Robert A.

Segal

MYTH
A Very Short Introduction

SECOND EDITION

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 Ovid similarly takes the story of Adonis back to incest between his
The myth of Adonis mother, Myrrha, and her father, here Cinyras. Myrrha was on the
point of hanging herself to be free from her distress when she was
In order to compare theories, I propose taking a familiar myth-that
saved by her old nurse, who pried loose the source ofMyrrha's
of Adonis-and applying theories to it. The main sources of the
myth are the Greek Apollodorus' Library (Book III, chapter 14, despair and, as in Apollodorus, arranged for Myrrha to bed her
father without discovery. But when, on the third night, he called for
paragraphs 3-4) and the Roman Ovid's ]!etamorphoses (Book X,
light to discover who it was who loved him so, he, as in Apollodorus,
lines 298-739).
drew his sword, and she fled. For nine months the pregnant Myrrha
wandered. Also as in Apollodorus, the worn-out Myrrha prayed and
According to Apollodorus, who himself cites a version of the
was turned by the pitying gods into a tree-though here at the end,
story from the epic poet Panyasis, Adonis' mother, Smyrna, was
not the beginning, of her pregnancy. Yet Myrrha remained human
irresistibly attracted to her father and became pregnant with his
enough to weep, and from her tears came the perfume myrrh. The
child. When her father discovered that it was Smyrna with whom
baby, still alive in her, had to fight its way out of the tree to be born.
he had nightly been having sex, he immediately drew his sword.
She fled, and he pursued her. On the verge of being overtaken, she
In Ovid, in contrast to Apollodorus, Venus (the Roman name for :i
prayed to the gods to become invisible, and they, taking pity, turned ä
Aphrodite) encountered Adonis only as a young man but was Cl.
her into a myrrh (smyrna) tree. Ten months later the tree burst C

open, and Adonis was born.

likewise immediately smitten. There was no rivalry with other a.
0
:'!
.c goddesses, so that Venus had him all to herself. They went hunting ...,.
i together (see Figure 1). While Venus continually warned him to
':Z'
g
Even as an infant, Adonis was preternaturally beautiful, and stick to small game, he heedlessly took on big game and, as in ~·
g,
Aphrodite, who apparently had kept watch over him, was Apollodorus' version, was gored to death by a boar, though not
irresistibly smitten with him, just as Smyrna had been with her one sent by any rival for Venus' love.
!
':Z'

father. To have him all to herself, Aphrodite hid Adonis in a chest.

When Persephone, queen of the Underworld (Hades), opened the Where Apollodorus' story ends with Adonis' death, Ovid's continues
chest, which Aphrodite had entrusted to her without revealing its with Venus' mourning for him. As a memorial, she sprinkled nectar
contents, she too fell in love with Adonis and refused to return over his blood, from which sprouted the flower anemone. Like
him to Aphrodite. Each goddess wanted Adonis exclusively for Adonis, it is short-lived.
herself. The king of the gods, Zeus, was appealed to by both sides
in Solomonic fashion, and he ruled that Adonis should spend a Where for Apollodorus the annual cycle of death and rebirth
third of the year with Persephone, a third with Aphrodite, and a antedates Adonis' 'final' death, for Ovid the annual cycle, in the
third alone. Adonis readily ceded his third to Aphrodite and was form of the flower, follows Adonis' death. The planting of the flower
thereby never outside the custody of a goddess. One day, while anticipates the ritual associated with the myth of Adonis-a
hunting, he was gored to death by a boar. According to another, connection absent from Apollodorus.
unnamed version of the story recounted by Apollodorus, the
goring was the work of Ares, god of war, who was angry at having Where for Apollodorus the main spur to events is anger, for Ovid
been bested by Adonis as the lover of Aphrodite. it is love. Where for Apollodorus Adonis is the innocent victim

6 7
 of warring parents and of rival deities, for Ovid the inconsolable
Aphrodite is as much the victim as Adonis.

