Greek Studies: A Series of Essays |
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actual Ægina æsthetic Aidoneus amid ancient animal Aphrodite Apollo archaic artistic Asiatic Athens athletic Bacchanals beauty become body bronze Canachus child chorus chryselephantine colour comes connexion creatures Cypselus delicate delight Demeter Demeter and Persephone Dionysus Discobolus divine Dorian early earth element Eleusis Euripides expression fancy figures flowers goddess gods gold grace Greece Greek art Greek religion Greek sculpture hand Hephæstus heroic age Hesiod Homeric hymn human form imagination impressions incidents influence instance ivory Kore later legend light marble metal monument mother mysteries mystical myth mythology natural passed Pausanias peculiar Pentheus perhaps Persephone person phase Pheidias Phoenicia poet poetical poetry Polycleitus Praxiteles present primitive religion of Dionysus religious represented sacred seems sense Sicyon sorrow sort soul spirit spring stone story of Demeter strange symbolical Teiresias temper temple Theseus Thiasus things thought tomb touch tradition vine visible whole wild women worship youth Zagreus Zeus
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Page 58 - And our fingers must beware of the thyrsus, tossed about so wantonly by himself and his chorus. The pine-cone at its top does but cover a spear-point ; and the thing is a weapon — the sharp spear of the hunter Zagreus — though hidden now by the fresh leaves, and that button of pine-cone (useful also to dip in wine, to check the sweetness) which he has plucked down, coming through the forest, at peace for a while this spring morning. And the Chorus...
Page 20 - Think of the darkness of the well in the breathless court, with the delicate ring of ferns kept alive just within the opening ; of the sound of the fresh water flowing through the wooden pipes into the houses of Venice, on summer mornings...
Page 100 - The worship of Demeter belongs to that older religion, nearer to the earth, which some have thought they could discern, behind the more definitely national mythology of Homer. She is the goddess of dark caves, and is not wholly free from monstrous form. She gave men the first fig in one place, the first poppy in another ; in another, she first taught the old Titans to mow. She is the mother of the vine also ; and the assumed name by which she called herself in her wanderings, is Dos — a gift ;...
Page 99 - ... or feature, or characteristic of the great mother. The various epithets of Demeter, the local variations of her story, its incompatible incidents, bear witness to the manner of its generation. They illustrate that indefiniteness which is characteristic of Greek mythology, a theology with no central authority, no link on historic time, liable from the first to an unobserved transformation.
Page 88 - Thirdly, the myth passes into the ethical phase, in which the persons and the incidents of the poetical narrative are realised as abstract symbols, because intensely characteristic examples, of moral or spiritual conditions10.
Page 98 - The gods of Greek mythology overlap each other ; they are confused or connected with each other, lightly or deeply, as the case may be, and sometimes have their doubles, at first sight as in a confused dream, yet never, when we examine each detail more closely, without a certain truth to human reason. It is only in a limited sense that it is possible to lift, and examine by itself, one thread of the network of story and imagery, which in a certain age of...
Page 3 - He is the soul of the individual vine, first; the young vine at the house-door of the newly married, for instance, as the vine-grower stoops over it, coaxing and nursing it, like a pet animal or a little child ; afterwards, the soul of the whole species, the spirit of fire and dew, alive and leaping in a thousand vines...
Page 293 - As when from a wealthy hand one lifting a cup, made glad within with the dew of the vine, maketh gift thereof to a youth " : — the keynote of Pindar's verse is there ! This brilliant living youth of his day, of the actual time, for whom, as he says, he "awakes the clear -toned gale of song...
Page 229 - ... consummation already anticipated in the grand and animated figures of epic poetry, their power of thought, their laughter and tears. Under the hands of that younger people, as they imitate and pass largely and freely beyond those older craftsmen, the fire of the reasonable soul will kindle, little by little, up to the Theseus of the Parthenon and the Venus of Melos. The ideal aim of Greek sculpture, as of all other art, is to deal, indeed, with the deepest elements of man's nature and destiny,...
Page 101 - of Kore, then so fresh and peaceful. In this phase, then, the story of Demeter appears as the peculiar creation of country-people of a high impressibility, dreaming over their work in spring or autumn, half consciously touched by a sense of its sacredness, and a sort of mystery about it. For there is much in the life of the farm everywhere which gives, to persons of any seriousness of disposition, special opportunity for grave and gentle thoughts. The temper of people engaged in the occupations...