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FOR MUSIC, BOTH
VOCAL AND IN-
STRUMENTAL
AS WELL AS
MIXED
Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our
King, sing praises.
Psalm 47 [K. J. V.]: 6
And David and all Israel played before God with all their
I Chronicles 13:8
Both mornings and evenings God takes delight in the hymns
St. Jerome on Psalm 64
I am inclined to approve the usage of singing in the church;
St. Augustine, Confessions X.xxxiii
OT
long ago, right honorable sirs, while intent on more serious studies,
for a space I retired into solitude, and when I had enjoyed this a
little, as if I were not alone (although I was alone), made drowsy by
a kind of celestial harmony, I fell asleep. I believe that the Nymphs
or Muses surely were singing, and behold, in my sleep there appeared
to me two royal brothers, competing most bitterly like Eteocles and
Polynices about kingship and possession of the scepter. They sought me
as judge of their quarrel, I refused, they sought others. I named the
two of you, right noble Unton and Hatton. The choice pleased them,
they related their contention from its beginning, and they
disappeared. Why waste more time on this? The matter stands thus. 
Sound, the king of Harmony, had two wives, to wit Grammar, by whom he
fathered Accent, and the nymph Music, on whom he engendered Concord.
The firstborn, namely Accent, was grave and eloquent, but austere and
less popular, whereas the younger, I mean Concord, was endowed with a
lovely appearance, sweet voice, affable discourse, and was welcome
and agreeable in his companionships. And now their old father died
and, Micipsa-like, 
bequeathed his realm to both sons. The elder was aggrieved, he
refused to share the kingdom, as the firstborn and heir he claimed it
all for himself by right. A senate was convened: musician, poets,
orators, philosophers, holy prelates and theologians were assembled.
These all urged that, brotherly hatred set aside, both should have an
equal share in rule. Accent fell in a rage against the Britons, as
Ferrex
had, and ordered that his brother Concord together with his mother
Music be banished from the senate, the marketplace, the theater, and
the church, as if he were a deadly foe. But his brother, trusting in
his popularity and the right of his cause, challenged his brother to
a combat: straightway Fame sounded her bugle, they rushed to the
field in their armor, they fought, but neither fell since Jove
favored no victor. Now exhausted by their battle, both came from the
field to a desert place, both appeared to me with their mothers, and
they asked for judges and umpires. I named you, they immediately
demanded your verdict, to which they would forever acquiesce. You
consented, right worthy knights, so judge the matter as it stands.
They are brothers, dissension has arisen, now the question is whether
Concord and his most sweet mother Music is to be exiled from the
commonwealth, the Court, the marketplace, the church. Let there be no
prejudice in what I say, but were my opinion to be asked, I maintain
that this should not be. For Music is a queen, albeit now a widow,
Concord is a royal son, although now bereft of his father.
It
was his father’s will that he should reign, so his brother’s
authority should not be so great that he be banished. It is indeed an
unworthy thing that a son should cast his mother into exile, that a
brother should do this to a brother. Indeed it is a most unworthy
thing to have banished that mother whom God loves, that brother whom
the world has so long revered. I appeal to you, right noble Unton,
whose father
(whom I mention for honor’s sake) worshiped the divinities of
Concord and Music both in life and in death. I likewise appeal to
you, right distinguished Hatton, whose still-living father (and long
may he live) receives and protects Music and Concord as a widow and
an orphan; you golden pair, I say, both of whom express Accent in
such a way that nobody is so well versed in music and concord, with
the result that not many practice these things more skillfully than
the one of you, and scarcely anybody more than the other, I say again
you must judge. And assuredly there is no reason for you to hesitate,
for God, nature, heaven, earth, every constitution, movement and
ordering of things since the world’s beginning commend Music
and Concord to you, since in all of God and nature’s
productions there is a certain concord, there is a certain harmony.
So I wrote this apology for the mother and the son, that is for Music
and Concord, with greater confidence than I offer it, written as it
is by my unschooled Minerva,
to your choice judgment. If it be worthy of the light, I pray that
you will nourish it, still in its infancy; if you think less well of
it, you should strangle it in its very cradle, an abortion. Farewell.
Given from my house on the last day of November, 1588.
Most devoted to your dignity,
J. C.
CHAPTER I
AN ENCOMIUM OF MUSIC; ITS ORIGIN
USIC,
concerning which I begin my present oration, has God for a father and
Nature for a mother, since it is a certain something which is divine,
wherein the mind, that image of God, takes wonderful delight. It is
also a certain physical and natural something, by which not only the
ears of men but also, so to speak, the senses of all things are
unutterably and unimaginably pleased. Therefore, although some of the
ancient writers ascribe its invention to Jove (like Diodorus
Siculus), others to Apollo (like Homer), others to Mercury (like
Heraclides), others to Pythagoras (like Boethius),
others to Jubalcain (like Moses), and others to this god or that one,
yet I represent the three Graces with the organs and instruments of
music set in the right hand of the true Apollo, that is of our wise
and ever-living God, and demonstrate that music herself is the
daughter of God and Nature, born with no stain of incest, granted to
both divine and human things, not without incredible providence. For
if there be a sweet concord in the power, number, movement, ordering,
figure and beauty, if, I say, there be this in the entire essence (if
I may so speak) of things, as Pythagoras said,
if there be a union and harmony, as did Plato,
no man can dream that music (which teaches this natural concord of
the world) took its origin from any mortal. Hence those right wise
philosophers were
of opinion that Man’s mind arose from the First Cause and
from music, that it is wonderfully captivated by music in its mortal
journey and life, and that in the end it is perfected and blessed
when returned to the First Cause and to Music.
2.
And this is indeed credible, since those men either growing faint in
mind or near death steadfastly affirm they have heard music, being
men who recalled to their life, sensation and speech by the movement,
speech and howling of bystanders, often grow quite angry and deplore
being returned from such great peace of mind and delight of the inner
senses to unhappy life, and indeed this should not be the case if,
the external senses deadened, the mind did not perceive the heavenly
music in the First Cause, whence it took its origin. This is the
great and wondrous power of music, which none of the other arts
possesses, to which none attains. Here I shall not adduce poets’
fables concerning Amphion, Orpheus, Arion and six hundred others, who
by music’s power are claimed to have moved wild beasts, tamed
infernal Furies, drawn after themselves rocks and forests, in this
context (which is that of those who philosophize) I seek only the
truth. But these things are true: that music, having taken its origin
from God, residing in the movements of the celestial bodies, infused
in individual things and the effects of Nature in accordance with
divine providence, made vocal and (as they say) instrumental by a
kind of human imitation, honorably taken up by our ancestors,
polished by art, usage and experience, by its impulse sways and
transforms listeners’ affections, intentions, gesture,
movements, actions and manners not otherwise than does the influence
of heavenly music, and swiftly bends them to, as it were, its own
powers and properties, and indeed this would not be strange, if music
moved only men.
3. But (as Agrippa says)
beasts, snakes, birds take delight in the hearing of music, since
birds are attracted by singing, deer captivated by flutes, elephants
and dolphins are moved by melody. What
I say is strange yet true, fish in a pond at Alexandria are brought to
a halt
by a musical tune. What I add is amazing yet most
assured, the very elements, deaf and stupid, rejoice when suffused
with a musical instinct. For Marcus Varro attests that in Lydia he
saw islands leaping from the mainland into a lake to the sound of
flutes: they dance, as it were, in a circle, but when the music
ceases they return to the shore. But I relate things more wonderful
than these and yet familiar, that on the Attic shore the sea itself
makes sounds of the lyre and of harmony. At Megara a certain stone
produced the sweetest concord when stricken by individual blows.
What? You say these are false lies? Either repute and popular talk
lie, or in that famous cathedral at Winchester a kind of choir was
heard singing most sweetly for many years, without any human voice
but not without great admiration. No few men deal in fictions and are
egregious liars, if many years ago music (should I call it celestial
or terrestrial?) was not heard at the tomb of a certain nobleman in
Scotland. And so if God, if Nature, if the heavenly bodies, if the
elements, if men, birds, serpents, fish, if the stones in churches,
if spirits in graves sing and are charmed by musical sound, we are
unfair, we are unjust, we are injurious to God, to ourselves and to
Nature if we should debar it from heaven, from the church, from the
marketplace, from men’s public and private employment as being
a profane and false science.
4. For what is more unjust, what more unfair, than to deem that art
as false and profane which is called the preserver of justice, the
guardian of temperance, the moderator of morals, the tinder and spark
of religion? It preserves justice (as Plato says),
for the condition of the commonwealth depends on the modes of
harmony. Why need I add more. It renders men chaste, honest and
religious, as Aristotle teaches. Tell me, Anteas,
tell me Midas, you
who say that your ears and minds are more moved by the whinny of horses
and the
hubbub of the countryside than by Apollo’s Muse,
what harm has music done you? Perhaps you accuse it of being a humble
dependent of whoremongers.
But Agamemnon joined it to Clytaemnestra as a guardian of her
chastity.
Perhaps you scorn it as a source of income for beggars. But among the
gods Apollo, Mercury, and Minerva, among the heroes Hercules,
Achilles, and Alexander, among the rulers Epaminondas, Themistocles,
and Augustus, among the philosophers Socrates, Solon and Plato
cultivated it as an ornament of their divinity, nobility, or gravity.
So, then, you reject it as a corrupter of morals. But Aristotle and
Plato
recommended it for boys, lads and young men as a teacher of virtue.
But you curse it as a plague upon republics. But Homer prescribed it
for the Greeks, Solon for the Spartans, and Ismenias for his patients
as a medicine for the plague. Finally you cast it out as rejected by
sacred law. But Lycurgus
urged its retention upon the Spartan citizen, Minos upon the Cretan,
Pan upon the Arcadian, and taught and proclaimed that if it were
absent it must be retrieved. And Plato himself, the prince of
philosophers (Aristotle always excepted),
denies that the laws of music can be altered without a change of
political constitution.
5.
Why waste more words? If you consider its author, Who is God, if you
consider
its nurse, who is universal Nature, if you consider its
instrument, which is the machinery of the entire universe, if you
consider the subject of the art, which is harmony, if you consider
its means, which is the human voice, or its end, which is the body’s
repose, the mind’s contemplation, moderation of the affections,
the inculcation of morals, the preservation of virtue, the expiation
of crime, and lastly the sweet union and blessedness of all things
within the First Cause, undoubtedly, as in time past, music will
stake its rightful claim on the laurel in peace, the palm in war,
love in leisure, honor in business, profit in the city, reward in the
countryside, employment in the church, and praise in every place and
in every home.
WHAT MUSIC IS; HOW MANY PARTS IT POSSESSES
USIC,
that daughter of Nature,
teacher of morals, mistress and moderator of minds (which I have
posited to be divine in the spheres, human in more lowly bodies, and
organic in instruments) is not inappropriately defined by
Theophrastus as a numeric and harmonic proportion of all things in
the theater of all the university, by which motion, order, powers,
natures and forms resound amongst themselves like viols and strings,
and stricken, is if it were, by the sweet touch of the First Cause,
pour forth a heavenly choir and chant.
