Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/170

148 J IS HISTORY OF THE CHAPTER XT!. $ i. Transition from the Epos, through the Elegy and Iambus, to Lytic Poetry; connexion of Lyric Poetry with Music. — § 2. Founders of Greek Music ; Ter. pander, his descent and date. — § 3. Terpander's invention of the seven-stringed Cithara. — § 4. Musical scales and styles. — § 5. Nomes of Terpander for sing- ing to the Cithara; their rhythmical form. — §6. Olympus, descended from an ancient Phrygian family of flute-players. — § 7. His influence upon the develop- ment of the music of the flute and rhythm among the Greeks. — § 8. His influence confined to music. — § 9. Thaletas, his age. — § 10. His connexion with ancient Cretan worships. Paeans and hyporchemes of Thaletas. — § 11. Musicians of the succeeding period — Clonas, Hierax, Xenodamus, Xenocritus, Polymnestus, Saca- das. — § 12. State of Greek Music at this period. $ 1. When the epic, elegiac, and iambic styles had been perfected in Greece, the forms of poetry seemed to have become so various, as scarcely to admit of further increase. The epic style, raised above the ordinary range of human hfe, had, by the exclusive sway which it exercised for centuries, and the high place which it occupied in general opinion, laid a broad foundation for all future Greek poetry, and had so far influenced its progress that, even in those later styles which differed the most widely from it, we may, to a certain extent, trace an epic and Homeric tone. Thus the lyric and dramatic poets developed the characters of the heroes celebrated in the ancient epic poetry ; so that their descriptions appeared rather to be the portraits of real persons than the conceptions of the individual pcet. It w s not till the minds of the Greeks had been ele- vated by the productions of the epic muse, that the genius of original poets broke loose from the dominion of the epic style, and invented new forms for expressing the emotions of a mind profoundly agitated by passing events, with fewer innovations in the elegy, but with greater boldness and novelty in the iambic metre. In these two styles Df poetry, — the former suited to the expression of grief, the latter to the expression of anger, hatred, and contempt — Greek poetry entered the domain of real life. Yet a great variety of new forms of poetry was reserved for the invention of future poets. The elegy and the iambus contained the germs of the lyric style, though they do not themselves come under that head. The principal characteristic of lyric poetry is its connexion with music, vocal as well as instrumental. This connexion, indeed, existed, to a certain extent, in epic, and still more in elegiac and iambic poetry ; but singing was not essential in those styles. Such a recitation by a rhapsodist, as was usual for epic poetry, also served, at least in the beginning, for elegiac, and in great part for iambic verses. Singing and a continued instrumental accompaniment are appro