And taught him songs before his art began;
And while soft evening gales blew o’er the plains,
And shook the sounding reeds, they taught the swains;
And thus the pipe was framed and tuneful reed.
—Lucretius.
But Christian writers believe that Adam, the first man, being endowed by the Creator with every sort of knowledge, excelled in music as well as in the other arts and sciences. With his fall this knowledge was weakened, while in his descendants many things were lost and all things became obscured. That music has in some way a heavenly origin all are agreed—even the Hindoos, who say that its effects are produced in us by recalling to memory the airs of Paradise, which we heard in our state of pre-existence; even the Greeks, whose fables are founded on the corruption of primeval traditions, and whose invocation to music is:
O art divine! exalted blessing!
Each celestial charm expressing!
Kindest gift the gods bestow!
Sweetest good that mortals know!