{"product_id":"2940015744019","title":"The Golden Bough (3rd Edition, Volume 4 of 12)","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface.\u003cbr\u003eChapter I. The Mortality Of The Gods.\u003cbr\u003eChapter II. The Killing Of The Divine King.\u003cbr\u003e   § 1. Preference for a Violent Death.\u003cbr\u003e   § 2. Kings killed when their Strength fails.\u003cbr\u003e   § 3. Kings killed at the End of a Fixed Term.\u003cbr\u003e   § 4. Octennial Tenure of the Kingship.\u003cbr\u003e   § 5. Funeral Games.\u003cbr\u003e   § 6. The Slaughter of the Dragon.\u003cbr\u003e   § 7. Triennial Tenure of the Kingship.\u003cbr\u003e   § 8. Annual Tenure of the Kingship.\u003cbr\u003e   § 9. Diurnal Tenure of the Kingship.\u003cbr\u003eChapter III. The Slaying Of The King In Legend.\u003cbr\u003eChapter IV. The Supply Of Kings.\u003cbr\u003eChapter V. Temporary Kings.\u003cbr\u003eChapter VI. Sacrifice Of The King’s Son.\u003cbr\u003eChapter VII. Succession To The Soul.\u003cbr\u003eChapter VIII. The Killing Of The Tree-Spirit.\u003cbr\u003e   § 1. The Whitsuntide Mummers.\u003cbr\u003e   § 2. Mock Human Sacrifices.\u003cbr\u003e   § 3. Burying the Carnival.\u003cbr\u003e   § 4. Carrying out Death.\u003cbr\u003e   § 5. Sawing the Old Woman.\u003cbr\u003e   § 6. Bringing in Summer.\u003cbr\u003e   § 7. Battle of Summer and Winter.\u003cbr\u003e   § 8. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko.\u003cbr\u003e   § 9. Death and Revival of Vegetation.\u003cbr\u003e   § 10. Analogous Rites in India.\u003cbr\u003e   § 11. The Magic Spring.\u003cbr\u003eNote A. Chinese Indifference To Death.\u003cbr\u003eNote B. Swinging As A Magical Rite.\u003cbr\u003eAddenda.\u003cbr\u003eIndex.\u003cbr\u003eFootnotes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                               [Cover Art]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter\u003cbr\u003eat Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePREFACE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith this third part of _The Golden Bough_ we take up the question, Why\u003cbr\u003ehad the King of the Wood at Nemi regularly to perish by the hand of his\u003cbr\u003esuccessor? In the first part of the work I gave some reasons for thinking\u003cbr\u003ethat the priest of Diana, who bore the title of King of the Wood beside\u003cbr\u003ethe still lake among the Alban Hills, personated the great god Jupiter or\u003cbr\u003ehis duplicate Dianus, the deity of the oak, the thunder, and the sky. On\u003cbr\u003ethis theory, accordingly, we are at once confronted with the wider and\u003cbr\u003edeeper question, Why put a man-god or human representative of deity to a\u003cbr\u003eviolent death? Why extinguish the divine light in its earthly vessel\u003cbr\u003einstead of husbanding it to its natural close? My general answer to that\u003cbr\u003equestion is contained in the present volume. If I am right, the motive for\u003cbr\u003eslaying a man-god is a fear lest with the enfeeblement of his body in\u003cbr\u003esickness or old age his sacred spirit should suffer a corresponding decay,\u003cbr\u003ewhich might imperil the general course of nature and with it the existence\u003cbr\u003eof his worshippers, who believe the cosmic energies to be mysteriously\u003cbr\u003eknit up with those of their human divinity. Hence, if there is any measure\u003cbr\u003eof truth in this theory, the practice of putting divine men and\u003cbr\u003eparticularly divine kings to death, which seems to have been common at a\u003cbr\u003eparticular stage in the evolution of society and religion, was a crude but\u003cbr\u003epathetic attempt to disengage an immortal spirit from its mortal envelope,\u003cbr\u003eto arrest the forces of decomposition in nature by retrenching with\u003cbr\u003eruthless hand the first ominous symptoms of decay. We may smile if we\u003cbr\u003eplease at the vanity of these and the like efforts to stay the inevitable\u003cbr\u003edecline, to bring the relentless revolution of the great wheel to a stand,\u003cbr\u003eto keep youth’s fleeting roses for ever fresh and fair; but perhaps in\u003cbr\u003espite of every disillusionment, when we contemplate the seemingly endless\u003cbr\u003evistas of knowledge which have been opened up even within our own\u003cbr\u003egeneration, many of us may cherish in our heart of hearts a fancy, if not\u003cbr\u003ea hope, that some loophole of escape may after all be discovered from the\u003cbr\u003eiron walls of the prison-house which threaten to close on and crush us;\u003cbr\u003ethat, groping about in the darkness, mankind may yet chance to lay hands\u003cbr\u003eon “that golden key that opes the palace of eternity,” and so to pass from\u003cbr\u003ethis world of shadows and sorrow to a world of untroubled light and joy.\u003cbr\u003eIf this is a dream, it is surely a happy and innocent one, and to those\u003cbr\u003ewho would wake us from it we may murmur with Michael Angelo,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “_Però non mi destar, deh! parla basso._”","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47080924545264,"sku":"2940015744019","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015744019","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}