Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/126

 singularly inadequate. We find ourselves hazarding theories of Greek lyrical progress without real knowledge of early Greek music and dances—two-thirds at least of the old choral poetry. Moreover, when it is remembered to how small an extent the evolutions of dancing, especially when of a dramatic character, can be expressed in words, and how improbable it is that the Greeks, in days when even writing was unknown, should have possessed any system of musical notation, it is hard to believe that accurate information on these subjects can have reached us through such channels as the works of a Plutarch or an Athenæus. We shall be contented, therefore, to listen here to some echoes from old Greek choral song, observing how faint they are compared with the many voices of the personal lyric, and to support our belief that the choral was the oldest form of the Greek lyric, by comparison with other fragments of ancient song and by the communal organisation of early social life.

Who does not remember the picture of the vintage-festival on the Shield of Achilles? The beautiful vineyard, wrought in gold, is heavy with grapes, the black bunches hanging overhead, and ladders wrought in silver are standing all through the vineyard. Round about are the trench and hedge, and a single path leads to and fro for the grape-bearers at the vintage. Maidens and youths are gleefully bearing the luscious fruit in wattled baskets; in their midst is a youth, playing delightfully on a clear-sounded harp and "singing with sweet voice the lovely Linus Hymn," while others, with measured beat of foot and with reels, are following with the cry of ai Line. The scholiast on this passage has preserved for us a specimen of this Linus Hymn which critics have variously emended. Adopting