The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

PASTORAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS. 249
they do this with great emulation, the boys performing mock-
fights adapted to their age, and the young men the so-called
manly fights. In like manner throughout the whole of life
their pleasure at feasts and entertainments consists, not in lis-
tening to singers hired for the purpose, but in singing themselves
in their turns when called upon. For, although a man
may decUne any other performance on the ground of inability
and may thereby bring no imputation on himself, no one can
refuse to sing, because all have been obliged to learn it, and to
refuse to take a part, when able, is deemed disgraceful. The
young men also unite together to perform in order all the mil-
itary steps and motions to the sound of the pipe, and at the
public expense they exhibit them every year before their fellow-
citizens. Besides these ballets, marches, and mock-fights, the
men and women unite in great public assembhes and in nume-
rous sacrifices, to which are to be added the circular or choral
dances by the boys and virgins." Polybius adds, that these
musical exercises had been ordained as the means of communi-
cating softness and refinement to the otherwise rough and la-
borious life of the Arcadians, and he warns them by the exam-
ple of the half-savages of Cynaethoe never to abandon such
wholesome institutions*. With how great benefit to our own
greatly
social character might we adopt this counsel ! How
might we contribute both to the innocent enjoyment and to the
more improved and elevated tastes of our rustics and artisans,
if well-regulated plans were devised, by which graceful recrea-
tions, providing at the same time exercise for the body, amusement
for the imagination, and employment for the finer and
more amiable feeUngs, were made to relieve the degrading and
benumbing monotony of their protracted labors, whether in the
factory or in the field !
It will be readily perceived, that the education here described,
and the tastes and habits which it produced, were immediately
associated with the popular reUgion, and especially witii the
notions and rites entertained towards the pecuUar god of the
shepherds. Other deities indeed, such as Apollo, Diana, and
* Polyb. L iv. c. 20, 2L