CHAPTER XXV.
The Choice of the Greeks.
THE DELPHIC LYRE.
The fingers of the hand upon the pipes having decreed in a practical way the first scale of musical sounds, very naturally it would come to pass that an instrument with strings, in the time of beginnings, would be set to copy the same order of sounds, which, simple as it was, had an importance that held the character of law, something to be abided by. Imitation is the beginning of conservatism, all history tells us that the crudest and the most limited attainments are those that set up the sternest barriers against innovation.
When the string time came, the method resorted to for obtaining differences in sounds from strings was that of varying the lengths; next the differences gained by varying the strain upon them were perceived; and ultimately the advantages from the use of strings manufactured of various thicknesses. This last method implies the cultivation of a trade or an industrial production of sheepgut treated for the purpose of the musical use of it. Probably the advance from the first step to the last was a slow process; it was progress, and progress is slow.
The Egyptian lyres and harps that are the subject of illustration in the chapter previous, show very clearly the custom of reliance upon differences in lengths, and strain in varying degrees, the sloping bar particularly indicating the simplest mode of effecting change of strain, but as yet there is not evidence of the practice of uniformity in the lengths of the strings of lyres. That the Egyptians had attained skill in making strings of various sizes, gauging them, in fact, to suit the positions of each, may fairly be inferred, at least for late developments in the larger harps, but not, I think, for instruments of the very early periods.
With the Greeks the contrary is the rule, they come into the temple of history ready equipped with the portable open-handed lyre, the strings of uniform length. They are late comers it is true, and derive their arts from both Egypt and Asia, and I should assume that, in this case, the particular form of their lyres was due to Asia.
It was the lyre of the strangers visiting Egypt. Fig. 51, page 293, that was the choice of the Greeks, it may have been Lydian, or Lycian, or Phrygian, or Lesbian, as thus the ancient writers named several modifications of style in lyres, but the essential design is the same in all.
We should not forget that development was going on simultaneously for thousands of years in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. An instrument like that shown in Fig. 52 I consider to have been the prototype of all cross-bar lyres, both of the sloping and the horizontal bars, the latter the latest form because, as I said, implying an industry of skill in making the strings; the original home of the prototype, Mesopotamia, the instrument working its way up into Asia Minor, a region where empires came and went, yet this type of lyre remained through all vicissitudes, fixed in the people’s choice by immemorial custom of age after age.
The Greek lyre is first mentioned by Homer. His words have a deep significance of the intimate influence it had on Greek life. He speaks of the player,—
“How he comforts the heart With the sound of the lyre.”
In the bronzes-room of the British Museum there is a disc with a relief representing Hermes making the lyre. One lyre he holds in his left hand; another is beside the altar. The strings of both are inlaid with silver. The fable concerning the origin of the lyre in the tortoise-shell is told in many ways. In the Hymn to Hermes, according to Mr. Lang’s version, it is told how Hermes,—
“cut to measure stalks of reed and fixed them in through holes bored in the stoney shell of the tortoise, and cunningly stretched round it the hide of an ox, and put in the horns of the lyre, and to both he fixed the bridge and seven harmonious cords of sheepgut. Then took he his treasure when he had fashioned it, and touched the strings in turn with the plectrum, and wondrously it sounded under his hand, and fair sang the God to the notes, improvizing his chant as he played.”
—this version is elegant, some readers would prefer to have the more literal description given by Dr. Burney:—
“the invention of the lyre is attributed to the Egyptian God Hermes or Thoth.... Hermes walking along the banks of the Nile, happening to strike his foot against the shell of a dried tortoise, was so pleased with the sound it produced that it suggested to him the first idea of a lyre, which he afterwards constructed in the form of a tortoise, and strung it with the dried sinews of dead animals.”
The myth will be useful in accounting for the very frequent appearance of the tortoise-shell lyre in the classical designs of the Greek artists in their vases, bronzes and sculpture.
This illustration will represent the finished style so often seen, with the shell and the twisted horns. The ancient artist evidently did not know how the instrument was constructed, and has exaggerated the size of the shell, and curtailed the strings, in a wise ignorance of musical effects depending upon resonance.
