed by the learned +youth? Amid them he too found a voice, and sang articulately the +praises of the great goddess. + +Those more dubious traits, nevertheless, so lightly disposed of by +Hippolytus (Hecate thus counting for him as Artemis goddess of +health), became to his mother, in the light of her sad experience, +the sum of the whole matter. While he drew only peaceful inducements +to sleep from that two-sided figure, she reads there a volume of +sinister intentions, and liked little this seemingly dead goddess, +who could but move among the living banefully, stealing with her +night-shade into the day where she had no proper right. The gods had +ever had much to do with the shaping of her fortunes and the fortunes +of her kindred; and the mortal mother felt nothing less than jealousy +from the hour when the lad had first delightedly called her to share +his discoveries, and learn the true story (if it were not rather the +malicious counterfeit) of the new divine mother to whom he has thus +absolutely entrusted himself. Was not this absolute chastity itself +a kind of death? She, too, in secret makes her gruesome midnight +offering with averted eyes. She dreams one night he is in danger; +creeps to his cubicle [172] to see; the face is covered, as he lies, +against the cold. She traces the motionless outline, raises the +coverlet; with the nice black head deep in the fleecy pillow he is +sleeping quietly, he dreams of that other mother gliding in upon the +moonbeam, and awaking turns sympathetically upon the living woman, is +subdued in a moment to the expression of her troubled spirit, and +understands. + +And when the child departed from her for the first time, springing +from his white bed before the dawn, to accompany the elders on their +annual visit to the Eleusinian goddess, the after-sense of his +wonderful happiness, tranquillising her in spite of herself by its +genial power over the actual moment, stirred nevertheless a new sort +of anxiety for the future. Her work in life henceforward was defined +as a ministry to so precious a gift, in full consciousness of its +risk; it became her religion, the centre of her pieties. She missed +painfully his continual singing hovering about the place, like the +earth itself made audible in all its humanities. Half-selfish for a +moment, she prays that he may remain for ever a child, to her solace; +welcomes now the promise of his chastity (though chastity were itself +a kind of death) as the pledge of his abiding always with her. And +these thoughts were but infixed more deeply by the sudden stroke of +joy at his return home in ceremonial trim and grown more manly, with +much increase of self-confidence in that brief absence among his +fellows. + +[173] For, from the first, the unwelcome child, the outcast, had been +successful, with that special good fortune which sometimes attends +the outcast. His happiness, his invincible happiness, had been found +engaging, perhaps by the gods, certainly by men; and when King +Theseus came to take note how things went in that rough life he had +assigned them, he felt a half liking for the boy, and bade him come +down to Athens and see the sights, partly by way of proof to his +already somewhat exacting wife of the difference between the old love +and the new as measured by the present condition of their respective +offspring. The fine nature, fastidious by instinct, but bred with +frugality enough to find the charm of continual surprise in that +delicate new Athens, draws, as he goes, the full savour of its +novelties; the marbles, the space and finish, the busy gaiety of its +streets, the elegance of life there, contrasting with while it adds +some mysterious endearment to the thought of his own rude home. +Without envy, in hope only one day to share, to win them by kindness, +he gazes on the motley garden-plots, the soft bedding, the showy +toys, the delicate keep of the children of Phaedra, who turn +curiously to their half-brother, venture to touch his long strange +gown of homespun grey, like the soft coat of some wild creature who +might let one stroke it. Close to their dainty existence for a +while, he regards it as from afar; looks forward all day to the +lights, the prattle, the laughter, the white [174] bread, like sweet +cake to him, of their ordinary evening meal; returns again and again, +in spite of himself, to watch, to admire, feeling a power within him +to merit the like; finds his way back at last, still light of heart, +to his own poor fare, able to do without what he would enjoy so much. +As, grateful for his scanty part in things--for the make-believe of a +feast in the little white loaves she too has managed to come by, +sipping the thin white wine, he touches her dearly, the mother is +shocked with a sense of something unearthly in his contentment, while +he comes and goes, singing now more abundantly than ever a new +canticle to her divine rival. Were things, after all, to go +grudgingly with him? Sensible of that curse on herself, with her +suspicions of his kinsfolk, of this dubious goddess to whom he has +devoted himself, she anticipates with more foreboding than ever his +path to be, with or without a wife--her own solitude, or his--the +painful heats and cold. She fears even these late successes; it were +best to veil their heads. The strong as such had ever been against +her and hers. The father came again; noted the boy's growth. +Manliest of men, like Hercules in his cloak of lion's skin, he has +after all but scant liking, feels, through a certain meanness of +soul, scorn for the finer likeness of himself. Might this creature +of an already vanishing world, who for all his hard rearing had a +manifest distinction of character, one day become his rival, full of +[175] loyalty as he was already to the deserted mother? + +To charming Athens, nevertheless, he crept back, as occasion served, +to gaze peacefully on the delightful good fortune of others, waiting +for the opportunity to take his own turn with the rest, driving down +thither at last in a chariot gallantly, when all the town was +assembled to celebrate the king's birthday. For the goddess, herself +turning ever kinder, and figuring more and more exclusively as the +tender nurse of all things, had transformed her young votary from a +hunter into a charioteer, a rearer and driver of horses, after the +fashion of his Amazon mothers before him. Thereupon, all the lad's +wholesome vanity had centered on the fancy of the world-famous games +then lately established, as, smiling down his mother's terrors, and +grateful to his celestial mother for many a hair-breadth escape, he +practised day by day, fed the animals, drove them out, amused though +companionless, visited them affectionately in the deserted stone +stables of the ancient king. A chariot and horses, as being the +showiest outward thing the world afforded, was like the pawn he moved +to represent the big demand he meant to make, honestly, generously, +on the ample fortunes of life. There was something of his old +miraculous kindred, alien from this busy new world he came to, about +the boyish driver with the fame of a scholar, in his grey fleecy +cloak and hood of soft [175] white woollen stuff, as he drove in that +morning. Men seemed to have seen a star flashing, and crowded round +to examine the little mountain-bred beasts, in loud, friendly +intercourse with the hero of the hour--even those usually somewhat +unsympathetic half-brothers now full of enthusiasm for the outcast +and his good fight for prosperity. Instinctively people admired his +wonderful placidity, and would fain have shared its secret, as it +were the carelessness of some fair flower upon his face. A victor in +the day's race, he carried home as his prize a glittering new harness +in place of the very old one he had come with. "My chariot and +horses!" he says now, with his single touch of pride. Yet at home, +savouring to the full his old solitary happiness, veiled again from +time to time in that ancient life, he is still the student, still +ponders the old writings which tell of his divine patroness. At +Athens strange stories are told in turn of him, his nights upon the +mountains, his dreamy sin, with that hypocritical virgin goddess, +stories which set the jealous suspicions of Theseus at rest once +more. For so "dream" not those who have the tangible, appraisable +world in view. Even Queen Phaedra looks with pleasure, as he comes, +on the once despised illegitimate creature, at home now here too, +singing always audaciously, so visibly happy, occupied, popular. + +Encompassed by the luxuries of Athens, far from those peaceful +mountain places, among people [177] further still in spirit from +their peaceful light and shade, he did not forget the kindly goddess, +still sharing with his earthly mother the prizes, or what they would +buy, for the adornment of their spare abode. The tombs of the fallen +Amazons, the spot where they had breathed their last, he piously +visited, informed himself of every circumstance of the event with +devout care, and, thinking on them amid the dainties of the royal +table, boldly brought them too their share of the offerings to the +heroic dead. Aphrodite, indeed--Aphrodite, of whom he had scarcely +so much as heard--was just then the best-served deity in Athens, with +all its new wealth of colour and form, its gold and ivory, the +acting, the music, the fantastic women, beneath the shadow of the +great walls still rising steadily. Hippolytus would have no part in +her worship; instead did what was in him to revive the neglected +service of his own goddess, stirring an old jealousy. For Aphrodite +too had looked with delight upon the youth, already the centre of a +hundred less dangerous human rivalries among the maidens of Greece, +and was by no means indifferent to his indifference, his instinctive +distaste; while the sterner, almost forgotten Artemis found once more +her great moon-shaped cake, set about with starry tapers, at the +appointed seasons. + +They know him now from afar, by his emphatic, shooting, arrowy +movements; and on [178] the day of the great chariot races "he goes +in and wins." To the surprise of all he compounded his handsome +prize for the old wooden image taken from the chapel at home, lurking +now in an obscure shrine in the meanest quarter of the town. Sober +amid the noisy feasting which followed, unashamed, but travelling by +night to hide it from their mockery, warm at his bosom, he reached +the passes at twilight, and through the deep peace of the glens bore +it to the old resting-place, now more worthy than ever of the +presence of its mistress, his mother and all the people of the +village coming forth to salute her, all doors set mystically open, as +she advances. + +Phaedra too, his step-mother, a fiery soul with wild strange blood in +her veins, forgetting her fears of this illegitimate rival of her +children, seemed now to have seen him for the first time, loved at +last the very touch of his fleecy cloak, and would fain have had him +of her own religion. As though the once neglected child had been +another, she tries to win him as a stranger in his manly perfection, +growing more than an affectionate mother to her husband's son. But +why thus intimate and congenial, she asks, always in the wrong +quarter? Why not compass two ends at once? Why so squeamishly +neglect the powerful, any power at all, in a city so full of +religion? He might find the image of her sprightly goddess +everywhere, to his [179] liking, gold, silver, native or stranger, +new or old, graceful, or indeed, if he preferred it so, in iron or +stone. By the way, she explains the delights of love, of marriage, +the husband once out of the way; finds in him, with misgiving, a sort +of forwardness, as she thinks, on this one matter, as if he +understood her craft and despised it. He met her questions in truth +with scarce so much as contempt, with laughing counter-queries, why +people needed wedding at all? They might have found the children in +the temples, or bought them, as you could buy flowers in Athens. + +Meantime Phaedra's young children draw from the seemingly unconscious +finger the marriage-ring, set it spinning on the floor at his feet, +and the staid youth places it for a moment on his own finger for +safety. As it settles there, his step-mother, aware all the while, +suddenly presses his hand over it. He found the ring there that +night as he lay; left his bed in the darkness, and again, for safety, +put it on the finger of the image, wedding once for all that so +kindly mystical mother. And still, even amid his earthly mother's +terrible misgivings, he seems to foresee a charming career marked out +before him in friendly Athens, to the height of his desire. Grateful +that he is here at all, sharing at last so freely life's banquet, he +puts himself for a moment in his old place, recalling his old +enjoyment of the pleasure of others; [180] feels, just then, no +different. Yet never had life seemed so sufficing as at this moment- +-the meat, the drink, the drives, the popularity as he comes and +goes, even his step-mother's false, selfish, ostentatious gifts. But +she, too, begins to feel something of the jealousy of that other +divine, would-be mistress, and by way of a last effort to bring him +to a better mind in regard to them both, conducts him (immeasurable +privilege!) to her own private chapel. + +You could hardly tell where the apartments of the adulteress ended +and that of the divine courtesan began. Haunts of her long, +indolent, self-pleasing nights and days, they presented everywhere +the impress of Phaedra's luxurious humour. A peculiar glow, such as +he had never before seen, like heady lamplight, or sunshine to some +sleeper in a delirious dream, hung upon, clung to, the bold, naked, +shameful imageries, as his step-mother trimmed the lamps, drew forth +her sickly perfumes, clad afresh in piquant change of raiment the +almost formless goddess crouching there in her unclean shrine or +stye, set at last her foolish wheel in motion to a low chant, holding +him by the wrist, keeping close all the while, as if to catch some +germ of consent in his indifferent words. + +And little by little he perceives that all this is for him--the +incense, the dizzy wheel, the shreds of stuff cut secretly from his +sleeve, the sweetened cup he drank at her offer, unavailingly;+ +[181] and yes! his own features surely, in pallid wax. With a gasp +of flighty laughter she ventures to point the thing out to him, full +as he is at last of visible, irrepressible dislike. Ah! it was that +very reluctance that chiefly stirred her. Healthily white and red, +he had a marvellous air of discretion about him, as of one never to +be caught unaware, as if he never could be anything but like water +from the rock, or the wild flowers of the morning, or the beams of +the morning star turned to human flesh. It was the self-possession +of this happy mind, the purity of this virgin body, she would fain +have perturbed, as a pledge to herself of her own gaudy claim to +supremacy. King Theseus, as she knew, had had at least two earlier +loves; for once she would be a first love; felt at moments that with +this one passion once indulged, it might be happiness thereafter to +remain chaste for ever. And then, by accident, yet surely reading +indifference in his manner of accepting her gifts, she is ready again +for contemptuous, open battle. Is he indeed but a child still, this +nursling of the forbidding Amazon, of that Amazonian goddess--to be a +child always? or a wily priest rather, skilfully circumventing her +sorceries, with mystic precautions of his own? In truth, there is +something of the priestly character in this impassible discretion, +reminding her of his alleged intimacy with the rival goddess, and +redoubling her curiosity, her fondness.+ [182] Phaedra, love-sick, +feverish, in bodily sickness at last, raves of the cool woods, the +chase, the steeds of Hippolytus, her thoughts running madly on what +she fancies to be his secret business; with a storm of abject tears, +foreseeing in one moment of recoil the weary tale of years to come, +star-stricken as she declares, she dared at last to confess her +longing to already half-suspicious attendants; and, awake one morning +to find Hippolytus there kindly at her bidding, drove him openly +forth in a tempest of insulting speech. There was a mordant there, +like the menace of misfortune to come, in which the injured goddess +also was invited to concur. What words! what terrible words! +following, clinging to him, like acrid fire upon his bare flesh, as +he hasted from Phaedra's house, thrust out at last, his vesture +remaining in her hands. The husband returning suddenly, she tells +him a false story of violence to her bed, and is believed. + +King Theseus, all his accumulated store of suspicion and dislike +turning now to active hatred, flung away readily upon him, +bewildered, unheard, one of three precious curses (some mystery of +wasting sickness therein) with which Poseidon had indulged him. It +seemed sad that one so young must call for justice, precariously, +upon the gods, the dead, the very walls! Admiring youth dared hardly +bid farewell to their late comrade; are generous, at most, in [183] +stolen, sympathetic glances towards the fallen star. At home, veiled +once again in that ancient twilight world, his mother, fearing solely +for what he may suffer by the departure of that so brief prosperity, +enlarged as it had been, even so, by his grateful taking of it, is +reassured, delighted, happy once more at the visible proof of his +happiness, his invincible happiness. Duly he returned to Athens, +early astir, for the last time, to restore the forfeited gifts, drove +back his gaily painted chariot to leave there behind him, actually +enjoying the drive, going home on foot poorer than ever. He takes +again to his former modes of life, a little less to the horses, a +little more to the old studies, the strange, secret history of his +favourite goddess,--wronged surely! somehow, she too, as powerless to +help him; till he lay sick at last, battling one morning, unaware of +his mother's presence, with the feverish creations of the brain; the +giddy, foolish wheel, the foolish song, of Phaedra's chapel, spinning +there with his heart bound thereto. "The curses of my progenitors +are come upon me!" he cries. "And yet, why so? guiltless as I am of +evil." His wholesome religion seeming to turn against him now, the +trees, the streams, the very rocks, swoon into living creatures, +swarming around the goddess who has lost her grave quietness. He +finds solicitation, and recoils, in the wind, in the sounds of the +rain; till at length delirium [184] itself finds a note of returning +health. The feverish wood-ways of his fancy open unexpectedly upon +wide currents of air, lulling him to sleep; and the conflict ending +suddenly altogether at its sharpest, he lay in the early light +motionless among the pillows, his mother standing by, as she thought, +to see him die. As if for the last time, she presses on him the +things he had liked best in that eating and drinking she had found so +beautiful. The eyes, the eyelids are big with sorrow; and, as he +understands again, making an effort for her sake, the healthy light +returns into his; a hand seizes hers gratefully, and a slow +convalescence begins, the happiest period in the wild mother's life. +When he longed for flowers for the goddess, she went a toilsome +journey to seek them, growing close, after long neglect, wholesome +and firm on their tall stalks. The singing she had longed for so +despairingly hovers gaily once more within the chapel and around the +house. + +At the crisis of that strange illness she had supposed her long +forebodings about to be realised at last; but upon his recovery +feared no more, assured herself that the curses of the father, the +step-mother, the concurrent ill-will of that angry goddess, have done +their utmost; he will outlive her; a few years hence put her to a +rest surely welcome. Her misgivings, arising always out of the +actual spectacle of his profound happiness, seemed at an end in this +meek bliss, the more as [185] she observed that it was a shade less +unconscious than of old. And almost suddenly he found the strength, +the heart, in him, to try his fortune again with the old chariot; and +those still unsatisfied curses, in truth, going on either side of him +like living creatures unseen, legend tells briefly how, a competitor +for pity with Adonis, and Icarus, and Hyacinth, and other doomed +creatures of immature radiance in all story to come, he set forth +joyously for the chariot-races, not of Athens, but of Troezen, her +rival. Once more he wins the prize; he says good-bye to admiring +friends anxious to entertain him, and by night starts off homewards, +as of old, like a child, returning quickly through the solitude in +which he had never lacked company, and was now to die. Through all +the perils of darkness he had guided the chariot safely along the +curved shore; the dawn was come, and a little breeze astir, as the +grey level spaces parted delicately into white and blue, when in a +moment an earthquake, or Poseidon the earth-shaker himself, or angry +Aphrodite awake from the deep betimes, rent the tranquil surface; a +great wave leapt suddenly into the placid distance of the Attic +shore, and was surging here to the very necks of the plunging horses, +a moment since enjoying so pleasantly with him the caress of the +morning air, but now, wholly forgetful of their old affectionate +habit of obedience, dragging their leader headlong over the rough +pavements. [186] Evening and the dawn might seem to have met on that +hapless day through which they drew him home entangled in the +trappings of the chariot that had been his ruin, till he lay at +length, grey and haggard, at the rest he had longed for dimly amid +the buffeting of those murderous stones, his mother watching +impassibly, sunk at once into the condition she had so long +anticipated. + +Later legend breaks a supernatural light over that great desolation, +and would fain relieve the reader by introducing the kindly +Asclepius, who presently restores the youth to life, not, however, in +the old form or under familiar conditions. To her, surely, counting +the wounds, the disfigurements, telling over the pains which had shot +through that dear head now insensible to her touch among the pillows +under the harsh broad daylight, that would have been no more of a +solace than if, according to the fancy of Ovid, he flourished still, +a little deity, but under a new name and veiled now in old age, in +the haunted grove of Aricia, far from his old Attic home, in a land +which had never seen him as he was. + + + +THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCULPTURE +I: THE HEROIC AGE OF GREEK ART + +[187] THE extant remains of Greek sculpture, though but a fragment of +what the Greek sculptors produced, are, both in number and in +excellence, in their fitness, therefore, to represent the whole of +which they were a part, quite out of proportion to what has come down +to us of Greek painting, and all those minor crafts which, in the +Greek workshop, as at all periods when the arts have been really +vigorous, were closely connected with the highest imaginative work. +Greek painting is represented to us only by its distant reflexion on +the walls of the buried houses of Pompeii, and the designs of +subordinate though exquisite craftsmen on the vases. Of