Where Apollodorus presents the story as true, Ovid presents it as

fictional. Where Apollodorus tells it straight, Ovid twists it to fit
larger themes-notably, that of transformation, as in Myrrha's
becoming a tree and Adonis' becoming a flower. Where Apollodorus
intends his story to be taken literally, Ovid intends his to be read
metaphorically.

Applying theories to myths

Theorizing about myth is not optional. It is inescapable. For
example, handbooks of classical mythology that matter-of-factly
connect Adonis' annual trek to Persephone and return to Aphrodite
...a
;;-
with the course of vegetation presuppose a view of myth as the Q.
C

primitive counterpart to science. a.

0
?.
.c
i,;'., ...::r
~ ~
Theories need myths as much as myths need theories. If theories g
;;,
illuminate myths, myths confirm theories. True, the sheer "'
s.
applicability of a myth does not itself confirm the theory, the tenets 3
~::r
of which must be established in their own right. For example, to
~ show that Jung's theory, when applied, elucidates the myth of Adonis
.0.
would not itself establish the existence of a collective unconscious,
~
£ which, on the contrary, would be presupposed. But one, albeit
...."'C: indirect, way of confirming a theory is to show how well it works

i when its tenets are assumed-this on the grounds that the theory
must be either false or limited if it turns out not to work.
]
~
C: For the revised edition of this book I have made many changes,
~
,..; above all the addition of the myth of Gaia as a possible way of
reconciling myth with science. The chapter 'myth and society' is
now the chapter 'myth and politics'. I have also dropped the
placing of quotation marks around 'primitive' to acknowledge,
which instead I do here, the inappropriateness today of a term
used by theorists in the past.
8 9
 and tumultuous receptions for him wherever he went. From the
bestselling hagiographical biography by Mason Weems comes
Chapter 4
the most famous story about Washington: that the scrupulously
honest young George could not lie when asked who had cut down Myth and ritual
his father's cherry tree. For Eliade, a myth honours its subject's
establishing something in the physi~al or social world that continues
to this day-here America itself. A histönans description of the
birthday celebrations during Washington's presidency captures
the 'cult' of Washington:

[T]he observance of Washington's Birthday took on the character of

a religious rite .... Washington's Birthday was indeed a sacred day: a

I
time for communion, a time when the sanctity of the nation, and Myth is commonly taken to be words, often in the form of a story.
the strength of the people's attachment to it, could be reaffirmed. A myth is read or heard. It says something. Yet there is an approach
to myth that deems this view of myth artificial. According to the
Long after his death, the celebration of Washington's birthday, myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory, myth does not stand by
which even today remains a national holiday, served not merely to itself but is tied to ritual. Myth is not just a statement but an action.
t commemorate his deeds but to bring them, and him, alive. Part of The least compromising form of the theory maintains that all myths
s the celebration-the ritual-was the recitation of the high points have accompanying rituals and all rituals accompanying myths. In
of his biography-the myth. The bandied American line 'George tamer versions some myths may flourish without rituals and some
Washington slept here' evinces the ultimate function of myth of rituals without myths. Alternatively, myths and rituals may originally
Eliade: providing contact with a deity. operate together but subsequently go their separate ways. Or
myths and rituals may arise separately but subsequently coalesce.
Of course, a sceptic can demur. Does the celebration of a dead Whatever the tie between myth and ritual, the myth-ritualist
hero's deeds really bring the hero back to life? Do celebrants really theory differs from other theories of myth and from other theories
believe that they have travelled back in reality and not merely in ofritual in focusing on the tie.
their imagination? And in so far as the social sciences explain
the lasting accomplishments of heroes, what is left for myth to
explain? As affecting as Eliade's effort to secure a firm place for William Robertson Smith
myth in the modern, scientific world is, is it convincing? The myth-ritualist theory was pioneered by the Scottish biblicist
and Arabist William Robertson Smith (1846-94). In his Lectures
on the Religion ofthe Semites Smith argued that belief is central to
modern religion but not to ancient religion, in which ritual was
central. Smith grants that ancients doubtless performed rituals
only for some reason. But the reason was insignificant and could

