THE GIFT OF GOD By Edwin Arlington Robinson Blessed with a joy that only she Of all alive shall ever know, She wears a proud humility For what it was that willed it so,-^ That her degree should be so great Among the favored of the Lord That she may scarcely bear the weight Of her bewildering reward. As one apart, immune, alone. Or featured for the shining ones, And like to none that she has known Of other women's other sons, — The iirm fruition of her need, He shines anointed; and he blurs Her vision, till it seems indeed - A sacrilege to call him hers. " She fears a little for so much Of what is best, and hardly dares To think of him as one to touch With aches, indignities, and cares; She sees him rather at the goal. Still shining; and her dream foretells The proper shining of a soul Where nothing ordinary dwells. Perchance a canvass of the town Would find him far from flags and shouts, And leave him only the renown Of many smiles and many doubts; Perchance the crude and common tongue Would havoc strangely with his worth; But she, with innocence unstung. Would read his name around the earth. And others, knowing how this youth Would shine, if love could make him great, When caught and tortured for the truth Would only writhe and hesitate; While she, arranging for his days What centuries could not fulfil, Transmutes him with her faith and praise, And has him shining where she will. She crowns him with her gratefulness, And says again that life is good; And should the gift of God be less In him than in her motherhood. His fame, though vague, will not be small. As upward through her dream he fares, Half clouded with a crimson fall Of roses thrown on marble stairs. 485 GREEK FEASTS By H. G. Dwight Illustrations from piioTOGRArHS nv the Author 3NE of the most character- istic things about Constan- tinople is that while it has become Turkish it has not ceased to be Greek. The same is true of Thrace, Macedonia, and Asia Minor, which con- tain a large Turkish population, but which still form a part of the Greek world to which they always belonged. The two races have indisputably influenced each other, as their languages and certain of their customs prove. A good deal of Greek blood now flows, too, in Turkish veins. Nevertheless there has been re- markably little assimilation, after five hun- dred years, of one element by the other. They coexist, each perfectly distinct and each claiming with perfect reason the land as his own. This is perhaps one cause why religious festivals are so common among the Greeks of Turkey. It is as a religious community that they have remained separate since the conquest. Through their rehgious ob- servances they live what is left them of a national life and assert their claim to the great tradition of their race. The fact doubtless has something to do with the persistence of observances that elsewhere tend to disappear. At all events those observances are extremely interesting. They have a local color, for one thing, of a kind that has become rare in Europe and that scarcely ever existed in America. Then they are reckoned by the Julian calendar, now thirteen days behind our own, and that puts them into a certain perspective. Their true perspective, how- ever, reaches much farther back. Nor is it merely that they compose a body of tradition from which we of the West have diverged or separated. Our religious cus- toms and beliefs did not spring out of our own soil. We transplanted them in full flower from Rome, and she in turn had already borrowed largely from Greece and the East. But in the Levant such beliefs and customs represent a native growth, whose roots run far deeper than Chris- tianity. In the Eastern as in the Western Church the essence of the religious year is that cycle of observances that begins with Ad- vent and culminates at Easter. It is rather curious that Protestantism should have disturbed the symbolism of this drama by transposing its climax. Christmas with the Greeks is not the greater feast. One of their names for it, in fact, is Lit- tle Easter. It is preceded, however, by a fast of forty days nearly as strict as Lent. The day itself is purely a religious festi- val. A midnight mass, or rather an early mass, is celebrated at one or two o'clock on Christmas morning, after which the fast is broken and people make each other good wishes. They do not exchange pres- ents or follow the usage of the Christmas tree, that invention of Northern barbar- ism, except in places that have been largely influenced by the West. The real holiday of the season is New Year's Day. This is called Ai VassUi, or Saint Basil, whose name-day it is. There is an old ballad relating to this venerable bishop of Cappadocia — too long, I regret, to translate here — which men and boys go about singing on Saint Basil's eve. The musicians are rewarded with money, theoretically for the poor of the commu- nity. If it happens to stick in the pock- ets of the performers, they doubtless re- gard themselves as representative of the brotherhood for whose benefit they sing. This custom is imitated by small boys, who go among the coffee-houses after dark begging. They make themselves known by lanterns that are oftenest wicker bird- cages lined with colored paper. I have also seen ships and castles of quite elabo- rate design. These curious lanterns are used as well on Christmas and Epiphany eves — which, like New Year's, are cele- Greek Feasts 487 brated in cosmopolitan Constantinople tering a church is not followed. On the twice over. Christmas, indeed, is cele- first of every month except January a brated three times, since the Armenians ceremony called the Little Blessing takes keep it at Epiphany, while the Turks, the place in the churches, when water is Persians, and the Hebrews each have a blessed; and this ceremony may be re- New Year of their own. The principal peated by request in private houses. In feature of Saint Basil's eve is the vassi- January the Little Blessing takes place on The blessing of the waters at Arnaoutkyoi. lopita, a kind of flat round cake or sweet bread something like the Tuscan schiac- ciata. At midnight the head of the house cuts the pita into as many pieces as there are members of the family. A true pita should contain a coin, and whoever gets it is sure to have luck during the new year. The next day people pay visits, exchange presents, tip servants, and make merry as they will. They also go, at a more con- venient hour than on Christmas morning, to church, where the ancient liturgy of Saint Basil is read. Epiphany, or the old English Twelfth Night, has retained in the East a signifi- cance that it has lost in the West. The day is supposed to commemorate the bap- tism of Christ in the Jordan. Hence it is the day of the blessing of waters, whether of springs, wells, reservoirs, rivers, or the sea. Holy water plays a particular role in the Greek Church — although the Roman custom of moistening the fingers with it before making the sign of the cross on en- VoL. LV.