MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
Ihave been assured by men who have devoted much time to the study of Greek thought and religion that one of the clues to the ancient mystery is that strange word deinos. We translate it variously as " dread," " terrible " or " solemn." But if we trace its recurrence in prose or poetry we find that it is applied to many different things; to a promontory, a god, or the expression in someone's eyes. It can be used to desig- nate the justly horrible as well as the horribly unjust. It clearly had associations or under-tones of awe and superstitious fear which, to those who cannot know the whole background, must remain mysterious. How much I should like to walk to Phaleron with some sensible and experienced Athenian civil servant, such as Euboulos, and to discuss with him the many implications which this word aroused in his memory and conscience. " When," I should ask him, " would you say that a fever became deinos? Could something small, such as a mosquito, ever be referred to by this epithet ? If you were telling your wife that on returning from Megara you had seen two eagles on the left-hand side, would you suggest to her that something deinos was about to occur ? " I am sure that Euboulos would be glad to answer these questions, and that I should be able to distract him thereby from explaining to me at length the effect upon the economics of Athens of the loss of Amphipolis. Even so might some German wish" to discuss with me the implications and associations of such English words as " decent," " ungentlemanly cosiduct," " unsporting," or " fair." Were I really able to convey to him the whole back- ground implicit in such expressions, he would learn more about our character and institutions than if he were to spend laborious weeks annotating Dicey and Anson on the customs of our Constitution. * * * I am writing this article at Delphi, seated in the bedroom of an inn, within hearing almost of the Castalian spring. From the dining-room below and from the small hot terrace that opens out of it one looks suddenly down upon the deep gorge of the Pleitus, over the wide olive-groves of the sacred plain, across the blue strip of the gulf of Corinth, to where the snow mountains of the Peloponnesus range their "peaks above an amethyst haze. My own window looks northwards upon the cliffs of Parnassus and gives on to a small balcony immediately above the village street. At night this little single street echoes with demotic voices raised above the shrill ululations of the Athens wireless: in the dawn I am awakened by the tinkle of bells as the goats are driven out to the hill-side and by that most familiar of eastern sounds, the quick tapping of the little hooves of donkeys. Under the sickle moon the great cliffs of Parnassus and the splash of rivulets are suggestive only of fine mountain scenery, such as one can find anywhere in Savoy or in the Pyrenees. But in the glare of the morning sun the cleft precipice that rises above the Castalian spring is red and orange with flakes of anger; the shadow of the word deinos swims across one's mind, even as the shadows of eagles float- ing are cast upon the gleaming rock; the awe of Delphi has survived three thousand years. It is not possible in terms of grandiose scenery only to account for the sense of fear that hangs on this high spot. So many generations of men have climbed up here in trepidation that something of their anxiety still lingers in the dry air. One is conscious as one ascends the sacred way towards the sanctuary that the gods and the demons are,still here. ._ * * * The tyrant of Syracuse, feeling old age creeping upon him, feeling that his whole life's work would be ruined were he to bequeath his power to unworthy hands, concludes after much doubt and questioning that Apollo only can advise him whom to designate as his heir. The royal yacht is repainted and refitted: the escorting triremes are designated and manned; casks of salted fish and apples, jars of wine and honey, yellow cushions and blankets, pufple capes embroidered with gold rosettes, are packed and stored. Again and again are the augurs and the hepatoscopists consulted, while the company await favourable omens for the crossing of that dangerous sea. At last the tired tyrant reaches the gulf of Corinth and the flotilla anchors in the Locrain roadstead of Chaleion. The suppliants arrayed in finery, begins slowly to wind up the steep ascent to.Krissa, dragging the votive offerings with them, encumbered as they stagger through the slopes of asphodel by the tyrant in his litter and two talents of gold. The first night would be spent in some pilgrim's inn at Krissa and on the next morning they would continue their slow way to Delphi. In at the gate of the sanctuary they would go, winding up the sacred way, past the Treasury of the Athenians, to the portico of the great temple itself. They would ask for admittance; they might (if he were a powerful tyrant and had brought many_ bribes) be given the privilege of prior consultation. Then the tyrant alone, his knees trembling, would approach the holy of holies. As the smoke and sulphur cleared he would see a wild/witch dressed fantastically sitting on a tripod munching leaves and slobbering on her clothes. Suddenly she would become possessed. She would spasm on her tripod and wild shrieks would rend the hushed air. " Four out of four," the witch would scream, or " Cook it for three hours." The tyrant, drenched in perspiration, would stagger out into the opisthodome and collapse into the arms of his attendants. * * *
Thereafter the priests and prophets of the temple would, in the expectation of rewards, cast the remarks of the witch into runic phrases in hexameter form. The tyrant's own sooth- sayers would then interpret these ambiguous statements in such a manner as seemed best suited to their own interests and safety. The tyrant would start back on his rough journey to Syracuse, not utterly satisfied in his mind whether Apollo had meant him to designate Hiero or Dionysius as heir-apparent, and reflecting, as the yacht rocked and pitched across the Adriatic, that the whole experience, exhausting and distressing as it had been, had cost him close on £30,000. Such ordeals, such moments of scepticism, such expenses, must have been undergone, experienced and incurred by many tyrants and many rich cities over many hundred years. It seems incredible to us cold northerners that the ancients, who knew that the priestess had been a mean collaborationist at the time of the Persian invasion, could still tolerate all the corruption and mumbo-jumbo that went on. The whole business must have struck the Athenian of the Fifth Century as savouring too much of old Mother Ge and the chthonian demons. Yet such was the awe inspired, as still inspired, by the great precipice on Parnassus that even the most pert Athenian cockney, even Alcibiades himself, would hardly have dared to say one word. The place remains deinos even though the pink anemones now dance above the frightful chasm.
* * * *
The last time I was at Delphi I had gazed in awe upon the magic stone or omphalos, which the ancients believed to be the centre of the earth. For thousands of years that piece of stone had, I felt, been worshipped by the men of Hellas. The stone' has now been relegated to a back shelf of the Museum, since the deft eyes of archaeologists have at last been able to decipher the inscription. It bearslthe very disappoint- ing words "Oikia A.S. Papp4doulos." The students of the French school at Delphi now glance at it with a cold smile. What wonderful work has been accomplished by the French in the last hundred years ! They have cleared the site of the Hieron; they have with perfect taste and knowledge recon- structed the Treasury of the Athenians; they have raised the three slim columns of the Athene Pronaia; and they have unearthed that wonderful green statue, with its tender fore- arms and its resolute white eyes.
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