Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

is thus Aryan and Hellenik; and is yet singularly connected in origin with the cult of a Semitic divinity of the Outer-world, for had Dionysos remained what he once was, a stranger to the shores of the Aigaion, the theatre, whatever form it might have assumed, would never have known him as its patron. The question why the Drama became a fact in Hellas, and was almost unknown elsewhere, has often been considered; it depends on ethnic characteristics, and is not to our present purpose.

Thus was Dionysos the fountain alike of Tragedy and of Comedy; the Drama formed a part of his worship, and the Theatre was his temple. In this large stone Dionysiak shrine at Athenai, which was finished about B.C. 380, and stood a little south of the Akropolis, almost the entire population assembled to celebrate the dramatic cult of the god from dawn to dark on the occasion of the production of the new pieces at the Lenaia and the Dionysia Megala. The actors generally performed not in what we should consider appropriate costumes, but in modifications of the festal robes worn in the Dionysian procession,'1 which were of bright and gaudy hues, the under garments having coloured stripes and the upper robes of purple or some other brilliant colour, with all sorts of gay trimmings and gold ornaments, the ordinary dress of Bacchic festal processions and choral dances; in fact, remnants of barbaric splendour and Oriental magnificence.3 Euripides, who was a striver after a certain kind of reality, ventured to allow his tragic heroes to appear in rags, and he incurred by this departure from Bacchic magnificence the keenest ridicule of his comic contemporaries.' The stage character of the tragic Dionysos has been already noticed. The Dionysos of Comedy is chiefly known to us from the Batrachoi of

1 Theatre of the Greeks, 211.
2 Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr., i. 296.

3 Vide inf. VIII. i. Aiolomorpho 8. 4 Theatre of the Greeks, 254.

Aristophanes. He is cowardly and effeminate, but quickwitted, and a good judge of poetry; and, as the patron and lord of the Drama, is appropriately appointed arbiter by Aïdes of the great question whether Euripides should eject Aischylos from the tragic throne of the Under-world. His decision is in favour of the greater poet, and posterity, that highest court of appeal, has in its ultimate judgment confirmed the verdict. In illustration of the connection between Dionysos and the Drama, Aischylos is said to have written his tragedies at the command of the god, who appeared to him in a dream, and who is also said to have shown himself at the time of the death of Sophokles.1

6

To conclude, the Drama, like Dionysos, has two faces. one raised to heaven, the other bent ever upon the earth The former reflects the blue eyes of Athene, the latter the fierce, gloating gaze of the Earth-god. And in life this last predominates. Greatly as the Greeks succeeded in the Beautiful, and even in the Moral, we can concede to their culture,' says Schlegel, no higher character than that of a refined and dignified sensuality.' Is our present condition very much superior? I do not undertake to answer the question; but let it be remembered that Dionysos, changed in the Middle Ages into S. Denys, has ever ruled and reigned with undiminished sway in countless temples, whose Bakchik cults are infinitely lower than the grand ritual exhibited of old to the Athenians. No mightier engine for good than the Drama, properly applied, can well be imagined: its patrons should do their utmost to reform it altogether; to purge away those taints

1 Paus. i. 21.

2 Cf. S. Sabas, i.e. Sabazios, whose festival is on Dec. 5, S. Mithra of Arles, S. Amour, S. Ysis (Nov. 27), S. Saturnin (Nov. 29), S. Satur the Martyr (March 29), S. Bacchus the Martyr, S. Dionysius, S. Eleuther, and S. Rusticus (Oct. 9), i.e. 'Festum

Dionysi Eleutherei (vide inf. VIII. i. Eleuthereus) rusticum.' At the triumph of Christianity 'the gods of Greece and Rome went into exile -either degraded into evil spirit or promoted into Christian saints' (Deutsch, Literary Remains, 182).

of the earth-life which have so long stained it that they falsely appear to be all but inseparable. The Athenians were wont to hear in solemn state the last great tragedy of the day, the purgation of Orestes, or the woes of Oidipous, as a message from the gods with whom alone dwells understanding, and who breathe into the divine. poet his star-lit wisdom and aid his mortal harp to echo the eternal music. As for ourselves, unable to write tragedies, or indeed comedies either, it is at least left us to listen in a reverent spirit to the outpourings of vanished genius, and to support those who enable us to do so; and thus the Theatre of Dionysos will for us become not unhallowed ground.

CHAPTER VII.

DIONYSOS IN ART.

SECTION I.

VASES OF THE DIONYSIAK CYCLE.

THE Hellenik Vases, beautiful and remarkable in themselves, and of high value as assistants to the artist, the historian, the archaeologist, and the mythologist, do not nevertheless present much independent illustration of the concept of the central figure of the Dionysiak Myth. The Dionysos of the Vases is supplementary to, and illustrative of, the Dionysos of the Poets and Historians; and though the god of moisture, of water, and of wine, is naturally the protagonist on liquid-holding vessels, yet there is scarcely a feature in his character, or an incident in his life, illustrated or pourtrayed upon a Vase, which is otherwise unrecorded, and for acquaintance with which we are in debted to the potter alone. While the number of discovered Vases is immense,2 and the treatment of the subjects represented almost infinite in its variety, the subjects themselves are comparatively few. The great myths, the Gigantomachia, the Amazonomachia, the Wars of Thebai and Troia; the most prominent divinities, Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollon, Artemis, Athene, Eros, Hermes, Nike; the

1 Keramos, after whom the Kerameikos, or Potter's Quarter, was said to have been named, is called the son of Dionysos and Ariadne, inf. X. iii.

2 50,000, De Witte (Etudes, 4). 20,000 in collections, Birch (Ancient Pottery, 149).

Saviour-heroes, Herakles, Perseus, Theseus; and, more numerous and prominent than all, Dionysos and his train, appear again and again on the Vases, to the exclusion of an infinite number of subjects and personages deemed less worthy of delineation, and notably of scenes from actual history. Kroisos on the pyre; Homeros in the Samian pottery; Arkesilaos, king of Kyrene, weighing silphion; a love scene between Alkaios and Sappho; Anakreon the Reveller; and Dareios hunting; almost exhaust the undoubtedly historical subjects, and serve, by their introduction, to render the blank still more remarkable.

Although the Vases, the great majority of which belong to a comparatively late age, do not offer any very remarkable independent illustration of the origin and character of Dionysos, yet in as much and so far as their testimony extends, it is quite in accordance with that already adduced; and as Dionysiakal subjects form such an important feature in them, it would be improper to omit their notice from the enquiry. Here, as heretofore, it will be remembered that I am writing not of Art, but of Dionysos as he appears in it, and with special reference to his origin; and that, therefore, remarks upon the manufacture, classes, uses, and general history of the Vases, are in the main foreign to the present purpose. The Dionysiak Cycle forms the third of Millingen's well-known seven divisions of the Vases according to their subjects; and includes the History of Dionysos, the Satyroi, Seilenoi, Bakchai, Mainades, the Bakchik Thiasos, the ass Eraton, Dionysiak Festivals, processions, dances, mystic scenes, and general amusements. 'So numerous,' observes Dr. Birch, are the Vases upon which the subject of Dionysos and his train is depicted, that it is impossible to detail them all.' On them we see depicted his birth, childhood,

[ocr errors]

1 Anct. Pottery, 237.

« AnteriorContinuar »