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

342 Ritual Forms in Greek Tragedy
the death or Pathos of some hero. Indeed I think it can be
shown that every extant tragedy contains somewhere towards
the end the celebration of a tabu tomb. This point we must
gladly concede to Professor Ridgeway. I wish to suggest, how-
ever, that while the content has strayed far from Dionysus, the
forms of tragedy retain clear traces of the original drama of the
Death and Rebirth of the Year Spirit.
Dieterich has already shown that a characteristic of the Sacer
Ludus in the mysteries was a Peripeteia, or Reversal. It was a
change from sorrow to joy, from darkness and sights of inexplicable
terror to light and the discovery of the reborn God. Such a
Peripeteia is clearly associated with an Anagnorisis, a Recognition
or Discovery. Such formulae from the mysteries as SapaeiTe,
Mutrrai, tov Oeov aeawafievov— Hvpy']Ka/xev, avy^alpofjuev—
"Kcpuyop kcikov, -qvpov afxetvov, imply a close connection between
the Peripeteia and the Anagnorisis, and enable us to understand
why these two elements are regarded by Aristotle as normally
belonging to Tragedy. Now Peripeteia of some kind is perhaps
in itself a necessary or normal part of any dramatic story. But no
one could say the same of Anagnorisis. It must come into Greek
tragedy from the Sacer Ludus, in which the dead God is Recognized
or Discovered.
So far Dieterich. But we may go much further than this. If
we examine the kind of myth which seems to underly the various
' Eniautos ' celebrations we shall find :
1. An Agon or Contest, the Year against its enemy, Light
against Darkness, Summer against Winter.
2. A Pathos of the Year-Daimon, generally a ritual or
sacrificial death, in which Adonis or Attis is slain by the tabu
animal, the Pharmakos stoned, Osiris, Dionysus, Pentheus, Orpheus,
Hippolytus torn to pieces (a7rapa