how trees and rocks followed Orpheus as he sang. Even philosophers recognised this all-pervading influence. Aristotle has devoted a long and learned chapter of his Politics to the "moral influence of music;" and it was in music also (as most likely to be corrupted by innovation) that Plato, in his ideal State, places the watch-tower of his "guardians." The marriage hymn, the funeral dirge, the incantation of the witch, the chant of the physician, the solemn and melodious invocation of the priest, merely illustrate this universal passion. Ion, the rhapsodist, describes the strong emotion produced in himself and in his hearers by the recitation of Homer. "When that which I recite is pathetic," he says, "my eyes are filled with tears; when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on end and my heart leaps. Moreover, I see the spectators also weeping in sympathy with my emotion, and looking aghast with terror."[1] If the mere recitation of hexameter verse could produce this effect, far more powerfully must the simple but passionate music of the Tragic Chorus, sung in unison by well-trained singers, have impressed the audience in the theatre, where the masks of perfect beauty, the graceful robes, and the majestic stature of the actors gave a solemn and almost unearthly character to the scene. Though Sophocles had a weak voice, he was himself a skilled musician; and in his choral odes (purposely shortened by him that they might not interrupt the current of the story) we can faintly trace the echo of that sweet and majestic melody which must once have
