Laudator Temporis Acti

Pindar, Isthmian Odes 2.6-8 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

The Muse in those days was not mercenary nor worked for hire,
nor was the sweetness of Terpsichore's honeyed singing for sale
nor her songs with faces silvered over for their soft utterance.

ἁ Μοῖσα γὰρ οὐ φιλοκερδής πω τότ᾽ ἦν οὐδ᾽ ἐργάτις·
οὐδ᾽ ἐπέρναντο γλυκεῖαι μελιφθόγγου ποτὶ Τερψιχόρας
ἀργυρωθεῖσαι πρόσωπα μαλθακόφωνοι ἀοιδαί.

Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, "Brief Mention," American Journal of Philology 38.1 (1917) 110-117 (at 110):

I have grateful memories of Mr. PATON'S other work and especially of his striking illustration of the famous dictum of Goethe that a knowledge of the poet's country is essential to the understanding of the poet himself. Pindar's ἀργυρωθεῖσαι πρόσωπα μαλθακόφωνοι ἀοιδαί (I. 2, 8) lay hid in night until Mr. PATON published a paper in the Classical Review (June 1888, p. 180) from which it appeared that the personified songs, like Eastern dancers, 'plastered their faces with silver coins'. This paper was followed by J.G. Frazer in the C.R. for Oct. of the same year, p. 261; and in A.J.P. XXX 358 I gave yet another illustration from Hichens's Garden of Allah. Of this evident explanation, Sir John Sandys has nothing better to say than 'Probably'. Eastern dancers, after all, he might urge, are not Greek dancers and Goethe's dictum does not apply with full force. But Southern Italy is Magna Graecia and it is interesting to read in Briggs's 'In the Heart of Italy' that in Lecce 'every guest that danced with the bride gave her a handkerchief or a piece of silver. In the latter case she spat on it and stuck it on her forehead.' Now Lecce is not far from Calimera and Thumb has given us a specimen of the Greek of Calimera, recorded by Morosi and Comparetti. The origin of the custom may be Eastern, the tradition is certainly Greek. An interpretation based on actual vision carries or ought to carry conviction, and I am sorry that Sir John Sandys is not quite convinced.

See:

• W.R. Paton, "Pindar, Isthm. II.10," Classical Review 2 (1888) 180
• J.G. Frazer, "Coins Attached to the Face," Classical Review 2 (1888) 261