Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/52

 supreme virtue of the ancient Greek remains the supreme virtue of the modern, and a familiarity with the manners of the present day alone might suffice to explain why Paris who stole another man's wife was execrable but Admetus who let his own wife die for him could yet win admiration. The one broke the laws of hospitality; the other, by hiding his loss and entertaining his guest, upheld them.

A comparative estimate, such as I have essayed, of the characters of Greeks of old and Greeks of to-day is perhaps evidence of a somewhat intangible nature to those who are not personally intimate with the people: but no foreigner, even though he were totally ignorant of the modern language, could chance upon one of the many festivals of the country without remarking that there, in humbler form, are re-enacted many of the scenes of ancient days. The [Greek: panêgyria], as they call these festivals,—diminutives, both in name and in form, of the ancient [Greek: panêgyreis],—present the same medley of religion, art, trading, athletics, and amusement which constituted the Olympian games. The occasion is most commonly some saint's-day, and a church or a sacred spring ([Greek: hag[i(]asma]) the centre of the gathering. Art is represented by the contests of local poets or wits in improvising topical and other verses, and occasionally there is present one of the old-fashioned rhapsodes, whose number is fast diminishing, to recite to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument still called the [Greek: kithara] the glorious feats of some patriot-outlaw ([Greek: klephtês]) in defiance of the Turks. Then there are the pedlars and hucksters strolling to and fro or seated at their stalls, and ever crying their wares—fruit, sausages, confectionery of strange hues and stranger taste, beads, knives, cheap icons ranging in subject from likenesses of patron-saints to gaudy views of hell, and all manner of tin-foil trinkets representing ships, cattle, and parts of the human body for dedication in the church. Then in some open space there will be a gathering of young men, running, wrestling, hurling the stone; yonder others, and with them the girls, indulge in the favourite recreation of Greece, those graceful dances, of which the best-known, the [Greek: syrtos] ,also is still used.](from Carditsa, anc. Acraephia, in Boeotia).]