SRR o e R e e T — ——

20 THE CRIME OF PROMETHEUS

their art was *‘rational.” This was their faith in reason: that
being themselves but shadows, they could, nevertheless,
through imitative ritual make themselves. into suitable cos-
tumes for$&-the gods’ masquerade, Who was a man and not
a god they judged go be absurd, a creature empty and alone,
pursuing fruitless labors. Greek life was not only permeated
by religious art, but it was also hazarded on religion's ra-
tionality. In light of this dangerous chance is it astonishing
that the Greeks’ time and space were harmonic and propor-
tional measures, that they treated matter as nothing except
a screen to exhibit pure, formal geometric image, that they
deduced political laws from the music that summoned Dio-
nysus, that living 1n the gods’ precincts they did not feel
the earnest sentiment of gravity or the lust for material pene-
tration, that they despised machines and laughed *“good
works’’ to scorn, and that they were audacious enough to as-
sert that only the rational man was happy and free? Or does
the wonder lie in the fact that a society was rich enough to
pledge its existence on the chance of being at one with its
gods—on the happiness of that chance?

Dionysus, in revitalizing Greek religion, was the incar-
nate word of the gods. Actions that did not reveal their de-
sign had no place on the tragic stage where heroes and demi-
gods were brought to the sacrifice. Yet without the chorus,
that drama could not have been called forth at all. The drama
was the chorus’ produced vision, the hero their victim. The
chorus formed a priestly medium that conjured Dionysus
to officiate at the ritual as high priest. The victim, on the
other hand, the drama’s hero, must be of good stock if he
is to delight the god’s taste sufficiently that the god will enter
into him and sanctify him. The hero must be a splendid ani-
mal, the consecrated of the flock, mankind’s finest specimen.
He must possess extraordinary personal power and endow-
ments, he should be a hero or king, if the god is to find him
in good taste.

It is the awful office of the chorus, then, to lure forth

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