Middle and upper class [Athenian] girls learned to read, write and probably play the lyre from a female tutor at home. They only performed physical exercises at festivals, and probably never in public as Spartan girls did. But the Spartans regarded physical health in girls as an important factor in producing future generations of warriors.

What is the main idea of the excerpt?

If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die. that strain again! it had a dying fall: o, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odour! now read the excerpt from "the love song of j. alfred prufrock." for i have known them all already, known them all: have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, i have measured out my life with coffee spoons; i know the voices dying with a dying fall beneath the music from a farther room. what does the phrase "dying fall" most likely mean in both excerpts