— 51 . Epiphany eve, the fifth. But on Epiph- any itself, as early in the morning as local custom may dictate, takes place the Great Blessing. It is performed in the middle of the church, on a dais decorated with garlands of bay, and the important feature of the long ceremony is the dip- ping of a cross into a silver basin of water. The water is carefully kept in bottles throughout the next year and used as oc- casion may require. It is sometimes ad- ministered, for instance, to those who are not thought fit to take the full commun- ion. The outdoor ceremony which follows this one is extremely picturesque. In Con- stantinople it may be seen in any of the numerous Greek waterside communities — by those who care to get up early enough of a January morning. One of the best places is Arnaoutkyoi, a large Greek village on the European shore of the Bos- phorus, where the ceremony is obligingly postponed till ten or eleven o'clock. At the conclusion of the service in the church 488 Greek Feasts a procession, headed by clergy in gala them paddled back to shore and hurried vestments and accompanied by candles, off to get warm. The finder of the cross is incense, banners, and lanterns on staves a lucky man in this world and the world of the sort one sees in Italy, marches to to come. He goes from house to house the waterside. There it is added to with the holy emblem he has rescued from by shivering mortals in bathing trunks, the deep, and people give him tips. In They behave in a highly unecclesiastical this way he collects enough to restore his They are not so much the order of the day as the progress of a tradi- tional camel. — Page 490. circulation and to pass a convivial Epiph- any. The cross is his to keep, but he must provide a new one for the coming year. The blessing of the waters is firmly be- lieved by many good people to have one effect not claimed by mother church. It is supposed, that is, to exorcise for an- other year certain redoubtable beings known as kallikdntzari. The name, ac- cording to one of the latest authorities on the subject,* means the " good centaurs." Goodness, however, is not their distinguish- ing trait. They are quarrelsome, mis- chievous, and destructive monsters, half man, half beast, who haunt the twelve nights of the Christmas season. One of the most eflicacious means of scaring them *J. C. Lawsoni " Modcra Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion." manner in their anxiety to get the most advantageous post on the quay. The ban- ners and lanterns make a screen of color on either side of the priests, incense rises, choristers chant, a bishop in brocade and cloth-of-gold with a domed gilt mitre holds up a small cross; he makes the holy sign with it, and tosses it into the Bos- phorus. There is a terrific splash as the rivals for its recovery dive after it. In days gone by there used to be fights no less terrific in the water over the precious object. The last time I saw the ceremony, however, there was nothing of the kind. The cross was even made of wood, so that there was no trouble in finding it. The first man who reached it piously put it to his lips and allowed the fellow nearest him to do the same. Then the half-dozen of Another picturesque feature . is the dancing by Macedonians. — Page 490. off is by firebrands, and I have wondered if the colored lanterns to which I have al- luded might owe their origin to the same idea. Many pious sailors will not ven- ture to sea during the twelve days, for fear of these creatures. The unfurling of the sails is one of the ceremonies of Epiph- any in some seaside communities. Sim- ilarly, no one — of a certain class — would dream of marrying during the twelve days, while a child so unfortunate as to be born then is regarded as likely to become a kal- likdntzaros himself. Here a teaching of the church perhaps mingles with the pop- ular belief. But that belief is far older than the church, going back to Dionysus and the fauns, satyrs, and sileni who ac- companied him. In many parts of the Greek world it is still the custom for men and boys to masquerade in furs dur- ing the twelve days. If no trace of the custom seems to survive in Constanti- nople it may be because the early fathers of the church thundered there against this continuance of the antique Dionysiac rev- els, which became the Brumalia and Satur- nalia of the Romans. I should not say that no trace survives, because carnival is of course a lineal de- scendant of those ancient winter celebra- tions. As it exists in Constantinople, how- ever, carnival is for the most part but a pale copy of an Italian original, imported perhaps by the Venetians and Genoese. It affords none the less pleasure to those who participate in it and curiosity of various colors to the members of the rul- ing race. I remember one night in Pera overhearing two venerable fezes with re- gard to a troop of maskers that ran noisily by. "What is this play?" inquired one old gentleman, who evidently had never seen it before and who as evidently looked upon it with disapproval. "Eh," replied the other, the initiated and the more in- dulgent old gentleman; "they pass the time! " The time they pass is divided dit ferently than with us of the West. The second Sunday before Lent is called Apo- kred, and is the day of farewell to meat. Which, for the religious, it actually is, al- though the gayeties of carnival are then at their height. The ensuing Sunday is called Cheese Sunday, because that amount of indulgence is permitted during the week that precedes it. After Cheese Sunday, 489 490 Greek Feasts however, no man should touch cheese, milk, butter, oil, eggs, or even fish — though an exception is made in favor of caviare, out of which a delicious Lenten savory is made. Lent begins not on the Wednesday but on Ash Wednesday to promenade on the or- dinarily deserted quay of the Zattere. But no masks are seen on the Zattere on Ash Wednesday, whereas masks are the order of the day at Tatavla on Clean Mon- The procession at the Phanar. the Monday, which is called Clean Mon- day. In fact the first week of Lent is called Clean week. Houses are then swept and garnished and the fast is stricter than at any time save Holy week. The very pious eat nothing at all during the first three days of Lent. Clean Monday, nevertheless, is a great holiday. In Constantinople it is also called Tatavla Day, because every one goes out to Tatavla, a quarter bordering on open country between Shishli and Has- skyoi. A somewhat similar custom pre- vails in Venice, where every one goes on day. They are not so much the order of the day, however, as the progress of a traditional camel, each of whose legs is a man. It carries a load of charcoal and garlic, which are powerful talismans against evil, and it is led about by a picturesquely dressed camel-driver whose face is daubed with blue. This simple form of masquerading, a common one at Tatavla, descends directly from the pagan Dionysia. Another picturesque feature of the day is the dancing by Macedonians — ■ Greeks or Christian Albanians. Masquer- ading with these exiles consists in tying Greek Feasts 491 