It is proportion, since all
concord and harmony consists of numbers. It pertains to all things,
since (as Pythagoras, Democritus and Plato each) there is a certain
melodic modulation and harmony in all the effects of Nature, either
taken per se or in the connection of the Whole with other
things. For bees have their buzz, birds their song, metals their
ring, the elements and heaven’s bodies have in a manner their
voice. And the conjunction and chorus of all these things has its
harmony sweeter and more delightful than any honey. In this
definition (“by which motion, order, powers, natures and forms
resound amongst themselves like viols and strings”) that
concord consists of the agreement of things. It is further added that
“stricken, is if it were, by the sweet touch of the First
Cause, pour forth a heavenly choir and chant,” that in the
union of all things with God, as in the varied and manifold motion of
the voices and their proportion with the bass, you may understand the
wonderful symphony of all things. The Philosopher does a fine job of
noting this in his book De Mundo. For he says, “in the
way that when the master of the choir begins to sing, straightway
there follows the most sweet modulation of the other voices, both
high and low.” Thus after the First Mover touches Nature’s
lyre with his plectrum, all of Nature’s strings, organs and
instruments, moves from the First Mover to the center produce the
sweetest song and harmony, a subject for minds rather than ears
2. But concerning this matter I would have the earnest reader consult
Agrippa, who in
De Occulta Philosophia Book II wisely, shrewdly and
copiously describes music as natural, celestial, and human. I would
have him note what voices the learned man ascribes to the planets,
what ones to the elements, what to men, and what to the other effects
of Nature and the works of God. Then, I reckon, he will assuredly
understand (if he is not unduly aboil with a zeal for contradiction)
that the machinery of the universe, order,
motion, beauty and form cannot endure without music. For even if he
should not
hear Pythagoras’ sounds, even if he should not
perceive the voices resounding in heaven, Apollo’s lyres,
trumpets and instruments, he should be too much the slave to his ears
if
he should imagine that there is no insensible sound or harmony. For
just as a
chorus of many voices resided in Boetius’ inward
mind as he was writing De Musica, and as images are often
presented to the mind when the eyes and other external senses are
closed, so, although the sound of bodies constantly turned by the
hand of God is not impressed on the ear, in the mind there is
nonetheless a most true modulation and harmony of their bodies being
thus moved and of moving spirits. But Pythagoras and his disciples add
causes and reasons that this is not heard, either because the organ [of
the ear] is
more obtuse than that it can be penetrated, or that the medium is more
distant
than it can be passed through, or
that the object is more excellent than that it can fall within the
purview of our senses, since within us there is no sense less acute
than hearing. For those who dwell by the Nile grow deaf because of
the roar of its waters falling from on high. The sight of the eye is
easily dazzled if it looks to hard at the beams of the sun. Therefore
it is no strange thing if immortal harmony fails to impinge on the
ears and senses of mortal men.
3.
But enough for this definition. I pass to another, not wholly different
from
the former, namely that music is the science of
concords occurring by force of nature, voice or instrument, sweetly
playing amongst themselves, which is granted us for the worship of
God and the consolation of human life. It is a science, since it has
a defined subject, namely harmony. It has defined properties, namely
by its modulation to entice men’s minds whither it wants, to
impel them in the manner it wants, to sway them when it wants, and to
possess them wherever it wants, and it has defined demonstrations,
namely from causes and effects. It is also a science of concordant
things, since it consists of number, proportion, concord of things,
voices and instruments. Hence it is said to be natural with respect
to things, vocal with respect to men, and organic with respect to
instruments. What is added at the end of this definition, viz. that
it is granted us for the worship of God and the consolation of human
life, shows music to be a divine science, since it flows from God,
and the same is granted to Man since he has most need of it for the
consuming of the miseries wherewith he is set about in this life. But
(that I might embrace all these things in a few words) Euclid defines
it thus: music is the science of skilful modulation. Hence it is
agreed that all men who sing, and ply instruments and do so with
practice and with art. Music is divided into the theoretic, which
pertains to the mind and to contemplation, and the practical, which
pertains to voice, hand and action. Again, it is divided into the
divine which instructs intelligences and spheres, the human, which
instructs sounds and voices, the organic, which instructs viols,
instruments and keyboards, and the mixed which instructs the powers
and concords of voices and instruments.
4. These two divisions are indeed those of the genus into its
species. But if you wish to know of its accidents and affections,
that practical music which is discerned in voice and instrument is
customarily reckoned as various and multiple. For one kind, called
the Lydian, is lowly and relaxed; another, the Phrygian, is vehement
and agitated; and another middling and mean, the Dorian. The Lydian
has for its subject peace and leisure, the Phyrgian Mars and war, the
Dorian the mind, God and contemplation. Agrippa and Boethius are to be
consulted about this matter, who posit seven species of harmony,
namely the Phrygian, Lydian, and Dorian, to which in a higher grade
and movement of modulation they add the Hypophrygian, which produces
a warlike frenzy, the Hypolydian, which creates effeminate softness
of mind, and the Hypodorian and Mixolydian, which engender the
ecstasy and transport of a mind fixed upon the contemplation of
divine things. They shrewdly and wisely compare these species now to
the seven Muses, now to the seven planets, now to various movements
of the humors, now to human parts, and now to numbers and proportions
of voices; and, which I desire to be observed, both writers refer all
hymns and songs, and all arts and forms of modulation to the glory
and honor of God. A man should truly be deemed a musician who bends
the strings and chords of his mind to God, the Master of the chorus
and of the universe.
THAT MUSIC IS USEFUL FOR EVERY KIND OF LIFE
LL
human life is located either in work (hence it is called mechanical),
or in civil action (hence political), or in contemplation (hence
theoretic and divine). Under the first heading I comprehend farmers,
soldiers, and artisans; under the second, the more polite citizenry,
nobles and senators; under the third, philosophers, academics and
priests. Here I am not dealing with the vipers and locusts of
republics, to wit, of vagabonds, beggars and idlers, who, being
devoted to no pursuit of virtue, devour the flowers and fruits of
others. For this kind of men is condemned by the votes of all the
philosophers as unworthy of the light, unworthy of life, unworthy of
the commonwealth. And so when in this context I prove that music is
useful, or rather necessary, for every kind of life, I understand
only those men who are striving to benefit the republic wherein they
live by exertion of body or mind. For the liberal use of this science
is conceded by Aristotle only to liberal and freeborn citizens.
2. But let me deal with each of these in their order.
Among the first kind are farmers, soldiers and artisans, who would be
shattered by their great labors, by most grave dangers to their
lives, by the great tasks and works of the commonwealth, and would
quickly fail, were they not refreshed by any solace to their life and
enticed to return to their plough, their battlefield, their work. But
there is no more liberal, more pleasant, no more honest recreation
than that which is gained from music. Music
is therefore a necessity for this first kind of men. For, as the
philosophers
teach, music repairs the body’s worn members,
it renders stricken spirits more lively, it arouses buried strength,
it refreshes travelers, it uplifts those who do battle, and lastly it
diminishes every pain and weariness of those who toil. Hence they say
the Arabs employ songs to create less fatigue for their heavily
burdened camels. Likewise farmers and artisans, who while away their
time and lessen their burden with a song, experience consolation. By
rights I cannot blame the political institution of our ancestors, who
granted Tityrus and Meliboeus
their music two or three times a year, yet not in such a manner that
they profane solemn feasts and festivals with impure songs, but that,
freed from their toils and cares, they might serve God with greater
ease and, refreshed by the honest sports which music begets, they
might return to their jobs with greater energy. For music is to those
who toil what medicine is to the ailing, what condiments on the table
are to the feeble. Just as the one cures the sick and the other whets
the weak appetite, so music helps those broken and wearied by their
labors, and by a certain hidden power and property it inspires them
to the undertaking of greater efforts. Hence the poet wrote:
“Music,
deservedly the pleasure of gods and men, alone
relieves disturbed souls and sick sorrow. Without it there
nothing delightful for minds, nor anything loveable, to whose numbers
the gods and spheres are turned, fires shine in the heaven wherewith
the great Zodiac glitters, and observe laws and
prescribed
times. With it their leader, Phoebus, Phoebus’ sister, and the
golden stars in the heaven ply their movements with a perpetual
agreement.” Why say more? Hector demands the bugle in war, in
peace Zeuxis, Polyceitus and Alcmeon require the lyre. That is to
say, all this first kind of men, which lives on the land, in the
field, in the city, does not happily thrive without music being
provided to it in good time.
3. Concerning the second kind of life, which is the political, you
have no reason for doubting that it is refreshed by music, since the
more polite citizenry, nobles and senators, who are occupied in
turning the spheres of the republic, just as they sometimes
experience a greater ecstasy of mind, so of necessity they demand a
sweeter recreation and solace. And indeed, though men like Caesar,
Cato and Decius may perhaps seem to the rabble to live more lavishly
and happily, yet since they are the Atlases of their republics,
always weighed down by great burdens, often buffeted by contrary
movements, it is an intolerable insult if we should begrudge them
music. Tell me why in Homer Apollo is said to have sung at the feast
of the gods, Mercury
to have engaged in the deception of Argos in Ovid, Pan in a
music-contest with
Apollo in Musaeus. Tell me why “the noble
centaur sang to his great son,” Hercules was sung to by Linus,
Achilles by Chiron? Alexander is said not only to have listened to
Timotheus gladly, but also to have painstakingly learned the art of
music from him. Were these not all princes and chieftains? And why,
pray, did they learn music? Surely for no reason than that, burdened
by the graver business of the commonwealth, they might live, as it
were, restored to themselves by this divine medicine and consolation.
Therefore these men who would, with the Egyptians, place on Philips’
table
a skeleton and frightful image of death, i. e., those who prescribe
only dire
and gloomy things for political men broken and
wearied by the political business of the republic, these are Stoics
and very like Aristarchus; they fail to remember that Philip is a
man, and if in the morning he gladly hear that statement, Philip,
remember you are mortal, nevertheless at suppertime can be
refreshed by honest music, since he is a mortal. Rightly did Homer
sing, “Dancing and singing beautify feasts.”
4. Here I shall say little if anything about that third kind, wherein
are categorized philosophers, academics and priests. For those men
seem to me intolerably mad who deny them music and harmony, since
their sciences, arts and studies are called divine Muses after music
itself, and
indeed these Muses speak of nothing but concord and harmony. Do you
want me to
prove this? Music teaches them to curb their
affections, scorn riches, and cast aside their cares for mortal
things, and these things befit philosophers. Music impresses upon us
the forms and ideas of the virtues, it molds honest manners, it
stimulates us to the study of wisdom, and these things befit
academics. Music spurs us to the contemplation of the First Cause, it
transports the human mind from earth to heaven, it purges the mind of
its dross, it dispels its clouds, and these things befit priests.
Music is therefore useful for this third kind, wherein are numbered
the philosophers, academics, and priests. But you will say “these
things which in this last place you ascribe to music are inventions.”
No,
they are true, as you will understand when you have understood that
music has
more power for the contemplative life than for the
active, and I have demonstrated that its power strikes the internal
senses more than the external.
ARE THE MIND’S INWARD POWERS AND POTENTIALITIES MORE AFFECTED BY VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC THAN BY THE OBJECTS OF THE OTHER SENSES?
T is an old truth that for the absorption of learning (which is a
mental habit) vision has less power than hearing.
For although vision is the most acute of all the external senses and
the liveliest animal spirit, nevertheless inasmuch as only the
appearances, representations and images of things exist in the eye by
means of vision, whereas by way of the ear not only the image of
things but the things themselves enter into the citadel and the
coffers of the mind, it is clear that the mind is far more fitly
informed by a voice through the ear than by an image conveyed by the
eye and by vision. Hence what the Philosopher teaches is true, that
men blind from birth not seldom grow wise, but the deaf never do. If
these things be true, who does not see that the inward powers and
potentialities of the mind are moved and affected by vocal and
instrumental music far more than by the objects of the other senses?
For if, in comparison with the ear stricken by sound, the eye is
blind, what should you think of the other obtuse senses and their
deceptive objects?
