ZBORNIK - Matica srpska

hubris and koros lead a great man to his downfall. In the Greek situation
miasma always leads to purification. The total situation is
certainly not pessimistic as has been supposed by scholars for long
time. After the eclipse must come the full phase. Living through miasma
brings purity. Orestes was freed of his pollution and the
trilogy we see ends in great reconciliation. So does the sacrifice of
Janamejaya. An enactment of the pollution phase, a ritual mimesis
of the suffering, results in katharsis. Therefore, the annual public
festival has tragedy as a part of the total ritual. The katharsis that
Aristotle talks about is not for only the individual spectator but the
city as a whole. For the purpose of “ritual promoting or magically
seeking salvation an element of death and sorrow was isolated, placed
centrally and submitted for all time to reflection and contemplation".
Katharsis, then, is also not merely getting rid of the impurity.
It is more than a therapeutic restoration; It is a new inflow of
vitality. It ends in serene well-wishing and in an awareness that the
impurity is gone. This feeling is evident in the last play of the only
trilogy that is known to us today, Orestia. The note on which the
single plays end is different. The bulk of tragedies that have survived
and that have come to determine our idea of tragedy are of that
kind. It is the note of agony and continuing horror, the feeling that
miasma is retained and still not removed. But it should be remembered
that this note should not determine our overall view of tragedy
and its function (ergon). The trilogies and the appended satyr
plays form the total cycle of miasma and katharsis, they represent a
complete structure of this high and noble form of drama which
touched not upon lowly (phaule) subject, but the grave theme of
man's eclipse and renewal.
Ancestor-Worship and Burial Customs
There is no society in history, which has not believed in a continuation
of existence after death. Some form of the self, the nature
of which is described variously, is believed to exist, the idea of total
extinction has had little popularity. The funeral rites, therefore, have
been rites of passage which prepare the dead for a journey to its
new destination. The variety of these rites is due to variety of the
beliefs about the nature of the new home. This home has been
mostly envisaged as a permanent one, except in India where the
idea of reincarnation gained stability in post-Vedic times, whereas
in Greece, belief in reincarnation had a very transitory currency
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