Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/102

 78 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE over the sea to Terpander's island. Terpander is thus the developer of yEolic or native Greek harp-music. But he also learned, we are told, from the Cretan Chrysothe- mis. Now, Crete was one of the first Dorian settlements. So Terpander is a junction of the native string-music with that of the Dorian invader. All that we know of him, his name * Charmer-of-men ' included, has the stamp of myth. He gave the lyre seven strings in- stead of four. Seven tunes are mentioned as his inven- tion ; one particularly, called the 'Terpandrian Nomos,' is characterised by its seven divisions, instead of the simple three. Beginning, Middle, and End. He won four musical prizes at Delphi — at a time before there were any contests. He is the first musical victor in the Carneia at Sparta. All these contests existed at first without fixed records, and the original victor is gener- ally mythical. The conclusion is that, as there was heroic legend, so there was song in most cantons of Greece before our earliest records. The local style varied, and music was generally classified on a geographical basis — ' the Phry- gian style,' 'the Ionian,' 'the Dorian,' 'the hypo-Dorian,' 'the hyper-Phrygian,' 'the Lesbian,' and so on. The division is puzzling to us because it is so crude, and because it implies a concrete knowledge of the parti- cular styles to start with. The disciples of Socrates, who saw every phenomenon with the eye of the moralist, are strong upon the ethical values of the various divi- sions : the Dorian has dignity and courage, the Phry- gian is wild and exciting, the Lydian effeminate, the /Eolian expresses turbulent chivalry. This sounds arbi- trary ; and it is satisfactory to find that while Plato makes the Ionic style 'effeminate and bibulous,' his