PINDAR.
CHAPTER I.
GREEK CHORAL POETRY—ITS FORM.
The poems of Pindar are the most considerable surviving specimens of the Choral Ode, an important and characteristic product of Greek genius, to which modern literature presents no exact analogy. Poetry in the modern sense of the word was only one of the elements which entered necessarily into its composition. With this were inseparably combined Music, both vocal and orchestral, and a third element, which, in default of a better name, may be called the Dance, but which differed wholly both in character and object from its modern namesake. The result was a complex work of art, of whose effect some idea may be formed by imagining the performance of a cantata, sung, in solemn or joyous procession, by a corps de ballet to the accompaniment of a moving orchestra of flutes and harps. The whole performance was, originally at any
A.C.S.S. vol. viii.
