FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  
gs and, poised almost motionless with hovering flight, looks all around him and seeks what prey he shall choose whereon to swoop[37] sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven on high. In one glance he sees all cattle in the field, all beasts upon the mountains, all men in their cities, all threatened at once by his intended swoop, and thence he falls to pierce with his beak and clutch with his claws the unsuspecting lamb, the timid hare, or whatsoever living creature chance offers to his hunger or his talons. [Footnote 36: _inhibens_ (Heinsius) _pinnarum eminus_ (MSS.).] [Footnote 37: _fulminis vicem de caelo improvisa, simul._ Van der Vliet places a comma after _vicem_ and gives none after _improvisa_.] _The story of Marsyas and his challenge to Apollo._ 3. Hyagnis, according to tradition, was the father and instructor of the piper Marsyas, and skilled in song beyond all others in the years when music was still in its infancy. It is true that as yet the sound of his breath lacked the finer modulations; he knew but a few simple modes and his pipe had but few stops. For the art was but newly born and only just beginning to grow. There is nothing that can attain perfection in its first beginnings; everything must commence by mastering the elements in hope, ere it can attain experience and success. Well, then, before Hyagnis the majority of musicians could do no more than the shepherds or cowherds of Vergil who _Made sorry strains on pipes of scrannel straw._ If any of them seemed to have made some real advance in art, even he played only on one pipe or one trumpet. Hyagnis was the first to separate his hands when he played, the first to fill two pipes with one breath, the first to finger stops with either hand and make sweet harmony of shrill treble and booming bass. Marsyas was his son, and though he possessed his father's skill upon the pipe, he was in all else a barbarous Phrygian, with a filthy beard and the grim and shaggy face of a wild beast. All his body was covered with hair and bristles, and yet--good heavens! he is said to have striven for mastery with Apollo. 'Twas hideousness contending with beauty, a rude boor against a sage, a beast against a god. The Muses and Minerva, hiding their amusement, stood by to judge, that they might make a mockery of the monster's uncouth presumption and punish his stupidity. But Marsyas, like the peerless fool he was, never perceived that he was an object of rid
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122  
123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Marsyas

 

Hyagnis

 

breath

 
Footnote
 
Apollo
 

improvisa

 
played
 

father

 

attain

 

finger


separate
 

majority

 

musicians

 

trumpet

 

experience

 
success
 

Vergil

 

cowherds

 

scrannel

 
advance

strains

 
shepherds
 

Minerva

 

hiding

 

amusement

 

hideousness

 

contending

 
beauty
 

perceived

 

object


peerless

 

monster

 

mockery

 

uncouth

 

presumption

 

stupidity

 

punish

 

mastery

 

possessed

 

Phrygian


barbarous

 

harmony

 

shrill

 

booming

 

treble

 

filthy

 
bristles
 

heavens

 

striven

 

covered