To the song of the Goddess Mama,
The song which is better than honey and wine.
In fair reason may we not conceive that through long ages tradition held its sway amongst the people, and that these pipes were dedicated to the goddess Mama, were given into the hands of women to play and to cherish the melodies of songs that belonged to their race, and that they named the twin pipes Mamms, in affectionate reverence for the “Lady of the Gods” whose song was better than honey and wine.
CHAPTER V.
In the Land of Etruria.
THE GRECO-ETRUSCAN DOUBLE FLUTES.
THE BULBED OR SUBULO FLUTES.
The Song of Linus is heard to-day in the land of Egypt; the sacred melody played on the double flutes in ancient days survives without change, but no player on these pipes exists; the song is sung in wailful cadence by lips of another race, for the old race has vanished
in the long corridors of Time.
Strange is the irony of history! The dwellers in the land have forgotten the name of their song, and call it after a Greek myth. Yet, in its origin, it was a very real song of lament, a true outcome of human sorrow, age remembered and treasured in the hearts of the old Egyptian people, and perpetuated by tradition even amongst those who were strangers in the land, who tilled the soil, and lived in the ruins of the past. It was a lament for the king’s son, known as the Song of Maneros, so that grand old interviewer, Herodotus, tells us. He had thought this Song of Linus to be a famous song of Greek origin.