The Matters the Ancients Recited in Their Songs, and Certain Musical Laws

The ancient Musicians recited in their songs matters and subjects very different from those which modern songs contain: for they recited things grave, learned, and elegantly composed in various verses — that is, the Praises of the Gods, such as those which are contained in the Hymns of Orpheus; the illustrious deeds of the men victorious in the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, such as those which are contained in the Odes of Pindar. Or else they sang nuptial songs, like those of Catullus. There were heard also funeral Arguments, lamentations, matters of love, and things pertaining to banquets; and to certain songs they added certain prayers, which they called Epilimia, for driving away the pestilence.

They sang Comic and Tragic matters, and other like things full of severity and gravity, as Galen clearly shows us, saying that anciently at banquets the Lyre or Cithara was wont to be carried around, to the sound of which were sung the Praises of the Gods, of illustrious men, and other like things. And he laments that in his own times (as is done also by many at the present day) they were wont to carry around the cups full of white and red wines; and just as the ancients rejoiced at having spent the time virtuously with Music, so then, and at present, many gloried and glory in having eaten and drunk much, recounting the number of the cups they had emptied.

Similarly Cicero says that guests were accustomed to sing at banquets, to the sound of the Pipe, the praises and virtues of illustrious men, adducing the example of Themistocles, already commemorated in the First part. And in the book on famous Orators, entitled Brutus, he says these words: Would to God that those Verses were found which Cato, many ages before his own time, left written in the book of the Origins to have been sung at every banquet, of the Praises of famous and illustrious men.

Such matters were also sung to the sound of the Pipe at their deaths, as the same Cicero affirms in another place. And the mournful Songs the Latins, following the Greeks, called Neniae. Nor truly has Music been given to us for any other purpose than this, which Horace makes manifest in these verses:

Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum, Et pugilem victorem, & equum certamine primum, Et iuvenum curas, & libera vina referre.

[The Muse granted to the lyre to tell of gods and the children of gods, of the victorious boxer and the horse first in the race, of the cares of young men and the liberties of wine.]

And, as Plato shows in the Protagoras, the ancients taught all these matters to their young men, so that they might sing them to the sound of the Lyre or of the Cithara. Whence Homer writes of Achilles:

ἄειδε δ’ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν.

that is: But he sang the praises of men, to the sound of the Cithara.

And of Demodocus he says that he sang the glorious enterprises of men, the contention of Ulysses with Achilles, the tale of Venus and Mars, and the Trojan Horse. Phemius too, in the Odyssey, excuses himself to Ulysses, saying that he sang to the Gods and to men; whence it is to be thought that he sang nothing but grave and severe things, having already sung the mournful and funereal return of the Greeks to their homeland. And although he sang the adultery of Mars and Venus, he did not do it that he might praise such wickedness, but in order to draw the Phaeacians away (as Athenaeus says) from their dishonest desires and pleasures.

In this same manner also in Virgil:

Cithara crinitus Iopas Personat aurata, docuit quæ maximus Atlas. Hic canit errantem Lunam, Solisque labores: Vnde hominum genus & pecudes, vnde imber & ignes: Arcturum, pluuiasque Hyadas, geminosque Triones: Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere Soles Hyberni, vel quæ tardis mora noctibus obstet.

[Long-haired Iopas makes his gilded cithara resound with what mightiest Atlas taught. He sings of the wandering Moon and the labours of the Sun; whence come the race of men and the beasts, whence rain and fire; of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, and the twin Bears; why the winter Suns hasten so to dip themselves in Ocean, or what delay holds back the lingering nights.]

And of Cretheus, a friend to the Muses, likewise:

Semper equos, atq; arma virûm, pugnasq; canebat.

[He sang always of horses, and the arms of men, and battles.]

Nero also, in Suetonius, in the life of that wicked Emperor, sings to the sound of the Cithara the tale of Niobe; and he sang many other Tragedies in a mask, such as Canace in labour, Orestes the slayer of his mother, Oedipus blinded, and Hercules in madness.

And Lucian says that the Arguments and the matters of the songs among the ancients were those things which, beginning from the beginning of the world, had come to pass down to the times of Cleopatra queen of Egypt. Which, it seems to me (according to what he relates), are almost all those things which Ovid writes in his Metamorphoses; and to such singing they danced.

All these things they recited under a determined Harmony, with determined Rhythms and Verses and Percussions, although these were varied in every kind of song. And thus with such numbers, percussions, modes, and concords, and with the human voice, they expressed fitting matters and good habits of character.

They then named such determinations Laws: for a Law in Music is nothing else than a manner of singing which contains in itself a determined concord and a determined Rhythm and Metre. And they were so called because it was not lawful for anyone to change or innovate anything in them, whether in the harmonies or likewise in the Rhythms and Metres; although there are some who say that they were called Laws because, before the civil Laws were written down, such Laws were sung in verse to the sound of the Lyre or Cithara, so that the peoples might more easily retain in memory what they were to observe.

But be that as it may, the Laws were of three sorts: for some were called Citharistic, which were sung to the Cithara or Lyre; and some Tibiary, which were sung to the sound of the Pipes. The third sort were called Common, and were sung to the sound of the one and the other sort of the instruments named.

And although such Laws were many, nevertheless each one had acquired its name either from the peoples who used them, or from the Rhythms and Metres, or from the Modes, from the Inventors, from their lovers, or indeed from their subjects. From the peoples were named the Aeolian and the Boeotian; from the Rhythms and Metres the Orthian and the Trochaic; from the Modes the High and the Tetraedian; from their lovers and inventors the Terpandrian and the Hieracian; and from the subjects the Pythian Contest and the Chariot Law.

