artistic refinement under the guidance of chiefs and kings. Social life as depicted in the Homeric poems bears striking resemblances to that of the medieval seigneurs, allowing for great differences wrought among the latter by ideas of a world-religion and a world-empire. If the medieval priest was the mediator between the serfs and God, the Homeric priests are honoured by the commonalty (dêmus) as gods.[1] If the medieval singers wander from seigneur to seigneur, or enjoy their permanent patronage, the Homeric bard enjoys like patronage or security in his wanderings.[2] But in all this we have personal power and personal poetry. We have left far behind us the communal life and song of the clan; and we must not suppose, because we have thus left these out of sight, that the banquets of the princes are the true homes of early song, and that the aoidos or the troubadour are the earliest of song-makers. The truth is that the sentiment of the lines—
is almost equally removed from the spirit of the clan and that of the city republic; and the makers of such lines are the poets neither of the commune nor the commonwealth. Let us, then, try to discover the character of the songs which we believe to be older than those of either the cities or the kings.
Critics of Greek literature have long distinguished the lyric poetry of the Dorians, intended to be executed by choruses and accompanied by choral dances as well as instrumental music, from the Æolian lyric, meant for
