THE RITES OF DIONYSUS
The manner in which a complicated secondary myth may result from ritual is well exemplified by that which sprang from the rites of Dionysus celebrated at Thebes. A branch or some other symbol of vegetation was carried through the cultivated fields in the neighbourhood of the city by a man disguised as a woman. A human image was then attached to the top of a tree-trunk, which was raised from the ground by ropes and held upright. The tree-spirit is then supposed to animate the trunk. Then, as happened in Mexico at the feast of Uitzilopochtli, the image attached to the tree was stoned and its fragments were scrambled and fought for. The woman who secured the head hastened to nail it to the temple or principal house of the community.
The late explanation of these doings, the origin of which became entirely lost, was that, as whatever was done must redound to the honour of Dionysus, the being represented on the top of the tree-trunk was inimical to him. The women, perhaps, supposed themselves to be enacting the part of bacchantes crazed with wine. As Roscher and Jevons have shown, this late story is the framework of the myth of Pentheus as given in the Bacchæ of Euripides, Pentheus, a monarch, refuses to permit the introduction of the worship of Dionysus, who bereaves him of his senses and, having dressed him in woman's garments, leads him through his own town as a laughing-stock. The women of Thebes, led by Agave, the mother of Pentheus, accept Dionysus and become mænads or bacchantes. To enable Pentheus to see their worship, Dionysus bends down a pine-tree, places him on the top and then lets it go. He is then attacked by Agave and the other bacchantes, who tear him limb from limb and set his head on the front of his own palace.
Whatever the significance of this rite—and it would seem to have its origin in priapic and bacchic worship—we cannot fail to observe how far too explanatory and how little ingenious the foregoing tale appears when adapted to it. As Falstaff says of his own excuse: "It will not fadge," It is lame and awkward. Pentheus could have beheld the rites of the bacchantes without the pine-tree being lowered for his convenience; and had he been bereft of his senses, he would probably have joined in the bacchic rout instead of tamely witnessing it. The circumstances point to the real myth behind the ritual being connected with the secret priapic and seasonal rites of a feminine cult—for women have their secret cults as well as men, as has been proved of late by the wonderful and valuable discoveries of Mrs D. Aumary Talbot among the Congo peoples—discoveries which seem destined to throw much light upon a most interesting department of comparative religion.
The student must then be upon his guard against secondary interpretations of ritual, which in most cases can only have reference to an early type of myth.