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

32 The Dithyramb, hpufxevov and Drama [cn.
Aristotle in a famous sentence has left us his views as to the
origin of tragedy. ' Tragedy—as also Comedy,' he says in the
Poetics 1
,
' was
at first mere improvisation. The one originated
tvith the leaders of the dithyramb, the other wr ith those of
the phallic songs which are still in use in many of our cities.'
Dithyramb and drama alike may seem for the moment alien
to the subject of our last chapter, but it will soon appear that
an enquiry into their origin and interaction will throw fresh
light on the relations between the Kouros and the Kouretes,
and will go far to illuminate the strange conjunction of the
stage of Phaedrus.
What then is the Dithyramb ? What element in it caused
this parting of the w Tays between it and comedy ? Something
there must have been that differentiated it out from the common
phallic mime, some seed of beauty and solemn significance that
was to blossom into tragedy, there to find what Aristotle 2 calls its
glials, and then to cease.
Plato 3 is our single and sufficient direct authority. In discussing
the various sorts of odes he says, ' Some are prayers to the gods,
and these are called by the title hymns; others of an opposite
sort might best be called dirges, another sort are paeans, and
another—the birth of Dionysos I suppose— is called Dithyramb.'
Plato throws out this all-important statement with a touch of
indifference (o2/i.at), as of a thing accredited, but too technical to
be interesting. Scholars 4
,
guiltless of any knowledge of initiation-
ceremonies, have usually assumed that Plato has been misled by
the false etymology of the Double Door. Is it not at least as
possible that this false etymology arose, in part of course from
the form of an ancient ritual title misunderstood, but in greater
part from the fact that Plato's statement is literally true, that the
Pitbyramb WI'A.'s miirmally t,hp Sana of the Birth {
1 iv. 12 yevofiivr] (5 :
) ovv air' dpxns avToax e ° Laa" rl- K Vj Kal o.vtt) Kai r\ KuipLtpdia, Kai rj p.ev
dirb twv i^ap\6vTU}v t'ov didvpa/xfiov, g 5e dirb tuiv to. (paWiKa a. Zti Kai vvv iv woWais
twv noXtuv dicLfiivei vafxi'^optva.
2 op. cit. Kai 7ro\\ds /xerajioXas pLtTa(3a\ovoa ; q rpayuidia tiravaaTO eirel ecrx e T V"
avTrjs