existing before Pisistratus, they are found
existing after Pisistratus. And they declined exactly as the art of
reading became general. We can approximate pretty closely to the time
when the 'Rhapsodoi' ceased; but at what time they began we defy any man
to say. Plato (Rep. x.) represents them as going back into the days of
Homer; nay, according to Plato, Homer himself was a _rhapsodos_, and
itinerated in that character. So was Hesiod. And two remarkable lines,
ascribed to Hesiod by one of the Scholiasts upon Pindar, if we could be
sure that they were genuine, settle that question:

[Greek: En Delo tote proton ego xai Homeros aoidoi
Melpomen, en nearois umnois rapsantes aoide.]

'Then, first of all,' says Hesiod, 'did I and Homer chant as bards in
Delos, laying the nexus of our poetic composition in proaemial hymns.' We
understand him to mean this: There were many singers and harpers who
sang or accompanied the words of others; perhaps ancient words--at all
events, not their own. Naturally he was anxious to have it understood
that he and Homer had higher pretensions. They killed their own mutton.
They composed the words as well as sang them. Where both functions were
so often united in one man's person, it became difficult to distinguish
them. Our own word _bard_ or _minstrel_ stood in the same ambiguity. You
could not tell in many cases whether the word pointed to the man's
poetic or musical faculty. Anticipating that doubt, Hesiod says that
they sang as original poets. For it is a remark of Suidas, which he
deduces laboriously, that poetry, being uniformly sung in the elder
Greece, acquired the name of [Greek: aoide]. This term became
technically appropriated to the poetry, or substance of whatever was
sung, in contradistinction to the musical accompaniment. And the poet
was called [Greek: aoidos] So far Hesiod twice over secures the dignity
of their office from misinterpretation. And there, by the word [Greek:
raphantes] he indicates the sort of poetry which they cultivated, viz.,
that which was expanded into long heroic narratives, and naturally
connected itself both internally amongst its own parts, and externally
with other poems of the same class. Thus, having separated Homer and
himself from the mere musicians, next he separates them even as poets
from those who simply composed hymns to the Gods. These heroic legends
were known to require much more elaborate study and art. Yet, because a
critical revie