APPENDIX.
THEN, binding round their brows the mystic branch of bay, they rose, and in silence
entered upon holy ground. . . . . . Fronting them rose the high altar, crowned, like
the rest, with laurel, on which all must lay tribute who would inquire aught of
Phoebus. Here the priests took of their offering and burnt it upon the slab. If the
day were one of consultation, lots then were drawn for precedence, and he whom
fortune favoured moved on, past the Omphalos, where Apollo had reposed in early
days, past the tomb of Neoptolemus, past the image of Pallas, to the steps of the
shrine itself. At the foot he left his train of servants, and mounted all alone, wondering
[p. 539]
at the marvels round, the open colonnades, the wondrous sculptures filling the
pediments of the noble tympana, each commemorating the life and labours of a god.
. . . And now the jubilant trumpets of the priests pealed out, with notes that rang
round the valley, and up among the windings of the Hyampeian cliff. Awed into
silence by the sound, he crossed the garlanded threshold: he sprinkled on his head the
holy water from the fonts of gold, and entered the outer court. New statues, fresh
fonts, craters, and goblets, the gift of many an Eastern king, met his eye: walls
emblazoned with dark sayings rose about him as he crossed towards the inner adytum.
Then the music grew more loud: the interest deepened: his heart beat faster. With
a sound as of many thunders, that penetrated to the crowd without, the subterranean
door rolled back: the earth trembled: the laurels nodded: smoke and vapour broke
commingled forth: and, railed below within a hollow of the rock, perchance he caught
one glimpse of the marble effigies of Zeus and the dread sisters, one gleam of sacred
arms; for one moment saw a steaming chasm, a shaking tripod, above all, a Figure
with fever on her cheek and foam upon her lips, who, fixing a wild eye upon space,
tossed her arms aloft in the agony of her soul, and, with a shriek that never left his
ear for days, chanted high and quick the dark utterances of the will of Heaven.
ARNOLD PRIZE ESSAY for 1859, pp. 14, 15.
NOTE on Aen. 6. 646, p. 507.At the end of this note, after the word epexegetical,
Mr. Conington added: A development of this view will be found in an extract
printed at the end of this Book, from a letter from Mr. D. B. Monro, Fellow and Tutor
of Oriel College, to whom I am indebted for the information about the Aristotelian
use of ἀντίφωνος. This extract could not be found. Mr. Monro has kindly supplied
the defect by sending the following remarks on Aeneid 6. 646:
The passages which Virgil seems chiefly to have had in view in the description of
Orpheus are Od. 8. 256265 (see Mr. Conington's note on Aen. 6. 644), and Il. 18.
590606, 569572. In the first of these passages Phemius is represented as playing
on the phorminx, and (it would seem) singing the story of Ares and Aphrodite as an
accompaniment to the dancing of the Phaeacian youth. In the second passage we are
told that one of the pictures on the shield of Achilles represented a chorus dancing,
and in their midst a divine singer made music (ἐμέλπετο), playing on the phorminx.
In those cases the chorus is not expressly said to be one of singers: but in the procession
of grape-gatherers on the same shield (vv. 561572) the troop moved along with
music and joyous cries (μολπῇ τ' ἰυγμῷ τε), while a boy played the phorminx and
sang the Linus to its accompaniment (if that is the true meaning of λίνον δ' ὑπὸ καλὸν
ἄειδε). So according to the Hymn to the Pythian Apollo (H. Apoll. 514 ff.) the god himself
led the way bearing the phorminx, while the Cretans followed and sang a Cretan
paean: and in Olympus Apollo plays on the phorminx, and the Muses sing in turn
(Il. 1. 604). In all these cases there is a single musician whose instrument regulates
and accompanies the chorus: but whether he sings himself, and whether the chorus
sings as well as dances, is not always clear. The practice may have varied with the
character of the performance, as the epic or lyric element predominated. In the
Lament for Hector (Il. 24. 720776) there are singers who lead the wailing, but
nothing is said of instruments: Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen recite in turn their
praises of the dead man, and the rest bewail in chorus. Virgil, however, has distinctly
made his chorus sing or recite (carmina dicunt) as well as dance, and therefore he
probably intended to represent Orpheus as playing only. Septem discrimina vocum
refers in the first instance to the lyre, and could not very naturally be applied to the
voice: vox is used, like Gr. φωνή, for the note of an instrument. (See Welcker, Ep.
Cycl. vol. i. p. 329, and Kl. Schrift. vol. ii. p. 32.)
