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

694

Goat instead of Bull

the suggested origin of tragedy in the Lenaean rite1 is borne out
by the modern carnival-plays of northern Greece. These plays,
which have been carefully described of late by Messrs G. F. Abbott2,
R. M. Dawkins3, J. C. Lawson4, and A. J. B. Wace5, mostly occur in
the winter at Epiphany or the New Year or both, though in the
Pelion district they are performed on May-day. Mr Wace6 sum-
marises what is known of them :

' It seems clear on comparing the accounts of the different festivals that
though they are celebrated over a wide area, and at different seasons of the
year, the same idea is present in all. In every instance there is a death and
resurrection. In nearly all cases one of the two principal characters is dis-
guised in skins, or at least a skin mask. In the songs sung at Epiphany in
Thessaly, and those sung on Mayday there are several common elements.
Also the mere fact that licensed chicken stealing is a feature of the festival
in Thrace and Thessaly seems to point to a similar tradition. Is it then
possible out of the different versions to reconstruct the main plot of the

drama?......we may imagine the full original of the drama to have been

somewhat as follows. The old woman first appears nursing her baby in her
arms (Viza and Lechovo), and this child is, in some way or other, peculiar
(Viza). He grows up quickly and demands a bride (Viza, and on Pelion the
old man is sometimes called the old woman's son). A bride is found for him,
and the wedding is celebrated (at Lechovo a priest is one of the characters),
but during the wedding festivities he quarrels with one of his companions who
attempts to molest the bride, and is killed. He is then lamented by his bride,
and miraculously restored to life. The interrupted festivities are resumed, and
the marriage is consummated. It is worth noting for those who seek for the
origins of Greek tragedy that this simple drama recounting, like an ancient
trilogy, the life history of its hero ends with a satyric display that could be
paralleled by the satyric drama that followed a trilogy. Also, in view of the
survivals of Uionysos worship seen in these festivals, it should be noted that
they seem to occur only in North Greece (Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, and
Thrace), which was, after all, the reputed home of Dionysos worship.'

some source inaccessible to us) was on this showing the Italian counterpart of the child
dismembered and eaten by the Thracian chiefs {supra p. 654 ff.). A Roman parallel
to that gruesome rite has been already cited (supra p. 656 n. 2), viz. the sparagmos of
Romulus whose fragments were buried by the senators (to fertilise the soil?); and Frazer
op. cit. ii. 313 remarks that July 7, the day on which Romulus disappeared, was a fes-
tival, the Nonae Caprotinae, somewhat resembling the Saturnalia.

1 Supra p. 678 ff.

2 G. F. Abbott Macedonian Folklore Cambridge 1903 pp. 80 ff., 88 ff.

3 R. M. Dawkins 'The modern Carnival in Thrace and the Cult of Dionysus' in the
jfourn. Hell. Stud. 1906 xxvi. 191—206.

4 J. C. Lawson 'A Beast-dance in Scyros' in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1899—1900
vi. 125—127 (cp. R. M. Dawkins ib. 1904—1905 xi. 72—74) and in his Modern Greek
Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion Cambridge 1910 p. 223 ff.

5 A. J. B. Wace ' North Greek Festivals and the Worship of Dionysos' in the Ann.
Brit. Sch. Ath. 1909—1910 xvi. 232—253 and in W. Ridgeway The Origin of Tragedy
Cambridge 1910 pp. 20—-23.

6 A. J. B. Wace in the Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1909—-1910 xvi. 250 f.