These long Pompeian flutes could not have been played with all the holes uncovered; indeed, I come to the conclusion that one instrument in its purpose had the same utility as our three clarionets, enabling the player to take the scale in a lower range. Thus, at one time he would limit himself to the upper portion, and not use the lower; and at another time close off the upper notes and extend the range to the lowest extreme. And such changes might have been made at the end of any part of the song, or measure of the music; and the rearrangement in the closing of the holes would easily and quickly be effected. We should not, I think, imagine that an extensive compass was desired, as we desire it; for art was limited by precise rules and elaborate systems, and to ignore them was to offend. Evidently, in this instrument the capabilities of the Greek and Roman Auloi attained perfection,—nothing further was achieved; and with this we may consider that the era of ancient flautists closed.
At the present time there are several bands of excavators at work on classical sites. There is rivalry between the savants of four nations (German and French, English and American), each anxious to unearth the past, so that any day we may see new treasures that for centuries have been waiting,
“Hid from the world in the low delvèd tombs.”
CHAPTER IX.
Back to the Land of the Nile.
EGYPT REVEALS THE SECRET.
What! didn’t you know? I thought that everybody knew that. Why not have asked before? Could have told you at any time. That is the way that secrets have of coming out,—“promiskuss like,” as they say in the village. Now it seems that the bulbed mystery that we have been tantalized about, and which has so worried the lobes of our brain on sleepless nights, is after all a piece of nature, coaxed by artifice to be non-natural. A method of waist making was practised in early life to ensure the result desired; it was an instance not of design in nature, but of design upon nature, much as the modern young lady’s waist is. The simplicity of the explanation is charming. There is a passage in Pliny referred to by Mr. W. Chappell in his History of Music, and I will quote what he says. What it means I do not know, but that is by no means an objection, as one mystery is at least left, and what we shall do when every secret is open is a mystery past finding out!
Pliny, in describing the reeds grown in Lake Orchomenus, in Bœotia, says that one which was pervious throughout was called the piper’s reed (Auleticon). This reed, says he, used to take nine years to grow, as it was for that period the waters of the lake were continually on the increase. If the flood lasted at the full for a year the reeds were cut for double pipes (Zeugitæ), and if the waters subsided sooner, the reeds were not so fine, were called Bombyciæ, and were used for single pipes.
There is another account of this furnished by the ever learned Mr. J. F. Rowbotham, in his so styled “History of Music,” which is no history, but a monologue (attractive, truly) on the historical progress of the art of music during some centuries. He says that the whole account is in Theophrastus (Hist. Plant, IV., 11), and names the lake differently. The passage runs thus:—
But most of all was Antigenedes renowned for the care he took in choosing his flutes. And we hear that he altered the time of cutting the reeds from September to July or June. For the reeds of which the flutes were made grew in the Lake Copais, in Bœotia, which also furnished Pindar and the Theban flute players with flutes. And this is the way that the reeds were cut. The flute reed always grew when the lake was full with a flood, which took place about once in every nine or ten years. Its time of growing was when, after a rainy season, the water had kept in the lake two years or more,—and the longer the better. And it was a stout, puffy reed, fuller and more fleshy and softer in appearance than other reeds. And when the lake was swollen, the reeds increased in length. And the time of cutting was in the rainy season in September. And this was the time of cutting, up to Antigenedes’ time. And he changed the time of cutting to June or July,—i.e., in the heat of summer. And the pipes cut at this period, they say, became seasoned much sooner; three years were sufficient to season these, whilst the others cut in the rainy season took many years to season. This is what they tell us. But I think that it was another reason which induced him to cut them in the dry season. And that was to get the reeds crisper and shorter and smaller in the bore, and that for this he was ready to sacrifice even beauty of tone to get them crisp and small. It was at any rate to get some peculiar and highly artificial effect.