The fingers of the hand upon the pipes having decreed in a practical way the first scale of musical sounds, very naturally it would come to pass that an instrument with strings, in the time of beginnings, would be set to copy the same order of sounds, which, simple as it was, had an importance that held the character of law, something to be abided by. Imitation is the beginning of conservatism, all history tells us that the crudest and the most limited attainments are those that set up the sternest barriers against innovation.
When the string time came, the method resorted to for obtaining differences in sounds from strings was that of varying the lengths; next the differences gained by varying the strain upon them were perceived; and ultimately the advantages from the use of strings manufactured of various thicknesses. This last method implies the cultivation of a trade or an industrial production of sheepgut treated for the purpose of the musical use of it. Probably the advance from the first step to the last was a slow process; it was progress, and progress is slow.
The Egyptian lyres and harps that are the subject of illustration in the chapter previous, show very clearly the custom of reliance upon differences in lengths, and strain in varying degrees, the sloping bar particularly indicating the simplest mode of effecting change of strain, but as yet there is not evidence of the practice of uniformity in the lengths of the strings of lyres. That the Egyptians had attained skill in making strings of various sizes, gauging them, in fact, to suit the positions of each, may fairly be inferred, at least for late developments in the larger harps, but not, I think, for instruments of the very early periods.
With the Greeks the contrary is the rule, they come into the temple of history ready equipped with the portable open-handed lyre, the strings of uniform length. They are late comers it is true, and derive their arts from both Egypt and Asia, and I should assume that, in this case, the particular form of their lyres was due to Asia.
It was the lyre of the strangers visiting Egypt. Fig. 51, page 293, that was the choice of the Greeks, it may have been Lydian, or Lycian, or Phrygian, or Lesbian, as thus the ancient writers named several modifications of style in lyres, but the essential design is the same in all.
We should not forget that development was going on simultaneously for thousands of years in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. An instrument like that shown in Fig. 52 I consider to have been the prototype of all cross-bar lyres, both of the sloping and the horizontal bars, the latter the latest form because, as I said, implying an industry of skill in making the strings; the original home of the prototype, Mesopotamia, the instrument working its way up into Asia Minor, a region where empires came and went, yet this type of lyre remained through all vicissitudes, fixed in the people’s choice by immemorial custom of age after age.
The Greek lyre is first mentioned by Homer. His words have a deep significance of the intimate influence it had on Greek life. He speaks of the player,—
“How he comforts the heart
With the sound of the lyre.”
In the bronzes-room of the British Museum there is a disc with a relief representing Hermes making the lyre. One lyre he holds in his left hand; another is beside the altar. The strings of both are inlaid with silver. The fable concerning the origin of the lyre in the tortoise-shell is told in many ways. In the Hymn to Hermes, according to Mr. Lang’s version, it is told how Hermes,—