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But now new gates stand open wide
for the holy chorus-rings. |
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He goes on to justify the new style by a vision of a wild Dionysiac celebration among the gods, with drums and clappers, waving torches, and frenzied dancing; and by his own authority as a nationally important poet. The old-fashioned kind of dithyramb was monotonous and lacking in variety.67 The reference to the 'false-sounding ''s"' clearly serves to define 'formerly' as 'before the refinements of Lasus'. It is worth mentioning that one line of the (unreliable) biographical tradition made Pindar a pupil of Lasus.68 |
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Simonides must have known Lasus as a member of Hipparchus' entourage,69 but it is difficult to say how much he was influenced by him. All that we hear of his scale systems is that he used the Dorian mode (not necessarily always) and the enharmonic genus.70 It may be significant that he appears in one version of the list of those who enlarged the kithara: he is named as the inventor of the eighth string, and specifically of 'the third note', i.e. Trite, which is the note missing from the third of the heptachord scales recorded in the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems.71 |
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Like other choral poets of the time, Simonides commonly used the triadic system of strophes. His rhythms are certainly complex and 'modern' in comparison with those of Ibycus or Anacreon. One feature of his technique that seems particularly forward-looking is his occasional stretching of a word beyond its natural measure for the sake of an expressive musical setting.72 |
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In Pindar we find a composer with a marked interest in musical and literary history. He looks back over the centuries, contemplates poets and musicians of the past, and comments on their achieve- |
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67 'Drawn out like a rope', schoinoteneia, may allude to the schoinion nomos (p. 216). It also recalls Euripides' criticism of Aeschylus' songs (in Ar. Ran 1297) as like those of a rope-maker. |
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68 Eustathius, Proleg. Pind., iii. 296. 19 Dr.; Vita Pindari Thomana, i. 4. 14 Dr. Cf. G. A. Privitera, Laso di Ermione 60f.; I. Gallo, Una nuova biografia di Pindaro (Salerno, n.d.), 64. |
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69 Ar. Vesp. 1410 represents them as rivals in a dithyrambic contest. |
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70 Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1136f (where Bacchylides and Pindar are also mentioned for Dorian), 1137f ('the Pindaric and Simonidean manner' = enharmonic). |
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71 Pliny, HN 7. 204, Suda iv. 361. 8; Pr. 19. 32, see p. 177. |
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72Knoosseis, pyyr: see p. 201. |
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