Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/57

35 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 35 delivered in a dress of solemn ceremony*, with suitable tones and expres- sion f, produced upon the listeners, and how much it excited their sym- pathy, is most plainly described by Ion, the Ephesian rhapsodist, whom Plato, in one of his lesser Dialogues, has brought forward as a butt for the irony of Socrates. § 4. The form which epic poetry preserved for more than a thousand years among the Greeks agrees remarkably well with this composed and even style of chaunting recitation which we have just described. In- deed, the ancient minstrels of the Homeric and ante-Homeric age had probably no choice, since for a long period the hexameter verse was the only regular and cultivated form of poetry, and even in the time of Ter- pander (about Olymp. 30) was still almost exclusively used for lyric poetry ; although we are not on that account to suppose, that all popular songs, hymeneals, dirges, and ditties (such as those which Homer repre- sents Calypso and Circe as singing at the loom), were composed in the same rhythm. But the circumstance of the dactylic verse, the hexa- meter, having been the first and, for a long time, the only metre which was regularly cultivated in Greece, is an important evidence with respect to the tone and character of the ancient Grecian poetry, the Ho- meric and ante- Homeric epic. The character of the different rhythms, which, among the Greeks, was always in exact accordance with that of the poetry, consists in the first place in the relation of the arsis and thesis, of the strong or weak cadence — in other words, of the greater or less exertion of the voice. Now in the dactyl these two elements are evenly halanced|, which therefore belongs to the class of equal rhythms §; and hence a regular equipoise, with its natural accompani- ment, an even and steady tone, is the character of the dactylic measure. This tone is constantly preserved in the epic hexameter ; but there were other dactylic metres, which, by the shortening of the long element, or the arsis, acquired a different character, which will be more closely oxamined when we come to treat of the iEolian lyric poetry Accord- ing to Aristotle ||, the epic verse was the most dignified and composed of all measures ; its entire form and composition appears indeed pecu- liarly fitted to produce this effect. The length of the verse, which con- sists of six feet^[, the break which is obtained by a pause at the end**, the close connexion of the parts into an entire whole, which results in the time of Gyges, is described by Nicolaus Damasc. Fragm. p. 268, ed. Tauch- nitz. In later times, when the Homeric poetry was delivered in a more dramaiic style {binx.olnro l£upaTix.urioov),iu Iliad was sung by the rhapsodisis in a red, the Odyssey in a violet, dress, Eustath. ad Iliad, A. p. ti, >, ed. Rom. f Plato, Ion. p. 535. From this, in later days, a regular dramatic style of acting (icroy.^iiris) for the rhapsodists or Ilomerists was developed. See Aristot. Poet. 26 Rhetor, iii. I, 8; Achill. Tat. li. I. I For in Ivu, I is equal to two times, as well as vu. § yUcs "<rov, ^[ Hence versus longi among the Romans. ** y.aruXrfos.
 * Plato, Ion. p. 530. The sumptuous dress of the rhapsodist Magnes of Smyrna,
 * Poet. 24, to bouixov o-rciffifAkirarov xai oyxuinrTCcrov tuv fitrpuv itrriv.