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II.] eliminated, but peeps forth at rare intervals even in Sophocles, reminding us of the deep saying of Socrates, that it belongs to the same genius to produce tragedy and comedy.

II. While thus becoming specialised, and putting on its proper form, the tragic spirit also gained in comprehensiveness. There was a Protean, adventurous, prehensile element in the Bacchic worship that predisposed it to acknowledge kindred with other rites. It could neither be stationary nor isolated, least of all in the liberal Athenian air. That the Eleutherian Dionysus should become associated with the mystic influence of the Eleusinian Demeter, or with the wild impulsiveness of Pan; that in his graver aspect he should conciliate to himself the jealous Furies, and, as the lord of nightly exaltation, even claim affinity with the powers of Death, was natural if not inevitable. But in tragedy as we know it, the original religious element has attained a much wider catholicity, and without losing either in spontaneity or in mystic depth, displays itself in the full daylight of the national religion. Zeus, Athena and Apollo, Hermes and Artemis, appear for the most part in full accord with the Spirits of Earth and Darkness. Only, through their contact with tragedy, the mystic attributes of the Olympians are deepened and intensified. Zeus as the Judge, Apollo as the Seer, Hermes as the Guardian of the Dead, preside fitly over the development of tragic themes. And now and then a note of dissidence is heard, and the seen and unseen worlds, the Gods of Glory and of Gloom, are for the moment opposed, (Æsch. Ag. 636 foll. Soph. Ant. 777–80.)

Of the hundred and more religious functionaries, male and female, who occupied the front rows in the Dionysiac theatre, not one could fail to hear from time to time some reference to the deity whom he served; though the priests of Apollo, of Artemis, and of Nemesis (probably a late comer) might feel at tragic representations a peculiar sympathy with the priest of