The Chelys (from _chelus_, a shell) is the typical form of the Greek lyre, there is no trace of it in Egyptian paintings, they have the more primitive slant-bar style with the square-shaped body, but the Greeks coming much later in date appropriated the method of uniform length of the strings, and although we often read of “the shortest and the longest strings,” the evidences of such in use are hard to find. That many-stringed lyres became accepted in certain circles of society cannot be doubted, the names of many such being current, and the extent over which the series of notes ranged being likewise stated, yet on their vases and marbles and in the best period of classic art, we find the Chelys, and the various modifications of it up to the perfected lyre in the hands of Apollo, alone thought worthy of representation. The abundance of these is marvellous, and the imagination conjures up visions of numberless treasures still waiting beneath the native soil.
Not only was the Chelys the lyre of the gods, it was also the domestic lyre; the tortoise lyre was everywhere at home. The British Museum possesses one of these, alas, one must say, fragments of one, and reckons this poor wreck of musical feeling and devotedness (for it was found in a tomb) a rare and choice treasure. This Chelys is of sycamore and is light and of very simple make, the cross-bar is forked at each end, and so formed it slips over the trimmed points of the two uprights, and rests on notches cut on each side for the purpose; the uprights are shaped to well-known curves and the lower ends were fixed in the tortoise shell, which covering a piece of wood formed a soundboard. Only a portion of the shell remains. The crossbar still retains the black marks made by the strings that in life were wound round it, and tightened there, that the lyre might make music to the fingers of the youth it had comforted, and was lovingly placed in the tomb that it might still continue to comfort him.
As it lay in the case under glass, the measurements as near as I could take them were,—length of arms or uprights 15 inches, the crossbar fixing three inches below the tips of these, and extending 1-1/2in. beyond, between the arms the width at the crossbar 7-1/2in. increasing in the curves to 8-1/2in., the shell with soundboard I reckon as about 7 by 3-1/2in., thus the whole length appears to be 22 inches. The general look of it gives the idea of graceful slimness, the wood is sycamore, and the construction of the lyre so simple that it might have been home-made.
The original lyre of Apollo is of this style, fashioned in the same simplicity, a little more slim, since four strings only were at first given. Looking over the 3,000 gems in the British Museum, the bronzes, and the Sculptures, and the multitude of Vases, from earliest to latest periods, and amidst varied and ornate styles in advanced art, we see that still the same simple form remains a cherished favourite not to be displaced from the people’s choice by the newer patterns, religion and tradition had made this the companion of the ever youthful Apollo, and we find that the artists kept up the association in their representations of the well-known Homeric chronicles of gods and men.
From the way in which the lyre is praised by Homer (or by other poets under his great name), it is evident that the instrument was already ancient. Olympus the elder, and Orpheus the Thracian, were centuries earlier than Homer; two centuries later Terpander comes into recognition historically, and his lyre had but four strings when he gained the prize in his first musical contest at the feast of Apollo in Sparta, B.C. 676, so that from these dates we learn that for many centuries the lyre had remained a simple instrument of four strings, producing but four sounds. Some say that these elder musicians limited themselves to three strings, and that one Linus by name it was who added the fourth string. However Terpander as he grew in renown became dissatisfied, and greatly daring increased the number of the strings to seven. Cleonidas in the _Introduction to Music_ (ascribed to Euclid), has preserved for us two lines from a poem as spoken by Terpander himself, which Mr. Wm. Chappell translates as follows:—
“But we loving no more the tetrachordal chant Will sing aloud new hymns to a seven-toned lyre.”
Sappho used a lyre of six strings, Pythagorus about B.C. 520 added an eighth string, Phrynis added a ninth, Anacreon a tenth, his lyre was supposed to be a Lydian _magadis_, capable of so dividing the string in playing that by an intermediate bar, against which each string could be pressed, octave sounds could be given; then we hear of Timotheus (the younger) in B.C. 446 adding four strings to the Spartan lyre, an audacity which was so great an affront that the Spartan Ephori cut away the four strings, confiscated the lyre and suspended it in the temple as a warning to all innovators, and there it was to be seen by citizens and by travellers in the round building known as the _Skeias_.
