Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/416

394 394 HISTORY OF THE enthusiastic sympathy with the apparent sorrows of the god of nature. But comedy was connected, according to universal tradition, with the lesser or country Dionysia, (ra. /xiKpa, ra tear aypovg Aloviktio.,) the concluding feast of the vintage, at which an exulting joy over the inexhaustible exuberant riches of nature manifested itself in wantonness and petulance of every kind. In such a feast the comus or Bacchanalian procession was a principal ingredient: it was, of course, much less orderly and ceremonious than the comus at which Pindar's Epinician odes were sung, (chap. XV. § 3. p. 221,) but very lively and tumultuous, a varied mixture of the wild carouse, the noisy song, and the drunken dance. According to Athenian authorities, which connect comedy at the country Dionysia immediately with the comus,* it is in- dubitable that the meaning of the word comedy is " a comus song," although others, even in ancient times, describe it as " a village song,"f not badly as far as the fact is concerned, but the etymology is manifestly erroneous. With the Bacchic comus, which turned a noisy festal banquet into a boisterous procession of revellers, a custom was from the earliest times connected, which was the first cause of the origin of comedy. The symbol of the productive power of nature was carried about by this band of revellers, and a wild, jovial song was recited in honour of the god in whom dwells this power of nature, namely, Bacchus himself or one of his companions. Such phallophoric or ithyphallic songs were customary in various regions of Greece. The ancients give us many hints about the variegated garments, the coverings for the face, such as masks or thick chaplets of flowers, and the processions and songs of these comus singers. Aristophanes, in his Acharnians, gives a most vivid picture of the Attic usages in this respect : in that play, the worthy Dicseopolis, while Avar is raging' around, alone peacefully celebrates the country Dionysia on his own farm; he has sacrificed with his slaves, and now prepares for the sacred procession ; his daughter carries the basket as canephorus ; behind her the slave holds the phallus aloft ; and, while his wife regards the procession from the roof of the house, he himself begins the phallus song, " Phales, boon companion of Bacchus, thou nightly reveller !" with that strange mixture of wantonness and serious piety which was possible only in the elementary religions of the ancient world. or city Dionysia is thus described, but it is obvious that the connexion proceeded from the country Dionysia. f From -A.uiA.rt. The Peloponnesians, according to Aristotle, Poet. c. 3, used this etymology to support their claim to the invention of comedy, because they called villages xZ/mu, but the Athenians tiif&ai. JAthenaus, xiv. p. 621, 2, and the lexicographers Hesychius and Suidas, in various articles relating to the subject. Phallophori, Ithyphalli, Autokabdali, Iambistse, ai-e the different names of these merryandrews.
 * Sec the quotations chap. XXI. § 5. « xZpt>$ »cuei xupultii. The feast of the great