The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-05


dispatched it in similar manner.
This bounding and throwing COMMUNE
Gated an aspect of the most airy light
ness to the game. equalled only, we i'm
agine, by that common spectacle of the
modern ballet, when a dancer whose belt
has been previously attached to wire Is
caught up aloft as il she were flying
The same feeling Of airy grace must
have been communicated to the Greek
| spectators when the girls were at the
| ball dance-bounding high in the air,
catching the flying ball as it liuttered
through the sky, and never seeming to
! touch earth, except but for a moment,
during the whole of the play.
Homer describes the game thus in the
Odyssey, and according to his account
the ball was sometimes flung so high in
the air that it was almost lost to sight.
When it appeared as a speck from cloud
land the player whose turn it was to
catch it seemed to rise to meet it, and,
taking it, tossed the ball once more to-
the heavens. so that it scared about like
bird. Alternately with this, the play
ers standing closer flung the ball from
one to the other with such lightning
like rapidity that it made them dizzy to
look.
When we consider that during these
intricate movements and complicated
figures there was a constant stream Of
music swelling on and never stopping,
and that every step taken in the game
was to the measure of musical bar, we
must confess how much enhanced must
have been the beauty of the game to the
eyes of on-lookers, and how marvellous
ly smooth and symmetrical must have
been the actions of every one that played
it. Sometimes says a Greek author
they would throw the ball from one to
the other at short distances And then
they must use their hands alone But at
longer distances they might use their
arms to fling it with standing easily but
firmly in one spot, and arching their
bodies in q thousand graceful fiexions to
catch the bouncing ball..
Nausea, one of the heroines of the
Odyssey, danced the ball dance on the
sea shore in Phaeaca, which is the mod
ern Corfu. The shore was yellow, and
the bright blue sea, like sheet of sap
phire, surrounded it. Nausicaa was a
kings daughter, and she played the
game with a golden ball. Those who
played with her were her landmarks
and attendants, She was a tall girl, ex-
ceeding them all in height and beauty
and majesty And her poses in the ball
dance were like those of Diana herself
as she treads the heights of Taygetus,
hunting the boars and swift-footed
stays.
vUa J,a rr1p of GIRLS
to the festival of the Olympic games,
where men contended for the prize of
victory, we shall find that even here the
favorite pastime of the musical game
insinuated itself and that the athletes
performed the most popular exercise Of
this character, which was in very great |
favor with all the spectators. This was |
the Pancratium, as 1t was called, which |
was a mixture Of boxing and wrestling, |
every blow being delivered in time to
musical melody, and every grip or throw
in the wrestling being responsive to a
musical chord
The blase sight-seers Of London have
most Of them looked with interest on
what is called the musical ride Of the
Military Tournament. Infinitely more
because the countless gestures
IF the human body followed the metre,
not merely the evolution of a few horses,
was the Pancratium of the Olympic
games. When it began, we read, the
spectators leaving all other attractions,
crowded round to see this, and could
never be torn away with their applause
md their fascinated gaze, until the con-
est was over.
Lucian describes the game thus:
When they have locked hand in hand"
lie says, land give blows and take them.
he fights floats off into dance" They
menace each other as deadly enemies,
yet there can be no hostility in their
hreats, for their feet are perpetually
,eating the rythms, and their ears are
open to catch the slightest variation of
he music, that they may express thu
Melody of their motions.
Another musical game and the last we
reed allude to among the Greeks. was
he flower game, which was played very
much in the manner in which our coun-
ry dances are performed. The girls ar
anged themselves on one side in long
inc, the youths and men on the other
The former held flowers-principallyI
oses and violets-in their hands, and
hus equipped, the two lines of players
anced up to one another in time to the
music The youths and men on coming
lose to the line of their fair vis-a-vis
ang
Where are my roses? And where are
my violets?
And where is my beautiful parsley
too?
II connection with the intrusion of the :,
arsley-most unromantic of herbs in !,
ur conception--among the poetical vio-
It's and roses. we must explain that .
arsley was with the Greeks very diff ,
aren't plant--or perhaps we should say :
plant held in very different esteem n
ON what it is with us. 1t formed the
rown of the conquerors at many of the
ational games, such as the Olympic
nd Isthmian. And the young men, in
skiing the girls for parsley, We're in fact =
,questing them to wreathe crowns of n
inquest or of favor and place them Il
pom their heads r
Such We're the words, then, with which 1
ne side of the players, SO to speak, !,
lallenged the others. And it was left s.
} the girls to reply e.
ere are your roses, and here are your .
violets;
And here is your beautiful parsley too. G. G.
ne of the madens here handed a flow is