NENIA;
this Word sometimes signifies a Toy or Trifle, and other whiles Lamentations and mournful Times, sung at the Burying of the Dead: The Word comes from a trifling Play among Children, called Nenia, which was much used by those of Rome, and wherein he that succeeded best was made King:
Roscia, dic sodes, melior lex, an puerorum Nenia, quae regnum rectè facientibus offert. Hor. Ep. 1. L. 1.But the Nenia for the Dead is derived from a Hebrew Word, that signifies Lamentation or Complaint. The Lamentations of Jeremy are no∣thing else but Nenia's upon the Destruction of the Jewish Monarchy, and the City of Jerusalem, which he bewails like a Man that is dead. Nenia is not Greek; for the Greeks called mournful Songs Epicedia, or Threni. The Nenia's began presently as soon as the Party expired, as it ap∣pears from the Gospel it self: Filia mea modo d••∣functa est, said the Chief of the Synagogue to the Son of God,, and yet the Singers of the Nenias and of all their mournful Musick had already begun their Lamentations. The Nenia's did not al∣ways consist of mean Verses; for those made by David upon the Death of Saul and Jonathan, and of Jeremy upon Jerusalem, are compleat Pieces, and very elegant.