Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

in] Kratos and Bia 73
Power and Force. Not any house of Zeus
Is reft of them, nor seat. When he goes forth
They follow, hard behind, and by the throne
Of Zeus, Loud-thunderer, stablish they their seat.
Kratos and Bia, Power and Force, are shadow-figures in a
mature, flesh and blood theology. They affect us as strange or
superfluous. Once more they meet us in the Prometheus Bound,
and, though now completely humanized, they strike the same
strange chill. Hesiod, we are told, abounds in ' abstractions,'
' personifications ' of qualities. Rather his verse is full of reminis-
cences, resurgences of early pre-anthropomorphic faith ; he is
haunted by the spirits of ghostly mana and orenda and Wa-ko/t'-da
and brahman. Styx, Cold Shudder, Petrifaction, is married to
Pallas, who, as we shall later 1 find, began life as a thunderbolt.
Cold Shudder, Fear of the Uncanny, almost Tabu, brings forth
Eager Effort (ZrfKos) and Achievement ; Dominance (Nike),
and Power and Force are added to the strange phantom crew.
We seem to have the confused, half forgotten psychology of a
thunderstorm.
In this connection it is interesting to note that Kratos, Force,
is sometimes almost specialized iuto thunder. It is the strength
of Zeus. The process of specialization can be watched. When in
the Oedipus Rex 2 the chorus adjures Zeus to blast the Plague-God
they pray, ' O
Thou who wieldest the forces (/cpdrr)) of the fire-
bearing Lightnings, Father Zeus.' In the later writer, Cornutus 3
Kratos is used as the actual equivalent of the thunderbolt: 'and
the Kratos which he holds in his right hand.'
In the first two chapters we established as a main element in
religion collective emotion, man's reaction on his fellow-man. In
the present chapter we have dwelt chiefly on man's reaction to
the universe. We have seen his emotion extend itself, project
itself into natural phenomena, and noted how this projection
1 p. 87.
2 V. 200 CU TO.V TTlipcp6pU}V
affTpairav Kpa.Tr] vep.wv,