Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/600

 marriage of men and gods, the information given by Clement with respect to the ritual makes it clear that such was their object. But in that other rite of the same goddess, that namely which celebrated the story of Adonis, the whole motif of the drama was the continuance of Aphrodite's love for him after his death, a love so strong that it prevailed upon the gods of the lower world to let him return for half of every year to the upper world and the arms of his mistress. Here, though expressed in different imagery, is the same doctrine as that which underlay the drama of Eleusis. Here again is an illustration, or rather, for those who were capable of religious ecstasy, a proof, of the doctrine that the dead yet lived, and in that life were both in body and in soul one with their gods. For 'thrice-beloved Adonis who even in Acheron is beloved ' was the type and forerunner of all those who had part in his mysteries.

In another version this legend of Adonis is brought into even closer relation with the Eleusinian mysteries by the introduction of Persephone. To her is assigned the part of a rival to Aphrodite, and being equally enamoured of the beautiful Adonis she is glad of his death whereby he is torn from the arms of Aphrodite in the upper world, and enters the chamber of the nether world where her love in turn may have its will; but in the end Aphrodite descends to the house of Hades, and a compact is arranged between the two goddesses by which each in turn may possess Adonis for half the year. This version of the story is cruder, but its teaching is obviously the same—Adonis, the favourite of heaven in this life, and the precursor of all who by initiation in the mysteries win heaven's favour, survives in the lower world with both body and soul unimpaired by death, and is admitted to wedlock with the great goddess of the dead.

The same doctrine again seems to have been the basis of certain mystic rites associated with Dionysus. From the speech against Neaera attributed to Demosthenes we learn that at Athens there was annually celebrated a marriage between the wife of the chief magistrate ([Greek: archôn basileus]) and Dionysus. The solemnity was reckoned among things 'unspeakable'; foreigners were not per-*