In this groundbreaking work, Claude Calame argues that the songs sung by choruses of young girls in ancient Greek poetry are more than literary texts; rather, they functioned as initiatory rituals in Greek cult practices. Using semiotic and anthropologic theory, Calame reconstructs the religious and social institutions surrounding the songs, demonstrating their function in an aesthetic education that permitted the young girls to achieve the stature of womanhood and to be integrated into the adult civic community. This first English edition includes an updated bibliography.