Abstract
In the preceding chapters we saw that in antiquity the civilised nations of Western Asia and Egypt pictured to themselves the changes of the seasons, and particularly the annual growth and decay of vegetation, as episodes in the life of gods, whose mournful death and happy resurrection they celebrated with dramatic rites of alternate lamentation and rejoicing. But if the celebration was in form dramatic, it was in substance magical; that is to say, it was intended, on the principles of sympathetic magic, to ensure the vernal regeneration of plants and the multiplication of animals, which had seemed to be menaced by the inroads of winter. In the ancient world, however, such ideas and such rites were by no means confined to the Oriental peoples of Babylon and Syria, of Phrygia and Egypt; they were not a product peculiar to the religious mysticism of the dreamy East, but were shared by the races of livelier fancy and more mercurial temperament who inhabited the shores and islands of the Aegean. We need not, with some enquirers in ancient and modern times, suppose that these Western peoples borrowed from the older civilisation of the Orient the conception of the Dying and Reviving God, together with the solemn ritual, in which that conception was dramatically set forth before the eyes of the worshippers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1990 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Frazer, J.G. (1990). Dionysus. In: The Golden Bough. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00400-3_43
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00400-3_43
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-00402-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00400-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)