The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological by Andrew Lang
page 45 of 135 (33%)
page 45 of 135 (33%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
women (never initiated) and boys before initiation, know Daramulun only
as Papang (Father). {85c} The uninitiated among the Kurnai do not know the sacred name, Mungan-ngaur. {85d} The Australian did not borrow this secrecy from Egypt. Everywhere a mystery is kept up about proper names. M. Foucart seems to think that what is practically universal, a taboo on names, can only have reached Greece by transplantation from Egypt. {86a} To the anthropologist it seems that scholars, in ignoring the universal ideas of the lower races, run the risk of venturing on theories at once superficial and untenable. M. Foucart has another argument, which does not seem more convincing, though it probably lights up the humorous or indecent side of the Eleusinia. Isocrates speaks of "good offices" rendered to Demeter by "our ancestors," which "can only be told to the initiate." {86b} Now these cannot be the kindly deeds reported in the Hymn, for these were publicly proclaimed. What, then, were the _secret_ good offices? In one version of the legend the hosts of Demeter were not Celeus and Metaneira, but Dusaules and Baubo. The part of Baubo was to relieve the gloom of the Goddess, not by the harmless pleasantries of Iambe, in the Hymn, but by obscene gestures. The Christian Fathers, Clemens of Alexandria at least, make this a part of their attack on the Mysteries; but it may be said that they were prejudiced or misinformed. {87a} But, says M. Foucart, an inscription has been found in Paros, wherein there is a dedication to Hera, Demeter Thesmophoros, Kore, and _Babo_, or Baubo. Again, two authors of the fourth century, Palaephatus and Asclepiades, cite the Dusaules and Baubo legend. {87b} Now the indecent gesture of Baubo was part of the comic or obscene folk- lore of contempt in Egypt, and so M. Foucart thinks that it was borrowed from Egypt with the Demeter legend. {87c} Can Isocrates have referred to |
|