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PYANEPSIA, or PYANOPSIA (from Gr. iruavos = Keayos, bean, and aka) , to See also: boil), an See also: ancient festival in honour of See also: Apollo, held at Athens on the 7th of the See also: month Pyanepsion (See also: October)
.
A See also: hodge-podge of See also: pulse was prepared and offered to Apollo (in his capacity as See also: sun See also: god and ripener of fruits) and the Horae, as the first-fruits of the autumn harvest
.
Another offering on this occasion was the eiresione
.
This was a branch of See also: olive or See also: laurel, bound with See also: purple or See also: white wool, round which were hung various fruits of the season, pastries, and small jars of honey, oil and
See also: wine
.
It was intended as a thank-offering for blessings received, and at the same See also: time as a prayer for similar blessings and See also: protection against evil in future; hence, it was called a " suppliant " branch (iKe-rrlpia)
.
The name is generally derived from eipos (wool) in reference to the woollen bands, but some connect it with €Vpe v (to speak), the eiresione being regarded as the " spokesman " of the suppliants
.
It was carried in procession by a boy whose parents were both alive to the See also: temple of Apollo, where it was suspended on the See also: gate
.
The doors of private houses were similarly adorned
.
The branch was allowed to hang for a See also: year, when it was replaced by a new one, since by that time it was supposed to have lost its virtue
.
During the procession a chant (also called eiresione) was sung, the text of which has been preserved in Plutarch (See also: Theseus, 22):
" Eiresione carries See also: figs and See also: rich cakes;
Honey and oil in a See also: jar to anoint the limbs;
And pure wine, that she may be drunken and go to sleep."
The semi-personification of eiresione will be noticed; and, according to Mannhardt, the branch " embodies the See also: tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in general, whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus brought to bear upon the corn in particular."
Aetiologists connected both offerings with the Cretan expedition of Theseus, who, when driven ashore at See also: Delos, vowed a thank-offering to Apollo if he slew the Minotaur, which after-wards took the See also: form of the eiresione and Pyanopsia
.
To explain the origin of the hodge-podge, it was said that his comrades on landing in See also: Attica gathered up the scraps of their provisions that remained and prepared a See also: meal from them
.
See W
.
Mannhardt, Wald- and Feld/ See also: mite (1905), ii
.
214, for an exhaustive account of the eiresione and its analogies; J
.
G
.
Frazer, The See also: Golden Bough (1900), i
.
190; J
.
E
.
See also: Harrison, Prolegomena to See also: Greek See also: Religion (1908), ch
.
3; L
.
R
.
Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (1907), iv
.
286
.
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