Concerning these inventions there are other claimants, and many conflicting statements; the legendary lore also comes in to the confusion of dates, Hermes the old Egyptian God is one of the reputed inventors of the lyre, and he furnished it offhand with the _seven strings_ obtained from the land tortoise, so that chronology is a hazardous topic, baffling the most patient of investigators. The Egyptians themselves only admit of three strings being in the original invention, these representing the three seasons into which their year was divided.
The instrument has many forms, little differences in structure giving rise to new names. The Phorminx, Cithara, Kitharis, Chelys, Barbitos, Psalterion, Trigon, and numerous others; the principle being the same in all I class them under the general term, lyre.
The information given to us in ancient treatises on musical matters affords very little light upon the structure, manipulation, tuning and other details which we in these days are curious about. It is indeed difficult to arrive at reasonable conclusions, having, in default of the actual examples of the Greek Lyres, to rely upon artistic representations often, as we notice, conventional only, as in our day, for artists are ruled by the eye, and seek little beyond appearance; hence fixed types suit them, and this sufficiency accounts for the absence of representations of many instruments which we know by verbal reference alone.
How were the instruments strung? How were they tuned? How played? The utmost obscurity clouds these enquiries.
In order to show the steps in development that took place, I have selected a few illustrations, each change, no doubt had a purpose although there is no record left to enlighten us. The writers of the ancient treatises on music busied themselves with scholastic subtleties concerning scales and tetrachordal divisions, and if they were musicians, perhaps were as indifferent as our composers and musicians too generally have shewn themselves to be to the practical comprehension of the nature and construction of the instruments they used. Much that was written we cannot understand, probably because the terms they used had to them meanings and associations of ideas other than those obvious to modern interpreters. The makers of lyres and the skilled players, those who knew the things we would learn did not write, and the writers who did not know,—they explained things, or undertook to do so, which is another matter, and the consequence is that no man at the present day can speak with certainty upon the most interesting questions connected with these Greek instruments.
Seeking amongst the representations on vases and gems for hints of design and purpose, questioning each one, saying, what can you tell me? I one day found my attention directed to the marked distinction between the ornamental ends of the cross-bar of lyres, how that the designer had drawn the end projecting at the right hand much larger than the end shewing at the left hand. Surely, I thought, that feature in construction indicates handling for some practical end; what can it be but that the cross-bar has been converted to be used as lute and lyre pegs had previously been used—it could be turned.
Then, the eye, being prepared to see, was quickened to observe; I looked around and found so many instances in which this particular distinction of the right hand from the left was dominant in the construction, that the conclusion arrived at was confirmed. The advantage given to the players right hand was that of a better grasp in turning this long peg, evidently the peg by intent fitted very tightly.
Now arose a point of great difficulty. Here was a peg a long bar carrying seven or eight strings, and if its office was to tune the strings, the twisting of the peg would affect the whole series simultaneously, an extension of its office certainly, but in like degree a limitation of its powers. It appeared to me upon close consideration that only a partial twist was allowed to it, and that the intention of it and real purpose of it was to guard the strings against breaking, which would be likely to occur if the strings were under constant tension, subject at the same time to changes of temperature and of moisture. Thus each string would be strained to its desired pitch, and fixed at the bottom holding, and when the instrument was set aside after playing, a slight turn of the peg would slacken the whole series, which again would be tightened, when required, by a partial turn in the opposite direction.
Fortunately there exists a monument which will greatly help us in understanding the practice of the lyre, for it shows us the player in the act of tuning her lyre by this cross bar-peg. The central figure is dancing and playing at the same time, and we should notice the band by which it was the custom to support the lyre from the left arm. The figure to the left of the engraving has already had her dance and is readjusting her strings which have been disturbed in pitch by the plucking of the fingers; the figure on the right is preparing for her turn and is tightening the strings ready for playing. This illustration (_Fig. 62_) was given in “Hope’s Costume of the Ancients,” a work published in 1812, the subject of which did not promise anything for music, but it is a bit of treasure trove very important in the elucidation of the art of the lyre. That block appeared in Nauman’s History of Music, and perhaps is passed by with but a casual glance from musical readers.
