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PART
1
The Heritage
of
Antiquity
1
Orpheus and the Magical Powers
of
Music
i
Very few specimens
of
music have survived from Greek and Roman times, not
nearly enough to give us an accurate idea of how their music autudly sounded.
By
contrast,
we
know
a
great deal concerning classical theory and,
even
more
im-
portant, classical aesthetics of music.
In
these fields, the Greek contribution to
later Western attitudes is fundamental. To the Greeks, music possessed
ethaj;
that is,'the
power
to influence its hearers' emotions and behavior, indeed their
J
morals. This magical power (recognized,by the way, by all of the worlds
cul-
tures,
in
countless legends) is nowhere
so
dramatically illustrated
as
in the
an-
cient, cclebmted myth
of
Orpheus, given here in the version of the Roman poet
Ovid. The
son
of
a
Muse
hy a Thracian prince, Orpheus acquired such skill at
singing and playing the lyre that nothing animate
or
inanimate could resist his
music.
An
early instance of his powers occurred when,
as
one
of
the Argonauts
bringing home the Golden
Fleece,
he saved himself and his fellow mariners
from drowning by singing more persuasively than the seductive Sirens. His
death
was
tragic: he was torn to bits'by the
jealous
women of Thrace, who were
driven
to
frenzy by the power
of
his song and enraged by his
lack
of
attention
to
them.
For
all his thoughts remained with his twice-dead wife Eurydice,
of
whom
we
rend
in
the selection that follows.
Hymen, clad in his saffron robes, was summoned by Orpheus [to his
wedding], and ma+ his way across the vast reaches of the sky to the
shores of the Cicones. But Orpheus' invitation
to
the god to attend his
marriage was of no avail, for though he was certainly present, he did not
bring good luck. His expression was gloomy, and he did not sing his ac-
1
2
THE
IIERITAGE OF
ANTIQUITY
P~tl~ngot,~,~
rind
the
Ahimericul l’roperiies ofhfrrsic
3
customed refrain. Even the torch he carried sputtered, and smoked,
bringing tears to the eyes, and no amount of tossing could make
it
burn.
The outcome was even worse than the nmens foretold: for khile the new
bride was wandering in the meadows, with her band of water nymphs, a
serpent bit her ankle, and she sank lifeless to the kround. The Thracian
poet mourned her
loss;
when he had wept for her to the full in the upper
world, he made so bold as to descend through the gate
of
Taendrus to the
Styx, to try to rouse the sympathy of the shades as well. There he passed
among the thin ghosts, the wraiths
of
the dead, till he reached Per-
sephone and her lord, who hold sway over these dismal regions, the king
ofthe shades. Then, accompanying his words with the music of his lyre,
he said:
“Deities of this lower world, to which all we of mortal birth
de-
scend,
if
I
have yonr permission to dispense with rambling insincerities
and speak the simple truth,
I
did not come here to see the dim haunts
of Tartarus, nor yet to chain Medusa’s monstrous dog, with its three
heads and snaky ruff. I came because of my wife, cut
off
before she
reached her prime when she trod on a serpent and it poured its poison
into her veins. I wished to be strong enough to endure my grief, and
I
will not deny that
I
tried
to
do so: but Love was too mnch for me. He is
a god well-known in the world above; whether he may be
so
here, too,
I
do
not know, but
I
imagine that he
is
familiar to you also.
1
heg you,
by these awful regions, by this bonndless chaos, and by the silence of
your vast realms, weave again Eurydice’s destiny, brought too swiftly to
a close. We mortals and all that
is
ours are fated to
fall
to you, and after
a
little time, sooner or later, we hasten to this one abode. We are all on
our way here, this is our final home, and yours the most lasting sway
over the human race. My wife, like the rest, when she has completed
her proper span
of
years will, in the fnllness of time, come within ynnr
pwer.
I
nsk
iis
ii
gift fr~~ni
up the steep dark track, wrapped in impenetrable gloom, till they had al-
most reached the surface of the earth. Here, anxious in case his wife’s
strength be failing and eager to see her, the lover looked behind him,
and straightway Eurydice slipped back into the depths. Orpheiis
stretched out his arms, straining
to
clasp her and
be
clasped; but the hap
less man touched nothing but yielding air. Enrydice, dying now a sec-
ond time, uttered
no
complaint against her husband. What was there to
complain of, but that she had been loved? With
a
last farewell which
scarcely reached his ears, she fell back again into the same place from
which she had come.
