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Of Time and Space and Other ThingsShakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is an example of a play devoted to the kind of not-to-be-taken-seriously fun of the season, and the phrase "midsummer madness" may have arisen similarly. The winter solstice is a much more serious affair. The Sun is declining from day to day, and to a primitive so ciety, not sure of the invariability of astronomical laws, it might well appear that this time, the Sun will continue its decline and disappear forever so that spring will never come again and all life will die. Therefore, as the Sun's decline slowed from day to day and came to a halt and began to turn on December 21, there must have been great relief and joy which, in the end, became ritualized into a great religious festival, marked by gaiety and licentiousness. The best-known examples of this are the several days of holiday among the Romans at this season of the year. The holiday was in honor of Saturn (an ancient Italian god of agriculture) and was therefore called the "Satumalia." It was a time of feasting and of giving of presents; of good will to men, even to the point where slaves were given temporary freedom while their masters waited upon them ...» |
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