One of the illustrations I give is taken from a representation on a vase of a flute player at a musical contest. He wears a phorbia or capistrum, which is a kind of leather bandage or bridle, used in precaution lest he should burst his cheeks in blowing; and the band has two holes pierced at the mouth for the insertion separately of the pipes. The fact of the use of the pipes in the band separately is beyond question, since the actual pattern of the band exists in a relic from Cyprus in the Cesnola collection at New York, and the holes in it are not large enough to admit the bulbs, but only the tip portion as shewn here. This player, as you will notice, is playing one of the new double flutes,—not an Egyptian flute.

Female players also used the phorbia in playing. Dennis notes on a vase “an auletris with black hair, and a phorbia over the mouth, stood by the bier playing the double pipes”—thus keeping up the Egyptian custom.

The reeds are not now taken into the mouth. Drawings of the Arghool should have shown that each reed was, at the tip, tied to the pipe by a slack rambling string, for by these bits of string each reed is connected with its pipe lest it should be lost. This is shown in the Summarah drawing. Enthusiasts newly trying the Arghool are very ready to drop it, since they soon feel sick from the unpleasant sensation of the reeds and the loose bits of string in the mouth, and it is an experience one remembers.

Come with me to the Vase Rooms of the British Museum and look at some of the spoils of Time. Mr. Dennis in his beautiful work on the Vases of Etruria says “the enormous quantities of the vases that have been found in Etruscan soil, within the last fifty years alone, may be reckoned not by thousands but by myriads.”

In these rooms—and there are three large rooms devoted to these specimens of fictile art—there are some hundreds of vases. Many hours I have spent amongst them, brooding over their beauty, and wondering of the tales they told of a people long passed away and a religion once the glory of the earth. On numbers of vases flute players male and female, are depicted, sometimes three or four on one vase; and the various attitudes I observed, and the indications of purpose they betokened, led me believe that there was some meaning beyond mere ornamentation in the cocoon like bulbs of the flute heads. I examined minutely vase after vase, and discovered at length out of the whole number three vases on which were delineated players handling their flutes each in a different manner, and these conveyed clearly to my mind the conviction that the bulbs were detached pieces which the player was able to arrange. Then arose the question in my mind, “for what purpose?” You have the three pictures before you. Now it is very curious that only by means of the Greco-Etruscan art work are the subulo double flutes brought to our knowledge (for distinction, it may be well to give these bulbed flutes the name by which the Etruscan player was called); and yet the period during which this new invention was in vogue, comprises that in which Greece was at the height of her intellectual power. The age of Pericles and Phidias, of Plato and Euripides, of the rearing of the Parthenon and of the grand Temple of Jove at Olympia!

The dates of the vases of the best period, all are included between 440 and 330 B.C.; some earlier, also showing these flutes, date back fifty years more. Thousands of these recovered vases are distributed in museums and private collections, and have been of inestimable value for the insight they have afforded into the domestic life of the Greek people. Aristophanes in one of his comedies, written about 450 B.C., makes a bit of satire out of these flutes, causing Micas and another to say—comically complaining of their master—“Let us weep and wail like two flutes breathing some air of Olympos.” All that their poets and other writers told us of their flutes and flute-players fails to come home to our understanding until associated with these enduring pictures; and we know at least that they are genuine records, and that time has allowed no hand to tamper with them. It is evident that flute music exercised a fascinating influence over these people; the player is present alike in scenes of mirth and revelry, in solemn ceremonials and in funeral procession; and yet we are so far away in thought culture and sentiment, that we are unable to imagine what that music was that it could give such delight, and be accounted one of life’s chiefest luxuries. Here, beyond question, we have the testimony of the eye that it was so; and we know that the natural laws of sounding pipes are the same to-day as yesterday, and the limits of capability of four or six holes allowed but a very narrow range for melody.

The player was called by the Etruscans “Subulone”: by the Greeks “Auletris” and the flutes known as “Auloi.” The pipes were formed of boxwood, lotus wood and sycamore.

Was it on these double flutes that Lamia played and so ’witched the world that it built a temple to her, and paid divine honours to her name? Were these the flutes spoken of as being able to play in three modes, the famed flutes, the invention of Pronomus the Theban? The date given of Pronomus is given as about 440 B.C., and is that of the period of these vases.

Fig. 16.

The sportive fauns and the lush-eyed satyrs of the woods have indeed learnt the mystery of these pipes and make merry under the vine-leaves. I have in my mind’s eye now a curly-headed satyr handling the pipes, and I wish that I knew the charm to bring before you the saucy curious look with which he is regarding them. All that modern exigencies allow me I give here, just the hands and the pipes. Notice the expectant thumb; what is it he is contemplating? What is he about to do? He intends to press the bulb of the pipe, but evidently something is wrong, and I am so anxious to know what it can be. Then there is a short line on the top of the furthest pipe; it was a puzzle to me years ago, and the satyr and I we are still puzzling over it. Each pipe has but one bulb, and I think very probably these simple creatures of nature would be unable to manage more. Four oval holes are given to each pipe, the artist has so marked them, and the firing that the vase underwent in the kiln retains them with indelible truth. When I see on wall paintings that finger holes are marked I am doubtful, because it may be the work of an overwise restorer, and so of copies of the wall-paintings on the tombs; and, indeed, I am sorry to know that modern painters and engravers are not trustworthy in details, but palm off home made suppositions about the proper finish of musical instruments, the nature of which they do not comprehend. They are ignorant even of any necessity for comprehending such simple things.

