Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky — Cambridge, 1914

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14695#0733

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648 The Significance of the Bull

looks as though the Anatolian cult of mother and son had
developed along Orphic lines. Was this actually the case? Have
we a right to use the term Zagreus of Zeus redivivus in Crete?
And, if so, what exactly do we mean by it?

In the fifth century B.C., and perhaps much earlier, Zagreus
with his thunders played an essential part in the rites of Zeus
Idaios. So much at least we learn from an all-important fragment
of Euripides' Cretans1. The Chorus of ' prophets' address Minos
as follows:

King of Crete with its towns five-score,
Whom Phoinix' seed Europe bore
To Zeus omnipotent evermore.

Lo, I am here in thy behoof
Quitting the holy fanes, whose roof
Of cypress-wood is weather-proof

Thanks to the home-grown timber hacked
By Chalyb axe and then compact
With bull-bound glue in its joints exact.

Pure is my life and of spotless fame
Since that moment when I became
A mystic in Zeus of Ide's name,—

Darkling Zagreus' thunders made,

The raw-fed feasters' feast essayed,

And the mountain-mother's torches swayed.

Thus amid the Curetic band,
Hallowed alike in heart and hand,
A very Bacchos at length I stand.

White is the raiment that now I wear,
In birth and burial have no share,
Nor eat of food, if the life be there.

The mystics of Zeus Idaios here tell us how their temple was
made, and how they themselves were initiated into the rites of
their god. The temple was roofed with beams of cypress, a tree

1 Porph. de abst. 4. 19 {UKpov ixe iraprfkQe Kal rb ~Etvpnrideioi> 7rapa6ea6aL, 6s rovs
ev I\.prjTri rod Ai6s irpocprjras direxeo~dai <p7)o~l did rovruv \eyovo~i 5' oi /caret rbv x°P0V
irpbs rbv Mbco [Eur. Cretes frag. 472 Nauck 2p Qoivucoyevovs [irai ttjs Tvpias om.
Bothe] tckvov JUvpLcnras \ Kal rod p:eya\ov 7mvos, avaaawv \ Kpr]T7]s eKaTOfxwToXieOpov \\
77/cw fadeovs vaovs TrpoXiiribv, | ovs avdiyevijs Tpvqdeiaa Bokos \ crreyavovs 7rape%et ~Ka\v(3cp
7reXe/cet | Kal ravpobertp KoWy Kpadeia | drpeKeis dpp,ovs Kvirapiaaov. \\ dyvbv de filov reivoiv

ov I Aids 'IScuou iavgt7)s yevbp.r\v, I Kal vvktlttoKov Zaypews (3povrds | rds r' (bpiocpdyovs
dalras reXeaas \ fXTjrpL t opeicp dadas dvaax^v \ Kal Js.ovprjrcov | Bd/cxos €K\r)6r]v boiwdeis.\\
irdWevKa §' ^xwv e'tfJ-ara (pevyco | yeveaiv re fipor&v Kal veKpoOrjKrjs | ov xP'-^TOfxevos rrqv r'
ep-xpuxuv I Ppucnv edear&v Tre<pv\ayp,ac. I follow the text as given by Nauck, except that
in line 1 I print Eupc67ras (so most MSS., Evpu>Trr]s Nauck with cod. Mon. 461), in line 2
Za^os (favbs codd., Zrjvos Nauck after Bentley), and in line 12 rds r' (so codd., rods
Nauck after Bergk) and dairas (so Hesych. s.v. up.o(f>dyovs dauras, dairas Nauck with
codd., cp. Hesych. s.v. dairas).
 
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