rhapsode

rhapsode, a singer in ancient Greece. Ancient scholars suggested two etymologies. The first related the word with the staff (rhabdos) on which the singer leaned during his performance. In that view, the rhapsode is a “singer with a staff.” The second connected the word with the poetic act of sewing (rhaptein) the poem (oide). Thus, the rhapsode is a “stitcher of songs.” Modern scholars prefer the second etymology, which is attested in a fragment of Hesiod (7th century bc) and in Pindar’s Nemean ode 2, lines 1–3. Both passages use the word rhaptein to describe the act of poetic composition. The noun rhapsoidosis is first found in 5th-century-bc inscriptions and literary sources, including Herodotus (History, Book V, part 67) and Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus, line 391).

The common opinion is that rhapsodes were exclusively reciters of the compositions of others, which they consigned to memory. In the oral tradition of epic poetry, they represent the stage that followed that of the aoidoi, or bards, who created poems on traditional epic subjects each time they performed. The ancient testimonies, however, do not permit such a clear and secure distinction, at least through the 6th century bc. Inscriptions show that rhapsodes continued to perform through the 3rd century ad.

A rhapsode’s performance could be accompanied musically by the sound of the lyre or the aulos (a wind instrument with a double reed), or it could simply be declaimed. The rhapsode’s repertory included not only Homer but also other ancient poets—e.g., Hesiod, Archilochus, Simonides, Mimnermus, Phocylides, and even the philosopher-poet Empedocles. After reciting poems or passages from longer poems, the rhapsode would comment on them. At some time in the 6th and 5th centuries bc, rhapsodic performances became a characteristic part of the Panathenaic festivals in Athens. A lively and instructive picture of rhapsodic activity in the Classical age is found in Plato’s Ion, which takes its name from a famous rhapsode with whom Socrates discusses the art of poetry. From Plato’s dialogue there emerges a portrait of the eminently dramatic character and the spectacular action of the rhapsodic recitations. The success of the rhapsode’s recitation and the size of his fee, which could be rather large, depended on his effectiveness in moving his audience.