In the Land of Etruria.
THE GRECO-ETRUSCAN DOUBLE FLUTES.
THE BULBED OR SUBULO FLUTES.
The Song of Linus is heard to-day in the land of Egypt; the sacred
melody played on the double flutes in ancient days survives without
change, but no player on these pipes exists; the song is sung in
wailful cadence by lips of another race, for the old race has vanished
in the long corridors of Time.
Strange is the irony of history! The dwellers in the land have
forgotten the name of their song, and call it after a Greek myth. Yet,
in its origin, it was a very real song of lament, a true outcome of
human sorrow, age remembered and treasured in the hearts of the old
Egyptian people, and perpetuated by tradition even amongst those who
were strangers in the land, who tilled the soil, and lived in the ruins
of the past. It was a lament for the king’s son, known as the Song of
Maneros, so that grand old interviewer, Herodotus, tells us. He had
thought this Song of Linus to be a famous song of Greek origin.
This is what he says:—“I have been struck with many things during my
enquiries in Egypt, but with none more than this song, and I cannot
conceive from whence it was borrowed, indeed they seem to have had it
from time immemorial, and to have known it by the name of Maneros, for
they assured me it was so called from the son of their first monarch,
who being carried off by an early death, was honoured by the Egyptians
with a funeral dirge, and this was the first and only song they used at
that early period of their history.”
Plutarch says Maneros was the child who watched Isis as she mourned
over the body of Osiris.
Herodotus is constant in admonishing the Greeks that Egypt is the
mother of wisdom, and that for a vast deal of the learning and the
arts they pride themselves upon they are indebted to her by direct
inheritance. What he, a Greek himself, in his day told them we have
found true, and in all the light of modern researches the old historian
is well supported. We are accustomed to locate Egypt on a few hundred
miles on the banks of the Nile, losing sight of the fact that, in the
days of her dominion, her power extended far and her influence was felt
in all the lands bordering the Mediterranean wherever civilization held
sway. Her royal dynasties were a living force for thousands of years.
One startling record was discovered by Professor A. Sayce. He tells us
that he has read the graven tablets of Tebel-Amarna (now in the Berlin
Museum), which prove to be letters sent from the king or governor of
Jerusalem to the Egyptian sovereign, in the century before the Exodus.
This governor owed allegiance to the Egyptian monarch, and his letters
were dated from “‘the city of the mountain of Urusalem, the city of the
temple of the god Uras, whose name there is Marru.’ Thus long before
the days when Solomon built the temple of Yahveh, the spot on which it
stood had been the site of a hallowed sanctuary.”
Along the whole Asiatic coast of the Mediterranean the Egyptians had
their military settlements, and consequently there ensued a mingling of
many tribes and races. The Greeks, or as they came to be called, the
Hellenes, were a composite people with a Pelasgic basis. There was,
however, distinct Egyptian colonisation. Cecrops is said to have led
a colony from Sais in Egypt and to have founded Athens in 1556 B.C.,
and Danaus, who seems to be a brother of Amunoph III., is also said to
have left Egypt and to have founded Argos, of which he became king, and
died, B.C. 1425.
The perpetual trading that was going on between the Phœnicians, Greeks,
Italians and Egyptians, brought the land of Tuscia under the influence
of Egyptian ideas, and of this the sepulchres of Etruria give ample
evidence. The domestic life, the industrial arts, the religious rites,
the paintings and sculptures, and even the mode of burial, all are
exhibiting new adaptions of older faith and customs; the different
development being due to differences in race, soil, and climate, to
inheritance and environment. If we look back far enough we shall
find that the geography of the country, the outcome of its geology,
forecasts the destiny of its inhabitants and writes the history of its
peoples.
Of all the variety of vases fashioned by Greeks and Etruscans, the
types of the different forms we find existed long before in Egypt, and
these vases have been buried in tombs—large underground chambers that
are the counterparts of Egyptian tombs—and they have been placed there
to please the spirits of the dead, by devoting to them the things that
were most loved, most prized, during life. They used the sarcophagus,
though they did not mummify or embalm the dead, but laid out the body
dressed in its garments, or encased in armour of the period, with
strappings of copper and bronze bosses for breastplates, placing it
on a stone bier surrounded by its treasures, often of great value,
and leaving it to moulder into dust by natural decay. The paintings
on the walls of these dwelling rooms of the dead illustrate banquets
and scenes of domestic and public life, and afford us most valuable
indications of the ways and manners of long past days. A large number
of these chambered tombs have been opened, with their treasures
untouched since the day of burial. The first that was discovered was by
the chance pushing aside and uprooting of a bush by a peasant tending
his goats at evening, who, looking through the opening he had made, the
setting sun throwing its light into the chamber, was seized with mortal
fear at the sight his eyes fell upon; rushing home to his people he
described what he saw, the body lying there dressed in the habit as it
lived. The next day, however, no body was there, only the figure of it
in little heaps of dust, and the metal links and the two round breast
bosses fallen, indenting the dust. Those who explored the tomb and
recovered its treasures were inclined to the belief that the peasant
did see the human form, but that, as in similar cases that are known,
it collapsed upon the admission of air and light.
