Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/474

 due funeral-rites, whereby alone the desired dissolution could be secured, but is doomed to lie unburied, incorruptible. Such is my interpretation of the closing lines of the passage before us; and there is no need to repeat the defence of my contention that the word [Greek: taricheuthenta] must be understood in its literal and proper sense. But it will not be out of place to note here how, in the Eumenides, Aeschylus' mind was still pervaded by the same popular belief. The word [Greek: taricheuesthai] means, in the literal sense in which I have taken it, to be withheld from corruption by some process of curing or drying; and, fantastic though it may seem, it is that process of 'drying,' if I may use the word, which the Furies are charged by Clytemnestra to carry out against her murderer. Let Aeschylus' own words prove it. Hear first how Clytemnestra's ghost with her last words spurs on the Furies to this special task:

[Greek: sy d' haimatêron pneum' epourisasa tô, atmô katischnainousa, nêdyos pyri, hepou, maraine deuterois diôgmasin].

'Up and pursue! let thy breath lap his blood With sering reek, as were thy bowels a furnace, Till he be shrivelled in the redoubled chase.'

And the Furies prove by their threats to Orestes that they are not unmindful of their charge. 'Nay, in return for the blood thou hast shed, thou must give me to suck the red juices from thy living limbs. Thyself must be my meat, my horrid drink.' 'Yea, while thou livest, I will drain thee dry, ere I hale thee 'neath the earth .' And the same thought is emphasized yet again in that binding-spell which the Furies chant to draw him whom they already account their prey from his vain refuge at Athene's altar:

[Greek: epi de tô tethymenô tode melos, parakopa, paraphora phrenodalês, hymnos ex Erinyôn, desmios phrenôn, aphormiktos, auona brotois].

'Over our victim thus chant we our spell, Rocking and wrecking the torturèd soul, The jubilant song of Avengers, Fettering the soul with no 'witchments of lute, A spell as of drought upon mortals.' has been challenged, but has the support of the Scholiast who explains it by the words [Greek: ho xêrainôn tous brotous], (the hymn) which dries and withers men.]