Chanties in Greek and Latin: Written for Ancient Traditional Airs

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Sixty Greek and Latin songs for schoolchildren, written by W. H. D. Rouse, the late headmaster of the Perse School, Cambridge.

Children’s songs and singing games are used with great effect in teaching French to English children, and English to foreign children. They are easily learnt and easily remembered, and to sing them gives great pleasure. Greek and Roman children must have had their own songs and games; indeed one or two are preserved, such as the Swallow Song of Rhodes,
The Tortoise, and words of Latin lullaby.

The songs in this book are an attempt to write something which the children of ancient days might have sung, and to fit them to traditional tunes. The themes are such as they could easily have understood; and it has proved that many traditional tunes give rhythms that are quite Greek and Latin, and even stanzas that metrically might have been used in a chorus of Aristophanes. The tune of The Vicar of Bray for example exactly suits the Aristophanic parabasis; and altogether it is wonderful how well modern tunes go.