Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/210

188 188 HISTORY OP THE different feelings to be expressed in different forms of poetry ; and re- served the JEoYic melos for lively emotions of the mind in joy or sorrow, or for impassioned overflowings of an oppressed heart. Anacreon's poetry contains rather the play of a graceful imagination than deep emotion ; and among the other Greeks there is no instance of the em- ployment of lyric poetry for the expression of strong feeling : so that this kind of poetry was confined to a short period of time, and to a small portion of the Greek territory. One kind of lyric poems nearly re- sembling the iEolic, was, however, cultivated in the whole of Greece, and especially at Athens, viz., the Scolion. Scolia were songs, which were sung at social meals during drinking, when the spirit was raised by wine and conversation to a lyrical pitch. But this term was not applied to all drinking songs. The scolion was a particular kind of drinking song, and is distinguished from other parcenia. It was only sung by particular guests, who were skilled in music and poetry ; and it is stated that the lyre, or a sprig of myrtle, was handed round the table, and presented to any one who possessed the power of amusing the company with a beautiful song, or even a good sentence in the lyric form. This custom really existed * ; although the notion that the name of the song arose from its irregular course round the table ((tkoXiuv, crooked) is not probable. It is much more likely (according to the opinion of other ancient writers), that in the melody, to which the scolia were sung, certain liberties and irregularities were permitted, by which the extempore execution of the song was facilitated ; and that on this account the song was said to be bent. The rhythms of the extant scolia are very various, though, on the whole, they resemble those of the iEolic lyric poetry ; only that the course of the strophes is broken by an accelerated rhythm, and is in general more animated f. The Lesbians were the principal composers of Scolia. Terpander, who (according to Pindar) invented this kind of song, was followed by Alcaeus and Sappho, and afterwards by Anacreon and Praxilla of Sicyon J ; besides many others celebrated for choral poetry, as Simonides and Pindar. Scolion is caught up from one by the other. -j- This is particularly true of the apt and elegant metre, which occurs in eight Scolia (one of them the Harmodius), and of which there is a comic imitation in Aristoph. Eccl. 938. CJ _£ U CJ CJ _ CJ — CJ _ cj ^CJCJ — CJ — CJ — CJ o o _/ CJ _ / CJ CJ—CJ — /_ CJ CJ _ / CJCJ_CJ_ Here the hendecasyllables begin with a composed and feeble tone ; but a more rapid rhythm is introduced liy the anapaestic beginning of the third verse; and the two expressions are recunciled by the logacedic members in the last verse. % Praxilla (who, according to Eusebius, flourished in Olymp. 81. 2. u. c. 451, and is mentioned as a composer of odes of an erotic character) is stated to be the author of the Scolion 'Tiro aravr) i6a>, which was in the ■j-ugoivia TlgaZiXXvs. (Schol. Eav. in Aristoph. Thesra. 528), and of the Scolion, Ovx igrn ctXuxtxiZfiiv, (Schol. Vesp. 1279. [1232.])
 * See particularly the scene described in Aristoph. Vesp. 1219. sq. where the