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[720] τρητοῖς, see 3.448. From παρά to γυναῖκες is a passage of great difficulty. The punctuation and reading of the text are now generally accepted as the only means by which a satisfactory sense can be got. And by the bier they set the singers, leaders of the dirge, who in the dolorous song led, they the dirge, and the women wailed in concert. That is, a certain number of singers sing a formal dirge, to which the women keep up an accompaniment of ‘keening.’ The relative clause “οἵ τε . . ἀοιδήν” begins as though “θρήνεον” alone were to follow; but the form of the sentence is interrupted in order to bring out the antithesis between the two elements of the dirge. That the “ἀοιδοί” were professional mourners hardly admits of a doubt; the custom of employing them is practically universal in Eastern countries, and indeed exists in full force in many places to this day. No more vivid picture of the scene can be found than in Mr. Bent's description of the “μοιρολόγια” which he witnessed at Mykonos (The Cyclades, chap. x.): ‘The (paid) lamenters who headed the procession broke forth into their hideous wails. And as it passed by women came forth from their houses to groan in concert with the others.’ Similarly von Hahn (Alb. Stud. i. 151) describes an Albanian funeral. ‘The women sit about the corpse, and now begins the dirge proper, in which neighbours as well as kinswomen take part. The dirge is always in verse, and as a rule consists of a couplet sung by a solo voice, and then repeated by the chorus of women. These dirges are fixed by usage . . but it sometimes happens that one of the mourners is inspired by her grief to utter a lament of her own.’ “ἔξαρχος” and “ἐξάρχειν” are the technical words for the leaders of a chorus, cf. 18.606. The sense thus obtained is satisfactory, though the constr. is undoubtedly harsh, and “οἵ τε” taken up by “οἱ μέν” in apposition cannot be exactly paralleled. But we may fairly compare sentences like 21.162 ff., where a simple statement is broken up in the course of delivery and divided into two parallel sentences. The ancient critics took the lines quite differently. The weight of MS. authority is unquestionably in favour of reading “θρήνους, ἐξάρχουσ᾽ οἵ τε στονόεσσαν ἀοιδήν: οἱ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἐθρήνεον”. This involves taking “θρήνους” (or “θρηνούς”?) = “θρηνωιδούς”, with the non-Homeric order of words “ἐξάρχουσ᾽ οἵ τε”. These two objections are fatal. We do not know what the reading of Ar. was, as though the line has the diple in A, the scholion referring to it is unfortunately lost; but the presumption is that the best MSS. preserve his text. Note that “οἱ μὲν ἄρα” always begins a clause in H., so that if we read it we must manage to have a stop after “ἀοιδήν”. It is not impossible that the source of all this difficulty may be found in the word “στονόεσσαν”. If, as may well be, this represents an aor. 3rd plur. of some verb allied to “στένω”, the cause of the corruption would be obvious, and the sentence would be perfectly clear: they set the minstrels, leaders of the wail, who groaned their lay; so wailed they, and the women groaned in concert.στονάχησαν” might be the verb required were it not so familiar; if such a verb does lie hidden, it is more likely to have been a forgotten form. Agar (J. P. xxv. 322) points out that “οἵ τε” is general, and suggests “θρήνων ἐξάρχους, οἵ τ᾽ ἐξάρχουσιν ἀοιδήν”, like “ἀθλοφόρους οἳ ἀέθλια ποσσὶν ἄροντο9.124 and other similar lines (see note on 8.527). Friedländer thinks that a line has been lost after 721 — a phenomenon of which there is no clear evidence in any other place in H. Others simply reject 721, or “οἵ τε . . θρήνεον”, for which there is no justification.

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