A History of Pantomime. R. J. Broadbent
derived the Argo of the Argonauts, and the sacred ship of Osiris), Cibotus, Toleus, and Baris.
The symbol by which the Mythologists represented the Ark was an immense egg. This was supposed to have been produced by Ether and Chaos, at the bidding of Time, the one ethereal being who created the universe. By Nox (Night) the egg was hatched, which, being opened into two parts, from the upper part was formed heaven, and the lower earth.
In the sacred rites of Osiris, Isis, and the Dionysia of Bacchus, the Ark or Ship was introduced. The Dove, by many nations, in their celebrations, was looked upon as a special emblem of peace and good-will. Theba, in Egypt, was originally one of the temples dedicated to the Ark. Both priests and sooth-sayers were styled Ionah or Doves. To Dodona, in Epirus, was brought this and the first Grecian oracle all the rites and history of the Thebans. The priestesses of this temple were known in the Latin as Columbae. It is from this word that we derive the name Columbine, which means, in the Italian, "little dove." Homer alludes to the priestesses as doves, and that they administered to Zeuth (Noah). Nonnus speaks of Cadmus, and others of Orpheus, as introducing into Greece the rites of Dionysus or Bacchus.
The Ancients, mentions Kennedy in his work on "Mythology," have highly reverenced Noah, and designated him as Noa, Noos, Nous, Nus, Nusas, Nusus (in India), Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Osiris, Prometheus, Deucalion, Atlas, Deus, Zeus, and Dios. Dios was one of the most ancient terms for Noah, and whence was derived Deus—Nusus compounded of Dios and Nusos, which gives us Dionysus, the Bacchus of the Greeks, and the chief god of the heathen world. Bacchus was, properly speaking, Cush (the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah), though both Dionysus and Bacchus are, by ancient writers, frequently confounded with one another.
The resting of the Ark upon Mount Baris, Minyas, the Ararat of Moses in Armenia, the dispersal of the flood, the multiplication of the families of the earth, and the migration from the plains of Shinar of the descendants of the sons of Chus or Cush (as it is sometimes written), and called Chushites or Cushites, to different parts of the world, being joined by other nations, particularly those of the descendants of Ham, one of the sons of Noah. They were the first apostates from the truth, but being great in worldly wisdom and knowledge they were thought to be, and looked upon as a superior class of beings. Ham they looked upon as a divinity, and under the name of Ammon they worshipped him as the Sun, and Chus likewise as Apollo, a name which was also bestowed by the Ancients upon Noah. The worship of the sun in all probability originated the eastern position in our churches.
Another of the ancient deities worshipped by the Ammonians was Meed, or Meet, the Cybele of the Phrygians, the nurse of Dionysus, and the Soul of the World.
Nimrod, the "mighty hunter" (who possessed the regions of Babylonia and Chaldee), and one of the sons of Cush, was the builder of that seminary of idolatory the City and Tower of Bel, and erected in honour of the god Bel, and another name for the sun. Upon the confusion of tongues when hitherto "The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech," it came to be known as Babylon, "The City of Confusion." Homer introduces Orion (Nimrod) as a giant and a hunter in the shades below, and the author of the "Pascal Chronicles" mentions that Nimrod taught the Assyrians or Babylonians to worship fire. The priests of Ammon, named Petor or Pator, used to dance round a large fire, which they affected in their dancing to describe. Probably from this the Dervish dances all over the East may be traced to this source.
Kennedy observes, of the confusion of tongues at Babel, that it was only a labial failure, so that the people could not articulate. It was not an aberration in words or language, but a failure and incapacity in labial utterance. Epiphanius says that Babel, or Babylon, was the first city built after the flood.
