SONGS. wool. There are also the songs of nurses, which are called [Greek: katabaukalêseis]. There was also a song used at the feast of Swings,[1] in honour of Erigone, which is called Aletis. At all events, Aristotle says, in his treatise on the Constitution of the Colophonians—"Theodoras also himself died afterwards by a violent death. And he is said to have been a very luxurious man, as is evident from his poetry; for even now the women sing his songs on the festival of the Swing."
There was also a reaper's song called Lityerses; and another song sung by hired servants when going to the fields, as Teleclides tells us in his Amphictyons. There were songs, too, of bathing men, as we learn from Crates in his Deeds of Daring; and a song of women baking, as Aristophanes intimates in his Thesmophoriazusæ, and Nicochares in his Hercules Choregus. And another song in use among those who drove herds, and this was called the Bucoliasmus. And the man who first invented this species of song was Diomus, a Sicilian cowherd; and it is mentioned by Epicharmus in his Halcyon, and in his Ulysses Shipwrecked. The song used at deaths and in mourning is called Olophyrmus; and the songs called Iouli are used in honour of Ceres and Proserpine. The song sung in honour of Apollo is called Philhelias, as we learn from Telesilla; and those addressed to Diana are called Upingi.
There were also laws composed by Charondas, which were sung at Athens at drinking-parties; as Hermippus tells us in the sixth book of his treatise on Lawgivers. And Aristophanes, in his catalogue of Attic Expressions, says—"The Himæus is the song of people grinding; the Hymenæus is the song used at marriage-feasts; and that employed in lamentation is called Ialemus. But the Linus and the Ælinus are not confined to occasions of mourning, but are in use also in good fortune, as we may gather from Euripides."
11. But Clearchus, in the first book of his treatise on matters relating to Love, says that there was a kind of song called Nomium, derived from Eriphanis; and his words are these:—"Eriphanis was a lyric poetess, the mistress of Menalcas the hunter; and she, pursuing him with her passions, hunted too. For often frequenting the mountains, and. Some have fancied it may have had some connexion with the images of Bacchus (oscilla) hung up in the trees. See Virg. G. ii. 389.]
- ↑ There is no account of what this feast of Swings was. The Greek is [Greek: eôrai