Ovid.
Aleriii,roirl/roses.
trims.
Mary
M. Innes (Harrnondrworth:
Penguin Classics,
1955).
225-26.
Copyright
0
Mary
hl. lnnes,
1955.
Heprinted
by
permission of Peogoin.
Books Ltd.
2
Pythagoras and the Numerical
Properties
of
Music
yiiu
only tlic eiijoynient
nf
her;
lrrit if the
htes refuse her a reprieve, I have made up my mind that I do not wish
to return either. You may exnlt in my death
as
well as hers!”
As
he sang these words to the music of his lyre, the bloodless ghosts
were in tears. Tantalus made no effort to reach the waters that ever
shrank away, Ixion’s wheel stood still
in
wonder, the vultures ceased to
gnaw Tityus’ liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from their pitchers,
and Sisyphus sat idle on his rock. Then for the first time, they say, the
cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears, for they were overcome by his
singing. The king and queen of the underworld could not bear to refuse
his pleas. They called Eurydice. She was among the ghosts who had but
newly come, and walked slowly because
of
her injury. Thracian Orpheus
received her, but on condition that he must not look hack until he had
emerged from the valleys of Avernus
01
else the gift he had been
b’
the
early
intimatc association
hctween
sstrwwmy
and
music,
,
later wrlified by Plato
and
his
followers
as
related fields
of
higher learning.
i
Pythagoras himself reinnins
n
shadowy,
quasi-legendary
figure,
about whom
manyrclnarkable stories
were
told. Here
is
one
of
the
must
famous,
as
related by
I
a
neo-Pythagorean
of
the second
century
A.D.:
it accounts
for the invention of the
:
:,
The
mystic
philosopher Pythagores (sixth
century
R.c.)
arid
his
disciples
are
credited
with
the discovery
of
the numerical relittionships governing
the
basic
intervals
of
music-the
octave,
tlre
fifth, the fourth, the second. Numbers formed
the basis
of
the Pythagorean
universe,
and
it
is
here that
the
nation
of
a
“h;~rrna~~y
01
ilra
s~~l~~les’’
1
inonochord
(here called
chunloto~tos),
the one-stringed instrument
upon
which
1
the Pythagoreans and
all later
acoustical scientists,
up
through the Middle
Ages,
conducted their experiments. (Incidentally, the
numerical
proportions men-
tioned
in
the
story
are
applicable only with
regard
to
tlre
length of
strings-not
their
tension-and
certainly not to the weight
of
hammers! This is further
proof.
if
any
were
needed, that
the
ancient
legend
is
$1
fdxication.)
riven
Pythagoras being in
an
intense thought whether he might invent tiny
instrumental help to the ear, solid and infallible, such
as
the sight hath
by
a
compass and rule, as he passed by
a
smith’s
slwp
by
a
happy chiince
he heard the iron hammers striking on the anvil, and rendering sounds
would be taken from him.
Up
the sloping path, through the mute silence they made their way,
wiis
h0n1.
iw
imudil~lc
Iisnnony
Ccnmrlcd
on,
IIIC
Iiiisic
innusicid
1
proportions.
~~ence
4
THE
I%ERI.I.AGE
OF
ANTIQUITY
urd
flit
Nunwriccrl
Propertier
of
Almic
5
served in them thesc three
coiicords:
tlie
nctave,
the fifth
mid
the fourth,
J
but that which was between the fimrth and the fifth he found to be
ii
dis-
cord
in
itself, tlrooglr otherwise
risehil
for
the making
up
(if
the greater
of
them, the fifth. Apprehending this came to him
from
God,
as
R
most
happy thing, he hastened into the shop,
and
by various trials finding the
difference
of
the
sounds
to be according to the weight
of
the hammers,/
and not according to the hrce of those
wliu
struck,
iror
according tu the
fashion
of
the
hammers,
nor
according to the turning
of
the iron which
was
in
beating out: haviiig taken exactly the weight of the h;uiiniers, he
went straightway lionre,
;nid
to
one
lieam fiistened to the walls,
cross
from one coi-ner of the roiiiii to tlie other, tying four strings
of
the same
substance, length, iund twist,
upon
each
of
them
hc
hung
a
several
weight, fasteningit tit the lower end, and inaking the length ofthestrings
altogether equal; then striking the strings
by
two at
a
time interchange-
ably, he
f(innd
nut the
aforesaid
concords, each
in
its
own
comliination;
for
that which was stretched by the greatest weight,
in
respect
of
th;it
which
was
stretched by
tlie
least weight, he found to sound
in1
octave.
