We conclude that there was at Athens a store of popular tales for the amusement of children, many of which were attributed to Aesop whom Herodotus calls λογοποιός.[[270]] The word λογοποιός seems to indicate that a prose version of his fables may have circulated in Athens in the time of Socrates.[[271]] What is certain, however, is that these tales were very much enjoyed and that Socrates himself versified some of them.[[272]] The so-called Aesopic tales began “Aesop said.”[[273]] Other tales were classified as Libyan, Cyprian and Sybaritic, distinguishable by the opening words: “A man (or a woman) of Sybaris (or of Libya or of Cypris) said.”[[274]] A further distinction between the fables of Aesop and those of Sybaris is that the latter were political and about men; the former, ethical and about animals.[[275]] A Λιβυκὸς μῦθος is mentioned by Dion Chrysostom employed to calm children after they had been chastised.[[276]]
LULLABIES
Allied to the nursery tales are the lullabies of the nurses “aussi vieux que le monde et qui dureront autant que lui,”[[277]] which Athenaeus calls καταβαυκαλήσεις: αἱ δὲ τῶν τιτθενουσῶν ᾠδαὶ καταβαυκαλήσεις ὀνομάζονται.[[278]] They are also called βαυκαλήματα[[279]] from βαυκαλάω “to lull to sleep” onomatopoetically formed from the nurse’s song. Plato refers to them in the Laws where he says that when mothers and nurses are desirous to put their children to sleep, they do not bring them to a state of quiet, but on the contrary of motion, καὶ οὐ σιγήν, ἀλλά τινα μελῳδίαν.[[280]]
The following passage from Aristotle seems to indicate that they were simple melodies without words, sung to a certain rhythm: διὰ τί ῥυθμῷ καὶ μέλει καὶ ὅλως ταῖς συμφωνίαις χαίρουσι πάντες; ἢ ὅτι ταῖς κατὰ φύσιν κινήσεσι χαίρομεν κατὰ φύσιν; σημεῖον δὲ τὸ τὰ παιδία εὐθὺς γεγόμενα χαίρειν αὐτοῖς.[[281]]
Chrysippus assigns a peculiar tune for the lullabies of nurses.[[282]] Sextus Empiricus very appropriately styles them a metrical humming (ἐμμέλης μινύρισμα).[[283]] It is probable also that to these melodies, the nurses adapted improvised words, as we do. This view is borne out by the fact that certain specimens exist which are imitations or elaborations of those really in use at the time they were written. The Lullaby of Alcmena in Theocritus is an instance:
εὕδετ’ ἐμὰ βρέφεα γλυκερὸν καὶ ἐγέρσιμον ὕπνον·
εὕδετ’ ἐμὰ ψυχὰ, δύ’ ἀδελφεὼ, εὔσοα τέκνα·
ὄλβιοι εὐνάζοισθε, καὶ ὄλβιοι ᾀῶ ἵκεσθαι.[[284]]
The melody of these lines is beautiful; the crooning sound of the open vowels in the first two, the rounded refrain of the last, with its repeated ὄλβιοι and rhyming halves give it all the characteristics of a lullaby.[[285]]
Not less beautiful are Simonides’ lines in the fragment called “The Lament of Danae.” While tossed about by the waves, she sings her child to sleep with these words: