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THE PHILOSOPHERS. 59 |
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begins, " my kingdom is my spear and sword." another composed by Chilon contains the following beautiful thought; " Gold is rubbed upon the touchstone, and thus is tested, but the soul of man is tested by the gold, if it be good or evil." But the kithara, although used in the skolion, was not the only instrument of the fashionable young men of ancient Athens, for the flute found great favor among them; in fact flute playing grew to be quite a mania for a time. It was part of the musical education of youth. Most of the teachers of the instrument came from Boeotia.
Flute players of ability were held in high honor; the art of flute playing received such an impetus that different flute schools were established in Athens; even rival methods of playing and teaching existed.*
Flutes were played in almost every place where music was required, to accompany hymns, at worship, and even sometimes the Greeks represented the combat of Apollo and the Python on this instrument, with kithara accompaniment; this may be considered as the earliest "song without words" in existence.
The ancients had some other attempts at tone pictures. Once an Athenian kitharist played to Dorian, a repi'esentation of a storm at sea; on being asked how he liked it, that ancient wit answered, " I have seen a better storm in a pot of
• Socrates intimates that the hiring of a large retinue of servants, and the purchase of an expensive flute, went very far towards establishing a reputation as a skillful flutist. |
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