48 49
 even fluctuate. And rather than a formal declaration of belief, or limitation is that the theory obviously restricts myth to ritual,
a creed, the reason was a story, or a myth, which simply described though Smith does trace the subsequent development of myth
'the circumstances under which the rite first came to be established, independent of ritual.
by the command or by the direct example of the god'. Myth was
'secondary'. Where ritual was obligatory, myth was optional. E. B. Tylor
Where ritual was set, any myth would do. ~~ myth did not even
arise until the original, non-mythic reason given for the ritual had In claiming that myth is an explanation of ritual, Smith was
somehow been forgotten. denying the standard conception of myth, espoused classically by
E. B. Tylor. According to Tylor, myth is an explanation of the
While Smith was the first to argue that myths must be understood physical world and not of anything social, such as ritual. Myth
vis-à-vis rituals, the nexus by no means requires that myths and operates independently of ritual. Myth is a statement, not an action,
rituals be of equal importance. For Smith, there would never have and amounts to creed, merely presented in the form of a story. For
been myth without ritual, whether or not without myth there Tylor, ritual is to myth as, for Smith, myth is to ritual: secondary.
would have ceased to be ritual. Where for Smith myth presupposes ritual, for Tylor ritual
presupposes myth. For Tylor, myth functions to explain the world as
Because Adonis was a Semitic god, Smith includes him in his an end in itself Ritual at most applies that explanation to control
Lectures. As part of his overall argument that ancient religion had the world. Ritual is the application, not the subject, of myth. The s:
~zr
no sense of sin, he contrasts the death of Adonis, the god of subject remains the world. Both because ritual depends on myth and, .
:::,

vegetation, to that of Christ: even more, because explanation is for Tylor more important than
control, myth is a more important aspect of religion than ritual.
..
C.
.,
C
!!!.

The Canaanite Adonis or Tammuz ... was regarded by his

worshippers as the source of all natural growth and fertility. His Smith is like Tylor in one key respect. For both, myth is wholly
death therefore meant a temporary suspension of the life of ancient. Modern religion is without myth-and without ritual as
nature ... And this death of the life of nature the worshippers lament well. Myth and ritual are not merely ancient but primitive. In fact,
out of natural sympathy, without any moral idea, just as modern for both Tylor and Smith, ancient religion is but a case of primitive
man is touched with melancholy at the falling of the autumn leaves. religion, which is the fundamental foil to modern religion. Where
for Tylor modern religion is without myth and ritual because it is
Originally, there was just the ritualistic sacrifice to the god no longer about the physical world and is instead a combination of
Adonis, a sacrifice made for some non-mythic reason. Once that ethics and metaphysics, for Smith modern religion is without myth
reason was forgotten, the myth of Adonis as the dying and rising and ritual because it is a combination of ethics and creed. For
god of vegetation was created to account for the ritual. As pagan Tylor, modern religion, because bereft of myth, is a come-down
rather than Christian, the myth deemed the death lamentable from its ancient and primitive height. For Smith, modern religion,
but not sinful. because severed from myth and, even more, from ritual, is a leap
beyond its ancient and primitive beginnings. The epitome of
One major limitation of Smith's theory is that it explains only modern religion for Smith is his own vigorously anti-ritualistic,
myth and not ritual, which is simply presupposed. Another because anti-Catholic, Presbyterianism.