J
Thegreatest weight
was
of
twelve pounds, the least of six; thence Ire de-
termined that the octave
did
consist
iii
double proportinn, wlriclr the
weights themselves did show. Next he
found
that the greatest tir the least
but
one,
which was of eight
1iounds,
soundtd
ii
filth;
~IICIII.~
Iir
iiifcw<d
this to consist
in
the proportion
3:2,
in
which
propiirtion the weights
were to
one
another; but unto that which was less
than
itself
in
weight,
yet greater than the rest, being
of
nine
pounds,
he
found
it to sound
ii
fotlrth;
;wd
discovcreil that, propi,rtii)nably to the weights, this
concord
was
4:3;
which string
of
nine pounds
is
naturally
3:2
to the least;
for
nine
to six is
so,
viz.,
3:2,
iis
the least blit one, which is eight,
was
to that which
li;id
the weight six,
iii
Iirqiortio11
4:3;
:LIIII
twelve to eight is
3:2;
niid
that
which
is in
the middle, between
ii
fifth ;nid
ii
fourth, whereby
a
fifth
exceeds a fourth, is confirmed to he in
9:s
proportion. Thesystem nfboth
was called
DiollosiJii,
or
octave, that is both the fifth and the fonrth
.
P~~fhag~~r~~ls
most consonant to one ariotlrer in
all
comhinntions except nne. Ile oh-
6
THE
IIERITAGE
OF
ANTIQUITY
Pluto’.T
MtIsicnl
Idealism
7
nf
43
by
32.
Applying both his hand and earto the weights which he had hung on,
aitd
hy them cnnfirming the prnportinn
nf
the relations, hc ingeniously
trmsferred the common result
of
the strings upon the crnssbeam to the
bridge of
an
instrument, which he called Chordotoiifis; and for stretch-
ing them proportionably to the weights, he invented pegs, by the turning
whereof he distended
or
relaxed them at pleasure. Making use of this
farindation as an infallihle rule, he extended the experiment to many
,
kinds
of
instruments.
as
well pipes and flutes as those which have
find
echoes
whenever,
in
time to
come,men
will seek to
control
or
refnrm
music.
Fur
to Plato, and like-minded thinkers (including
such
nan-Westerners
as
Con-
fucius), musical license
is
but
a step
away
from social chaos.
1
strings; and he found that this conclusion made by numbers was con-
sonant without variation in
all.
Our music was formerly divided into several kinds and patterns. One
kind of song, which went by the name of a Ryinn, consisted of prayers to
the gods; there was a second and contrasting kind which might well have
1
been called a
lument;
paeans
were a third kind, and there was a fourth,
the dithyru~nh,as it
was
called, dealing, if I am not mistaken, with the
birth of Dionysus. Now these and other types were definitely fixed, and
it was not permissible to misuse one kind of melody for another. The
competence to take cognizance of these rules, to pass verdicts in accord
with them, and, in case
of
need, to penalize their infraction was not left,
as
it is today, to the catcalls and discordant outcries of the cruwd, nor yet
to the clapping of applauders; the educated made it their rule to hear the
performances through in silence, and for the boys, their attendants, and
the rabhle at large, there was the discipline of the official’s rod to enforce
order. Thus the bulk
of
the populace was content to submit to this strict
control in such matters without venturing to pronounce judgment by its
clamors.