I was looking over a valuable book on sculpture yesterday, in which highly finished delineations were given of the friezes of the Parthenon; in one engraving four flute players were represented each playing a single pipe. I was dazed; wondered if my memory had played me tricks. So I went and looked at the marbles, and sure enough I was right; the sculptor had carved two hands and two pipes in the natural way of the double pipes! At that period I should not expect to see the single pipe, and I do not remember on any Etruscan vase a player on one pipe only. Neither should one expect to see the bulb form represented here because the straight form suits best the sculptor’s art; and in marble vases, also, the double pipes are quite plain as may be seen on a beautiful vase in the entrance hall of the British Museum. Read Keat’s poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and then go and look on this marble picture of

Or if you are denied that delight, read those five stanzas of a poem that will be immortal as the memory of our race, and will outlast the marble beauty it realizes; read it in quietness, and then, in Keat’s sweet words,

the scene will grow within you, as that pale singer heard it, singing

Ah, well-a-day! if I allow the pages of “Endymion” to allure me the hours will run by and no work be done.

The vase on which the satyr is painted, with his frisky tail, is called a Lekythos, and was especially dedicated to funeral ceremonies holding oil or perfume; but what the satyr has to do with such, I do not know, unless it was that the entombed owner had been a jolly old fellow himself, and liked such company.

The satyrs are frequently seen playing the double flutes, and I have noticed that in most instances men players use flutes that have not more than two bulbs, whilst the flutes that have three bulbs seem to be of more delicate make and are assigned to the female players; for they, as we know, were renowned for the highest excellence in the art.

The muse Euterpe, who presided over pastoral poetry, is represented on one vase, seated and holding the pipes in her left hand resting on her knee, whilst with her right hand she encloses the upper part of one of the pipes and is pressing the tip with her thumb. It was this design that first arrested my attention. I saw that the fingers held but two of the bulbs: there was not room in the hand for more, whilst the pipe that was free had the three bulbs: hence, at that moment, one was missing. What did it mean? There is no instance ever of a pipe of two and a pipe of three bulbs being played together as a pair.

Fig. 17.

The position of the hands of Euterpe and the method of handling the flutes are shown in Fig. 17. The painting is on a vase called a Krater, a vase intended for mixing the water and the wine, and its fine breadth of shape is admirably fit for the display of the paintings. There is a vase close by on which this custom of mixing the wine is depicted; the usual proportions were three of water to two of wine, sometimes it was two of water to one of wine; whilst the drinking of wine without water was accounted vulgar,—a sign of coarseness of taste, and was in some Greek states prohibited by law.

The vases called Amphoræ were for containing the measure of oil given to the victor in the Panathenæan games, and are often inscribed with the date of the contest, and name of the owner, and the words “One of the prizes from Athens.” On some vases we see the player in the musical contest, standing mounted on a low stool. Eratosthenes tells us that boxing to the sound of flutes was an Etrurian custom.

On a Hydria the scene depicted is a Music Lesson, and very life-like it is; there are two seated female figures, one has the two flutes with bulbs, and the other has a Kithara or lyre, a dog plays his part in it by listening, a panther cat is sitting on a stool, and a child free as nature leaves him is playing on the floor. It is a capital picture of Greek domestic life. Another vase presents the player on two flutes in full face, and distinctly shows that the second joint of the fingers was used to cover the holes, a custom which previously I have alluded to is thus confirmed by good evidence.

Confirming the use of four holed flutes, there is, in a case in the Greek and Roman saloon, a slab representing in relief two satyrs treading grapes in a wine press, and a youth lustily blowing the double flutes to keep them to time in their movements, and most evidently the right hand flute shows four holes, clearly and roundly cut.

Another grand vase I found. This was an Amphora, on which was represented a female figure, Meledosa, preparing to play on the double flute; she holds them in her hand, as in Fig. 18, and as you will notice, with her forefinger of the right hand lightly pressing the top of the pipe, each pipe distinctly showing three bulbs; in this instance, the pipes are each completed ready for playing. Certainly we cannot regard the tips of the pipes as reeds; the shape does not correspond in outline to an Arghool reed, and if we imagine an oboe type of reed in use at that period, this design would not correspond, for no player would press the tip of a reed of the oboe or the bassoon kind. What, then?

Fig. 18.

My idea is that this bulb form was adopted for the sake of using a concealed reed. That the bulbs were hollow, I am perfectly sure; because of the witness of a most precious fragment, preserved in a case in the Greek and Roman saloon, belonging to one of two pipes of a later date, found in a tomb near Athens. The Greeks called the double pipes diaulos, and these have been considered to be the representative of such; but they are not so, being distinct pipes used separately, as I shall have in another chapter to elucidate. Only about three quarters of a bulb remains, but one pipe still holds a broken portion. The length of that bulb, I should say, was originally in about the same proportion to the pipes as we see upon the vases; so that there is no doubt about the hollow bulb, as a real thing. Now, considered by itself the one bulb was a distinct invention in art, and as such it was complete in itself, yet after a time the invention was carried further, and the wonder is why? what end did it serve to introduce more?

