From Ritual to Romance

by Jessie L. Weston

CHAPTER IV

[1] Cf. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 5. [2] In this connection not only the epoch-making works of Mannhardt and Frazer, which are more specifically devoted to an examination of Folk-belief and practice should be studied, but also works such as The Mediaeval Stage, E. K. Chambers; Themis, J. E. Harrison; The Origin of Attic Comedy, F. Cornford; and Sir Gilbert Murray's essay on the evolution of the Greek Drama, published in Miss Harrison's Themis. The cumulative evidence is most striking. [3] A full study of this evolutionary process will be found in Miss Harrison's Themis, A Study of Greek Social Origins, referred to above. [4] Baudissin, in his exhaustive study of these cults, Adonis und Esmun, comes to the conclusion that Tammuz and Adonis are different gods, owing their origin to a common parent deity. Where the original conception arose is doubtful; whether in Babylon, in Canaan, or in a land where the common ancestors of Phoenicians and Babylonian Semites formed an original unit. [5] Cf. Tammuz and Ishtar, S. Langdon, p. 5. [6] It may be well to note here the the 'Life' deity has no proper name; he is only known by an appellative; Damu-zi, Damu, 'faithful son,' or 'son and consort,' is only a general epithet, which designates the dying god in a theological aspect, just as the name Adoni, 'my lord,' certainly replaced a more specific name for the god of Byblos. Esmun of Sidon, another type of Adonis, is a title only, and means simply, 'the name.' Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 7. Cf. this with previous passages on the evolution of the Greek idea from a nameless entity to a definite god. Mr Langdon's remarks on the evolution of the Tammuz cult should be carefully studied in view of the theory maintained by Sir W. Ridgeway—that the Vegetation deities were all of them originally men. [7] From a liturgy employed at Nippur in the period of the Isin dynasty. Langdon, op. cit. p. 11. Also, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, p. 338. [8] Cf. Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 23. [9] What we have been able to ascertain of the Sumerian-Babylonian religion points to it rather as a religion of mourning and supplication, than of joy and thanksgiving. The people seem to have been in perpetual dread of their gods, who require to be appeased by continual acts of humiliation. Thus the 9th, 15th, 19th, 28th, and 29th of the month were all days of sack-cloth and ashes, days of wailing; the 19th especially was 'the day of the wrath of Gulu.' [10] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 24. [11] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 26. [12] The most complete enquiry into the nature of the god is to be found in Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun. For the details of the cult cf. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. II.; Vellay, Adonis (Annales du Musée Guimet). For the Folk-lore evidence cf. Mannhardt, Wald un Feld-Kulte; Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Adonis, Attis and Osiris. These remarks apply also to the kindred cult of Attis, which as we shall see later forms an important link in our chain of evidence. The two cults are practically identical and scholars are frequently at a loss to which group surviving fragments of the ritual should be assigned. [13] In this connection note the extremely instructive remarks of Miss Harrison in the chapter on Herakles in the work referred to above. She points out that the Eniautos Daimon never becomes entirely and Olympian, but always retains traces of his 'Earth' origin. This principle is particularly well illustrated by Adonis, who, though, admitted to Olympus as the lover of Aphrodite, is yet by this very nature forced to return to the earth, and descend to the realm of Persephone. This agrees well with the conclusion reached by Baudissin (Adonis und Esmun, p. 71) that Adonis belongs to "einer Klasse von Wesen sehr unbestimmter Art, die wohl über den Menschen aber unter den grossen Göttern stehen." [14] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 93. Dulaure, Des Divinités Génératrices. If Baudissin is correct, and the introduction of the Boar a later addition to the story, it would seem to indicate the intrusion of a phallic element into ritual which at first, like that of Tammuz, dealt merely with the death of the god. The Attis form, on the contrary, appears to have been phallic from the first. Cf. Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, p. 160. [15] Op. cit. p. 83. [16] Cf. L. von Schroeder, Vollendung den Arischen Mysterium, p. 14. [17] It may be well to explain the exact meaning attached to these terms by the author. In Professor von Schroeder's view Mysterium may be held to connote a drama in which the gods themselves are actors; Mimus on the contrary, is the term applied to a drama which treats of the doings of mortals. [18] Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 647. [19] Op. cit. p. 115. Much of the uncertainty as to date is doubtless due to the reflective influence of other forms of the cult; the Tammuz celebrations were held from June 20th, to July 20th, when the Dog-star Sirius was in the ascendant, and vegetation failed beneath the heat of the summer sun. In other, and more temperate, climates the date would fall later. Where, however, the cult was an off-shoot of a Tammuz original (as might be the case through emigration) the tendency would be to retain the original date. [20] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 55; Mannhardt, Vol. II. pp. 277-78, for a description of the feast. With regard to the order and sequence of the celebration cf. Miss Harrison's remark, Themis, p. 415: "In the cyclic monotony of the Eniautos Daimon it matters little whether Death follows Resurrection, or Resurrection, Death." [21] Cf. Mannhardt, supra, p. —-. [22] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 103. This seems also to have been the case with Tammuz, cf. Ezekiel, Chap. viii. v. 14. [23] Cf. Frazer, The Golden Bough, under heading Adonis. [24] Vellay, p. 130, Mannahrdt, Vol. II. p. 287; note the writer's suggestion that the women here represent the goddess, the stranger, the risen Adonis. [25] Cf. Vellay, p. 93. [26] Vide supra, pp. —-. —-. [27] Supra, p. —-. [28] Cf. Potvin, appendix to Vol. III.; Sir Gawain and the Grail Castle, pp. 41, 44, and note. [29] My use of this parallel has been objected to on the ground that the prose Lancelot is a late text, and therefore cannot be appealed to as evidence for original incidents. But the Lancelot in its original form was held by so competent an authority as the late M. Gaston Paris to have been one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of French prose texts. (Cf. M. Paris's review of Suchier and Birch-Hirschfield's Geschichte der Franz. Litt.) The adventure in question is a 'Gawain' adventure; we do not know whence it was derived, and it may well have been included in an early version of the romance. Apart from the purely literary question, from the strictly critical point of view the adventure is here obviously out of place, and entirely devoid of raison d'être. If the origins of the Grail legend is really to be found in these cults, which are not a dead but a living tradition (how truly living, the exclusively literary critic has little idea), we are surely entitled to draw attention to the obvious parallels, no matter in which text they appear. I am not engaged in reconstructing the original form of the Grail story, but in endeavoring to ascertain the ultimate source, and it is surely justifiable to point out that, in effect, no matter what version we take, we find in that version points of contact with one special group of popular belief and practice. If I be wrong in my conclusions my critics have only to suggest another origin for this particular feature of the romance—as a matter of fact, they have failed to do so. [30] Cf. Perlesvaus, Branch II. Chap. I. [31] Throwing into, or drenching with, water is a well known part of the 'Fertility' ritual; it is a case of sympathetic magic, acting as a rain charm.