The tombs were rock hewn, or built of stone and then covered with earth
appearing as mere tumuli. The chambers many of them being twenty feet
by twelve, and superstition asserts that in more than one instance
lamps were found still burning with perpetual fire although fifteen or
twenty centuries had elapsed since they were lighted.
The painting described in the last chapter, copied from one in a tomb
at Corneto (meaning at the necropolis of Tarquinii, the ancient city)
shows very clearly that the earliest double flutes possessed by these
people were of the Egyptian kind, with a similar form of reed; and this
same design I have also found on one or two vases, and also evidently
the same style is meant in other instances, in which the details are
not worked out, in both paintings and vases. Thus far we trace the
connection between Etruria and Egypt as regards the flutes, with Greece
as a continuing link.
The people of Etruria were an ancient race, occupying both sides of the
Appenines, they are now believed to have been Pelasgian Tyrrhenians,
they had great naval power, and in origin were related to the old
Egyptian stock, or, as some say, to both Lydian and Lybian. How long
they had inhabited the Tuscan land we do not know; they displaced or
absorbed an earlier race, as is the custom of invaders. They spread
southward as far as the Tiber centuries before Rome was, and founded
a city called Tarquinii about 1040 B.C. Etrurian kings ruled at an
early time in Rome, probably up to about 500 B.C. The immense cemetery
of Tarquinii is all that remains of the ancient city, which is now
succeeded by the Corneto city, built close to the old site.
The Etruscans it is judged came about 1200 B.C. They attained renown in
bronze work and in pottery (remember here that the Lady Maket flutes
date about 1100 B.C.). Historians state that Greeks from Thessaly
entered Italy from the Adriatic side and introduced by their influence
the higher development of art into Etruscan work. Be that as it may,
there is no doubt cast upon the historical record concerning one
Demaratus, a merchant of Corinth, who made great wealth by trading with
this old city Tarquinii. He migrated 657 B.C. and settled there and
married a lady of noble family. His two sons became famous in Roman
history. He had views upon Art, and brought with him from Greece two
potters and one painter and thus did good service to the land of his
adoption.
Another influx of Greeks is recorded. This colony of Greeks came,
however, in a peaceful fashion, and settled there, having fled from a
plague or famine in their own land, in Lydia.
That the Etruscans constantly went to and fro, visiting the chief
cities of Greece, is manifest, since many vases bear official
inscriptions that they were prizes won at the Dionysian festivals, and
at the Panathenæan games. The knowledge of these facts adds wonderfully
to the interest in these vases, and enables us to understand something
of the feelings which induced the burial of things that were valued
personal belongings, and caused on the walls the paintings to be limned
of banquets and races, and wrestling contests and musical contests, in
one or more of which probably the dead man had won renown.
The musical instruments on which they excelled were the double flutes,
the trumpet, and the lyre, and on these they have conferred an
immortality by the ceramic art which they carried to so high a state of
perfection.
I have in the matter of dates brought together a few points which
I would have you look upon not as mere antiquarian lore, rather as
connecting our thoughts in a survey of the progress of music, and to
give an idea of the association of these three peoples, Egyptian,
Etruscans, and Greeks, in its development. You should keep distinct in
mind the early Etruscan period under Egyptian influence, and the much
later period when Greek influence had sway from 600 B.C. to 300 B.C.
It is this later period of Art that we are now entering and a very
remarkable one it is.
Etruria has given us a new thing: this is the _subulo_ flute, the new
Greco-Etruscan flute. It is a mystery that has not been fully solved:
and, although I have my theory about it, as you will find, and have
regarded these flutes very lovingly, scrutinizing every vase with a
most personal affection, yet until some actual specimen is recovered
from the past, I am denied that supreme satisfaction desired by the
ardent investigator,—proof. Before I began many years ago to state my
impressions concerning the indications given by these vases, I do not
know that anyone thought the matter worth notice, or said “Here is a
new invention in flutes.” The peculiar feature of the construction is
the presence of _one_, _or two_, _or three bulbs_, or cocoon shaped
terminations at the upper ends of the two flutes. The peculiarity in
the form was generally supposed to be ornamental, and an artistic way
for lightening the upper part of the pipes; or, at most, a piece of
decorative conventionalism. The learned saw no purpose behind the
appearances, and therefore the idea of device or constructive design
was not to be entertained. The illustrations here given are copied
from figures depicted on the vases in the British Museum, and you will
notice no longer the straight conjunctive tip-pieces of the step-like
pattern the _Arghool_ fashion of Egyptian flutes as displayed in the
Corneto painting. That fashion has become old, it is out of date.
Suddenly a change has come without a sign, in the home settlement in
Tuscany. Centuries probably intervene, and a new influx of settlers
arrives, this time of pure Greeks or Hellenes.
[Illustration: _Fig. 15._]
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.
[Illustration: _The Satyr’s Hands and Flutes._
_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
The happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new.
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,
With eyes, shut softly up alive,
the scene will grow within you, as that pale singer heard it, singing
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those leaves be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
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.
[Illustration: _Euterpe preparing her Flutes_
_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?
[Illustration: _Meledosa’s Flutes Complete._
_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.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
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:—
O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep delvèd earth.
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.