a handkerchief about their heads in guise of a fillet and in putting on the black or white fustanella — with its accompany- ing accoutrements — of their native hills. They form rings in the middle of the crowd, which is kept back by one of their number called the Shepherd. Like the Christmas mummers of the Greek islands, he wears skins and has a big bronze sheep or camel bell fastened to some part of him. He also carries a staff to which is attached a bunch of garlic for good luck. He oft- en wears a mask as well, or is otherwise disguised, and his clowneries give great amusement. In the meantime his com- panions join hands and dance around the ring to the tune of a pipe or a violin. The first two hold the ends of a handkerchief instead of joining hands, which enables the leader to go through more compli- cated evolutions. Sometimes he is pre- ceded by one or two sword dancers, who know how to make the most of their hang- ing sleeves and plaited skirts. Some of these romantic young gentlemen are sin- gularly handsome, which does not prepare one to learn that they are butchers' boys. The Greeks keep no mi-careme, as the Latins do. Their longer and severer fast continues unbroken till Easter morning — ■ unless Annunciation Day happens to fall in Lent. Then they are allowed the in- dulgence of fish. Holy week is with them the Great Week. Services take place in the churches every night except Wednesday, and commemorate the events of Jerusa- lem in a more dramatic way than even the Roman Church. The symbohc washing of the disciples' feet, however, which takes place in Jerusalem on Holy Thursday, is not performed in Constantinople except by the Armenians. On Good, or Great, Friday a cenotaph is erected in the nave of each church, on which is laid an em- broidery or some other representation of the crucifixion. Sculpture is not per- mitted in the Greek Church, although on this one occasion a statue has sometimes been seen. The faithful flock during the day to the cenotaph, where they kiss the embroidery and make some small dona- tion. Each one receives from the acolyte in charge a jonquil or a hyacinth. This charming custom is perhaps a relic of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which Easter super- seded and with whose symbolism, cele- VoL. LV.— 52 brating as they did the myth of Demeter and Persephone, it has so much in com- mon. Spring flowers, at all events, play a part at Easter quite different from our merely decorative use of them. Flower- stands are almost as common at church doors as candle-stands. For people also make the round of the icons in the churches, lighting votive tapers here and there. The true use of the tapers, how- ever, is after dark. Then a procession figuring the entombment of Christ issues from the church with the image of the cenotaph and. makes the circuit of the court or, in purely Greek communities, of the surrounding streets, accompanied by a crowd of lighted candles. The. image is finally taken to the holy table, where it remains for forty days. An even more striking ceremony takes place on Saturday night. About mid- night people begin to gather in the churches, which are aromatic with the flowering bay strewn on the floor. Every one carries a candle but none are lighted — not even before the icons. The service begins with antiphonal chanting. The ancient Byzantine music sounds stranger than ever in the dim light, sung by the black-robed priests with black veils over their tall blackhats. Finally thecelebrant, in a purple cope of mourning, withdraws behind the icgnostdsion, the screen that in a Greek church divides the holy table from the chancel. As the chant proceeds candles are lighted in certain chandeliers. Then the door of the sanctuary is thrown open, revealing a blaze of light and color within. The celebrant comes out in mag- nificent vestments, holding a lighted can- dle and saying, "Come to the light." Those nearest him reach out their own tapers to take the sacred fire, and from them it is propagated in an incredibly short time through the entire church. In the meantime the priests march in pro- cession out of doors, headed by a banner emblematic of the resurrection. And there, surrounded by the flickering lights of the congregation, the celebrant chants the triumphant resurrection hymn. At this point tradition demands that the populace should express their own senti- ments by a volley of pistol shots. But since the reactionary uprising of 1909, when soldiers took advantage of the Greek 492 Greek Feasts Easter to make such tragic use of their own arms, an attempt has been made in Constantinople to suppress this detail. I have been told that each shot is aimed at Judas. The unfaithful apostle, at all events, used to be burned in efi&gy on Good Friday at Therapia, a village of the upper Bosphorus. And I have heard of other customs of a similar bearing. The most interesting place to see the ceremonies of Easter is the patriarchal church at Phanar — or Fener, as the Turks call it — on the Golden Horn. This is the Vatican of Constantinople. It has en- joyed that honor a comparatively short time, as years are counted in this part of the world. Saint Sophia was, of course, the original cathedral of the city. After its appropriation by the Turks the pa- triarchate moved five times, finally being established here in 1601. It naturally can no longer rank in splendor with its Roman rival. In historic interest, however, the Phanar yields nothing to the Vatican. The more democratic organization of the Eastern Church never claimed for the Bishop of Constantinople the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. But the former acquired and has always kept an obvious precedence among the prelates of the East by his residence in a city which has not ceased during sixteen hundred years to be the capital of an empire. Throughout that entire time an unbroken succession of Patriarchs have followed each other upon the episcopal throne of Saint John Chrysostom. Joachim III, the present incumbent of the patriarchate, is the two hundred and fifty-fourth of his line. The coming of the Turks did not disturb this succession. When Mohammed II took the city in 1453 one of his earliest acts was to confirm the rights of the patriarchate. The Patriarch even took on a new dignity as the recognized head of a people that no longer had any temporal leader. The schism of the churches definitively sepa- rated the sees of Rome and Constanti- nople, while later schisms, not doctrinal but political, have made the churches of Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Roumania, Russia, and Servia independent of the Phanar in various degrees. But the Patri- arch is still primate of a great Greek world, and there attaches to his person all the in- terest of a long and important history. The ceremonies of Easter morning at the Phanar are not for every one to see, by reason of the smallness of the church. One must have a friend at court in order to ob- tain a ticket of admission. Even then one may miss, as I once did through ignorance