“It is said that if it is known that anybody in particular composed a song, the people in some of these places will not sing it,” _Ibid._, pp. 138 f. For this vexed question, see below, chapter on Communal Poetry.
Of course Horace (IV. ii. 10 ff.) is thinking of Pindar’s “new” compounds and fresh expressions; but the quotation agrees as well with the history of the dithyrambic poem.
“Arbeit und Rhythmus,” reprinted from the _Abhandlungen d. kgl. sächsischen Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften, philol. histor. Classe_, XVII. 5, Leipzig, 1896. According to Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, pp. 57 ff., some of these statements have been modified. In the second edition of the _Entstehung der Volkswirthschaft_, pp. 32 f., a book which the present writer could not consult, Bücher concedes the priority of play, and sees in it the starting-point of labour. This, however, does not change the validity of Bücher’s main argument for the connection of labour and rhythm, so far as they concern the beginnings of poetry.
A. W. Schlegel here and there hints at this origin of rhythm in labour; so does Sulzer. See note above, p. 101. See also the Abbé Batteux, “Sur les Nombres Poëtiques et Oratoires,” _Mém. Acad. Inscript._, XXXV. 415: “le marteau du forgeron tombe en cadence, la faulx du moissonneur va et revient avec nombre ... le rhythme soutient nos forces dans les travaux pénibles.”
“Grundelement dieser Dreieinheit,” _Ibid._, p. 78. Of course, he admits elsewhere similar functions of the dance, which was, after all, a kind of labour, even when not an imitation of labour. Hence Bücher gives priority to labour in its large sense. For primitive man the line between work and play was not too sharply drawn.
A strong support for this social foundation of song is found in observations such as Böckel has made among the peasants of Hesse. “Their song,” he says (work quoted, p. cv.), “is nearly all choral; the countryman, when sober, seldom sings alone. It is remarkable,” Böckel goes on to say, “how these people, who singly show little capacity for music, can make such an artistic effect in chorus.”
Several men, as a rule, trod the grapes with naked feet. Songs directly sprung from this labour survived for long ages. The material is indicated by Bücher, pp. 88 f. The later festal songs, of course, were symbolical and reminiscent.