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

362 Ritual Forms in Greek Tragedy
the right of sanctuary attached to some particular altar or tomb
or the like, very much as we keep alive the control over a right
of way. On one day in the year some fugitives take refuge at
the altar, some pursuer tries to drag them away, and some high
authority, god or king or people, forbids him. This is notoriously
a very common motive in Greek tragedy, and was used, as recent
finds have shown us, in the romantic comedy of the fourth
century. (Pap. Ox. VI. 855, a scene which I should now explain
differently.) I suspect that this ritual is also at the back of
various rites which have generally been interpreted as survivals of
human sacrifice, rites in which some one is pursued with weapons
and is supposed to be killed unless he reaches a certain place
of refuge.
However that may be, let us consider the actual Prologue-
speakers. We may start with Alcestis, Apollo (and Death)
Hippolytus, Aphrodite : Hecuba, the Ghost of Polydorus : Ion,
Hermes : Troades, Poseidon (and Athena) : Bacchae, Dionysus
all these are supernatural. Next observe Heracleidae, Iolaus
suppliant at an altar : Andromache,
the heroine suppliant at an
altar: Supplices, Aithra, surrounded by a Band of women sup-
pliant at an altar : Heracles, Amphitryon and Megara, suppliants
at an altar : Helena, the heroine suppliant at an altar : Iph. Taw.,
the half-divine priestess of a strange and bloodstained Temple
rising from a dream of death. The religious half- supernatural
atmosphere is unmistakable.
The only exceptions are Medea, Phoenissae, Electra, Orestes, though in
the two last the exception is more apparent than real. We must remember
the curious traces of the daimon that cling about Orestes. In any case,
both openings produce a decidedly uncanny atmosphere—the lonely woman
in the night uttering curses against her mother, and the woman sitting alone
by her brother who is mad and perhaps dead.
There remain two peculiar cases, the Rhesus and Iphigenia in Aulis. We
know that the Rhesus had in Alexandrian times three different Prologues,
while the Iphigenia has two in our present MSS. I will not discuss them
further than to point out that they seem to represent a new form of Prologue,
which starts with a lyric scene. The lyric Prologues of both are very similar
and exceedingly beautiful, and I may say in passing that I have long been
inclined to think that we have in them the hand of the original producer of
the Iphigenia, Euripides the younger.
What is the explanation of these facts ? It seems to me that
the old Sacer Ludus has reasserted itself: the Prologue, after
passing into a mere dramatic exposition-scene between ordinary
: