Page:Pindar (Morice).djvu/21

Rh In these, accordingly, we find Strophes and Antistrophes, but no Epodes. An example of this is Pindar's Twelfth Pythian. Also the Dithyramb, in the hands of Lasus of Hermione, who is said to have been a teacher of Pindar, flung off altogether the fetters of Strophe and Antistrophe, with how much advantage to itself it is impossible, in the absence of evidence, to say. And the choruses of Attic tragedy (which were not independent compositions, but, as it were, choral fragments scattered over an otherwise non-choral work) employed, for some good reason doubtless, a far less regular arrangement of Strophes, Antistrophes, and Epodes. But apparently all other lofty forms of Choral poetry, and certainly all Pindar's finest Odes, adopted uniformly the threefold sequence of Stesichorus. That sequence, in its beautiful symmetry, and apparent intricacy yet real simplicity, is a truly characteristic product of Grecian genius and taste. Devised at first mainly with a view to the convenience of the dancers, it served also to break most agreeably to the ear the monotony of a long series of repeated stanzas and melodies. Like all that is best in Greek art, aiming at use, it produces beauty with it.

Little that would be interesting to the general reader is known as to the musical element in a Choral Ode. We have seen that it employed voices and instruments, both stringed and wind. Yet harmony in the modern sense seems to have been unknown to the Greeks. They combined bass and treble parts—or, as they called them, "male" and "female"—both in vocal and instrumental music, but apparently always in