Page:Lucian, Vol 3.djvu/181

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ON SACRIFICES

the gods like to see all this? And although the notice says that no one is to be allowed within the holy-water who has not clean hands, the priest himself stands there all bloody, just like the Cyclops of old, cutting up the victim, removing the entrails, plucking out the heart, pouring the blood about the altar, and doing everything possible in the way of piety. To crown it all, he lights a fire and puts upon it the goat, skin and all, and the sheep, wool and all; and the smoke, divine and holy, mounts upward and gradually dissipates into Heaven itself.

The Scythians, indeed, reject all the sacrificial animals and think them too mean; they actually offer men to Artemis and by so doing gratify the goddess!

These practices are all very well, no doubt, and also those of the Assyrians and those of the Phrygians and Lydians; but if you go to Egypt, then, ah! then you will see much that is venerable and truly in keeping with Heaven — Zeus with the head of a ram, good Hermes with the head of a dog, Pan completely metamorphosed into a goat, some other god into an ibis, another into a crocodile, another into a monkey!

Wouldst thou enquire the cause of these doings in order to know it,”[1]

you will hear plenty of men of letters and scribes and shaven prophets say — but first of all, as the saying goes, “Uninitiate, shut up your doors!”[2] — that

  1. ↑ Iliad 6, 150.
  2. ↑ An oft-quoted tag from a lost Orphic poem. Those who have not been initiated in the mysteries are required to go into their houses and close the doors, because the emblems of Dionysus are going to pass through the streets.
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