2. But I shall touch on each point. There are eight arguments which
render this thing we are treating sure and beyond doubt, namely 1.)
from a comparison, 2.) from a property, 3.) from a simile, 4.) from
an example, 5.) from a similarity, 6.) from effects, 7.) an argument
a maiore, and 8.) one from an end. From a comparison, in this
way: the soul’s
internal powers and potentialities are much more aroused by things
themselves than by the ideas and images of things, the sounds of
music and concord, created in the ear de novo and received
into the ear by the motion of air, are carried into the mind not
otherwise than as things themselves, and therefore the mind is more
vehemently moved by the impulse of voices and instruments than by the
objects of the other senses. This reasoning is sound, inasmuch as the
other senses, affected only by the fleeting forms of things, present
to reason and intelligence uncertain colors and deceptive images of
things, not things themselves. If you add this force to this argument
it is much more firm, namely that musical sounds are more eagerly
sought by the mind than the objects of the other senses. For just as
nature and appetite are inclined to sweeter food, so the minds’
potential
and intellect is attracted to the most pleasant sounds. For, as will be
demonstrated
later, there exists a great and
wonderful likeness between Muse and mind, between music and the soul,
inasmuch as, if Aristotle is not mistaken, the human soul is a kind
of sweet harmony.
3. But I now I come to my second reason and argument, which is taken
from the property of music. Music’s property is
to invade the mind’s
powers by a kind of divine assault, and to strike these not otherwise
than the
strings
of a lute or other instrument, with the same movement and affection
with which it is produced. The reason is that air is set in motion by
voices singing in accordance with numbers, and, gently received at
the threshold of sensation, moves both the vital and the animal
spirits of the heart and the mind, which are the vehicles of the
mind, and sways, strikes and inspires the mind itself with various
affections in keeping with its modulation.
For, were it otherwise, how could that famous musician Timotheus of
Miletus inspired Alexander now to rage, now to mercy?
How could Pythagoras (as the story is told) have by means of music
led a wanton young man from his lust to a chaste and honorable life?
How could David have restrained mad Saul with his harp?
How could Ismenias the Theban have cured many gravely sick men? In
sum, I quite fail to see how countless men have done many other
marvelous things by the musical modulations and concords of sound,
nor did the ancient philosophers whom I read understand this.
4.
Hence (if I may come to my third argument, from the cause), the sages
give no
other cause for this notable motion aroused in the mind
by music’s power than that harmonious concord, proceeding from
a mental conception and an imperious affection of imagination and the
heart, in conjunction with the air, broken and tempered by the voice’s
power, easily penetrates the listener’s airy spirit (which is
the bond of body and soul), and moves and affects the listener’s
affection, impressed by a new affection, his imagination, impressed
by a new imagination, and his whole mind, impressed, as it were, by
the entry of a new mind. Indeed (which is strange yet true), the song
that has made its entrance strikes the heart and so insinuates itself
into the mind’s secret places and hidden recesses that it forms
and creates new humors of the body, new affections of the mind, new
manners and actions, and an entire new man, sometimes gradually, but
not seldom of a sudden. Marsilius Ficinus expresses this thing
finely. Concord, he says, moves the body by means of the airy nature
innate in motion, by means of the agitated air it stirs the spirit
(which is the airy bond of soul and body), by its affection it
creates an impression on the mind’s affection, and then, as it
were, by a friendly signification it acts upon the mind itself, and
lastly, more vehemently penetrating by a movement of subtler ai,r it
imprints a conforming and, as it were, kindred quality, suffuses
nature with a certain wonderful delight, not just the simple delight
of the mind, but also a natural one of the body, and it snatches and
claims for itself by right the whole man. That these things are true
is manifest from this, that the spirits agitated in the heart and
imagination (as Cardanus says)
catch up the air standing still in the breast, which the rest of the
spirits on the other parts of the body and members follow, now moving
the fibers, nerves and muscles, now restraining them, as the
government of voices and numbers either makes them swell with its
incitements or relaxes them as its course subsides and imitates a
slower motion. Hence it comes about that Man is more inwardly aroused
by voices and instruments, and is summoned to other actions than
those which lies within the power of hearing, for example to mercy,
murder, lust, cowardice, madness, tranquility, and to countless other
passions which harmony begets, nourishes and inspires. For if hearing
can render the human heart fearful by a thunderclap, a violent
movement of air, give me a reason which the mind cannot be sweetly
delighted by song gently striking the air. Now if this comparison be
fair and just, there is no such power and influence in no objects of
the other senses: color does not thus affect the eye thus, heat
touch, flavor taste, or scent smell, their appearances do not thus
move the imagination, do not thus affect the mind. For in them such a
vehicle is lacking, there is no similar medium, in them, there is no
such proportion with the mind, no such sympathy and likeness.
5.
Which I shall now demonstrate in my fourth argument, which is from a
simile.
The human mind (as I have previously shown) is naught else
but a certain sweet harmony. So the soul more greatly grows excited,
grows soft, and is moved because of its similarity and sympathy with
musical voices and instruments, more than by means of the fantasies
and shadows of the other senses. What? Do you concede to the magnet
the power of attracting iron? Do you concede to a dog’s tongue
the means of cleaning herbs and plants, and eloquence the art of
moving us, yet deny to music (which is the mistress of manners and
affections) the means and the bridle for steering the soul? Assuredly
there is no reason for you to deny this, for, just as we perceive
that by means of sympathy the touched string of a viol is able to set
a-tremble a like-tuned string of another instrument though itself
untouched, likewise, with musical sounds sweetly striking the air and
the ear, the strings of the internal senses are indeed moved, like
the equally-tuned ones of a viol or lute , and when these are
stricken and made akin the mind itself (inasmuch as it is divine) is
wonderfully delighted. If you seek a further cause, it is this:
inasmuch as what is the affection of the singer and the movement of
the air carrying the affection, such is the affection of the mind and
the motion of the mind receiving the sound. Therefore, just as
orators in the senate or the forum, seething with various affections,
impress upon the minds of their audiences the same affections with
which they are burning, so skilled singers singing hymns in a church,
if you will, or marriage-songs at a wedding, strike and affect others
with the same emotions they are feeling. At the sight of Venus the
eye often entrances the mind, so tell me the reason why, when
cymbals, voices, organs and psalteries are sounding well, the ear
should not move it more.
6.
The fifth argument is taken from examples, and it is thus. Birds and
beasts are
more captivated by songs than by the objects of the
other senses; soldiers in war, those toiling on the way, bawling
infants in their nurse’s embrace, the sick, the sorely wearied,
impious folk, melancholics, the sad, the mad are swayed by melodic
numbers, voices and instruments, although they cannot be touched or
moved by the other senses’ appearances or ideas (be they ever
so pleasant). In music impressed on the mind there is therefore a far
greater power for moving Man than in any other shadows and shapes of
things, which with their lying images only tint, but do not touch,
the mind. If you wish historical evidence to prove this point, you
may read in any source that music summoned Alexander to arms as if it
were a agitator, and brought him back from arms in more relaxed and
softer style;
that
in the Phrygian mode it incited a young man of Tauromenium to
burn down a courtesan’s house, but by shifting into a spondaic
form it retrieved him from the act; that
it restrained savagery in Achilles, rage in Hercules, the mind’s
soft lust in Clytaemnestra Why linger on this point? Not only one
man, but an entire Greek army would have perished, had not Homer
applied wholesome music to them as a medicine when they were
suffering from the plague. The Spartans would have failed,
had not Terpander restored their health when they were affected by
disease in peacetime,
and unless Tyrtaeus had restored their courage when they were routed
and distraught. Hippocrates did not achieve these and similar things
with his herbs, nor Apelles in his paintings. And so music is a more
emphatic and efficient influence than any deceiving objects, images
and likenesses of the other senses.
7.
These things that I have adduced ought to suffice for any man who is not a
stranger
to music and to all sweetness, but I shall
nevertheless add the arguments which follow from music’s
effects and from its end. From its effects, since music teaches us to
rejoice over good things and feel pained by their opposites.
Aegisthus the adulterer did not possess Clytaemnestra until
the bard left as her guardian had been stabbed and
perished,
and none of the other senses produces nothing of the kind. So music
moves the mind’s internal powers and potentialities more than
any other objects of the senses.
8. My argument a maiore is not without validity, for those
who
scorn music are not men, but rather are said to be donkeys such as
Midas; they are not men, but are said to be stones, such as Anteas
the Scythian, for if they cannot be moved by music (that noble object
of the mind), this is an argument that they can no more be moved by
the objects of the other senses than are donkeys and stones, and this
is as if you were to say “music, that most effective exciter of
the mind, does not move certain men like Aristarchus, therefore the
apparitions of the other senses can move them much less.”
9.
Finally, there exists the argument from music’s end, since
(as Macrobius says) in
this life the soul is limitlessly captivated by musical tones since
music conveys
to the soul in the body a memory of that music of
which it was aware in heaven, and which it it is destined to know
after its separation from the body. For this is the end of music (but
particularly of the Dorian) in this life, that, as a spirit speaks to
a spirit though visions rather than languages, by forms rather than
words, so by various movements and sounds music declares to the mind
many secrets of future and celestial harmony (whence it has taken its
origin). As a man in whom exists the sense and the savor of philosophy,
reflect to yourself, if a sheep (a simple animal) can conceive hatred
at the sight of a wolf, which is something else from the image of the
wolf he sees; if it can conceive love at the sight of its mother,
which is something else than the shape of its mother he visualizes in
his imagination, tell me whether Man, that most perfect of all
animals, only perceives sound and concord when he hears a concord?
This is scarcely true, but rather he is often carried along to the
perpetual pursuit of God and divine things by other forms of divine
love that have been conjured up and perceived. Thus true harmony
speaks to the mind, thus it instructs the inner mind. But next I
shall speak of music’s theoretic use.
THE THEORETIC AND CONTEMPLATIVE HAS GREATER NEED FOR MUSIC THAN DOES THE PRACTICAL AND ACTIVE
OWADAYS
those tho urge that music has no little power for the devotion of
worshippers and the study of contemplatives are criticized by many
men wielding a censorious pen. They too who strive to demonstrate
music’s divine use in the Church of Christ are also in bad odor
with the Stoics of our age. In the limits and confines of this
epitome I have requested myself to limit discussion to philosophy,
otherwise I out of sacred oracles and the Holy Fathers I could adduce
many testimonies, many arguments which grant approval: Jubal and the
patriarchs, if you consider the time of Nature; David and the
Prophets if you consider that of the Law; Christ and the Apostles if
you consider that of Grace. For Jubal invented musical instruments,
David played his harp most skillfully,
after the Holy Supper (as Matthew writes)
Christ
and the Apostles sang a hymn before ascending the Mount. Hence
the Apostles,
who in their epistles frequently urge the holy use of music, were
imitated by apostolic men (the fathers of the Church reborn), who, as
is agreed in Church histories, placed the greatest value on music
both vocal and instrumental in their assemblies everywhere. This is
crystal-clear,
for Pliny the Younger, writing of the Christians in his letter to
Trajan, says this: “This was the essence
of their crime
or error, that they were
accustomed to gather before daybreak and sing a song to their Christ
as if he were a god.” Here I cannot pass over in silence the
testimony of Eusebius, who
appears to trace the divine custom of singing in church to Christ. For,
he says,
by Christ’s example, Who sang a hymn
after the Supper, it passed into common use.
I shall prevail if I add St. Ignatius, the disciple of St. John the
Disciple, the third Bishop of the Church of Antioch after Peter, who
heard choirs of angles singing antiphons of the Holy Trinity, and
therefore began the custom of singing the same among the psalms.
Here too (to deal not only with
vocal music, but also with that of
organs and instruments), I can introduce and cite that most learned
Vitalianus, Pope of Rome, who about nine hunbred years ago most
skillfully composed a vocal piece, and taught men to sing in church
in harmony with an organ. You may read more in the Fasciculum
Temporum and in Platina in his Life of Vitalianus.