wrought +metal, partly through the inherent usefulness of its material, +tempting ignorant persons into whose hands it may fall to re-fashion +it, we have comparatively little; while, in consequence of the +perishableness of their material, nothing [188] remains of the +curious wood-work, the carved ivory, the embroidery and coloured +stuffs, on which the Greeks set much store--of that whole system of +refined artisanship, diffused, like a general atmosphere of beauty +and richness, around the more exalted creations of Greek sculpture. +What we possess, then, of that highest Greek sculpture is presented +to us in a sort of threefold isolation; isolation, first of all, from +the concomitant arts--the frieze of the Parthenon without the metal +bridles on the horses, for which the holes in the marble remain; +isolation, secondly, from the architectural group of which, with most +careful estimate of distance and point of observation, that frieze, +for instance, was designed to be a part; isolation, thirdly, from the +clear Greek skies, the poetical Greek life, in our modern galleries. +And if one here or there, in looking at these things, bethinks +himself of the required substitution; if he endeavours mentally to +throw them back into that proper atmosphere, through which alone they +can exercise over us all the magic by which they charmed their +original spectators, the effort is not always a successful one, +within the grey walls of the Louvre or the British Museum. + +And the circumstance that Greek sculpture is presented to us in such +falsifying isolation from the work of the weaver, the carpenter, and +the goldsmith, has encouraged a manner of regarding it too little +sensuous. Approaching it with full [189] information concerning what +may be called the inner life of the Greeks, their modes of thought +and sentiment amply recorded in the writings of the Greek poets and +philosophers, but with no lively impressions of that mere craftsman's +world of which so little has remained, students of antiquity have for +the most part interpreted the creations of Greek sculpture, rather as +elements in a sequence of abstract ideas, as embodiments, in a sort +of petrified language, of pure thoughts, and as interesting mainly in +connexion with the development of Greek intellect, than as elements +of a sequence in the material order, as results of a designed and +skilful dealing of accomplished fingers with precious forms of matter +for the delight of the eyes. Greek sculpture has come to be regarded +as the product of a peculiarly limited art, dealing with a specially +abstracted range of subjects; and the Greek sculptor as a workman +almost exclusively intellectual, having only a sort of accidental +connexion with the material in which his thought was expressed. He +is fancied to have been disdainful of such matters as the mere tone, +the fibre or texture, of his marble or cedar-wood, of that just +perceptible yellowness, for instance, in the ivory-like surface of +the Venus of Melos; as being occupied only with forms as abstract +almost as the conceptions of philosophy, and translateable it might +be supposed into any material--a habit of regarding him still further +encouraged by the modern [190] sculptor's usage of employing merely +mechanical labour in the actual working of the stone. + +The works of the highest Greek sculpture are indeed intellectualised, +if we may say so, to the utmost degree; the human figures which they +present to us seem actually to conceive thoughts; in them, that +profoundly reasonable spirit of design which is traceable in Greek +art, continuously and increasingly, upwards from its simplest +products, the oil-vessel or the urn, reaches its perfection. Yet, +though the most abstract and intellectualised of sensuous objects, +they are still sensuous and material, addressing themselves, in the +first instance, not to the purely reflective faculty, but to the eye; +and a complete criticism must have approached them from both sides-- +from the side of the intelligence indeed, towards which they rank as +great thoughts come down into the stone; but from the sensuous side +also, towards which they rank as the most perfect results of that +pure skill of hand, of which the Venus of Melos, we may say, is the +highest example, and the little polished pitcher or lamp, also +perfect in its way, perhaps the lowest. + +To pass by the purely visible side of these things, then, is not only +to miss a refining pleasure, but to mistake altogether the medium in +which the most intellectual of the creations of Greek art, the +Aeginetan or the Elgin marbles, for instance, were actually produced; +even these having, in their origin, depended for much of [191] their +charm on the mere material in which they were executed; and the whole +black and grey world of extant antique sculpture needing to be +translated back into ivory and gold, if we would feel the excitement +which the Greek seems to have felt in the presence of these objects. +To have this really Greek sense of Greek sculpture, it is necessary +to connect it, indeed, with the inner life of the Greek world, its +thought and sentiment, on the one hand; but on the other hand to +connect it, also, with the minor works of price, intaglios, coins, +vases; with that whole system of material refinement and beauty in +the outer Greek life, which these minor works represent to us; and it +is with these, as far as possible, that we must seek to relieve the +air of our galleries and museums of their too intellectual greyness. +Greek sculpture could not have been precisely a cold thing; and, +whatever a colour-blind school may say, pure thoughts have their +coldness, a coldness which has sometimes repelled from Greek +sculpture, with its unsuspected fund of passion and energy in +material form, those who cared much, and with much insight, for a +similar passion and energy in the coloured world of Italian painting. + +Theoretically, then, we need that world of the minor arts as a +complementary background for the higher and more austere Greek +sculpture; and, as matter of fact, it is just with such a world--with +a period of refined and exquisite [192] tectonics+ (as the Greeks +called all crafts strictly subordinate to architecture), that Greek +art actually begins, in what is called the Heroic Age, that earliest, +undefined period of Greek civilisation, the beginning of which cannot +be dated, and which reaches down to the first Olympiad, about the +year 776 B.C. Of this period we possess, indeed, no direct history, +and but few actual monuments, great or small; but as to its whole +character and outward local colouring, for its art, as for its +politics and religion, Homer may be regarded as an authority. The +Iliad and the Odyssey, the earliest pictures of that heroic life, +represent it as already delighting itself in the application of +precious material and skilful handiwork to personal and domestic +adornment, to the refining and beautifying of the entire outward +aspect of life; above all, in the lavish application of very graceful +metal-work to such purposes. And this representation is borne out by +what little we possess of its actual remains, and by all we can +infer. Mixed, of course, with mere fable, as a description of the +heroic age, the picture which Homer presents to us, deprived of its +supernatural adjuncts, becomes continuously more and more realisable +as the actual condition of early art, when we emerge gradually into +historical time, and find ourselves at last among dateable works and +real schools or masters. + +The history of Greek art, then, begins, as some have fancied general +history to begin, in a [193] golden age, but in an age, so to speak, +of real gold, the period of those first twisters and hammerers of the +precious metals--men who had already discovered the flexibility of +silver and the ductility of gold, the capacity of both for infinite +delicacy of handling, and who enjoyed, with complete freshness, a +sense of beauty and fitness in their work--a period of which that +flower of gold on a silver stalk, picked up lately in one of the +graves at Mycenae, or the legendary golden honeycomb of Daedalus, +might serve as the symbol. The heroic age of Greek art is the age of +the hero as smith. + +There are in Homer two famous descriptive passages in which this +delight in curious metal-work is very prominent; the description in +the Iliad of the shield of Achilles* and the description of the house +of Alcinous in the Odyssey.* The shield of Achilles is part of the +suit of armour which Hephaestus makes for him at the request of +Thetis; and it is wrought of variously Coloured metals, woven into a +great circular composition in relief, representing the world and the +life in it. The various activities of man are recorded in this +description in a series of idyllic incidents with such complete +freshness, liveliness, and variety, that the reader from time to time +may well forget himself, and fancy he is reading a mere description +of the incidents of actual life. [194] We peep into a little Greek +town, and see in dainty miniature the bride coming from her chamber +with torch-bearers and dancers, the people gazing from their doors, a +quarrel between two persons in the market-place, the assembly of the +elders to decide upon it. In another quartering is the spectacle of +a city besieged, the walls defended by the old men, while the +soldiers have stolen out and are lying in ambush. There is a fight +on the river-bank; Ares and Athene, conspicuous in gold, and marked +as divine persons by a scale larger than that of their followers, +lead the host. The strange, mythical images of Kêr, Eris, and +Kudoimos mingle in the crowd. A third space upon the shield depicts +the incidents of peaceful labour--the ploughshare passing through the +field, of enameled black metal behind it, and golden before; the cup +of mead held out to the ploughman when he reaches the end of the +furrow; the reapers with their sheaves; the king standing in silent +pleasure among them, intent upon his staff. There are the labourers +in the vineyard in minutest detail; stakes of silver on which the +vines hang; the dark trench about it, and one pathway through the +midst; the whole complete and distinct, in variously coloured metal. +All things and living creatures are in their places--the cattle +coming to water to the sound of the herdsman's pipe, various music, +the rushes by the water-side, a lion-hunt with dogs, [195] the +pastures among the hills, a dance, the fair dresses of the male and +female dancers, the former adorned with swords, the latter with +crowns. It is an image of ancient life, its pleasure and business. +For the centre, as in some quaint chart of the heavens, are the earth +and the sun, the moon and constellations; and to close in all, right +round, like a frame to the picture, the great river Oceanus, forming +the rim of the shield, in some metal of dark blue. + +Still more fascinating, perhaps, because more completely realisable +by the fancy as an actual thing--realisable as a delightful place to +pass time in--is the description of the palace of Alcinous in the +little island town of the Phaeacians, to which we are introduced in +all the liveliness and sparkle of the morning, as real as something +seen last summer on the sea-coast; although, appropriately, Ulysses +meets a goddess, like a young girl carrying a pitcher, on his way up +from the sea. Below the steep walls of the town, two projecting +jetties allow a narrow passage into a haven of stone for the ships, +into which the passer-by may look down, as they lie moored below the +roadway. In the midst is the king's house, all glittering, again, +with curiously wrought metal; its brightness is "as the brightness of +the sun or of the moon." The heart of Ulysses beats quickly when he +sees it standing amid plantations ingeniously watered, its floor and +walls of brass throughout, with continuous [196] cornice of dark +iron; the doors are of gold, the door-posts and lintels of silver, +the handles, again, of gold-- + +The walls were massy brass; the cornice high +Blue metals crowned in colours of the sky; +Rich plates of gold the folding-doors incase; +The pillars silver on a brazen base; +Silver the lintels deep-projecting o'er; +And gold the ringlets that command the door. + +Dogs of the same precious metals keep watch on either side, like the +lions over the old gate-way of Mycenae, or the gigantic, human-headed +bulls at the entrance of an Assyrian palace. Within doors the +burning lights at supper-time are supported in the hands of golden +images of boys, while the guests recline on a couch running all along +the wall, covered with peculiarly sumptuous women's work. + +From these two glittering descriptions manifestly something must be +deducted; we are in wonder-land, and among supernatural or magical +conditions. But the forging of the shield and the wonderful house of +Alcinous are no merely incongruous episodes in Homer, but the +consummation of what is always characteristic of him, a constant +preoccupation, namely, with every form of lovely craftsmanship, +resting on all things, as he says, like the shining of the sun. We +seem to pass, in reading him, through the treasures of some royal +collection; in him the presentation of almost every aspect of life is +[197] beautified by the work of cunning hands. The thrones, coffers, +couches of curious carpentry, are studded with bossy ornaments of +precious metal effectively disposed, or inlaid with stained ivory, or +blue cyanus, or amber, or pale amber-like gold; the surfaces of the +stone conduits, the sea-walls, the public washing-troughs, the +ramparts on which the weary soldiers rest themselves when returned to +Troy, are fair and smooth; all the fine qualities, in colour and +texture, of woven stuff are carefully noted--the fineness, closeness, +softness, pliancy, gloss, the whiteness or nectar-like tints in which +the weaver delights to work; to weave the sea-purple threads is the +appropriate function of queens and noble women. All the Homeric +shields are more or less ornamented with variously coloured metal, +terrible sometimes, like Leonardo's, with some monster or grotesque. +The numerous sorts of cups are bossed with golden studs, or have +handles wrought with figures, of doves, for instance. The great +brazen cauldrons bear an epithet which means flowery. The trappings +of the horses, the various parts of the chariots, are formed of +various metals. The women's ornaments and the instruments of their +toilet are described-- + +porpas te gnamptas th' helikas, kalukas te kai hormous+ + +--the golden vials for unguents. Use and beauty are still undivided; +all that men's hands are set to make has still a fascination alike +for workmen [198] and spectators. For such dainty splendour Troy, +indeed, is especially conspicuous. But then Homer's Trojans are +essentially Greeks--Greeks of Asia; and Troy, though more advanced in +all elements of civilisation, is no real contrast to the western +shore of the Aegean. It is no barbaric world that we see, but the +sort of world, we may think, that would have charmed also our +comparatively jaded sensibilities, with just that quaint simplicity +which we too enjoy in its productions; above all, in its wrought +metal, which loses perhaps more than any other sort of work by +becoming mechanical. The metal-work which Homer describes in such +variety is all hammer-work, all the joinings being effected by pins +or riveting. That is just the sort of metal-work which, in a certain +naïveté and vigour, is still of all work the most expressive of +actual contact with dexterous fingers; one seems to trace in it, on +every particle of the partially resisting material, the touch and +play of the shaping instruments, in highly trained hands, under the +guidance of exquisitely disciplined senses--that cachet, or seal of +nearness to the workman's hand, which is the special charm of all +good metal-work, of early metal-work in particular. + +Such descriptions, however, it may be said, are mere poetical +ornament, of no value in helping us to define the character of an +age. But what is peculiar in these Homeric descriptions, [199] what +distinguishes them from others at first sight similar, is a sort of +internal evidence they present of a certain degree of reality, signs +in them of an imagination stirred by surprise at the spectacle of +real works of art. Such minute, delighted, loving description of +details of ornament, such following out of the ways in which brass, +gold, silver, or paler gold, go into the chariots and armour and +women's dress, or cling to the walls--the enthusiasm of the manner-- +is the warrant of a certain amount of truth in all that. The Greek +poet describes these things with the same vividness and freshness, +the same kind of fondness, with which other poets speak of flowers; +speaking of them poetically, indeed, but with that higher sort of +poetry which seems full of the lively impression of delightful things +recently seen. Genuine poetry, it is true, is always naturally +sympathetic with all beautiful sensible things and qualities. But +with how many poets would not this constant intrusion of material +ornament have produced a tawdry effect! The metal would all be +tarnished and the edges blurred. And this is because it is not +always that the products of even exquisite tectonics can excite or +refine the aesthetic sense. Now it is probable that the objects of +oriental art, the imitations of it at home, in which for Homer this +actual world of art must have consisted, reached him in a quantity, +and with a novelty, just sufficient to warm and stimulate without +[200] surfeiting the imagination; it is an exotic thing of which he +sees just enough and not too much. The shield of Achilles, the house +of Alcinous, are like dreams indeed, but this sort of dreaming winds +continuously through the entire Iliad and Odyssey--a child's dream +after a day of real, fresh impressions from things themselves, in +which all those floating impressions re-set themselves. He is as +pleased in touching and looking at those objects as his own heroes; +their gleaming aspect brightens all he says, and has taken hold, one +might think, of his language, his very vocabulary becoming +chryselephantine. Homer's artistic descriptions, though enlarged by +fancy, are not wholly imaginary, and the extant remains of monuments +of the earliest historical age are like lingering relics of that +dream in a tamer but real world. + +The art of the heroic age, then, as represented in Homer, connects +itself, on the one side, with those fabulous jewels so prominent in +mythological story, and entwined sometimes so oddly in its +representation of human fortunes--the necklace of Eriphyle, the +necklace of Helen, which Menelaus, it was said, offered at Delphi to +Athene Pronoea, on the eve of his expedition against Troy--mythical +objects, indeed, but which yet bear witness even thus early to the +aesthetic susceptibility of the Greek temper. But, on the other +hand, the art of the heroic age connects itself also with the actual +early beginnings [201] of artistic production. There are touches of +reality, for instance, in Homer's incidental notices of its +instruments and processes; especially as regards the working of +metal. He goes already to the potter's wheel for familiar, life-like +illustration. In describing artistic wood-work he distinguishes +various stages of work; we see clearly the instruments for turning +and boring, such as the old-fashioned drill-borer, whirled round with +a string; he mentions the names of two artists, the one of an actual +workman, the other of a craft turned into a proper name--stray +relics, accidentally preserved, of a world, as we may believe, of +such wide and varied activity. The forge of Hephaestus is a true +forge; the magic tripods on which he is at work are really put +together by conceivable processes, known in early times. +Compositions in relief similar to those which he describes were +actually made out of thin metal plates cut into a convenient shape, +and then beaten into the designed form by the hammer over a wooden +model. These reliefs were then fastened to a differently coloured +metal background or base, with nails or rivets, for there is no +soldering of metals as yet. To this process the ancients gave the +name of empaestik,+ such embossing being still, in our own time, a +beautiful form of metal-work. + +Even in the marvellous shield there are other and indirect notes of +reality. In speaking of the shield of Achilles, I departed +intentionally from [202] the order in which the subjects of the +relief are actually introduced in the Iliad, because, just then, I +wished the reader to receive the full effect of the variety and +elaborateness of the composition, as a representation or picture of +the whole of ancient life embraced within the circumference of a +shield. But in the order in which Homer actually describes those +episodes he is following the method of a very practicable form of +composition, and is throughout much closer than we might at first +sight suppose to the ancient armourer's proceedings. The shield is +formed of five superimposed plates of different metals, each plate of +smaller diameter than the one immediately below it, their flat +margins showing thus as four concentric stripes or rings of metal, +around a sort of boss in the centre, five metals thick, and the +outermost circle or ring being the thinnest. To this arrangement the +order of Homer's description corresponds. The earth and the heavenly +bodies are upon this boss in the centre, like a little distant heaven +hung above the broad world, and from this Homer works out, round and +round, to the river Oceanus, which forms the border of the whole; the +subjects answering to, or supporting each other, in a sort of +heraldic order--the city at peace set over against the city besieged- +-spring, summer, and autumn balancing each other--quite congruously +with a certain heraldic turn common in contemporary Assyrian art, +which delights in [203] this sort of conventional spacing out of its +various subjects, and especially with some extant metal chargers of +Assyrian work, which, like some of the earliest Greek vases with +their painted plants and flowers conventionally arranged, illustrate +in their humble measure such heraldic grouping. + +The description of the shield of Hercules, attributed to Hesiod, is +probably an imitation of Homer, and, notwithstanding some fine +mythological impersonations which it contains, an imitation less +admirable than the original. Of painting there are in Homer no +certain indications, and it is consistent with the later date of the +imitator that we may perhaps discern in his composition a sign that +what he had actually seen was a painted shield, in the pre-dominance +in it, as compared with the Homeric description, of effects of colour +over effects of form; Homer delighting in ingenious devices for +fastening the metal, and the supposed Hesiod rather in what seem like +triumphs of heraldic colouring; though the latter also delights in +effects of mingled metals, of mingled gold and silver especially-- +silver figures with dresses of gold, silver centaurs with pine-trees +of gold for staves in their hands. Still, like the shield of +Achilles, this too we must conceive as formed of concentric plates of +metal; and here again that spacing is still more elaborately carried +out, narrower intermediate rings being apparently [204] introduced +between the broader ones, with figures in rapid, horizontal, unbroken +motion, carrying the eye right round the shield, in contrast with the +repose of the downward or inward movement of the subjects which +divide the larger spaces; here too with certain analogies in the rows +of animals to the designs on the earliest vases. + +In Hesiod then, as in Homer, there are undesigned notes of +correspondence between the partly mythical ornaments imaginatively +enlarged of the heroic age, and a world of actual handicrafts. In +the shield of Hercules another marvellous detail is added in the +image of Perseus, very daintily described as hovering in some +wonderful way, as if really borne up by wings, above the surface. +And that curious, haunting sense of magic in art, which comes out +over and over again in Homer--in the golden maids, for instance, who +assist Hephaestus in his work, and similar details which seem at +first sight to destroy the credibility of the whole picture, and make +of it a mere wonder-land--is itself also, rightly understood, a +testimony to a real excellence in the art of Homer's time. It is +sometimes said that works of art held to be miraculous are always of +an inferior kind; but at least it was not among those who thought +them inferior that the belief in their miraculous power began. If +the golden images move like living creatures, and the armour of +Achilles, so [205] wonderfully made, lifts him like wings, this again +is because the imagination of Homer is really under the stimulus of +delightful artistic objects actually seen. Only those to whom such +artistic objects manifest themselves through real and powerful +impressions of their wonderful qualities, can invest them with +properties magical or miraculous. + +I said that the inherent usefulness of the material of metal-work +makes the destruction of its acquired form almost certain, if it +comes into the possession of people either barbarous or careless of +the work of a past time. Greek art is for us, in all its stages, a +fragment only; in each of them it is necessary, in a somewhat +visionary manner, to fill up empty spaces, and more or less make +substitution; and of the finer work of the heroic age, thus dimly +discerned as an actual thing, we had at least till recently almost +nothing. Two plates of bronze, a few rusty nails, and certain rows +of holes in the inner surface of the walls of the "treasury" of +Mycenae, were the sole representatives of that favourite device of +primitive Greek art, the lining of stone walls with burnished metal, +of which the house of Alcinous in the Odyssey is the ideal picture, +and the temple of Pallas of the Brazen House at Sparta, adorned in +the interior with a coating of reliefs in metal, a later, historical +example. Of the heroic or so-called Cyclopean architecture, that +"treasury," [206] a building so imposing that Pausanias thought it +worthy to rank with the Pyramids, is a sufficient illustration. +Treasury, or tomb, or both (the selfish dead, perhaps, being supposed +still to find enjoyment in the costly armour, goblets, and mirrors +laid up there), this dome-shaped building, formed of concentric rings +of stones gradually diminishing to a coping-stone at the top, may +stand as the representative of some similar buildings in other parts +of Greece, and of many others in a similar kind of architecture +elsewhere, constructed of large many-sided blocks of stone, fitted +carefully together without the aid of cement, and remaining in their +places by reciprocal resistance. Characteristic of it is the general +tendency to use vast blocks of stone for the jambs and lintels of +doors, for instance, and in the construction of gable-shaped +passages; two rows of such stones being made to rest against each +other at an acute angle, within the thickness of the walls. + +So vast and rude, fretted by the action of nearly three thousand +years, the fragments of this architecture may often seem, at first +sight, like works of nature. At Argos, Tiryns, Mycenae, the skeleton +of the old architecture is more complete. At Mycenae the gateway of +the acropolis is still standing with its two well-known sculptured +lions--immemorial and almost unique monument of primitive Greek +sculpture--supporting, herald-wise, a symbolical pillar on the [207] +vast, triangular, pedimental stone above. The heads are gone, having +been fashioned possibly in metal by workmen from the East. On what +may be called the façade, remains are still discernible of inlaid +work in coloured stone, and within the gateway, on the smooth slabs +of the pavement, the wheel-ruts are still visible. Connect them with +those metal war-chariots in Homer, and you may see in fancy the whole +grandiose character of the place, as it may really have been. Shut +within the narrow enclosure of these shadowy citadels were the +palaces of the kings, with all that intimacy which we may sometimes +suppose to have been alien from the open-air Greek life, admitting, +doubtless, below the cover of their rough walls, many of those +refinements of princely life which the Middle Age found possible in +such places, and of which the impression is so fascinating in Homer's +description, for instance, of the house of Ulysses, or of Menelaus at +Sparta. Rough and frowning without, these old châteaux of the Argive +kings were delicate within with a decoration almost as dainty and +fine as the network of weed and flower that now covers their ruins, +and of the delicacy of which, as I said, that golden flower on its +silver stalk or the golden honeycomb of Daedalus, might be taken as +representative. In these metal-like structures of self-supporting +polygons, locked so firmly and impenetrably together, with the whole +mystery of the reasonableness [208] of the arch implicitly within +them, there is evidence of a complete artistic command over weight in +stone, and an understanding of the "law of weight." But over weight +only; the ornament still seems to be not strictly architectural, but, +according to the notices of Homer, tectonic, borrowed from the +sister arts, above all from the art of the metal-workers, to whom +those spaces of the building are left which a later age fills with +painting, or relief in stone. The skill of the Asiatic comes to +adorn this rough native building; and it is a late, elaborate, +somewhat voluptuous skill, we may understand, illustrated by the +luxury of that Asiatic chamber of Paris, less like that of a warrior +than of one going to the dance. Coupled with the vastness of the +architectural works which actually remain, such descriptions as that +in Homer of the chamber of Paris and the house of Alcinous furnish +forth a picture of that early period--the tyrants' age, the age of +the acropoleis, the period of great dynasties with claims to "divine +right"' and in many instances at least with all the culture of their +time. The vast buildings make us sigh at the thought of wasted human +labour, though there is a public usefulness too in some of these +designs, such as the draining of the Copaic lake, to which the backs +of the people are bent whether they will or not. For the princes +there is much of that selfish personal luxury which is a constant +trait of feudalism in [209] all ages. For the people, scattered over +the country, at their agricultural labour, or gathered in small +hamlets, there is some enjoyment, perhaps, of the aspect of that +splendour, of the bright warriors on the heights--a certain share of +the nobler pride of the tyrants themselves in those tombs and +dwellings. Some surmise, also, there seems to have been, of the +"curse" of gold, with a dim, lurking suspicion of curious facilities +for cruelty in the command over those skilful artificers in metal-- +some ingenious rack or bull "to pinch and peel"--the tradition of +which, not unlike the modern Jacques Bonhomme's shudder at the old +ruined French donjon or bastille, haunts, generations afterwards, the +ruins of those "labyrinths" of stone, where the old tyrants had their +pleasures. For it is a mistake to suppose that that wistful sense of +eeriness in ruined buildings, to which most of us are susceptible, is +an exclusively modern feeling. The name Cyclopean, attached to those +desolate remains of buildings which were older than Greek history +itself, attests their romantic influence over the fancy of the people +who thus attributed them to a superhuman strength and skill. And the +Cyclopes, like all the early mythical names of artists, have this +note of reality, that they are names not of individuals but of +classes, the guilds or companies of workmen in which a certain craft +was imparted and transmitted. The Dactyli, the Fingers, are the +[210] first workers in iron; the savage Chalybes in Scythia the first +smelters; actual names are given to the old, fabled Telchines-- +Chalkon, Argyron, Chryson--workers in brass, silver, and gold, +respectively.+ The tradition of their activity haunts the several +regions where those metals were found. They make the trident of +Poseidon; but then Poseidon's trident is a real fisherman's +instrument, the tunny-fork. They are credited, notwithstanding, with +an evil sorcery, unfriendly to men, as poor humanity remembered the +makers of chains, locks, Procrustean beds; and, as becomes this dark +recondite mine and metal work, the traditions about them are gloomy +and grotesque, confusing mortal workmen with demon guilds. + +To this view of the heroic age of Greek art as being, so to speak, an +age of real gold, an age delighting itself in precious material and +exquisite handiwork in all tectonic crafts, the recent extraordinary +discoveries at Troy and Mycenae are, on any plausible theory of their +date and origin, a witness. The aesthetic critic needs always to be +on his guard against the confusion of mere curiosity or antiquity +with beauty in art. Among the objects discovered at Troy--mere +curiosities, some of them, however interesting and instructive--the +so-called royal cup of Priam, in solid gold, two-handled and double- +lipped, (the smaller lip designed for the host and his libation, the +larger for the guest,) has, in the [211] very simplicity of its +design, the grace of the economy with which it exactly fulfils its +purpose, a positive beauty, an absolute value for the aesthetic +sense, while strange and new enough, if it really settles at last a +much-debated expression of Homer; while the "diadem," with its +twisted chains and flowers of pale gold, shows that those profuse +golden fringes, waving so comely as he moved, which Hephaestus +wrought for the helmet of Achilles, were really within the compass of +early Greek art. + +And the story of the excavations at Mycenae reads more like some +well-devised chapter of fiction than a record of sober facts. Here, +those sanguine, half-childish dreams of buried treasure discovered in +dead men's graves, which seem to have a charm for every one, are more +than fulfilled in the spectacle of those antique kings, lying in the +splendour of their crowns and breastplates of embossed plate of gold; +their swords, studded with golden imagery, at their sides, as in some +feudal monument; their very faces covered up most strangely in golden +masks. The very floor of one tomb, we read, was thick with gold- +dust--the heavy gilding fallen from some perished kingly vestment; in +another was a downfall of golden leaves and flowers; and, amid this +profusion of thin fine fragments, were rings, bracelets, smaller +crowns as if for children, dainty butterflies for ornaments of +dresses, and that golden flower on a silver stalk--all of pure, [212] +soft gold, unhardened by alloy, the delicate films of which one must +touch but lightly, yet twisted and beaten, by hand and hammer, into +wavy, spiral relief, the cuttle-fish with its long undulating arms +appearing frequently. + +It is the very image of the old luxurious life of the princes of the +heroic age, as Homer describes it, with the arts in service to its +kingly pride. Among the other costly objects was one representing +the head of a cow, grandly designed in gold with horns of silver, +like the horns of the moon, supposed to be symbolical of Here, the +great object of worship at Argos. One of the interests of the study +of mythology is that it reflects the ways of life and thought of the +people who conceived it; and this religion of Here, the special +religion of Argos, is congruous with what has been here said as to +the place of art in the civilisation of the Argives; it is a +reflexion of that splendid and wanton old feudal life. For Here is, +in her original essence and meaning, equivalent to Demeter--the one +living spirit of the earth, divined behind the veil of all its +manifold visible energies. But in the development of a common +mythological motive the various peoples are subject to the general +limitations of their life and thought; they can but work outward what +is within them; and the religious conceptions and usages, ultimately +derivable from one and the same rudimentary instinct, are sometimes +most diverse. Out of [213] the visible, physical energies of the +earth and its system of annual change, the old Pelasgian mind +developed the person of Demeter, mystical and profoundly aweful, yet +profoundly pathetic, also, in her appeal to human sympathies. Out of +the same original elements, the civilisation of Argos, on the other +hand, developes the religion of Queen Here, a mere Demeter, at best, +of gaudy flower-beds, whose toilet Homer describes with all its +delicate fineries; though, characteristically, he may still allow us +to detect, perhaps, some traces of the mystical person of the earth, +in the all-pervading scent of the ambrosial unguent with which she +anoints herself, in the abundant tresses of her hair, and in the +curious variegation of her ornaments. She has become, though with +some reminiscence of the mystical earth, a very limited human person, +wicked, angry, jealous--the lady of Zeus in her castle-sanctuary at +Mycenae, in wanton dalliance with the king, coaxing him for cruel +purposes in sweet sleep, adding artificial charms to her beauty. + +Such are some of the characteristics with which Greek art is +discernible in that earliest age. Of themselves, they almost answer +the question which next arises--Whence did art come to Greece? or was +it a thing of absolutely native growth there? So some have decidedly +maintained. Others, who lived in an age possessing little or no +knowledge of Greek monuments anterior to the full development of art +under [214] Pheidias, and who, in regard to the Greek sculpture of +the age of Pheidias, were like people criticising Michelangelo, +without knowledge of the earlier Tuscan school--of the works of +Donatello and Mino da Fiesole--easily satisfied themselves with +theories of its importation ready-made from other countries. Critics +in the last century, especially, noticing some characteristics which +early Greek work has in common, indeed, with Egyptian art, but which +are common also to all such early work everywhere, supposed, as a +matter of course, that it came, as the Greek religion also, from +Egypt--that old, immemorial half-known birthplace of all wonderful +things. There are, it is true, authorities for this derivation among +the Greeks themselves, dazzled as they were by the marvels of the +ancient civilisation of Egypt, a civilisation so different from their +own, on the first opening of Egypt to Greek visitors. But, in fact, +that opening did not take place till the reign of Psammetichus, about +the middle of the seventh century B.C., a relatively late date. +Psammetichus introduced and settled Greek mercenaries in Egypt, and, +for a time, the Greeks came very close to Egyptian life. They can +hardly fail to have been stimulated by that display of every kind of +artistic workmanship gleaming over the whole of life; they may in +turn have freshened it with new motives. And we may remark, that but +for the peculiar usage of Egypt concerning the tombs of the dead, but +[215] for their habit of investing the last abodes of the dead with +all the appurtenances of active life, out of that whole world of art, +so various and elaborate, nothing but the great, monumental works in +stone would have remained to ourselves. We should have experienced +in regard to it, what we actually experience too much in our +knowledge of Greek art--the lack of a fitting background, in the +smaller tectonic work, for its great works in architecture, and the +bolder sort of sculpture. + +But, one by one, at last, as in the medieval parallel, monuments +illustrative of the earlier growth of Greek art before the time of +Pheidias have come to light, and to a just appreciation. They show +that the development of Greek art had already proceeded some way +before the opening of Egypt to the Greeks, and point, if to a foreign +source at all, to oriental rather than Egyptian influences; and the +theory which derived Greek art, with many other Greek things, from +Egypt, now hardly finds supporters. In Greece all things are at once +old and new. As, in physical organisms, the actual particles of +matter have existed long before in other combinations; and what is +really new in a new organism is the new cohering force--the mode of +life,--so, in the products of Greek civilisation, the actual elements +are traceable elsewhere by antiquarians who care to trace them; the +elements, for instance, of its peculiar national [216] architecture. +Yet all is also emphatically autochthonous, as the Greeks said, +new-born at home, by right of a new, informing, combining spirit +playing over those mere elements, and touching them, above all, +with a wonderful sense of the nature and destiny of man--the dignity +of his soul and of his body--so that in all things the Greeks are +as discoverers. Still, the original and primary motive seems, +in matters of art, to have come from without; and the view to which +actual discovery and all true analogies more and more point is that +of a connexion of the origin of Greek art, ultimately with Assyria, +proximately with Phoenicia, partly through Asia Minor, and chiefly +through Cyprus--an original connexion again and again re-asserted, +like a surviving trick of inheritance, as in later times it came +in contact with the civilisation of Caria and Lycia, old affinities +being here linked anew; and with a certain Asiatic tradition, of +which one representative is the Ionic style of architecture, +traceable all through Greek art--an Asiatic curiousness, or poikilia,+ +strongest in that heroic age of which I have been speaking, and +distinguishing some schools and masters in Greece more than others; +and always in appreciable distinction from the more clearly defined +and self-asserted Hellenic influence. Homer himself witnesses to the +intercourse, through early, adventurous commerce, as in the bright +and animated picture with which [217] the history of Herodotus +begins, between the Greeks and Eastern countries. We may, perhaps, +forget sometimes, thinking over the greatness of its place in the +history of civilisation, how small a country Greece really was; how +short the distances upwards, from island to island, to the coast of +Asia, so that we can hardly make a sharp separation between Asia and +Greece, nor deny, besides great and palpable acts of importation, all +sorts of impalpable Asiatic influences, by way alike of attraction +and repulsion, upon Greek manners and taste. Homer, as we saw, was +right in making Troy essentially a Greek city, with inhabitants +superior in all culture to their kinsmen on the Western shore, and +perhaps proportionally weaker on the practical or moral side, and +with an element of languid Ionian voluptuousness in them, typified by +the cedar and gold of the chamber of Paris--an element which the +austere, more strictly European influence of the Dorian Apollo will +one day correct in all genuine Greeks. The Aegean, with its islands, +is, then, a bond of union, not a barrier; and we must think of +Greece, as has been rightly said, as its whole continuous shore. + +The characteristics of Greek art, indeed, in the heroic age, so far +as we can discern them, are those also of Phoenician art, its delight +in metal among the rest, of metal especially as an element in +architecture, the covering of everything with plates of metal. It +was from [218] Phoenicia that the costly material in which early +Greek art delighted actually came--ivory, amber, much of the precious +metals. These the adventurous Phoenician traders brought in return +for the mussel which contained the famous purple, in quest of which +they penetrated far into all the Greek havens. Recent discoveries +present the island of Cyprus, the great source of copper and copper- +work in ancient times, as the special mediator between the art of +Phoenicia and Greece; and in some archaic figures of Aphrodite with +her dove, brought from Cyprus and now in the British Museum--objects +you might think, at first sight, taken from the niches of a French +Gothic cathedral--are some of the beginnings, at least, of Greek +sculpture manifestly under the influence of Phoenician masters. And, +again, mythology is the reflex of characteristic facts. It is +through Cyprus that the religion of Aphrodite comes from Phoenicia to +Greece. Here, in Cyprus, she is connected with some other kindred +elements of mythological tradition, above all with the beautiful old +story of Pygmalion, in which the thoughts of art and love are +connected so closely together. First of all, on the prows of the +Phoenician ships, the tutelary image of Aphrodite Euploea, the +protectress of sailors, comes to Cyprus--to Cythera; it is in this +simplest sense that she is, primarily, Anadyomene.