The purpose of having two or three bulbs went beyond that of the original invention of the subulo pattern, and was, I imagine, an ingenious device to provide that the player should be able to transpose the reed from one bulb to the other in order to play in a different mode or key, virtually without altering the disposition of the fingers; lengthening the pipe by transferring the reed higher, or shortening the effective sounding length of the pipe by placing the reed in the next lower or in the lowest bulb of the three: thus the player would have the choice of three modes or keys, whilst his pipes would remain outwardly the same. The bulb forms an artificial mouth, as was the custom many centuries later in the cap of the cromorne. The position of the reed determines the effective length of the pipe; the difference of pitch would be in each case one tone, as I find that the length of bulb corresponds with the distance between two finger holes of the pipe. Does this solve the mystery? Be that as it may, I have found in these vases a source of ever renewed pleasure.

Tombs, tombs of a dozen buried cities, once gay with life, full of the daily sympathy of pleasure, and no less of sorrow. They gave the dead their gold and silver and jewels; they gave them food, fruits, oil and wine, and left them to silence and slow time. These lovely Amphoræ buried, these festal Kraters empty,—and once brimmed with wine! We think, irresistibly drawn to think of them, with Keats’s longing wish:—

The chamber had been rifled a thousand years or more; gold and ornaments gone, only the dust and the skeletons of men and women, young men and maidens,—the most perishable of things, the vases the most enduring. The owners bought their burial land “in perpetuity;” and, like the old Egyptians, they builded for a very brief and rudely broken eternity.

CHAPTER VI.

In the Land of Greece.

FROM ETRURIA TO ATHENS.

What a merry lot those Subulones were, piping to song and dance and good cheer. I have been laughing over an Etruscan picture of one of these jovial fellows laying down on the grass upon his back, all the time lustily playing his pipes, and kicking his legs in the air, in sheer exuberance of merriment. And I have wondered what could that music be which so evidently was a never failing source of enjoyment to him, and to his race.

The old adage says “simple things please simple folk.” Simple the music must have been, because of the very limited compass of such instruments as we see delineated; and I have thought that, maybe, the old folk songs of eastern Europe preserve to us fragments of that ancient music. Simple, indeed, but to hearers and players in those days representing the fulness of art. The suitability of such music to such instruments is clear enough, for the tunes need but a range of a few notes, and come easily into the compass of rustic voices. Century after century these old melodies have been cherished, and seem to have perpetual life. They antedate all histories, and none can trace them to their earliest springs. How that one haunted Beethoven which he put into his Ninth Symphony, and made his chief theme,—a simple phrase of a few notes that seems as if it would go on for ever. For thirteen years it crops up here and there in his works, until at last he found full deliverance for it in the crowning effort of his genius.

In the last chapter, I showed you by illustrations the three distinct usages of the double pipes as improved by the Etruscans, and I sought to demonstrate that their new invention comprised, first, a concealed reed in a hollow bulb; secondly, such a disposition of the reed that one, or two, or three bulbs were allotted to each pipe, and that the purpose of such an arrangement was to obtain an adaptability in the reed, that it might be placed at pleasure in either bulb. I judged that the invention had three stages, first when there was one bulb, next when two were used, and finally three. My reasoning is confirmed by a Kylix in the 2nd Vase Room of the British Museum, it is of the early or archaic period (B.C. 480-440) and the pipes are with one bulb only. The player, a female player, has the left-hand pipe longest, thus evidently indicating a transition period in pipes linked to Egyptian custom.

These conditions imply corresponding advances in musical art, for by the new methods it becomes possible to play in three different modes or scales; since if we suppose the reed to be placed in the bulb nearest the pipe, the player would produce, as the lowest note, A; if placed in the bulb above, he could produce G; and if in the highest bulb, reach as low as F. Although his fingering would remain the same, the pitch would include a different range in each case, and, as we should say, he would thus be able to play in different keys. I reckon by the relation of the length of the bulb, which is equal to the distance between two holes, that each change would make a difference of a whole tone. The art of the player would greatly alter intervals, especially by partial covering of the holes flattening pitch to required degrees for the particular mode.

When we read of the various Greek modes—of the Dorian scale, the Phrygian, Lydian, Mixo-Lydian, Hypo-Dorian, and others—we should not forget that one was added to the other in order of time, and the full system only gradually evolved. And in this Etruscan period, the music was probably limited to the single tetrachord on three modes, and so remained for a long time. We, in some instances, see on the vases that the pipes are marked with three holes each, sometimes with four; although it is rarely that the holes are indicated at all.

The Egyptian flutes had three holes to one pipe and four to the other, which only extended the scale one note higher than the three holed. In these Etruscan flutes, however, it is by no means clear that the second flute extended the compass, for the holes seemed to occupy in each the same position as to distance. It is open to consideration that a difference in the pitch of the reed itself of one of the pipes, would possess the power of influencing that pipe to the extent of a semi-tone, if such entered into the design of the instrument, and so we find a reason for the second pipe. On my models, I sometimes make a difference of a whole tone in each note of the scale produced. In default of any true knowledge of Greek practice, I think that we may fairly attribute to the artist some such design in the construction of the pipes.

It is a natural conclusion that the first invention of man in the way of flutes would be a single pipe for the production of one, two or three notes; then with a sense of a scale the four notes. From the single pipe the double pipe would arise, with a view to some variation of such a scale, to which the ear was predisposed, and so the method of double pipes would be fixed by custom.

We may be quite sure that when double pipes were first adopted there was a meaning in the method. The assumption that one pipe preceded the two does not seem to hold in the case of these bulbed flutes with the four holes, they seem to start as di-aulos.

