[61] Perhaps these woodcutters would not have entirely appreciated what Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson (The Greek View of Life) says of the Greek divinities. He tells us that the Greek originally felt “bewilderment and terror in the presence of the powers of nature,” but his religion developed “till at last from the womb of the dark enigma that haunted him in the beginning there emerged into the charmed light of a world of ideal grace a pantheon of fair and concrete personalities.” (The italics are mine). The classical enthusiast always pictures the Greeks as living in fairyland: actually the gods and lesser divinities were to them for the most part objects of awe and dread. In this “world of ideal grace” there would be, for example, the horrible Furies who dwelt in their grotto in Athens!
[62] I think it correct to say this, although there were political reasons also for prosecuting Socrates and, if he had shown less contempt for his judges, he might have been acquitted.
[63] I do not know how far unnatural vice extended among other peoples; but the statement in Plato’s “Symposium” that the Ionians and most of the barbarians held it in evil repute is strongly condemnatory of the Greeks.
[64] See how this idea pervades the whole of the famous Funeral Speech of Pericles, and how he defines what is “the good life” of a citizen.
[65] See Theoc. VII, 57, and what the Scholiast says. As to the subject generally see the references given by Mr. Rogers in The Birds of Aristophanes.
[66] Modern Painters, IV, XIII, 17.
[67] A few days after writing the above I was walking along the sea-beach with friends, and we came to a man and boy who were drawing in a net. It was a beautifully clear day, and no seagull or other bird could be seen anywhere. I pointed this out to my friends, and said, “You’ll see the patrol-bird arrive presently.” In a few minutes a gull appeared from nowhere, flew round the net, and then, as though the business was unimportant, flew away. The net when drawn in was empty! This is how the bird probably appeared to the Greeks. When the net brought in a haul, and the birds clamoured round it for their share, how very reasonable would this again appear to the Greeks.
[68] See also as to the so-called “purification rites” in the mysteries, [p. 374].
[69] The same pious Athenians who so enjoyed the Bacchae!
[70] It is necessary to emphasize this, lest the reader should think that these illustrations are exceptional and the result of prolonged research. Actually I had no memoranda or other material when I began the many notes to this book, and those notes were all completed in ten months. For this note I simply took two books, Professor Murray’s and Mr. Zimmern’s, to illustrate my thesis. I might have chosen far more “enthusiastic” works than Mr. Zimmern’s excellent book.