Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, May 1885Various
History
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, May 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
At Melos they have a curious feast which recalls a Bacchic revelry.
Every landowner who wishes to plant a vineyard calls together, on
a certain day, fifty or more men, when church is over; to these he
gives a spade apiece, and slaughters some goats and fills skins with
wine. Then they all start off together to their work, preceded by a
standard-bearer holding a white banner. In the field they eat the food,
drink the wine, and plant the vineyard, all in the space of one day,
and return home again, most of them in a decided state of intoxication.
This is followed by a dance and further revelry in front of the church,
which doubtless the village priest will hallow with his presence. The
Greeks, taken as a whole, are a sober race, but on certain occasions
and festivals it is almost a religious duty to drink heavily. In the
island of Paros there actually exists a church dedicated to the
drunken St. George, whose feast-day is on the 3rd of November. The
priest thereof, in answer to my inquiries about this strange name,
remarked that the 3rd of November is the anniversary of St. George’s
burial, and then the inhabitants usually tap their new-made wine and
get drunk; but why they should on such a solemn occasion speak of Ἅγιος
ΓἍοργιος μεθύστης I could not divine, unless we take into account the
hereditary tendency of the Greeks to deify passions.
A curious instance of the survival of the mythical Titans I met at
Chios, at the southern point of which island exists a colossal white
rock; this the natives told me was a stone which Samson had once hurled
against God, and it had fallen here. But of all the myths of antiquity
which exist to-day none is more marked than the belief in Charon, the
Styx, and Hades. In Thermià they believe that in Charon’s infernal
kingdom are lamps which represent the life of men, and when each man’s
lamp is extinguished for want of oil he will die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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