omed to singing the _organum_ of Hucbald, we have
a clue as to what it was and what it led up to. For while
one part or voice of the music would give a melody (copied
from or at any rate resembling the Gregorian chant or the
sequences of Notker of Tubilo), the other voices would sing
songs in the vernacular, and, strangest of all, one voice
would repeat some Latin word, or even a "nonsense word"
(to use Edward Lear's term) but much more slowly than the
other voices. Thus the needs of the Mystery were as well met
by incipient counterpoint on the one hand, as, on the other,
the secular song-play engendered the sense of harmony.

That the early secular forerunner of opera, as represented by
"Robin et Marian," was still, to a certain degree, controlled
by the church is clear if we remember that at that time the
only methods of noting music were entirely in the hands of the
clergy. The notation for the lute, for instance, was invented
about 1460 to 1500. Thus, we can say that the recording of
secular music was not free from church influence until some
time after the sixteenth century.

This primitive "opera" music was thus fettered by difficulty of
notation and the influence of the ecclesiastical rules until
perhaps about 1600, when the first real opera began to find a
place in Italy. Jacopo Peri and Caccini were among the first
workers in the comparatively new form, and they both took
the same subject, _Eurydice_. Of the former the following
two short excerpts will suffice; the first is where Orpheus
bewails his fate; in the second he expresses his joy at bringing
Eurydice back to earth. Caccini's opera was perhaps the first
to introduce the many useless ornaments that, up to the middle
of this century, were characteristic of Italian opera.

EURYDICE--PERI.

Orpheus bewailing his fate.

[Figure 43]
[W: I weep not, I am not sighing, tho' thou art from me taken.
What use to sigh]

Orpheus' joy in bringing back Eurydice.

[Figure 44]
[W: Gioi-te al canto mio serve frondo di che in su l'au rora]

[14] It is interesting to note as to the prevalence of Latin,
that Dante's "Divina Commedia" was the first important
poem in Italian. Latin was used on the stage in Italy
up to the sixteenth century; the stationary chorus
stationed on the stage remained until the seventeenth
century and was not entirely discontinued until the
first half of the eighte