Note 26 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Greek Literature, 51. The word is by some authorities derived from ῥάβδος a staff,—just as we have a stave in music. Rhapsodists would thus mean men of the stave; ῥάβδος also (according to Liddell and Scott, edited by Drisler) means grammatically a line or a verse and ῥαψῳδία would mean a division of a poem for recitation.