Nor does this clear pronouncement stand alone; thrice more, as the play advances, the same thought is echoed in unmistakeable tones. First comes the opening of that half impassioned, half sophistic, speech of Antigone, from which some critics would delete her argumentative estimate of a brother’s claims as against those of a husband; but the removal of those lines would still leave intact that outburst, ‘Oh tomb, oh bride-chamber, oh cavernous abode of everlasting durance[1381].’ And then again in the speech of the messenger, who bears tidings of the fate of both Antigone and her lover, the same thought is pressed upon us with double insistence. First he tells how, having given Polynices his full rites of burial, they turned to go next ‘unto the vaulted chamber where on couch of rock the maiden should be wed with Hades’ (πρὸς λιθόστρωτον κόρης νυμφεῖον Ἅιδου κοῖλον), and from afar is heard the voice of loud lament beside ‘the bridal chamber unhallowed by funeral rites’ (ἀκτέριστον ἀμφὶ παστάδα[1382]). And later in the same narrative, when we have heard how that voice of loud lament was stilled, Haemon is pictured as lying dead in Antigone’s dead embrace, having won his bridal’s fulfilment only in Hades’ house (τὰ νυμφικὰ τέλη λαχὼν δείλαιος ἐν γ’ Ἅιδου δόμοις)[1383].

The reiteration of a single thought through all this series of passages is most remarkable. What does it mean? Did Sophocles intend merely to enhance the tragedy of Antigone’s doom by constant comparison of that which might have been with that which was? Or did each phrase in which the thoughts of marriage and of death were blended contain a further and a subtler appeal to his hearers’ emotions? Did each phrase strike also a note which set vibrating in his listeners’ hearts responsive chords of mystic hope?

For my part, as I draw near the end of these studies in Greek religion, I find it more and more difficult to set down as mere casual coincidences the close resemblances between Greece in the past and Greece in the present. I have found a belief in the supernatural beings of Ancient Greece still swaying the minds of the modern peasants; I have seen the customs of antiquity repeated alike in the small acts of every-day life and in the ceremonies of its greater events; I have heard the same thoughts expressed in almost the same turns of phrase as in ancient literature; I have traced the popular conceptions of the present day concerning the relations of body and soul, and their existence after death, back to native pre-Christian sources. Have I then not a right, am I not bound, to abjure coincidence and to claim for the past and the present real identity? When I find in Sophocles the same thought, almost the same words, which may be gathered to-day from the lips of any unlettered lament-maker the whole Greek world over, I am compelled by my conviction of the continuity of all things Greek to believe that Sophocles adapted to his own use a thought which in his time even as now was uttered in many a funeral-dirge, and that while the phrases of the Antigone gained in his hands a new lustre from the pathos of their setting, they themselves were not new nor the invention of Sophocles’ genius, but an old heritage of the Greek race. Maybe it was that same thought which gave birth to the strange and but partially known legend of the death of Hymenaeus himself in the first moment of his wedded delight[1384]; maybe it was in the same spirit that Prometheus foretold how Zeus himself should make such a marriage as should cast him down from his throne of tyranny and he be no more seen, in fulfilment of the curse uttered by Cronos when he was cast down into the unseen world[1385].

But, it may be said, the forebodings of Prometheus are generally taken to refer to a future marriage with Thetis, not with death; and Pindar’s reference to Hymenaeus is vague and fragmentary; and the lines of Sophocles’ Antigone have plenty of human pathos, without reading into them any religious doctrine; let your contention at least have the support of sober prose which shows its meaning on the surface. So be it. Artemidorus in his hand-book to the interpretation of dreams claims as a recognised religious principle the correlation of marriage and death. To dream of the one is commonly a prognostication of the other. But let us hear his own words. “If an unmarried man dream of death, it foretells his marriage; for both alike, marriage and death, have universally been held by mankind to be ‘fulfilments’ (τέλη); and they are constantly indicated by one another; for the which reason also if sick men dream of marriage, it is a foreboding of death[1386].” And again: ‘if a sick person dream of sexual intercourse with a god or goddess ..., it is a sign of death; for it is then, when the soul is near leaving the body which it inhabits, that it foresees union and intercourse with the gods[1387].’ And yet once more: ‘since indeed marriage is akin to death and is indicated by dreaming of death, I thought it well to touch upon it here. If a sick man dreams of marrying a maiden, it is a sign of his death; for all the accompaniments of marriage are exactly the same as those of death[1388].’ The gist of these passages is unmistakeable; in clear and straightforward terms is enunciated the principle that death and marriage are so intimately associated that to dream of the one may portend the happening of the other. Here is the doctrine which we sought to elicit from the poetry of Sophocles and from the dirges of modern peasants, stated in plain prosaic language. Death is akin to marriage, and, as death approaches, men’s souls foresee a wedded union with gods.

