Evening star., 1927-11-27
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spring showers was pictured for tht
Greek imagination as the Princes.
Danae. shut up in a tower and visited
by Zeus in the form of a golden rain
end the bounty of the soil was visioneC
as the return from Hades of the fail
Persephone, stolen after every har
vest from her mourning mother
Demeter tCeres) the goddess of the
corn
In like manner the reproductive
energies of nature were perSonfled
in Aphrod.te, goddess of beauty and
love. We can trace her splendid wor'
ship hack 10 the Babylonian goddess
lshtar. or Astarte. spirit of fertility.
Wis: - @.iu unconsCiously com
memorate at Easter---once the feast Gt
the reawakening spring. So defniteiN
were Astarte and Aphrodite worship
cd as embodyinC the mystic power OF
reproduction that it became solemn
religious duty for every woman. in
many parts of the ancient world TO
submit to the embraces of a stranger.
and ito dedicate to the goddess the
wages earned by this saCriticiai
harlotry. The sacred precinct" says
Sir James Frazer. was crowded with
women waiting to observe the CUSTOM
some of them had to wait there for
wears" The Middle Ages were to
worship chastity; but antiquity sus-
pected II. and valued better a plenti-
full fertility. The Greeks feared and
reverenced the power Of Eros and
Aphrodite, and predicted evil tas in
Eurin;des ''Hippolytus'D for those
who Stunned the fine frenzy Of love,
x X y
Adonis was also stolen from Baby
lon. Amonc the Semites he had been
Tammuz the youthful lover of 1star.
They called him Adon. or lord. and
the Greeks took over the title as the
name of their imported god. Shake
speare speaks of Venus and Adonis;
Bacon would have spoken of -Aphro-
dite. 1t is one OF a thousand minutae
that disprove the identity of the play.
wright and the philosopher. Adonis,
like Persephone, was supposed 10
snend part of each year eXiled in
Hades, that dark underworld in the
bowels OF the earth to which good and
bad alike departed afte, death. Annu.
ally the Greeks cele( Pted the death
of Adonis, his desce 1 into hell and
his resurrection, the Atst again SYM
bol of the renaissance of Spring.
Throughout the development of reli-
force transformed POLITICALLY into
person and phrased imaginatively in
legend.
So again the growth OF the vine
seemed to the simpler Greeks to be
the work of the god DionySus. and
they loved him not only because he
served as patron deity of an industry
vital to the life of Greece, but because
his ritual frolicked with license and
sanctioned the alcoholic recreations
OF the people Dionysus, too, like the
other gods of vegetation, was believed
TO have died a violent death and then
TO have risen again to life, and his
fea was celebrated by enactnS the
pageant of his sufferings and his res
direction. Out of this ceremony rose
the drama of the Greeks and all those
somber tragedies with which Eschy-
lus. Sophocles. Euripides and others
filled the great theater of Dionysus.
Phallic worship was the essence of
the Dionysian cult, and the phallic
emblem was carried at the head of the
procession that honored him. Such
festival was called a comus. Out of
its Rabelaisian humor and song
toidos) came Grek comedy in form and
MAINE IleflCe the lnOSCencN OF the
comic stage in Athens and the alb
sence of respectable women from the
theater. 1t was stag drama, in
honor of the goat god.
For Dionysus, like so many gods.
had taken the place of a sacred goat
In the gradual transformation of
totemism-the worship of animals
into the worship of human deities
But, Is in other cases, the animal
ancestor of the god clung to him in
myth and ritual: goat was sacri.
feed to Dionysus. he was often rep
resented as goat. and was called
the Kid: and those who led his pro-
cession dressed themselves in masks
representing goats, Hence the plays
which celebrated his feast were
named raSedies-i. E.. goat songs
The basis of Greek religion. then,
was the growth of the soil, the -four.
ishing of corn and vine. and upon
this splendid foundation the myth
making passion of the people reared
an edifce of poetry that reached to
the sun and the stars. Poebus lie.
bright Apollo was the god who shone
in the sun: Selene was the gentle
lady who ruled in the moon and sent
her soft RAYS down to capture En-
dymion and fill every lover with
lunar lunacy Even as late as the
Stoics GEO B.CJ we find the phiioso-
pher ChrySippus listing as divinities
the sun, the moon. the stars law
and men who have turned into gods