Βιττὼ καὶ Φαινὶς, φίλη ἡμέρη (?), αἱ συνέριθοι,
Αἱ πενιχραὶ, γραῖαι, τῆδ᾽ ἐκλίθημεν ὁμοῦ.
Ἀμφότεραι Κώαι, πρῶται γένος—ὦ γλυκὺς ὄρθρος,
Πρὸς λύχνον ᾧ μύθους ᾔδομεν ἡμιθέων.
These two poor women were not afraid to boast of their family descent. They probably belonged to some noble gens which traced its origin to a god or a hero. About the songs of women, see also Agathias, i. 7. p. 29, ed. Bonn.
In the family of the wealthy Athenian Dêmocratês was a legend, that his primitive ancestor (son of Zeus by the daughter of the Archêgetês of the dême Aixôneis, to which he belonged) had received Hêraklês at his table: this legend was so rife that the old women sung it,—ἅπερ αἱ γραῖαι ᾄδουσι (Plato, Lysis, p. 205). Compare also a legend of the dême Ἀναγυροῦς, mentioned in Suidas ad voc.
“Who is this virgin?” asks Orestês from Pyladês in the Iphigeneia in Tauris of Euripidês (662), respecting his sister Iphigeneia, whom he does not know as priestess of Artemis in a foreign land:—
Τίς ἐστιν ἡ νεᾶνις; ὡς Ἑλληνικῶς
Ἀνήρεθ᾽ ἡμᾶς τούς τ᾽ ἐν Ἰλίῳ πόνους
Νόστον τ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν τόν τ᾽ ἐν οἰωνοῖς σοφὸν