Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/481

 Thus in my view, as I have indicated, the greater part of the information in the lexicons with regard to these three words is inaccurate; and my reasons for disputing the received interpretations will be set forth point by point as I offer my own interpretations in their stead.

In dealing with the first group of meanings assigned to the three words, by which they came, somehow or other, to be used with the common active signification of 'Avenger,' my main contention will be that, as regards their primary and strictest usage, all three words were applied not to gods but to men—men who, having been murdered, sought to requite their murderers—and were only secondarily extended to the agents, whether divine or human, to whom those dead men committed the task of vengeance; but I shall also endeavour to show, as regards the literal meaning of the three words severally, that the interpretation by means of which their final sense of 'Avenger' has generally been elicited from them is in each case wrong, and that, in the case of the word [Greek: alastôr] in particular, a right understanding of its original meaning gives very important results.

And in dealing with the second group of meanings, by which the three words are said to denote three only slightly different aspects of one and the same person—a murderer who is [Greek: miastôr] as polluted and spreading pollution, [Greek: alastôr] as pursued by vengeance, and [Greek: prostropaios] as still needing purification—I shall maintain that these alleged uses of the first two words do not exist, and, as regards the third, I will offer a suggestion, but a suggestion only, as to the means by which it acquired this signification which it unquestionably bore.

It will be convenient to deal first with [Greek: miastôr] and [Greek: alastôr] as being parallel in usage throughout, and to reserve [Greek: prostropaios] for later consideration.

The clearest example of that which I take to be the original usage of [Greek: miastôr] is furnished by Euripides. In that scene of mutual recrimination between Medea and Jason, after that in revenge for her husband's faithlessness she has slain their children, there comes at last from her lips the brutal taunt, as she points to the dead, 'They live no more: that truth at least will sting thee'; and Jason answers, 'Nay, but they live, to wreak vengeance on