Ancient Art and Ritual

by Jane Ellen Harrison

THE SPRING FESTIVAL IN GREECE

The tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were performed at Athens at a festival known as the Great Dionysia. This took place early in April, so that the time itself makes us suspect that its ceremonies were connected with the spring. But we have more certain evidence. Aristotle, in his treatise on the Art of Poetry, raises the question of the origin of the drama. He was not specially interested in primitive ritual; beast dances and spring mummeries might even have seemed to him mere savagery, the lowest form of “imitation;” but he divined that a structure so complex as Greek tragedy must have arisen out of a simpler form; he saw, or felt, in fact, that art had in some way risen out of ritual, and he has left us a memorable statement.

In describing the “Carrying-out of Summer” we saw that the element of real drama, real impersonation, began with the leaders of the band, with the Queen of the May, and with the “Death” or the “Winter.” Great is our delight when we find that for Greek drama Aristotle[19] divined a like beginning. He says:

“Tragedy—as also Comedy—was at first mere improvisation—the one (tragedy) originated with the leaders of the Dithyramb.”

The further question faces us: What was the Dithyramb? We shall find to our joy that this obscure-sounding Dithyramb, though before Aristotle’s time it had taken literary form, was in origin a festival closely akin to those we have just been discussing. The Dithyramb was, to begin with, a spring ritual; and when Aristotle tells us tragedy arose out of the Dithyramb, he gives us, though perhaps half unconsciously, a clear instance of a splendid art that arose from the simplest of rites; he plants our theory of the connection of art with ritual firmly with its feet on historical ground.

When we use the word “dithyrambic” we certainly do not ordinarily think of spring. We say a style is “dithyrambic” when it is unmeasured, too ornate, impassioned, flowery. The Greeks themselves had forgotten that the word Dithyramb meant a leaping, inspired dance. But they had not forgotten on what occasion that dance was danced. Pindar wrote a Dithyramb for the Dionysiac festival at Athens, and his song is full of springtime and flowers. He bids all the gods come to Athens to dance flower-crowned.

“Look upon the dance, Olympians; send us the grace of Victory, ye gods who come to the heart of our city, where many feet are treading and incense steams: in sacred Athens come to the holy centre-stone. Take your portion of garlands pansy-twined, libations poured from the culling of spring....

“Come hither to the god with ivy bound. Bromios we mortals name Him, and Him of the mighty Voice.... The clear signs of his Fulfilment are not hidden, whensoever the chamber of the purple-robed Hours is opened, and nectarous flowers lead in the fragrant spring. Then, then, are flung over the immortal Earth, lovely petals of pansies, and roses are amid our hair; and voices of song are loud among the pipes, the dancing-floors are loud with the calling of crowned Semele.”

Bromios, “He of the loud cry,” is a title of Dionysos. Semele is his mother, the Earth; we keep her name in Nova Zembla, “New Earth.” The song might have been sung at a “Carrying-in of Summer.” The Horæ, the Seasons, a chorus of maidens, lead in the figure of Spring, the Queen of the May, and they call to Mother Earth to wake, to rise up from the earth, flower-crowned.

You may bring back the life of the Spring in the form of a tree or a maiden, or you may summon her to rise from the sleeping Earth. In Greek mythology we are most familiar with the Rising-up form. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is carried below the Earth, and rises up again year by year. On Greek vase-paintings[20] the scene occurs again and again. A mound of earth is represented, sometimes surmounted by a tree; out of the mound a woman’s figure rises; and all about the mound are figures of dancing dæmons waiting to welcome her.