Afterward, in course of time,
an
unmusical license set
in
with the ap-
pearance of poets who were men of native genius, but ignorant of what is
right and legitimate in the realm of the Muses. Possessed by a frantic and
unhallowed lust for pleasure, they contaminated laments with hymns
and paeans with dithyrambs, actually imitated the strains of the flute
on
the harp, and created
a
universal confusion
of
forms. Thus their folly led
them unintentionally to slander their profession by the assumption that
in music there is no such thing as a right and a wrong, the right standard
of
judgment heing the pleasure given to the hearer, be he high or low.
By
compositions of such a kind and discourse to the same effect, they
naturally inspired the multitude with contempt of musical law, and a
conceit of their own competence as judges. Thus
~
llisiory
of
the Scierice
orid
I’rncrice
of
Mimic
(Londcm, 1776;
rqriiit
of
2nd cd..
New
York: Dover
Pablir;ttioms.
Inc..
1963).
I.
9-10
(from
Nicomnulrus.
Ewl!iridion
!mrvtonic<w
trans. Tlromas Stanlcy
[
1701l).
3
Pluto’s Musical ldealism
made
music
a powerful
forcc
for
good
or for evil
in
the
view of
Greek
thinkers. Plat<>,
the
most
inAuenti;tl
of
them,
dealt
with
the
subject repeatedly.
He
looked
dau,n
on
the
use of
music
fnr
mere
pleasure.
J
Second-rate and commonplace people, being too uneducated to enter-
tain themselves as they drink by using their own voices and conversa-
tinual resources, put up the price
of
female musicians, paying well for
the hire of an extraneous voice-that of the pipe-and find their enter-
tainment
io
its warblings. But where the drinkers are men
nf
worth and
culture, you will find no girls piping
or
dancing or harping. They are
quite capable of enjoying their nwu company without such frivolous
nonsense, using their own voices in sober discussion and each taking his
turn to speak or listen-even if the drinking is really heavy.
once silent audi-
ences have found a voice, in the persuasion that they understandwhat
is^
giod and bad in art; the old “sovereignty ofthe best in that sphere has
given way to an evil “sovereignty’.bf
~
our
~~
...~~))~,~
If
the consequence
had been even a democracy, no great harm would havebeen done,
so
long
as
the democracy was confined to art, and composed of free men.
But, as this.are_withus, music
~~
the audience.”
~~
has given occasion to a general conceit
of
universal knowledge and contempt for law, and.Lberty_has followed
.
~
.~~..
-
.... ~._
Prole~onrt
3474
Fear was cast out by confidence in supposed knowTedge,
and the lossof it gave birth to impudence. For to be unconcerned for the
judgment
ok
nne’s betters in the assurance which comes of a reckless
excess of liberty is nothing in the world but reprehensible impudence.
So
the next stage of thejourney toward liberty will be refusal to sub-
mit to the magistrates, and
on
this will follow emancipation from the an-
thority and correction of parents and elders; then, as the goal
of
the race
l’latci’s
nostalgia for
an
idealized
Gdrlen
Agc of
Greece
prnfnundly colored
his
thinking on
music.
When
virtue and simplicity
of cutoms
ruled,
music
had
seen
Iwtter
days.
This
ideal,
prolxihly
strengthened
by
Plato’s admiration
for the
sop-
posed
virtues
of
the disciplined, self-denying
Spartans (as
against
the
vices
uf
the
pleasure-seeking Athenians),
leads him
to
set
down
pronouncements
that
will
jrrincd tngcther,
11s iliililr
prnportioii is compounded of
3:2
and
4:3,
or on
thc ~(mtrary,
John
Hawkins,
A
CPIII.~~
Its
eth~~
in their~~train.
8
THE
HERITAGE
OF
ANTIQUITY
Ploto’s
Mtrsicnl
Idealism
9
comes the effort tn cscape ohedience tn the law, and,
when that goal is all hut reached, contempt for oaths, for the plighted
word, and all religion. The spectacle of the Titanic nature of which our
old legends speak is re-enacted; man returns to the old condition of a
hell
of unending misery.
The mixed Lydian,
he
said, and the tense or higher Lydian, and simi-
These, then, said
I,
we mnst do away with. But again, drunkenness is
a thing most onbefitting guardians, and so is softness and sloth.
Yes.
What, then, are the soft and convivial modes?
There are certain Ionian and also Lydian modes that are called
law.
Will
you make any use of them for warriors?
