| <trailer><p> <Westralian Worker,> <29 June 1917> 
| <pb n="6"> </p></trailer>
| <headline><p> <Our Bookshelf The Evolution of the Drama> 
| <No. 1 - Ancient Magic> </p></headline>
| <p> Under the above title a series of some three or 
| four articles is proposed, in the definite hope that 
| the outcome may be the establishment of a Repertoire 
| Theatre Society for Perth. </p>
| <p> These theatres are now dealing in a very thorough 
| manner with the ancient drama, and as it is to Greece 
| that we must look for dramatic origins, so far as 
| European literature is concerned, these articles will 
| be, largely, a study of Greek drama and religion. </p>
| <p> Drama and religion: Even to-day the efforts of 
| broad churchmen and morality-play writers have scarce 
| succeeded in spanning the vast gulf between State and 
| Church. But not only in origin, but also in the 
| circumstances surrounding the introduction of the 
| drama into England, stage and church are inseparably 
| bound up. The miracle plays of mediaeval England were 
| religious propaganda agencies, with monks as 
| actors. </p>
| <p> But in Ancient Greece the drama was actually part 
| of a religious ritual ~~ none other than the festival 
| of Dionysos (the Bacchus of the Romans). This is hard 
| enough to understand when we read a play like the 
| <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo"> "Trojan 
| Women" </title> of Euripides in which Dionysos is not 
| even mentioned, but becomes ten times harder when, as 
| in the <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo">
| "Frogs" </title> of Aristophanes, Dionysos is, 
| indeed, the chief character, but is treated by the 
| author with but barely concealed scepticism, and with 
| open ridicule.</p>
| <p> Evidently some great evolution has taken place, if 
| the Greek drama actually arose as a portion of the 
| ritual of the Dionysian festival. To understand this 
| we must know a little of the Greeks, and a little of 
| Bacchus. </p>
| <p> The latter we today regard as a wine-god. But in 
| reality he was a god of corn and wine <mdash>-</mdash>
| a fertility god. True, men got drunk at his 
| festivals, just as they occasionally get drunk at 
| Christmas time to-day. But to regard him merely as a 
| drunken god would be fatal to our understanding of 
| the spirit of Greek drama. </p>
| <p> What was a fertility-god? To answer that question 
| we may look, as well as elsewhere, to a not-unknown 
| sight, even to-day <mdash>-</mdash> the Maypole. </p>
| <p> Maypole dances these times are performed by 
| children. But in some countries, where primitive folk 
| still live, and in all ancient countries, this dance 
| is, or was, a very serious business, in which every 
| adult joined. Everyone knows that the maypole dance 
| is a revival of an old custom, and most believe it to 
| be a celebration of the return of Springtime 
| <mdash>-</mdash> to rejoice for the renewed fertility 
| of earth. But, as Dr Frazer and other learned 
| authorities assure us, primitive folk believed that 
| the dance actually brought about fertility in fields 
| and flocks. In other words, it was a magical 
| ritual. </p>
| <p> The connection between magic dances and the stage 
| is, at least, feasible, but when the whole subject of 
| magic ritual, fertility religions, and ancient drama 
| is analysed, all room for doubt vanishes. </p>
| <p> The magic ritual, whereby men perform their own 
| fertility charms, gradually gives way to the religion 
| of a corn or herd god. All ancient religions took 
| such forms. The philosophic religions of to-day are a 
| later development. The main concern of Christianity 
| is the propagation of a certain moral philosophy. The 
| same can be said of modern Bhuddism, and even more so 
| of Confucionism, which has no "theology" at all. But 
| in ancient Greece a far different state of affairs 
| prevailed. The philosophers were not priests, or 
| theologians, but secular scholars, and the priests, 
| on the other hand, were not concerned with moral 
| philosophy. The whole religious system was designed 
| for the physical needs of the community. The priest 
| who sacrificed the sacred bull, for example, was 
| merely performing a magical ceremony which in more 
| simple times, was carried out by the whole community, 
| who met for a maypole dance. </p>
| <p> The theory of the sacrifice also calls for 
| explanation. The bull is not offered as a present to 
| the fertility god, with a lively anticipation of 
| favors to come. On the contrary, the bull is the god. 
| The simple Greek who saw the bull slain believed that 
| he witnessed the slaying of Dionysos himself. If so 
| privileged, he partook of the flesh, believing that 
| he was eating his god. With considerable satisfaction 
| he would watch the axe that struck the fatal blow 
| duly tried, found guilty and condemned; and finally 
| he would see the hide stuffed with straw and set on 
| its feet. His god had come to life again. Later on a 
| fresh bull would be substituted, and would be the 
| representative of the god-head for the ensuing year. 
| So long as the bull were well, all went well; if he 
| sickened, the crops would fall; for him to die would 
| be an unthinkable calamity. </p>
| <p> Adonis, Osiris, Tammuz, Hercules, Bacchus, were 
| all fertility gods, slain annually, in the form of an 
| animal (or even human) representative, and 
| resurrected by the replacing of a new sacred animal 
| for the old. </p>
| <p> It is hard to realise how these gods were regarded 
| without understanding what manner of world primitive 
| folk live in. Our universe is ruled by law. Every 
| effect, with us, must have an adequate cause, but 
| with the simple children of forest and steppe every 
| effect must have an immediate cause, which, to our 
| minds, would appear anything but adequate. In fact, 
| they believe everything not thoroughly obvious to be 
| the result of magic. A death, with our blackfellows, 
| is caused either by material weapons or by a magical 
| ceremony which consists in an enemy pointing a bone 
| at the victim. To give an impressive example of this 
| obsession ~~ anthropologists declare that very 
| backward savages (including some Central Australian 
| tribes) do not attribute the paternity of a child to 
| its mother's husband, but to a sacred stone, or tree 
| that its mother has touched. </p>
| <p> It is, of course, inconceivable that the educated 
| Greek believed that the slaying of a sacred bull 
| actually produced the fertility of plants, animals, 
| and human beings, but it is quite understandable that 
| the ceremony of the sacrifice had acquired, for him, 
| symbolic meaning at variance (at least apparently so) 
| with its original object: that the ritual had become 
| to him a holy of holies, embodying the highest and 
| noblest sentiments of the State. Thus it was that he 
| continued to attend the festival of Dionysos, with 
| the full conviction that he was taking part in the 
| supreme religious function of his country, for 
| hundreds of years after the priest and his principal 
| attendant had become the "star" actors, the crowd of 
| maypole, or sacrificial dancers had evolved into the 
| chorus, and the subject matter presented had ceased 
| to have anything to do with Dionysos. </p>
| <p> To trace the Greek drama further and to rub 
| shoulders with one or two of its exponents will be 
| the theme of the next article in this series (some 
| two or three weeks hence). But before leaving the 
| question of the very early origins of the drama, it 
| is worth noting that in other lands the development 
| of a more or less complex social system has been 
| associated with a similar upgrowth of religious 
| drama. Thus in India to-day dramatic representations 
| of the slaying of the giants by Rama, the man-god, 
| are a regular feature of native life. They give to-day
| what is probably a very accurate idea of the 
| transition stage from magic ritual through which 
| Greek drama must have passed. </p>
| <p> It seems a far call from a modern maypole dance to 
| the "ox-murder" of ancient Athens, but in your fair-haired
| Queen-o-May surely lives the latest 
| resurrection of the slain corn gods of the ancient 
| world. </p>
| <p> Hints about books worth reading on the above 
| subject (mainly for beginners):~~ </p> <p><q> 
| </q></p>