Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/155

 UNDESERVED CONDEMNATION OF RHAPSODLS. 139 philosophers considered Homer and other poets with a view to instruction, ethical doctrine, and virtuous practice : they analyzed the characters whom the poet described, sifted the value of the lessons conveyed, and often struggled to discover a hidden mean- ing, where they disapproved that which was apparent. When they found a man like the rhapsode, who professed to impress the Homeric narrative upon an audience, and yet either never med- dled at all, or meddled unsuccessfully, with the business of expo- sition, they treated him with contempt ; indeed, Socrates depre- ciates the poets themselves, much upon the same principle, as dealing with matters of which they could render no rational account. 1 It was also the habit of Plato and Xenophon to dis- parage generally professional exertion of talent for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, contrasting it often in an indelicate man- ner with the gratuitous teaching and ostentatious poverty of their master. But we are not warranted in judging the rhapsodes by such a standard. Though they were not philosophers or moral- ists, it was their province and it had been so, long before the philosophical point of view was opened to bring their poet home to the bosoms and emotions of an assembled crowd, and to penetrate themselves with his meaning so far as was suitable for that purpose, adapting to it the appropriate graces of action and intonation. In this their genuine task they were valuable mem- bers of the Grecian community, and seem to have possessed all the qualities necessary for success. These rhapsodes, the successors of the primitive aoedi, or bards, seem to have been distinguished from them by the discon- tinuance of all musical accompaniment. Originally, the bard sung, enlivening the song with occasional touches of the simple four-stringed harp : his successor, the rhapsode, recited, holding The grounds taken by Aristotle (Problem, xxx. 10 ; compare Aul. xx. 14) against the actors, singers, musicians, etc. of his time, are more serious, and have more the air of truth. If it be correct in Lehrs (dc Studiis Aristarchi, Diss. ii. p. 46) to identify those early glossographers of Homer, whose explanations the Alexandrine critics so severely condemned, with the rhapsodes, this only proves ths,t the rhapsodes had come to undertake a douHe duty, of which their predeoec*cr before Solon would never have dreamed. 1 riato, Apolog. Socrat. p. 22. c. 7.