2. But what am I doing? I shall first demonstrate this thing from the
hardship of the theoretic life, which life is either inchoate in the
mortal journey or perfect in heaven. The one is like a growing
flower, the other possesses the fruit of blessed life, the former is
like a slender, infirm plant growing upwards and subject to many and
great storms. It therefore has need of aid, by which it can be
supported against the tempests of this world. So lest Demas,
stricken
by the tedium of the contemplation he has undertaken, should turn away
from God,
from Christ, from religion to the world’s
trifles, there is need of music’s divine inspiration, by which
he might be called back from this slippery fall and perilous relapse —
of music’s divine inspiration, I say, since (as Plato says)
this
life is wholly founded on musical concord, and the mind’s
contemplation itself is nothing other than a kind of heavenly
modulation. To the degree, therefore, that the way of virtue, which
is situated in contemplation, is more difficult, it has more need of
a sweeter companion (which is, as it were, like a vehicle on the
journey), whereby it may be refreshed. And music is the sweetest
companion, since it removes all the tedium of this most arduous and
difficult way of life, and inspires the traveler, wounded by the
thorns and pricks of this world, the object of a thousand buffets,
pierced by the infinite miseries of misfortune, yet nevertheless
rejoicing and triumphant, his mind fixed in God. For music teaches us
to be heedless of vanity’s shadows, pleasure’s torches,
fortune’s tricks, the world’s miseries. Music is
therefore necessary for men who pray. And, if I am not mistaken, this
can also be confirmed by a natural cause, since that Dorian harmony
speaks mysteries and hidden things to the mind fixed on
contemplation, and also, his inner potentialities touched, it
transports the devout man to heaven, like Elijah in his fiery car.
For sound moves external air, air moves the hear, the ear common
sensation and imagination, and imagination the mind dwelling in its
citadel. So if the sound be sweet, together with the string of the
mind they pour forth the sweetest concord. For, the grave, sweet
motion of air being perceived, it conjures up other species of
sweetness, instructed by which it sings to itself and God that truly
mystic alleluia of the contemplative. This being posited,
pray
join me in considering how much is lacking from the devotion of the
contemplative, if this miraculous power and stimulus of music should
be wanting.
3. My third argument is drawn from authority conjoined with reason.
Macrobius writes
that the gentiles employed Dorian music in their oracles, auguries
and exsequies because the mind, frequently growing faint in its
contemplation, rises up in flames of piety, reviving thanks to its
sympathetically harmonious movements. As the Orator writes in his
Tusculan Disputations,
Pythagoras disclosed to his disciples in Greek his most arcane
oracles of philosophy in a symphony of voices and instruments. And
indeed this is not strange, for frequently at the point of death men
stupid from birth speak divine things, whose prophecies and curses
find an outlet, as is agreed concerning Domitian in Lucan, Orodes
in Vergil, Calanus in Curtius, since
in them minds nearly free and separated from the discarded clothing of
the body
speak: how much more divinely are those who are
incited to heaven, to the mind, to God by music’s heavenly
inspiration, drawn from the body, from the senses, from all thought
of this world? Why should I add the testimony of Aristotle,
who
teaches that music has excellent power for three things, namely for
quietude,
for the disposition of life, and for contemplation? And
this last, as he says, possesses two parts, the search for truth and
the expiation of sin. “What? Does music search for truth? Does
it free us from the bond and monstrosity of sin?” Assuredly it
inquires and it frees. But hear me, it does so as a sweet medium, not
as a first cause and principle. For it is a medium whereby a man
(transformed, as it were, into mind alone) perpetually contemplates
First Mind and First Truth. Here I shall say naught of the authority
of Saints Augustine, Ambrose,
Jerome, and the other Holy Fathers who unanimously, one and all, revere
and admire
music’s power in contemplation.
Wherefore Isidore says “Music
was
introduced into the Church so that those who
are not bound by words might be moved by the sweetness of its
modulation.” Augustine adds an explanation for this thing: “for (says he) I perceive
that in accordance with their sweet
diversity all our spirit’s affections possess their particular
modalities in voice in song, which are aroused by I know not what
hidden affinity.”
4. The arguments which follow are taken from a usage, from a
comparison, from a simile, from a necessity, from a relation, from a
hidden property, and from an example. From the usage of music, which
is either public or private public all over the world in churches,
private mostly among the Muses in universities. Churches and
universities are places of contemplation more than of action,
appointed for philosophers and priests. It is therefore probable that
music pertains to contemplation more than to action, to the theoretic
life more than to the practical. Our ancestors commended this use of
music in churches as holy, and not long ago many did so as useful,
and now more recent writers
as legitimate. The argument from a comparison that follows is between
the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant:
if the one should imitate the other, insofar as is possible, and if
it is described as being possessed with the singing of twenty-four
elders, the harmony of angels, the hymns of the Saints, lyres, harps,
and other instruments of the kind, who should think it absurd, who
should think it impious if within the Church Militant we, excited by
the memory and the imitation thereof, should serve the divine godhead
with human voices, organs, psalteries and other musical instruments,
and prepare a road to the end, a movement towards the goal whither we
are moving? Hence you may conclude in a word that music is required
for perfect contemplation in heaven, and so it is necessary for
inchoate contemplation in this life, and indeed that it is more
helpful for this inchoate contemplative life than for the active one
to the degree that music is more analogous, agreeable and similar to
this life than to that one.
5. What ought I to add? I prove the same by a simile.
For just as a skilled and prudent physician, wishing to administer
pills or bitter potions to the indisposed, first alters their taste
with sweeter syrups lest to their peril his patients refuse the
wholesome medicine because of its bitterness, so, once upon a time
our ancestors, truly philosophic and wise men, attempting
to prescribe the bitter yet precious roots of the virtues to the
contemplative,
mixed music like a nectar with those roots so
that, its sweetness being perceived, all the tedium and effort of
contemplation might be removed, yet virtue’s fruit might be
harvested.
I shall not say with this same simile Augustine recommended to us the
praiseworthy use of music in the Church, I shall not say that (as he
writes in his book The Confessions)
in
church he was often driven to tears by the sweetness of the singers,
and, thanks
to the Spirit falling over his mind by means of
this singing, he abandoned his Manichaeanism and was driven to a
confession of the Christian faith. Oh music’s divine power,
which thus touches the minds and hearts of the contemplative! But
here an argument is drawn from a necessity, since, as they say, the
whirlwinds of the affections cannot be calmed in music’s
absence. For the fantasies of the contemplative are so many, so many
the cheats performed by demons, so many the perils of the solitary
life, that if you strive to dispel them by any other art but music,
you will only act in such a way that you go mad from an excess of
reason.
6.
Lastly, this thing is proven by experience, since those who live in
desert, solitary places, their eyes fixed on the ground, not seldom
sing to themselves. The reason is that by song they dispel fantasies,
banish the world’s deceits, and in living the solitary life
they much more readily give themselves over to the contemplation of
divine things. The reason for this takes its power from the relative
nature of sensation. For in the theoretic life music so acts that,
their minds wholly plunged into contemplation, men think of naught
but the celestial. For you man often see the devout so cast into
ecstasy by odes and hymns that, the rest of the senses put to sleep,
they are transported outside of themselves that they seem separated
from these mortal dwelling-places. And so if the contemplative life
is like a death of the external senses and a lifting-up of the mind
to God, nobody is such a dullard that he would not confess that music
(which dulls the senses and carries the mind to heaven) is most
necessary for the contemplative life. Music is a most divine science
of the mind, therefore it is most fit to move the mind, therefore it
is necessary for contemplation. “How do you prove this?” In this
way: since the mind is the seat of contemplation, music is the science
of mental
virtue, therefore it much more powerfully moves
the mind itself.
7.
But what am I doing? My discourse swims out too far into the ocean of
this subject.
Two arguments still remain undiscussed: the one is
sought from a hidden property, the other from an example. For brevity’s
sake, I shall conclude by treating these two as one. Music’s
hidden property, which shows that it is most powerful for the
theoretic life, is manifestly discerned in the pelican, the phoenix,
the nightingale, and other birds which lead the solitary life. For,
sitting in its nest with its young, the pelican
sings its final farewell and stabs its breast with its beak. Flying
to the mountain-top, the phoenix
sings once in its life, and with a movement of its wings steers
itself into the flames and ashes. The nightingale, perched on thorns
in the dead of night, praises God most powerful with varied song
drawn from its heart, and, wearied with life, falls to earth
lifeless. And the swan, as if desiring its demise, sings a little
before its death, closing its unhappy life with voice and celestial
harmony. There are few pelicans nowadays, no phoenixes; I scarcely
know if there are any who sing with the nightingales at midnight, but
I know for sure that there are right few who join the swan in singing
before death. But music will make many men pelicans, phoenixes,
nightingales and swans, which is to say men who devoutly pray and
contemplate.
THE POWER OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IS WONDERFULLY EFFECTIVE FOR THE CONTEMPLATION OF DIVINE THINGS, AND THAT MUSIC WHICH IS MIXED, I. E., WHICH IS A CONCORD OF VOICE, MIND, AND HAND IS PRAISED MOST HIGHLY
LATO divided music into three kinds, vocal, instrumental and mixed. The
first is performed by human voices alone, the second by instruments,
and the third by a concord of both. I have dealt sufficiently with
vocal music above, now I shall deal with instrumental and the mixed.
Of instruments, some are warlike, such as drums, trumpets, and loud
flutes, which (as Aquinas says) attract
the mind to firmness; others are ethical and moral, such as cymbals,
lyres, barbitons,
which attract it to virtue’s
delight; others are theoretic and serve divine uses, such as
psalteries, trigons, sambucae, and organs, which attract it upwards
to meditation upon divine things. Here I shall say nothing about
theatrical and bacchic flutes which excite the torches and frenzies
of lust, madness and love. So when I speak here of instrumental
music, I want it to be understood that I am speaking of that Dorian
music which is harmonized and performed by instruments (sounding, as
it were, divine mysteries). But, that I might approach the matter,
what, pray, do you criticize in organs and instruments, invented by
our forefathers for arousing a greater fervor and impulse of
devotion? If you consider their creation, it is divine; if their
similarity to the human voice, it is wonderful; if their
signification, it is mystic; if their property, it is unutterably
arcane and necessary; if their approval by all ages and nations of
the world, it is catholic and universal; if, finally, their end and
perfection, it is holy and religious.
2. But you insist I prove these things in order. Come then, since you
urge me thus I shall do that very thing, and to make my start from
the beginning. The first design of instruments without doubt
originated with God, which indeed the philosophers once insinuated
when they expressed their belief that the zither was invented and
given shape by Apollo, the lyre by Mercury, the trumpet by Mars, the
sambuca by Pallas, and other instruments by others of those then
accounted in the number of the gods. Let Jubal be the inventor, if it
please you: thus they are most ancient. Let Pythagoras, if you wish:
thus they are not new. However the matter stands, if you consider
their invention, their introduction into the Church came from God,
from immortal God, I say.
They are therefore sacred, and instituted not without a mystery. For
God and Nature do nothing without purpose. But you say they were once
placed among ceremonies in such a way that when the Light arose, they
were dispelled, like clouds. I reply that neither music nor these
musical instruments of which I am now dealing were ceremonial, since
they bore no type of any express future truth, and since Christ and
the Apostles themselves, singing a psalm, the angels on high singing
a gloria, bequeathed us a great encomium of music, which they
assuredly they would not have done, had the wished music to be driven
and expelled from the sanctuary of the Tabernacle and the Church of
God.