These laws (as Plutarch will have it) were published by Terpander, who, having first divided the Citharistic laws, gave names to their parts. The Tibiary laws had many names, which are left aside so as not to run to length, and which (according to what is said) Cleon devised in imitation of Terpander.

The Orthian law pertained to Pallas, and contained in itself matters of war; and it was a species of modulation in Music which Aulus Gellius names the orthian Verse, so called perhaps from its numbers, which are swift and sonorous — seeing that the Greeks call ὄρθιος that which we call Sonorous, although many interpret it as the Song pertaining to a Camp, or to an Army of men at arms.

The Trochaic was a signal which the ancients gave to soldiers by singing, or by the sound of the Trumpet; and the Lacedaemonians used in their armies the singing of the Castorian law, to kindle the spirit of the soldiers to take up arms against their enemies; and such a law was composed under a Rhythm called Embaterius.

The Chariot Law acquired its name from the matter it contained in itself, that is, from the subject, in which was narrated the manner in which Hector, son of King Priam, was dragged by chariots around the Trojan walls.

Of these Laws I have wished to give a little declaration, so that it may be seen that they were composed of numerous verse, fitted to move and to generate diverse passions in the souls.

Nor will it be beside the purpose that we should see in what manner the Musicians anciently recited some one of the aforesaid Laws, singing to the sound of the Pipe, so that we may understand in what manner they could recite the others. And this shall be the Pythian Contest, of which Horace makes mention, showing the qualities of the Musician who had to perform it, saying:

Abstinuit Venere, & Vino, qui Pythia cantat Tibicen, didicit prius extimuitque magistrum;

[The piper who sings the Pythian measures has abstained from love and from wine, and has first learned his art and feared his master.]

Which qualities Nero knew all too well (as one reads in Suetonius), who abstained from fruits and used vomiting and clysters, in order to purge his chest thoroughly, so that in performing upon the Stage he might have the voice clear and clean.

The Argument, then, of such a law was the Battle of Apollo with the serpent Python, which gives the name to the tale; and the name of the whole song was Delona, and perhaps it was so named because Apollo was born in the island of Delos.

This law was (as Julius Pollux shows) divided into five parts, of which the first they named the Rudiment, or Exploration; the second the Provocation; the third the Iambic; the fourth the Spondee; and the fifth and last the Ovation, or Dance.

The representation (as I have said) was the manner of Apollo’s combat with the Dragon. And in the first part was recited in what manner Apollo investigated and contemplated the place, whether it were fit for the combat or not. In the second was declared the manner he held in provoking the Serpent to battle. In the third, the fight; and this part contained a manner of singing to the sound of the Pipe called ὀδοντισμός, seeing that the serpent gnashed its teeth as he shot at it. In the fourth was recounted the victory of Apollo; and in the last was declared how Apollo made festival with dances and leaps for the victory received.

It would be no great marvel if the ancients had leapt and danced when such a law was performed, for they were also accustomed to leap and dance in their Tragedies and Comedies; and to each of these they had fitted its own proper manner. For (as Athenaeus shows) they had devised a species of dance called Emmeleia, and for Comedy one called Cordax. There was also among them a species of satyric Dance, which they called σίκιννις, and it was instituted by Bacchus after he had subdued India.

This was one of the Tibiary Laws, in which the Rhythms, the Measures, the Characters, and the Harmonies were changed according as the matter required.

They had also the dance called Carpaea, which I shall leave off recounting, because it is set down by Athenaeus so clearly that anyone reading it will be able to know what it was, and in what manner they used it. And from these two, that is, from the Pythian Contest and from the Carpaean Dance, one will be able to discern in what manner the ancients performed the other Laws.

We may now see from what has been said that Music had several parts — that is, the Harmony, the Rhythm, the Metre, and the Instrument, from which this part was called Organic. There was also Poetry, and the Dance; and these parts at times all concurred in one composition, and at other times the greater part of them.

Nor was it lawful (as I have said at other times) to change or innovate anything, without the author of such a change having to bear the punishment for it. And such a custom lasted a long time; whence, Music being preserved in such a state, its reputation was preserved also. Brought down afterwards little by little into the state in which we see it today — the peoples having given themselves to gluttony and to lechery, and caring little for such a thing — the Musicians took greater licence, and together with many other things they lost, both they and Music, its ancient gravity and reputation. Which is seen said by Horace, when he says:

Postquàm cœpit agros extendere victor, & vrbem Latior amplecti muros, vinoque diurno Placari genius festis impune diebus, Accessit numerisque, modisque licentia maior:

[After the conqueror began to extend his fields, and a wider wall to embrace the city, and the guardian spirit to be appeased with daytime wine on festal days unrebuked, greater licence came to rhythms and to modes.]

And further on he continues, saying that which I have commemorated above, namely:

Sic priscæ motumque & luxuriam addidit arti Tibicen.

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

And then he goes on further, saying:

Sic etiam fidibus voces crevere severis.

[So too did utterance grow upon the austere lyre.]

Whence it is to be noted that Horace calls the ancient strings severe, because (as I have said) to their sound the ancients recited nothing but severe and grave things.

In this manner, then, did the ancient Musicians, in the age when Music most flourished and was in greatest esteem and reputation, recite the matters related in their songs. But what things, and in what manner, are recited by the moderns, and which have been left aside, everyone who has knowledge of Music will be able to judge and see for himself.