[504]. Kl. Schrift., III. 445.
[505]. See his Gesch. d. d. Lit., I. 47, 51.
[506]. Professor Smythe points out, Greek Melic Poets, p. cxiv, that Homer describes a hymeneal but “nowhere alludes to the religious element in the celebration of the rite.”
[507]. Iliad, XXIV, 719 ff., trans. Lang, Leaf, and Myers.
[508]. See H. Koester, de Cantilenis Popularibus Veterum Graecorum, Berol., 1831, p. 15. Roman neniae, of course, are in point (see Sittl, Gebärden der Griechen und Römer; Cap. IV.); but the artificial element is very strong, and primitive survivals are few. Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, p. 562, says of the epitaphs on the Scipios, “Whether they were or were not fragments of neniae is quite uncertain.”
[509]. Crude enough, to be sure, compared with Chaucer’s humour in dealing with the funeral of Arcite:—
“Why woldestow be deed,” thise wommen crye,
“And haddest gold ynough, and Emelye?”
For this is the conventional question, in whatever form, in the vocero of all places and ages: “Why did you die? You had enough to eat, you had clothes,” etc. Old Egeus has the modern consolation, and philosophizes in no communal vein.
[510]. Odyssey, XXIV. 59 ff.