Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/529

 connected with death, that in the belief of the common-folk the dissolution of a dead body is effected by the fortieth day after burial. On the other hand the Church has more prudently fixed three years as the time required for dissolution, the period which must elapse before the body may be exhumed. Thus there are two periods, fixed respectively by popular opinion and by ecclesiastical authority, between which there is a choice; the vox populi and the vox Dei are here in disagreement; and according as preference is locally given to the one or to the other mandate, so is a period of forty days or a period of three years locally believed to be that required for the dissolution of the body. But these two periods are also those between which there is a local variation in the custom of maintaining the 'unsleeping lamp.' Hence it is reasonably to be inferred that the 'unsleeping lamp' is in some way closely connected with the dissolution of the body.

Moreover this connexion is actually recognised by the common-folk themselves, as witness the following two couplets from a funeral-dirge. The words are put, as so often in the dirges, in the mouth of the dead man, who in this instance is supposed to be young and to be addressing his forlorn lady-love.

'And when the priests with solemn song march toward the grave with me, Steal thou out from thy mother's side and light me torches three; And when the priests shall quench again those lights for me,—ah then, Then, like the breath of roses, sweet, thou passest from my ken .'

These lines are based on a belief which is fairly general among the Greek peasants, that consciousness of, and concern for, the things of this world are not broken off finally at the moment of death, but continue in some degree until the body of the dead is completely dissolved. Here the memories of love are spoken of as lasting until the priests quench the burning lights, which can be none other in the context than the 'unsleeping lamp'—for three, the number mentioned, is merely a number of peculiar virtue and has no special force. It follows then that the quenching of the lights is understood in the passage to denote the accomplish-*(women hired to mourn at funerals). The version which I here follow is given by Passow, ''Popul. Carm.'' no. 377.

[Greek: Ki' ontes na me perasoune psallontes oi papades, Ebga krypha p' tê mana sou ki' anapse treis lampades; Ki' ontes na mou ta sbesoune papades ta kêria mou, Totes trantaphyllenia mou bgaineis ap' tên kardia mou.] ]