50 51

I
 The ritual is performed whenever one wants winter to end,
J. G. Frazer presumably when stored-up provisions are running low (see
Figure 5). A human being, often the king, plays the role of the god
In the several editions of The Golden Bough J. G. Frazer developed
and acts out what he thereby magically induces the god to do.
the myth-ritualist theory far beyond that of his friend Smith, to
whom he dedicates the work. While The Golden Bough is best
In Frazer's second, till now unmentioned, version of myth-ritualism
known for its tripartite division of all cuftureinto the stages of
the king is central. Here the king does not merely act the part
magic, religion, and science, the bulk of the tome in fact concerns
of the god but is himself divine, by which Frazer means that the
an intermediate stage between religion and science-a stage of
god resides in him. Just as the health of vegetation depends on
magic and religion combined. Only in this in-between stage, itself
the health of its god, so now the health of the god depends
still ancient and primitive, is myth-ritualism to be found, for only
on the health of the king: as the king goes, so goes the god of
here do myths and rituals work together.
vegetation, and so in turn goes vegetation itself. To ensure a
steady supply of food, the community kills its king while he is
Frazer, rarely consistent, actually presents two distinct versions of
still in his prime and thereby safely transfers the soul of the god
the myth-ritualism of this in-between stage. In the first version,
to his successor:
the one already discussed in Chapter 1, myth describes the life
of the god of vegetation, the chief god of the pantheon, and ritual
For [primitives] believe ... that the king's life or spirit is so
s: ....
enacts the myth describing his death and rebirth. The ritual operates ~::r
.i::
sympathetically bound up with the prosperity of the whole country,
.,
::,
~ on the basis of the magical Law of Similarity, according to which Q,.
.,
the imitation of an action causes it to happen. The clearest example that ifhe fell ill or grew senile the cattle would sicken and cease
Ë
!!!.
of this brand of magic is voodoo. The ritual directly manipulates to multiply, the crops would rot in the fields, and men would perish
the god of vegetation, not vegetation itself, but as the god goes, so of widespread disease. Hence, in their opinion, the only way of
automatically goes vegetation. That vegetation is under the direct averting these calamities is to put the king to death while he is still
control of a god is the legacy of religion. That vegetation can be hale and hearty, in order that the divine spirit which he has
controlled, even if only indirectly through the god, is the legacy of inherited from his predecessors may be transmitted in turn by him
magic. The combination of myth and ritual is the combination to his successor while it is still in full vigour and has not yet been
of religion and magic: impaired by the weakness of disease and old age.

Thus the old magical theory of the seasons was displaced, or rather The king is killed either at the end of a short term or at the first
supplemented, by a religious theory. For although men now sign of infirmity. As in the first version, the aim is to end winter,
attributed the annual cycle of change primarily to corresponding which now is attributed to the weakening of the king. How winter
changes in their deities, they still thought that by performing can ever, let alone annually, come if the king is removed at or even
certain magical rites they could aid the god who was the principle before the onset of any debilitation, Frazer never explains.
oflife, in his struggle with the opposing principle of death. They
imagined that they could recruit his failing energies and even raise In any event this second version of myth-ritualism has proved the
him from the dead. more influential by far, even though it actually provides only a

52 53
 tenuous link between religious myth and magical ritual. Instead
of enacting the myth of the god of vegetation, the ritual simply
changes the residence of the god from the body of the incumbent
king to that of his successor. The king dies not in imitation of the
death of the god but as a sacrifice to preserve the health of the god.
What part myth plays here, it is not easy to see. Instead of reviving
the god by magical imitation, the ritual revives the god by
a substitution.
î~ In Frazer's first, truly myth-ritualist scenario myth arises prior
I
,s
~
if
·c:
to ritual rather than, as for Smith, after it. The myth that gets
enacted in the combined stage emerges in the stage of religion
I
;· ----
and therefore antedates the ritual to which it is applied. In the
] combined stage myth, as for Smith, explains the point of ritual,
~ but from the outset.
....~
0 ...
ril Myth gives ritual its original and sole meaning. Without the myth ~ I.
Q,)
Q,)
~
=r-
~ of the death and rebirth of that god, the death and rebirth of the
"'
:::,
C.
~ god of vegetation would scarcely be ritualistically enacted. Still, ...
:!.
C:
~ myth for Frazer, as for Tylor, is an explanation of the world-of the !!!..
Q,)
,£i course of vegetation-and not just, as for Smith, of ritual. But for
....
0 Frazer, unlike Tylor, explanation is only a means to control, so that
Q,)
IJ
§ myth is the ancient and primitive counterpart to applied science
"O •
~:Ë rather than, as for Tylor, to scientific theory. Ritual may still be the
........
=e ~ application of myth, but myth is subordinate to ritual.

c2:lE '~ The severest limitation of Frazer's myth-ritualism is not only that
~
8r3 it, like Smith's, precludes modern myths and rituals but also that it
ij£
Q,)
;.., =
0 restricts even ancient and primitive myth-ritualism to myths
oQ,) ·.i::
cd about the god of vegetation, and really only to myths about the
~i
v; s
death and rebirth of that god.

Where Smith discusses the case of Adonis only in passing, Frazer

makes Adonis a key example of the myth and ritual pattern of
the dying and rising god of vegetation. Consistently or not,

54 55
 Frazer actually places Adonis in all three of his pre-scientific In Frazer's third, combined stage Adonis seems at last a god. If in
stages of culture: those of magic, of religion, and of magic and stage two as vegetation goes, so goes Adonis, now as Adonis goes, so
religion combined. seemingly goes vegetation. Adonis' death means his descent to the
Underworld for his stay with Persephone. Frazer assumes that
Frazer locates the celebrated 'gardens' of Adonis in his first, whether or not Adonis has willed his descent, he is too weak to
magical stage. In this stage humans believe that impersonal forces ascend by himself. By acting out his rebirth, humans facilitate it. On
rather than gods cause events in the plïys1cal world. Ancient the one hand the enactment employs the magical Law of Similarity.
Greeks would plant seeds in earth-filled pots placed on the roof, On the other hand the enactment does not, as in the first stage,
not to persuade a god to grant growth but, by the magical Law compel but only bolsters Adonis, who, despite his present state of
of Similarity, to force the impersonal earth itself to grow: 'For death, is yet hearty enough to revive himself, just not unassisted. In
ignorant people suppose that by mimicking the effect which they this stage gods still control the physical world, but their effect on it
desire to produce they actually help to produce it.' Because there is automatic rather than deliberate. To enact the rebirth of Adonis is
are no gods in this stage, Adonis can hardly be a god of vegetation. to spur his rebirth and, through it, the rebirth of vegetation.
Rather, he is vegetation itself. Vegetation does not symbolize
Adonis; Adonis symbolizes vegetation. Yet even in this stage the sole aspect of Adonis' life considered by
Frazer is that which parallels the annual course of vegetation:
In Frazer's second, religious stage gods replace magical laws as Adonis' death and rebirth. Adonis' otherwise unnatural life, s:
~::,-
i the source of events in the physical world, so that Adonis becomes, beginning with his incestuous birth, is ignored. Ignored above .
:,
~ at least on the literal level, the god of vegetation. As the god of all is Adonis' final death, the unnatural cause-killing, even Cl.
-,
;:.
vegetation, Adonis could, most simply, have been asked for crops. murder-aside. And so Frazer must do. For if Adonis' life is to C:
!!:(.

Or the request could have been reinforced by obedience to the symbolize the course of vegetation, Adonis must continually die
god's ritualistic and ethical dictates. Frazer himself writes that and be reborn. Yet he does not. By whatever means Adonis in
rites of mourning were performed for Adonis-not, as in the next Apollodorus' version overcomes death annually, he does not do so
stage, to undo his death but to seek his forgiveness for it. For indefinitely. In Ovid's version Adonis has never before died and
Adonis has died not, as in the next stage, because he has descended been reborn, and Venus is disconsolate exactly because he is gone
to the Underworld but because in cutting, stamping, and grinding once and for all. How, then, can his short, mortal life symbolize
the corn-the specific part of vegetation he symbolizes-humans eternal rebirth, and how can he be a god? Frazer never reveals.
have killed him. Rather than 'the natural decay of vegetation in
general under the summer heat or the winter cold', the death of Finally, Frazer, once again oblivious to inconsistency, simultaneously
Adonis is 'the violent destruction of the corn by man'. Yet Adonis is declares Adonis' life in even the combined stage to be but a
somehow still sufficiently alive to be capable of punishing humans, symbol of the course of vegetation itself: the myth that Adonis
something that the rituals of forgiveness are intended to avert. spent a portion of the year in the Underworld
Since, however, Adonis dies because vegetation itself does, the
god is here really, as in the first stage, only a metaphor for the is explained most simply and naturally by supposing that he
element that he supposedly controls. Again, as vegetation goes, so represented vegetation, especially the corn, which lies buried in the
goes Adonis. earth half the year and reappears above ground the other half

