Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

RELIGION AND EROTIC

Arnobius, Adv. Nat., v, 5; Catullus, lx; Lucian, Dial. Deorum, 12) tells the story in the following form: “‘ Zeus once had an emission of semen and his seed fell on the ground, which after an appointed time brought forth a spirit, that is, a divine being named Agdistis, possessing both male and female genital organs. But the gods bound Agdistis and cut off his male organs, since they were afraid that this being would otherwise become too powerful. From the cut-off organs an almond-tree grew up from the fruits of which, after they were ripe, the daughter of the river Sangarius took some and put them into her bosom, after which the almonds disappeared but the girl herself became pregnant. She bore a child, a boy, who grew up among the goats of the country fields and was always tended by a he-goat. As he grew in stature he became more wonderfully beautiful than any other man, so that the goddess Agdistis (Rhea Cybele) became hotly enamoured of the boy.”

His spirit passes over into the fig-tree and violets spring from his blood that trickles down, and embrace the fig-tree in a tender wreath ; a pretty idea, that the souls of the dead live again in flowers and trees. The sorrow of Agdistis is unspeakable ; she cannot do without her beloved and implores Zeus to reunite them. But all he can do for her is to grant that the body of the beautiful young boy shall never be disfigured by unsightly decay, that his hair shall not wither, but that of his whole body his little finger alone shall live again. As this did not satisfy the goddess, who was eager for love, she takes the precious fig-tree and carries it into her cave, for ever to assuage her sorrow by contemplation of it.

Concerning the god Dionysus, the finely conceived symbol, glorified by poetry, of the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the earth and of the festivals held in his honour, we have little to add to what has been already said. Preller says as beautifully as correctly : “There is no other cult in which the pantheism

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