An organised ceremony of lamentation is at the present day an essential part of every Greek funeral, and many dirges sung on such occasions have been collected and published. In these the conception of the departed as a messenger, or even as a carrier of goods, abounds[1]. A Laconian dirge runs thus: 'A prudent lady, a virtuous wife, willed and resolved to go down to Hades. "Whoso has words" (she cried) "let him say them, and messages, let him send them; whoso has a son there unarmed, let him send his arms; whoso has son there a scribe, let him send his papers; whoso has daughter undowered, let him send her dowry; whoso has a little child, let him send his swaddling clothes."'[2]
The same thought inspires a dirge in Passow's collection[3], in which the thoughts of a dead man, round whose body the women are sitting and weeping, are thus expressed: 'Why stand ye round about me, all ye sorrowing women? Have I come forth from Hades, forth from the world below? Nay, now am I making ready, now am I at the point to go. Whoso hath word, let him speak it, and message, let him tell it; whoso hath long complaint, let him write and send it.' And again in another funeral-song a dead man is described as a 'trusty courier bound for the world below[4].'
This sentiment, so frequently and so clearly expressed in the modern dirges, is of ancient descent. Polyxena, about to be sacrificed at Achilles' tomb, is made by Euripides to address to her mother the question, 'What am I to say from thee to Hector or to thy aged husband?', and Hecuba answers, 'My message is that I am of all women most miserable[5].' And it is the same genuinely Hellenic thought which Vergil attributes to Neoptolemus when he answers Priam's taunts of degeneracy with the words, 'These tidings then thou shalt carry, and shalt go as messenger to my sire, the son of Peleus; forget not to tell him of my sorry deeds and that Neoptolemus is no true son. Now die[6].'
And it is not only in the poetry of ancient and modern Greece but also in the actual customs of the people that this idea has found, II. p. 341.], p. 16. [Greek: Politês, Meletê], II. 343.], p. 36. Cf. [Greek: Politês, Meletê], II. p. 342. The line runs [Greek: mantatophoros phronimos 'pou paei 'ston katô kosmo].]
