_Festivals Founded on Chimeras._
I do not know that there was, in all antiquity, a single festival
founded on an established fact. It has been elsewhere remarked how
extremely ridiculous those schoolmen appear who say to you, with a
magisterial air: "Here is an ancient hymn in honor of Apollo, who
visited Claros; therefore Apollo went to Claros; a chapel was erected to
Perseus; therefore he delivered Andromeda." Poor men! You should rather
say, therefore there was no Andromeda.
But what, then, will become of that learned antiquity which preceded the
olympiads? It will become what it is--an unknown time, a time lost, a
time of allegories and lies, a time regarded with contempt by the wise,
and profoundly discussed by blockheads, who like to float in a _void_,
like Epicurus' atoms.
There were everywhere days of penance, days of expiation in the temples;
but these days were never called by a name answering to that of
_feasts_. Every feast-day was sacred to diversion; so true is this that
the Egyptian priests fasted on the eve in order to eat the more on the
morrow--a custom which our monks have preserved. There were, no doubt,
mournful ceremonies. It was not customary to dance the Greek brawl while
interring or carrying to the funeral pile a son or a daughter; this was
a public ceremony, but certainly not a feast.