Thus the mystical lýra has seven strings; Tǽrpandros (Terpander, Τέρπανδρος, 7th century BCE), the ancient poet and kitharôdós (kithára-player, κιθαρῳδός), is given credit for increasing the number of strings on the kithára from four to seven, but there are also mythological explanations, such as this one from the Poeticon astronomicon attributed to Hyginus:

"...Mercury (ed. Ærmís), when he invented the lyre on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, gave it seven strings, from the number of Atlas's daughters, of whom his mother, Maia was one." [3]

The acquisition of the lýra by the God Apóllôn

After Ærmís invents the lyre, next follows the charming story of the stealing of the cattle of Apóllôn followed by his apprehension by the God, presentation to Zefs for judgement, and their reconciliation. The two brothers exchange gifts:

"(Hermes) held out the lyre; and Phoebus Apollo took it, and readily put his shining whip in Hermes' hand, and ordained him keeper of herds. The son of Maia received it joyfully, while the glorious son of Leto, the lord far-working Apollo, took the lyre upon his left arm and tried each string with the key. Awesomely it sounded at the touch of the God, while he sang sweetly to its note." [4]

Thus we have the mythology whereby Apóllôn comes to possess the kithára.

The lyre in the Orphic Hymn to Apóllôn

"...the inventor of the blessings of music was not a man, but one graced with every virtue, the God Apollo. ... Thus music is in every way a noble pursuit, being an invention of the Gods." [5]

In the Orphic hymn to Apóllôn we have these lines (15-26):

παντός· σοὶ δ' ἀρχή τε τελευτή τ' ἐστὶ μέλουσα,

παντοθαλής· σὺ δὲ πάντα πόλον κιθάρηι πολυκρέκτωι

ἁρμόζεις, ὁτὲ μὲν νεάτης ἐπὶ τέρματα βαίνων,

ἄλλοτε δ' αὖθ' ὑπάτην, ποτὲ Δώριον εἰς διάκοσμον

πάντα πόλον κιρνὰς κρίνεις βιοθρέμμονα φῦλα,

ἁρμονίηι κεράσας τὴν παγκόσμιον ἀνδράσι μοῖραν·

μίξας χειμῶνος θέρεός τ' ἴσον ἀμφοτέροισιν,

εἰς ὑπάταις χειμῶνα, θέρος νεάταις διακρίνας,

Δώριον εἰς ἔαρος πολυηράτου ὥριον ἄνθος.

ἔνθεν ἐπωνυμίην σε βροτοὶ κλήιζουσιν ἄνακτα

Πᾶνα, θεὸν δικέρωτ', ἀνέμων συρίγμαθ' ἱέντα·

οὕνεκα παντὸς ἔχεις κόσμου σφραγῖδα τυπῶτιν.

“For the origin and completion are both in your care, 15

The cause of the blooming of all things; with your resonant lyre you harmonize the entire axis of the heavens,

At one time advancing to the lowest pitch,

And at another to the highest, at times in the Dorian mode,

You temper the entire axis; you keep the tribes of living creatures distinct,

You have mingled in harmony the share of all mortal men, 20

You have mixed an equal measure of winter and summer,

You have arranged the highest three strings in the winter, the lowest in the summer,

You are the seasonal Dorian flower of the lovely spring,

Thereupon the mortals celebrate and call you lord and

Pan, the two-horned God who sends the whistling winds, 25

Wherefore you bear the formative seal of the entire Kózmos.” [6]

The Neoplatonist Thomas Taylor, comments on this section of the hymn:

"Gesner well observes, in his notes to this Hymn, that the comparison and conjunction of the musical and astronomical elements are most ancient; being derived from Orpheus and Pythagoras , to Plato. Now, according to the Orphic and Pythagoric doctrine, the lyre of Apollo is an image of the celestial harmony, or the melody caused by the orderly revolutions of the celestial spheres. But I cannot believe that Orpheus and Pythagoras considered this harmony as attended with sensible sounds, according to the vulgar acceptation of the word: for it is surely more rational to suppose, that they meant nothing more by the music of the spheres, than their harmonical proportions to each other. Indeed these wise men, to whom metaphors were familiar, may be easily conceived by vulgar sound and vulgar harmony to insinuate internal sound, and harmony subsisting in its origin and cause. Hence we may consider the souls of the celestial spheres, together with the soul of the world, as composing the choir of the nine Muses (ed. Mousai; Gr. Μοῦσαι) (who are called by the Platonists nine Syrens [ed. Seirínæs; Gr. Σειρῆνες]) and dancing in numerical order round Apollo the sun of the intellectual world. But these nine Muses are far different from the marine Syrens of the poets who, resident as it were in the sea of material delights, draw us aside by their alluring melody, from the paths of rectitude. For these are divine Syrens inviting us to the proper end of our nature; and forming from the eight tones of the eight spheres, one perfect and everlasting harmony.

