Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/30

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EARLY HISTORY OF GREEK TRAGEDY.
[CH.

drowning of her cries with the clash of cymbals, and the safe removal of the child in the midst of the uproar[1].

From such parallel examples we may derive some notion of the character of the dithyrambic dances performed by the satyrs in honour of Dionysus. The wealth and variety of the Bacchic legends — the various stories about the mysterious birth of the god, about his education upon Mount Nysa, his invasion and conquest of India, his conflict with the kings of Thrace and Thebes, his perilous voyage to Naxos, and his marriage with the deserted Ariadne—would supply abundant materials for mimetic representation. Some scholars, it is true, are of opinion that the dithyramb was restricted in early times to a single fable—the birth of Dionysus; and that the performance of this legend at the spring festivals was intended to typify the annual revival of Nature in the spring[2]. This theory, however, is unsupported by adequate testimony ; and it seems on general grounds more reasonable to suppose that the old Bacchic hymns were co-extensive in range with the whole of the Bacchic mythology.

§ 4. Arion and the Dithyramb.

For a long time after its first introduction into Greece the dithyramb was regarded more as a kind of folk-song than as a regular branch of literature, being performed by the voluntary efforts of the farmers at the rustic festivals[3]. Its elevation to the rank of artistic poetry was due to the Dorians. Among the

  1. ↑ Strabo, 10. 3, 11.
  2. ↑ So Bergk, Griechische Literatur-geschichte, vol. iii, p. 12. This view is based on Plat. Legg. 700 B καὶ ἀλλὸ (εἶδος ᾠδῆς) Διονύσον γένεσις, οἶμαι, διθύραμβος λεγόμενος. But Plato's description of the dithyramb as the 'birth of Dionysus ' is apparently derived from the fanciful etymology which connected the word 'dithyramb with 'two doors,' and referred it to the double birth of Dionysus, from Semele and from Zeus. Cp. Etym. Mag. v. διθύραμβος· ἀπὸ τοῦ δύο θύρας βαίνειν. Schol. Plat. Rep. 394 C ὀνομάζεται γὰρ οὕτως (ὁ διθύραμβος) … διὰ τὸ δόξαι γενέσθαι δίς, ἔκ τε τῆς Σεμέλης καὶ τοῦ μηροῦ τοῦ Διός. It is not likely that Plato had any special information concerning the contents of the primitive dithyrambs. Nor is it probable that the early Greeks were conscious of any typical significance underlying the story about the birth of the deity. The real derivation of the word διθύραμβος is unknown. It is apparently connected with θρίαμβος, and may perhaps be of Phrygian origin.
  3. ↑ Aristot. Problem. 19. 15; Poet. c. 4.
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