With Greek authors the lyre has several distinct names; but we are
unable to connect these with anything like certainty to the varieties of
the instrument. Chelys ([Greek: chelys], "tortoise") may mean the
smallest lyre, which, borne by one arm or supported by the knees,
offered in the sound-chest a decided resemblance to that familiar
animal. That there was a difference between lyre and cithara ([Greek:
kithara]) is certain, Plato and other writers separating them. Hermes
and Apollo had an altar at Olympia in common because the former had
invented the lyre and the latter the cithara. The lyre and chelys on the
one hand, and the cithara and phorminx on the other, were similar or
nearly identical. Apollo is said to have carried a golden phorminx.
(A. J. H.)
There are three lines of evidence that establish the difference between
the lyre and cithara: (1) There are certain vase paintings in which the
name [Greek: lyra] accompanies the drawing of the instrument, as, for
instance, in fig. 2 where the tortoise-shell lyre is obviously
represented.[1] (2) In all legends accounting for the invention of the
lyre, the shell or body of the tortoise is invariably mentioned as
forming the back of the instrument, whereas the tortoise has never been
connected with the cithara. (3) The lyre is emphatically distinguished
as the most suitable instrument for the musical training of young men
and maidens and as the instrument of the amateur, whereas the cithara
was the instrument of _citharoedus_ or _citharista_, professional
performers at the Pythian Games, at ceremonies and festivals, the former
using his instrument to accompany epic recitations and odes, the latter
for purely instrumental music. The costume worn by citharoedus and
citharista was exceedingly rich and quite distinct from any other.[2]
We find the lyre represented among scenes of domestic life, in lessons,
receptions, at banquets and in mythological scenes; it is found in the
hands of women no less than men, and the costume of the performer is
invariably that of an ordinary citizen. Lyres were of many sizes and
varied in outline according to period and nationality.
We therefore possess irrefutable evidence of identification in both
cases, all of which tallies exactly. Examination of the construction of
the instruments thus identified reveals the fact that both possessed
characteristics which have persisted throughout the middle ages to the
present day in various instruments evolved from these two archetypes.
The principal feature of both lyre and cithara was the peculiar method
of construction adopted in the sound-chest, which may be said to have
been almost independent of the outline. In the lyre the sound-chest
consisted of a vaulted back, in imitation of the tortoise, over which
was directly glued a flat sound-board of wood or parchment. In the
cithara (q.v.) the sound-chest was shallower, and the back and front
were invariably connected by sides or ribs. These two methods of
constructing the sound-chests of stringed instruments were typical, and
to one or the other may be referred every stringed instrument with a
neck which can be traced during the middle ages in miniatures, early
printed books, on monuments and other works of art. (K. S.)
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Egyptian Cithara now at Berlin.]
Passing by the story of the discovery of the lyre from a vibrating
tortoise-shell by Hermes, we will glance at the real lyres of Egypt
and Semitic Asia. The Egyptian lyre is unmistakably Semitic. The
oldest representation that has been discovered is in one of the tombs
of Beni Hassan, the date of the painting being in the XIIth Dynasty,
that is, shortly before the invasion of "the shepherd kings" (the
Hyksos). In this painting, which both Rosellini and Lepsius have
reproduced, an undoubted Semite carries a seven or eight-stringed
lyre, or rather cithara in transition, similar to the _rotta_ of the
middle ages. The instrument has a four-cornered body and an irregular
four-cornered frame above it, and the player carries it horizontally
from his breast, just as a modern Nubian would his kissar. He plays as
he walks, using both hands, a plectrum being in the right. Practical
knowledge of these ancient instruments may be gained through two
remarkable specimens preserved in the museums of Berlin (fig. 3) and
Leiden (see CITHARA). During the rule of the Hyksos the lyre became
naturalized in Egypt, and in the 18th dynasty it is frequently
depicted, and with finer grace of form. In the 19th and 20th dynasties
the lyre is sometimes still more slender, or is quite unsymmetrical
and very strong, the horns surmounted by heads of animals as in the
Berlin one, which has horses' heads at those extremities. Prokesch
copied one in the ruins of Wadi Halfa, splendid in blue and gold, with
a serpent wound round it. The Egyptians always strung their lyres
fan-shaped, like the modern Nubian kissar. Their paintings show three
to eight or nine strings, but the painters' accuracy may not be
unimpeachable; the Berlin instrument had fifteen. The three-stringed
lyre typified the three seasons of the Egyptian year--the water, the
green and the harvest; the seven, the planetary system from the moon
to Saturn. The Greeks had the same notion of the harmony of the
spheres.
There is no evidence as to what the stringing of the Greek lyre was in
the heroic age. Plutarch says that Olympus and Terpander used but
three strings to accompany their recitation. As the four strings led
to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is
connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many
archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this
representation, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete
expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be
rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant
practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of
the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum
which he held in the right hand. Before the Greek civilization had
assumed its historic form, there was likely to be great freedom and
independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing,
which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone)
and enharmonic (quarter-tone) tunings, pointing to an early
exuberance, and perhaps also to an Asiatic bias towards refinements of
intonation, from which came the [Greek: chroai], the hues of tuning,
old Greek modifications of tetrachords entirely disused in the classic
period. The common scale of Olympus remained, a double trichord which
had served as the scaffolding for the enharmonic varieties.
[Illustration: musical notes.]
We may regard the Olympus scale, however, as consisting of two
tetrachords, eliding one interval in each, for the tetrachord, or
series of four notes, was very early adopted as the fundamental
principle of Greek music, and its origin in the lyre itself appears
sure. The basis of the tetrachord is the employment of the thumb and
first three fingers of the left hand to twang as many strings, the
little finger not being used on account of natural weakness. As a
succession of three whole tones would form the disagreeable and
untunable interval of a tritonus, two whole tones and a half-tone were
tuned, fixing the tetrachord in the consonant interval of the perfect
fourth. This succession of four notes being in the grasp of the hand
was called [Greek: syllabe], just as in language a group of letters
incapable of further reduction is called syllable. In the combination
of two syllables or tetrachords the modern diatonic scales resemble
the Greek so-called disjunct scale, but the Greeks knew nothing of our
categorical distinctions of major and minor. We might call the octave
Greek scale minor, according to our descending minor form, were not
the keynote in the middle the thumb note of the deeper tetrachord. The
upper tetrachord, whether starting from the keynote (conjunct) or from
the note above (disjunct), was of exactly the same form as the lower,
the position of the semitones being identical. The semitone was a
limma ([Greek: leimma]), rather less than the semitone of our modern
equal temperament, the Greeks tuning both the whole tones in the
tetrachord by the same ratio of 8:9, which made the major third a
dissonance, or rather would have done so had they combined them in
what we call harmony. In melodious sequence the Greek tetrachord is
decidedly more agreeable to the ear than the corresponding series of
our equal temperament. And although our scales are derived from
combined tetrachords, in any system of tuning that we employ, be it
just, mean-tone, or equal, they are less logical than the conjunct or
disjunct systems accepted by the Greeks. But modern harmony is not
compatible with them, and could not have arisen on the Greek melodic
lines.