The Clashing Rocks

525 Pages·1965·20.749 MB·English

by  Jack Lindsay

The Clashing Rocks
A STUDY OF EARLY GREEK RELIGION AND CULTURE
AND THE ORIGINS OF DRAMA
JACK LINDSAY
CHAPMAN & HALL • LONDON
First published in Great Britain 1965
© 1965 J. Lindsay
Printed in Great Britain by
Tlte Camelot Press Ltd. London and Southampton
To Tefcros Aiithias
Whom else but you may I address
with tidings of these ancient days,
who, still a holy beggar bard,
wandered the Greek or Cypriot ways
across the mountain-silences
following the bird of mantic song
from fair to boisterous fair, and heard
wherever dancers turned once more
to ring the dusty threshing-floor
or ragged men on craggy slopes
muttered against the stony wrong:
your pipe revealed their desperate hopes
or came with marriage-tones to bless
the stubborn wildflower sweetness bom
between the pinewood and the com.
You made your gay and bitter own
the merrygoround voices of the fair,
the lovers sighing everywhere
in the dark thicket of rustling hair,
the shepherd whistling down the track
of tamarisk, the restless sea
of Aphrodite as it breaks
upon the brazen rocky shore,
her home, the shell of whispering foam,
the Dionysiac echoes blown
at vintage-dusk, the unending beat
of song which reaches clearly back
to Homer in the niche of shade
as still the panegyris wakes
and once again the dancing feet—
and you unfailingly are there,
you that through Greek and Cypriot ways
a holy beggar bard have strayed,
whom else may I aright address
with tidings of these ancient days?

Contents
FOREWORD I
THE LEGEND 5
i First Glimpses 7
ODYSSEY - OTHER EARLY POETS - HERODOTOS AND STRABON
- MORE POETS
2 Apollonios of Rhodes 15
THE STORY - THE PASSAGE - PLANKTAI - HADES - PHASIS
3 Later Versions 24
LATIN POETS - VALERIUS FLACCUS - WORLD-END - GEOG­
RAPHERS - VARIOUS - THE ORPHIC ARGONAUTIKA
4 Some Chthonic Relations 38
STONES OF HADES - IN RITUAL - STYX - STROPHADES
5 Darkblue Depths 47
kyanos - Agamemnon’s armour - COLOUR BANDS
STORM AT SEA UNDERWORLD COLOUR KYANAIGIS
CONCLUSION
6 Birds and Goddesses 61
ARGO AS BIRD - BIRD ARGONAUTS DOVE ATHENA - OWL
ATHENA - GULL ATHENA - BIRDS OF PREY - OTHER BIRDS -
HALCYON - SHIP ATHENA - MYKENEAN ATHENA
CONCLUSIONS
vii
The Clashing Rocks
7 Doves and Danaids page 75
MANTIC BOUGH - DOVES OF DODONA - DANAIDS - WATER,
FERTILITY AND GAMES - KADMOS - BRIDAL MURDERS -
LYNKEUS - CONFLICTS - CONCLUSIONS
8 Ambrosial Doves and Islands 96
AMBROSIA - THEFTS OF AMBROSIA - ARKADIA - ALOADAI
- TITANS - AMBROSIAL ROCKS - FLOATING ISLANDS AGAIN
- CONCLUSIONS
9 Defers of the Highgods 118
SHAMAN - AIANTES - THE LOKRIAN MAIDS - KAINEUS -
CULT OF WEAPONS - SALMONEUS - AFRICAN SPEAR-CULTS
EGYPTIAN SPEAR-CULTS
10 More Defiers 144
OINOMAOS - DIOMEDES - PERIPHAS - IXION
11 The Seven against Thebai 154
AMPHIARAOS - KAPANEUS THE PLAY WEAPON-CULTS
- IDAS - HERAKLES
12 Prometheus 171
ASKLEPIOS - PROMETHEUS - FIRE-FESTIVALS - POTTER -
PROMETHEUS AND ATLAS - MAGIC HERB - CONCLUSIONS -
KABEIROI - KOURETES AND OTHERS - DAKTYLS - TELCHINES
- CYCLOPES - CHINESE ANALOGIES - SHAMANISM AND ITS
CONFLICTS - FURTHER CONCLUSIONS - LEAP - DIONYSIAC
IRRUPTION
13 Glaukos 209
GLAUKOS - RIDDLE - HONEY-BURIAL AND LIFE-HERB -
MORE ON HERBS - ORACLES - WATERLEAP - HORSE-LORD -
MORE ON PITHOI - PANDORA’S PITHOS - INO - MELIKERTES
14 Folktales and Myths 236
A RUMANIAN TALE - MORE FOLKTALES - PIT AND BIRD -
MYTH AND FUNERAL CUSTOM - THE PACIFIC - VEDIC TEXT
- NOTE ON SPIRIT GEOGRAPHY
15 Initiations and Shamans 247
SHAMAN AS BIRD - MUTILATION-MOTIVE - MONSTER­
FIGHT - SWALLOWED ALIVE - SLITS AND ORIFICES
viii
Contents
16 More on Shamans and the Origin of Drama page 272
MOPSOS - SHAMANIST CONTESTS - SHAPESHIFTING - FLIGHT
AND ASCENT - SECLUSION - MYTH-PATTERNS AND DRAMA
17 The Olympians 3°3
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND THE SHAMANIST NORTH
PANEGYRIS
18 Birth of Tragedy 317
INSPIRED BARD - PPIINNDDAARR - DIONYSIAC IMPACT ARCHI­
LOCHOS - LATER FORMS OF DITHYRAMB - FROM DITHY­
RAMB TO DRAMA - THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - KATHARSIS
- GOATS - AISCHYLOS - COMEDY - HYBRIS
19 The Homeric Epics 357
ILIAD - ODYSSEY - BEAR’S SON - PHINEUS - ODYSSEUS THE
BEAR SALMOXIS
20 Conclusions 378
A NOTE ON METHOD - SOME GENERALIZATIONS
appendix: genealogical tables 389
ABBREVIATIONS 393
NOTES 395
BIBLIOGRAPHY 479
SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS 503
INDEX 505
ix