The Etrurian vases give no instance of single flutes. In truth, another invention was necessary, and it came in course of aftertime from the Greek mind. Like most useful inventions, it was marvellously simple—nothing other than the giving of six holes to one pipe, and fingering the one pipe with fingers of both hands, and with one thumb added; even that thumb hole may rank as a distinct invention of intrinsic importance to art. A similar delay we know occurred in association with key-board instruments, and it was only in Bach’s usage that the thumb was raised to the rank of efficiency and placed on an equality with the fingers.

It is remarkable that in the progress of civilization the later way of development should have been from the double flute to the single flute, through perception of the better aid to execution and display that was afforded by the single flute, and evidently when this change came, the idea of different modes had gained acceptance, the two pipes no longer constituting a pair, but each pipe intended to be taken up in obedience to the choice or change of mode.

This is a very significant advance. Let us now study the nature of

THE SWEET MONAULOS.

The mon-aulos, “the sweet monaulos,” not seen on the vases or wall-paintings, but known to have been, and still having a real existence in two solitary specimens now in the British Museum, and accompanied by that evidence, which is unique as it is precious, of the actual hollow bulb that tipped the pipe. The allusions I have made to these flutes in earlier chapters will be remembered, and now comes the fitting moment to enter into details. The illustrations fairly give the proportion as to distances, on a scale of one fourth, sufficiently clear to enable you to judge how the holes are arranged. The pipes are very nearly cylindrical, departing from the true figure only in being of a little larger bore at the upper end than at the lower; which may have been done by design, or the nature of the drilling means then in use may have caused the variation of bore. If you go, to look at these relics of the Greek age, you will not see them as here represented, but curiously contorted. They were found in a tomb on the road to Eleusis, near Athens, and the damp of many centuries has twisted and warped them; and one has been broken, snapped asunder at the middle. They are made of sycamore, and are very plain simple instruments. What value they had we cannot in any degree estimate; but I should imagine them to be of the ordinary kind familiar to every household in which music was cherished; for the Greeks also, like the Etrurians, followed the old world custom of burying with the dead the things they had most prized in life, even as the Egyptians did.

And these flutes lay beside the youth when they left him there sorrowing, and thinking how his cherished flutes would comfort him in his loneliness. Now, not even his dust left; gone, we know not whither,—to the underworld or to the heights of Mount Olympus. We of a foreign race think of this nameless youth, because here they have brought his flutes, and these speak to us of kinship. Not without strange feelings did I handle them and place my fingers covering the holes, that all plainly showed how they had been smoothed and warm by his—his fingers—playing soft Lydian airs: worn fingers that one day became pale, then cold as marble, and now unsubstantial and vanished utterly; as soon, indeed, mine will be. And yet we,—shadows, both—clasp hands over this great gap of time, whilst handling things that were loved.

How I hang over that case of treasures every time that I visit the Museum; foolishly fascinated perhaps, yet irresistibly so, looking and pondering. The fragment of a bulb that is left—for a fragment it is, only about three fourths of a whole—is, by the enthusiast’s valuation, beyond price. In one of the pipes, there is a piece of another bulb left sticking on the top; and, if you look closely, you will see the scored lines inside the pipe, and outside and inside the bulb, that were made so as to ensure close fitting when the bulb was pressed in. And look again, closely, and you will see at the top of each pipe, there is a little rim edge, and then a shallow groove about half an inch broad; and this, no doubt, was bound round with fibre or ivory or metal to prevent the splitting at the top, where the bulb was pressed in and made to fit securely, being, perhaps, slightly moistened by the lips, just as we do now when putting instruments together; and the operation was frequent, since the reeds, as I have said, were taken out after playing, and placed safely away in a little box called a tongue box.

The pipes are three eights of an inch in bore, and the finger holes are oval and large, in their smaller diameter quite as large as the bore. I measured the distance between every hole, and so obtained the correct length of the instruments as in their original straight condition.

By the kindness of Mr. A. S. Murray, then the esteemed chief of the department, I was able to take every particular I wished, and to calliper the bore of each pipe. The length of the longest pipe is thirteen and a half inches, and the shorter pipe is twelve inches and a quarter, just one and a quarter inches difference, which corresponds to the distance between each hole, showing that in depth of sound the pitch of the pipes differs by one whole tone.

The details of measurement are of the greatest interest in the scientific analysis of these ancient musical instruments, and afford much valuable insight into the system upon which they were constructed in conformity with the music for which they were designed, and very evidently they tell us that the music played by the people was of a simple character and very limited in compass.

As there are five finger holes and one thumb hole to each, it is clear, on consideration, that these cannot have been di-aulos, but that they were used as single pipes requiring two hands to play either; for the six holes would be unmanageable, and the holding altogether insecure under one hand. In my view, these are distinctly specimens of the mon-aulos, “the sweet mon-aulos,” praised by the poets; and there can be little question that the reeds used were soft and fine, and that the Greeks had acquired a skill in making them. Probably, they differed as much from the common arghool as the reeds used by Lazarus in his clarionet differed from those of the street player on the yellow clarionet of past days. I have given the names of the notes against the holes. The thumb holes out of line will be understood as showing what otherwise is out of sight; but it makes the series of holes clearer. In the one pipe it is the G hole, in the other it is the A.

