Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/182

160 1G0 HISTORY OF THE than the 40th Olympiad (b. c. 620); which places him in the right rela- tion to Terpander and Olympus*. § 10. We now return to the musical and poetical productions of Thaletas, which were connected with the ancient religious rites of his country. In Crete, at the time of Thaletas, the predominating worship was that of Apollo; the character of which was a solemn elevation of mind, a firm reliance in the power of the god, and a calm acquiescence in the order of things proclaimed by him. But it cannot be doubted that the ancient Cretan worship of Zeus was also practised, with the wild war dances of the Curetes, like the Phrygian worship of the Magna Mater t., The musical and poetical works of Thaletas fall under two heads — fceans and fiyporchemes. In many respects these two resembled each other; inasmuch as the paean originally belonged exclusively to the worship of Apollo, and the hyporcheme was also performed at an early date in temples of Apollo, as at Delos J. Hence paeans and hyporchemes were sometimes confounded. Their main features, however, were quite dif- ferent. The psean displayed the calm and serious feeling which pre- vailed in the worship of Apollo, without excluding the expression of an earnest desire for his protection, or of gratitude for aid already vouch- safed. The hyporcheme, on the other hand, was a dance of a mimic character, which sometimes passed into the playful and the comic. Accordingly the hyporchematic dance is considered as a peculiar species of the lyric dances, and, among dramatic styles of dancing, it is com- pared with the cordax of comedy, on account of its merry and sportive tone§. The rhythms of the hyporcheme, if we may judge from the fragments of Pindar, were peculiarly light, and had an imitative and graphic character. These musical and poetical styles were improved by Thaletas, who employed both the orchestic productions of his native country, and the impassioned music and rhythms of Olympus. It has already been re- marked that he borrowed the Cretan rhythm from Olympus, which doubt- less acquired this name from its having been made known by Thaletas of Crete. The entire class of feet to which the Cretan foot belongs, were called Pceons, from being used in paeans (or paeons). Thaletas doubtless gave a more rapid march to the paean by this animated and vigorous rhythm j|. But the hyporchematic productions of Thaletas must have been still gayer and more energetic. And Sparta was the pander, rejects the most authentic testimony, that concerning the xara.<T<ra<ris of music at Sparta ; and moreover, does not allow sufficient weight to the far more artificial character of the music and rhythms of Thaletas. f K«i/f tJTis Ti. hot (piXotfx'i'yf&oHs fyxwrngis. Hesiod, fr. 94. Goettling. I Above, ch. iii, § 6. § Athen. xiv. p. 630, E. II Fragments of a paean in pseons are preserved in Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 8, viz. — AaXoyin;, ilri Auuictv, and XevmoKOfta. "Euan, no.! At'os •
 * Clinton, who, in Fast. Hellen. vol. 1. p. 199, sq., places Thaletas before Ter-