That the blood-tainted man should know no joy
From sight of fellow-mortal or from touch,
But with an horrid sanctitude protected
Range the wide earth an exile.”
Eurip. Orest. 512.
Under the ban of such a social excommunication as this, the first act of readmission into the fraternity of human society was performed by the sprinkling of swine’s blood on the exile, a ceremony described particularly in the following passage of Apollonius Rhodius, where Jason and Medea are purified by Circe from the taint of the murder of Absyrtus:—
“First to free them from the taint of murder not to be recalled,
She above them stretched the suckling of a sow whose teats distilled
The juice that flows when birth is recent; this she cut across the throat,
And with the crimson blood outflowing dashed the tainted suppliants’ hands.