and perhaps through a lack of that persist- ence which should be the portion of the true tourist, certain characteristic scenes of the day. Thus I failed to witness the robing of the Patriarch by the prelates of his court. Neither did I get a photograph of them all marching in procession to the church, though I had moved heaven and earth — i. e., a bishop and an ambassador • — for permission to do so. Nevertheless I had an excellent view of the ceremony of the second resurrection, as the Easter morning vespers are called. The proces- sion entered the church led by small boys in white-and-gold who carried a tall cross, two gilt exepterigha on staves, symbolic of the six-winged cherubim, and lighted can- dles. After them came choristers singing. The men wore a species of fez entirely covered by its spread-out tassel. One car- ried an immense yellow candle in front of the officiating clergy, who marched two and two in rich brocaded chasubles. Their long beards gave them a dignity which is sometimes lacking to their Western broth- ers, while the tall black kalymdfhion, brimmed slightly at the top with a true Greek sense of outline, is certainly a more imposing head-dress than the biretta. The Patriarch came next, preceded and fol- lowed by a pair of acolytes carrying two and three lighted candles tied together with white rosettes. These candles sym- bolize the two natures of Christ and the Trinity; with them his Holiness is sup- posed to dispense his blessing. He wore magnificent vestments of white satin em- broidered with blue and green and gold. A large diamond cross and other glitter- ing objects hung about his neck. In his hand he carried a crosier of silver and gold, and on his head he wore a domed crown- like mitre. It was surmounted by a cross of gold, around it were ornaments of en- amel and seed pearls, and in the gold circlet of its base were set immense sap- phires and other precious stones. The Patriarch was followed by members of the Russian embassy, of the Greek, Montene- grin, Roumanian, and Servian legations, Greek Feasts 493 and by the lay dignitaries of his own en- tourage, whose uniforms and decorations added what they could to the splendor of the occasion. These personages took their places in the body of the nave — standing, as is always the custom in the Greek Church — while the clergy went behind the screen of the sanctuary. The Patriarch, after swinging a silver censer through the church, took his place at the right of the chancel on a high canopied throne of carved wood inlaid with ivory. He made a wonderful picture there with his fine profile and long white beard and gorgeous vestments. On a lower and smaller throne at his right sat the Grand Logothete. The Grand Logothete happens at present to be a preternaturally small man, and time has greatly diminished his dignities. The glitter of his decorations, however, and the antiquity of his office make him what compensation they can. His office is an in- heritance of Byzantine times, when he was a minister of state. Now he is the official representative of the Patriarch at the Sublime Porte and accompanies him to the palace when his Holiness has audi- ence of the Sultan. No rite, I suppose, surpasses that of the Greek Church in splendor. The carved and gilded iconostasis, the icons set about with gold, the multitude of candles, pre- cious lamps, and chandeliers, the rich vest- ments, the clouds of incense, make an overpowering appeal to the senses. To the Western eye, however, there is too much gilt and blaze for perfect taste, there are too many objects in proportion to the space they fill. And certainly to the West- ern ear the Byzantine chant, however in- teresting on acount of its descent from the antique Greek modes, lacks the charm of the Gregorian or of the beautiful Rus- sian choral. At a point of the service the Gospels were read by different voices in a number of different languages. I recog- nized Latin and Slavic among them. Finally the Patriarch withdrew in the same state as he entered. On his way to his own apartments he paused on an open gallery and made an address to the crowd in the court that had been unable to get into the church. Then he held in the great saloon of his palace a levee of those who had been in the church, and each of them was presented with gayly decorated Easter eggs and with a cake called a Isurek. These dainties are the universal evidence of the Greek Easter — these and the salutation " Christ is risen," to which answer is made by lips the least sanctimonious, " In truth, he is risen." Holy Thursday is the tra- ditional day for dyeing eggs. On Holy Sat- urday the Patriarch sends an ornamental basket' of eggs and tsurek to the Sultan. Tsurek, or chorek as it is more legitimately called in Turkish, is like the Easter cake of northern Italy. It is a sort of big brioche made in three strands braided to- gether. Easter Monday is in some ways a great- er feast than Easter itself. In Constanti- nople the Christian population is so large that when the Greeks and Armenians stop work their fellow citizens find it easy to follow suit. The Phanar is a favorite place of resort throughout the Easter holidays, an open space between the patriarchate and the Golden Horn being turned into a large and lively fair. The traditional place for the celebration of the day, however, is in the open spaces of the Taxim, on the heights of Pera. The old travellers all have a chapter about the festivities which used to take place there, and remnants of them may still be seen. The Armenians gather chiefly in a disused cemetery of their cult, where the tomb of a certain Saint Kevork is honored at this season and where peasants from Asia Minor may sometimes be seen dancing among the graves. A larger and noisier congregation assembles at the upper edge of the parade- ground across the street. Not a little color is given to it by Greeks from the region of Trebizond, who sometimes are not Greeks at all, but Laz, and who often wear the hood of that mysterious people knotted around their heads. They have a strange dance which they continue hour after hour to the tune of a little violin hanging from the player's hand. They hold each other's fingers in the air, and as they dance they keep up a quivering in their thighs, which they vary by crouch- ing to their heels and throwing out first one leg and then the other with a shout. An even more positive touch of color is given to the scene by the Kourds — or Kiirts, as they pronounce their own name. They set up a tent, in front of which a space is partially enclosed by screens of 494 Greek Feasts the same material. I remember seeing one such canvas that was lined with a vivid yellow pattern on a red ground. There swarthy Kourds in gayly embroid- ered jackets or waistcoats gather to smoke, to drink tea, and to dance in their own more sedate way, while gypsies pipe unto them and pound a big drum. I once asked one of the dancers how it was that he, be- ing no Christian, made merry at Easter time. "Eh," he answered, "there is no work. Also, since