You will notice that there is a curious interval of a minor third, which doubtless had some special importance in Greek measures. The pitch is, as we say, double pitch in respect of length of pipe, so that the low B♭ is truly the four foot note; but we speak, in general terms, of the scale given by the pipes as a two foot scale. It is a pity that, as at present disposed in the case, the pipes are unsuitably placed, being head to tail,—as annoying to look at in an instrumental regard, as to an archæologist it would be to see a statue exhibited standing on its head. But perhaps I may get this anomalous relation altered, for the observer misses the proper relation of the flutes to each other. The nature of the beating reed greatly affects the scale. That which I have recorded is given by the particular reed I have used; another reed might make one or two tones difference. Again, there is the question whether these pipes had one, or two, or three bulbs, although only one was found. I am inclined to believe that the originals had but one bulb, because the two pipes evidently indicate that one flute was used for one mode, and the other flute for the other mode, with only the difference of a tone between them.

On the whole, I think it may be inferred that tenor A was naturally fixed upon as the starting point of the scale, which had its vocal foundation in every nation. As regards intonation, the notes specified are not exact to our tempered scale, but only as near as the actual pitch heard can be stated in our terms. In the ancient diatonic, all the tones are major tones. In the soft diatonic, an interval equal to a tone and a quarter was used, being greater than a major tone but less than a minor third. In one diatonic genus, the interval of three fourths of a tone was substituted for the second semitone in ascending. Authorities tell us that they are not aware that the Greek writers ever mention the concord of more than two sounds; any concord less than a fourth was considered dissonant, and so was the sixth. The true consonant major third was either not discovered, or not admitted to be consonant, till a very late period; Ptolemy being the earliest author who speaks of a minor third. There was a double tone nearly equal to the modern major third, and a tone and a half nearly the same as the minor third. In the later Greek periods, the system of music became intricate, and the diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic systems were in vogue, and discoursed upon to their lips’ content by the scholiasts and their disciples, much the same as in modern days, beclouding knowledge.

The instruments that we have been interested in were, I should imagine, those of ordinary use in the social life of the people, associated with their ceremonies and entertainments; but the steps by which I have taken you show change in usage and aspiration in the artists. There was even a striving after fuller command in execution, and after adaptability to the increasing range of musical theory; and evidently the stringed instruments, with their power over many modes, excited rivalry in the flutes. There is a very important and significant passage, already referred to, by an author—Athenæus, if I remember aright—that about the 440 B.C. (or earlier), Pronomus the Theban invented adjustments by which the same set of pipes might be fitted to all the modes. History upon many matters we know is very elastic, and I am not quite disposed to think that the flutes depicted on our Etruscan vases answer to this description. There is yet one other possibility, beyond that Greco-Etruscan invention, in a later invention of most ingenious design, aiming at this same power of control, only that this is a single pipe, and is a development beyond those we have been considering. Very pleasant it is to trace these workings of genius

The next chapter affords illustrations and particulars of the new discovery; for to the Greeks it was new, and we may be sure interesting. Perhaps to some of them quite as engrossing as a new statue or the latest scandal!

CHAPTER VII.

In the Land of Greece.

THE SILKWORM FLUTES, OR BOMBYX FLUTES.

The next development of Greek ingenuity in the construction of flutes came in a remarkable guise, showing a contrast as great as our ships in mail and armour present to ships that carried our flag a century ago. Suddenly as it seems, with no transition stages, the Greek inventor brought forth his new flute of ivory encased in bronze. Evidently, it was an age of luxury. The Greeks valued in every respect each art that was known to them; they lavished wealth upon artists, and paid honours to orators and singers and players, no less than to sculptors and painters. No price was too great to pay for their beloved flutes. The flute of Ismenias, a celebrated Theban musician, cost at Corinth three talents—a sum equivalent to £581 5s. of our money. No intimation has ever been left to us of the basis upon which such valuation was made, whether an adventitious worth was given by encrustations of jewels and setting of gold, or whether some famous maker acquired a repute so that, like Stradivarius, every instrument from his hand was sought for by those able to appreciate artistic excellence; we cannot even guess, for in acoustic conditions there is no parity of relation between fiddles and flutes; and for all that we know, the great price quoted may have been reached in fighting for a rarity, the instinct for which is perennial in the human race. So delightful a thing is it to possess that which others covet; so exalting the exultation in having that which others have not; verily, it is the taproot of all civilisation. Without it civilisation had never been.

The particular flutes now under examination must have been costly, but only moderately so. The Greeks were adepts in metal work of all kind, and in these flutes their skill in the art is manifest; battered as they are and grey green with age, they bear the record of the master hand. The interior tube is of ivory, and the outer or encasing cylinder is of bronze. At the upper end there is a raised piece of metal, in the curve of which there is a figure of a reclining Mænad, still beautiful in figure, and in flowing lines of drapery. The flutes are the counterparts of each other, differing only in length, and slightly varying in the distance of the finger holes. The lengths are respectively eleven and a half inches and ten and a quarter inches; but the last named pipe has the end fractured, and, therefore, may have been as long as the first, or longer. The measurements may not be exact, but are approximately as stated; at all events, sufficiently so for the needs of our present purpose. It should be understood that the fragments are pieced together, and with even the most careful handling one would fear disaster.

The two instruments bear a relation to each other, very similar to that of the two sycamore flutes illustrated and described in the last chapter, and evidently also the player chose one or the other according to the mode in which he intended to play, or, as we should say, the key in which the music lay; here, however, in these segmented flute pipes the method is not the same, the particular mode depends upon the section arrangements being fixed, and laid out for a succession of intervals quite distinct for each pipe.

