A Popular History of the Art of Music | Page 8

painting was somewhat defaced after Bruce saw it, and it was only within later years that a clever explorer discovered that by passing a wet sponge over it the original lines could be made out. According to Lepsius it has thirteen strings.
In the XXth dynasty, about 1300 B.C., there were harps having twenty-one strings, of which a good example is shown in Fig. 3. This instrument, also, is elaborately colored and ornamented in gold and carving. The strings are shorter than those of Bruce's harpers, and the pitch was most likely within the treble register. The second figure clapping hands is marking time. The one upon the right is playing upon a sort of banjo, of which mention will be made presently.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
Some time before the period of the Hyksos, the "Shepherd Kings" of the Exodus, there is a scene of a procession of foreigners presenting tribute to one of the sovereigns of Egypt. Among the figures is one playing upon a sort of lyre. Later this instrument became the established instrument of the higher classes, as it was afterward in Greece and Rome. Several complete instruments have been found, which, although dating most likely from a period near the Christian era, are nevertheless sufficiently like the representations of ten centuries earlier to make them instructive as well as interesting. Figs. 4 and 5 are from F��tis. One of these lyres had originally six strings, as is shown by the notches in the cross-piece at the top. They were tuned approximately by making the cord tense and then sliding the loop over its notch. From the clever construction of the resonance cases these instruments should have had a very good quality of tone. In some of the later representations there are lyres of twenty strings.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.
LYRE AT BERLIN.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.
FROM THE LEYDEN MUSEUM.]
[Illustration: Fig. 6.
A GROUP OF STREET MUSICIANS.
(1) Woman with tall light harp, of fourteen strings. (2) Cithara. (3) Te-bouni, or banjo. (4) Double flute. (5) Shoulder harp. (6) Singer, clapping hands.]
It will be observed that up to this point all the musicians represented are men. In later representations women are more common. Fig. 6 represents the entire musical culture of the later empire, this particular representation belonging apparently to an epoch not more than a few centuries before the Christian era. The harp in this case is of a different construction, and lighter than those in the former examples. It would seem to have been played while the player walked, for we find it in what seems to be moving processions. The lyre occupies here the post of honor next the harp. The banjo and double flute come next, and then a curious instrument of three or four strings, played while carried upon the shoulder. Several of these instruments have been found in a very respectable state of preservation. Their construction is better shown in the illustrations following:
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
The tonal relation of these instruments to the larger harps is difficult to conceive. Wilkinson gives the dimensions of the most perfect one in the British Museum as forty-one inches long, the neck occupying twenty-two inches, and the body being four inches wide.
The instrument with the long neck and the short body, seen in Figs. 3 and 6, belongs to the banjo family. Its resonance body consisted of a sort of hoop, or a hollowed out piece of sycamore, the sounding board being a piece of parchment or rawhide. Some of these have two strings, others one; three are occasionally met with. The name of this instrument was te-bouni, and it was of Assyrian origin. It was afterward known as the "monochord," and by its means all the ancients demonstrated the ratios of the octave, fourth and fifth, as we will later see.
We have no knowledge whatever of the tonal sound of the music which so interested these ancient players and singers. There is, however, an ancient poem, called "The Song of the Harper" found in a papyrus dating from about 1500 B.C., which gives an idea of the sentiments the music was intended to convey. Here it is, from Rawlinson's "History of Ancient Egypt," p. 48:
"THE SONG OF THE HARPER."
(From a papyrus of the XVIIIth Dynasty.)
The great one has gone to his rest Ended his task and his race; Thus men are aye passing away, And youths are aye taking their place. As Ra rises up every morn, And Tum every evening doth set. So women conceive and bring forth, And men without ceasing beget. Each soul in its turn draweth breath, Each man born of woman sees death.
Take thy pleasure to-day, Father! Holy one! See, Spices and fragrant oils, Father, we bring to thee. On thy sister's bosom and arms Wreaths of lotus we place; On thy sister, dear to thy heart, Aye sitting before