On Ancient Music

But if ancient Music had in itself such imperfection (as I have shown above), it does not seem credible that the Musicians could produce so many and such various effects in human souls, as the histories relate: for one reads that at times they moved the soul to wrath, at times drew it back from wrath to gentleness, now induced weeping, now laughter, or other like passions. And it seems the less credible because, Music being today brought to that perfection than which almost nothing better can be hoped for, one does not see that it works any of the aforesaid effects; whence one might rather say that the modern Music, and not the ancient, was the imperfect one.

And because such a matter might breed no small doubt in the minds of readers, therefore, before we go further, it has seemed to me that I ought to discuss certain things upon this subject: and first to show in what manner Music was put to use by the ancients; then, what matters they recited in their songs, and who the ancient Musicians were; besides this, what it was that had power to induce a man into diverse passions, and in what manner the Melodies could move the soul and induce various habits of character in it; and lastly, from what Genus of song such effects were brought about.

Beginning, then, with the first, I say that although Music anciently worked many marvellous things, as one reads, and although it is said that it now works none of the things named, whoever will examine the whole minutely will find that Music even at present is not deprived of working such effects; and one might perhaps see in it, with the greatest wonder, something that would be of no small importance.

It is quite true that modern usage is so various, and so far from ancient usage, that it would be almost impossible to believe it, were no mention made of such a thing by many worthy and honoured writers who lived long before our own age. For the Musicians of those times did not use Music with so many varied sorts of instruments (leaving aside those which they employed in the Comedies and in their armies); nor were their songs composed of so many parts; nor did they make their concords with so many voices as we do now. Rather they practised it in such a manner that, to the sound of a single instrument — that is, of a Pipe, or of a Cithara, or of a Lyre — the Musician simply accompanied his own voice, and in such a way gave pleasing delight both to himself and to his hearers.

In this manner Homer brings in Achilles, Phemius, and Demodocus singing; similarly Virgil brings in Iopas, Horace Tigellius, Silius Italicus Theutrantes; and Suetonius writes that Nero did the like. This same thing was done by those whom the Greeks call Rhapsodes, who were reciters, interpreters, and singers of the verses of the Poets — among whom was Ion, as Plato shows in the dialogue on poetic Frenzy, who interpreted the verses of Homer to the sound of the Lyre, and was so devoted to him, and had made him so familiar to himself, that he was unwilling to expound any other poet but him.

When there were two who sang, they did not sing together and at one time, as is done at the present day, but one after the other; and such a manner of singing they called Singing in turn, in the way that in Theocritus the shepherds Daphnis and Menalcas sang, and in Virgil Damoetas and Menalcas.

The lyric Poets also had the custom, in their musical Contests, of singing their poems and compositions in various kinds of Verse to the sound of the Lyre or of the Cithara; and this they did gathered together in a circle, to the number of fifty, at certain of their festivals. And such an assembly was called a Chorus; and they sang the praises of the Gods, and of those who had been victorious in the Olympic games; and they carried off as the prize of their singing an Ox.

The Country people too were wont in such a manner to offer their vows to the Gods for the fruits of the earth: for gathered together in a chorus about an altar, upon which was the victim of the sacrifice, now walking and now turning about in a circle, they sang to Bacchus certain kinds of verses to the sound of the Pipe. And such a Pipe was not like those which are used now: for in those times it was made of the bones of the legs of Cranes; whence such instruments were called by the Latins Tibiae, that part of every animal being named Tibia in the Latin tongue. Nor was there then need of a larger instrument: for the people who gathered to such places were few, and were more given to toil and labour than to festivals and games.

They had likewise the custom of representing their Tragedies and Comedies by singing them; and Horace hints at this, saying:

Si plausoris eges aulæa manentis, & usque Sessuri, donec cantor, vos plaudite dicat.

[If you need an applauder who waits for the curtain and will keep his seat until the singer says “Give your applause,” …]

And it was the custom (as the Philosopher affirms) that the Poets themselves should recite the Tragedies and Comedies which they had composed, and they sang them. Whence, as Livy relates, one called Livius, having made a Play in verse ordered with its own argument, recited it himself; then, being unable to speak further because his voice had failed him, he begged to be excused, and set a boy to sing it, who having acquitted himself well, a custom was introduced that such things should be sung by the Actors. And Horace touches a word of this, saying in his Art of Poetry:

Ignotum Tragicæ genus invenisse camœnæ Dicitur, & plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis, Quæ canerent, agerentq; peruncti fecibus ora.

