DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0181
THE TREASURY OF THE ATHENIANS 165
the Delphic find a fragment of a little dirge, the Hymn of
Seikilos,1 had been found on a column at Tralles in Asia
Minor; but the two Delphic hymns were the first large
Greek compositions to become known, and though there
are gaps in the text and notes, especially in the second
longer hymn, and it is not the music of the great Greek
period, but of the decadence at the close of Hellenism, it
is nevertheless an unexpected and welcome initiation into
the Greek art of music that we have thus received. They
were performed by a chorus of voices to the accompani-
ment of harps and flutes, and according to the information
of other inscriptions, the size of the chorus seems to have
varied from forty to sixty performers. It is religious
music; one must think of the sounds as accompanying a
slowly moving festal procession, and everyone will notice
the similarity to Catholic church music, which is only a
further development of the ancient choir music. We
reproduce here (fig. 65) the notes and the Greek text to
the shorter, best-preserved composition, the Hymn to Apollo,
In translation the Greek text runs as follows :
“Ye (Muses) fair-armed maidens of high-thundering Zeus I
Ye who have inherited Helicon with its deep woods 1
Hasten to inspire with your songs your golden-haired
brother Phoebus, who on the cleft summits of Parnassus,
followed by the renowned Delphian women, hastens to
Castalia’s charming spring, dwelling on the Delphic mount,
the oracular height. Hither came famous Attica, the nation
of the great city, which, thanks to the prayers of the warlike
Tritonis (Athena), cannot be laid waste. On the holy
altars Hephaestus consumes the thigh-bones of young bulls,
and mixed with their scent the smoke of Arabian incense
rises to Olympus. The clear-sounding lotus-flute sounds in
alternating tune, and the golden harp with its gentle sound
answers to the hymns. And the whole swarm of the Attic
guilds of artists praises thy honour, thou great son of Zeus,
on these snow-crowned heights. Thou that revealest to
all mortals infallible oracular response ! They sing of how
thou didst conquer the prophetic tripod, which a wild
dragon watched, in that thou with thine arrows didst
1 Carolus Janus, Musici scriptores graeci, Leipzig, 1899.
the Delphic find a fragment of a little dirge, the Hymn of
Seikilos,1 had been found on a column at Tralles in Asia
Minor; but the two Delphic hymns were the first large
Greek compositions to become known, and though there
are gaps in the text and notes, especially in the second
longer hymn, and it is not the music of the great Greek
period, but of the decadence at the close of Hellenism, it
is nevertheless an unexpected and welcome initiation into
the Greek art of music that we have thus received. They
were performed by a chorus of voices to the accompani-
ment of harps and flutes, and according to the information
of other inscriptions, the size of the chorus seems to have
varied from forty to sixty performers. It is religious
music; one must think of the sounds as accompanying a
slowly moving festal procession, and everyone will notice
the similarity to Catholic church music, which is only a
further development of the ancient choir music. We
reproduce here (fig. 65) the notes and the Greek text to
the shorter, best-preserved composition, the Hymn to Apollo,
In translation the Greek text runs as follows :
“Ye (Muses) fair-armed maidens of high-thundering Zeus I
Ye who have inherited Helicon with its deep woods 1
Hasten to inspire with your songs your golden-haired
brother Phoebus, who on the cleft summits of Parnassus,
followed by the renowned Delphian women, hastens to
Castalia’s charming spring, dwelling on the Delphic mount,
the oracular height. Hither came famous Attica, the nation
of the great city, which, thanks to the prayers of the warlike
Tritonis (Athena), cannot be laid waste. On the holy
altars Hephaestus consumes the thigh-bones of young bulls,
and mixed with their scent the smoke of Arabian incense
rises to Olympus. The clear-sounding lotus-flute sounds in
alternating tune, and the golden harp with its gentle sound
answers to the hymns. And the whole swarm of the Attic
guilds of artists praises thy honour, thou great son of Zeus,
on these snow-crowned heights. Thou that revealest to
all mortals infallible oracular response ! They sing of how
thou didst conquer the prophetic tripod, which a wild
dragon watched, in that thou with thine arrows didst
1 Carolus Janus, Musici scriptores graeci, Leipzig, 1899.