56 57
Adonis now proves to be not the cause of the fate of vegetation the god of vegetation, the myth of the death and rebirth of that
but only a metaphor for that fate, so that in stage three as well as in god arose, and the ritual of initiation became an agricultural ritual
stage two as vegetation goes, so goes Adonis, and not vice versa. as well. Just as the initiates symbolically died and were reborn as
How myth-ritualism is possible when there is no longer a god to be full-fledged members of society, so the god of vegetation and in
ritualistically revived and when there is only a description, not an turn crops literally died and were reborn. In time, the initiatory
explanation, of the course of vegetation is not easy to see. In now side of the combined ritual faded, and only the Frazerian,
taking mythology as a symbolic description-of-nftfll ral processes, agricultural ritual remained.
Frazer is like a group oflargely German 19th-century theorists
known appropriately as nature mythologists. Both Harrison and Hooke go further than Frazer. For all three,
myth provides the script for ritual. But where for Frazer the
power of myth is merely dramatic, for Harrison and Hooke the
Jane Harrison and S. H. Hooke
spoken word is outright magical. Contemporary myth-ritualists
The next stage in the myth-ritualist theory came with Jane like the American classicist Gregory Nagy appeal to the nature
Harrison (1850-1928) and S.H. Hooke (1874-1968), the English of oral, as opposed to written, literature to argue that myth was
leaders of the initial main groups of myth-ritualists: classicists and originally so closely tied to ritual, or performance, as to be
biblicists. Their positions are close. Both largely follow Frazer's ritualistic itself:
first myth-ritualist scheme, though Hooke, nearly as inconsistent s:
~:r
as Frazer, sometimes follows the second scheme. Unlike Frazer, Once we view myth as performance, we can see that myth itself is a Ill
:I
Hooke and Harrison postulate no distinct, prior stages of magic form of ritual: rather than think of myth and ritual separately and
C.
-,
;:;:
C
and of religion. Both begin instead with the equivalent of Frazer's only contrastively, we can see them as a continuum in which myth is e!..
combined stage. Like Frazer, they deem myth-ritualism the ancient a verbal aspect of ritual while ritual is a notional aspect of myth.
and primitive counterpart to modern science, which replaces not
only myth-ritualism but myth and ritual per se. Harrison and How this position goes beyond that of Hooke and Harrison is far
Hooke follow Frazer most of all in their willingness to see from clear.
heretofore elevated, superior religions-those of Hellenic Greece
and of ancient Israel-as primitive. The conventional, pious
view had been, and often continues to be, that Greece and
Application of the theory
Israel stood above the benighted magical endeavours of their The classicists Gilbert Murray, F. M. Cornford, and A. B. Cook, all
neighbours. English or English-resident, applied Harrison's theory to such
ancient Greek phenomena as tragedy, comedy, the Olympic
Venturing beyond both Frazer and Hooke, Harrison adds to the Games, science, and philosophy. These seemingly secular, even
ritual of the renewal of vegetation the ritual of initiation into society. anti-religious phenomena are interpreted as latent expressions of
She even argues that the original ritual, while still performed the myth of the death and rebirth of the god of vegetation.
annually, was exclusively initiatory. There was no myth, so that for
her, as for Smith, ritual precedes myth. God was only the projection Among biblicists, the Swede Ivan Engnell, the Welshman Aubrey
of the euphoria produced by the ritual. Subsequently, god became Johnson, and the Norwegian Sigmund Mowinckel differed over
58 59