[Thespis is said to have discovered the unknown kind of the Tragic muse, and to have carried his poems on waggons, which men sang and acted with their faces smeared with lees of wine.]

I believe also that the Orators declaimed to the people to the sound of some instrument, although in my opinion such a custom lasted but a short time: for Cicero touches a word of it in the Oration which he made in favour of P. Sestius, which is found imperfect; and also at the end of the third book of the Orator, speaking of Gaius Gracchus, he shows it, although this seems somewhat strange to Aulus Gellius. But Plutarch modestly relates such a thing, and says that Gaius Gracchus, being a man vehement in speaking, was often carried away by wrath, so that he came to abuse and reviling, and thus he was wont to disturb his own oration. Whence, knowing such a thing, he bethought himself to remedy it by having a servant learned in Music, named Licinus, stand behind him on the platform, who, whenever he heard him growing harsh and drawing out of his own natural voice, would warn him with an instrument and make him quiet such vehemence.

And at this we ought not to marvel, since the art of Oratory had its beginning (as Strabo will have it) from poetry, and the Poets declaimed to the people singing verses to the sound of the Cithara or Lyre, and drew them to do their will; which Ariosto also shows well, saying:

Li scrittori indi fer l’indotta plebe Creder, che al suon delle soavi cetre L’un Troia, & l’altro edificasse Thebe. E havesson fatto scendere le pietre Da gli alti monti, & Orpheo tratto al canto Tigri, e Leon, dalle spelunche tetre.

[Thereafter the writers made the unlearned crowd believe that to the sound of sweet citharas the one built Troy and the other Thebes; and that they had made the stones come down from the high mountains, and that Orpheus drew tigers and lions to his song out of their gloomy caves.]

The ancients also sang to the sound of the Pipe, reciting various songs composed in verse; and this they did at times when two were together, one of whom knew how to sing and the other to play — as the Poet indicated when he brought in Menalcas to say these words to Mopsus the shepherd:

Tu calamos inflare leves, ego dicere versus:

[Yours to blow upon the light reeds, mine to speak the verses.]

For the one was a skilled player of the Pipe, and the other sang excellently.

There was also among the ancients the custom of leaping and dancing while the Musician recited something to the sound of the Lyre or Cithara, or of some other instrument — as is seen in Homer in the Odyssey, where, Demodocus singing to the sound of the Cithara, the Greeks leapt and danced. And likewise Virgil, in the first book of the Aeneid, imitating him, says that as Iopas sang to the sound of the Cithara,

Ingeminant plausu Tyrij, Troesq; sequuntur;

[The Tyrians redouble their applause, and the Trojans follow.]

And in another place he manifests such a thing more clearly, saying:

Pars pedibus plaudunt Choreas, & carmina dicunt.

[Some beat out the dances with their feet, and utter songs.]

Similarly Horace (albeit he makes no mention that there was singing) says:

Sic priscæ motumq; & luxuriam addidit arti Tibicen.

[So the piper added movement and exuberance to the ancient art.]

Of this one might have infinite examples, which for brevity I now leave aside, since the Odes of Pindar give of it undoubted proof. For they are divided into three parts, of which the first is called στροφή, the second ἀντιστροφή, and the third ἐπωδός, and they are comprehended under the lyric verses. The ancients sang them to the sound of the Lyre or of the Cithara, and danced or leapt in such a manner that, when the dancers turned from the right side toward the left, they sang the first part; and when they went from the left to the right they sang the second; and they came to rest when they sang the third. Which manner of dancing or leaping lasts to this day among the Cretans and those who dwell in the island of Cyprus.

The ancients, then, used Music in the manner we have said, accompanying the voice with a single instrument; and if at times they used several sorts of instruments, they accompanied the voice with them — as among barbarous peoples it is still the custom at present in some parts, and above all in the Levant, as I have many times heard said by men worthy of belief. But the two first manners (as the histories bear witness) were greatly in use.

