DOI chapter:
The mythology of Athenian local cults
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0045
OF ANCIENT ATHENS
xxxiii
have a childish story that the infant is put in a chest and
given out to nurse to three maidens, who may not open the chest.
Two of the maidens are disobedient, and ultimately Athene
has to take the infant herself, as she might as well have done
at first. A story so unsatisfactory must have been invented
for a cause, and this cause I believe to be simply the
mysterious ceremony of the Hersephoria. There is no more
fertile source of absurd mythology than ritual misunderstood.
Pausanias lets out the secret, though he little guesses it
himself. After describing the Erechtheion (p. 482), he comes to
the precinct and temple of Pandrosos, the only one of the sisters
who was guiltless, as he says, in the matter of the chest. He
then proceeds to tell of the surprising ceremony performed by
the Arrephoroi, as he calls them—how at the time of the
feast the two maidens took upon their heads what the priestess
of Athene gave them, neither she nor they knowing what it
was ; how they went down by a subterranean passage to a
precinct not far from that of Aphrodite in the Gardens, there
deposited their burdens, and took up something also covered
up. Now, with reference to the connection between this ritual
and the myth in question, it may be noted-
1. That Pausanias does not actually say the ceremony of
the Arrephoroi had to do with Pandrosos, but he mentions
the one immediately after the other, so some connection may
—if it seem otherwise probable—be implied.
2. He uses the form Arrephoroi, but there is an alternative
form, 'Ερσεφόρού (Hersephoroi). The two are thus explained
by the scholiast on line 641 of the Lysistrata of Aristophanes.
The Athenian woman, describing her life from girlhood to
womanhood, says, “ When I was seven years old, then at once
I performed the part of an Arrephoros.” And the scholiast
comments—“ Some say, on account of the a, that it is άρρηφορία,
because the maidens carry άρρητα (things nameless) in chests
to the goddess ; others, on account of the e, say it is ερσ-ζφορία,
for J they go in procession in honour of Herse, daughter of
Cecrops, as Istros relates.” The spelling with an a was tempt-
ing, as it at once connected the name with the mystery, the
unspeakableness of the ceremony; but the e form never
died out, even by the side of this plausible etymology,
c
xxxiii
have a childish story that the infant is put in a chest and
given out to nurse to three maidens, who may not open the chest.
Two of the maidens are disobedient, and ultimately Athene
has to take the infant herself, as she might as well have done
at first. A story so unsatisfactory must have been invented
for a cause, and this cause I believe to be simply the
mysterious ceremony of the Hersephoria. There is no more
fertile source of absurd mythology than ritual misunderstood.
Pausanias lets out the secret, though he little guesses it
himself. After describing the Erechtheion (p. 482), he comes to
the precinct and temple of Pandrosos, the only one of the sisters
who was guiltless, as he says, in the matter of the chest. He
then proceeds to tell of the surprising ceremony performed by
the Arrephoroi, as he calls them—how at the time of the
feast the two maidens took upon their heads what the priestess
of Athene gave them, neither she nor they knowing what it
was ; how they went down by a subterranean passage to a
precinct not far from that of Aphrodite in the Gardens, there
deposited their burdens, and took up something also covered
up. Now, with reference to the connection between this ritual
and the myth in question, it may be noted-
1. That Pausanias does not actually say the ceremony of
the Arrephoroi had to do with Pandrosos, but he mentions
the one immediately after the other, so some connection may
—if it seem otherwise probable—be implied.
2. He uses the form Arrephoroi, but there is an alternative
form, 'Ερσεφόρού (Hersephoroi). The two are thus explained
by the scholiast on line 641 of the Lysistrata of Aristophanes.
The Athenian woman, describing her life from girlhood to
womanhood, says, “ When I was seven years old, then at once
I performed the part of an Arrephoros.” And the scholiast
comments—“ Some say, on account of the a, that it is άρρηφορία,
because the maidens carry άρρητα (things nameless) in chests
to the goddess ; others, on account of the e, say it is ερσ-ζφορία,
for J they go in procession in honour of Herse, daughter of
Cecrops, as Istros relates.” The spelling with an a was tempt-
ing, as it at once connected the name with the mystery, the
unspeakableness of the ceremony; but the e form never
died out, even by the side of this plausible etymology,
c