"The following quotation from the Platonic Nichomachus (Νικόμαχος), Harm. i. p. 6. illustrates the meaning of the Hypate (Ὑπάτη) and Nete (Νεάτη), or the highest and lowest string. From the motion of Saturn (Κρόνος), (says he)

'The most remote of the planets, the appellation of the gravest sound, Hypate, is derived: but from the lunar motion, which is the lowest of all, the most acute sound is called νεάτη, Nete, or the lowest.'

But Gesner observes, that a more ancient, and as it were archetypal appellation, is derived from the ancient triangular lyre, a copy of which was found among the pictures lately dug out of the ruins of Herculaneum; where the highest chord next to the chin of the musicians is the longest, and consequently (says he) the sound is the most grave. Gesner proceeds in observing, that the three seasons of the year are so compared together in a musical ratio, that Hypate signifies the Winter, Nete the Summer, and the Dorian measure represents the intermediate seasons, Spring and Autumn. Now the reason why the Dorian melody is assigned to the Spring, is because that measure wholly consists in temperament and moderation, as we learn from Plut. de Mus. p. 1136. E. and consequently is with great propriety attributed to the Spring, considered as placed between Summer and Winter; and gratefully tempering the fervent heat of the one, and the intense cold of the other." [7]

The lýra of Orphéfs

"...and one may see among the stars the Lyre, its arms spread apart in heaven, with which in time gone by Orpheus charmed all that his music reached, making his way even to the ghosts of the dead and causing the decrees of hell to yield to his song. Wherefore it has honour in heaven and power to match its origin: then it drew in its train forests and rocks; now it leads the stars after it and makes off with the vast orb of the revolving sky." [8]

"Next, with the rising of the (ed. constellation) Lyre, there floats forth from Ocean the shape of the tortoise-shell, which under the fingers of its heir gave forth sound only after death; once with it did Orpheus, Oeagrus' son, impart sleep to waves, feeling to rocks, hearing to trees, tears to Pluto, and finally a limit to death. Hence will come endowments of song and tuneful strings, hence pipes of different shapes which prattle melodiously, and whatever is moved to utterance by touch of hand or force of breath. The child of the Lyre will sing beguiling songs at the banquet, his voice adding mellowness to the wine and holding the night in thrall. Indeed, even when harassed by cares, he will rehearse some secret strain, tuning his voice to a stealthy hum; and, left to himself, he will ever burst into song which can charm no ears but his own. Such are the ordinances of the lyre..." [9]

The above quotations from the ancient astrologer Marcus Manilius refer to the constellation Lýra and its effects in the affairs of the world. This grouping of stars was given this name by the astronomer Klávdios Ptolæmaios (Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος); he named the constellation after the famous singer and mystic of our religion, Orphéfs (Ὀρφεύς). The great Thæológos (Θεολόγος), as he is known, was given a lýra by Apóllôn [10] ; therefore, the lyre of Orphéfs is the lyre of Apóllôn. The conception of the lyre of Apóllôn above us in the heavens brings to mind other celestial ideas associated with the power of music and the mystical kithára, now associated with Orphéfs, the Apollonian soul who most exemplified his father.