From the mouthpiece to the lower end the length is the same in each pipe, but the intervals that could be used in playing are not alike. Measure off the sections as in one pipe and it will be seen that no corresponding distances are found on the other; notice how differently the segments that are longest, representing a tone and a quarter or a tone and a half, come in each particular arrangement. The elevated plateau at the upper end is about three quarters of an inch in height, and the table-land at the top is about a quarter of an inch square, there being a little circular shaft drilled through the metal, leading into the body of the flute. This is to all appearance the mouthpiece, and, without questioning, I had formerly accepted the general notion that here we had specimens of the lip blown flute. The little aperture nearly a quarter inch in diameter would undoubtedly serve for blowing across, with the lip resting against the block. When, however, I came to examine these treasures of a lost art, with a view to understanding them, misgivings arose; for how could the scale be constructed, seeing that, in a lip blown cylindrical flute, the octave note would occur at the half of the length? At the fourth hole distant from the bottom opening, the note given would be the octave. No, this could not be. Moreover, the lay of the finger holes is so like that of the sycamore flute that one sees directly the correspondence, and is driven to the conclusion that we have here higher developed specimens of the reed blown aulos.

Why have I named this the silkworm flute? Because the resemblance suggests itself. You will notice that the cylinder is segmented, as a caterpillar looks to be; and we know that the Greeks had a flute so peculiar that it was given the name of Bombyx, which is the name by which the silkworm caterpillar is known in science.

Each section had a small loop or ring of metal, by which, being pressed against, the section was made to revolve, or to be partly turned round to cover or uncover the finger hole, so that the player threw out of gear, as it were, any hole not required in the mode he was playing in. When all the little loops are brought into line along the bottom of the flute, they look like caterpillars’ feet. Although I venture to speak of this as the Bombyx flute, I am aware that there are passages in ancient authors which may seem to claim the appellation for some other kind; but various statements so mystify us by their incongruity that we have to withhold belief, and to question how far the author was practically acquainted with the craft of the flute maker, and how far he may not have written from mere hearsay, not himself clearly comprehending all that was signified by the terms employed nor the various usages they might include. It is so in our own day, particularly in the matter of musical instruments. An instance in point occurs in the very case containing these flutes, for there is here another antique specimen (in kind quite distinct from these), which was found by Sir Charles T. Newton (our foremost authority on classical treasures), and he describes this as “a flageolet (plagiaulos) in bone and bronze, with mouthpiece still entire,” found in a tomb at Halikarnassos. Here are two questionable assertions. First, it certainly is not a flageolet, for flageolets have whistle mouths; second, it may or it may not, be the true representative instrument understood by the ancients as the plagiaulos. We are led to suppose that the meaning of the term is a side blown flute; but, for aught I know, the silkworm flute may be a true plagiaulos; for, obviously, from a practical point of view, this flute was held sideways, though blown with a reed, as will presently be explained. A flageolet is not a side blown flute; but what Sir C. T. Newton discovered is a most ancient example of a transverse flute—that is to say, blown in the same way as our orchestral flute, and held in the same position, and so is side blown. What I should be inclined to contend for, is that we have in reed flutes the di-aulos, the mon-aulos, and the plagiaulos, and that they originated in the order here shown.

Adrian, junior, quotes Aristotle on the Bombyx flutes as to the length of the pipe, and says that “they were blown only with great exertion.” That they were difficult to perform upon, we may well believe; and we know that in our own clarionets the low notes require strength of wind more than the upper notes do; but the recorder or the translator may be responsible for the implication of great exertion. The longest flutes that have as yet been discovered are of the kind now under examination, and so far confirmatory of the right to the title that I have given them; and one of four (described in the next chapter) discovered at Pompeii, now in the museum at Naples, exceeds twenty inches in length, and in the copy of it made by Mr. Victor Mahillon the loops, being complete in their series, have strangely like appearance to caterpillars’ feet. I should not omit to remark that in our specimens, only traces exist here and there of such loops at points where they were soldered on; but, for verisimilitude, I have indicated the series on one of the pipes. At the second segment on the upper pipe marked with a short line—, the evidence is quite plain.

Whether the interior tube is of ivory, bone, or wood, the condition is such that the eye cannot judge; but in the Naples instrument I believe that, without doubt, it was ivory, and the bore three eighths of an inch, as it seems to be in this case. The great advantage of ivory is obvious, because the cylinder necessarily fits close, and any swelling of the inner tube from moisture was a liability to be avoided.

I have illustrated the square at the top of the mouthpiece, and shown the hole which is perforated in it and leads down to the body of the flute; and, looking at the diameter of the perforation—barely more than one eighth—the unsuitability of such for office of a lip blown flute, with its bore three times the size, is strikingly obvious.

