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intonation. Then followed a species of recitative, probably with
an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the memory
considerably.
"It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war,
that a poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Moeonides,
but most probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be
made of great utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the
social position of Hellas, and, as a collection, he published
these lays, connecting them by a tale of his own. This poem now
exists, under the title of the 'Odyssea.' The author, however, did
not affix his own name to the poem, which, in fact, was, great
part of it, remodelled from the archaic dialect of Crete, in which
tongue the ballads were found by him. He therefore called it the
poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is rather a proof of
his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging arrangement of
other people's ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed, arguing
for the unity of authorship, 'a great poet might have re-cast
pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no
mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.'
"While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a
ballad, recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble
mind seized the hint that there presented itself, and the
Achilleis(32) grew under his hand. Unity of design, however,
caused him to publish the poem under the same pseudonyme as his
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