the constitution we are all one, and if one nation rejoices, the others rejoice with it. Now all that re- mains," he went on, "is that there should be no rich and no poor, and that we should all have money together." Interesting as I found this socialistic opinion in the mouth of a Kourdish hamal, I could not help remembering how it had been put. into execution in 1896, when the Kourds massacred the Armenian hamals and wrested from the survivors the profitable guild of the street porters. It was then that the Easter glory departed from the Taxim. But the place had already been overtaken by the growing city, while in- creasing facilities of communication now daily enlarge the radius of the holiday- maker. One assembly of Easter week which still is to be seen in something of its pristine glory is the fair of Baloukli. This takes place on the Friday and lasts through Sunday. The scene of it is the monastery of Baloukli, outside the land walls of Stamboul. It is rather curious that the Turkish name of so ancient a place should have superseded even among the Greeks its original appellation. The Byzantine emperors had a villa there and several of them built churches in the vicinity. The name Baloukli, however, which might be translated as the Fishy Place, comes from the legend every one knows of the Greek monk who was frying fish when news was brought him that the Turks had taken the city. He refused to believe it, saying he would do so if his fish jumped out of the frying-pan — not into the fire, but into the spring beside him. Which they promptly did. Since when the life- giving spring, as it is called, has been pop- ulated by fish that look as if they were half-fried. The thing on Baloukli Day is to make a pilgrimage to the pool of these miraculous fish, to drink of the water in which they swirn, to wash one's hands and face and hair in it, and to take some of it away in a bottle. The spring is at one end of a dark chapel half underground, into which the crowd squeezes in batches. After receiving the benefits of the holy water you kiss the icons in the chapel. A priest in an embroidered stole, who holds a small cross in his hand, will then make the holy sign with it upon your person and offer you the cross and his hand as- well to kiss, in return for which you drop a coin into the slot of a big box beside him. Candles are also to be had for burn- ing at the various icons. The greater number of these, however, are in the mon- astery church hard by. And so many can- dles burn before them that attendants go about every few minutes, blow out the candles, and throw them into a box, to make room for new candles. There are also priests to whom you tell your name, which they add to a long list, and in re- turn for the coin you leave behind you they pray for blessing upon the name. All this is interesting to watch, by reason of the great variety of the pilgrims and the unconscious lingering of paganism in their faith; and while there is a hard com- mercial side to it all, you must remember that a hospital and other charitable in- stitutions largely profit thereby. There are also interesting things to watch outside the monastery gate. Tem- porary coffee-houses and eating-places are established there in abundance, and the hum of festivity that arises from them may be heard afar among the cypresses of the surrounding Turkish cemetery. I must add that spirituous liquors are dis- pensed with some freedom ; for the Greek does not share the hesitation of his Turk- ish brother in such matters, and he con- siders it well-nigh a Christian duty to im- bibe at Easter. To imbibe too much at that season, as at New Year's and one or two other great feasts, is by no means held to impair a man's reputation for sobriety. It is surprising, however, how soberly the pleasures of the day are in general taken. As you sit at a table ab- sorbing your own modest refreshment you are even struck by a certain stolidity in those about you. Perhaps it is partly due to the fact that the crowd is not Greek Feasts 495 purely Greek. Armenians are there, Bul- garians, Albanians, Turks too. Then many of the pilgrims are peasants come in ox-carts from outlying villages and daz- zled a little by this urban press. They lis- ten in pure delight to the music that pours from a hundred instruments. The crown- ing glory of such an occasion is to have a musician sit at the table with you, pref- erably a hand-organ man or a gypsy with his pipe. GjqDsy women go about telling fortunes. "You are going to have great calamities," utters one darkly when you re- fuse to hear your fate. " Is that the way to get a piaster out of me?" you ask. "But after- ward you will become very rich," she conde- scends to add. Other gypsies carry miniature marionette shows on their backs in glass cases. Wandering musicians tempt you to employ their arts. Venders of unimaginable sweets pick their way among the tables. B eggars ex- hibit horrible deformi- ties and make artful speeches. " May you enjoy your youth!" is one. "May you know no bitternesses ! ' ' exclaims another with meaning emphasis. "May God forgive your dead," utters a third. "The world I hear but the world I do not see," cries a blind man melodra- matically. "Little eyes I have none." Diminutives are much in favor among this gentry. And every two minutes some one comes with a platter or with a brass casket sealed with a big red seal and says, " Your assistance," adding "for the church," or "for the school," or "for the hospital," if you seem to fail to take in what is expected of you. Your assistance need not be very heavy, however, and you feel that you owe something in return for the pleasures of the occasion. Beyond the circle of eating-places stretches an open field which is the scene of the more active enjoyment of the day. There the boat-swings beloved of Constan- tinople children are installed, together with Vol. LV.— S3 Joachim III, ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. merry-go-rounds, weights which one sends to the top of a pole by means of a ham- mer blow, and many another world-wide device for parting the holiday-maker and his money. One novel variant is an in- clined wire, down which boys slide hang- ing from a pulley. Dancing is the favor- ite recreation of the men. When they happen to be Bulgars of Macedonia they join hands and circle about one of their number who plays the bagpipe. Every few steps the leader stops and, steadied by the man who holds the other end of his handkerchief, in- dulges in posturings ex- pressive of supreme enjoyment. The pas- chaliatico of the Greeks is less curious but more graceful. After watch- ing the other dances, picturesque as they are, one seems to come back with it to the old Greek sense of measure. And it is danced with a light- someness which is less evident with other races. The men put their hands on each other's shoulders and circle in a sort of barn-dance step to the strains of a lan- terna. Of which more anon. The feast of Our Lady of the Fishes is one of the greatest popular festivals in Constantinople. By