There is no end to the discussions concerning the secret purport of this fascinating story. But, after all is said, it seems to us that there are in it essentially two significations, one relating to the phenomena of the sun and the earth, the other to the mutual changes of nature and the fate of humanity. Aphrodite bewailing Adonis is surviving Nature mourning for departed Man.
In India the story was told of Mahadeva searching for his lost consort Sita, and, after discovering her lifeless form, bearing it around the world with dismal lamentations. Sometimes it was the death of Camadeva, the Hindu Cupid, that was mourned with solemn dirges.27 He, like Osiris, was slain, enclosed in a chest, and committed to the waves. He was afterwards recovered and resuscitated. Each initiate passed through the emblematic ceremonies corresponding to the points of this pretended history. The Phrygians associated the same great doctrine with the persons of Atys and Cybele. Atys was a lovely shepherd youth passionately loved by the mother of the gods.28 He suddenly died; and she, in frantic grief, wandered over the earth in search of him, teaching the people where she went the arts of agriculture. He was at length restored to her. Annually the whole drama was performed by the assembled nation with sobs of woe succeeded by ecstasies of joy.29 Similar to this, in the essential features, was the Eleusinian myth. Aidoneus snatched the maiden Kore down to his gloomy empire. Her mother, Demeter, set off in search of her, scattering the blessings of agriculture, and finally discovered her, and obtained the promise of her society for half of every year. These adventures were dramatized and explained in the mysteries which she, according to tradition, instituted at Eleusis.
The form of the legend was somewhat differently incorporated with the Bacchic Mysteries. It was elaborately wrought up by the Orphic poets. The distinctive name they gave to Bacchus or Dionysus was Zagreus. He was the son of Zeus, and was chosen by him to sit on the throne of heaven. Zeus gave him Apollo and the Curetes as guards; but the brutal Titans, instigated by jealous Hera, disguised themselves and fell on the unfortunate youth while his attention was fixed on a splendid mirror, and, after a fearful conflict, overcame him and tore him into seven pieces. Pallas, however, saved his palpitating heart, and Zeus swallowed it. Zagreus was then begotten again.30 He was destined to restore the golden age. His devotees looked to him for the liberation of their souls through the purifying rites of his Mysteries. The initiation shadowed out an esoteric doctrine of death and a future life, in the mock murder and new birth of the aspirant, who impersonated Zagreus.31
The Northmen constructed the same drama of death around the young Balder, their god of gentleness and beauty. This legend, as Dr. Oliver has shown, constituted the secret of the Gothic Mysteries.32 Obscure and dread prophecies having crept among the gods that the death of the beloved Balder was at hand, portending universal ruin, a consultation was held to devise means for averting the calamity. At the suggestion of Balder's mother, Freya, the Scandinavian Venus, an oath that they would not be instrumental in causing his death was
27 Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 187.
28 See article Atys in Smith's Class. Dict. with references.
29 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, lib. ii. 11. 605-655.
30 Muller, Hist. Greek Lit., ch. xvi.
31 Lobeck, Aglaophamus, lib. iii. cap. 5, sect. 13.
32 History of Initiation, Lect. X.