fables, had not as yet issued from the sanctuaries: it had been nearly a thousand years since they had been instituted by Orpheus[1] when suddenly one saw for the first time certain of these fables and these ceremonies ridiculously travestied, transpiring among the people and serving them for amusement. The fêtes of Dionysus, celebrated in the times of vintage, gave place to this sort of profanation. The grape-gatherers, besmeared with lees, giving way in the intoxication of wine to an indiscreet enthusiasm, began to utter aloud from their wagons the allegories that they had learned in their rural initiations. These allegories, which neither the actors nor the spectators had comprehended in reality, appeared, nevertheless, piquant to both through the malicious interpretations which they gave them.[2] Such were the feeble beginnings of dramatic art in Greece[3]; there was born the profanation of the Orphic mysteries, in the same manner that one sees it reborn among us, by the profanation of the Christian mysteries.[4] But this art was already old in Asia when it sprang up in Europe. I have already said that there was in the secret celebration of the mysteries, veritable dramatic representations. These mystic ceremonies, copied from those which had taken place in the celebration of the Egyptian mysteries, had been brought into Egypt by the Indian priests at a very remote epoch when the empire of Hindustan had extended over this country. This communication, which was made from one people to another, has been demonstrated to the point of evidence by the learned researches of the academicians
- ↑ I have placed the epoch of Orpheus, which coincides with that of the arrival of the Egyptian colony conducted into Greece by Cecrops, at 1582 B.C., according to the marbles of Paros.
- ↑ Schol. Aristoph., In Nub., v. 295.
- ↑ Athen., l. ii., c. 3.
- ↑ Voyez L'Hist. du Théâtre Français de Fontenelle. Voici les titres des premières pièces représentées dans le cours du XIV^e siècle: L'Assomption de la glorieuse Vierge Marie, mystère à 38 personnages; Le Mystère de la Sainte Hostie, à 26 personn.; Le Mystère de Monseigneur S. Pierre et S. Paul, à 100 personn.; Les Mystères de la Conception de la Passion, de la Résurrection de Notre Seigneur J. C.; etc.