+ And her +connexion [219] with the arts is always an intimate one. In Cyprus +her worship is connected with an architecture, not colossal, but full +of dainty splendour--the art of the shrine-maker, the maker of +reliquaries; the art of the toilet, the toilet of Aphrodite; the +Homeric hymn to Aphrodite is full of all that; delight in which we +have seen to be characteristic of the true Homer. + +And now we see why Hephaestus, that crook-backed and uncomely god, is +the husband of Aphrodite. Hephaestus is the god of fire, indeed; as +fire he is flung from heaven by Zeus; and in the marvellous contest +between Achilles and the river Xanthus in the twenty-first book of +the Iliad, he intervenes in favour of the hero, as mere fire against +water. But he soon ceases to be thus generally representative of the +functions of fire, and becomes almost exclusively representative of +one only of its aspects, its function, namely, in regard to early +art; he becomes the patron of smiths, bent with his labour at the +forge, as people had seen such real workers; he is the most perfectly +developed of all the Daedali, Mulcibers, or Cabeiri. That the god of +fire becomes the god of all art, architecture included, so that he +makes the houses of the gods, and is also the husband of Aphrodite, +marks a threefold group of facts; the prominence, first, of a +peculiar kind of art in early Greece, that beautiful metal-work, with +[220] which he is bound and bent; secondly, the connexion of this, +through Aphrodite, with an almost wanton personal splendour; the +connexion, thirdly, of all this with Cyprus and Phoenicia, whence, +literally, Aphrodite comes. Hephaestus is the "spiritual form" of +the Asiatic element in Greek art. + +This, then, is the situation which the first period of Greek art +comprehends; a people whose civilisation is still young, delighting, +as the young do, in ornament, in the sensuous beauty of ivory and +gold, in all the lovely productions of skilled fingers. They receive +all this, together with the worship of Aphrodite, by way of Cyprus, +from Phoenicia, from the older, decrepit Eastern civilisation, itself +long since surfeited with that splendour; and they receive it in +frugal quantity, so frugal that their thoughts always go back to the +East, where there is the fulness of it, as to a wonder-land of art. +Received thus in frugal quantity, through many generations, that +world of Asiatic tectonics stimulates the sensuous capacity in them, +accustoms the hand to produce and the eye to appreciate the more +delicately enjoyable qualities of material things. But nowhere in +all this various and exquisite world of design is there as yet any +adequate sense of man himself, nowhere is there an insight into or +power over human form as the expression of human soul. Yet those +arts of design in which that younger people delights [221] have in +them already, as designed work, that spirit of reasonable order, that +expressive congruity in the adaptation of means to ends, of which the +fully developed admirableness of human form is but the consummation-- +a consummation already anticipated in the grand and animated figures +of epic poetry, their power of thought, their laughter and tears. +Under the hands of that younger people, as they imitate and pass +largely and freely beyond those older craftsmen, the fire of the +reasonable soul will kindle, little by little, up to the Theseus of +the Parthenon and the Venus of Melos. + +The ideal aim of Greek sculpture, as of all other art, is to deal, +indeed, with the deepest elements of man's nature and destiny, to +command and express these, but to deal with them in a manner, and +with a kind of expression, as clear and graceful and simple, if it +may be, as that of the Japanese flower-painter. And what the student +of Greek sculpture has to cultivate generally in himself is the +capacity for appreciating the expression of thought in outward form, +the constant habit of associating sense with soul, of tracing what we +call expression to its sources. But, concurrently with this, he must +also cultivate, all along, a not less equally constant appreciation +of intelligent workmanship in work, and of design in things designed, +of the rational control of matter everywhere. From many sources he +may feed this sense of intelligence [222] and design in the +productions of the minor crafts, above all in the various and +exquisite art of Japan. Carrying a delicacy like that of nature +itself into every form of imitation, reproduction, and combination-- +leaf and flower, fish and bird, reed and water--and failing only when +it touches the sacred human form, that art of Japan is not so unlike +the earliest stages of Greek art as might at first sight be supposed. +We have here, and in no mere fragments, the spectacle of a universal +application to the instruments of daily life of fitness and beauty, +in a temper still unsophisticated, as also unelevated, by the +divination of the spirit of man. And at least the student must +always remember that Greek art was throughout a much richer and +warmer thing, at once with more shadows, and more of a dim +magnificence in its surroundings, than the illustrations of a +classical dictionary might induce him to think. Some of the ancient +temples of Greece were as rich in aesthetic curiosities as a famous +modern museum. That Asiatic poikilia,+ that spirit of minute and +curious loveliness, follows the bolder imaginative efforts of Greek +art all through its history, and one can hardly be too careful in +keeping up the sense of this daintiness of execution through the +entire course of its development. It is not only that the minute +object of art, the tiny vase-painting, intaglio, coin, or cameo, +often reduces into the palm of the hand lines grander than those of +[223] many a life-sized or colossal figure; but there is also a sense +in which it may be said that the Venus of Melos, for instance, is but +a supremely well-executed object of vertu, in the most limited sense +of the term. Those solemn images of the temple of Theseus are a +perfect embodiment of the human ideal, of the reasonable soul and of +a spiritual world; they are also the best made things of their kind, +as an urn or a cup is well made. + +A perfect, many-sided development of tectonic crafts, a state such as +the art of some nations has ended in, becomes for the Greeks a mere +opportunity, a mere starting-ground for their imaginative presentment +of man, moral and inspired. A world of material splendour, moulded +clay, beaten gold, polished stone;--the informing, reasonable soul +entering into that, reclaiming the metal and stone and clay, till +they are as full of living breath as the real warm body itself; the +presence of those two elements is continuous throughout the fortunes +of Greek art after the heroic age, and the constant right estimate of +their action and reaction, from period to period, its true +philosophy. + +NOTES + +192. +The related Greek noun technê is defined as follows: "art, +skill, regular method of making a thing." (Liddell and Scott.) + +193. *Il. xviii.468-608. + +193. *Od. vii.37-132. + +197. +Transliteration: porpas te gnamptas th' helikas, kalukas te kai +hormous. Translation: "delicate brooches, spriralled bracelets, +rosettes, and necklaces." Homer, Iliad 18.400. + +201. +Empaestik derives from the verb empaiô, "to strike in, stamp." +(Liddell and Scott.) + +210. +The names are etymological--chalkos, argyros, and chrysos +signify, respectively, brass (or copper), silver, and gold. + +216. +Transliteration: poikilia. Liddell and Scott definition: +"embroidery . . . (metaph.) cunning." The metaphorical sense is the +one Pater invokes. + +218. +Euploea . . . Anadyomene. Euploea means "fair voyage"; +Anadyomene, a participial form derived from the verb anadyô, "to +rise, esp. from the sea," (Liddell-Scott) may be rendered "she who +emerges from the sea." + +222. +Transliteration: poikilia. Liddell and Scott definition: +"embroidery . . . (metaph.) cunning." The metaphorical sense is the +one Pater invokes. + + + +BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCULPTURE +II: THE AGE OF GRAVEN IMAGES + +[224] CRITICS of Greek sculpture have often spoken of it as if it had +been always work in colourless stone, against an almost colourless +background. Its real background, as I have tried to show, was a +world of exquisite craftsmanship, touching the minutest details of +daily life with splendour and skill, in close correspondence with a +peculiarly animated development of human existence--the energetic +movement and stir of typically noble human forms, quite worthily +clothed--amid scenery as poetic as Titian's. If shapes of +colourless stone did come into that background, it was as the +undraped human form comes into some of Titian's pictures, only to +cool and solemnise its splendour; the work of the Greek sculptor +being seldom in quite colourless stone, nor always or chiefly in +fastidiously selected marble even, but often in richly toned metal +(this or that sculptor preferring some special variety of the bronze +he worked in, such as the [225] hepatizôn or liver-coloured bronze, +or the bright golden alloy of Corinth), and in its consummate +products chryselephantine,--work in gold and ivory, on a core of +cedar. Pheidias, in the Olympian Zeus, in the Athene of the +Parthenon, fulfils what that primitive, heroic goldsmiths' age, dimly +discerned in Homer, already delighted in; and the celebrated work of +which I have first to speak now, and with which Greek sculpture +emerges from that half-mythical age and becomes in a certain sense +historical, is a link in that goldsmiths' or chryselephantine +tradition, carrying us forwards to the work of Pheidias, backwards to +the elaborate Asiatic furniture of the chamber of Paris. + +When Pausanias visited Olympia, towards the end of the second century +after Christ, he beheld, among other precious objects in the temple +of Here, a splendidly wrought treasure-chest of cedar-wood, in which, +according to a legend, quick as usual with the true human colouring, +the mother of Cypselus had hidden him, when a child, from the enmity +of her family, the Bacchiadae, then the nobility of Corinth. The +child, named Cypselus after this incident (Cypsele being a Corinthian +word for chest), became tyrant of Corinth, and his grateful +descendants, as it was said, offered the beautiful old chest to the +temple of Here, as a memorial of his preservation. That would have +been not long after the year 625 B.C. So much for the [226] story +which Pausanias heard--but inherent probability, and some points of +detail in his description, tend to fix the origin of the chest at a +date at least somewhat later; and as Herodotus, telling the story of +the concealment of Cypselus, does not mention the dedication of the +chest at Olympia at all, it may perhaps have been only one of many +later imitations of antique art. But, whatever its date, Pausanias +certainly saw the thing, and has left a long description of it, and +we may trust his judgment at least as to its archaic style. We have +here, then, something plainly visible at a comparatively recent date, +something quite different from those perhaps wholly mythical objects +described in Homer,--an object which seemed to so experienced an +observer as Pausanias an actual work of earliest Greek art. +Relatively to later Greek art, it may have seemed to him, what the +ancient bronze doors with their Scripture histories, which we may +still see in the south transept of the cathedral of Pisa, are to +later Italian art. + +Pausanias tells us nothing as to its size, nor directly as to its +shape. It may, for anything he says, have been oval, but it was +probably rectangular, with a broad front and two narrow sides, +standing, as the maker of it had designed, against the wall; for, in +enumerating the various subjects wrought upon it, in five rows one +above another, he seems to proceed, beginning at the bottom on the +right-hand side, along the front [227] from right to left, and then +back again, through the second row from left to right, and, +alternating thus, upwards to the last subject, at the top, on the +left-hand side. + +The subjects represented, most of which had their legends attached in +difficult archaic writing, were taken freely, though probably with a +leading idea, out of various poetic cycles, as treated in the works +of those so-called cyclic poets, who continued the Homeric tradition. +Pausanias speaks, as Homer does in his description of the shield of +Achilles, of a kind and amount of expression in feature and gesture +certainly beyond the compass of any early art, and we may believe we +have in these touches only what the visitor heard from enthusiastic +exegetae, the interpreters or sacristans; though any one who has seen +the Bayeux tapestry, for instance, must recognise the pathos and +energy of which, when really prompted by genius, even the earliest +hand is capable. Some ingenious attempts have been made to restore +the grouping of the scenes, with a certain formal expansion or +balancing of subjects, their figures and dimensions, in true Assyrian +manner, on the front and sides. We notice some fine emblematic +figures, the germs of great artistic motives in after times, already +playing their parts there,--Death, and Sleep, and Night. "There was +a woman supporting on her right arm a white child sleeping; and on +the other arm she held a dark child, as if asleep; [228] and they lay +with their feet crossed. And the inscription shows, what might be +understood without it, that they are Death and Sleep, and Night, the +nurse of both of them." + +But what is most noticeable is, as I have already said, that this +work, like the chamber of Paris, like the Zeus of Pheidias, is +chryselephantine, its main fabric cedar, and the figures upon it +partly of ivory, partly of gold,* but (and this is the most peculiar +characteristic of its style) partly wrought out of the wood of the +chest itself. And, as we read the description, we can hardly help +distributing in fancy gold and ivory, respectively, to their +appropriate functions in the representation. The cup of Dionysus, +and the wings of certain horses there, Pausanias himself tells us +were golden. Were not the apples of the Hesperides, the necklace of +Eriphyle, the bridles, the armour, the unsheathed sword in the hand +of Amphiaraus, also of gold? Were not the other children, like the +white image of Sleep, especially the naked child Alcmaeon, of ivory? +with Alcestis and Helen, and that one of the Dioscuri whose beard was +still ungrown? Were not ivory and gold, again, combined in the +throne of Hercules, and in the three goddesses conducted before +Paris? + +The "chest of Cypselus" fitly introduces the first historical period +of Greek art, a period [229] coming down to about the year 560 B.C., +and the government of Pisistratus at Athens; a period of tyrants like +Cypselus and Pisistratus himself, men of strong, sometimes +unscrupulous individuality, but often also acute and cultivated +patrons of the arts. It begins with a series of inventions, one here +and another there,--inventions still for the most part technical, but +which are attached to single names; for, with the growth of art, the +influence of individuals, gifted for the opening of new ways, more +and more defines itself; and the school, open to all comers, from +which in turn the disciples may pass to all parts of Greece, takes +the place of the family, in which the knowledge of art descends as a +tradition from father to son, or of the mere trade-guild. Of these +early industries we know little but the stray notices of Pausanias, +often ambiguous, always of doubtful credibility. What we do see, +through these imperfect notices, is a real period of animated +artistic activity, richly rewarded. Byzes of Naxos, for instance, is +recorded as having first adopted the plan of sawing marble into thin +plates for use on the roofs of temples instead of tiles; and that his +name has come down to us at all, testifies to the impression this +fair white surface made on its first spectators. Various islands of +the Aegean become each the source of some new artistic device. It is +a period still under the reign of Hephaestus, delighting, above all, +in magnificent [230] metal-work. "The Samians," says Herodotus, "out +of a tenth part of their profits--a sum of six talents--caused a +mixing vessel of bronze to be made, after the Argolic fashion; around +it are projections of griffins' heads; and they dedicated it in the +temple of Here, placing beneath it three colossal figures of bronze, +seven cubits in height, leaning upon their knees." That was in the +thirty-seventh Olympiad, and may be regarded as characteristic of the +age. For the popular imagination, a kind of glamour, some mysterious +connexion of the thing with human fortunes, still attaches to the +curious product of artistic hands, to the ring of Polycrates, for +instance, with its early specimen of engraved smaragdus, as to the +mythical necklace of Harmonia. Pheidon of Argos first makes coined +money, and the obelisci--the old nail-shaped iron money, now disused- +-are hung up in the temple of Here; for, even thus early, the temples +are in the way of becoming museums. Names like those of Eucheir and +Eugrammus, who were said to have taken the art of baking clay vases +from Samos to Etruria, have still a legendary air, yet may be real +surnames; as in the case of Smilis, whose name is derived from a +graver's tool, and who made the ancient image of Here at Samos. +Corinth--mater statuariae--becomes a great nursery of art at an early +time. Some time before the twenty-ninth Olympiad, Butades of Sicyon, +the potter, settled there. The record of [231] early inventions in +Greece is sometimes fondly coloured with human sentiment or incident. +It is on the butterfly wing of such an incident--the love-sick +daughter of the artist, who outlines on the wall the profile of her +lover as he sleeps in the lamplight, to keep by her in absence--that +the name of Butades the potter has come down to us. The father fills +up the outline, long preserved, it was believed, in the Nymphaeum at +Corinth, and hence the art of modelling from the life in clay. He +learns, further, a way of colouring his clay red, and fixes his masks +along the temple eaves. + +The temple of Athene Chalcioecus--Athene of the brazen house--at +Sparta, the work of Gitiades, celebrated about this time as +architect, statuary, and poet; who made, besides the image in her +shrine, and besides other Dorian songs, a hymn to the goddess--was so +called from its crust or lining of bronze plates, setting forth, in +richly embossed imagery, various subjects of ancient legend. What +Pausanias, who saw it, describes, is like an elaborate development of +that method of covering the interiors of stone buildings with metal +plates, of which the "Treasury" at Mycenae is the earliest +historical, and the house of Alcinous the heroic, type. In the pages +of Pausanias, that glitter, "as of the moon or the sun," which +Ulysses stood still to wonder at, may still be felt. And on the +right hand of this "brazen house," he tells us, stood an [232] image +of Zeus, also of bronze, the most ancient of all images of bronze. +This had not been cast, nor wrought out of a single mass of metal, +but, the various parts having been finished separately (probably +beaten to shape with the hammer over a wooden mould), had been fitted +together with nails or rivets. That was the earliest method of +uniting the various parts of a work in metal--image, or vessel, or +breastplate--a method allowing of much dainty handling of the cunning +pins and rivets, and one which has its place still, in perfectly +accomplished metal-work, as in the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo +Coleoni, by Andrea Verrocchio, in the piazza of St. John and St. Paul +at Venice. In the British Museum there is a very early specimen of +it,--a large egg-shaped vessel, fitted together of several pieces, +the projecting pins or rivets, forming a sort of diadem round the +middle, being still sharp in form and heavily gilt. That method gave +place in time to a defter means of joining the parts together, with +more perfect unity and smoothness of surface, the art of soldering; +and the invention of this art--of soldering iron, in the first +instance--is coupled with the name of Glaucus of Chios, a name which, +in connexion with this and other devices for facilitating the +mechanical processes of art,--for perfecting artistic effect with +economy of labour--became proverbial, the "art of Glaucus" being +attributed to those who work well with rapidity and ease. + +[233] Far more fruitful still was the invention of casting, of +casting hollow figures especially, attributed to Rhoecus and +Theodorus, architects of the great temple at Samos. Such hollow +figures, able, in consequence of their lightness, to rest, almost +like an inflated bladder, on a single point--the entire bulk of a +heroic rider, for instance, on the point of his horse's tail--admit +of a much freer distribution of the whole weight or mass required, +than is possible in any other mode of statuary; and the invention of +the art of casting is really the discovery of liberty in +composition.* + +And, at last, about the year 576 B.C., we come to the first true +school of sculptors, the first clear example, as we seem to discern, +of a communicable style, reflecting and interpreting some real +individuality (the double personality, in this case, of two brothers) +in the masters who evolved it, conveyed to disciples who came to +acquire it from distant places, and taking root through them at +various centres, where the names of the [234] masters became +attached, of course,. to many fair works really by the hands of the +pupils. Dipoenus and Scyllis, these first true masters, were born in +Crete; but their work is connected mainly with Sicyon, at that time +the chief seat of Greek art. "In consequence of some injury done +them," it is said, "while employed there upon certain sacred images, +they departed to another place, leaving their work unfinished; and, +not long afterwards, a grievous famine fell upon Sicyon. Thereupon, +the people of Sicyon, inquiring of the Pythian Apollo how they might +be relieved, it was answered them, 'if Dipoenus and Scyllis should +finish those images of the gods'; which thing the Sicyonians obtained +from them, humbly, at a great price." That story too, as we shall +see, illustrates the spirit of the age. For their sculpture they +used the white marble of Paros, being workers in marble especially, +though they worked also in ebony and in ivory, and made use of +gilding. "Figures of cedar-wood, partly incrusted with gold"--kedrou +zôdia chrysô diênthismena+--Pausanias says exquisitely, describing a +certain work of their pupil, Dontas of Lacedaemon. It is to that +that we have definitely come at last, in the school of Dipoenus and +Scyllis. + +Dry and brief as these details may seem, they are the witness to an +active, eager, animated period of inventions and beginnings, in which +the Greek workman triumphs over the first [235] rough mechanical +difficulties which beset him in the endeavour to record what his soul +conceived of the form of priest or athlete then alive upon the earth, +or of the ever-living gods, then already more seldom seen upon it. +Our own fancy must fill up the story of the unrecorded patience of +the workshop, into which we seem to peep through these scanty +notices--the fatigue, the disappointments, the steps repeated, ending +at last in that moment of success, which is all Pausanias records, +somewhat uncertainly. + +And as this period begins with the chest of Cypselus, so it ends with +a work in some respects similar, also seen and described by +Pausanias--the throne, as he calls it, of the Amyclaean Apollo. It +was the work of a well-known artist, Bathycles of Magnesia, who, +probably about the year 550 B.C., with a company of workmen, came to +the little ancient town of Amyclae, near Sparta, a place full of +traditions of the heroic age. He had been invited thither to perform +a peculiar task--the construction of a throne; not like the throne of +the Olympian Zeus, and others numerous in after times, for a seated +figure, but for the image of the local Apollo; no other than a rude +and very ancient pillar of bronze, thirty cubits high, to which, +Hermes-wise, head, arms, and feet were attached. The thing stood +upright, as on a base, upon a kind of tomb or reliquary, in which, +according to tradition, lay the remains of the young prince [236] +Hyacinth, son of the founder of that place, beloved by Apollo for his +beauty, and accidentally struck dead by him in play, with a quoit. +From the drops of the lad's blood had sprung up the purple flower of +his name, which bears on its petals the letters of the ejaculation of +woe; and in his memory the famous games of Amyclae were celebrated, +beginning about the time of the longest day, when the flowers are +stricken by the sun and begin to fade--a festival marked, amid all +its splendour, with some real melancholy, and serious thought of the +dead. In the midst of the "throne" of Bathycles, this sacred +receptacle, with the strange, half-humanised pillar above it, was to +stand, probably in the open air, within a consecrated enclosure. +Like the chest of Cypselus, the throne was decorated with reliefs of +subjects taken from epic poetry, and it had supporting figures. +Unfortunately, what Pausanias tells us of this monument hardly +enables one to present it to the imagination with any completeness or +certainty; its dimensions he himself was unable exactly to ascertain, +and he does not tell us its material. There are reasons, however, +for supposing that it was of metal; and amid these ambiguities, the +decorations of its base, the grave or altar-tomb of Hyacinth, shine +out clearly, and are also, for the most part, clear in their +significance. + +"There are wrought upon the altar figures, on the one side of Biris, +on the other of [237] Amphitrite and Poseidon. Near Zeus and Hermes, +in speech with each other, stand Dionysus and Semele, and, beside +her, Ino. Demeter, Kore, and Pluto are also wrought upon it, the +Fates and the Seasons above them, and with them Aphrodite, Athene, +and Artemis. They are conducting Hyacinthus to heaven, with +Polyboea, the sister of Hyacinthus, who died, as is told, while yet a +virgin. . . . Hercules also is figured on the tomb; he too carried to +heaven by Athene and the other gods. The daughters of Thestius also +are upon the altar, and the Seasons again, and the Muses." + +It was as if many lines of solemn thought had been meant to unite, +about the resting-place of this local Adonis, in imageries full of +some dim promise of immortal life. + +But it was not so much in care for old idols as in the making of new +ones that Greek art was at this time engaged. This whole first +period of Greek art might, indeed, be called the period of graven +images, and all its workmen sons of Daedalus; for Daedalus is the +mythical, or all but mythical, representative of all those arts which +are combined in the making of lovelier idols than had heretofore been +seen. The old Greek word which is at the root of the name Daedalus,+ +the name of a craft rather than a proper name, probably means to work +curiously--all curiously beautiful wood-work is Daedal work; the main +point about the curiously beautiful [238] chamber in which Nausicaa +sleeps, in the Odyssey, being that, like some exquisite Swiss châlet, +it is wrought in wood. But it came about that those workers in wood, +whom Daedalus represents, the early craftsmen of Crete especially, +were chiefly concerned with the making of religious images, like the +carvers of Berchtesgaden and Oberammergau, the sort of daintily +finished images of the objects of public or private devotion which +such workmen would turn out. Wherever there was a wooden idol in any +way fairer than others, finished, perhaps, sometimes, with colour and +gilding, and appropriate real dress, there the hand of Daedalus had +been. That such images were quite detached from pillar or wall, that +they stood free, and were statues in the proper sense, showed that +Greek art was already liberated from its earlier Eastern +associations; such free-standing being apparently unknown in Assyrian +art. And then, the effect of this Daedal skill in them was, that +they came nearer to the proper form of humanity. It is the wonderful +life-likeness of these early images which tradition celebrates in +many anecdotes, showing a very early instinctive turn for, and +delight in naturalism, in the Greek temper. As Cimabue, in his day, +was able to charm men, almost as with illusion, by the simple device +of half-closing the eyelids of his personages, and giving them, +instead of round eyes, eyes that seemed to be in some degree +sentient, and to feel [239] the light; so the marvellous progress in +those Daedal wooden images was, that the eyes were open, so that they +seemed to look,--the feet separated, so that they seemed to walk. +Greek art is thus, almost from the first, essentially distinguished +from the art of Egypt, by an energetic striving after truth in +organic form. In representing the human figure, Egyptian art had +held by mathematical or mechanical proportions exclusively. The +Greek apprehends of it, as the main truth, that it is a living +organism, with freedom of movement, and hence the infinite +possibilities of motion, and of expression by motion, with which the +imagination credits the higher sort of Greek sculpture; while the +figures of Egyptian art, graceful as they often are, seem absolutely +incapable of any motion or gesture, other than the one actually +designed. The work of the Greek sculptor, together with its more +real anatomy, becomes full also of human soul. + +That old, primitive, mystical, first period of Greek religion, with +its profound, though half-conscious, intuitions of spiritual powers +in the natural world, attaching itself not to the worship of visible +human forms, but to relics, to natural or half-natural objects--the +roughly hewn tree, the unwrought stone, the pillar, the holy cone of +Aphrodite in her dimly-lighted cell at Paphos--had passed away. The +second stage in the development of Greek religion had come; a [240] +period in which poet and artist were busily engaged in the work of +incorporating all that might be retained of the vague divinations of +that earlier visionary time, in definite and intelligible human image +and human story. The vague belief, the mysterious custom and +tradition, develope themselves into an elaborately ordered ritual-- +into personal gods, imaged in ivory and gold, sitting on beautiful +thrones. Always, wherever a shrine or temple, great or small, is +mentioned, there, we may conclude, was a visible idol, there was +conceived to be the actual dwelling-place of a god. And this +understanding became not less but more definite, as the temple became +larger and more splendid, full of ceremony and servants, like the +abode of an earthly king, and as the sacred presence itself assumed, +little by little, the last beauties and refinements of the visible +human form and expression. + +In what we have seen of this first period of Greek art, in all its +curious essays and inventions, we may observe this demand for +beautiful idols increasing in Greece--for sacred images, at first +still rude, and in some degree the holier for their rudeness, but +which yet constitute the beginnings of the religious style, +consummate in the work of Pheidias, uniting the veritable image of +man in the full possession of his reasonable soul, with the true +religious mysticity, the signature there of something from afar. One +by one these [241] new gods of bronze, or marble, or flesh-like +ivory, take their thrones, at this or that famous shrine, like the +images of this period which Pausanias saw in the temple of Here at +Olympia--the throned Seasons, with Themis as the mother of the +Seasons (divine rectitude being still blended, in men's fancies, with +the unchanging physical order of things) and Fortune, and Victory +"having wings," and Kore and Demeter and Dionysus, already visibly +there, around the image of Here herself, seated on a throne; and all +chryselephantine, all in gold and ivory. Novel as these things are, +they still undergo consecration at their first erecting. The figure +of Athene, in her brazen temple at Sparta, the work of Gitiades, who +makes also the image and the hymn, in triple service to the goddess; +and again, that curious story of Dipoenus and Scyllis, brought back +with so much awe to remove the public curse by completing their +sacred task upon the images, show how simply religious the age still +was--that this widespread artistic activity was a religious +enthusiasm also; those early sculptors have still, for their +contemporaries, a divine mission, with some kind of hieratic or +sacred quality in their gift, distinctly felt. + +The development of the artist, in the proper sense, out of the mere +craftsman, effected in the first division of this period, is now +complete; and, in close connexion with that busy graving of religious +images, which occupies its second [242] division, we come to +something like real personalities, to men with individual +characteristics--such men as Ageladas of Argos, Callon and Onatas of +Aegina, and Canachus of Sicyon. Mere fragment as our information +concerning these early masters is at the best, it is at least +unmistakeably information about men with personal differences of +temper and talent, of their motives, of what we call style. We have +come to a sort of art which is no longer broadly characteristic of a +general period, one whose products we might have looked at without +its occurring to us to ask concerning the artist, his antecedents, +and his school. We have to do now with types of art, fully impressed +with the subjectivity, the intimacies of the artist. + +Among these freer and stronger personalities emerging thus about the +beginning of the fifth century before Christ--about the period of the +Persian war--the name to which most of this sort of personal quality +attaches, and which is therefore very interesting, is the name of +Canachus of Sicyon, who seems to have comprehended in himself all the +various attainments in art which had been gradually developed in the +schools of his native city--carver in wood, sculptor, brass-cutter, +and toreutes; by toreuticê+ being meant the whole art of statuary in +metals, and in their combination with other materials. At last we +seem to see an actual person at work, and to some degree can follow, +with natural curiosity, [243] the motions of his spirit and his hand. +We seem to discern in all we know of his productions the results of +individual apprehension--the results, as well as the limitations, of +an individual talent. + +It is impossible to date exactly the chief period of the activity of +Canachus. That the great image of Apollo, which he made for the +Milesians, was carried away to Ecbatana by the Persian army, is +stated by Pausanias; but there is a doubt whether this was under +Xerxes, as Pausanias says, in the year 479 B.C., or twenty years +earlier, under Darius. So important a work as this colossal image of +Apollo, for so great a shrine as the Didymaeum, was probably the task +of his maturity; and his career may, therefore, be regarded as having +begun, at any rate, prior to the year 479 B.C., and the end of the +Persian invasion the event which may be said to close this period of +art. On the whole, the chief period of his activity is thought to +have fallen earlier, and to have occupied the last forty years of the +previous century; and he would thus have flourished, as we say, about +fifty years before the manhood of Pheidias, as Mino of Fiesole fifty +years before the manhood of Michelangelo. + +His chief works were an Aphrodite, wrought for the Sicyonians in +ivory and gold; that Apollo of bronze carried away by the Persians, +and restored to its place about the year B.C. 350; and a reproduction +of the same work in cedar-wood [244], for the sanctuary of Apollo of +the Ismenus, at Thebes. The primitive Greek worship, as we may trace +it in Homer, presents already, on a minor scale, all the essential +characteristics of the most elaborate Greek worship of after times-- +the sacred enclosure, the incense and other offerings, the prayer of +the priest, the shrine itself--a small one, roofed in by the priest +with green boughs, not unlike a wayside chapel in modern times, and +understood to be the dwelling-place of the divine person--within, +almost certainly, an idol, with its own sacred apparel, a visible +form, little more than symbolical perhaps, like the sacred pillar for +which Bathycles made his throne at Amyclae, but, if an actual image, +certainly a rude one. + +That primitive worship, traceable in almost all these particulars, +even in the first book of the Iliad, had given place, before the time +of Canachus at Sicyon, to a more elaborate ritual and a more +completely designed image-work; and a little bronze statue, +discovered on the site of Tenea, where Apollo was the chief object of +worship,* the best representative of many similar marble figures-- +those of Thera and Orchomenus, for instance--is supposed to represent +Apollo as this still early age conceived him--youthful, naked, +muscular, and with the germ of the Greek profile, but formally +smiling, and with a formal diadem or fillet, over the long hair which +[245] shows him to be no mortal athlete. The hands, like the feet, +excellently modelled, are here extended downwards at the sides; but +in some similar figures the hands are lifted, and held straight +outwards, with the palms upturned. The Apollo of Canachus also had +the hands thus raised, and on the open palm of the right hand was +placed a stag, while with the left he grasped the bow. Pliny says +that the stag was an automaton, with a mechanical device for setting +it in motion, a detail which hints, at least, at the subtlety of +workmanship with which those ancient critics, who had opportunity of +knowing, credited this early artist. Of this work itself nothing +remains, but we possess perhaps some imitations of it. It is +probably this most sacred possession of the place which the coins of +Miletus display from various points of view, though, of course, only +on the smallest scale. But a little bronze figure in the British +Museum, with the stag in the right hand, and in the closed left hand +the hollow where the bow has passed, is thought to have been derived +from it; and its points of style are still further illustrated by a +marble head of similar character, also preserved in the British +Museum, which has many marks of having been copied in marble from an +original in bronze. A really ancient work, or only archaic, it +certainly expresses, together with all that careful patience and +hardness of workmanship which is characteristic of an early age, a +certain Apolline [246] strength--a pride and dignity in the features, +so steadily composed, below the stiff, archaic arrangement of the +long, fillet-bound locks. It is the exact expression of that midway +position, between an involved, archaic stiffness and the free play of +individual talent, which is attributed to Canachus by the ancients. + +His Apollo of cedar-wood, which inhabited a temple near the gates of +Thebes, on a rising ground, below which flowed the river Ismenus, +had, according to Pausanias, so close a resemblance to that at +Miletus that it required little skill in one who had seen either of +them to tell what master had designed the other. Still, though of +the same dimensions, while one was of cedar the other was of bronze-- +a reproduction one of the other we may believe, but with the +modifications, according to the use of good workmen even so early as +Canachus, due to the difference of the material. For the likeness +between the two statues, it is to be observed, is not the mechanical +likeness of those earlier images represented by the statuette of +Tenea, which spoke, not of the style of one master, but only of the +manufacture of one workshop. In those two images of Canachus--the +Milesian Apollo and the Apollo of the Ismenus--there were +resemblances amid differences; resemblances, as we may understand, in +what was nevertheless peculiar, novel, and even innovating in the +precise conception of the god therein set forth; [247] resemblances +which spoke directly of a single workman, though working freely, of +one hand and one fancy, a likeness in that which could by no means be +truly copied by another; it was the beginning of what we mean by the +style of a master. Together with all the novelty, the innovating and +improving skill, which has made Canachus remembered, an attractive, +old-world, deeply-felt mysticity seems still to cling about what we +read of these early works. That piety, that religiousness of temper, +of which the people of Sicyon had given proof so oddly in their +dealings with those old carvers, Scyllis and Dipoenus, still survives +in the master who was chosen to embody his own novelty of idea and +execution in so sacred a place as the shrine of Apollo at Miletus. +Something still conventional, combined, in these images, with the +effect of great artistic skill, with a palpable beauty and power, +seems to have given them a really imposing religious character. +Escaping from the rigid uniformities of the stricter archaic style, +he is still obedient to certain hieratic influences and traditions; +he is still reserved, self-controlled, composed or even mannered a +little, as in some sacred presence, with the severity and strength of +the early style. + +But there are certain notices which seem to show that he had his +purely poetical motives also, as befitted his age; motives which +prompted works of mere fancy, like his Muse [248] with the Lyre, +symbolising the chromatic style of music; Aristocles his brother, and +Ageladas of Argos executing each another statue to symbolise the two +other orders of music. The Riding Boys, of which Pliny speaks, like +the mechanical stag on the hand of Apollo, which he also describes, +were perhaps mechanical toys, as Benvenuto Cellini made toys. In the +Beardless Aesculapius, again--the image of the god of healing, not +merely as the son of Apollo, but as one ever young--it is the poetry +of sculpture that we see. + +This poetic feeling, and the piety of temper so deeply impressed upon +his images of Apollo, seem to have been combined in his +chryselephantine Aphrodite, as we see it very distinctly in +Pausanias, enthroned with an apple in one hand and a poppy in the +other, and with the sphere, or polos, about the head, in its quaint +little temple or chapel at Sicyon, with the hierokêpis, or holy +garden, about it. This is what Canachus has to give us instead of +the strange, symbolical cone, with the lights burning around it, in +its dark cell--the form under which Aphrodite was worshipped at her +famous shrine of Paphos. + +"A woman to keep it fair," Pausanias tells us, "who may go in to no +man, and a virgin called the water-bearer, who holds her priesthood +for a year, are alone permitted to enter the sacred place. All +others may gaze upon the [249] goddess and offer their prayers from +the doorway. The seated image is the work of Canachus of Sicyon. It +is wrought in ivory and gold, bearing a sphere on the head, and +having in the one hand a poppy and in the other an apple. They offer +to her the thighs of all victims excepting swine, burning them upon +sticks of juniper, together with leaves of lad's-love, a herb found +in the enclosure without, and nowhere else in the world. Its leaves +are smaller than those of the beech and larger than the ilex; in form +they are like an oak-leaf, and in colour resemble most the leaves of +the poplar, one side dusky, the other white." + +That is a place one would certainly have liked to see. So real it +seems!--the seated image, the people gazing through the doorway, the +fragrant odour. Must it not still be in secret keeping somewhere?-- +we are almost tempted to ask; maintained by some few solitary +worshippers, surviving from age to age, among the villagers of +Achaia. + +In spite of many obscurities, it may be said that what we know, and +what we do not know, of Canachus illustrates the amount and sort of +knowledge we possess about the artists of the period which he best +represents. A naïveté--a freshness, an early-aged simplicity and +sincerity--that, we may believe, had we their works before us, would +be for us their chief aesthetic charm. Cicero remarked that, in +contrast with [250] the works of the next generation of sculptors, +there was a stiffness in the statues of Canachus which made them seem +untrue to nature--"Canachi signa rigidiora esse quam ut imitentur +veritatem." But Cicero belongs to an age surfeited with artistic +licence, and likely enough to undervalue the severity of the early +masters, the great motive struggling still with the minute and rigid +hand. So the critics of the last century ignored, or underrated, the +works of the earlier Tuscan sculptors. In what Cicero calls +"rigidity" of Canachus, combined with what we seem to see of his +poetry of conception, his freshness, his solemnity, we may understand +no really repellent hardness, but only that earnest patience of +labour, the expression of which is constant in all the best work of +an early time, in the David of Verrocchio, for instance, and in the +early Flemish painters, as it is natural and becoming in youth +itself. The very touch of the struggling hand was upon the work; but +with the interest, the half-repressed animation of a great promise, +fulfilled, as we now see, in the magnificent growth of Greek +sculpture in the succeeding age; which, however, for those earlier +workmen, meant the loins girt and the half-folded wings not yet quite +at home in the air, with a gravity, a discretion and reserve, the +charm of which, if felt in quiet, is hardly less than that of the +wealth and fulness of final mastery. + +NOTES + +228. *Chrysoun is the word Pausanias uses, of the cup in the hand of +Dionysus--the wood was plated with gold. Liddell and Scott definition +of the adjective chryseos: "golden, of gold, inlaid with gold." + +233. *Pausanias, in recording the invention of casting, uses the word +echôneusanto, but does not tell us whether the model was of wax, as in +the later process; which, however, is believed to have been the +case. For an animated account of the modern process:--the core of +plaister roughly presenting the designed form; the modelling of the +waxen surface thereon, like the skin upon the muscles, with all its +delicate touches--vein and eyebrow; the hardening of the plaister +envelope, layer over layer, upon this delicately finished model; the +melting of the way by heat, leaving behind it in its place the +finished design in vacuo, which the molten stream of metal +subsequently fills; released finally, after cooling, from core and +envelope--see Fortnum's Handbook of Bronzes, Chapter II. + ++Liddell and Scott definition of the noun chônê and the verb chônnymi: +"a melting-pit, a mould to cast in. . . . to throw or heap up . . . +to cover with a mound of earth, bury." + +234. +Transliteration: kedrou zôdia chrysô diênthismena. Pater's +translation: "Figures of cedar-wood, partly incrusted with gold." +The root verb anthizô means "to strew with flowers...and so, to dye +with colours." (Liddell and Scott.) Pausanias, Description of +Greece, Book VI, Chapter 19, Section 12. Pausaniae Graeciae Descriptio, +3 vols. F. Spiro. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. + +237. +Daidaleos means "cunningly or curiously wrought"; it is derived +from the verb daidallô, "to work cunningly, work with curious +art...." (Liddell and Scott.) + +242. +The verb toreuô means "to bore through . . . to work in relief +. . . to chase." (Liddell and Scott.) + +244. *Now preserved at Munich. + + + +THE MARBLES OF AEGINA + +[251] I HAVE dwelt the more emphatically upon the purely sensuous +aspects of early Greek art, on the beauty and charm of its mere +material and workmanship, the grace of hand in it, its +chryselephantine character, because the direction of all the more +general criticism since Lessing has been, somewhat one-sidedly, +towards the ideal or abstract element in Greek art, towards what we +may call its philosophical aspect. And, indeed, this philosophical +element, a tendency to the realisation of a certain inward, abstract, +intellectual ideal, is also at work in Greek art--a tendency which, +if that chryselephantine influence is called Ionian, may rightly be +called the Dorian, or, in reference to its broader scope, the +European influence; and this European influence or tendency is really +towards the impression of an order, a sanity, a proportion in all +work, which shall reflect the inward order of human reason, now fully +conscious of itself,--towards a sort of art in which the record and +delineation of humanity, as active in the wide, inward world of [252] +its passion and thought, has become more or less definitely the aim +of all artistic handicraft. + +In undergoing the action of these two opposing influences, and by +harmonising in itself their antagonism, Greek sculpture does but +reflect the larger movements of more general Greek history. All +through Greek history we may trace, in every sphere of the activity +of the Greek mind, the action of these two opposing tendencies,--the +centrifugal and centripetal tendencies, as we may perhaps not too +fancifully call them. There is the centrifugal, the Ionian, the +Asiatic tendency, flying from the centre, working with little +forethought straight before it, in the development of every thought +and fancy; throwing itself forth in endless play of undirected +imagination; delighting in brightness and colour, in beautiful +material, in changeful form everywhere, in poetry, in philosophy, +even in architecture and its subordinate crafts. In the social and +political order it rejoices in the freest action of local and +personal influences; its restless versatility drives it towards the +assertion of the principles of separatism, of individualism--the +separation of state from state, the maintenance of local religions, +the development of the individual in that which is most peculiar and +individual in him. Its claim is in its grace, its freedom and +happiness, its lively interest, the variety of its gifts to +civilisation; its weakness is self-evident, and was what made the +unity of Greece impossible. [253] It is this centrifugal tendency +which Plato is desirous to cure, by maintaining, over against it, the +Dorian influence of a severe simplification everywhere, in society, +in culture, in the very physical nature of man. An enemy everywhere +to variegation, to what is cunning or "myriad-minded," he sets +himself, in mythology, in music, in poetry, in every kind of art, to +enforce the ideal of a sort of Parmenidean abstractness and calm. + +This exaggerated ideal of Plato's is, however, only the exaggeration +of that salutary European tendency, which, finding human mind the +most absolutely real and precious thing in the world, enforces +everywhere the impress of its sanity, its profound reflexions upon +things as they really are, its sense of proportion. It is the +centripetal tendency, which links individuals to each other, states +to states, one period of organic growth to another, under the reign +of a composed, rational, self-conscious order, in the universal light +of the understanding. + +Whether or not this temper, so clearly traceable as a distinct +influence in the course of Greek development, was indeed the peculiar +gift of the Dorian race, certainly that race is the best illustration +of it, in its love of order, of that severe composition everywhere, +of which the Dorian style of architecture is, as it were, a material +symbol--in its constant aspiration after what is earnest and +dignified, as exemplified most evidently in the religion of its +predilection, the religion of Apollo. [254] For as that Ionian +influence, the chryselephantine influence, had its patron in +Hephaestus, belonged to the religion of Hephaestus, husband of +Aphrodite, the representation of exquisite workmanship, of fine art +in metal, coming from the East in close connexion with the artificial +furtherance, through dress and personal ornament, of the beauty of +the body; so that Dorian or European influence embodied itself in the +religion of Apollo. For the development of this or that mythological +conception, from its root in fact or law of the physical world, is +very various in its course. Thus, Demeter, the spirit of life in +grass,--and Dionysus, the "spiritual form" of life in the green sap,- +-remain, to the end of men's thoughts and fancies about them, almost +wholly physical. But Apollo, the "spiritual form" of sunbeams, early +becomes (the merely physical element in his constitution being almost +wholly suppressed) exclusively ethical,--the "spiritual form" of +inward or intellectual light, in all its manifestations. He +represents all those specially European ideas, of a reasonable, +personal freedom, as understood in Greece; of a reasonable polity; of +the sanity of soul and body, through the cure of disease and of the +sense of sin; of the perfecting of both by reasonable exercise or +ascêsis; his religion is a sort of embodied equity, its aim the +realisation of fair reason and just consideration of the truth of +things everywhere. + +[255] I cannot dwell on the general aspects of this subject further, +but I would remark that in art also the religion of Apollo was a +sanction of, and an encouragement towards the true valuation of +humanity, in its sanity, its proportion, its knowledge of itself. +Following after this, Greek art attained, in its reproductions of +human form, not merely to the profound expression of the highest +indwelling spirit of human intelligence, but to the expression also +of the great human passions, of the powerful movements as well as of +the calm and peaceful order of the soul, as finding in the affections +of the body a language, the elements of which the artist might +analyse, and then combine, order, and recompose. In relation to +music, to art, to all those matters over which the Muses preside, +Apollo, as distinct from Hermes, seems to be the representative and +patron of what I may call reasonable music, of a great intelligence +at work in art, of beauty attained through the conscious realisation +of ideas. They were the cities of the Dorian affinity which early +brought to perfection that most characteristic of Greek institutions, +the sacred dance, with the whole gymnastic system which was its +natural accompaniment. And it was the familiar spectacle of that +living sculpture which developed, perhaps, beyond everything else in +the Greek mind, at its best, a sense of the beauty and significance +of the human form. + +Into that bewildered, dazzling world of minute [256] and dainty +handicraft--the chamber of Paris, the house of Alcinous--in which the +form of man alone had no adequate place, and as yet, properly, was +not, this Dorian, European, Apolline influence introduced the +intelligent and spiritual human presence, and gave it its true value, +a value consistently maintained to the end of Greek art, by a steady +hold upon and preoccupation with the inward harmony and system of +human personality. + +In the works of the Asiatic tradition--the marbles of Nineveh, for +instance--and, so far as we can see, in the early Greek art, which +derives from it, as, for example, in the archaic remains from Cyprus, +the form of man is inadequate, and below the measure of perfection +attained there in the representation of the lower forms of life; just +as in the little reflective art of Japan, so lovely in its +reproduction of flower or bird, the human form alone comes almost as +a caricature, or is at least untouched by any higher ideal. To that +Asiatic tradition, then, with its perfect craftsmanship, its +consummate skill in design, its power of hand, the Dorian, the +European, the true Hellenic influence brought a revelation of the +soul and body of man. + +And we come at last in the marbles of Aegina to a monument, which +bears upon it the full expression of this humanism,--to a work, in +which the presence of man, realised with complete mastery of hand, +and with clear apprehension of how he actually is and moves and +looks, [257] is touched with the freshest sense of that new-found, +inward value; the energy of worthy passions purifying, the light of +his reason shining through, bodily forms and motions, solemnised, +attractive, pathetic. We have reached an extant work, real and +visible, of an importance out of all proportion to anything actually +remaining of earlier art, and justifying, by its direct interest and +charm, our long prelude on the beginnings of Greek sculpture, while +there was still almost nothing actually to see. + +These fifteen figures of Parian marble, of about two-thirds the size +of life, forming, with some deficiencies, the east and west gables of +a temple of Athene, the ruins of which still stand on a hill-side by +the sea-shore, in a remote part of the island of Aegina, were +discovered in the year 1811, and having been purchased by the Crown +Prince, afterwards King Louis I., of Bavaria, are now the great +ornament of the Glyptothek, or Museum of Sculpture, at Munich. The +group in each gable consisted of eleven figures; and of the fifteen +larger figures discovered, five belong to the eastern, ten to the +western gable, so that the western gable is complete with the +exception of one figure, which should stand in the place to which, as +the groups are arranged at Munich, the beautiful figure, bending down +towards the fallen leader, has been actually transferred from the +eastern gable; certain fragments showing that the lost figure [258] +corresponded essentially to this, which has therefore been removed +hither from its place in the less complete group to which it properly +belongs. For there are two legitimate views or motives in the +restoration of ancient sculpture, the antiquarian and the aesthetic, +as they may be termed respectively; the former limiting itself to the +bare presentation of what actually remains of the ancient work, +braving all shock to living eyes from the mutilated nose or chin; +while the latter, the aesthetic method, requires that, with the least +possible addition or interference, by the most skilful living hand +procurable, the object shall be made to please, or at least content +the living eye seeking enjoyment and not a bare fact of science, in +the spectacle of ancient art. This latter way of restoration,--the +aesthetic way,--followed by the famous connoisseurs of the +Renaissance, has been followed here; and the visitor to Munich +actually sees the marbles of Aegina, as restored after a model by the +tasteful hand of Thorwaldsen. + +Different views have, however, been maintained as to the right +grouping of the figures; but the composition of the two groups was +apparently similar, not only in general character but in a certain +degree of correspondence of all the figures, each to each. And in +both the subject is a combat,--a combat between Greeks and Asiatics +concerning the body of a Greek hero, fallen among the foemen,--an +incident so characteristic [259] of the poetry of the heroic wars. +In both cases, Athene, whose temple this sculpture was designed to +decorate, intervenes, her image being complete in the western gable, +the head and some other fragments remaining of that in the eastern. +The incidents represented were probably chosen with reference to the +traditions of Aegina in connexion with the Trojan war. Greek legend +is ever deeply coloured by local interest and sentiment, and this +monument probably celebrates Telamon, and Ajax his son, the heroes +who established the fame of Aegina, and whom the united Greeks, on +the morning of the battle of Salamis, in which the Aeginetans were +distinguished above all other Greeks in bravery, invited as their +peculiar, spiritual allies from that island. + +Accordingly, antiquarians are, for the most part, of opinion that the +eastern gable represents the combat of Hercules (Hercules being the +only figure among the warriors certainly to be identified), and of +his comrade Telamon, against Laomedon of Troy, in which, properly, +Hercules was leader, but here, as squire and archer, is made to give +the first place to Telamon, as the titular hero of the place. +Opinion is not so definite regarding the subject of the western +gable, which, however, probably represents the combat between the +Greeks and Trojans over the body of Patroclus. In both cases an +Aeginetan hero, in the eastern gable Telamon, in the western [260] +his son Ajax, is represented in the extreme crisis of battle, such a +crisis as, according to the deep religiousness of the Greeks of that +age, was a motive for the visible intervention of the goddess in +favour of her chosen people. + +Opinion as to the date of the work, based mainly on the +characteristics of the work itself, has varied within a period +ranging from the middle of the sixtieth to the middle of the +seventieth Olympiad, inclining on the whole to the later date, in the +period of the Ionian revolt against Persia, and a few years earlier +than the battle of Marathon. + +In this monument, then, we have a revelation in the sphere of art, of +the temper which made the victories of Marathon and Salamis possible, +of the true spirit of Greek chivalry as displayed in the Persian war, +and in the highly ideal conception of its events, expressed in +Herodotus and approving itself minutely to the minds of the Greeks, +as a series of affairs in which the gods and heroes of old time +personally intervened, and that not as mere shadows. It was natural +that the high-pitched temper, the stress of thought and feeling, +which ended in the final conflict of Greek liberty with Asiatic +barbarism, should stimulate quite a new interest in the poetic +legends of the earlier conflict between them in the heroic age. As +the events of the Crusades and the chivalrous spirit of that period, +leading men's minds back to ponder over the deeds of [261] +Charlemagne and his paladins, gave birth to the composition of the +Song of Roland, just so this Aeginetan sculpture displays the Greeks +of a later age feeding their enthusiasm on the legend of a distant +past, and is a link between Herodotus and Homer. In those ideal +figures, pensive a little from the first, we may suppose, with the +shadowiness of a past age, we may yet see how Greeks of the time of +Themistocles really conceived of Homeric knight and squire. + +Some other fragments of art, also discovered in Aegina, and supposed +to be contemporary with the temple of Athene, tend, by their +roughness and immaturity, to show that this small building, so united +in its effect, so complete in its simplicity, in the symmetry of its +two main groups of sculpture, was the perfect artistic flower of its +time and place. Yet within the limits of this simple unity, so +important an element in the charm and impressiveness of the place, a +certain inequality of design and execution may be detected; the hand +of a slightly earlier master, probably, having worked in the western +gable, while the master of the eastern gable has gone some steps +farther than he in fineness and power of expression; the stooping +figure of the supposed Ajax,--belonging to the western group in the +present arrangement, but really borrowed, as I said, from the +eastern,--which has in it something above the type of the figures +grouped round it, being this later sculptor's work. Yet Overbeck, +[262] who has elaborated the points of this distinction of styles, +commends without reserve the technical excellence of the whole work, +executed, as he says, "with an application of all known instruments +of sculpture; the delicate calculation of weight in the composition +of the several parts, allowing the artist to dispense with all +artificial supports, and to set his figures, with all their complex +motions, and yet with plinths only three inches thick, into the basis +of the gable; the bold use of the chisel, which wrought the shield, +on the freely-held arm, down to a thickness of scarcely three inches; +the fineness of the execution even in parts of the work invisible to +an ordinary spectator, in the diligent finishing of which the only +motive of the artist was to satisfy his own conviction as to the +nature of good sculpture." + +It was the Dorian cities, Plato tells us, which first shook off the +false Asiatic shame, and stripped off their clothing for purposes of +exercise and training in the gymnasium; and it was part of the Dorian +or European influence to assert the value in art of the unveiled and +healthy human form. And here the artists of Aegina, notwithstanding +Homer's description of Greek armour, glowing like the sun itself, +have displayed the Greek warriors--Greek and Trojan alike--not in the +equipments they would really have worn, but naked,--flesh fairer than +that golden armour, though more subdued and tranquil [263] in effect +on the spectator, the undraped form of man coming like an embodiment +of the Hellenic spirit, and as an element of temperance, into the +somewhat gaudy spectacle of Asiatic, or archaic art. Paris alone +bears his dainty trappings, characteristically,--a coat of golden +scale-work, the scales set on a lining of canvas or leather, shifting +deftly over the delicate body beneath, and represented on the gable +by the gilding, or perhaps by real gilt metal. + +It was characteristic also of that more truly Hellenic art--another +element of its temperance--to adopt the use of marble in its works; +and the material of these figures is the white marble of Paros. +Traces of colour have, however, been found on certain parts of them. +The outer surfaces of the shields and helmets have been blue; their +inner parts and the crests of the helmets, red; the hem of the +drapery of Athene, the edges of her sandals, the plinths on which the +figures stand, also red; one quiver red, another blue; the eyes and +lips, too, coloured; perhaps, the hair. There was just a limited and +conventionalised use of colour, in effect, upon the marble. + +And although the actual material of these figures is marble, its +coolness and massiveness suiting the growing severity of Greek +thought, yet they have their reminiscences of work in bronze, in a +certain slimness and tenuity, a certain dainty lightness of poise in +their grouping, which [264] remains in the memory as a peculiar note +of their style; the possibility of such easy and graceful balancing +being one of the privileges or opportunities of statuary in cast +metal, of that hollow casting in which the whole weight of the work +is so much less than that of a work of equal size in marble, and +which permits so much wider and freer a disposition of the parts +about its centre of gravity. In Aegina the tradition of metal-work +seems to have been strong, and Onatas, whose name is closely +connected with Aegina, and who is contemporary with the presumably +later portion of this monument, was above all a worker in bronze. +Here again, in this lurking spirit of metal-work, we have a new +element of complexity in the character of these precious remains. +And then, to compass the whole work in our imagination, we must +conceive yet another element in the conjoint effect; metal being +actually mingled with the marble, brought thus to its daintiest point +of refinement, as the little holes indicate, bored into the marble +figures for the attachment of certain accessories in bronze,--lances, +swords, bows, the Medusa's head on the aegis of Athene, and its +fringe of little snakes. + +And as there was no adequate consciousness and recognition of the +essentials of man's nature in the older, oriental art, so there is no +pathos, no humanity in the more special sense, but a kind of hardness +and cruelty rather, in those oft-repeated, long, matter-of-fact +processions, on the [265] marbles of Nineveh, of slave-like soldiers +on their way to battle mechanically, or of captives on their way to +slavery or death, for the satisfaction of the Great King. These +Greek marbles, on the contrary, with that figure yearning forward so +graciously to the fallen leader, are deeply impressed with a natural +pathetic effect--the true reflexion again of the temper of Homer in +speaking of war. Ares, the god of war himself, we must remember, is, +according to his original import, the god of storms, of winter raging +among the forests of the Thracian mountains, a brother of the north +wind. It is only afterwards that, surviving many minor gods of war, +he becomes a leader of hosts, a sort of divine knight and patron of +knighthood; and, through the old intricate connexion of love and war, +and that amorousness which is the universally conceded privilege of +the soldier's life, he comes to be very near Aphrodite,--the paramour +of the goddess of physical beauty. So that the idea of a sort of +soft dalliance mingles, in his character, so unlike that of the +Christian leader, Saint George, with the idea of savage, warlike +impulses; the fair, soft creature suddenly raging like a storm, to +which, in its various wild incidents, war is constantly likened in +Homer; the effects of delicate youth and of tempest blending, in +Ares, into one expression, not without that cruelty which mingles +also, like the influence of some malign fate upon him, with the finer +[266] characteristics of Achilles, who is a kind of merely human +double of Ares. And in Homer's impressions of war the same elements +are blent,--the delicacy, the beauty of youth, especially, which +makes it so fit for purposes of love, spoiled and wasted by the +random flood and fire of a violent tempest; the glittering beauty of +the Greek "war-men," expressed in so many brilliant figures, and the +splendour of their equipments, in collision with the miserable +accidents of battle, and the grotesque indignities of death in it, +brought home to our fancy by a hundred pathetic incidents,--the sword +hot with slaughter, the stifling blood in the throat, the spoiling of +the body in every member severally. He thinks of, and records, at +his early ending, the distant home from which the boy came, who goes +stumbling now, just stricken so wretchedly, his bowels in his hands. +He pushes the expression of this contrast to the macabre even, +suggesting the approach of those lower forms of life which await to- +morrow the fair bodies of the heroes, who strive and fall to-day like +these in the Aeginetan gables. For it is just that two-fold +sentiment which this sculpture has embodied. The seemingly stronger +hand which wrought the eastern gable has shown itself strongest in +the rigid expression of the truth of pain, in the mouth of the famous +recumbent figure on the extreme left, the lips just open at the +corner, and in the hard-shut lips of Hercules. Otherwise, [267] +these figures all smile faintly, almost like the monumental effigies +of the Middle Age, with a smile which, even if it be but a result of +the mere conventionality of an art still somewhat immature, has just +the pathetic effect of Homer's conventional epithet "tender," when he +speaks of the flesh of his heroes. + +And together with this touching power there is also in this work the +effect of an early simplicity, the charm of its limitations. For as +art which has passed its prime has sometimes the charm of an absolute +refinement in taste and workmanship, so immature art also, as we now +see, has its own attractiveness in the naïveté, the freshness of +spirit, which finds power and interest in simple motives of feeling, +and in the freshness of hand, which has a sense of enjoyment in +mechanical processes still performed unmechanically, in the spending +of care and intelligence on every touch. As regards Italian art, the +sculpture and paintings of the earlier Renaissance, the aesthetic +value of this naïveté is now well understood; but it has its value in +Greek sculpture also. There, too, is a succession of phases through +which the artistic