24 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. were spread over all the windows. Open, O my mother, open for me. I am your Arete. If thou art Charon, go on thy way. I have no more children to give thee. My poor Arete is far from here, she lives in a foreign land. Open, open, my mother. I am thy Constantine. I gave thee God for bond and the saints for wit- nesses that if joy or sadness should happen I would bring her to thee. Before she could reach the door her soul departed." These few examples show that poetry did not die out in the land that was at one time so glori- ous. The germs still exist, and some day the rays of national prosperity may shine on Parnas- sus covered with a new flora. May not the form of poetry of which the above are examples be the very same form of poetry that was current among the illiterate class of people in ancient times? This form of language has not been transmitted by the classi- cal authors, but many of the words and gram- matical types are of the remotest epoch. They have disappeared from literary language, but never from the language of the people. Here is a world of study and one that would certainly prove more satisfactory to philologist and philological science than the constant fault-