no means, however, is it the only one of its kind. The cult of holy wells forms a chapter by itself in the observances of the Greek Church. This cult has an exceptional interest for those who have been touched by the classic in- fluence, as offering one of the most visible points at which Christianity turned to its own use the customs of paganism. A holy well, an aydsma as the Greeks call it, is nothing more or less than the sacred fount of antiquity. Did not Horace cel- ebrate such a one in his ode to the Fons BandusicR ? As a matter of fact a belief in naiads still persists among Greek peas- ants. And you can pay a lady no greater compliment than to tell her that she looks, or even that she cooks, like a nereid. For under that comprehensive name the 496 Greek Feasts nymphs are now known. But as guardians of sacred founts they, Hke some of the greater divinities, have been baptized with Christian names. There is an infinity of such springs in and about Constantinople. Comparatively few of them are so well housed as the aydsma of Baloukli. Some of them are scarcely to be recognized from any profane rill in the open country, while others are in Turkish hands and accessible only on the day of the saint to which they are dedicated. On that day, and in the case of an aydsma of some re- pute on the days before and after — unless the nearest Sunday determine otherwise — is celebrated the paniywi of the patron of the spring. Paniytri, or panaylr, has the same origin as our word panegyric. For the reading of the saint's panegyric is one of the religious exercises of the day. Which, like the early Christian agape and the contemporary Italian festa, is an- other survival of an older faith. But re- ligious exercises are not the essential part of a paniytri to most of those who take part in one. Nor need a paniytri neces- sarily take place at a holy well. The num- ber of them that do take place is quite fabulous. Still, as the joy of life was dis- covered in Greece, who shall blame the Greeks of to-day for finding so many oc- casions to manifest it? And it is natural that these occasions should oftenest arise during the clement half of the year, when the greater feasts of the church are done. One of the earliest "panegyrics" of the season is that of Ai Sardnda, which is held on the gth/zad of March. At Sa- rdnda means Saint Forty to many good people, although others designate thereby the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste — now the Turkish city of Sivas. There is a spring dedicated to these worthies on the out- skirts of Pera, between the place called The Stones and the palace of Dolma Bagh- cheh. I find it difficult to share the popu- lar belief that the forty martyrs of Sivas ever had anything to do with this site. It is true that the pious Empress Pulcheria dug them up in the fifth century and transported them with great pomp to the church she built for them on the farther side of the Golden Horn. It is also true that their church was demolished shortly before the Turkish conquest, and its mar- bles used in fortifying the Golden Gate. But why should a Turkish tomb on the hillside above the aydsma be venerated by the Greeks as the last resting-place of "Saint Forty"? Has it anything to do with the fact that the forty martyrs are commemorated at the vernal equinox, which happens to be the New Year of the Persians and which the Turks also ob- serve? Being ignorant of all these matters, my attention was drawn quite by accident to the tomb in question, by some women who were tying rags to the grille of a win- dow. The act is common enough in the Levant, among Christians and Moham- medans alike. It signifies a wish on the part of the person who ties the rag, which should be torn from his own clothing. More specifically it is sometimes supposed to bind to the bar any malady with which he may happen to be afflicted. Near this grille was a doorway through which I saw people coming and going. I therefore decided to investigate. Having paid ten paras for that privilege to a little old Turk with a long white beard, I found myself in a typical Turkish tUrbek. In the centre stood a ridged and turbaned cata- falque, while Arabic inscriptions adorned the walls. I asked the hoja in attendance who might be buried there. He told me that the Greeks consider the tomb to be that of Saint Forty, while the Turks honor there the memory of a certain holy Ah- met. I would willingly have known more about this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of a saint; but others pressed behind me and the hoja asked if I were not going to cir- culate. He also indicated the left side of the catafalque as the place for me to begin. I accordingly walked somewhat leisurely around the room. When I came back to the hoja he surprised me not a lit- tle by throwing a huge string of wooden beads over my head, obliging me to step clear of them. He then directed me to cir- culate twice more. Which I did with more intelligence, he muttering some manner of invocation the while. The third time I was considerably delayed by a Greek lady with two little boys who carried toy bal- loons. The little boys and their balloon strings got tangled in the string of the big wooden beads, and one of the balloons broke away to the ceiling, occasioning fearful sounds of lamentation in the holy I'he Phanar is a favorite place of resort throughout the Easter holidays. — Page 493. place. The hoja kept his temper admira- ably, however. He was not too put out to inform me that I owed him a piaster for the service he had rendered me. I begged his pardon for troubHng to remind me, saying that I was a stranger. He politely answered that one must always learn a first time, adding that a piaster would not make me poor nor him rich. I reserved my opinion on the latter point when I saw how many of them he took in. At the foot of the catafalque a Turkish boy was selling tapers. I bought one, as it were an Athenian sacrificing to the unknown god, lighted it, and stuck it into the basin of sand set for the purpose. That done I considered myself free to admire the more profane part of the panayir. Part of it covered the adjoining slopes, where peaceably incHned spectators, in- eluding Turkish women not a few, might also contemplate the blossoming peach- trees that added their color to the oc- casion and the farther panorama of Bos- phorus and Marmora. But the crux of the proceedings was in a small hollow below the tomb. I must confess that I shrank from joining the press of the faithful about the grotto of the sacred fount. I con- tented myself with hovering on their out- skirts. A black group of priestly cylin- ders marked the densest part of the crowd, and near them a sheaf of candles burned strangely in the clear spring sunlight. A big refreshment tent was pitched not too far away to receive the overflow of devo- tion, reaching out canvas arms to make further space for tables and chairs. The faded green common to Turkish tents was lined with dark red, appliqued to which were panels of white flower-pots and