Sappho’s poetry had great effect even on the rough character of Solon, the law giver; hearing for the first time one of her songs, which his nephew sang to him, he vehemently expressed the wish that he might not die before he had committed to memory so beautiful a song.
Sappho’s name is almost the only female one in the whole realm of ancient Greek music, which was pure, noble, and uncontaminated. Latterly, even her character has been assailed, but the accusation has been refuted by Herr Welcker, of Bonn, (in the Rheinisches Museum,) Ottfried Müller and other learned writers. After her, music as practiced by the female sex, was handed over to the most degraded, (the Hetarae) and seems to have borrowed from Egypt many lowering qualities,[30] including dancing girls and ribald songs.
Anacreon of Teos, introduced into Greece the light, airy songs, in praise of woman, wine, etc., “It is no great stretch of fancy,” says a thoughtful writer,[31] “to imagine his songs as expressing our modern Allegretto Grazioso, Andante Scherzoso, etc.”
From precisely this point however (the lack of signs of expression in all Greek music) another writer[32] deduces the opinion that Greek music must always have been in a crude state, and by no means of the beauty which some enthusiasts ascribe to it.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHILOSOPHERS, AND GREEK SOCIAL MUSIC.
From the sixth century B. C., music may date its entrance into the positive sciences, for Pythagoras, born about 570 B. C., first began to analyze music from a scientific point of view, and to ascertain how far it rested upon natural laws. Pythagoras is said to have been the son of a wealthy merchant. He was as before mentioned, one of the earliest Greeks in Egypt, and after having been instructed for some time by the priests, had at last the honor of being admitted into the Egyptian college of priesthood.
After remaining in Egypt twenty-two years, he spent some time among the Chaldeans, and at last returned, full of wisdom, to his native Samos. But here the sensuality of the court of Polycrates was so little to his taste, that he departed to the city of Croton in southern Italy, where he founded the order of Pythagoreans.
With the order itself, we have little to do, but when we consider that its founder was the pioneer of scientific musical research, its proceedings become in some degree interesting.
“All is number and harmony” was the fundamental maxim of this philosopher,[33] and he sought for the laws in music, therefore, in nature. This led to some mistakes of course, for the laws of nature had not been made clear enough for thorough guidance, in that era. It is said that Pythagoras one day, passing by a blacksmith’s shop heard the blows of different hammers sound the fundamental, fourth, fifth, and octave, and entering, he weighed the different hammers, thereby obtaining the proportion of these intervals to each other.
This story has been proved to be a silly myth, for the proportions given are wrong. He should have weighed the anvils not the hammers, and anvils of such difference in size as would be requisite to produce these intervals would not be seen in blacksmiths’ shops.