THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES.
Closely connected with the public and private instruction that the philosophers gave in their various systems, were certain national institutions of a secret character, which combined the mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most celebrated of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ce'res and Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.
What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis has been gathered from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly all the classical authorities; and although the penalty of a sudden and ignominious death impended over anyone who divulged these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now known to describe them with much minuteness of detail. We have not the space to give that detailed description here, but the ceremonies occupied nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September, inclusive. The first day was that on which the worshippers merely assembled; the second, that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the sea; the third, the day of sacrifices; the fourth, the day of offerings to the goddess; the fifth, the day of torches, when the multitude roamed over the meadows at nightfall carrying flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter; the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage; the seventh, the day of athletic pastimes; the eighth, the day devoted to the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations; and the ninth, the day of libations.
The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchi'ses, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid, is regarded as a condensed definition of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The same book, moreover, is believed to represent several of the scenes of the mysteries. In the following words the shade of Anchises answers the inquiries of "his godlike son:"
"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds—and animates the whole.
This active mind, infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main.
Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same;
And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame—
As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
Of mortal members subject to decay,
Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.
From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind,
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind:
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.
"The relics of invet'rate vice they wear
And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.
For this are various penances enjoin'd;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires.
All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear:
The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair,
And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
Then are they happy, when by length of time
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;
No speck is left of their habitual stains,
But the pure ether of the soul remains.
But, when a thousand rolling years are past
(So long their punishments and penance last),
Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labors and their irksome years,
That, unrememb'ring of its former pain,
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."
—Trans. by DRYDEN.
IV. ARCHITECTURE.
In architecture and sculpture Greece stands pre-eminently above all other nations. The first evidences of the former art that we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, Mycenæ, and other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of defence in the very earliest periods of Greek history, and generally known by the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by the early Greeks to have been built by those fabled giants, the Cyclo'pes.
Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous piles,
Which no rude censure of familiar time
Nor record of our puny race defiles,
In dateless mystery ye stand sublime,
Memorials of an age of which we see
Only the types in things that once were ye.
Whether ye rest upon some bosky knoll,
Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified,
Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll
Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side,
Still on your savage features is a spell
That makes ye half divine, ineffable.