Foreword
The main, theme of this book is an inquiry into the nature of the
cultural and religious conflicts in the dark age of ancient Greece, out of
which the historically known society emerged.We begin, however, not
with general considerations, but with a detailed examination of a
single myth-motive: the passage of the ship Argo through the Clashing
Rocks on the way to gain the Golden Fleece. The earliest reference we
have to the saga occurs in the Odyssey and deals wholly with this
motive, mentioning also that ambrosia-bearing doves use the route
as they fly up to Zeus. (The tale of the Argonauts belongs to the pre-
Homeric world; its heroes arc of a generation before the TrojanWar.
The Rocks-motive is certainly of high antiquity.)
All the significant statements about the Rocks in ancient literature are
examined. Though the voyage of the Argo was localized in the Black
Sea after the Greeks broke into that area, the Rocks turn out to be a
mythical place. The movement through them represents the initiation­
experience of the passage-rite with its great dangers; the space into
which they open is the spirit-world which the initiate feels that he has
entered at the most stirring ritual-moments.
We turn to some related images in myth and ritual, which bring out
the chthonic or underworld nature of the Rocks; and consider their
main name, Kyancai (Darkbluc), which takes us back into the
Mykencan world - it occurs in Linear B.We find that it owns a strong
underworld aspect and is connected with a system of cosmic colours.
Next we follow up the dove-clue and look at the archaic form of
some goddesses, especially Athena, as birds. The Argo was a mantic
boat incorporating a bough from Dodona.We glance at that oracle and
its doves, and are drawn on to the myth of the Danaids at Argos, in
which another primal boat, the Danais, shows various analogies with
the Argo.We begin to grasp the social crisis embodied in these myths
and the way in which fertility-rites take on a tragic coloration. We
I
The Clashing Rocks
move on to further accounts of ambrosial doves and thefts of ambrosia
— or struggles for its possession. The tales of Tantalos and the Giants
clarify the issues further, and we come to a series of ambrosial rocks and
floating islands which fill out the cosmic picture. A further long series
of heroes who defy the high gods is examined. It shows an inner
consistency and brings us to the conclusion that in the dark ages a
prolonged and involved conflict must have gone on between the
Olympians (who represent the new unifying trends of the polis or city)
and the various tribal cults in which a key-role is played by figures of a
mantic or shamanist type. In these sections we deal with many myth­
characters, such as the two Aiantes, Kaincus, Oinomaos, Diomedes,
Salmoneus, Asklepios and Prometheus, as well as various cults aim
Aischylos’ play, The Seven against Thebai. A series of deepgoing
clashes in myth and ritual is clarified, sometimes fought out to the
death, sometimes resulting in compromises and accommodations.
The section on Prometheus brings this analysis to a head. Here alone
a sustained resistance is put up by the culture-hero of what we have
called the shamanist phase; the reason lies in his link with fraternities
of pottersand metalworkers. His position and nature are illuminated by
a scrutiny of the myths of the various fraternities linked with the Great
Mother and metallurgy; and we turn to consider the second stage of
the legends of conflict. Here the theme is not highgod against shaman,
but Dionysos against the authorities who resist his advance; and the
relation is to the crisis developing inside the polis.
We have now reached something like definite ground under our feet.
The rest of the book is concerned to consolidate and clarify the
positions reached. We examine the myth of Glaukos, which carries us
well back into the Minoan-Mykcnean world and enables us to
strengthen many of our conclusions. Then we pick up afresh the Rocks-
motive and follow it through a series of worldwide tales and customs,
which finally bring out its basis in initiation-ritual and shamanist
experience. So we turn to a thorough consideration of the nature of
shamanism and its central function in the phases between the break­
down of tribal systems and the growth of settled town-life. We also
consider the evidence thrown up by recent history as to what happens
when a society still largely shamanist in culture collides with a higher
religion and struggles against it. Once more a new light is thrown back
on Greek myth. We approach the key-problem as to how and why the
shaman’s ritual-mime (performed in a state of spirit-possession)
developed in ancient Greece, and only there, into fullgrownTragedy.
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