Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/157

 VARIATIONS IN RECITATION. 141 emphasis and gesticulation until it approached to that of the dramatic actor. At what time this change look place, or whether the two different modes of enunciating the ancient epic may for a certain period have gone on simultaneously, we have no means of determining. Hesiod receives from the Muse a branch of laurel, as a token of his ordination into their service, which marks him for a rhapsode ; while the ancient bard with his harp is still recognized in the Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo, as efficient and popular at the Panionic festivals in the island of Delos. 1 Perhaps the improvements made in the harp, to which three strings, in addition to the original four, were attached by Terpander (B. c. 660), and the growing complication of instru- mental music generally, may have contributed to discredit the primitive accompaniment, and thus to promote the practice of recital : the story, that Terpander himself composed music, not only for hexameter poems of his own, but also for those of Homer, seems to indicate that the music which preceded him was ceasing to find favor. 2 By whatever steps the change from the bard to the rhapsode took place, certain it is that before the time of Solon, the latter was the recognized and exclusive organ of 1 Homer, Hymn to Apoll. 1 70. The /'#a/Mc, dot<5#, op^ifyior, are con- stantly put together in that hymn : evidently, the instrumental accompani- ment was essential to the hymns at the Ionic festival. Compare also the Hymn to Hermes (430), where the function ascribed to the Muses can hardly be understood to include non-musical recitation. The Hymn to Hermes ia more recent than Terpander, inasmuch as it mentions the seven strings of the lyre, v. 50. 2 Terpandcr, see Plutarch, de Musica, c. 3-4 ; the facts respecting him are collected in Plchn's Lesbiaca, pp. 140-160; but very little can be authen ticated. Stesander at the Pythian festivals sang the Homeric battles, with a harp accompaniment of his own composition (Athense. xiv. p. 638). The principal testimonies respecting the raphsodizing of the Homeric poems at Athens, chiefly at the Panathenaic festival, are Isokrates, Pane- gyric. p. 74; Lycurgus contra Leocrat. p. 161; Plato, Hipparch. p. 228; T)iogen. Laert. Vit. Solon, i. 57. Inscriptions attest that rhapsodizing continued in great esteem, down to a late period of the historical age, both at Chios and Teos, especially the former : it was the subject of competition by trained youth, and of prizes for the victor, at periodical religious solemnities: sec Corp. Tnscript. Boeckh, No 2214-3088.