XIX. On a camel, as the subduer of India.1-His beard is long and dress spotted; attendant Mainads bear tambourines and male followers thyrsos-spears. 'At Mr. Beckford's sale the late Duke of Hamilton gave 2001. for a small Vase with the subject of the Indian Bacchus.'2 XX. In orgiastic state, tearing a kid.3-He holds the two halves of the kid he has just torn asunder: hair ivy-crowned and long, as is his beard; a panther-skin knotted around his neck. XXI. Dancing with a Backche.-He is bearded, and both are clothed in the spotted bassaris.1 XXII. Warring with the Indians.5 XXIII. At the marriage of Thetis. XXIV. Presenting the vine." XXV. Teaching Oinopion to make wine. The god is long-haired, bearded, and ivy-crowned; in his right hand he gives the kanthar to Oinopion, and in his left holds four vine-branches. XXVI. Visiting Althaia.-A comic scene.9 XXVII. Received by Ikarios, an Athenian, who, according to the myth, welcomed him on his first arrival in Attike.10 XXVIII. As the inventor of Tragedy."The god, as in later representations, is youthful and beardless, and holds in his left hand a tragic mask: Nike crowns him with a wreath, and behind her stands Pan, youthful, beardless, and with little horns on his forehead, caressing the Iynx or Wryneck. This mysterious bird of love was peculiarly 1 Birch, Ancient Pottery, 438. Vide inf. IX. vii. Indoletes. 2 Ancient Pottery, 437. 3 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 788. Vide inf. IX. vi. Zagreus. 4 Kirk, Hamilton's lvii.; cf. No. XLIX. Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 811. 7 Passeri, Pict. Et. Pl. cciv. 8 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 554. 9 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 1438. 10 Ibid. Nos. 565, 577; cf. Paus. Vases, Pl. i. 23. • Revue Archéologique, 1863, 348. Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 1293. connected with the Semitic Aphrodite and with Adonis. So Pindaros : The Cyprian queen, whose hand Her mystic Iÿnx brought, the maddening Bird of Love.' 6 Iynx, according to one legend, was a daughter of Pan, who therefore is represented on the Vase in question as caressing her. She is also said to have been the daughter of Echo, or of Peitho (Persuasion), and to have been changed into a bird by Here, for having aided the loves of Zeus and Io.2 Another Vase3 represents Adonis holding out the Iynx in his right hand to Aphrodite, who is seated. The bird, which was so named from its cry, is described by the Scholiast as hairy, with a long neck and tongue, and possessing the power of rotating its head and neck. It is also said to have been tied to a wheel and whirled round to assist amorous incantations. There exists an ancient picture of the magic wheel, formed by fixing the bird by the extremities of its neck, tail, and two wings at equidistant points within a circle, of which it thus constitutes the spokes.' Pindaros calls it 'pied,' an epithet which, as applied to birds, corresponds with 'spotted,' which is appropriate to beasts only, and this forms a link in its Dionysiak character. Damis,' records Philostratus, 'saw four Iÿnges suspended from the ceiling of the Parthian King Bardanes, which was covered with lapis-lazuli, embossed with figures of the gods in gold.' Regarded in the Aryan aspect of the story, Iÿnx, daughter of Pan, the purifying Breeze, or of Echo, is the free lovelorn wind of night that shrouds Io the Moon from 'great Here's angry eyes,' while the Argicide slays the everwatchful guardian. But the wild bird of love, in Hellas 1 Pyth. iv. 214. King, Antique Gems and Rings, 2 Schol. in Pind. Nem. iv. 3 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat, No. 1356. 4 4 i. 381. 5 Ibid. identified with the wryneck, is also Semitically connected with the myth of Astarte-Semiramis of Askalon, the dove-nurtured and voluptuous,2 that Sammuramit who was changed into a dove, Semiramis in columbam,' 3 a bird sacred to Aphrodite, and whose nature was supposed to be shewn in its name; and hence belongs to the cycle of the Syrian Adonis, who is identical with Dionysos. On a beautiful Etruscan gold ring, a winged Venus, seated upon a myrtle-twined altar, holds forth by the tip of its wings this wonder working-bird.'5 Psyche Breath, is Anima the Soul, the true bride of Eros-Cupido; and the cluster of soul-words, spiritus, animus the mind, anima air, thyella storm wind, and thymos the soul, are from roots which in Sanskrit mean to blow, rush, and shake;" and Platon truly says, in the Kratylos, that the soul is so called 'from its raging and