flowers. I wondered if the tent man wit- tingly repeated this note of the day. For flowers were everywhere in evidence. Li- lacs, tulips, hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and narcissi were on sale under big green canvas umbrellas at the edge of the hol- low, while every other pilgrim who came away from the aydsma carried a bottle of the holy water in one hand and a spring flower in the other. Interesting as is the panayfr of the forty martyrs, it does not rank with the later and greater spring festival of Saint 497 The Kourds t up a tent, in front of which a space is partially enclosed. —Page 493. George. This also has Turkish affiliations, at least in Constantinople and Macedonia. Both races count Saint George's Day, April 23 /May 6, the official beginning of summer — of the good time, as modern Greek pleasantly puts it. The Turks, however, dedicate the day to one Hidr Elyess. But it is not too difficult to relate this somewhat vague personage to our more familiar friend Elijah, who in his character of Saint Elias shares with Saint George the mantle of Apollo. Nor is the heavenly charioteer the only one of the Olympians whose cult survives to-day among their faithful people. The Hebrew prophet would doubtless have been much astonished to learn that he was to be the heir of a Greek god. He owes it partly to the similarity of his name to the Greek word for sun and partly to the chariot of fire that carried him out of the world. As for " the infamous George of Cappadocia," as Gibbon denominates the patron saint of our ancestral island, his part in the heritage of Apollo is due to his drag- on, cousin-german to the python of the Far Darter. The sanctuaries of these two 498 Christian legatees of Olympus have re- placed those of Apollo on all hilltops, while their name-days are those when men feasted of old the return and the midsum- mer splendor of the sun. The place among places to celebrate Saint George's Day is Prinkipo. That de- licious island deserves a book to itself. Indeed, I believe several have been writ- ten about it. One of them is by a polit- ical luminary of our own firmament who flamed for a moment across the Byzantine horizon and whose counterfeit present- ment, in a bronze happily less enduring than might be, hails the motormen of Astor Place, New York. Sunset Cox's work bears the ingratiating title of "The Pleasures of Prinkipo; or, The Diversions of a Diplomat" — if that is the order of the alternatives. The pleasures of Prin- kipo are many as its red and white sage roses; but none of them are more char- acteristic than to climb the Sacred Way through olive and cypress and pine to the little monastery crowning the higher hill of the island and to take part in the ceremonies of rejoicing over the return Greek Feasts 499 of the sun. This is a paniytri much fre- quented by the people of the Marmora, who come in their iishing-boats from dis- tant villages of the marble sea. Their costumes become annually more corrupt, I am pained to state; but there are still visi- ble among them ladies in print, sometimes even in rich velvet, trousers of a fulness, wearing no hat but a painted muslin hand- kerchief over the hair and adorned with dow- ries in the form of strung gold coins. They do not all come to make merry. Among them are not a few ill or deformed, who hope a miracle from good Saint George. You may see them lying pale and full of faith on the strewn bay of the little church. They are allowed to pass the night there, in order to absorb the virtue of the holy place. Ihaveeven known of a sick child's clothes being left in the church a year in hope of saving its life. But these are only in- cidents in the general tide of merrymaking. Eating and drinking, music and dance, go on without interruption for three days and three nights. The music is made in many ways, of which the least pop- ular is certainly not the way of the lan- terna. The lanterna is a kind of hand- organ, a hand-piano rather, of Italian origin but with an accent and an inter- spersing of bells peculiar to Constanti- nople. It should attract the eye as well as the ear, usually by means of the por- trait of some beauteous being set about with a garland of artificial flowers. And it is engineered by two young gentle- men in fezes of an extremely dark red, in short black jackets or in bouffant shirt- sleeves of some magnificent print, with a waistcoat more double-breasted than you ever saw and preferably worn unbut- toned; also in red or white girdles, in trousers that flare toward the bottom like a sailor's, and in shoes or slippers that Fringes of colored paper are strung from liouse to liouse. — Page 500. should have no counter. Otherwise the rules demand that the counter be turned under the wearer's heel. Thus accoutred he bears his lanterna on his back from pa- tron to patron and from one panaytr to another. His companion carries a camp- stool, whereon to rest his instrument while turning the handle hour in and hour out. I happen, myself, to be not a little subject to the spell of music. I have trembled before Fitzner, Kneisel, and Sevcik quar- tets and I have touched infinity under the subtlest bows and batons of my time. Yet I must confess that I am able to listen 500 Greek Feasts to a lanterna without displeasure. On one occasion I listened to many of them, ac- companied by pipes, drums, gramophones, and wandering violins, for the whole of a May night on Saint George's hilltop in Prinkipo. What is more, I understood in myself how the Dionysiac frenzy was fed by the cymbals of the maenads, and I re- sented all the inhibitions of a New Eng- land origin that kept me from joining the dancers. Some of them were the Laz por- ters of the island, whose exhausting meas- ure was more appropriate to such an orgy than to Easter Monday. Others were women, for once. But they kept demure- ly to themselves, apparently untouched by any corybantic fury. The same could not be said of their men, whose dancing was not always decent. They were bareheaded, or wore a handkerchief twisted about their hair like a fillet, and among them were faces that might have looked out of an Attic frieze. It gave one the strangest sense of the continuity of things. In the lower darkness a few faint hghts were scattered. One wondered how, to them, must seem the glare and clangor of this island hilltop, ordinarily so silent and de- serted. The music went up to the quiet stars, the revellers danced unwearying, a half-eaten moon slowly lighted the dark sea, a spring air moved among the pines, and then a grayness came into the east, near the Bithynian Olympus, and at last the god of hilltops rode into a cloud- barred sky. The second feast of Apollo takes place at midsummer, namely on Saint Elias's Day (July 20/August 2). Arnaoutkyoi is where it may be most profitably admired. Arnaoutkyoi, Albanian Village, is the Turk- ish name of a thriving suburb which the Greeks call Great Current, from the race of the Bosphorus past its long point. It perhaps requires a fanatical eye to dis- cover anything Apollonic