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Rhapsody

means songs strung together. The term was originally applied to the books of the Iliad and Odyssey, which at one time were in fragments. Certain bards collected together a number of the fragments, enough to make a connected “ballad,” and sang them as our minstrels sang the deeds of famous heroes. Those bards who sang the Iliad wore a red robe, and those who sang the Odyssey a blue one. Pisisʹtratos of Athens had all these fragments carefully compiled into their present form (Greek rapto, to sew or string together; odē, a song.)

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Revival of Painting and Sculpture
Revoke
Revulsion (in philosophy)
Rewe
Reynard the Fox
Reynardine
Reynold of Montalbon
Rezio
Rhadamanthos
Rhampsinitos
Rhapsody
Rhene
Rhine or Rhineland
Rhino
Rhodalind
Rhodian Bully (The)
Rhodian Law
Rhone
Rhopalic Verse (wedgs-verse)
Rhyme
Rhymer