Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/165

 COMMENCEMENT 0* WKimo. 149 Incredible as the statement may seem in an age like the pres- ent, there is in all early societies, and there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed. If we could discover at what time such a class first began to be formed, we should be able to make a guess at the time when the old Epic poems were first committed to writing. Now the period which may with the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the formation even of the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle of the seventh century before the Christian era (B. c. 660 to B. c. 630), the age of Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, etc. I ground this supposition on tho change then operated in the character and tendencies of Grecian poetry and music, the elegiac and iambic measures having been introduced as rivals to the primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions having been transferred from the epical past to the affairs of present and real life. Such a change was impor- tant at a time when poetry was the only known mode of publica- tion (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable, yet the nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking at the old epical treasures of the people, as well as a much more agree with Wolf when he says: " Diu enim illorum hominum vita ct simplicitas nihil admodum habu.it, quod scriptura dignum videretur : in aliis omnibus occupati agunt illi, qua? poster! scribunt. vel (ut de quibus- dam populis accepimus) etiam monstratam operam hanc spernunt tanquam indecori otii : carmina autem qua? pangunt, longo usu sic ore fundere et excipere consueverunt, ut cantu et recitationc cum maxime vigentia deducere ad mutas notas, ex illius atatis sensu nihil aliud esset, quam perimere ca e>; vitali vi ac spiritu privare." (Prolegom. s. xv. p. 59.) Some good remarks on this subject are to be found in William Humboldt's Introduction to his elaborate treatise Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, in reference to the oral tales current among the Basques. He, too, observes how great and repulsive a proceeding it is, to pass at first from verse sung, or recited, to verse written; implying that the words are conceived detached from the Vorlrag, the accompanying music, and the surrounding and sympathizing assembly. The Basque tales have no charm for the people themselves, when put in Spanish words and read (Introduction, sect. xx. p. 258-259). Unwritten prose tales, preserved in the memory, and said to be repeated nearly in the same words from age to age, are mentioned by Mariner, in the Tonga Islands (Mariner's Account, vol. ii. p. 377). The Druidical poems were kept unwritten by design, after writing was a established use for other purposes (Csesar, B. G. vi. 13).