We have seen that in Italy,
Spain, and France, that is, in the countries where the influence of
Rome has been deepest and most lasting, a conspicuous feature of the
Carnival is a burlesque figure personifying the festive season,
which after a short career of glory and dissipation is publicly
shot, burnt, or otherwise destroyed, to the feigned grief or genuine
delight of the populace. If the view here suggested of the Carnival
is correct, this grotesque personage is no other than a direct
successor of the old King of the Saturnalia, the master of the
revels, the real man who personated Saturn and, when the revels were
over, suffered a real death in his assumed character. The King of
the Bean on Twelfth Night and the mediaeval Bishop of Fools, Abbot
of Unreason, or Lord of Misrule are figures of the same sort and may
perhaps have had a similar origin. Whether that was so or not, we
may conclude with a fair degree of probability that if the King of
the Wood at Aricia lived and died as an incarnation of a sylvan
deity, he had of old a parallel at Rome in the men who, year by
year, were slain in the character of King Saturn, the god of the
sown and sprouting seed.
Pages:
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640