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GREEK WATER-SONGS.
I HAD hoped to have had at least a small collection of Greek songs to add to the others, but I have been disappointed. The modern Greek evidently heaves and hauls and rows almost in silence, at least so far as vocal music is concerned. I applied to Sir George Macfarren on the subject of ancient Greek water-songs, and his answer was as follows—
" Dear Madam,—But three vestiges of ancient Greek music are known to exist. These are a hymn to Apollo, one to Nemesis, and to Calliope; and even they date from within the Christian era. The music originally sung in the plays of Sophocles or any other of the dramatic poets is lost, and its reproduction in any form totally impossible.
" Faithfully yours,
" G. A. Macfarren. "February $th, 1886."
I have not been able either to learn anything through the Consuls or any other authorities on the Greek language, literature, and music of the day. Miss Lucy M. J. Garnett has made a collection of folk-songs in Greece, but there is little mention of anything like water-songs ; the one there is, however, I quote by the kind permission of the authoress. I have also found one Greek sailors' song and a boat-song which follow, but there were no words given to either of them.
The following is a translation of a mythological folksong of modern Greece, reproduced by kind permission of
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