Here is another instance of the little reliance that can be placed upon authority when it goes beyond its own particular line. In this display which is the greater, its ignorance of the nature and structure of musical instruments, or its scholastic jumble of science? This passage I find in “The Life of the Greeks and Romans, by E. Guhl and W. Koner, translated by Francis Hueffer.” “The aulos proper resembles our hautboy and clarinet, differing, however, from the latter in the fact of its lower notes being more important than the higher ones. The aulos consisted of two connected tubes and a mouthpiece, to the latter of which belonged two so-called tongues, in order to increase the trembling motion of the air”; and of the capistrum or head straps, “the purpose of this bandage was to soften the tone by preventing violent breathing.” For connected errors of statement of fact, and audacity of ignorance in drawing inferences, these authorities would be hard to beat. If one thing is more certain than another on the authority of the Etruscan vases, it is that the pipes were not in any way connected; and in a stone head found by Cesnola, at Salamis, the strap passing round the cheeks is carved, and shows over the mouth two separate apertures for the pipes. This, already referred to, is absolutely conclusive.

In the illustration, the raised mouthpiece merely appears to be nearer the top end in one pipe than in the other; for you should notice that in the upper one the end is jagged, and I have no doubt that originally both pipes were as the lower one, in which the end is completely closed. But whether interiorily the end was blocked near where the slant perforation entered the body of the pipe, I cannot see; I should say that it was, because we find it so customarily in flutes of other nations, both in modern and ancient usage. Here you will see that the distance from the end to the mouthpiece is quite two inches, and that end of the bronze cylinder was, I should think, a fixture; because I perceive that the mouthpiece itself is fitted upon a movable segment. Very curious that is, and no doubt had its purpose. Perhaps the design admits of the partial turning round of the segment of bronze to obtain a different angle of mouthpiece to the fancy of the player.

Then notice, further, that the top finger hole is but a short distance from the mouthpiece; and, according to all experience with such pipes reed blown, I judge that, as that hole gives the octave note to the lower open end, some additional upper length is in demand, perhaps four inches or more. So if the distance is reckoned from that hole to the top of the table of mouthpiece as two inches, we require the reed and its fittings to occupy a further extent of from two to three inches. The diameter of the hole bored through the block, being but little more than an eighth and a sixteenth, shows that reeds must have been used.

I consider that the stem of the reed was so adjusted and fitted in this hole that for playing the pipe a length suitable was obtained; and the reed may or may not have been enclosed in a bulb. I have hitherto spoken of the form as resembling a bulb, but to the Greeks it may have suggested a likeness to the silkworm cocoon, and so there was a double association of thoughts, and both these and the Etruscan flutes may have had the name Bombyx applied to them. We know in our own times how very diverse varieties of things rejoice in similarity in name, and trouble us by being presented under more names than one, as fashion, fancy, or locality determines.

Having described these ancient relics as regards their structure, the chief interest remains. Do we understand them as the Greeks understood them? I confess that they perplexed me for a long time. Often I looked at them, asking myself Why did they make them thus? What purpose had they? What motive? What advantage to gain beyond those sycamore flutes? I could not be content to regard them as curiosities only. I wanted to get at the root of the matter,—the because: the cause of being. I hung over these flutes, trying to drag the mystery out of them; and, after a time, being in the mood, the guidance came, and I went contentedly to sleep.

Before giving my solution of the problem it is necessary to make a few comments upon the Greek scales. If you would think as a Greek thought, you should dismiss from your mind all reference to our system of harmony, our key-note, foundation of the scale, or our division of the octave. For the points to which I have to call your attention, it seems desirable that you should now for comparison with the bronze flutes, refer to the illustration in the last chapter, of the sycamore flutes. Whatever the elaboration of the theory of music from Pythagoras to Ptolemy, the musical instruments of the period, so far as we have evidence in representations or in relics, do not assure us of the influence of theory to all pervading extent, in the ordinary practice of music. Certain rules which had grown up in the schools were necessarily adhered to, because accepted by the popular taste; or, rather, we may regard such general rules as the exposition of traditional measures, and methods of inflection and cadence, consecrated by usage. The demonstrations of the mathematics of music by the monochord was a fascinating pursuit of the philosopher; yet the value must have been more intellectual than practical.

In the Greek scales, the chief strangeness to us is that the keynote lays not at the beginning, but within the scale; and it was called the mese, or middle note. Nevertheless, its position was not always in the middle, but was shifted higher or lower in the octave according to the mode for the time employed. The scale originated in the tetrachord, and the octave resulted from the combination of two tetrachords; in the old system these were conjunct, and in the new system disjunct, and the two systems were exemplified in the octave lyre. The primary rule in the disjunct system was that the separation between the two tetrachords should consist of a whole major tone. Another rule insisted upon by every Greek writer was that there should be an interval of a whole tone, at least, immediately below the mese note; and, as Aristotle says, “Mese is the leader and sole ruler of the scale.”

I make no pretence of discoursing upon the Greek musical systems; all I desire is to fix your attention upon certain peculiar features unfamiliar to us, but upon which the structure of the flutes depended. I have previously alluded to the special importance of a curious interval of a minimum minor third, and maximum minor third, in the Greek measures, not our intervals.

The historic record, together with an exposition of the growth of these scales, and their bearing upon the development of the system of music, will be given in a later chapter.