3. But I have nearly overstepped my self-imposed limits. Therefore I
arrive at my second argument, which comes from the similarity which
the instrumental musician has to the human voice. But here you will
possibly sneer, Aristarchus, when you hear me, as it were,
attributing life, voice and tongue to inanimate organs and
instruments. Laugh if you like, but there is no reason for sneering
if you join me in considering more deeply who bestows sound, voice
and sense on instruments. A man indeed has done this, who, after he
has conceived celestial harmony in his mind, touches, strikes and
moves instruments with finger, plectrum and breath, and shapes, forms
and modulates their voices and tongues in accordance with divine
inspiration and affection. So organs thus speak as the conceptions of
learned musicians command. So if human voices, employed with science
and poured into the ear, move the mind to God and to piety, which you
cannot deny, tell me why musical instruments, touched by the spirit
and affection of musicians, cannot achieve this selfsame thing in the
minds of men.
4. “But those inanimate
instruments lack articulate and
distinct voices.” You do right to remind me, so I go a-flying
to my third argument, in which I teach that instruments have fixed
and distinct voices and significations. Why do you deny this? Does
not the sounding bugle summon us to war, and the lyre to the laurel
and peace’s palm? Pray tell me why some instruments are
destined for war, others for peace, others the theater and the
banquet, and yet others for the church: is this because they all
speak in the same voice and confusedly at that? Is it because
instruments sound the same thing for actors on the stage as for
diners at table, the same for men fighting in the field as for those
praying in a church? If you say they all sound the same thing, I
appeal to you yourself, for you are aware of your error. But if you
say they do not sound the same thing, you must admit that instruments
claim for themselves distinct voices and sure significations of
voices. If it were permissible here to add holy testimonies, which I
choose not to do, I could join St. Paul in saying,
And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp,
except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known
what is piped or harped? He adds the reason drawn from an
example: For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall
prepare himself to the battle? In this context you see that
instruments are expressly conceded a voice, and that not confused but
certain, not obscure but known and distinct in its signification.
For, were this voice confused and uncertain, that rebuke of Christ
would unfair in which He says We have piped unto you, and ye have
not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
So mark you, if a certain voice, if a
certain distinction of sound,
if a certain kind of tongue and sense is conceded to trumpets and
flutes (the least of all the instruments in weight and dignity), how
much more should these be attributed to organs and other instruments
manufactured for divine usages and made strong with an speech-like
artifice (or rather a mystery) for speaking distinctly, especially
when they are conjoined with and enunciate affections or, if it
please you, the minds themselves of those devoutly playing upon them
are conjoined with and enunciate the affections and minds of
bystanders and listeners? Well then, I acknowledge the known and
certain voice of instruments, but I ask the means whereby it becomes
known and distinct. You have just now learned the means, for, just as
appearances and objects of things, purveyed to the eye through air or
water, are proper means, so the divine conceptions of musicians are
most fitly transmitted by means of well-sounding organs and
instruments.
5.
This more than miraculous power and influence attributed to
instrumental music
is that whereby, as if by fire sent down from
heaven by divine intervention, not only the Gymnosophists of India
are fired so that they divine and forecast future events, as some
write, but also God’s Prophets,
set ablaze by the same, pronounce great mysteries and miracles. Thus
they report that once upon a time the Sybils, with instrumental music
played at their door, were awakened from a deep sleep and slumber and
issued their prophecies, and indeed I cannot but believe that some
mystic property lies hidden in musical concord. For otherwise why
would Elisha have said
But now bring me a minstrel And why would these words have
been added in the text, namely, And it came to pass, when the
minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him? Oh the
power of music, more than divine and stupendous! Oh the heavenly
arcane influence granted to instruments and viols made ready for God’s
praise! Hence, I believe, the reason why in that consecration of the
Temple
the ranks, orders, rules and names of the singers were recorded, of
whom some sounded divine praises with the cymbals, some with the
harps, and others upon other instruments. And, to add strength to my
argument, one man, Chenenias by name, presided over both the prophecy
and the melody. Here if you want you may add that miraculous virtue
of banishing demons, of curing the sick, of pacifying beasts, whereof
theologians, physicians and philosophers constantly write in their
monumental works.
6. But concerning this virtue of instruments more will be said
afterwards. What remains now but for me to prove this same thing by
the reckoning of our ancestors? But at this point I know not where to
turn me, willy-nilly I am looking at a lyre in the sky, a zither in
the sky. I do not know if by this cause instruments have sufficient
praise and honor, but in this context I shall not inquire into
astronomical lyres and zithers. Now I am only celebrating those
things which make men devout and religious. Antiquity discovered
these things, the authority of our ancestors gave them its
approbation. If you seek examples by name, let us travel through the
lands and nations and ask why everywhere bells ring in towers,
instrumental music resounds in churches. Beyond doubt, we shall hear
this answer, the bells are like spiritual bugles summoning us to
battle, instruments are divine means which call us to heaven. For
there is a sweet clangor in the one, in the other a most sweet love
of God, since by the one, when rung in due order, we are incited to
war against the world, but by the sounding of the others to peace, to
devotion, to God. Hence in olden times emperors, kings, races and
nations bestowed the highest rewards on skilled players of musical
instruments. What need of examples?
Periander king of Corinth bestowed great rewards on Arion,
Hiero king of Sicily on Simonides, Alexander the Great on Timotheus,
Agamemnon on Demodocus, Julius Caesar on Hermogenes, Vespasian on
Diodorus; among the nations the Egyptians on Mercury, the Spartans on
Terpander, the Greeks on Ismenias; we English not long ago on
Taverner, Munday, Blitheman, Tallis, and More,
and for what reason should we, their descendants, not accord due
praises to Byrd, Munday, Bull, Morley, Dowland, Johnson
and many other most skilled instrumentalists?
7. Grant me your pardon, earnest reader, if I be overenthusiastic in
pursuing this matter. For music claims me, and instrumental music
claims me wholly. In my wretchedness I am not to be compared with
Augustine, and
yet I confess that, like him, I am very much moved by musical voices
and strings.
I shall add one or two reasons, and thus conclude
everything in this thesis. This will be the first, that musical
instruments, skillfully drawn and touched, guides human voices, and
renders them more assured and sweet. For their united force is
stronger, as the Philosopher says. And when voices combine and
conspire with instruments, a music is born that is more than divine
If these things are true (as they are most true), why are cymbals,
psalteries, trigons, sambucas and organs, i. e., why are musical
instruments to be removed from churches, from holy places? Indeed why
they are not rather to be approved as means of greater piety? Why
waste many words? I shall conclude in a few. They do not confuse the
sense of the word, for they possess a voice that is distinct. They do
not destroy devotion, for they kindle piety’s torches. They do
not hinder the pursuit of contemplation, for they bear us to God and
heavenly things, for this is the end of instruments, this is their
use, and when united with human voices they render harmonies more
celestial, they join mortals’ minds to God and to heaven the
quicker. So, although every kind of music has its very just praise,
nonetheless that which is called the mixed, i. e., that achieved by
hand and voice, should be deemed by far the most divine, since in it
both art and nature sing. For nature has given the voice, art the
instrument, and wonderful is the agreement and harmony of art and
nature in voice and instruments.
8. If you ask the reason, it is since both have the same foundation.
For as viols made with the strings of a wolf and a lamb are
necessarily dissonant, since their foundations are discordant, thus
it is necessary that art and nature, voice and instrument, greatly
conspire together, since they arise from the same or at least kindred
first-beginnings, and since art imitates nature, instruments the
voice. But mark you, although in this context I give by far the
greatest commendation to mixed music employing voice and instrument,
I do not exclude from churches and pious employments that simple
instrumental art of touching. Aquinas, that
star and splendor of his age, after having proved that music was
invented so
that the human mind might be provoked to God, wisely
introduced a distinction concerning instrumental musics and their
uses, namely that some have been instituted for the mind’s
strengthening, such as the trumpet, others for its delight, such as
the lyre, and others for loftiness and divine contemplation, such as
organs, which by a certain occult virtue and property make us rise
from the lowest places to the lofty, i. e. from terrestrial things to
eternal and divine, and this is indeed true. For the simple and
solemn sound of organs contains an imitation of a heavenly choir, as
is learnedly confirmed by Theodorus Beza and Jacobus Andreas in their
dialogue on the subject. I cannot commit to writing all I read there,
for I am striving for brevity. And yet I shall add a little. As far
as organ music goes (says Beza), “we know that the power of
music and harmony is great for moving men’s minds, nor do we
perceive a more excellent use for it than that it be directed towards
and preserved for the celebration and praise of the divine Name, and
the moving and exciting of human minds to God’s true worship.”
9. “But what (perhaps
you
ask) do these things have to do with
approving organs.” A great deal, assuredly, if you heed him
disputing just about the organ’s harmony. But a little further
he adds these words “likewise we do not deny that instrumental
music is morally indifferent, since we may employ it or not without
giving offense to God.” So much Beza, Andreas speaks thus. “Concerning
myself I can solemnly attest, being a man who takes great delight in
pricksong and
organ music: not only for the ears to perceive the sound, but also for
the mind
to be wonderfully affected by that harmony, and
also to be wonderfully excited either to prayer or to delivering or
hearing sermons when a church hymn is played with sweet harmony
either on the organ or by singers, as is done by received custom
before the preacher mounts the pulpit, and it is so divinely imbued
with the spirit of harmony that I can affirm that in myself I
positively perceive what you have been saying from the beginning,
that it is present in pricksong. I have likewise heard from many
other pious men, even laymen ignorant of the musical art, that they
experience the same in themselves.”
10. “These
things indeed prove that Man is greatly moved by concords of voice and
instrument,
but not that he is moved by the
organ per se.” You are not paying attention, but hear
what follows. “Furthermore, the story
of
David in Saul’s presence is a
familiar one, how, when he was agitated by an evil spirit of the
Lord, David played his harp, and its harmony drove away the malign
spirit. This harmony did not only strike the ears of King Saul, but
also affected his mind, so that he was freed from the evil spirit for
a time and was at peace. And it is not written that David sung, but
that he employed instrumental music (such as it was in his day.)
Therefore the power of pricksong’s harmony, which subdued the
evil spirit of the Lord, which penetrates as far as the mind even if
what is being played or sung is not understood by everybody, is not
to be scorned. And this power is experienced and felt as far greater
in those men who understand the sacred things which are being sung
of, as well as hearing the harmony.” Hence it is understood
that organs in churches have a great power to arouse pious
affections, not only when conjoined with voice, sense and word
(although in this manner it moves us most effectively), but even (as
I have just said) it can distinctly speak and enunciate arcane
mysteries to those who listen and those who pray. For as is the
devotion of an artful and pious organist, such is the affection that
flows from instrument into the hearts of his audience, which strikes
the nerves and fibers of the mind and, wondrously instilled by a
certain divine power transports him from lowly things to the most
lofty.
11.
I shall therefore join Andreas in concluding that those men act
ill-advisedly
who at a single stroke employ horses and ropes to pull
down organs, as if they were profane things, and drag them out of
churches to rubbish-tips and bonfires. For (to employ his conclusion)
it is agreed that “organs are morally indifferent, and not only
permissible but also excellent ornaments of churches, as long as we
use them to celebrate the divine godhead.” He adds an argument
that “to employ them thus is not only not prohibited but
expressly mandated in Psalm 150, Praise Him with the sound of the
trumpet; praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the
timbrel and dance; praise Him with stringed instruments and organs.
Why say more? If no arguments should move us to embrace this kind
of music, at least that should inspire us, namely that this kind of
harmony is pleasing to God and therefore should not displease us
little mortals.
I prove my antecedent, since, when music instruments have been struck
up,
God has deigned to look down from heaven on us little men and to fill
the Temple of Solomon with the cloud of His divine majesty. For thus
the text has it:
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one,
to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and
when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and
instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying For He is good;
for His mercy endureth for ever; that then the house was filled with
a cloud, even the house of the Lord; so that the priests could not
stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord
had filled the house of God.
DOES MUSIC HAVE A POLITICAL USE? FOR WHOM, AT WHAT PLACE, AND WHEN THE SAME IS TO BE EMPLOYED
OCRATES and
Plato placed such a high value on music that they often expressly
stated its alteration and its eclipse to be by far the most perilous
thing for republics, since, as they say, the manners, affections,
actions of citizens and the entire ordering of civil life depends, in
a manner, on music and harmony. For if there exists a certain concord
in a single man, it needs must be that in the commonwealth as a whole
(which is a union of many men) and in a republic (which is the
ordering and administration of that union) music is a kind of concord
and harmony. Otherwise, just as if when the nerves fail and the body
dangerously falls into paralysis and palsy of its members, so if its
members are dissonant the convulsed commonwealth perilously collapses
into horror and the confusion of its citizenry. Hence in Socrates and
Plato — what, did I say in Socrates and Plato? Nay, I should
have said amongst the Cretans, the Spartans, the Athenians, and the
Romans, and if you please I shall add the French, the Spanish and the
English — useful and excellent laws were once legislated and
(which is more important) observed concerning the use of music, and
concerning the ordering, life and education of musicians. There still
exist amongst us notable traces, since according to the statutes of
our ancestors precentors, organists, clerics and instrumentalists
exist in our individual colleges and more well-populated churches,
and when in individual towns at daybreak nobles are summoned to their
civic pursuits by musicians’ instruments, burghers to their
work.
2. But to summarize the whole thing in a few words, the use of music
is threefold: divine, which pertains to contemplation, ethical, which
pertains to the institution of our life, and political, which
pertains to the preservation of the republic and the commonwealth. I
have said enough about the theoretic and divine, now I shall speak a
little about the ethical and the civil. The ethical or moral use of
music (if I may proceed by way of drawing distinctions) is especially
perceived in two things, namely in the settling of bad affections and
in the acquisition of goodly morals. Hence the reason why Aristotle
and other philosophers have
exhorted boys and young men to the study
and practice of music, and there are three reasons for this, because
within it is the express image and sweetness of virtue, a useful
exercise of the voice, and a moderation of affection. The image of
virtue, for music itself is a virtue. The sweetness of
virtue, for music itself is a concord. Exercise
of the
voice, for in the practice of music there is a
wholesome
agitation of the lung which begets a noble spirit and heat in the
region around the heart, puts in order the thick humors wherewith the
age of boyhood abounds, and dispels all the vapors and clouds that
flow from the head or are in flux. Finally, there is a moderation
of affection therein, since (as I have taught above) by means of
air and ear it acts on mind itself, and wondrously binds it to its
will and command.
3. The political use of music is common and universal. In it ought to
be considered persons (for what individuals), place (when), means (in
what manner), and end (why) music is to be used, as can be understood
by any man. The persons for whom music’s use is fit
(excepting only slaves by nature) are
kings and burghers, princes and subjects, husbandmen and senators,
soldiers
and lovers of peace, and in sum the entire body
and multitude of the citizenry. “But this is absurd to have
kings, princes and senators playing Paris’ lyre in the senate
like minstrels.” It is indeed absurd, as you say, but I do not
require this. I only wish that high, middling and low have the timely
solace of music. “What? You want Caesars and Catos to become
musicians.” What, pray, is the evil if Caesars and Catos should
learn this art. For although Nero should not be allowed his zither in
the theater,
if nevertheless he should employ his zither to refresh himself in
private, no man of sound mind, as I believe, would rebuke this act of
Caesar.
So let princes liearn this art, let citizens learn it, let all men
learn it if they arable. But if they cannot fitly do so, let them
learn to apply it for their solace.
4. Next follows another condition to be observed in its use, namely
the time. The time is both fit and opportune when solemn
feasts and holidays, public banquets, weddings, or triumphs of a
noble victory are being celebrated for the honor of the commonwealth.
The place wherein this political use is discerned is either
public or private; public such as the theater, which the tragic
befits, the battlefield, suited for the warlike, the banquet hall,
suited for comedy, and finally the church, fit for the Dorian and
solemn kind of harmony. I say the Dorian, since a soft and effeminate
kind of music is unsuitable for a church. Thus they who employ organs
or other instruments play saucy tunes which impede devotion and
divine worship abuse the place. For this is a sacred place wherein,
as Augustine says, nothing should exist save only that for which it
was created. Here I draw no distinctions concerning private place,
since this does not pertain to music’s civil use. Yet it will
be politic and prudent if it is permitted each citizen to employ
music according to his will in his private house, if he should
carefully consider the means and end with which we are now dealing.
Why waste more words? Decorum is in the means, virtue in the
end, since you observe the mean if you attain to decorum,
and the end if you seek the delightfully honorable that exists in
concord. But if at home you only pursue Venus’ vain delights,
the less sober form of dances, and trash, you are abusing this art
and you fail to comprehend its true use. For just as it is a remedy
if you use it, it is a toxic poison if you abuse it. Use it, if you
please, at your weddings, at your banquets, and even for dancing, but
remember the mean, in which decorum shines, remember the end, wherein
shines virtue.
5.
Oh would that the young men of this age (I almost said “men
and old men,” but I shall add nothing), would that, I say — But I
shall not continue. Would that (but I shall not chafe the point), I
almost said,
men would abandon those odes and rhythms which
are more than rhythmic and without sense (stuff such as Mars once
used to adore his Venus, Antony his Cleopatra, Paris his Helen, even
Demosthenes his Laias), and
worship our God of heaven and earth with hymns and psalms! But this
world is
out of its mind, otherwise so many tomes — why
should I not say tumors? — of love poetry, so many books and
palaces belonging to Cupid, so many idols consecrated to vanity would
not be presented to men’s eyes and ears. Music’s use is
not to incite us to embrace virtue, not Venus; not to provoke nude
dancing girls to the furious foaming lust
of a wicked Nero,
but chaste bashful Vestal Virgins to the counsel of a Cato. Once upon
a time in tripping their solemn measure our ancestors expressed, as
it were, the movements, evolutions and steps of the virtues. But oh
the times, oh our manners! Times change and we change with them,
since nowadays in the dance nearly
each and every one of us bend
our knee, paying our respects to Venus, as in mid-evolution we
captivate our
mind with our wanton eyes, at its end we seek a kiss
and an embrace, “and who does not know the sequel?”
This is a hideous abuse of
public and private music: recreation
should be given, but turpitude avoided. Let organs be played, and
even, if you will, let there be dancing at banquets, in theaters, in
private houses. Let citizens be delighted by music, if only (as I
have said twice before) they remember the mean, in which is decorum,
and the end, wherein exists virtue.
6. OBJECTION Music, either vocal or
instrumental, is not commanded by the express Word of God: therefore
it should not be approved in the Church.
RESPONSE
I fail to see how it is
commanded by the letter of the New
Testament, but I do see the example and the advice wherewith it is
praised: the example of Christ, who recited a hymn after the Supper,
the advice of Paul and James,
who exhort us to tunefulness.
OBJECTION
Music belonged to the ceremonious Law. It is therefore to be
abolished now, since the new light of the Truth has arisen and the
clouds of the Law have vanished.
RESPONSE
Music
(as certain men teach) was not a shadow of the Law, since it bore no
express
image and pattern of the Truth that has
now been created. But even if it be granted that it belonged to
ceremony, your logic does not follow. Many ceremonies which are the
tinder of devotion and inspire it are retained in Christ’s
Church to this day. For this reason music was instituted in Solomon’s
Temple, for this cause alone it is received by us and was once
approved by our ancestors.
OBJECTION
God is spirit: therefore He is to be worshiped by the mind
rather than with song, by the spirit rather than a sonorous concord
of the voice.
RESPONSE
Your
reasoning does not hang together, because God created both mind and
body. Wherefore,
just as He directed that worship
should given Himself with all the powers of the former, so He
enjoined worship with all the parts and potentialities of the latter.
So when I praise external music, I am not denying the mind’s
internal concord; indeed, by the impulse of the one we much more whet
and excite the keenness of the other.
7. OBJECTION God knows what we are going to
ask for before we ask it, nor does He take delight in circumlocution
and verbosity. Therefore there is no need for pricksong or for
instrumental music, wherewith we hope to sway and overcome God by the
pointless repetition of the same syllable of a word or letter. For it
is better and more expedient to say pater noster in the mind
than with a stentorian voice to bawl out paaaater nooooster
accompanied by organs, idly repeating and insisting as if we were
singing to Baal or some deaf, sleepyheaded god who required trumpets
and instruments to be awoken and heed us.
RESPONSE
You are a playing a dangerous game, not unaware (as I believe)
of your vanity. For even if God, Who is eternal Wisdom, knows in
advance what we are going to ask for before we ask it, nevertheless
He requires our perpetual devotion and prayer as a sign of our
humility. And although He rebukes the vain undertaking of those who,
in seeking wholly unnecessary things, imagine that by a multitude of
words they are able to obtain their hopes and desires. Yet this does
not constitute a criticism of the musical repetitions and antiphonies
of those who pray aright, as is clear in that song of the boys in
Daniel
and the emphatic petition of the Canaanite woman and a certain blind
man who, often rebuked and rejected, were cured by Christ
after often repeating have mercy. What? Should it be allowed
to the Seraphim thrice to repeat Holy Holy Holy,
and to David to use the name of God three times in singing a single
verse of a psalm, but
not be permitted us Christians to do the same? Take care not to jest
with sacred
things, learn from the Apostles that not only your
mind and voice are required of you, but the musical concord of both
in the singing of hymns and psalms. And if, your mind fixed on God,
your tongue repeats the same letter, syllable or word, you should
regard this as the mind’s mystical zeal, not a magical
incantation.
8. OBJECTION By the confusion of voices and
instruments the sense of the sacred Word is either destroyed or
rendered obscure. Therefore music is not to be tolerated in
churches.
RESPONS
This is true if it is not sung
with by the musicians with good
diction and, as they say, articulation, but if the instruments and
voices combine sweetly and distinctly, we perceive a greater warmth
and fervor of our inward devotion.
OBJECTION
The piping organ and other instruments lack voice and tongue. Thus
they wound the ear with their racket more than they inform the mind
with any understanding of the Word. There is therefore no use for
them in churches, or if there is any, it deserves to be reckoned
pagan and profane.
RESPONSE
Although the piping organ (as you satirically call it) and the
other instruments of music lack a voice and a tongue, yet they speak
to the mind and fill it with divine affections, full of mysteries.
There are many reasons: 1.) because the concepts of the devout
musician are borne to the minds of men at prayers not otherwise than
objects through mediums. 2.) because from those concepts other
visions are conjured up by the power of divine Mind;
3.) because, the mind thus shaped, pious affections are aroused
therein. 4.) Lastly, because, these divine sounds being impressed by
instruments, forms conjured up by their proper power, affections
being created de novo, the whole man, forgetful of the world,
soars aloft to heaven with the eagle towards his prey and his
prize.
OBJECTION
Augustine confesses
that he was often distracted by the concord of voices and therefore
that he had
committed mortal sin. Likewise Gregory, when he
says that, when a sweet voice is sought after, a harmonious life is
neglected. Hence that saying “not the voice but volition, not
hearty music but the heart, not the loud but the loving sings in God’s
ear.”
It is therefore probable that the Fathers did not approve music in
the Church.
RESPONSE
In
that matter the Fathers are not accusing the art, but rather human
frailty. For
just as wine’s sweetness is not the cause of
drunkenness, but rather the intemperance of the drinker, so music is
not the cause of distraction, but rather the unconcern of the
listener who, the sense neglected, takes delight only in the
concord.
