Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/44

22 '22 HISTORY OF THE The whole city is filled with joy, and dancing, and festivity *." The circumstances connected with the comos afforded (as we shall hereafter point out) many opportunities for the productions of the lyric muse, both of a lofty and serious and of a comic and erotic description. § 6. Although in the above description, and in other passages of the ancient epic poets, choruses are frequently mentioned, yet we are not to suppose that the choruses of this early period were like those which sang the odes of Pindar and the choral songs of the tragedians, and accompanied them with dancing and appropriate action. Originally the chorus had chiefly to do with dancing : the most ancient sense of the word chorus is a place for dancing : hence in the Iliad and Odyssey ex- pressions occur, such as levelling the chorus (Xeialyeiy yppov), that is, making the place ready for dancing ; going to the chorus (yopovlt tpXtvdai), &c. : hence the choruses and dwellings of the gods are mentioned together ; and cities which had spacious squares are said to have wide choruses (£vpv-%opoi). To these choruses young persons of both sexes, the daughters as well as the sons of the princes and nobles, are represented in Homer as going : at these the Trojan and Phseacian princes are described as being present in newly-washed garments and in well-made armour. There were also, at least in Crete, choruses in which young men and women danced together in rows, holding one another by the hands f: a custom which was in later times unknown among the lonians and Athenians, but which was retained among the Dorians of Crete and Sparta, as well as in Arcadia. The arrangement of a chorus of this description is as follows : a citharist sits in the midst of the dancers, who surround him in a circle, and plays on the phorminx, a kind of cithara : in the place of which (according to the Homeric hymn to Hermes) another stringed instrument, the lyre, which differed in some respects, was sometimes used ; whereas the flute, a foreign, originally Phrygian, instrument, never in these early times was used at the chorus, but only at the comos, with whose boisterous and unrestrained character its tones were more in harmony. This citharist also accompanies the sound of his instrument with songs, which appear to have scarcely differed from such as were sung by individual minstrels, without the presence of a chorus ; as, for example, Demodocus, in the palace of the Phaeacian king, sings the loves of Ares and Aphrodite during the dances of the youths . Hence he is said to begin the song and the dance §. The other persons, who form the chorus, take no part in this song ; except so far as they allow their movements to be guided by it : an accompa- niment of the voice by the dancers, such as has been already remarked with respect to the singers of the paean, does not occur among the chorus-dancers of these early times : and Ulysses, in looking at the Plueacian youths who form the chorus to the song of Demodocus, § hyovy-ms op^fioio. — Od. xxiii. 131, compare 1 11.
 * Scut. 281—285. f Iliad, xviii. 593. % Odyssey, viii. 266.