Concerning music (29-32)

Of the Hypolydian mood they make Polymnestus the inventor, and the first that taught the lowering and raising of the voice (ἔκλυσις and ἐκβολή). To the same Olympus to whom they also ascribe the first invention of Grecian and well-regulated nomic music they attribute likewise the finding out the enharmonic music, the prosodiac measure to which is composed the hymn to Mars, and the chorean measure which he used in the hymns to the Mother of the Gods. Some report him to be the author also of the bacchius. And every one of the ancient songs show that this is so. But Lasus of Hermione, transferring the rhythms to suit the dithyrambic time, and making use of an instrument with many notes, made an absolute innovation upon the ancient music, by the use of more notes, and those more widely distributed.

In like manner Menalippides the lyric poet, Philoxenus and Timotheus, all forsook the ancient music. For whereas until the time of Terpander the Antissaean the harp had only seven strings, he[*] added a greater number, and gave its notes a wider range. The wind-music also

Music. ’Tis mine to speak, thy part to hear,

And therefore lend a willing ear;

Much have I suffered, long opprest

By Menalippides, that beast;

He haled me from Parnassus’ springs,

And plagued me with a dozen strings.

His rage howe’er sufficed not yet,

To make my miseries complete.

Cinesias, that cursed Attic,

A mere poetical pragmatic,

Such horrid strophes in mangled verse

Made the unharmonious stage rehearse,

That I, tormented with the pains

Of cruel dithyrambic strains,

Distorted lay, that you would swear

The right side now the left side were.

Nor did my miseries end here;

For Phrynis with his whirlwind brains,

Wringing and racking all my veins,

Ruined me quite, while nine small wires

With harmonies twice six he tires.

Yet might not he so much be blamed,

From all his errors soon reclaimed;

But then Timotheus with his freaks

Furrowed my face, and ploughed my cheeks.

Justice. Say which of them so vile could be?

Music. Milesian Pyrrhias, that was he,

Whose fury tortured me much more

Than all that I have named before;

Where’er I walk the streets alone,

If met by him, the angry clown,

With his twelve cat-guts strongly bound,

He leaves me helpless on the ground.[*]

Aristophanes the comic poet, making mention of Philoxenus, complains of his introducing lyric verses among the cyclic choruses, where he brings in Music thus speaking:—

He filled me with discordant measures airy,

Wicked Hyperbolaei and Niglari;

And to uphold the follies of his play,

Like a lank radish bowed me every way.

Now that the right moulding or ruin of ingenuous manners and civil conduct lies in a well-grounded musical education, Aristoxenus has made apparent. For, of those that were contemporary with him, he gives an account of Telesias the Theban, who in his youth was bred up in the noblest excellences of music, and moreover studied the works of the most famous lyrics, Pindar, Dionysius the Theban, Lamprus, Pratinas, and all the rest who were accounted most eminent; who played also to perfection upon the flute, and was not a little industrious to furnish himself with all those other accomplishments of learning; but being past the prime of his age, he was so bewitched with the theatre’s new fangles and the innovations of multiplied notes, that despising those noble precepts and that solid practice to which he had been educated, he betook himself to Philoxenus and Timotheus, and among those delighted chiefly in such as were most depraved with diversity of notes and baneful innovation. And yet, when he made it his business to make verses and labor both ways as well in that of Pindar as that of Philoxenus, he could have no success in the latter. And the reason proceeded from the truth and exactness of his first education.

Therefore, if it be the aim of any person to practise music with skill and judgment, let him imitate the ancient

First therefore we are to consider that all musical learning is a sort of habituation, which does not teach the reason of her precepts at one and the same time to the learner. Moreover, we are to understand that to such an education there is not requisite an enumeration of its several divisions, but every one learns by chance what either the master or scholar, according to the authority of the one and the liberty of the other, has most affection for. But the more prudent sort reject this chance-medley way of learning, as the Lacedaemonians of old, the Mantineans, and Pallenians, who, making choice either of one single method or else but very few styles, used only that sort of music which they deemed most proper to regulate the inclinations of youths.