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

678

Goat instead of Bull

To modern ears this rite may sound not only disgusting but
incredible. Yet a partial parallel can be found for it, and nearer
home than we might have imagined. Giraldus Cambrensis1 tells
us how kings used to be inaugurated in Tirconnell, now the county
of Donegal:

'There are some things which shame would prevent my relating, unless the
course of my subject required it. For a filthy story seems to reflect a stain on
the author, although it may display his skill. But the severity of history does
not allow us either to sacrifice truth or affect modesty ; and what is shameful
in itself may be related by pure lips in decent words. There is, then, in the
northern and most remote part of Ulster, namely, at Kenel Cunil, a nation
which practises a most barbarous and abominable rite in creating their king.
The whole people of that country being gathered in one place, a white mare is
led into the midst of them, and he who is to be inaugurated, not as a prince but
as a brute, not as a king but as an outlaw, comes before the people on all fours,
confessing himself a beast with no less impudence than imprudence. The mare
being immediately killed, and cut in pieces and boiled, a bath is prepared for
him from the broth. Sitting in this, he eats of the flesh which is brought to
him, the people standing round and partaking of it also. He is also required to
drink of the broth in which he is bathed, not drawing it in any vessel, nor even
in his hand, but lapping it with his mouth. These unrighteous rites being duly
accomplished, his royal authority and dominion are ratified.'

It remains to ask—what is the bearing of all this on the origin
of Greek tragedy ? To put the matter briefly, it seems probable
that at the winter festival of the Lenaia as originally celebrated
by the Athenians a song was sung commemorating the passion
of Dionysos2, and that this song was accompanied by a mimetic
performance, a passion-play3, which ultimately developed into
Attic tragedy. It is, I think, significant that Thespis came from
the deme Ikaria, where it was an ancient custom to dance round a
he-goat .{tragosy, that for the purpose of his tragedies he first
smeared the faces of the performers with white lead5, as if they

further W. Warde Fowler The Roman Festivals London 1899 p. 310 ff., id. The Religious
Experience of the Roman People London 1911 p. 478 ff., J. A. Hild in Daremberg—Saglio
Diet. Ant. iii. 1398 ff., L. Deubner in the Archivf. Rel. 1910 xiii. 481 ff. (whose attempt
to show that the Wiedergebtirtszeremonie was a Greek cathartic rite added by Augustus is
ingenious but hardly convincing).

1 Giraldus Cambrensis The Topography of Ireland dist. 3 chap. 25 trans. T. Forester
revised by T. Wright (ed. London 1905 p. 138).

2 Supra p. 672 f. 3 Supra p. 673 ff.

4 Eratosthenes ap. Hyg. poet. astr. 2. 4 'Iicapiov iroai irpuira irepi rpdyov <hpxvaavT0-
Farnell Cults of Gk. States v. 234, 315 reads 'Lcaptot (but B. Bunte ad loc. suggests that
the line was preceded by evda trcupoL or the like), and justly infers ' that there was there
some primitive mimetic service of the goat-god.'

5 Souid. s.v. Qeains'.. .kclI TrpQrop fiei> xptcras to -wpbawKov ipipivdiip eTpayifidrjcrev, elra
av8p&x"V ecrneiraaev ev raj tiubeiKwadai, nal piera ravra dcrrjveyKe /ecu ttjv t(x>v Trpoauireiwv
XPV(TLP &v fA°py odovrj /carao-«:eudo'as = Eudok. viol. 471.