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Sapphic stanzas used by the Lesbian poets (p. 149) also come readily to mind. The formal features of the closed strophe are that it is small in scale, between two and six lines; the lines are easily demarcated, being for the most part verses made to familiar metrical specifications (iambic or ionic dimeter, glyconic, etc.); and several of them may be metrically identical. For example, in Anacreon and elsewhere we find quatrains made up of three glyconics ( ) plus a final pherecratean one syllable shorter ( ). We can represent this particular arrangement as AAAB. Other common patterns include AAB, AB, ABC, AABC, AA, but not ABBA, AABB, or ABCA. Often B is a shortened or lengthened variant of A. |
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The tunes must have had a correspondingly clear structure, though it should not be assumed that those lines in a strophe which had the same metrical form were necessarily melodically identical. We should expect the melodic lines to form some sort of pattern of statement and answer. The strophe would have ended with a return to the tonic note, or some other form of final cadence to make it clear that it was an end. In the preceding lines this sense of finality had to be avoided; when the melody paused, it will have paused 'up in the air', or on some kind of half-cadence, leaving the hearer in no doubt that it was incomplete. |
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Three of the later pieces in our collection of musical documents illustrate the principle. They are not strictly speaking strophic, because there is no repetition, but each has the form of an isolated strophe of the closed type. |
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The Seikilos epitaph (15) has four lines, all metrically equivalent though with variants, and each containing a complete sentence. It starts with a rising fifth from the tonic g to d', and the first line and sentence end on c'. The second and third both end hopping across the tonic from a to f. The fourth ends with a falling cadence from the tonic down to d. |
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The anonymous invocation of the Muse (16) also has four lines, but in the pattern ABAB. Again the opening is a rising fifth from the tonic, e-b. The first line returns to e, but as it is the first line, no one could take this for an ending. The second line ends on g, the third on a, the fourth again on e. |
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Mesomedes' invocation of the Muse (17) has only three lines, the pattern being AAB. The first line starts from the tonic e and travels to d. The second takes us into what feels like a different mode, going |
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Plate 1.
Private sacrificial procession. Corinthian painted
wooden plaque. Sixth century BC. (Athens 16464) |
Plate 2.
Processions of dancers and musicians. Proto-Attic
hydria in Berlin. Early seventh century BC. (Berlin 31573) |
Plate 3.
Merry costumed dancers with piper. Black-figure cup
in Amsterdam. Mid-sixth century BC. (Amsterdam 3356) |
Plate 4.
Citharode mounting the competition podium before wreathed judges. Attic
black-figure amphora. Late sixth century BC. (London 1926.6-28.7) |
Plate 5.
Panathenaic procession. Black-figure amphora in
Berlin. Third quarter of sixth century BC. (Berlin 1686) |
Plate 6.
A piper accompanies a symposiast as he sings a piece of elegiac
verse. The painter has shown the words coming from the singer's
mouth, though they cannot be seen in the reproduction. Red-
figure cup in Munich. Early fifth century BC. (Munich 2646) |
Plate 7.
Women making music. Apulian pelike in Copenhagen.
Fourth century BC. (Copenhagen VIII 316) |
Plate 8.
Women making bread, entertained by a piper. Terracotta
group from Thebes. Late sixth century BC. (Paris 804) |
Plate 9.
Marching warriors with piper. Protocorinthian vase
(the Chigi vase), c.630 BC. (Rome, Villa Giulia 22679) |
Plate 10.
Athletes with pipers. Attic red-figure cup by
Epictetus. Late sixth century BC. (Berlin F 2262) |
Plate 11.
Athenian school scene. Red-figure cup by
Duris. Early fifth century BC. (Berlin F 2285) |
Plate 12.
Man with kithara and dancers. The Hubbard
amphora. Cypriote, about 800 BC. (BSA 37 pl. 8b) |
Plate 13.
Seated minstrel. Bronze figurine from Crete.
Late eighth century BC. (Heraklion 2064) |
Plate 14.
Citharode. Detail from red-figure amphora in
Boston. Early fifth century BC. (Boston 26.61) |
Plate 15.
Girl or Muse with round-based kithara.
White-ground cup in the Louvre
(Detail). Mid-fifth century BC. (Paris 482) |
Plate 16.
Satyr chorus with 'Thracian' kitharas. Late Attic
bell crater, c.420 BC. (New York 25. 78. 66) |
Plate 17.
Pair of auloi; crested harp (pelex); rectangular, 'Italiote
kithara. Detail from red-figure bell crater. Second half of
the fourth century BC. (Naples, Museo Nazionale, inv. 80084) |
Plate 18.
Young men playing tortoise-shell lyres.
Attic red-figure fragment. (Florence 128) |
Plate 19.
Alcaeus and Sappho, holding barbitoi, as
pictured by an Athenian vase-painter of
the early fifth century BC. (Munich 2416) |
Plate 20.
Citharode tuning his lyre as he mounts the podium.
Red-figure pelike, c.475 BC. (Münzen und Medaillen, Basle) |
Plate 21.
Muse holding auloi (note the flattened reed-tips);
another playing a harp (pektis); Musaeus holding
a lyra; (above) a round-based kithara. Attic red-
figure amphora, c.440 BC. (London E 271) |
Plate 22.
Woman with triangular harp (trigonos). Detail
from red-figure lebes, c.425 BC. (New York 16. 73) |
Plate 23.
Girl holding a sambyke (?). Attic white-
ground lekythos (Detail). Second quarter
of the fifth century BC. (Brussels A 1020) |
Plate 24.
Woman playing a lute. Terracotta figurine
from Cyprus. Late fourth century BC.
(BM 1919.6-20.7) |
Plate 25.
Piper wearing phorbeia. Attic red-figure
amphora. Early fifth century BC. (London E 270) |
Plate 26.
The Reading aulos. Probably
from Asia Minor, and not
earlier than the fourth
century BC. (BSA 63 pl. 55) |
Plate 27.
The aulete Pronomus. Detail from Attic red-
figure volute crater, c.400 BC. (Naples H 3240) |
Plate 28.
Satyr with panpipe and bagpipe. Hellenistic
gem. (Boardman, Ionides Collection) |
Plate 29.
Panpipes. Detail from Apulian situla. Mid-
fourth century BC. (Bloomington 70-97 1) |
Plate 30.
Scythian archer blowing a trumpet.
Black-figure dish by Psiax. Late sixth
century BC. (London B591) |
Plate 31.
Young man piping; courtesan dancing with castanets.
Red-figure cup by Epictetus, c.500 BC. (London E 38) |
Plate 32.
Maenads with drums; piping satyr. Tarentine bell
crater. Late fifth century BC. (Trendall, Frühital. Vasen pl. 6b) |
Plate 33.
Woman playing psithyra (?). Red-figure lekythos
in Essen. Mid-fourth century BC. (Essen 74. 158 A 3) |
Plate 34.
Page from the Naples manuscript containing
poems of Mesomedes with musical notation.
Fifteenth century. (Cod. Neap. gr. III C4 fol. 83r) |
Plate 35.
The Berlin musical papyrus. Late second or early third century AD. (P. Berol. 6870) |
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