We have a note from a scholiast on Virgil which talks of the lyre of Orphéfs:

"But some say that Orpheus' lyre had seven strings corresponding to the seven circles of heaven." [11]

This would seem to refer to the divisions of the heavens, i.e., the sky, where it was believed that the divine beings dwelled, but the quotation goes on to say:

"Varro says there was an Orphic book about summoning the soul, called the Lyre. It is said that souls need the cithara in order to ascend." [11]

This would imply that the music of the kithára of Apóllôn has the ability to cause a transformation in the soul, enabling it to ascend or progress. In antiquity, it was generally believed that the earth was the center of the universe, but the idea was that our planet was the grossest part, not the most important. What was above the earth was not merely more elevated, but it was the realm of divine beings. The heavens were believed to produce musical tones and one means to access the divine was through music which is in harmony with these realms. This is described in a composition by Cicero known as the dream of Scipio, being a dream that Africanus is supposed to actually have experienced:

" What is this loud and agreeable sound that fills my ears?"

"That is produced," he replied, "by the onward rush and motion of the spheres themselves; the intervals between them, though unequal, being exactly arranged in a fixed proportion, by an agreeable blending of high and low tones various harmonies are produced; for such mighty motions cannot be carried on so swiftly in silence; and Nature has provided that one extreme shall produce low tones while the other gives forth high. Therefore this uppermost sphere of heaven, which bears the stars, as it revolves more rapidly, produces a high, shrill tone, whereas the lowest revolving sphere, that of the Moon, gives forth the lowest tone; for the earthly sphere, the ninth, remains ever motionless and stationary in its position in the centre of the universe. But the other eight spheres, two of which move with the same velocity, produce seven different sounds, ---a number which is the key of almost everything. Learned men, by imitating this harmony on stringed instruments and in song, have gained for themselves a return to this region, as others have obtained the same reward by devoting their brilliant intellects to divine pursuits during their earthly lives." [12]

The important point being that the mystical lýra is not merely an instrument for pleasure and amusement, but that it has a deeper function: to enable the listener to access the divine and that this instrument is the possession of Apóllôn and Apollonian souls such as Orphéfs.

NOTES:

[1] Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις Παυσανίου 5.14.8.

[2] Ὁμηρικὸς Ὕμνος 4 Εις Ἑρμῆν 25-55, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914.

[3] (ψευδής) Hygini De Astronomica 2.7, trans. Theony Condos, 1997. Found in the book entitled Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook, Phanes Press (Grand Rapids, MI), where this quotation may be found on p. 134.

[4] Ibid. Ὁμηρικὸς Ὕμνος 4 Εις Ἑρμῆν 496-502, Evelyn-White, p. 399.

[5] Ἠθικὰ Πλουτάρχου· 78 Περὶ μουσικῆς (On Music – De musica) [pseudo-Plutarch] Section 14, trans. Benedict Einarson and Phillip H. De Lacy, 1967. Found in the volume entitled Plutarch's Moralia XIV, Loeb Classical Library 428, Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, MA) and William Heinemann (London), where this quotation may be found on pp. 383-385.

[6] Orphic Hymn to Apóllôn lines 15-26, trans. by the author of this essay.

[7] Thomas Taylor in The Hymns of Orpheus, 1792.

[8] Marcii Manilii Astronomicon 324-330, trans. G. P. Goold, 1977, Loeb Classical Library 469, Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, MA) and William Heinemann (London), p. 31.

[9] (ψευδής) Hygini De Astronomica 324-330, trans. G. P. Goold, 1977, Loeb Classical Library 469, Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, MA) and William Heinemann (London), p. 327.

[10] (pseudo)-Hyginus Poeticon astronomicon 2.7.

[11] Found in The Orphic Poems by M. L. West, 1983, Clarendon Press - Oxford, where this quotation may be found on p. 30. Prof. West states that it is known from a scholium on Virgil discovered in a Paris manuscript in 1925 and regarding the quotation, he makes this reference: J. J. Savage, TAPA 56 (1925), 229 ff. Not in Kern.

[12] Marci Tullii Ciceronis De Re Publica 6.18, trans. C. W. Keyes, 1928. We are using the 1977 edition, Loeb Classical Library 213, Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, MA) and William Heineman (London), where this quotation may be found on pp. 271-273.

The story of the birth of the Gods: Orphic Theogony.

We know the various qualities and characteristics of the Gods based on metaphorical stories: Mythology.

Dictionary of terms related to ancient Greek mythology: Glossary of Hellenic Mythology.

Introduction to the Thæí (the Gods): The Nature of the Gods.

How do we know there are Gods? Experiencing Gods.