Now look back at our mon-aulos; it has six holes, and is governed by the fingers of two hands, with the thumb added, and this is the first instance of the thumb being employed in flute playing. Now look at our Bombyx-plagiaulos (if such name be accepted), it has the same number of holes, and the thumb hole lying underneath between the upper two holes. One can understand how in the longer Bombyciæ (of which I shall have to discourse in the next chapter) there was an obvious advantage in having movable sections of a cylinder to shut off notes, simply for the reason that the fingers could not manipulate thirteen open holes. But the puzzle with the shorter Bombyx is that it shows no advance beyond the mon-aulos in the demand made upon the fingers, which could cover the holes as required, without any need to have particular holes shut off mechanically. I could not comprehend, and the question persistently arose, what was the utility of the new invention? Look at the relative positions of the two lowest holes of the mon-aulos; in each instrument the peculiarity of relation is noticeable, and yet there is a difference in each. Why? The conclusion I arrive at is that there is something traditionally imperative as to the unequal division of one tetrachord in the octave; that originally it was the lower tetrachord that was thus subject to custom; that afterwards more licence was taken, and, still subject to rule, there was choice as to where that tetrachord might be; and I find in the mechanism of the Bombyx a provision for the varied placings of this unequally divided interval. Here we see the meaning of the rule that the soft diatonic used an interval of a tone and a quarter, greater than a major tone and less than a minor third. In all these four instruments you will notice how one fourth is divided with a large interval in the upper section in one of each pair of instruments, and a short interval in the other, thus reversing the upper relation: and as regards the Bombyx flutes, there is a similar reversal of the distances between the three lowest holes from the bottom.

In the sycamore flutes, the fourth divided into two intervals occurs at the bottom from A♭ to D♭ in one, and alike in the other from B♭ to E♭. All other distances between holes are regular, so that this is the only position for the particular effect of only one intervening note. But in the silkworm flutes, there is the possibility of placing that special fourth in various positions of the range of holes, by covering the hole which exists, but is not wanted; not only that, but by rule excluded from the accident of use. Here, in both cases, the third hole from the bottom makes with the thumb hole the interval of a fourth, and with the top hole the interval of a fifth. At a guess, I should read the scale of the flute placed highest

A♯ B C♯ D♯ ^⁔ F♯ G♯ A♯

We really have no notation to express the actual relations of intervals, which exceed or are short of ours. Remember that the Greeks had three-quarter tones, one-and-a-quarter tones, and one-and-three-quarter tones; and combined these so as to make larger intervals, curiously varying, as you may judge by the eye.

D♯ otherwise E♭ I reckon to be the keynote. The mouthpiece I named as probably arranged to shift in position and lean towards the player, so as not to be exactly in line with the finger holes, and if the hole in the ivory tube was made larger than the hole entering from the mouthpiece, that convenience would easily be obtained. I should imagine that the transverse flute was in vogue at the time, and that this invention was designed, to afford the reed flute performer the facility to assume an attitude, which, maybe, was preferred by people of fashion.

The remarkable specimen of a transverse flute, found by Sir C. T. Newton, noticed at page 97, I give a description of in the final chapter, “How the Music grew.”

The high significance of these ringed flutes is that we have them as they were left by the hands that used them, arranged according to traditional observance of rules proper to the national melodies in which the people delighted. It is a record that tells us more than books or treatises teach us.

An accomplished Greek gentleman played to me to-day some of the music preserved in the ceremonials of the Greek church; believed to be the most ancient known, and still heard in wild melodies of the mountaineers. On the pianoforte it cannot be truly rendered; yet the character is ineffaceable, the music is indeed beautiful. It seems as it would never come to a close,—only pause in a divine expectancy.

CHAPTER VIII.

In Oscan Land.—Italia.

FOUND AT POMPEII.

THE GRECO-ROMAN FLUTES.

Four flutes were found at Pompeii, and they were all of one pattern, of greater length, yet following the same system as in that latest Greek invention illustrated and described in the last chapter, and indeed may be considered as the final development attained by the Greeks in instruments of the flute kind, for nothing has to this day been discovered in advanced superiority to it for musical capability or for display of refined workmanship and technical ingenuity.

These instruments, are, it is true, classed as Greco-Roman, but they are essentially Greek, although of the period of the Roman dominion. The body of the flute is ivory, and it is twenty-one inches long, bored throughout in perfect cylindrical bore three-eighths of an inch diameter. Think of the skill necessary to accomplish this with most primitive tools! Then the ivory is surrounded by a closely fitting series of cylinders of bronze and silver alternately in sections, and each section possesses just sufficient ease of fitting that it may be caused to rotate on the ivory by simple pressure of the finger upon a little metal loop which had been provided for that purpose. The end sections are fixed to the ivory tube, and thus hold the others in their positions. The appearance of the instrument is most attractive—bands of olive-coloured bronze, with bands of silver intervening. The finger holes, to the number of eleven, are bored in the ivory at the proper distances, and corresponding holes are made in the bronze tube. When these holes in the ivory and in the bronze are set in line and correspond, then the note can be sounded proper to each opening as related to the sounding lengths of the tube; but the player, by turning any selected bronze section to the right or left, can close the finger hole so that the note is left out of the scale. It is a charmingly simple device, and yet how many ages had to pass before human intelligence contrived it, and nations of men had passed likewise—gone back into the dust that they rose out of.

This city of Pompeii still speaks to us. Its message is of dust and ashes, very human in its meaning. From the ashes came this silent record of a dead music. There was a day of garlands and of feasting; young men and women joining in dance and song, and listening to this flute piping its well-loved melodies; and the flute was laid down, warm with the fingers of the player resting awhile from mirth inviting music, and then—after a long while—it is found just as it was left that day, with the four notes closed off, which the player wanted not, in the scale of the mode chosen for that last melody breathed from this flute by living breath.

This was the series of notes which the flute was capable of giving, and the closed-off notes are, as will be seen, each marked with a cross, Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6: