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.
[Illustration: _The Silkworm Flutes._
_Fig. 20._]
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.
[Illustration: _The Flageolet Proper._
_Fig. 21._]
Frequently small flutes are called flageolets by writers
of the present day, but the true flageolet should have a
bulb head. Its invention is ascribed to Juvigny, about
1581. The old French name is “_flagol_,” the German
“_flaschinet_.” The name flageolet should properly
be confined to those flutes or whistle pipes having
a flask-like head or mouth-piece with a conducting
neck—that is, a small tube inserted into a hollow bulb
(hence the derivation of the name, from the same root
from which “flagon” comes), and within the bulb a small
piece of sponge inserted to collect and condense the
moisture from the breath.
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.