RHAPSODY, in Antiquity, a discourse in verse sung or rehearsed by a rhapsodist. Others will have rhapsody to signify a collection of verses, especially those of Homer, which having been a long time dispersed in pieces and fragments, were at length by Pisistratus's order digested into books called rhapsodies, from ῥαψῳδία, and ὠδὴ canticum. Hence, among moderns, rhapsody is also used for an assemblage of passages, thoughts, and authorities, raked together from divers authors, to compose some new piece.