There are several illustrations of lyres having a number of loose rings upon the bar; Dr. Burney gives one where one long string is threaded through a series of them from top to bottom of lyre. But the idea is an impossible one for practical validity, since the tension could not be regulated to differ for each note, and the string being continuous from one to the other, to affect one note would be to affect all.
Rings and loops on the bar are often seen, details of strings being omitted, and there is doubt how much the painter knew of the instrument he presumed to depict; modern artists shew themselves equally presumptuous, seldom or never caring to know or to enquire into the mode of playing, or to understand the design of the construction.
Some little light, I think, is given in a description of an ancient lyre which, in a mutilated state, was recovered by Lord Elgin from a tomb at Athens.
“It was in fifty pieces, but the fragments could be so put together as to leave no doubt of its figure and action. The wood is of cedar, and in size similar to that held in the hand of Apollo. Having laid in the earth about three thousand years, it was surprising that the woodwork was not all decayed, for the metallic parts were completely dissolved. This lyre evidently had eight strings, from the number of little rollers which had turned upon the cross bar. On each roller there was a small projecting peg, upon which the string was looped; and then by turning the roller it was raised in pitch, and the mode of fixing it was by slipping the end of the roller, which was notched, upon a fastened piece of wood of corresponding shape.”
This clearly was a clutch method, and a fairly good mechanical invention, and possibly some details are wanting, if fine tuning according to our notions was required; and we are led to suppose that the Greeks were very exacting about pitch. Yet for all the ancient writers tell of subtle divisions of tones, I have my doubts of the practical exercise of discrimination of pitch to the imagined degree of sensitiveness of ear, generally assumed to be a natural gift of the people of Greece; the instruments were not fitted with sufficient mechanical exactness to produce and retain such fine distinctions.
Another advance in lyre-making consisted in the adaptation of a projecting box affixed to the front of the larger body of the lyre; this was an Egyptian invention, for which, see ante Fig. [56]. The strings were attached to this little box, and it is probable that within it there were means for tightening and relaxing the tension of each. This was also a useful device for bringing the strings forward from the face of the instrument. Let us hope that some forgotten tomb still holds a perfect lyre in its keeping.
Greek writers make mention of lyres of many strings, with strange sounding names, but examples are rare of such, indeed they are more Asian than Greek. Pompeii and Herculanæum have preserved for us pictures of some, but the period is late.
There is an instrument which may stand as a representative of the many stringed, and as indicating the class of so-called Trigons, almost letter D shape. It is depicted upon an ancient vase in the Munich collection (Fig. [64]). It is supposed to be in the hands of Erato, she holds it against her left shoulder, not as is the custom with our modern players of harps, resting on the right shoulder; obviously the custom in each case is the one best suited to the convenience of the player and to the different demands upon the instruments in ancient and in modern use. The vase is Etruscan, but the lyre is Egyptian in origin and Asian in style, witness the leopard skin spread upon the seat. The artist was at fault in his drawing. The lyre is of the Egyptian model, the bulk or thick portion of the boat-form being thrown upward above the shoulder, and this as a sounding-board should have been made plain. This particular development of style I should surmise to be Lydian, or perhaps, more southern in origin, possibly Assyrian.