illustrious self, invoked it.' From this we may gather that song and pantomime were originally used in allaying disease, since men professed to gain health by using magical formulas. Later, acting passed over to the stage, and was followed as a business. So men who called themselves BoνKodiaσraí (pastoral poets), or Avdiaoraí (pantomimists), went about the provinces and performed in Italy, and from that time the voice of the actor has never been silent in the land. He had a Sicilian cattle This Daphnis Preeminent among the poets of this period was Daphnis, who was made the subject of such hero-worship that the shepherds vied in celebrating his disaster, and the poet even honored the tomb of his brother with divine verses in the name of Daphnis. Daphnis was the son of Mercury and a Nymph, and at birth they gave him this name; indeed, the story goes that he was born in a laurel grove. herd of cows from the same blood as those which Homer tells us were sacred to the sun. was passionately loved by a Nymph, who threatened him with blindness if he should violate her affection by other amours. Somewhat thereafter a princess fell desperately in love with him, because of his matchless beauty, and when she found other means of no avail, she seduced him with wine. So the pastoral poets sang of his misfortune. Tradition has it that the first poem on this theme goes back to Stesichorus, the poet of Himera. The shepherds had a musical instrument, which the Greeks called ovplyέ from its sound, and the Romans fistula, from the nature of the opening. The fistula was made either of cane, or of the hemlock-stock. At first it was an instrument of one pipe, but later two were fastened together with string and wax. I am of the opinion that stiff hair, which could be so easily secured, was also used in place of wax. Finally there came to be seven pipes, which were of different sizes, but graded in the shape of a wing, so that they were even at the end on which they were played, and uneven at the other. The following verse describes the material of these pipes, the manner of their construction, and defines the number: 'I have an instrument composed of seven unequal hemlock-stalks, the fistula.' 'Unequal' does not refer to the number, for the word 'seven' determines that, but to the length. Further the material is said to be hemlock. Certainly Servius was mistaken in saying that cicuta (hemlock) means the internodes of the corn stalks, for it is simply the shrub which we all know by its hollow stock and soft marrow. Our Roman poet was content in his modesty with the early instrument of seven tubes, but the Greek used as many as he pleased; thus you read in Theocritus-whether or not Theocritus is the real author of the passage is elsewhere discussed-of a manytubed pipe. The later Romans made most absurd paintings of this instrument, by representing all of the tubes as leading into a bag, and they made this blunder because they did not. understand—and no more do I-how one was able with quickness and accuracy to run over the mouths of the different tubes, so far apart as they were. These paintings represented the instrument popularly known as the organ, which took its rise from the syrinx episode, and which is an instrument superior in construction and tone. The poet attributed the invention of the fistula to Pan. His companions were beings of a like race called Satyrs, or sometimes, Tityri, a name which the Dorians gave them because they played a pipe called the TITúpos (shepherd's pipe). Aelian, as well as others, relates that the Tityri were both the companions and allies of Liber Pater on his expedition, and he says that this two-formed race got their name from their whistling. The Gauls and the adjacent islanders were in the habit of making pipes from reeds, while others again would make them from oaten stocks. The African Numidians did not use the pipe, but played the flute, while pasturing their mares. This instrument was made by peeling the bark from a laurel branch, and so cutting the wood as to produce a shrill whistle, resembling the whinny of a horse. There were, indeed, many kinds of rustic songs. Thus some related to the harvesting, and others to the vintage. The peasants used one tune and one theme when they were standing, another when they were seated, and still a third, as we were saying, when they led the flocks. In Theocritus' address to the travellers we read of the song called TOрEUTIKÓS (fit for going on foot, walking), which was sung as the flocks were attended to the fields or to the fold. In the songs of the neatherd the dogs were incited to beware of the crafty wolf, and in the songs of the shepherds the ram, as the leader, was encouraged, and promised fairer pastures another day. All of these songs were seasoned with jest and merriment, and introduced the stories of the shepherd's own love, or of that of a friend or rival. The invention of the TopeυTIKós is attributed to Diomus, the Sicilian poet, of whom Epicharmus made mention in his drama Halcyon and in Ulysses Shipwrecked. We have such a song in the poem from which the following is taken: 'Wander far, my goats, along these precipices, to the green clover fields and the moist willows.' Of this class was the poem composed by Eriphanis, the poetess, when consumed with love for the hunter Menalcus. The story has it that she followed him through many a wood, ever singing, and gave voice to her frenzy in a pastoral called a vóμov (substantive from vóμos, a, ov, of shepherds), of which these few words, "The tall oaks, O Menalcus,' are extant. While they leisurely moved about in the summer shade or basked in the winter sun, the shepherds talked of the seasons, or prayed that they might not be exposed to perils or dire events. They urged the males of the flock to mate, the females to bear young; they expressed their love in vows, in prayers, in laments, or in the consolation of sweet converse; and they lauded the bull or the ram that won in the fight. They strove over the virtues of a friend, the animosity of an enemy, or the detraction of a rival. In short, the common material of this style of pastoral was praise and blame, contentions and upbraidings. Similar to the TорEUTIKós is the song of Hippolytus in Seneca's tragedy, in which he urges on his dogs. Yet Seneca merely employed it for its stage effect, for, as we said above, we regard silence as a heaven-given law in hunting. Theocritus also described solemn processionals, and other writers, hymns, paeans to Hercules, and the like. Contrary to the popular conception, Virgil represented Silenus as, so to speak, the embodiment of universal nature and a prophet. Well have we said that of all the men of old that divine man was the most learned, for such is the case. Indeed, the more learning a man has himself, the more he appreciates the erudition of Virgil. Thus, in another Eclogue is the line, 'If we sing of the trees, the trees should be worthy of the consul.' Now it is traditionally known that the care of the trees was a consular duty. Thus, we read in Tranquillus' history of the Caesars, that in the decree of the Senate respecting the office of the confiscated consulship, after the mention of the trees, occurred the words: 'The trees should be worthy of consular attention.' So while the Senate lowered the dignity of the consul to the humbleness of the trees, by his fresh and dignified verses the poet equally exalted the trees to the eminence of the consulship. In his chapter on Midas, king of Phrygia, based on Theopompus' history, Aelian recounts many unusual opinions and beliefs of the ancients, and in this connection mentions Silenus. The tradition was that another world exists, apart from this, wherein are many things which should be sought, and that since these seem absurd to an enlightened society, Silenus refined them in his songs by that heaven-given skill of his. But Theopompus was not the only Greek who thought that Silenus had a divine understanding of nature and prophecy, for, as Plato points out very clearly in his Symposium, it was the belief of the Athenians and of other Greeks as well. In the vintage, Bacchus was worshiped. The songs in his praise were called miλýva (of the wine-press, or vin tage), and were sung during the festivities at the winepress. Tibullus has left us a most exquisite little poem of this type, in one of the elegies. During the harvest the names of Ceres and Libera were constantly upon the lips of the swains, and Tibullus has also embodied one of these harvest-songs in a brilliant and refined elegy. Such a song was called ovλos (down, a corn-sheaf, hence a harvestsong), a word which is extant in the line πλεῖστον οὖλον ia, ovλov ie, 'Many a harvest-song let there be, many a song.' The ancients also used this word to define an ear of grain, because of its fine husk and beard, and it was also applied to wool, on account of the infinite number of little threads in its texture. This explains the tradition that the songs of good omen, sung by the wool-spinners, were called by this same name. Theocritus records another song of the reapers, called Auriépons. The story goes that Lityerses, the son of Midas king of Phrygia, dwelt in Celaenae, and was insanely devoted to the pursuits of agriculture. So extreme was his zeal that he made a practice of inviting wayfarers to a feast, and then compelling them, with lashes for the tardy ones, to work with him in the fields. add that when these laborers fainted from fatigue, he would first kill them, cutting off their heads, and then would conceal the bodies among the sheaves, accompanying his deed with songs. One story is to the effect that he died from over-work, carried away by his zeal; another, that Hercules received the customary invitation as he was passing along, but that he overcame Lityerses, and threw his dead body into the Maeander. Chronology, however, contradicts this last, for Midas and Hercules did not live at the same time. Whatever his death may have been, the fact remains that the country folk composed a threnody to solace his father, and that the Phrygians who came after them sang this song at the annual harvest-offering. According to another story, the Mariandyni, a people neighboring on Bithynia, followed a similar custom at the harvest-season, in honor of Borcos. Borcos, or Bormus, as sometimes written as a Some |