The lyre held by Terpsichore (_Fig. 61_), shews a variation in construction, it has below the cross-bar a second bar which would seem in itself to be intended to define more strictly the lengths of the strings when the peg carrying the series were fixed in its correct position, but an examining the larger lyre or Psaltery (_Fig. 63_) carried by Erato, “the lovely one,” as the Greeks called this muse, this addition will be seen to assume a more important relation, and the appearance is as of platform attached to the crossbar through which the strings are threaded, and they do not pass to wind round the bar. This platform is more or less a puzzle. It might be designed to throw the strings more forward of the body of the instrument; Erato’s lyre is curved evidently with that purpose in view. Many representations shew this little platform. I have noticed instances of the loose ends of strings shewn above it, although the rule seems to have been for those ends to be at the bottom of the lyre where the tuning of each string was regulated. Erato’s lyre is of advanced pattern, being hollow like a violin, and doubtless it was of high sonority.
In the gem room of the British Museum there is another painting from Herculanæum, in which a new idea is manifest; the platform is replaced by levers at right angles to the bar to which the strings are attached. M. Victor Mahillon gives a rough drawing of this, but it is hardly convincing as to how such levers or rollers can be brought into use. I have brooded over this painting, searched it intently with opera glasses, seeking time and again to read its mystery, and still it is clouded in mist, the actual construction not to be made out.
There are several illustrations of lyres having a number of loose rings upon the bar; Dr. Burney gives one where one long string is threaded through a series of them from top to bottom of lyre. But the idea is an impossible one for practical validity, since the tension could not be regulated to differ for each note, and the string being continuous from one to the other, to affect one note would be to affect all.
Rings and loops on the bar are often seen, details of strings being omitted, and there is doubt how much the painter knew of the instrument he presumed to depict; modern artists shew themselves equally presumptuous, seldom or never caring to know or to enquire into the mode of playing, or to understand the design of the construction.
Some little light, I think, is given in a description of an ancient lyre which, in a mutilated state, was recovered by Lord Elgin from a tomb at Athens.
“It was in fifty pieces, but the fragments could be so put together as to leave no doubt of its figure and action. The wood is of cedar, and in size similar to that held in the hand of Apollo. Having laid in the earth about three thousand years, it was surprising that the woodwork was not all decayed, for the metallic parts were completely dissolved. This lyre evidently had eight strings, from the number of little rollers which had turned upon the cross bar. On each roller there was a small projecting peg, upon which the string was looped; and then by turning the roller it was raised in pitch, and the mode of fixing it was by slipping the end of the roller, which was notched, upon a fastened piece of wood of corresponding shape.”
This clearly was a clutch method, and a fairly good mechanical invention, and possibly some details are wanting, if fine tuning according to our notions was required; and we are led to suppose that the Greeks were very exacting about pitch. Yet for all the ancient writers tell of subtle divisions of tones, I have my doubts of the practical exercise of discrimination of pitch to the imagined degree of sensitiveness of ear, generally assumed to be a natural gift of the people of Greece; the instruments were not fitted with sufficient mechanical exactness to produce and retain such fine distinctions.
Another advance in lyre-making consisted in the adaptation of a projecting box affixed to the front of the larger body of the lyre; this was an Egyptian invention, for which, see _ante_ Fig. 56. The strings were attached to this little box, and it is probable that within it there were means for tightening and relaxing the tension of each. This was also a useful device for bringing the strings forward from the face of the instrument. Let us hope that some forgotten tomb still holds a perfect lyre in its keeping.
Greek writers make mention of lyres of many strings, with strange sounding names, but examples are rare of such, indeed they are more Asian than Greek. Pompeii and Herculanæum have preserved for us pictures of some, but the period is late.
There is an instrument which may stand as a representative of the many stringed, and as indicating the class of so-called _Trigons_, almost