Note 247 — Chapter XXI · GRECIAN EPIC.—HOMERIC POEMS.
Reading edition
Aristotel. Poetic. c. 47; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklos; Ueber den Vortrag der Homerischen Gedichte, pp. 340-406, which collects all the facts respecting the aœdi and the rhapsodes. Unfortunately, the ascertained points are very few.
The laurel branch in the hand of the singer or reciter (for the two expressions are often confounded) seems to have been peculiar to the recitation of Homer and Hesiod (Hesiod, Theog. 30: Schol. ad Aristophan. Nub. 1367. Pausan. x. 7, 2). “Poemata omne genus (says Apuleius, Florid. p. 122, Bipont.) apta virgæ, lyræ, socco, cothurno.”
Not only Homer and Hesiod, but also Archilochus, were recited by rhapsodes (Athenæ, xii. 620; also Plato, Legg. ii. p. 658). Consult, besides, Nitzsch, De Historiâ Homeri, Fascic. 2, p. 114, seq., respecting the rhapsodes; and O. Müller, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. iv. s. 3.
The ideas of singing and speech are, however, often confounded, in reference to any verse solemnly and emphatically delivered (Thucydid. ii. 53)—φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι, Ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ᾽ αὐτῷ. And the rhapsodes are said to sing Homer (Plato, Eryxias, c. 13; Hesych. v. Βραυρωνίοις); Strabo (i. p. 18) has a good passage upon song and speech.
William Grimm (Deutsche Heldensage, p. 373) supposes the ancient German heroic romances to have been recited or declaimed in a similar manner with a simple accompaniment of the harp, as the Servian heroic lays are even at this time delivered.
Fauriel also tells us, respecting the French Carlovingian Epic (Romans de Chevalerie, Revue des Deux Mondes, xiii. p. 559): “The romances of the 12th and 13th centuries were really sung: the jongleur invited his audience to hear a belle chanson d’histoire,—‘le mot chanter ne manque jamais dans la formule initiale,’—and it is to be understood literally: the music was simple and intermittent, more like a recitative; the jongleur carried a rebek, or violin with three strings, an Arabic instrument; when he wished to rest his voice, he played an air or ritournelle upon this; he went thus about from place to place, and the romances had no existence among the people, except through the aid and recitation of these jongleurs.”
It appears that there had once been rhapsodic exhibitions at the festivals of Dionysus, but they were discontinued (Klearchus ap. Athenæ. vii. p. 275)—probably superseded by the dithyramb and the tragedy.
The etymology of ῥαψῳδὸς is a disputed point: Welcker traces it to ῥάβδος, most critics derive it from ῥάπτειν ἀοιδὴν, which O. Müller explains “to denote the coupling together of verses without any considerable divisions or pauses,—the even, unbroken, continuous flow of the epic poem,” as contrasted with the strophic or choric periods (l. c.).