None at all,
he
said, but it would seem that you have left the Dorian
and the Phrygian.
I
don’t know the musical modes, I said, but leave us that mode that
would fittingly imitate the utterances and the accents of
a
brave man who
is engaged inwarfare or in any enforced business, and who, when he has
failed, either meeting wounds or death or having fallen into some other
mishap, in
all
these conditions confronts fortune with steadfast endur-
ance and repels her strokes. And another for such a man engaged in
works of peace, not enforced hot voluntary, either trying to persuade
somebody of something and imploring him-whether it
be a
god,
through prayer, or a man, by teaching and admonition-or contrariwise
yielding himself to another who is petitioning him or teaching him or
trying to changehis opinions, and in consequence faring according to his
wish, and not hearing himself arrogantly, hut in all this acting modestly
and moderately and acquiescing in the outcome. Leave us these two
modes-the enforced and the voluntary-that will best imitate the utter-
ances of men failing or succeeding, the temperate, the brave-leave us
these.
Well, said he, you are asking me to leave none other than those
I
just
spoke of.
Lner
700a-701c.
It
is
this horror
uf
disorder that underlies the uelehrated passages concerning
music
in
the
Republic.
Here,
as
elsewhere, Platu’s
use
of the ward
music
is
more
comprehensive than
ours.
It includes lyric poetry and
also,
sometimes, the gen-
eral education of the intellect
as
against gymnastics, the education
of
the hody.
In
the ideal city-state, says Plato,
The overseers must
he
watchful against its insensible corruption. They
milst throughout
be
watchful against innovations
in
music and gymnas-
tics counter to the estahlished order, and to the best of their power guard
against them, fearing when anyone says that that song is most regarded
among men “which hovers newest on the singer’s lips” [Od!lssey
i.
3511,
lest it
be
supposed that the poet means not new songs but a new way of
song and is commending this. But we must not praise that sort of thing
nor
conceive it to
he
the poet’s meaning. For a change to
a
new type of
music is something to beware of as a hazard of all our fortunes.
Forthe
-music
are never disturbed without unsettling of
thr
st
fun;
damental political and social conventions.
Rrliebfic
42413-c.
A
discussion of the Greek modes,
or
“harmonies,” would
he
too far-reaching for
our purposes.
Suffice
it to say that the Greeks had very definite opinions as
to
the
effect
of their various modes, which they called by traditional, nriKinally tribal,
names.
Here,
from
Book
iii
of the
Hej~ublic,
is
part
of
the famous dialogue be-
tween Socrates
(as
Plato’s mouthpiece) and
Glaucon
concerning the hanishment
of
most
of the modes from the ideal city-state. (That the Dorian survived is
no
surprise,
since
the Greeks associated the name Dorian with Spsrta, the “brave”
city-state Plato
so
admired.) In later
passages,
most instruments get banished
as
well. Note the stress Plato places on “imitation.” All art, according to him,
is
imitation
of
objects perceptible by the
senses.
And
in
Rook
x
of the
Reiiublic
/‘h:
reminds
us
that
all
perceptible objects
are
themselves imitations of eternal
on,qinalr,
so
that art consists
of
nothing
more
than an imitattion of an imitation.
Rcphlic
388d-399~.
The distinction hetwcen perceptible “objects” and immutable “forms”-so cen-
tral to Platonic thinking-lies behind the whole doctrine of ethos. Plato is
less
interested
in
the audihlc than in the inaudible-the harmony of the inner man,
which,
in
turn,
is
a
reflection of the harmony
of
the universe. These ideas are
ex-
pounded at length
in
l’imocitr,
the only Platonic dialogue known to the Middle
Ages (thanksto
a
Latin translation by Cicero)and a powerful influence
on
all
me-
dieval musical thought.
\
The sight in my opinion is the source ofthe greatest benefit to us, for
had
we never seen the stars and the sun and the heaven, none
of
the words
which we have spoken about the universe would ever have been ut-
tered. But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolu-
tions of the years have created number and have given us a conception of
time, and the power of inquiring about the nature of the universe. And
We said we did not require dirges and lamentations in words.
We do not.
What, then, are the dirgelike modes of music? Tell me, for you are a
musician.
is ap~~rnached.
lar modes.
-
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