power and purpose grew to maturity, with the +enduring charm of an unconventional, unsophisticated freshness, in +that very early stage of it illustrated by these marbles of Aegina, +not less than in the work of Verrocchio and Mino of Fiesole. Effects +of this we may note in that sculpture [268] of Aegina, not merely in +the simplicity, or monotony even, of the whole composition, and in +the exact and formal correspondence of one gable to the other, but in +the simple readiness with which the designer makes the two second +spearmen kneel, against the probability of the thing, so as just to +fill the space he has to compose in. The profiles are still not yet +of the fully developed Greek type, but have a somewhat sharp +prominence of nose and chin, as in Etrurian design, in the early +sculpture of Cyprus, and in the earlier Greek vases; and the general +proportions of the body in relation to the shoulders are still +somewhat archaically slim. But then the workman is at work in dry +earnestness, with a sort of hard strength in detail, a scrupulousness +verging on stiffness, like that of an early Flemish painter; he +communicates to us his still youthful sense of pleasure in the +experience of the first rudimentary difficulties of his art overcome. +And withal, these figures have in them a true expression of life, of +animation. In this monument of Greek chivalry, pensive and visionary +as it may seem, those old Greek knights live with a truth like that +of Homer or Chaucer. In a sort of stiff grace, combined with a sense +of things bright or sorrowful directly felt, the Aeginetan workman is +as it were the Chaucer of Greek sculpture. + + + +THE AGE OF ATHLETIC PRIZEMEN: +A CHAPTER IN GREEK ART + +[269] IT is pleasant when, looking at medieval sculpture, we are +reminded of that of Greece; pleasant likewise, conversely, in the +study of Greek work to be put on thoughts of the Middle Age. To the +refined intelligence, it would seem, there is something attractive in +complex expression as such. The Marbles of Aegina, then, may remind +us of the Middle Age where it passes into the early Renaissance, of +its most tenderly finished warrior-tombs at Westminster or in +Florence. A less mature phase of medieval art is recalled to our +fancy by a primitive Greek work in the Museum of Athens, Hermes, +bearing a ram, a little one, upon his shoulders. He bears it thus, +had borne it round the walls of Tanagra, as its citizens told, by way +of purifying that place from the plague, and brings to mind, of +course, later images of the "Good Shepherd." It is not the subject +of the work, however, but its style, that sets us down in thought +before some gothic [270] cathedral front. Suppose the Hermes +Kriophorus lifted into one of those empty niches, and the +archaeologist will inform you rightly, as at Auxerre or Wells, of +Italian influence, perhaps of Italian workmen, and along with them +indirect old Greek influence coming northwards; while the connoisseur +assures us that all good art, at its respective stages of +development, is in essential qualities everywhere alike. It is +observed, as a note of imperfect skill, that in that carved block of +stone the animal is insufficiently detached from the shoulders of its +bearer. Again, how precisely gothic is the effect! Its very +limitation as sculpture emphasises the function of the thing as an +architectural ornament. And the student of the Middle Age, if it +came within his range, would be right in so esteeming it. Hieratic, +stiff and formal, if you will, there is a knowledge of the human body +in it nevertheless, of the body, and of the purely animal soul +therein, full of the promise of what is coming in that chapter of +Greek art which may properly be entitled, "The Age of Athletic +Prizemen." + +That rude image, a work perhaps of Calamis of shadowy fame, belongs +to a phase of art still in grave-clothes or swaddling-bands, still +strictly subordinate to religious or other purposes not immediately +its own. It had scarcely to wait for the next generation to be +superseded, and we need not wonder that but little of it remains. +But that it was a widely active phase of art, with [271] all the +vigour of local varieties, is attested by another famous archaic +monument, too full of a kind of sacred poetry to be passed by. The +reader does not need to be reminded that the Greeks, vivid as was +their consciousness of this life, cared much always for the graves of +the dead; that to be cared for, to be honoured, in one's grave, to +have tymbos amphipolos,+ a frequented tomb, as Pindar says, was a +considerable motive with them, even among the young. In the study of +its funeral monuments we might indeed follow closely enough the +general development of art in Greece from beginning to end. The +carved slab of the ancient shepherd of Orchomenus, with his dog and +rustic staff, the stélé of the ancient man-at-arms signed +"Aristocles," rich originally with colour and gold and fittings of +bronze, are among the few still visible pictures, or portraits, it +may be, of the earliest Greek life. Compare them, compare their +expression, for a moment, with the deeply incised tombstones of the +Brethren of St. Francis and their clients, which still roughen the +pavement of Santa Croce at Florence, and recall the varnished +polychrome decoration of those Greek monuments in connexion with the +worn-out blazonry of the funeral brasses of England and Flanders. +The Shepherd, the Hoplite, begin a series continuous to the era of +full Attic mastery in its gentlest mood, with a large and varied +store of memorials of the dead, which, not so strangely as it may +[272] seem at first sight, are like selected pages from daily +domestic life. See, for instance, at the British Museum, Trypho,-- +"the son of Eutychus," one of the very pleasantest human likenesses +there, though it came from a cemetery--a son it was hard to leave in +it at nineteen or twenty. With all the suppleness, the delicate +muscularity, of the flower of his youth, his handsome face sweetened +by a kind and simple heart, in motion, surely, he steps forth from +some shadowy chamber, strigil in hand, as of old, and with his coarse +towel or cloak of monumental drapery over one shoulder. But whither +precisely, you may ask, and as what, is he moving there in the +doorway? Well! in effect, certainly, it is the memory of the dead +lad, emerging thus from his tomb,--the still active soul, or +permanent thought, of him, as he most liked to be. + +The Harpy Tomb, so called from its mysterious winged creatures with +human faces, carrying the little shrouded souls of the dead, is a +work many generations earlier than that graceful monument of Trypho. +It was from an ancient cemetery at Xanthus in Lycia that it came to +the British Museum. The Lycians were not a Greek people; but, as +happened even with "barbarians" dwelling on the coast of Asia Minor, +they became lovers of the Hellenic culture, and Xanthus, their +capital, as may be judged from the beauty of its ruins, managed to +have a considerable portion in Greek art, though infusing it [273] +with a certain Asiatic colour. The frugally designed frieze of the +Harpy Tomb, in the lowest possible relief, might fairly be placed +between the monuments of Assyria and those primitive Greek works +among which it now actually stands. The stiffly ranged figures in +any other than strictly archaic work would seem affected. But what +an undercurrent of refined sentiment, presumably not Asiatic, not +"barbaric," lifting those who felt thus about death so early into the +main stream of Greek humanity, and to a level of visible refinement +in execution duly expressive of it! + +In that old burial-place of Xanthus, then, a now nameless family, or +a single bereaved member of it, represented there as a diminutive +figure crouching on the earth in sorrow, erected this monument, so +full of family sentiment, and of so much value as illustrating what +is for us a somewhat empty period in the history of Greek art, +strictly so called. Like the less conspicuously adorned tombs around +it, like the tombs in Homer, it had the form of a tower--a square +tower about twenty-four feet high, hollowed at the top into a small +chamber, for the reception, through a little doorway, of the urned +ashes of the dead. Four sculptured slabs were placed at this level +on the four sides of the tower in the manner of a frieze. I said +that the winged creatures with human faces carry the little souls of +the dead. The interpretation of these mystic [274] imageries is, in +truth, debated. But in face of them, and remembering how the +sculptors and glass-painters of the Middle Age constantly represented +the souls of the dead as tiny bodies, one can hardly doubt as to the +meaning of these particular details which, repeated on every side, +seem to give the key-note of the whole composition.* Those infernal, +or celestial, birds, indeed, are not true to what is understood to be +the harpy form. Call them sirens, rather. People, and not only old +people, as you know, appear sometimes to have been quite charmed away +by what dismays most of us. The tiny shrouded figures which the +sirens carry are carried very tenderly, and seem to yearn in their +turn towards those kindly nurses as they pass on their way to a new +world. Their small stature, as I said, does not prove them infants, +but only new-born into that other life, and contrasts their +helplessness with the powers, the great presences, now around them. +A cow, far enough from Myron's famous illusive animal, suckles her +calf. She is [275] one of almost any number of artistic symbols of +new-birth, of the renewal of life, drawn from a world which is, after +all, so full of it. On one side sits enthroned, as some have +thought, the Goddess of Death; on the opposite side the Goddess of +Life, with her flowers and fruit. Towards her three young maidens +are advancing--were they still alive thus, graceful, virginal, with +their long, plaited hair, and long, delicately-folded tunics, looking +forward to carry on their race into the future? Presented severally, +on the other sides of the dark hollow within, three male persons--a +young man, an old man, and a boy--seem to be bringing home, somewhat +wearily, to their "long home," the young man, his armour, the boy, +and the old man, like old Socrates, the mortuary cock, as they +approach some shadowy, ancient deity of the tomb, or it may be the +throned impersonation of their "fathers of old." The marble surface +was coloured, at least in part, with fixtures of metal here and +there. The designer, whoever he may have been, was possessed +certainly of some tranquillising second thoughts concerning death, +which may well have had their value for mourners; and he has +expressed those thoughts, if lispingly, yet with no faults of +commission, with a befitting grace, and, in truth, at some points, +with something already of a really Hellenic definition and vigour. +He really speaks to us in his work, through his symbolic and [276] +imitative figures,--speaks to our intelligence persuasively. The +surviving thought of the lad Trypho, returning from his tomb to the +living, was of athletic character; how he was and looked when in the +flower of his strength. And it is not of the dead but of the living, +who look and are as he, that the artistic genius of this period is +full. It is a period, truly, not of battles, such as those +commemorated in the Marbles of Aegina, but of more peaceful contests- +-at Olympia, at the Isthmus, at Delphi--the glories of which Pindar +sang in language suggestive of a sort of metallic beauty, firmly cut +and embossed, like crowns of wild olive, of parsley and bay, in crisp +gold. First, however, it had been necessary that Greece should win +its liberty, political standing-ground, and a really social air to +breathe in, with development of the youthful limbs. Of this process +Athens was the chief scene; and the earliest notable presentment of +humanity by Athenian art was in celebration of those who had +vindicated liberty with their lives--two youths again, in a real +incident, which had, however, the quality of a poetic invention, +turning, as it did, on that ideal or romantic friendship which was +characteristic of the Greeks. + +With something, perhaps, of hieratic convention, yet presented as +they really were, as friends and admirers loved to think of them, +[277] Harmodius and Aristogeiton stood, then, soon after their heroic +death, side by side in bronze, the work of Antenor, in a way not to +be forgotten, when, thirty years afterwards, a foreign tyrant, +Xerxes, carried them away to Persia. Kritios and Nesistes were, +therefore, employed for a reproduction of them, which would naturally +be somewhat more advanced in style. In its turn this also +disappeared. The more curious student, however, would still fancy he +saw the trace of it--of that copy, or of the original, afterwards +restored to Athens--here or there, on vase or coin. But in fact the +very images of the heroic youths were become but ghosts, haunting the +story of Greek art, till they found or seemed to find a body once +more when, not many years since, an acute observer detected, as he +thought, in a remarkable pair of statues in the Museum of Naples, if +freed from incorrect restorations and rightly set together, a +veritable descendant from the original work of Antenor. With all +their truth to physical form and movement, with a conscious mastery +of delineation, they were, nevertheless, in certain details, in the +hair, for instance, archaic, or rather archaistic--designedly +archaic, as from the hand of a workman, for whom, in this subject, +archaism, the very touch of the ancient master, had a sentimental or +even a religious value. And unmistakeably they were young assassins, +moving, with more than fraternal unity, the younger in advance of and +covering [278] the elder, according to the account given by +Herodotus, straight to their purpose;--against two wicked brothers, +as you remember, two good friends, on behalf of the dishonoured +sister of one of them. + +Archaeologists have loved to adjust them tentatively, with various +hypotheses as to the precise manner in which they thus went together. +Meantime they have figured plausibly as representative of Attic +sculpture at the end of its first period, still immature indeed, but +with a just claim to take breath, so to speak, having now +accomplished some stades of the journey. Those young heroes of +Athenian democracy, then, indicate already what place Athens and +Attica will occupy in the supreme age of art soon to come; indicate +also the subject from which that age will draw the main stream of its +inspiration--living youth, "iconic" in its exact portraiture, or +"heroic" as idealised in various degrees under the influence of great +thoughts about it--youth in its self-denying contention towards great +effects; great intrinsically, as at Marathon, or when Harmodius and +Aristogeiton fell, or magnified by the force and splendour of Greek +imagination with the stimulus of the national games. For the most +part, indeed, it is not with youth taxed spasmodically, like that of +Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and the "necessity" that was upon it, +that the Athenian mind and heart are now busied; but with youth [279] +in its voluntary labours, its habitual and measured discipline, +labour for its own sake, or in wholly friendly contest for prizes +which in reality borrow all their value from the quality of the +receiver. + +We are with Pindar, you see, in this athletic age of Greek sculpture. +It is the period no longer of battle against a foreign foe, recalling +the Homeric ideal, nor against the tyrant at home, fixing a dubious +ideal for the future, but of peaceful combat as a fine art--pulvis +Olympicus. Anticipating the arts, poetry, a generation before Myron +and Polycleitus, had drawn already from the youthful combatants in +the great national games the motives of those Odes, the bracing words +of which, as I said, are like work in fine bronze, or, as Pindar +himself suggests, in ivory and gold. Sung in the victor's supper- +room, or at the door of his abode, or with the lyre and the pipe as +they took him home in procession through the streets, or commemorated +the happy day, or in a temple where he laid up his crown, Pindar's +songs bear witness to the pride of family or township in the physical +perfection of son or citizen, and his consequent success in the long +or the short foot-race, or the foot-race in armour, or the +pentathlon, or any part of it. "Now on one, now on another," as the +poet tells, "doth the grace that quickeneth (quickeneth, literally, +on the race-course) look favourably." Ariston hydôr+ he declares +indeed, and the actual prize, as we know, was in itself of little or +no worth--a [280] cloak, in the Athenian games, but at the greater +games a mere handful of parsley, a few sprigs of pine or wild olive. +The prize has, so to say, only an intellectual or moral value. Yet +actually Pindar's own verse is all of gold and wine and flowers, is +itself avowedly a flower, or "liquid nectar," or "the sweet fruit of +his soul to men that are winners in the games." "As when from a +wealthy hand one lifting a cup, made glad within with the dew of the +vine, maketh gift thereof to a youth":--the keynote of Pindar's verse +is there! This brilliant living youth of his day, of the actual +time, for whom, as he says, he "awakes the clear-toned gale of song"- +-epeôn hoimon ligyn+--that song mingles sometimes with the splendours +of a recorded ancient lineage, or with the legendary greatness of a +remoter past, its gods and heroes, patrons or ancestors, it might be, +of the famous young man of the hour, or with the glory and solemnity +of the immortals themselves taking a share in mortal contests. On +such pretext he will tell a new story, or bring to its last +perfection by his manner of telling it, his pregnancy and studied +beauty of expression, an old one. The tale of Castor and Polydeukes, +the appropriate patrons of virginal yet virile youth, starred and +mounted, he tells in all its human interest. + +"Ample is the glory stored up for Olympian winners." And what +Pindar's contemporaries asked of him for the due appreciation, the +[281] consciousness, of it, by way of song, that the next generation +sought, by way of sculptural memorial in marble, and above all, as it +seems, in bronze. The keen demand for athletic statuary, the honour +attached to the artist employed to make his statue at Olympia, or at +home, bear witness again to the pride with which a Greek town, the +pathos, it might be, with which a family, looked back to the victory +of one of its members. In the courts of Olympia a whole population +in marble and bronze gathered quickly,--a world of portraits, out of +which, as the purged and perfected essence, the ideal soul, of them, +emerged the Diadumenus, for instance, the Discobolus, the so-called +Jason of the Louvre. Olympia was in truth, as Pindar says again, a +mother of gold-crowned contests, the mother of a large offspring. +All over Greece the enthusiasm for gymnastic, for the life of the +gymnasia, prevailed. It was a gymnastic which, under the happy +conditions of that time, was already surely what Plato pleads for, +already one half music, mousikê,+ a matter, partly, of character and +of the soul, of the fair proportion between soul and body, of the +soul with itself. Who can doubt it who sees and considers the still +irresistible grace, the contagious pleasantness, of the Discobolus, +the Diadumenus, and a few other precious survivals from the athletic +age which immediately preceded the manhood of Pheidias, between the +Persian and the Peloponnesian wars? + +[282] Now, this predominance of youth, of the youthful form, in art, +of bodily gymnastic promoting natural advantages to the utmost, of +the physical perfection developed thereby, is a sign that essential +mastery has been achieved by the artist--the power, that is to say, +of a full and free realisation. For such youth, in its very essence, +is a matter properly within the limits of the visible, the empirical, +world; and in the presentment of it there will be no place for +symbolic hint, none of that reliance on the helpful imagination of +the spectator, the legitimate scope of which is a large one, when art +is dealing with religious objects, with what in the fulness of its +own nature is not really expressible at all. In any passable +representation of the Greek discobolus, as in any passable +representation of an English cricketer, there can be no successful +evasion of the natural difficulties of the thing to be done--the +difficulties of competing with nature itself, or its maker, in that +marvellous combination of motion and rest, of inward mechanism with +the so smoothly finished surface and outline--finished ad unguem-- +which enfold it. + +Of the gradual development of such mastery of natural detail, a +veritable counterfeit of nature, the veritable rhythmus of the +runner, for example--twinkling heel and ivory shoulder--we have hints +and traces in the historians of art. One had attained the very turn +and texture of the [283] crisp locks, another the very feel of the +tense nerve and full-flushed vein, while with another you saw the +bosom of Ladas expand, the lips part, as if for a last breath ere he +reached the goal. It was like a child finding little by little the +use of its limbs, the testimony of its senses, at a definite moment. +With all its poetic impulse, it is an age clearly of faithful +observation, of what we call realism, alike in its iconic and heroic +work; alike in portraiture, that is to say, and in the presentment of +divine or abstract types. Its workmen are close students now of the +living form as such; aim with success at an ever larger and more +various expression of its details; or replace a conventional +statement of them by a real and lively one. That it was thus is +attested indirectly by the fact that they busied themselves, +seemingly by way of a tour de force, and with no essential interest +in such subject, alien as it was from the pride of health which is +characteristic of the gymnastic life, with the expression of physical +pain, in Philoctetes, for instance. The adroit, the swift, the +strong, in full and free exercise of their gifts, to the delight of +others and of themselves, though their sculptural record has for the +most part perished, are specified in ancient literary notices as the +sculptor's favourite subjects, repeated, remodelled, over and over +again, for the adornment of the actual scene of athletic success, or +the market-place at home of the distant Northern or Sicilian town +[284] whence the prizeman had come.