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

n] Dithyramb reflects Initiation-Rites 37
is, as much as Crete, the home of primitive custom—at Sparta it
was not left even to the father, much less to the mother, to decide
what children he would rear ; he was obliged to bring the child
to a place called the Lesche, there to be examined by the most
ancient men of the tribe to see if he was stout and strong and fit
to be a tribesman. If he was weakly he was thrown down a crag
of Taygetos. It must have been an anxious time for many a
mother, and that anxiety is, it may be, in part reflected in the
many stories of mothers who hide their child directly after birth.
Rhea hides Zeus from Kronos. Auge 1 has a child by Heracles and
conceals him. Evadne 2 hid her child amid the reeds in a dim
thicket, and ' his tender body was bedewed with the gleam of
pansy flowers purple and gold, and no man had seen him or heard
of him though he was now born five days.' Stories of this type,
where the child is hid by the mother from fear of the father, have
hitherto been explained 3 by some story of a divine father and the
mother's fear of the human father's anger.
The child, whether concealed or acknowledged, might remain
with its mother for a time. She will practise on it her mother-
rites. She will, perhaps, like the Spartan 4 mother, wash her baby
with wine to strengthen it. She will certainly bathe or sprinkle
it with holy water and pass it through the fire. She may wean it
from her own breast and feed it with honey and alien milk, but,
sooner or later, the day of separation is at hand. The Kouretes
of the tribe will come and will take him away, will hide him for
weeks or months in the bush, will clothe him in strange clothes,
teach him strange dances and strange lore, and bring him back
all changed, with a new soul, the soul of his tribe, his mother's
child no more, trained it may be henceforth to scorn or spit at
her. He belongs from henceforth to his father and to the Man's
House.
Nowhere have I been able to find among savage tribes any
mimic birth from the father 5 , that is any strict parallel to the
1 Paus. viii. 4. 8.
2 Pind. 01. vi. 52
rol 5 ovt' uv aKovaai
oin' idetv eOxovro ire/XTTTcuov yeyevafx4vov ' dXX' iv
K^KpvTTTO yap fiaria eV aireipaTU.
3 The new explanation offered here was suggested to me by Mr F. M. Cornford.
4 Plutarch, op. cit.
5 The customs of the Couvade which might seem to belong here can I think be
otherwise better explained.