GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 157 



the mahal or kin-gathering, ayopd, as an equivalent for 

 speaking or talking, may well be compared with the cor- 

 responding Teutonic mdl for talk, dyopaia, as an epithet 

 for Artemis and Athene, marks the primitive origin of 

 these goddesses as goddesses of fertility worshipped at 

 the mahal or folk vergaderung. It may be noted that 

 the dyopd, or tribal meeting-place at Sparta, was termed 

 %o/3o?, and the notion of chorus is of a body or troupe 

 who dance and sing within an inclosure. This in- 

 closure, the %o/?ro9, is also associated with the idea of 

 feeding, ^opra^c* being to feast, quite as much of men 

 as of animals. The idea of the chorus is well expressed 

 by the dancing within the lists to the erotic song, such 

 as Alcinous's people exhibited before Odysseus. In this 

 respect it is to be noted that no foreigners i.e. originally 

 no doubt none but the kin were allowed to join the 

 chorus. The picture of youths and maidens dancing 

 in the chorus is repeated twice in the eighteenth book of 

 the Iliad, although the term %o/?o? is only used on the 

 second occasion, but the first is peculiarly important for 

 our present purpose. It runs : 



Also he fashioned therein two fair cities of mortal men. In 

 the one were espousals and marriage feasts, and beneath the blaze 

 of torches they were leading the brides from their chambers through 

 the city, and loud arose the bridal song. And young men were 

 whirling in the dance, and among them flutes and viols sounded 

 high ; and the women standing each at her door were marvelling. 

 But the folk were gathered in the assembly place (ayo/wj) ; for there 

 a strife was arisen, two men striving about the blood-price of a 

 man slain. 1 



Here, in a highly-developed condition, we have the 



1 The Iliad of Homer, translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers, p. 381. 



