as J. C. Lawson, were perfectly content to see the double axe as a sort of nuclear sceptre wielded by Zeus who, as top god, had the right to inflict top punishments. It represented the lightning which is such a feature of the Greek winter, a winter which specializes in extraordinary electrical storms of almost tropical intensity; trees are stripped with a single ripping noise like torn calico, balls of electricity roll about along the ground. Both in Corfu and Rhodes, and once in Kalymnos, I left the house open during a storm, and these violent balls of haze rolled softly through it and out into the garden again. The peasants fear these storms very much, not only because one could get struck by a lightning flash, but also because sometimes they turn to hailstorms, with huge chunks of ice capable of wounding a mule and knocking you senseless. Zeus, in modern belief, has given place to the word for god, but is a sort of personified god they think of, for when it suddenly thunders, a peasant will say, ‘God thunders, god lightning-flashes.’ Indeed he is not very far from Zeus, the modern peasant’s god. Well, in earlier days the double axe seemed to explain itself along these lines. More sophisticated, and perhaps more penetrating, is the observation of a recent archaeologist (Jacquetta Hawkes): ‘Its shape, the double triangle , was widely used as a sign for women, and the shaft sunk through the central perforation affords an effective piece of sexual imagery.’
The subject is still bedevilled by controversy. I write these lines in an attempt to present a more or less coherent picture of the issues raised by the discovery of Knossos.
An anecdote which is pleasing, beguiling, and perhaps instructive, concerns the marriage of Schliemann, who in mid-career suddenly felt the need for a wife by his side. He had nobody particular in mind but, with his heartfelt passion for Greece, felt that the ideal would be a Greek wife. He ponderedthe matter, examined all the statues in the museums, and finally announced that he would offer his hand in marriage to the first girl who could recite the Iliad entire, without a single fault. He was taking a chance, but the whole of this noble German’s life had been built upon such chances – right from the day when he heard a drunken miller in a grog shop recite some lines of Homer, and felt the strange stirring in the breast which comes only to those who have heard the voice of their vocation speak. Now all Athens was in a ferment, for the Greeks love lotteries, competitions and challenges. The Iliad went out of print; everywhere was heard the humming of voices as the girls of Athens started to learn their lines. Many were pipped at the post, many were faulted on a caesura or thrown by a rough breathing, as that queer microdot above an initial vowel is called. The list grew shorter, until at last Schliemann’s future bride appeared on the scene, to recite the whole poem at one go, perhaps even without drawing breath! She was not only word-perfect; she was one of the most beautiful girls in Athens! His luck had held firm.
Though he was getting on in years, Schliemann was regarded as a great catch; his fame was world-wide, and in Greece he had become almost as much an adopted national hero as Byron. It is understandable – he was restoring to the Greeks the true historic image of themselves as descendants of the ancients; a role that had been denied them for centuries. Suddenly, here was the truth – the real Agamemnon, so to speak, and not just a dramatic figment of the imagination. The wedding struck a sympathetic spark in every Greek breast. Schliemann had given the lie to the otiose Professor Fallermayer who, in his celebrated essay, ‘stoutly maintained that the modern inhabitants of Greece have practically no claim to the name of Hellenes, but come of a stock Slavonic in the main, though crossbred with the offscourings of many peoples’. According to him the facts of thecase could
The subject is still bedevilled by controversy. I write these lines in an attempt to present a more or less coherent picture of the issues raised by the discovery of Knossos.
An anecdote which is pleasing, beguiling, and perhaps instructive, concerns the marriage of Schliemann, who in mid-career suddenly felt the need for a wife by his side. He had nobody particular in mind but, with his heartfelt passion for Greece, felt that the ideal would be a Greek wife. He ponderedthe matter, examined all the statues in the museums, and finally announced that he would offer his hand in marriage to the first girl who could recite the Iliad entire, without a single fault. He was taking a chance, but the whole of this noble German’s life had been built upon such chances – right from the day when he heard a drunken miller in a grog shop recite some lines of Homer, and felt the strange stirring in the breast which comes only to those who have heard the voice of their vocation speak. Now all Athens was in a ferment, for the Greeks love lotteries, competitions and challenges. The Iliad went out of print; everywhere was heard the humming of voices as the girls of Athens started to learn their lines. Many were pipped at the post, many were faulted on a caesura or thrown by a rough breathing, as that queer microdot above an initial vowel is called. The list grew shorter, until at last Schliemann’s future bride appeared on the scene, to recite the whole poem at one go, perhaps even without drawing breath! She was not only word-perfect; she was one of the most beautiful girls in Athens! His luck had held firm.
Though he was getting on in years, Schliemann was regarded as a great catch; his fame was world-wide, and in Greece he had become almost as much an adopted national hero as Byron. It is understandable – he was restoring to the Greeks the true historic image of themselves as descendants of the ancients; a role that had been denied them for centuries. Suddenly, here was the truth – the real Agamemnon, so to speak, and not just a dramatic figment of the imagination. The wedding struck a sympathetic spark in every Greek breast. Schliemann had given the lie to the otiose Professor Fallermayer who, in his celebrated essay, ‘stoutly maintained that the modern inhabitants of Greece have practically no claim to the name of Hellenes, but come of a stock Slavonic in the main, though crossbred with the offscourings of many peoples’. According to him the facts of thecase could
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