368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hortation : " Let them praise his name in the dance : let them 

 sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp : " worship 

 which was joined with the execution of " vengeance upon the 

 heathen." 



This association of dancing and singing as forms of worship, 

 and by implication their more special association with the priest- 

 hood, is not so conspicuous in the accounts of Egypt ; proba- 

 bly because the earlier stages of Egyptian civilization are unre- 

 corded. According to Herodotus, however, in the processions 

 during the festival of Bacchus, the flute-player went first and was 

 followed by the choristers who chanted all the praises of the 

 deity. Naming also cymbals and flutes and harps as used "in 

 religious ceremonies;" Wilkinson says that "the sacred musi- 

 cians were of the order of priests and appointed to the service, 

 like the Levites among the Jews." Songs and clapping of hands 

 are mentioned by him as parts of the worship. Moreover the 

 wall-paintings yield proofs. " That they also danced at temples, 

 in honor of the gods, is evident from the representations of sev- 

 eral sacred processions." Wilkinson is now somewhat out of 

 date, but these assertions are not incongruous with those made 

 by later writers. The association between the temple and the 

 palace was in all ways intimate, and while, according to Brugsch, 

 one steward of the king's household " was over the singing and 

 playing," Duncker states that " in every temple there was a min- 

 strel." So too, Tiele, speaking of Im-hotep, son of Ptah, says 



" The texts designate him as the first of the Cber-hib, a class of priests 

 who were at the same time choristers and physicians." 



But Rawlinson thinks that music had, in the days of historical 

 Egypt, become largely secularized : " Music was used in the 

 main as a light entertainment . . . The religious ceremonies into 

 which music entered were mostly of an equivocal character." 



Similar was the genesis which occurred in Greece. A brief 

 indication of the fact is conveyed by the statement of Guhl and 

 Koner that all. the dances " were originally connected with reli- 

 gious worship." The union of dancing and singing as components 

 of the same ceremony, is implied by Moulton's remark that 



' 'Chorus' is one example amongst many of expressions that convey mu- 

 sical associations to us, but are terms originally of dancing. The chorus 

 was the most elaborate of the lyric ballad-dances." 



And that the associated use of the two was religious is shown by 

 the description of Grote, who writes : 



'The chorus, with song and dance combined, constituted an important 

 part of divine service throughout all Greece. It was originally a public 

 manifestation of the citizens generally . . . But in process of time, the per- 