But Artemidorus does not merely vouch for the existence of this mystic doctrine; he suggests also, to those who will weigh his words, that the doctrine was generally recognised and widely-spread: ‘for all the accompaniments of marriage,’ he says, ‘are exactly the same as those of death.’ What were these accompaniments? Seemingly Artemidorus had in mind certain customs which he had enumerated a little earlier, namely ‘an escort of friends, both men and women, and garlands and scents and unguents and an inventory of goods[1389]’ (i.e. either the marriage settlement or the last will and testament). It is then owing to this similarity between marriage-customs and funeral-customs that ‘if a sick man dreams of marrying a maiden, it is a sign of death.’ But previously we heard that if a sick person dreamt of commerce with a god or goddess, it was a sign of death, because, as death approached, the soul foresaw union and intercourse with the gods. How far do these statements agree? In both cases the interpretation of the dream is the same—to dream of marriage forebodes death—while the reasons for that interpretation are differently given according as the partner in the dreamt-of union is divine or human. But, though differently given, these reasons are not mutually inconsistent. In the one case the reason assigned is an idea—the idea that by death men were admitted to wedded union with their gods. In the other case the reason assigned is a custom—the custom of giving to the dead rites similar to the marriage-rites. In effect then the two reasons assigned are one and the same in spirit; for the ‘custom’ is merely the practical expression of the ‘idea’; it was because men believed that the dead attained to a wedded union with their gods, that they made the funeral-rites resemble the rites of marriage. And clearly this custom of assimilating the accompaniments of death to those of marriage could never have been general, as Artemidorus suggests, unless the belief, on which that custom was founded, had also been generally received and widely spread.

It will be worth while then to institute an enquiry into the customs generally observed both in ancient and modern times at weddings and at funerals. Our comparison of ancient literature with modern folk-songs, illumined by the statements of Artemidorus, has established the fact that death and marriage were very intimately associated in thought by some of the ancient writers as they are by many of the modern peasants. Custom will be found to tell the same tale, and will prove how generally accepted was this idea. For in point after point which Artemidorus does not mention in his brief enumeration—and without reckoning, as he does, such purely business matters as the inventory of goods—we shall find that the ceremonies incidental to a funeral have now, and had in old time, a curiously close resemblance to the ceremonies incidental to marriage; and, so finding, we may be confident that they were informed by a general and wide-spread belief that to die was but to marry into Hades’ house. Let us review them briefly and in order[1390].

The first ceremony in both functions alike was, and is, a solemn ablution. Before a Greek wedding both bride and bridegroom have always been required to bathe themselves, usually in water specially fetched from some holy spring. At Athens in old time, according to Thucydides, the spring frequented for this purpose was Callirrhoë[1391]; and similarly the Thebans had resort to the Ismenus[1392], the maidens of the Troad to the Scamander[1393], and the inhabitants of other districts to some spring or river of local repute[1394]. And at the present day in Athens it is still from Callirrhoë (when there is any water there) that the poorer classes fill the bridal bath; while many a village has its own sacred well or fountain (ἅγι̯ασμα) to which recourse is regularly had for this same purpose. And this wedding-ablution, common, as it would thus appear, to the Greeks of all ages, has its counterpart in the funeral-ablution, a ceremony likewise observed in all ages. Thus Sophocles makes Antigone speak of having washed with her own hands the dead bodies of father, mother, and brother[1395]; and Lucian in a mocking tone refers to the same practice as general in his day[1396]. At the present day the same rite is practically universal in Greece. In some places, and most notably in Crete, special magnificence is given to the ceremony by the use of warm wine instead of water; in others, as Macedonia[1397], the custom has dwindled away, and all that remains of it is a perfunctory moistening of the dead man’s face with a piece of cotton-wool soaked in wine. But in general the old custom remains unchanged. Thus we see that from ancient times down to the present day a ceremony of ablution has held a place in the preliminaries alike of a marriage and of a funeral.

Again in this matter of washing there is one detail of special interest. The water for the bridal bath was in old times fetched by a boy or girl[1398] closely related to the bride or the bridegroom, and the λουτροφόρος, as the bearer was called, is still an important figure in the wedding ceremonial of the present day. Nowadays, so far as I know, the bearer is always a boy, and further it is essential that both his parents be still living. The λουτροφόρος therefore has always been closely associated with the marriage-rite. But in antiquity the same water-bearer appears in another connexion. ‘It was customary,’ we hear, ‘to fetch water (λουτροφορεῖν) also for those who died unmarried, and that the figure of a water-bearer (λουτροφόρον) should be set up over their tomb. The figure was that of a boy with a pitcher[1399].’ Here we have a clear case of the importation of a ceremony closely connected with marriage into the funeral-rites of the unmarried. How are we to explain this custom? On what religious conception was it based? Clearly, it seems,—in view of that constant association of death and marriage which we have observed in ancient literature and modern folk-song—no other interpretation can well be maintained than that, for those who died unwed, death itself was the first and only marriage which they experienced, and that to such, ere they were laid in Hades’ nuptial-chamber, there ought to be given those same rites which were held to be a fitting preparation for entrance into the estate of wedlock in this world[1400].

The ceremonial ablutions being concluded, there came next the rites of anointing and arraying whether for marriage or for burial. As regards the cosmetics, we might feel well assured, even without the direct testimony of Aristophanes[1401], that they were freely used in ancient weddings; and I myself have experienced a sense of suffocation from the same cause at weddings in modern Greece. Similarly at ancient funerals the original purpose of the lecythi was without doubt to contain the choice perfumes for the anointing of the dead[1402]; and the custom of anointing is still well known. Then again in the matter of dress, the colour usually considered correct[1403] both for marriage and for burial was white, and, even if this cannot be said to have been universally the case, at any rate there was, and there still continues to be, no less pomp and ornament in the dress of the dead body[1404] than in the array of bride and bridegroom.

In this connexion too we may notice the use of the actual bridal-dress in the funerals of betrothed girls and of young wives. That this practice was known in antiquity is proved by a passage of Chariton[1405], in which the heroine of his story, Callirrhoë, whose first adventure, soon after her wedding, consists in being carried out to burial while unconscious but not dead, is described as ‘dressed in bridal array’; and exactly the same custom may be witnessed in Greece to-day[1406]. In fact not only may the person of the dead be seen dressed as for a wedding, but in the folk-songs we hear of the tomb itself being adorned like the home to which the bride should have been led.