Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/40

 1 8 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. the snow for my cover, but I will not serve the Turks." As in the poems of Homer the horses of Achilles and the rivers of Troy assume the hu- man voice; as in the old mythology every tree, every grotto, every spring is animated by a nymph dwelling within, so in these songs are the woods, the eagles perching on the summits of the rocks, the mountains themselves, the sun and the moon, the rivers and the soil and the clouds of heaven made to speak, narrating the adventures of the Klephts, lamenting their death, consoling their mothers and all their grief-stricken family. Touching all chords, the most tender, the most sublime, they give an ac- count of the events of family life and of the life in the fields ; exactly like the ancient rhapsodies they draw a picture of the Greek people and their political history during a period which is not otherwise recorded. In one of the songs a dying Klepht dictates his last will : " Dig a grave for me, large and deep that I may stand upright with my gun ready to fight. Open also a window to the right that the swallows may come to announce the springtime, and that the nightingale may come to sing of May blossom."