The ancients used various sorts of instruments in their armies: for the Tuscans used the Trumpet, of which they were themselves the inventors, as some will have it; the Arcadians the Bagpipe; the Sicilians certain instruments which they called πύκτιδας; the Cretans the Lyre; the Lacedaemonians the Pipe; those of Thrace the Horn; the Egyptians the Drum; and the Arabs the Cymbal.

The Romans made use in their comedies of certain sorts of Pipes, which they called Right and Left, from which the Spectators could understand under what genus the Comedies were contained which they were about to perform. For when the Comedy contained in itself a severe and grave matter or subject, the grave concord of the left Pipes was heard; when it was jocose and festive, the concord which arose from the right Pipes was high; and if it was mixed, the musical songs were tempered with the one and the other sort of concord.

And such songs were not made by the Poet who had composed the Comedy, but by one skilled in the art of Music, as may be seen at the beginning of each Comedy of Terence. And they were varied in Mode, or Tone as we may say; and they had them heard before they began to represent the Comedy, so that the matter contained in it (as I have said) might be known beforehand by the Spectators.

Nevertheless in our times such sorts of Pipes are still unknown, although Servius, in the ninth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, upon that verse O vere Phrygiae, shows that they were of two sorts, of which he names the one Seranian Pipes and the other Phrygian. The first were Equal, and so he calls them, because they had their bores equal and alike; the second Unequal, seeing that their bores were unequal.

Servius then adduces the authority of Marcus Varro, wishing to declare which are the right and which the left Pipes, saying that the right Phrygian Tibia has a single hole, and the left has two, of which the one has the high sound and the other the low. But these words differ from those which are set down in the first book, chapter 2, of the treatise on Country Matters, where he says that the one sort of Pipes sounded the modes of one and the same Verse in the high register, and the other in the low; whence, following further down, from his words it may be understood that the left sent forth the low sound and the right the high.

And this may be confirmed by the authority of Pliny, who, speaking of the water reeds, says that they were wont to be cut at the fitting season, about the time of the star Arcturus, down to the age of Antigenes the Pipe player, simple Music being still in use in those times; and thus prepared, after some years they began to be good; and even then they had to be used very often, and the players had almost to teach them to sound, because the tongues came to touch one against the other — which was far more serviceable for showing forth character in the Theatres. But afterwards, when variety and wantonness of song came in, they began to cut them before the Solstice, and in the third year they were good, since they had their tongues more open and more apt to vary the sounds; which today are still so.

But in those days it was held that those agreed together which came from one and the same cane, and that the part which was near the root suited the left Pipe, and that which was near the tip the right. This Pliny says, and it seems to me well said: for those parts which are near the root are necessarily thicker than those which are nearer the tip; whence it is seen every day by experience that, their body being larger and wider, it renders the sound the lower; as the contrary is discerned in those which are more slender and more contracted. Which is also seen and heard in the instruments they call Organs, whose pipes, the wider they are, the lower are the sounds they render, and the more slender the higher.

But to what has been said there seems to be contrary a certain uncertain Author of that Greek Epigram which begins τὸν σοφὸν ἐν κιθάρῃ, for he calls the low string δεξιτερὴν ὑπάτην, that is, the right Hypate, and the high λαιὴν νήτην, that is, the left Nete. But this matters little, since, the thing being well considered, it comes out conveniently in the one manner and in the other, seeing that the parts of every instrument may be considered and named in two ways: first, in respect of ourselves; then, in respect of the instrument itself.

In respect of ourselves, the part of the instrument set toward the right hand is called the Right, and renders the high sounds, as is seen in Organs, Monochords, and other like instruments; and that which is set toward the left is called the Left, and renders the low sounds. But in respect of the instrument, that which is right to us is left to it; and contrariwise, that which is right to it is left to us — as may be seen in two men who should wrestle together, where the right side of the one is the left to the other, and the left the right. It is therefore no absurdity if the one names that part right which the other calls left, such parts being diversely considered according to their several opinions.

In this manner, then, was Music put to use by the ancients; and how far this manner differs from modern usage, everyone will always be able to see for himself, just as he will also be able to see elsewhere how far their concord differed from the modern. But what matters they recited in their songs, that which is contained in the following chapter will make manifest to us.