DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1117#0078
•LADY OF SPORTS' BUT STILL MOTHER GODDESS 39
to do with a personage of a divine nature. Although we have not here
the evidence of a high tiara such as we see on the head of the Boston
Goddess and of the boy-God, the significance of the broad gold diadem and
of the traces of some kind of coronal is sufficiently clear. Equally significant
is the profusion of gold-work decoration visible in this figure, which is itself
much greater than could have been the case with the other examples cited.
In the loin-clothing, where this wealth in gold plating is most con-
spicuous, we recognize, indeed, an assimilation with the male costume that
the girl performers in the sports had borrowed from the Minoan ' cow-
boys' and taureadors. But the transition to true femininity is here marked
by the elaborate stays and corsage, as well as by the full womanly develop-
ment of the bosom.
' Our Lady of the Sports' still a Mother Goddess to her Proteges
of the Bull-ring.
We have here 'Our Lady of the Sports', but it is still the Mother 'Ladyof
Goddess in one of her numerous impersonations. Her matronly proportions Sports'
themselves agree with those of the faience and ivory figurines where she Mother
appears holding the snakes of the Underworld. In this motherly aspect, she Goddess,
still forms a subject of natural appeal to her adoptive children of the Arena,
with whose fortunes she is so closely linked in her novel impersonation.
It was not enough that her pillar-shrine should overlook the Palace Her aid
arena. The Minoan bull-sports, as practised either there or in the rock- stantly
fringed glens of the country beyond, might well be thought to call at every jj™ her
turn for the personal intervention of the Goddess. For it was in truth a protege's
dangerous profession. On the frescoes and reliefs we watch the performer ring.
launched in mid-air from a vantage-coign to gain a stranglehold of the A vision
coursing animal, or, failing that, entangled between its horns and whirled fort in
round with monstrous force ; we see him depicted taking a back somersault """J1
from the bull's hind-quarters in the uncertain hope that an attendant at the
side may break his fall, while, in more than one instance, he is badly thrown
or tossed and lies half dazed on the field, to be gored or trampled on. There
was constant need for those connected with these dangerous acrobatic feats
to invoke the aid of a divine patroness, who, as in the image before us, thus
combined with her sporting garb the essential attributes of motherhood.
The attitude in which the figure itself stood, when the legs were com-
plete, with both hands raised and the palms turned forward, is not an
attitude of the bull-ring. It should not be confused with that of the girl
performer in the ' Taureador Fresco stretching her hands forward to
to do with a personage of a divine nature. Although we have not here
the evidence of a high tiara such as we see on the head of the Boston
Goddess and of the boy-God, the significance of the broad gold diadem and
of the traces of some kind of coronal is sufficiently clear. Equally significant
is the profusion of gold-work decoration visible in this figure, which is itself
much greater than could have been the case with the other examples cited.
In the loin-clothing, where this wealth in gold plating is most con-
spicuous, we recognize, indeed, an assimilation with the male costume that
the girl performers in the sports had borrowed from the Minoan ' cow-
boys' and taureadors. But the transition to true femininity is here marked
by the elaborate stays and corsage, as well as by the full womanly develop-
ment of the bosom.
' Our Lady of the Sports' still a Mother Goddess to her Proteges
of the Bull-ring.
We have here 'Our Lady of the Sports', but it is still the Mother 'Ladyof
Goddess in one of her numerous impersonations. Her matronly proportions Sports'
themselves agree with those of the faience and ivory figurines where she Mother
appears holding the snakes of the Underworld. In this motherly aspect, she Goddess,
still forms a subject of natural appeal to her adoptive children of the Arena,
with whose fortunes she is so closely linked in her novel impersonation.
It was not enough that her pillar-shrine should overlook the Palace Her aid
arena. The Minoan bull-sports, as practised either there or in the rock- stantly
fringed glens of the country beyond, might well be thought to call at every jj™ her
turn for the personal intervention of the Goddess. For it was in truth a protege's
dangerous profession. On the frescoes and reliefs we watch the performer ring.
launched in mid-air from a vantage-coign to gain a stranglehold of the A vision
coursing animal, or, failing that, entangled between its horns and whirled fort in
round with monstrous force ; we see him depicted taking a back somersault """J1
from the bull's hind-quarters in the uncertain hope that an attendant at the
side may break his fall, while, in more than one instance, he is badly thrown
or tossed and lies half dazed on the field, to be gored or trampled on. There
was constant need for those connected with these dangerous acrobatic feats
to invoke the aid of a divine patroness, who, as in the image before us, thus
combined with her sporting garb the essential attributes of motherhood.
The attitude in which the figure itself stood, when the legs were com-
plete, with both hands raised and the palms turned forward, is not an
attitude of the bull-ring. It should not be confused with that of the girl
performer in the ' Taureador Fresco stretching her hands forward to