Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/68

 CHAPTER IV. THE TRAGIC DIALOGUE.— THESPIS. C^est surtout dans la Tragedie antique, que VFpopee ressort de partout. Elle monte sur la scene Grecque sans Hen perdre en quelque sorte de ses ]}roportions gigantesques et demesurees. Ce que chantaient les rhapsodes, les acteurs le declament. Voild tout. Victor Hugo. IN addition to the choruses, which, together with the accom- panying lyrical poetry, we have referred to the Dorians, another species of entertainment had existed in Greece from the very earliest times, which we may consider as peculiar to the Ionian race; for it was in the Ionian colonies that it first sprang up. This was the recitation of poems by wandering minstrels, called rhapsodes (ῥαψωδοί) ; a name probably derived from the cesacus^, a staff (pa/SSo^;) or branch {epvo^Y of laurel or myrtle, which was the symbol of their office. Seated in some conspicuous situation, and holding this staff in the right hand, the rhapsodes chanted in slow recitativo, and either with or without a musical accompaniment^, larger or smaller portions of the national epic poetry, which, as is well known, took its rise in the Ionian states; and, in days when readers were few, and books fewer, were well- nigh the sole depositories of the literature of their country. 1 Hesych. : ataaKos. 6 ttjs 6d4)prjs /cXctSos 6u Karix^^vre^ i'fivovv to^s deovs. Plutarch, Sympos. p. 615: '^HiSoj' (^br]v rod Qeov — eKaarw fivpaivrjs didofieurjs 7]v"AcraKov, OLfxai dia t6 4^€iu Tov de^dfxeuov, eKaXovv. Welcker has established most clearly (Ep. Cycl. p. 364) that paiZ/ajSos is another form of pairLcncdbs — pa^dipdos. Comp. XP^'^^P'P^^-'^} ^-pa^-evs, and pair-i^eadaL, as applied to Homer by Diog. Laert. (ix. i). ^ Hence they were also called apvi>}Soi, i. e. epvaidoL 2 It is difficult to determine the degree of musical accompaniment which the rhapsodes admitted ; the rhapsode, as such, could hardly have accompanied himself, as one of his hands would be occupied by his rod. We think Wachsmuth is hardly justified in calling {Hellen. Alterth. 11. 2, 389) Stesandrus, who sang the Homeric battles to the cithara at Delphi, a rhapsode (Athen. xiv. p. 638 a). Terpander was the first who set the Homeric Poems to regular tunes (see Mtiller's Dor. IV. 7, § 11). On the recitation of the rhapsodists in general, the reader would do well to consult Welcker, Ep>. Cycl. pp. 338 fol. ; Grrote, Hist. Gr. Vol. ii. pp. 184 foil.