d upon that of the hexameter, which consists of
a line of six dactyls and spondees, the line always ending
with a spondee. Really the line should end with a dactyl
([- ' ']) and a spondee ([- -]). If a line ends with two
spondees it is a spondaic hexameter.

From this it would seem that while the pitch of the chant would
be very difficult to gauge, owing to the diversity of opinion as
to how to measure in actual sounds the effect of emotions upon
the human voice, at least the _rhythm_ of the chants would be
well defined, owing to the hexameter in which the latter were
written. Here again, however, we are cast adrift by theory,
for in practice nothing could be more misleading than such a
deduction. For instance, the following lines from Longfellow's
"Evangeline" are both in this metre, although the rhythm of
one differs greatly from that of the other.

Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the earrings

and

Shielding the house from storms, on the north were the barns
and the farm-yard.

Now if we think that these lines can be sung to the same
musical rhythm we are very far from the truth, although both
are hexameters, namely,

[- ' ' - ' - ' ' - ' ' - ' ' - -]

[- ' ' - ' - ' ' - ' ' - ' ' - -]

dactyls, ending with spondee.

Thus we see that metre in verse and rhythm in music are two
different things, although of course they both had the same
origin.

After all has been said, it is perhaps best to admit that, so
far as Greek music is concerned, its better part certainly lay
in poetry. In ancient times all poetry was sung or chanted; it
was what I have called impassioned speech. The declamation of
"The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" constituted what was really the
"vocal" music of the poems. With the Greeks the word "music"
(_mousike_) included all the aesthetic culture that formed part
of the education of youth; in the same general way a poet was
called a singer, and even in Roman times we find Terence, in
his "Phormio," alluding to poets as musicians. That Aeschylus
and Sophocles were not musicians, as we understand the term,
is very evident in spite of the controversies on the subject.

Impassioned speech, then, was all that existed of vocal music,
and as such was in every way merely the audible expression of
poetry. I have no doubt that this is the explanation of the
statement that Aeschylus and Sophocles wrote what has been
termed the _music_ to their tragedies. W