in that lively settlement. No one will gainsay, how- ever, that the joy of life is visible and audible enough in Arnaoutkyoi during the first three days of August. There also is a sacred way, leading out of an odorif- erous ravine to a high place and a grove whither all men gather in the heat of the day to partake of the water of a holy well. But waters less sanctified begin to flow more freely as night draws on, along the cool quay and in the purlieus thereof. Fringes of colored paper are strung from house to house, flags hang out of win- dows or across the street, wine-shops are splendid with banners, rugs, and garlands of bay, and you may be sure that the sound of the lanterna is not unheard in the land. The perfection of festivity is to attach one of these inspiriting instru- ments to your person for the night. The thing may be done for a dollar or two. You then take a table at a cafe and order with your refreshments a candle, which you light and cause to stand with a little of its own grease. In the meantime per- haps you buy as many numbers as your means will allow out of a bag offered you by a young gentleman with a watermelon under his arm, hoping to find among them the mystic number that will make the mel- on your own. But you never do. When your candle has burned out — or even be- fore, if you be so prodigal — you move on with your lanterna to another cafe. And so wears the short summer night away. To the sorrow of those who employ Greek labor, but to the joy of him who dabbles in Greek folklore, paniyiria in- crease in frequency as summer draws to a close. The picturesque village of Can- dilli, opposite Arnaoutkyoi — and any church dedicated to the Metamorphosis — is the scene of an interesting one on Trans- figuration Day (August 6/19). No good Greek eats grapes till after the Transfigu- ration. At the mass of that morning bas- kets of grapes are blessed by the priests and afterward passed around the church. I know not whether some remnant of a bacchic rite be in this solemnity. It so happens that the delicious chaoush grapes of Constantinople, which have spoiled me for all others that I know, ripen about that time. But as the blessing of the waters drives away the kallikdntzari, so the bless- ing of the grapes puts an end to the evil influence of the thrymais. The thrymais are probably descended from the dryads of old. Only they now haunt the water, in- stead of the trees, and their influence is baleful during the first days of August. Clothes washed then are sure to rot, while the fate of him so bold as to bathe during those days is to break out into sores. The next great feast is that of the Assumption, which is preceded by a fort- Greek- Feasts 501 night's fast. Those who would see its panegyric celebrated with due circum- stance should row on the 28th of August to Yenikeuy and admire the plane-shaded avenue of that fashionable village, deco- rated in honor of the occasion and mu- sical with mastic glasses and other in- struments of sound. A greater panaytr, however, take^place a month later in the pleasant meadows of Gyok Sou, known to Europe as the Sweet Waters of Asia. Two feasts indeed, the Nativity of the Virgin and the Exaltation of the Cross (Sep- tember 8/21 and 14/27), then combine to make a week of rejoicing. There is nothing to be seen at Gyok Sou that may not be seen at other fetes of the same kind. I do recollect, though, a dance of Anatolian peasants in a ring, who held each other first by the little finger, then by the hand, then by the elbow, and lastly by the shoulder.. And the amphorje of the local pottery works in which people carry away their holy water give the rites of the aydsma a classic air. But this panayir has an ampler setting than the others, in its green river valley dotted with great trees. And it enjoys an added importance be- cause it is to all practical purposes the last of the season. No one can count on being able to make merry out of doors on Saint Demetrius' Day (October 26 /No- vember 8). Saint Demetrius is as inter- esting a personality as Saint George. He also is an heir of divinity, for on him, curiously enough, have devolved the re- sponsibilities of the goddess Demeter. He is the patron of husbandmen, who dis- charge laborers and lease fields on his day. Among working people his is a favorite season for matrimony. I know not how it is that some sailors will not go to sea after At thimitri, until the waters have been blessed at Epiphany. Perhaps it is that he marks for Greeks and Turks alike the be- ginning of winter, being known to the lat- ter as Kassim. This division of the seasons is clearly connected with the Pelasgian myth of Demeter. The feast of her suc- cessor I have never found particularly interesting, at least as it is celebrated at Kourou Cheshmeh. I always remember it, however, for an altar festooned about with a battered sculpture of rams' heads grapes, and indistinguishable garlands. Very likely no sacrifice to Demeter was ever laid on that old marble, as it pleases me to imagine. But it stands half buried in the earth near the mosque of the vil- lage, a curiously vivid symbol of the con- trasts and survivals that are so much of the interest of Constantinople. These paniytria are only a few of an inexhaustible list, for every church and spring has its own. I have not even men- tioned certain famous ones that are not easily visited. Of this category, though less famous than the fairs of Darija, Pyr- gos, or Silivri, is the feast of the Panayta MavromolUissa. This madonna in the church of Arnaoutkyoi is a black icon re- puted to have been found in the fields at the mouth of the Black Sea. Every year on the 5th of September she is carried back in a cortege of fishing-boats — weeping, it is said — by priests and well-wishers who hold a picnic panayir in the vicinity of the Cyanean Rocks. I have not spoken, either, of Ascension Day, which it is proper to celebrate by taking your first sea bath. Or of Saint John's Day, known by its bonfires and divinations. The Greeks often burn in the fires of Saint John one or two effigies which are said to represent Judas, though Herod and Sa- lome should rather perish on that oc- casion. Then there is May Day, when young men and maidens get up early in the morning, as they do in Italy, and go out into the fields to sing, to dance, to drink milk, to pick flowers, and to make wreaths which the swain hangs up on the door-post of the lady of his heart. And equally characteristic, in a different way, are the days when men eat and drink in honor of their dead. No one, I suppose, tries any longer to prove that the modern Greek is one with his classic ancestor. Yet he remains curiously faithful to the customs of ancient Greece. Whereby he affords us an interesting glimpse into the processes of evolution. In him the an- tique and the modern world come to- gether and we see for ourselves, more clearly than on the alien soil of the West, how strangely habit is rooted in the heart of man, and how the forms of Christianity are those of the paganism that preceded it.