ORATOR AND POET, ACTOR AND DRAMATIST. 221 



And then we have the acts, wholly priestly, of 

 &quot;the nobleman who bore the dignity of prophet of the Pyramid of 

 Pharaoh. This officer s duty was to praise the memory of the 

 deceased king, and to devote the god-like image of the sovereign to 

 enduring remembrance.&quot; 



Still better and more abundant evidence is furnished by 

 accounts of the early Greeks. The incipient poet, as eulo- 

 gizer of the god, is priestly in his character, and at first is an 

 official priest. Concerning the Greeks of rude times Mure 

 writes &quot; Hence, in their traditions, the character of poet is 

 usually found to combine those of musician, priest, prophet, 

 and sage; &quot; and he adds that: 



The mythical poet Olen &quot; ranks as the earliest and most illustrious 

 priest and poet of the Delian Apollo . . . BOBO, a celebrated priestess 

 of that sanctuary [the Delphic], pronounces him ... to be, not only 

 the most antient of Apollo s prophets, but of all poets.&quot; 



We are told by Mahaffy that &quot; the poems attributed to these 

 men [poets prior to Homer] . . . were all strictly reli 

 gious.&quot; 



&quot;The hexameter verse was consistently attributed to the Delphic 

 priests, who were said to have invented and used it in oracles. In 

 other words, it was first used in religious poetry . . . There is no 

 doubt that the priests did compose such works [long poems] for the 

 purpose of teaching the attributes and adventures of the gods . . . 

 Thus epic poetry [was at first] purely religious . . . Homer and 

 Hesiod represent . . . the close of a long epoch.&quot; 



And that their poetry arose by differentiation from sacred 

 poetry, is implied in his further remark that in Homer s 

 time, &quot; the wars and adventures, and passions of men, had 

 become the centre of interest among the poets.&quot; This par 

 tially secularized poetry at a later date became further secu 

 larized, while it became further differentiated from music. 

 The hymn of the primitive priest-poet was uttered to the 

 accompaniment of his four-stringed lyre, in a voice more 

 sonorous than ordinary speech not in song, as we under 

 stand it, but in recitative ; and, as Dr. Monro argues, a vague 

 recitative a recitative akin to the intoning of the liturgy 



