Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/202

 Those again are [Greek: meiouroi], which are imperfect in the tail or end, as—

[Greek: Trôes d' errhigêsan hopôs idon aiolon ophin.] [Greek: Kalê Kassiepeia theois demas eoikyia.] [Greek: Tou pheron emplêsas askon megan, en de kai êia.]

33. But of all the Greeks, the Lacedæmonians were those who preserved the art of music most strictly, as they applied themselves to the practice a great deal: and there were a great many lyric poets among them. And even to this day they preserve their ancient songs carefully, being possessed of very varied and very accurate learning on the subject; on which account Pratinas says—

The Lacedæmonian grasshopper sweetly sings, Well suited to the chorus.

And on this account the poets also continually styled their odes—

President of sweetest hymns:

and—

The honey-wing'd melodies of the Muse.

For owing to the general moderation and austerity of their lives, they betook themselves gladly to music, which has a sort of power of soothing the understanding; so that it was natural enough that people who hear it should be delighted. And the people whom they called Choregi, were not, as Demetrius of Byzantium tells us in the fourth book of his treatise on Poetry, those who have that name now, the people, that is to say, who hire the choruses, but those who actually led the choruses, as the name intimates: and so it happened, that the Lacedæmonians were good musicians, and did not violate the ancient laws of music.

Now in ancient times all the Greeks were fond of music; but when in subsequent ages disorders arose, when nearly all the ancient customs had got out of fashion and had become obsolete, this fondness for music also wore out, and bad styles of music were introduced, which led all the composers to aim at effeminacy rather than delicacy, and at an enervated and dissolute rather than a modest style. And—Iliad, viii. 305.

In which, however, there is no incorrectness or defect at all.]