--A countless series of popular +illustrations to Pindar's Odes! And if art was still to minister to +the religious sense, it could only be by clothing celestial spirits +also as nearly as possible in the bodily semblance of the various +athletic combatants, whose patrons respectively they were supposed to +be. + +The age to which we are come in the story of Greek art presents to us +indeed only a chapter of scattered fragments, of names that are +little more, with but surmise of their original significance, and +mere reasonings as to the sort of art that may have occupied what are +really empty spaces. Two names, however, connect themselves +gloriously with certain extant works of art; copies, it is true, at +various removes, yet copies of what is still found delightful through +them, and by copyists who for the most part were themselves masters. +Through the variations of the copyist, the restorer, the mere +imitator, these works are reducible to two famous original types--the +Discobolus or quoit-player, of Myron, the beau idéal (we may use that +term for once justly) of athletic motion; and the Diadumenus of +Polycleitus, as, binding the fillet or crown of victory upon his +head, he presents the beau idéal of athletic repose, and almost +begins to think. + +Myron was a native of Eleutherae, and a pupil of Ageladas of Argos. +There is nothing more to tell by way of positive detail of this so +famous [285] artist, save that the main scene of his activity was +Athens, now become the centre of the artistic as of all other modes +of life in Greece. Multiplicasse veritatem videtur, says Pliny. He +was in fact an earnest realist or naturalist, and rose to central +perfection in the portraiture, the idealised portraiture, of athletic +youth, from a mastery first of all in the delineation of inferior +objects, of little lifeless or living things. Think, however, for a +moment, how winning such objects are still, as presented on Greek +coins;--the ear of corn, for instance, on those of Metapontum; the +microscopic cockle-shell, the dolphins, on the coins of Syracuse. +Myron, then, passes from pleasant truth of that kind to the +delineation of the worthier sorts of animal life,--the ox, the dog-- +to nothing short of illusion in the treatment of them, as ancient +connoisseurs would have you understand. It is said that there are +thirty-six extant epigrams on his brazen cow. That animal has her +gentle place in Greek art, from the Siren tomb, suckling her young +there, as the type of eternal rejuvenescence, onwards to the +procession of the Elgin frieze, where, still breathing deliciously of +the distant pastures, she is led to the altar. We feel sorry for +her, as we look, so lifelike is the carved marble. The sculptor who +worked there, whoever he may have been, had profited doubtless by the +study of Myron's famous work. For what purpose he made it, does not +appear;--as [286] an architectural ornament; or a votive offering; +perhaps only because he liked making it. In hyperbolic epigram, at +any rate, the animal breathes, explaining sufficiently the point of +Pliny's phrase regarding Myron--Corporum curiosus. And when he came +to his main business with the quoit-player, the wrestler, the runner, +he did not for a moment forget that they too were animals, young +animals, delighting in natural motion, in free course through the +yielding air, over uninterrupted space, according to Aristotle's +definition of pleasure: "the unhindered exercise of one's natural +force." Corporum tenus curiosus:--he was a "curious workman" as far +as the living body is concerned. Pliny goes on to qualify that +phrase by saying that he did not express the sensations of the mind-- +animi sensus. But just there, in fact, precisely in such limitation, +we find what authenticates Myron's peculiar value in the evolution of +Greek art. It is of the essence of the athletic prizeman, involved +in the very ideal of the quoit-player, the cricketer, not to give +expression to mind, in any antagonism to, or invasion of, the body; +to mind as anything more than a function of the body, whose healthful +balance of functions it may so easily perturb;--to disavow that +insidious enemy of the fairness of the bodily soul as such. + +Yet if the art of Myron was but little occupied with the reasonable +soul (animus), with those mental situations the expression of which, +though [287] it may have a pathos and a beauty of its own, is for the +most part adverse to the proper expression of youth, to the beauty of +youth, by causing it to be no longer youthful, he was certainly a +master of the animal or physical soul there (anima); how it is, how +it displays itself, as illustrated, for instance, in the Discobolus. +Of voluntary animal motion the very soul is undoubtedly there. We +have but translations into marble of the original in bronze. In +that, it was as if a blast of cool wind had congealed the metal, or +the living youth, fixed him imperishably in that moment of rest which +lies between two opposed motions, the backward swing of the right +arm, the movement forwards on which the left foot is in the very act +of starting. The matter of the thing, the stately bronze or marble, +thus rests indeed; but the artistic form of it, in truth, scarcely +more, even to the eye, than the rolling ball or disk, may be said to +rest, at every moment of its course,--just metaphysically, you know. + +This mystery of combined motion and rest, of rest in motion, had +involved, of course, on the part of the sculptor who had mastered its +secret, long and intricate consideration. Archaic as it is, +primitive still in some respects, full of the primitive youth it +celebrates, it is, in fact, a learned work, and suggested to a great +analyst of literary style, singular as it may seem, the "elaborate" +or "contorted" manner in literature [288] of the later Latin +writers, which, however, he finds "laudable" for its purpose. Yet +with all its learned involution, thus so oddly characterised by +Quintilian, so entirely is this quality subordinated to the proper +purpose of the Discobolus as a work of art, a thing to be looked at +rather than to think about, that it makes one exclaim still, with the +poet of athletes,--The natural is ever best!"--to de phya hapan +kratiston.+ Perhaps that triumphant, unimpeachable naturalness is +after all the reason why, on seeing it for the first time, it +suggests no new view of the beauty of human form, or point of view +for the regarding of it; is acceptable rather as embodying (say, in +one perfect flower) all one has ever fancied or seen, in old Greece +or on Thames' side, of the unspoiled body of youth, thus delighting +itself and others, at that perfect, because unconscious, point of +good-fortune, as it moves or rests just there for a moment, between +the animal and spiritual worlds. "Grant them," you pray in Pindar's +own words, grant them with feet so light to pass through life!" + +The face of the young man, as you see him in the British Museum for +instance, with fittingly inexpressive expression, (look into, look at +the curves of, the blossom-like cavity of the opened mouth) is +beautiful, but not altogether virile. The eyes, the facial lines +which they gather into one, seem ready to follow the coming motion of +the discus as those of an onlooker might be; [289] but that head does +not really belong to the discobolus. To be assured of this you have +but to compare with that version in the British Museum the most +authentic of all derivations from the original, preserved till lately +at the Palazzo Massimi in Rome. Here, the vigorous head also, with +the face, smooth enough, but spare, and tightly drawn over muscle and +bone, is sympathetic with, yields itself to, the concentration, in +the most literal sense, of all beside;--is itself, in very truth, the +steady centre of the discus, which begins to spin; as the source of +will, the source of the motion with which the discus is already on +the wing,--that, and the entire form. The Discobolus of the Massimi +Palace presents, moreover, in the hair, for instance, those survivals +of primitive manner which would mark legitimately Myron's actual pre- +Pheidiac standpoint; as they are congruous also with a certain +archaic, a more than merely athletic, spareness of form generally-- +delightful touches of unreality in this realist of a great time, and +of a sort of conventionalism that has an attraction in itself. + +Was it a portrait? That one can so much as ask the question is a +proof how far the master, in spite of his lingering archaism, is come +already from the antique marbles of Aegina. Was it the portrait of +one much-admired youth, or rather the type, the rectified essence, of +many such, at the most pregnant, the essential, moment, of the [290] +exercise of their natural powers, of what they really were? Have we +here, in short, the sculptor Myron's reasoned memory of many a quoit- +player, of a long flight of quoit-players; as, were he here, he might +have given us the cricketer, the passing generation of cricketers, +sub specie eternitatis, under the eternal form of art? + +Was it in that case a commemorative or votive statue, such as +Pausanias found scattered throughout Greece? Was it, again, designed +to be part only of some larger decorative scheme, as some have +supposed of the Venus of Melos, or a work of genre as we say, a thing +intended merely to interest, to gratify the taste, with no further +purpose? In either case it may have represented some legendary +quoit-player--Perseus at play with Acrisius fatally, as one has +suggested; or Apollo with Hyacinthus, as Ovid describes him in a work +of poetic genre. + +And if the Discobolus is, after all, a work of genre--a work merely +imitative of the detail of actual life--for the adornment of a room +in a private house, it would be only one of many such produced in +Myron's day. It would be, in fact, one of the pristae directly +attributed to him by Pliny, little congruous as they may seem with +the grandiose motions of his more characteristic work. The pristae, +the sawyers,--a celebrated creation of the kind,--is supposed to have +given its name to the whole class of like things. No [291] age, +indeed, since the rudiments of art were mastered, can have been +without such reproductions of the pedestrian incidents of every day, +for the mere pleasant exercise at once of the curiosity of the +spectator and the imitative instinct of the producer. The Terra- +Cotta Rooms of the Louvre and the British Museum are a proof of it. +One such work indeed there is, delightful in itself, technically +exquisite, most interesting by its history, which properly finds its +place beside the larger, the full-grown, physical perfection of the +Discobolus, one of whose alert younger brethren he may be,--the +Spinario namely, the boy drawing a thorn from his foot, preserved in +the so rare, veritable antique bronze at Rome, in the Museum of the +Capitol, and well known in a host of ancient and modern +reproductions. + +There, or elsewhere in Rome, tolerated in the general destruction of +ancient sculpture--like the "Wolf of the Capitol," allowed by way of +heraldic sign, as in modern Siena, or like the equestrian figure of +Marcus Aurelius doing duty as Charlemagne,--like those, but like very +few other works of the kind, the Spinario remained, well-known and in +honour, throughout the Middle Age. Stories like that of Ladas the +famous runner, who died as he reached the goal in a glorious foot- +race of boys, the subject of a famous work by Myron himself, (the +"last breath," as you saw, was on the boy's lips) were told of the +half-grown bronze lad at the Capitol. [292] Of necessity, but +fatally, he must pause for a few moments in his course; or the course +is at length over, or the breathless journey with some all-important +tidings; and now, not till now, he thinks of resting to draw from the +sole of his foot the cruel thorn, driven into it as he ran. In any +case, there he still sits for a moment, for ever, amid the smiling +admiration of centuries, in the agility, in the perfect naïveté also +as thus occupied, of his sixteenth year, to which the somewhat +lengthy or attenuated structure of the limbs is conformable. And +then, in this attenuation, in the almost Egyptian proportions, in the +shallowness of the chest and shoulders especially, in the Phoenician +or old Greek sharpness and length of profile, and the long, +conventional, wire-drawn hair of the boy, arching formally over the +forehead and round the neck, there is something of archaism, of that +archaism which survives, truly, in Myron's own work, blending with +the grace and power of well-nigh the maturity of Greek art. The +blending of interests, of artistic alliances, is certainly +delightful. + +Polycleitus, the other famous name of this period, and with a fame +justified by work we may still study, at least in its immediate +derivatives, had also tried his hand with success in such subjects. +In the Astragalizontes, for instance, well known to antiquity in +countless reproductions, he had treated an incident of the every-day +life of every age, which Plato sketches by the way. + +[293] Myron, by patience of genius, had mastered the secret of the +expression of movement, had plucked out the very heart of its +mystery. Polycleitus, on the other hand, is above all the master of +rest, of the expression of rest after toil, in the victorious and +crowned athlete, Diadumenus. In many slightly varying forms, marble +versions of the original in bronze of Delos, the Diadumenus, +indifferently, mechanically, is binding round his head a ribbon or +fillet. In the Vaison copy at the British Museum it was of silver. +That simple fillet is, in fact, a diadem, a crown, and he assumes it +as a victor; but, as I said, mechanically, and, prize in hand, might +be asking himself whether after all it had been worth while. For the +active beauty of the Agonistes of which Myron's art is full, we have +here, then, the passive beauty of the victor. But the later +incident, the realisation of rest, is actually in affinity with a +certain earliness, so to call it, in the temper and work of +Polycleitus. He is already something of a reactionary; or pauses, +rather, to enjoy, to convey enjoyably to others, the full savour of a +particular moment in the development of his craft, the moment of the +perfecting of restful form, before the mere consciousness of +technical mastery in delineation urges forward the art of sculpture +to a bewildering infinitude of motion. In opposition to the ease, +the freedom, of others, his aim is, by a voluntary restraint in the +exercise of such technical mastery, [294] to achieve nothing less +than the impeccable, within certain narrow limits. He still +hesitates, is self-exacting, seems even to have checked a growing +readiness of hand in the artists about him. He was renowned as a +graver, found much to do with the chisel, introducing many a fine +after-thought, when the rough-casting of his work was over. He +studied human form under such conditions as would bring out its +natural features, its static laws, in their entirety, their harmony; +and in an academic work, so to speak, no longer to be clearly +identified in what may be derivations from it, he claimed to have +fixed the canon, the common measure, of perfect man. Yet with +Polycleitus certainly the measure of man was not yet "the measure of +an angel," but still only that of mortal youth; of youth, however, in +that scrupulous and uncontaminate purity of form which recommended +itself even to the Greeks as befitting messengers from the gods, if +such messengers should come. + +And yet a large part of Myron's contemporary fame depended on his +religious work--on his statue of Here, for instance, in ivory and +gold--that too, doubtless, expressive, as appropriately to its +subject as to himself, of a passive beauty. We see it still, +perhaps, in the coins of Argos. And has not the crowned victor, too, +in that mechanic action, in his demure attitude, something which +reminds us of the religious significance of the Greek athletic +service? It was a [295] sort of worship, you know--that department +of public life; such worship as Greece, still in its superficial +youth, found itself best capable of. At least those solemn contests +began and ended with prayer and sacrifice. Their most honoured +prizes were a kind of religiously symbolical objects. The athletic +life certainly breathes of abstinence, of rule and the keeping under +of one's self. And here in the Diadumenus we have one of its +priests, a priest of the religion whose central motive was what has +been called "the worship of the body,"--its modest priest. + +The so-called Jason at the Louvre, the, Apoxyomenus, and a certain +number of others you will meet with from time to time--whatever be +the age and derivation of the actual marble which reproduced for +Rome, for Africa, or Gaul, types that can have had their first origin +in one only time and place--belong, at least aesthetically, to this +group, together with the Adorante of Berlin, Winckelmann's antique +favourite, who with uplifted face and hands seems to be indeed in +prayer, looks immaculate enough to be interceding for others. As to +the Jason of the Louvre, one asks at first sight of him, as he stoops +to make fast the sandal on his foot, whether the young man can be +already so marked a personage. Is he already the approved hero, bent +on some great act of his famous epopée; or mere youth only, again, +arraying itself mechanically, but alert in eye and soul, prompt to be +roused to any [296] great action whatever? The vaguely opened lips +certainly suggest the latter view; if indeed the body and the head +(in a different sort of marble) really belong to one another. Ah! +the more closely you consider the fragments of antiquity, those stray +letters of the old Greek aesthetic alphabet, the less positive will +your conclusions become, because less conclusive the data regarding +artistic origin and purpose. Set here also, however, to the end that +in a congruous atmosphere, in a real perspective, they may assume +their full moral and aesthetic expression, whatever of like spirit +you may come upon in Greek or any other work, remembering that in +England also, in Oxford, we have still, for any master of such art +that may be given us, subjects truly "made to his hand." + +As with these, so with their prototypes at Olympia, or at the +Isthmus, above all perhaps in the Diadumenus of Polycleitus, a +certain melancholy (a pagan melancholy, it may be rightly called, +even when we detect it in our English youth) is blent with the final +impression we retain of them. They are at play indeed, in the sun; +but a little cloud passes over it now and then; and just because of +them, because they are there, the whole aspect of the place is +chilled suddenly, beyond what one could have thought possible, into +what seems, nevertheless, to be the proper and permanent light of +day. For though they pass on from age to age the [297] type of what +is pleasantest to look on, which, as type, is indeed eternal, it is, +of course, but for an hour that it rests with any one of them +individually. Assuredly they have no maladies of soul any more than +of the body--Animi sensus non expressit. But if they are not yet +thinking, there is the capacity of thought, of painful thought, in +them, as they seem to be aware wistfully. In the Diadumenus of +Polycleitus this expression allies itself to the long-drawn facial +type of his preference, to be found also in another very different +subject, the ideal of which he fixed in Greek sculpture--the would-be +virile Amazon, in exquisite pain, alike of body and soul--the +"Wounded Amazon." We may be reminded that in the first mention of +athletic contests in Greek literature--in the twenty-third book of +the Iliad--they form part of the funeral rites of the hero Patroclus. +It is thus, though but in the faintest degree, even with the +veritable prince of that world of antique bronze and marble, the +Discobolus at Rest of the Vatican, which might well be set where +Winckelmann set the Adorante, representing as it probably does, the +original of Alcamenes, in whom, a generation after Pheidias, an +earlier and more earnest spirit still survived. Although the crisply +trimmed head may seem a little too small to our, perhaps not quite +rightful, eyes, we might accept him for that canon, or measure, of +the perfect human form, which [298] Polycleitus had proposed. He is +neither the victor at rest, as with Polycleitus, nor the combatant +already in motion, as with Myron; but, as if stepping backward from +Myron's precise point ofinterest, and with the heavydiscusstill in +the left hand, he is preparing for his venture, taking stand +carefully on the right foot. Eye and mind concentre, loyally, +entirely, upon the business in hand. The very finger is reckoning +while he watches, intent upon the cast of another, as the metal +glides to the goal. Take him, to lead you forth quite out of the +narrow limits of the Greek world. You have pure humanity there, with +a glowing, yet restrained joy and delight in itself, but without +vanity; and it is pure. There is nothing certainly supersensual in +that fair, round head, any more than in the long, agile limbs; but +also no impediment, natural or acquired. To have achieved just that, +was the Greek's truest claim for furtherance in the main line of +human development. He had been faithful, we cannot help saying, as +we pass from that youthful company, in what comparatively is perhaps +little--in the culture, the administration, of the visible world; and +he merited, so we might go on to say--he merited Revelation, +something which should solace his heart in the inevitable fading of +that. We are reminded of those strange prophetic words of the +Wisdom, the Logos, by whom God made the world, in one of [299] the +sapiential, half-Platonic books of the Hebrew Scriptures:--"I was by +him, as one brought up with him; rejoicing in the habitable parts of +the earth. My delights were with the sons of men."+ + +NOTES + +271. +Transliteration: tymbos amphipolos. Translation: "a much +frequented tomb." + +274. In some fine reliefs of the thirteenth century, Jesus himself +draws near to the deathbed of his Mother. The soul has already +quitted her body, and is seated, a tiny crowned figure, on his left +arm (as she had carried Him) to be taken to heaven. In the beautiful +early fourteenth century monument of Aymer de Valence at Westminster, +the soul of the deceased, "a small figure wrapped in a mantle," is +supported by two angels at the head of the tomb. Among many similar +instances may be mentioned the soul of the beggar, Lazarus, on a +carved capital at Vézélay; and the same subject in a coloured window +at Bourges. The clean, white little creature seems glad to escape +from the body, tattooed all over with its sores in a regular pattern. + +279. +Transliteration: Ariston hydôr. Translation: "Water is best..." +The ode goes on to praise the Olympic contests. Pindar, Odes, +Book O, poem 1, line 1. The Odes of Pindar including the Principal +Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John +Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Sir John Sandys. Cambridge, MA., Harvard +University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937. + +280. +Transliteration: epeôn hoimon ligyn. Translation: "the clear +strain of words [i.e. song]." Pindar, Odes, Book O., poem 9, line +47. See page 279 note for reference. + +281. +Transliteration: mousikê. Liddell and Scott definition: "any +art over which the Muses presided, esp. music or lyric poetry set and +sung to music...." + +288. +Transliteration: to de phya hapan kratiston. Pater's translation: +"The natural is ever best!" Pindar, Odes, Book O., poem 9, line 100. +See See page 279 note for reference. + +299. +Proverbs 8.30-31. + +THE END + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Greek Studies: A Series of Essays +by Walter Horatio Pater + diff --git a/4035-8.zip b/4035-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4d451c --- /dev/null +++ b/4035-8.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef08923 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #4035 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4035) |