seething.' The soul,' the seat of the passions,' is thus depicted as the disturbed air troubled by joy or sorrow; and the transition in idea to the bird, and thence to the soul-bird, and the bird of passion, is most easy if not necessary, for 'passionate music is wind music,'' and the bird is the air incarnate.' So the soul and soul-passion are represented as a bird. In Kam, the Ba or Soul, for Bai is the Soul,'' was represented by a hawk with human head and arms; 10 and when in the Funereal Ritual the exhausted Uasarian recruits his failing energies with the water of life supplied by the goddess Nu, while he drinks his soul depicted as a human-headed bird, the usual emblem of the soul,' 11 drinks eagerly with him.12 And the human soul-bird is 6 '1 accompanied, in Kamic idea, through the Under-world by the divine soul-bird, the Bennu-Phoinix, who is Osiris,' 'We see sometimes on a sarcophagus the soul figured by a human-headed hawk, holding in its claws. the two ring symbols of eternity, and beneath, as an emblem of the new life reserved for the deceased, the rising sun,' the great Bennu which is in Annu's or Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. And the idea of the soulbird is found equally in Hellas. Thus on a Vase representing the death of Prokris, the departing soul hovers over the body in the form of a human-headed bird.5 The soul flies in all religions. Thus the Assyrian prayer for a sick man is, 'May his soul fly up to heaven. Like a bird, may it fly to a lofty place.' 6. So the bird of passion held out by Adonis to Aphrodite is the infinitely-yearning soul, 'greatest of things created,'' eager to fly as a bird to its mountain; the soul of the turtle-dove,' as the Hebrew poet expresses it, longing to flee away, and be at rest with the beloved object, the all-conquering and all-persuading, Iÿnx, daughter of Peitho. In Neo-Platonism the Iÿnges are apparently regarded as being somewhat equivalent to the Platonik ideas, and we are informed that they constituted the first division of the Intellectual Triad.' The Pseudo-Zoroastres states that : The Iÿnges, objects of perception themselves, perceive from the Father, Being moved by ineffable counsels so as to perceive.R XXIX. Allied with Poseidon.9 XXX. Kore, 10 With the Eleusinian Goddesses, Demeter and 1 Funereal Ritual, xvii. Lenormant, Ancient Hist. of the East, i. 321. Funereal Ritual, xvii. Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 1269. 5 Millingen, Anc. Uned. Monuments, Pl. xiv. 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. ii. 29. 7 Funereal Ritual, ix. 8 Frag. liv. apud Cory. 9 Lenormant and De Witte, Elite des Monumens Céramographiques, iii. 4. 10 Birch, Anct. Pottery, 232. Vide sup. VI. ii. 2, 3. XXXI. With Hephaistos, who ascends to heaven at his instigation. Another Vase represents Hephaistos returning to heaven on the Dionysiak ass.2 XXXII. As Iakchos. under the form of Iacchos.' 4 Sometimes he is presented XXXIII. With Eumolpus and Iacchos.'5-Millingen, incorrectly, states that the figure of the mystic Iakchos, whom he vainly attempts to distinguish from Dionysos, was unknown.6 XXXIV. Pursuing Ariadne.? XXXV. In a galley-shaped car.8-Dionysos, seated in the centre of the car, holds an overshadowing vine; at each end of the car sits a satyr, playing on the double flute; the galley terminates at the prow with a boar's, and at the stern with a goose's, head. Dr. Birch remarks that the sacred ship of Dionysos' was one of the religious matters represented on the Vases.9 XXXVI. Female offering a goat to Dionysos Stylos, or the Pillar.1o_The most remarkable and evident [religious] incidents represented are the offerings to Aphrodite, sacrifices to Hermes, to Dionysos Stylos, Phallen, or Perikionios.' 11 XXXVII. Dionysos with Pan.12-The god, seated in a chair, holds his thyrsos; Pan, with two goat's horns stands, before him, holding the two-handled cup. XXXVIII. With Briachos and Erophylle. 13-The ivycrowned Dionysos stands in the centre, his long hair flowing down his back, and clustered in curls on the forehead in imitation of grape bunches, according to the fashion 1 Birch, Anct. Pottery, 235. 2 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 527. 220. 4 Birch, Anct. Pottery, 237. 5 Ibid. 242. 6 Anct. Uned. Mons. 5. 7 Vide Birch, Anct. Pottery, 238. 8 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 687. 9 Anct. Pottery, 277. Vide inf. VIII. ii. Boat, 10 Kirk, Hamilton's Vases, Pl. xv. Vide inf. sec. ii. 11 Birch, Anct. Pottery, 277. 12 Brit. Mus. Vase Cat. No. 1549. 13 Ibid. No. 790. |