Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, said that "if the Bard recited his Ode only _once_ to Edward, he was sure he could not understand it." When this was told to Gray, he said, "If he had recited it twenty times, Edward would not have been a bit wiser; but that was no reason why Mr. Fox should not."] "The metre of these Odes is constructed on Greek models. It is not uniform but symmetrical. The nine stanzas of each ode form three groups. A slight examination will show that the 1st, 4th, and 7th stanzas are exactly inter-correspondent; so the 2d, 5th, and 8th; and so the remaining three. The technical Greek names for these three parts were [Greek: strophê] (strophe), [Greek: antistrophê] (antistrophe), and [Greek: epôdos] (epodos)--the Turn, the Counter-turn, and the After-song--names derived from the theatre; the Turn denoting the movement of the Chorus from one side of the [Greek: orchêstra] (orchestra), or Dance-stage, to the other, the Counter-turn the reverse movement, the After-song something sung after two such movements. Odes thus constructed were called by the Greeks Epodic. Congreve is said to have been the first who so constructed English odes. This system cannot be said to have prospered with us. Perhaps no English ear would instinctively recognize that correspondence between distant parts which is the secret of it. Certainly very many readers of _The Progress of Poesy_ are wholly unconscious of any such harmony" (Hales). [Illustration: ALCÆUS AND SAPPHO. FROM A PAINTING ON A VASE.] 1. _Awake, Æolian lyre_. The blunder of the Critical Reviewers who supposed the "harp of Æolus" to be meant led Gray to insert this note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, [Greek: Aiolis molpê, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidôn pnoai aulôn], Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute." Cf. Cowley, _Ode of David_: "Awake, awake, my lyre!" Gray himself quotes _Ps._ lvii. 8. The first reading of the line in the MS. was, "Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." Gray also adds the following note: "The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions." 2. _And give to rapture_. The first reading of the MS. was "give to transport." 3. _Helicon's harmonious springs_. In the mountain range of Helicon, in Boeotia, there were two fountains sacred to the Muses, Aganippe and Hippocrene, of which the former was the more famous. 7. Cf. Pope, _Hor. Epist._ ii. 2, 171: "Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong;" and _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, 11: "The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow;" also Thomson, _Liberty_, ii. 257: