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

'
xi] Dike in Hades 519
him like a sort of moralized Kratos and Bia. The nurse says of
Medea 1
,
'Did ye hear her cry
To them that guard man's faith forsworn,
Themis and Zeus ?
It was the boast of ^Egina that more than any other city she
honoured
Saviour Themis who sitteth by Zeus, God of Strangers 2 .
Hesiod as we have seen makes her succeed Thetis as second
wife of Zeus.
The real truth comes out in the fragment of a hymn of
Pindar's 3 in which he describes this Olympian wedding.
And first did the Moirai 4 4ead Heavenly Themis of the Good Counsels
with golden horses along the springs of Okeanos, up the holy ladder of
Olympos, along the shining way.
She who was of earth, she who was Earth herself, leaves her
home and goes the way of all things divine, up to Olympos. But,
in the very pomp and pageant of her going, we feel she is entering
on an alien kingdom. Hers are human conventions, and it is only
by constraint of the Moirai that she goes skyward, there to wed
Zeus and to summon his councils.
Not less clearly and with more inherent propriety does Dike
belong to Hades, the kingdom of Plouton. When Antigone 5 is
1 Eur. Med. 169
And again, 208
eTripoaTai
Q^/juv evKTaiav Zijvd 6\
rav Zrjvos bpniav Qipav.
2 Pind. 01. viii. 21
hda Hipreipa Aids £ei>iov
3 Christ, Erg. 29, 30, v.
irdpedpos dcr/ceiVcu Qifus.
7. This hymn, like the Paean quoted above, may very
probably have been written for the Daphnephoria to accompany the procession of
the Kopo. See supra, p. 438.
4 In a lyric fragment (Bergk, adesp. 139) the Fates are made to escort the three
Horai, Eunomia, Dike and Eirene.
K\u)6ili Adjects r' ev&Xevoi
Kovpai Nukt6s,
evxo/J-ivuv ewaKovaar\ ovpdviai x^^ VL0LL Te Saifiovev
w wavSelfxavroi, W/XTreT' ap-ixiv
pohoKoKirov 'Evvofilav \nrapodpovovs t d5e\0ds, Aikzv
KO.I GTe