9. OBJECTION The theoretic life, fixed on God,
is sufficiently pleasant in itself. Therefore it has no need of music
for its delight.
RESPONSE
The theoretic life is twofold, absolute in heaven (which is
delightful enough per se), and comparative in Christ’s
Church, which is subject to persecutions. And this life needs music,
so that the minds of those who bear the cross in this life might not
fail, and might not be diverted from the journey they have
undertaken.
OBJECTION It
is a well known fact that organists often play saucy, impure tunes in
church.
Therefore it will be more in the Church’s interest
if those pipes are taken away from them altogether. Better for pipes
to be destroyed than souls, and it is needful for them to be destroyed
or at least cast into jeopardy if they are bewitched by softer music
like birds.
RESPONSE
I join Andreas in replying that in this argument there is an
accidental fallacy, and the true and legitimate use of organs is
scarcely to be abolished because of their abuse. Otherwise we should
have to forbid all employment of steel and wine, since many men abuse
the one for bloodshed and the other for drunkenness.
OBJECTION
It scandalizes many men to see and hear an organ in a church. It is
impermissible to offend weak men. Therefore it will not be
permissible to allow organs.
RESPONSE
The scandal is taken but not given, since if the thing being done is
legitimate, he who is offended appears to be unreasonable.
OBJECTION
Musical instruments are wood or metal. Therefore they do not possess
the power and virtue of moving the mind to the pursuit of piety.
RESPONSE
Argue likewise, if you will, that hematite is a stone and rhubarb a
plant, therefore the one has no power to staunch blood, the other
none to purge choler. Mark you, I attribute the power not to wood or
metal, but to God, Who has granted to instruments this property. For
just as He has granted His secret and divine powers to stars, plants,
and stones, so has He to harps, organs and instruments played in His
honor.
10.
OBJECTION Dramatic
harmony pertains either to
comedy, which renders people’s manners soft and effeminate, or
to tragedy, which makes them barbarous and truculent. It is therefore
not to be suffered in a well-regulated republic.
RESPONSE Comedy
and tragedy are acted in the theater, not so citizens might imitate
softness
or barbaric truculence, but so that, other men’s
evils having been witnessed, they may learn to shun and avoid
dangers.
Thus, if toads suck poison out of music giving a lifelike expression
to those affections in the theater, this is said to be a corruption
of the humor and the man, not a fault of the science and the art.
OBJECTION
Nothing delightful ought to be sought for its own sake. All music in
the theater is only sought for the sake of the delightful. Therefore
no music ought to be sought or tolerated in the theater.
RESPONSE
I concede that only the honorable ought to be sought for its own
sake, and the delightful as it is acquired for the sake of the
honorable. And thus indeed music is sought in the theater, not only
that we be delighted, but also that, refreshed by its sweetness, we
may more eagerly return to our appointed tasks in the republic.
OBJECTION Neither
theater nor the theater’s music is conceded to those
who pursue the theoretic life. But the theoretic life has more need
of music than the active, as you have taught. Therefore, if it is not
allowed to those living theoretically, much less should it be
conceded to political men.
RESPONSE
I taught that the theoretic life has more need of music than the
active, but there I introduced a distinction between heavenly or
Dorian music, of which the contemplative life has greater need, and
the civil or Phrygian, more required by the active life. The one
administers solace and medicine to those living theoretically, the
other to those living politically.
11. OBJECTION At banquets and marriages,
having eaten and drunk well, we are avid gluttons for the pleasures.
At these, therefore, there is no need for music, which transmutes the
tinder of Bacchus into the flames of Venus.
RESPONSE
Music is to be introduced into banquets and marriages, not that men
become bewitched by its seductions, men whom the Prophet rebuked for
their wantonness
and the Apostle chastised as intemperate,
but that the minds of the banqueters, suffused with heavenly
modulation, might be uplifted from reflection upon food to meditation
about heaven.
OBJECTION
During their feasts the Egyptians set images of death before their
banqueters, the Romans debarred flautists from their meals,
Alcibiades banished the lyre from his table.
Thus, according to their examples, we should ban music from banquets
rather than retain it.
RESPONSE The
Egyptians used to provide their banquets with the recollection of death
to the
sound of music, just as prudent physicians administer
absinthe seed to babes mixed with milk. For just as medicine is wont
to purge worms from the body by a mixture of the sweet and the
bitter, so the Egyptians were wont to employ that image to purge the
mental baseness that attends upon surfeit. The Romans, Alcibiades,
Alexander and Lycurgus indeed did forbid music, although not all
music but only the effeminate, soft and wanton music which corrupts
men’s manners.
12. OBJECTION To employ music in triumph is is
to indulge our own powers overmuch and gloat excessively over other
men’s evils and miseries: the former argues vanity, the latter
savagery. Music is therefore impermissible in triumphs.
RESPONSE This
reasoning has the skin and semblance, but not the substance and sinew
of an argument.
For to employ music after a victory over our
enemies or liberation from perils is not to confide overmuch in our
own powers or to rejoice at other men’s evils, but rather to
refresh our minds, wearied by miseries, and to offer our undying
thanks and praises to God, Who granted us our liberty. This is not
lacking in examples, for Miriam, Deborah and the daughter of Jepthah
celebrated victories in this manner.
13. OBJECTION In the home moral images, and
histories read and heard, do much more to capture and inform the mind
than does music. The employment of music is therefore not so useful
in the home. The antecedent is proven both because the eye affects
the mind more than the ear (as is agreed concerning the contrast
between eyewitness and hearsay evidence), and because things heard
with the help of the intellect, such as history read aloud, delight
the mind more than those which penetrate and are borne to the ear by
concord alone.
RESPONSE
It is an old and true saw that one eyewitness gives better
testimony than ten who give hearsay evidence. And yet it does not
follow that the objects of the eye affect the mind with pleasure
per se more than those of the ear. And the fact that
sometimes
in witnessing evil things or calm and good ones we are agitated more
violently by affections does not come about because of simple sight,
but because all the other senses and indeed our entire nature seem to
be moved and touched at the same time. For the eye conveys a simple
shape and appearance of a thing to common sensation via the optic
nerves, but here, out of the single appearance presented to it, the
senses conjure up others, and hence new imaginations arise by means
of the mind’s running to and fro. But within the airy spirit of
the ear (whereby music is immediately brought to the brain) there is
a greater sympathy with the mind (and this is a kind of concord),
hence a greater delight arises in the mind from the simple hearing of
music than from the sight of an image. As for what you add about
histories read and heard, I say we take great delight in these if
they are understood. But the amount of pleasure reading bestows is
proportionate to the spirt consumed by the mental attention required
for understanding: then the mind is said both to be delighted and
fatigued. For just as there is a sweet savor in learning which makes
for pleasure, so there is an effort in learning which engenders
tedium and pain. But there is no effort in music, no shadow of pain,
since it refreshes rather than shatters the powers of the wit,
renders the vital spirits subtler rather than consuming them,
sharpens the intellect with its wonderful influence rather than
tiring it with study; it instructs and informs the mind more than a
history, painted or read, rather
than confounding the mind, as you fancy. The reason is that it conveys
understanding
into the mind’s storehouse without any
fuss and bother.
MUSICAL PROBLEMS, WHEREIN THE AUTHOR OF THIS TREATISE ATTEMPTS TO ATTACT EARNEST READERS TO INVESTIGATE MUSIC’S SECRETS BY GIVING THEM A SMALL TASTE AND FEEL OF RECONDITE THINGS
WHY DO MEN FALLING IN A SWOON IMAGINE THAT THEY HEAR HARMONY?
T
is not the exclamation and commotion of bystanders and those coming
to his aid striking his ears which is confusedly perceived, but
rather the soul, now meditating escape from the body and the prison
of its servitude, has a kind of presentiment and foretaste of the
firstfruits of its future blessedness. For of necessity his soul,
existing as a harmony and on the point of returning to the heavenly
choir, hears the sweetest concord inwardly and in its heart, and,
recalled from this by the hubbub of the shouting men, it not
infrequently grieves and is tortured vehemently.
WHY DO MEN MOST REMOVED FROM MUSICAL SWEETNESS NOT SELDOM SING TO THEMSELVES IN THEIR SOLITUDE?
Indeed,
this comes about not only because the mind, consumed by solitude, is
refreshed by musical concord, but also since those live the solitary
life understand that this greatly contributes to the contemplation of
divine things and the pursuit of virtue. For within the melodious
movement of air this an incredible power for moving the mind, since
voices and viols, sweetly sounding outside fall into the mind’s
foundation not otherwise than lines towards a center, and are sweetly
united therein.
WHY IS IT THAT BABES, CHARMED BY NURSES’ SOUNGS, EITHER SURRENDER THEMSELVES TO THE SOUND OR AT LEAST CEASE TO CRY?
2.
Infants, who are very full of humors throughout the body and vapors
in the head, are easily coaxed to sleep and rest when their spirits
are pacified and settled, and by the sweet song of a nurse the
excessively agitated vital and animal spirits are pacified and
soothed. So it is not surprising if little babes, captivated by the
sweetly-sounding voice of a nurse, yield themselves to sleep and
repose. For when their movement and passion ceases, the humors of
their spirits grow tranquil and the vapors gather and seek out the
head. And there, condensed into a fog, for a while they abolish
sensation, begetting sleep and repose.
FOR WHAT REASON ARE EVIL DEMONS PUT TO ROUT BY MUSIC?
Because
good demons delight in concord. For just as good demons are a kind of
spiritual harmony, so bad ones are like horrid discords of nature,
since they are bewitched by strident unpleasant noise rather than
concord. For since by their nature evil demons deviate the most from
the First Cause (which is the principle of all harmony), it needs
must be that they are the most greatly wounded by sweet music (which
takes its influence from the First Cause), and flee from it as far as
they can.
WHEN MUSIC IS SUDDENLY HEARD, WHY DO MEN FEEL IT IN THE INDIVIDUAL FIBERS OF THEIR BODY AS IF IT WERE A SWEET MOTION OF SUFFUSED JOY?
3.
The reason is that the spirits (which are the instruments of
sensation and motion), stricken by the mind with music’s number
go a-flying into the several regions of the body; they retain the
same movement they received from the mind and in an instant convey it
into the fibers and several parts of the body. This is proven, since,
just as at a violent sound and motion the body often suddenly falls
into a paralysis and dissolution of its parts, so it is necessary
that its parts be marvelously restored by a peaceful and harmonious
movement, and that too suddenly, since the animal and vital spirits,
being most approximate in nature to soul, are dissipated into the
several parts of the body by a glance of the eye, as is manifestly
clear in men who suddenly grow pale when stricken by fear.
WHY ARE MEN BUSILY AND SERIOUSLY CONCERNED WITH SOME UNSUITABLE MATTER DEFLECTED FROM THEIR THOUGHT AS SOON AS MUSIC IS HEARD, EVEN AGAINST THEIR WILL?
The
reason is not only that music stirs the mind by a kind of divine
inspiration and makes us forgetful of ourselves because, admitted by
the ears to the mind’s inner recesses, it scatters the animal
spirits with its sudden movement, and strikes the mind, as if idle
and off-guard, and also distracts and impels it away the cogitation
in which it was plunged and towards solace.
WHY DO SERIOUS STUDENTS OF MUSIC OFTEN GO MAD?
4.
Music which delights the mind is one thing, but the study of music,
which exhausts and consumes the spirits, is quite another. The study
of music is the most difficult of all, both because music is a
mathematical science which is exclusively concerned with abstract
forms and ideas, and also since the songs of many singers seem to be
resounding like a perpetual chorus in composers’ brains. Thus,
although music itself is most beneficial, nevertheless the energetic
study and contemplation of music is harmful, since it shatters and
enervates the instruments of the mind and wit (which are spirits,
potentialities, and senses). Therefore, just as in music (which
consists of numbers) there is a certain power that refreshes the mind
(which is called the numbering number or the first principle of
numbering), so the excessively intense study of music entails labor
and effort, because of which the mind’s keenness grows most
blunt, and hence they over-arduous students of music lose their
minds.
WHY ARE SUFFERS OF FRENZY AND CERTAIN OTHER MALADIES OFTEN CURED BY MUSIC?
Since,
just as frenzy and other disorders of the kind are (if I may so say)
discordant furies and intemperances of nature, so music, which is a
natural harmony, soothes those furies by a certain art and its
regular numbers, and, the spirits enhanced and repaired, renders the
spirits concordant and amicable. Hence what Agrippa
writes concerning Theophrastus and Democritus is not wholly
incredible, that the one healed many victims of snakebite, and the
other a number of men suffering from sundry kinds of malady, by
musical concord alone.
WHY IS THE LIKE-TUNED STRING OF ONE INSTRUMENT SET IN MOTION BY THE MOVEMENT OF ANOTHER INSTRUMENT’S STRING, AND NO OTHER?
5.
Since there exists a sympathy and likewise a foundation for them
both. For just as there is such great affection between friends that
one seems to feel pain at the other’s ills, and to rejoice over
his good things, so between like-tuned strings there is a wonderful
agreement which moves both equally by a movement of air, as if they
were of one mind, and produces the same sound and concord in both.
For wonderful is the power of likeness in all things. For man moves
man, medicine moves a humor, adamant moves iron, the string of one
instrument the string of another, and everything moves that which
alike and akin to it by the hidden property of similitude.
WHAT ARE THE REASONS WHY STRINGS MADE OUT OF THE SINEWS OF A WOLF AND A LAMB FAIL TO HARMONIZE?
As
Agrippa says, it is necessary that all concords proceed from agreeing
foundations, if you wish them to come together in one. Hence the
saying roaring lions, mooing cows, grunting pigs do not comprise a
chorus. This is the same reason that governs strings made out of
the fibers or sinews of a lamb and a wolf: they have no consonance,
since the things whereof they are made have an innate mutual hatred.
In life the eagle hates the dove, the wolf the sheep, and when they
are dead the feathers of the former cannot coexist, nor can the
sinews of the latter sing together. This antipathy and disagreement
of nature is perceived between murderer and victim, between goat’s
blood and steel, between cabbage and grapevine, between axe and
jellyfish, and countless other works and effects of nature.
IN WHAT WAY CAN VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC ACHIEVE A CONCORD WHEN THEY DO NOT POSSESS THE SAME SPECIES OR FOUNDATION?
6.
Although instruments do not possess the same species and sign per
se, nevertheless they do by means of human intention and
moderation, since organs and musical instruments so speak and sound
as the minds of those knowledgeably and skillfully plying them
command. Wherefore, if in war the trumpet distinctly sings
taratantara so that men are inspired to the rage of Mars, why
cannot organs sing alleluiain church so that men may be
inspired to the ardor of piety? There is therefore no reason why
voices and instruments cannot combine, since both have the human mind
for their mover and moderator.
WHY HAS NATURE BESTOWED HARMONIOUS AND SEDUCTIVE VOICES ON SIRENS, HYENAS, AND OTHER MONSTROSITIES?
Nature
has granted the toad a crystal eye, the snake a precious gem, the
elephant a defending tusk, Sirens and hyenas a melodious voice so
that even in the basest things God’s most arcane wisdom might
shine forth. Furthermore, just as the Siren and the hyena have a
human face, so it is scarcely surprising for them to possess an
imitation of the human voice. For, just as heavenly modulation is
especially granted to men, so sweet voices and concords are most
often bestowed on those creatures that wear man’s form and
likeness.
FOR WHAT REASON ARE SOUNDS AND CONCORDS OFTEN HEARD IN THE EARTH’S DEEPEST PITS, SUCH AS EXIST IN THE WEST COUNTRY OF OUR NATION?
7.
Air that has come through passages in the earth is in sundry ways
agitated. For if the openings are narrower they produce a high sound
and harmony, if larger a deep one, and middling ones produce a middle
one. Thus from exhalations driven through those outlets of the earth
in tune with numbers occasionally arise sound and concord. For if a
ringing is heard in our ears because of the movement of entering air,
if a buzzing is heard in bees, it is not strange if air, insinuating
itself through the veins of the earth, produces various sounds and
concords in proportion to the variety of its movement and the
manifold nature of its outlets, and these are sometimes sweeter in
proportion to the purity of the metals that have been mined,
which create a kind of echo and resounding. For gold a has a golden
ring, silver a silvery one, and copper and iron have a melodious
voice.
WHY ARE FAMILIAR DEMONS SAID TO SING AND DANCE?
A
chorus of philosophers has taught that demons exist. For they posit
some that are celestial, they that move the spheres, some that are
ethereal, that hang in air, others terrestrial, that live in land and
sea, and yet others who live, always a-dying in the Stygian lake. The
demons of the first order (as they call them) are blessed, since,
beholding the majesty of the First Mover, they turn their orbs
forever with no trouble or tedium. But the rest are tricksy and evil,
but (as they teach) secundum magis et minus. For the closer
they are to the First Cause, the better a nature they are held to
possess. Hence some of them are called familiar demons, since they
work harm in their sport. These (and I except the infernal), whether
they be incubi, succubi, or other terrestrial spirits, have been seen
to dance like Pygmies of both sexes, they have been heard to sing,
they have been known to snatch babes from their cradles or charm them
in their mothers’ arms, they have been recognized to guard
buried treasures, visit some households, and very frequently to
frighten mortals in their fields, their houses, and in deserted
places. These demons, just as sometimes they flee music, as I say,
because of their lapse from the First Cause and deviation from the
First Harmony, so, retaining their essence (which was doubtless
good and divine), they are entranced by musical numbers and concords.
Hence, assuming Pygmy-like shapes, they seem to sing and happily to
trip their measures in a circle, either because they are thus
delighted, their nature being retained, or since under this guise of
the good they strive to deceive good men, not otherwise than do
Sirens and hyenas. For just as birds are deceived by a sweet flute,
so unwary mortals are frequently deceived by soft, effeminate
music.
WHY DO SWANS SING BEFORE THEIR DEATH?
8.
If what the philosophers teach is true, namely that the essences all
things derive from the First Cause in their constitution, and flow
back and are recalled to the same in their dissolution, lest being be
turned into nonbeing or something into nothing, it is likely that
this white bird of Jove, not unaware of its coming death, sings
before its death and burial. For, having a presentiment of death, it
sees its liberation, and in seeing this by some natural instinct it
breaks into song. Hence the poet wrote “Sweet songs are sung by
a failing tongue, the swan is a singer at its own funeral.”
WHY IS IT THAT THOSE WHO LABOR OR SUFFER FROM A FEVER SING?
Great
labor begets tedium, a sharp humor of the body creates pain, and
sweet harmony is called the remedy and medicine for them both,
inasmuch as it refreshes the spirits, enhances strength, restores all
nature to itself. Work is lightened by singing, singing relieves a
fever. For those who sing do not perceive the burden, those who sing
do not feel the fever’s heat. By song the spirit is repaired
wherein exists life’s preservation.
WHY ARE WILD ANIMALS TAMED BY MUSIC?
9.
Just as the frenzied and the insane are less wild when their spirits
are calmed, so beasts feel the heat of bile and fury less when their
agitated spirits are tamed by musical concord. For just as dispersed
and inflamed spirits add fires to their fury, so spirits which are
collected and, as it were, harmoniously united give more powers to
repose. Furthermore, not only the spirits but also the humors are
wonderfully tempered in them by music’s power, and forced into
temperament by its sweet motion. Hence what the ancients write can be
true, that fish an a pond at Alexandria are so captivated by the
concord of musicians, Hyperborean swans by the touch of a harp,
Indian elephants by the sound of organs, tigers, lions and beasts by
a chorus of singers, so that they can easily be caught by hunters’ bare
hands, without any need for nets.
WHY ARE BEES, WHICH ARE NOT POSSESSED OF HEARING, MOVED BY MUSIC, AND OFTEN CALLED BACK TO THE HIVE BY IT?
Musical
harmony strikes, captivates and moderates not only the ear, but also
the airy body with its tempered motion. Hence it comes about that
when the air is moved and agitated according to numbers, bees, being
airy little creatures, follow where the concord leads them, not
because they hear it (which Aristotle denies), but because the air,
moved by music but by no violent blast, delightfully attracts them,
since the little membranes they have within are stricken and the bees
themselves are likewise moved, and, delighted by this motion, they
follow the flute to the hive wherein, like citizens, they observe the
form of a republic.
HOW DOES MUSIC PROCURE SLEEP?
10.
As I have shown above, music tempers our humors, parts and
potentialities and compels them to repose. Which being done, it is no
wonder if vapors moved upwards to the head become mists, from which
arise sleep and repose. Sleep is procured then, when the condensed
vapors turn into mist, the cold of the head being tempered.
HOW DOES MUSIC AID DIGESTION
With
the spirits enhanced and tempered, our inward heat is banished, our
powers are stimulated, nature is reinforced, and digestion is
rendered better and quicker. Music (as is now sufficiently
demonstrated) both enhances our spirits and tempers our humors, and
with a wonderful sweetness suffuses the body’s fibers, sinews,
and individual powers, and so primary, secondary and tertiary
decoction are wonderfully helped. Hence not without reason nobles and
august gentlemen oppressed by cares of state fetch musicians to their
table, not only that their minds be freed of cares, but also that,
their digestion improved, their bodies are preserved safe and sound,
with no need for the little pills of Hippocrates and Galen.
WHY DOES MUSIC MOVE THE HUMAN MIND IN CHURCH MORE THAN IN WAR, AT THE THEATER, OR IN THE HOME?
11.
The power of Dorian harmony is greater than that of Lydian or any
other kind. for Dorian music, being the closest approximation to
celestial harmony, strikes the mind’s inner recesses more
vigorously, elevating it to the pursuit of piety and devotion. For if
you consider the place, it is holy; if the kind of
music, it is sacred; if its influence, it is wonderful; if
the cause of its influence, it is religion; if its
end, it is wholly divine. For the likeness of heaven exists
in a church, and the contemplation of God in Dorian concord; in its
movement and cause exist piety, salvation and blessedness in its end.
These are indeed great reasons why the mind is brought to God in a
church more than in war, at the theater, or in the home, since its
place, its harmony, and its power, cause and end all speak of
sanctity. And so if we be saintly, let us sing saintly things with
the Saints. Let us Englishmen sing sacred things,
let
us take up drums, psalteries, harps, let us proclaim the glory of God
among the
nations and His wonders to every people. For God has
freely worked His vengeance along with us. Oh how sluggish, how
slothful, how idle we be! He has not dealt thus with every nation: “O
how beloved to God, when at thy behest the very elements fight for
thee and the allied winds come at the call of thy trumpets.”
“The
enemy lately said, I will pursue, I will overtake England, I will
divide the
spoil; I will draw my sword, my hand will destroy
them.” But
behold, “Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered
them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.” Why not sing
unto Him a new song? Let us sing, I beg you, let us praise the Lord
in his holy places:
if we be soldiers, let us praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
if citizens, let us praise Him with the psaltery and lyre; if
priests, let us Praise him with drum and with choir, with strings and
the organ. If we are true Englishmen and British, let us praise Him
with the well-sounding cymbals, and let every spirit praise the Lord.
For He alone made this day, let us rejoice and exult in Him.
