The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 04 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M55) But perhaps the youths and maidens who were sent across the sea to
Cnossus had to perform certain religious duties before they were cast into
the fiery furnace. The same cunning artist Daedalus who planned the
labyrinth and contrived the wooden cow for Pasiphae was said to have made
a dance for Ariadne, daughter of Minos. It represented youths and maidens
dancing in ranks, the youths armed with golden swords, the maidens crowned
with garlands.(187) Moreover, when Theseus landed with Ariadne in Delos on
his return from Crete, he and the young companions whom he had rescued
from the Minotaur are said to have danced a mazy dance in imitation of the
intricate windings of the labyrinth; on account of its sinuous turns the
dance was called “the Crane.”(188) Taken together, these two traditions
suggest that the youths and maidens who were sent to Cnossus had to dance
in the labyrinth before they were sacrificed to the bull-headed image. At
all events there are good grounds for thinking that there was a famous
dance which the ancients regularly associated with the Cretan labyrinth.
(M56) Among the Romans that dance appears to have been known from the
earliest times by the name of Troy or the Game of Troy. Tradition ran that
it was imported into Italy by Aeneas, who transmitted it through his son
Ascanius to the Alban kings, who in their turn handed it down to the
Romans. It was performed by bands of armed youths on horseback. Virgil
compares their complicated evolutions to the windings of the Cretan
labyrinth;(189) and that the comparison is more than a mere poetical
flourish appears from a drawing on a very ancient Etruscan vase found at
Tragliatella. The drawing represents a procession of seven beardless
warriors dancing, accompanied by two armed riders on horseback, who are
also beardless. An inscription proves that the scene depicted is the Game
of Troy; and attached to the procession is a figure of the Cretan
labyrinth,(190) the pattern of which is well known from coins of Cnossus
on which it is often represented.(191) The same pattern, identified by an
inscription, “_Labyrinthus, hic habitat Minotaurus_,” is scratched on a
wall at Pompeii; and it is also worked in mosaic on the floor of Roman
apartments, with the figures of Theseus and the Minotaur in the
middle.(192) Roman boys appear to have drawn the very same pattern on the
ground and to have played a game on it, probably a miniature Game of
Troy.(193) Labyrinths of similar type occur as decorations on the floors
of old churches, where they are known as “the Road of Jerusalem”; they
were used for processions. The garden mazes of the Renaissance were
modelled on them. Moreover, they are found very commonly in the north of
Europe, marked out either by raised bands of turf or by rows of stones.
Such labyrinths may be seen in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finnland, the
south coast of Russian Lappland, and even in Iceland. They go by various
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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