The Greek Idea Of Death

A writer in Macmillan's "Magazine" saya a Greek peasant looks upon death quite dilierently f rom what a peasant of the western world is taught to believe. To him it is the end of all joy and gladness; the songs over his body (imriologurs) speak of the black earth, the end of lghl and brilliancy. A popular Kleplhic song on the death ofedros, when read by theside of Sophocles' description of the death of A'ax, show how curiously alike are the ideas of death as painted in the two poems. Charon is st 11 believe J to be a white haired old man with long aud fearful nails, and in m_rioloues orlamentations, which are still oi every day occurrence in the island, you actually hear Charon's caique, He is now spoken of as Charos. In some parts of (íreece they still, itissaid, pul money in the mouth of a deceased person to pay the passage. At the funeral of a child in a mountain village of Naxos a wax cross was put in the child's mouth by the priest, and on inquiry the writer was told that it was the freight money, so complctely has the eastern chur h incorporated into itself the ancient idea.