The Cushites were a large and numerous body, and after their dispersion from Babylon they were scattered "Abroad upon the face of the earth." They were the same people who imparted their rites and religious services into Egypt, as far as the Indus and the Ganges, and still further into Japan and China. From this event is to be discovered the fable of the flight of the Grecian god Bacchus, the fabulous wanderings of Osiris, and the same god under another name, of the Egyptians. Wherever Dionysus, Osiris, or Bacchus went, the Ancients say that he taught the cultivation of the soil, and the planting of the vine. Dionysus, Bacchus, or Osiris, as I have shown in a preceding page, were only other designations for Noah.
Of the Hindu heathen deity, Vishnu, Father Boushet mentions an Indian tradition, concerning a flood which covered the whole earth, when Vishnu made a raft, and, being turned into a fish, steered it with his tail. Vishnu, like Dagon, was represented under the figure of a man and fish.
Strangely enough, the regions said to have been traversed by Dionysus, Osiris, or Bacchus were, at different times, passed through by the posterity of Ham, and in many of them they took up their residence. In his journeyings the chief attendants of Osiris, or Bacchus, were Pan, Anabis, Macedo, the Muses, the Satyrs, and Bacchic women were all in his retinue. The people of India claim him as their own, and maintain that he was born at Nusa in their country. Arrian speaks of the Nuseans as being the attendants of Dionysus. In all traditions Dionysus appears as the representative of some power of Nature.
The first who reduced Mythology to a kind of system were, in all probability, the Egyptians. Egypt was ever the land of graven images, and under the veil of Allegory and Mythology the priests concealed religion from the eyes of the vulgar. In the beginning, brute animals and certain vegetables were represented as the visible symbols of the deities to which they were consecrated. Hence Jupiter Ammon was represented under the figure of a Ram; Apis under a Cow; Osiris of a Bull; Mercury or Thol of an Ibis; Diana or Babastis of a Cat; and Pan of a Goat. From these sources are derived the fabulous transformation of the gods celebrated in Egyptian Mythology, and afterwards imported into Greece and Italy to serve as the subjects of the Grecian and Roman Pantomimes.
Pantomime as we now know the term, means, not only the Art of acting in dumb show, but also that of a spectacle or Christmas entertainment. (I may add in parenthesis, that in the early part of the last century—the nineteenth—the dictionaries only refer to Pantomime as meaning the former of the above two definitions, and not the latter.)
Pan, regarded as the symbol of the universe, was also the god of flocks, pastures, and shepherds in classic Mythology, and the guardian of bees, hunting and fishing in his Kingdom of Arcadia. His form, like the Satyrs, both supposed to have been the offsprings of Mercury, was that of a man combined with a goat, having horns and feet like the latter animal.
Mimos (Gr.), as I have stated in the beginning, means an "imitator," or a "mimic," and from which word we have the derivation of the words "mimicry," "mimetic," and the like.
Pan was the traditional inventor of the Pandean pipes, and also from his name we derive many words that are in our language, such as "panic" (Pan used to delight in suddenly surprising the shepherds whilst tending their flocks), and the other attributes of this noun, including that recently coined term of the Americans, "panicy."
Pan is said to have been the son of Mercury, or even Mercury himself, and others say that he was the son of Zeus. Mercury and Zeus, it will be remembered in Mythology, were only names for Noah. Pan is unnoticed by Homer.
A heathen deity of Italy, Lupercus, the guardian of their flocks and pastures, has also been identified with Pan, and in whose honour annual rural festivals, known as Lupercalia, were observed.
The Lupercalian festivals were held on the 15th of the Kalends of March. The priests, Luperci, used to dance naked through the streets as part of the ceremonies attached to the festival.
Mention has been made by Dr. Clarke, in his "Travels," Vol. IV., that Harlequin is the god Mercury, with his short sword herpe, or his rod, the caduceus (which has been likened to the sceptre of Judah), to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other, and that the covering on his head, the winged cap, was the petasus. Apropos of this, the following lines in the tenth Ode, of the first book of Horace, will probably occur to the reader:
"Mercury! Atlas' smooth-tongued boy, whose will
First trained to speed our wildest earliest race,
And gave their rough hewn forms with supple skill