De institutione musica I.1: Proemium. Musicam naturaliter nobis esse coniunctam et mores vel honestare vel evertere.
The perception of all the senses is present so spontaneously and naturally in certain living things that without them an animal cannot be understood. But the knowledge of them and a firm perception is not gathered equally by the investigation of the mind. For what we apply to the sense in perceiving sensible things is without labour; but what is the nature of the senses themselves by which we act, what the property of sensible things, this is neither obvious nor explicable to anyone, unless a fitting investigation of truth has directed him by contemplation. Sight is present to all mortals, but whether it is effected by figures coming to the sight, or by rays sent out to sensible things, is doubtful among the learned, while the common crowd does not even notice the doubt. Again, when someone looks at a triangle or a square, he readily recognises what he sees with his eyes, but what the nature of the square or the triangle is must be sought from the mathematician. The same can be said of the other sensibles, and most of all of the judgment of the ears, whose power so catches sounds that it not only takes judgment of them and knows their differences, but is also often delighted if the measures are sweet and fitted together, and pained if they strike the sense scattered and incoherent. Hence it comes about that, whereas there are four disciplines of mathematics, the others labour in the investigation of truth, but music is joined not only to speculation but also to morality. For nothing is so proper to humanity as to be relaxed by sweet measures and braced by contrary ones, and this does not confine itself to single pursuits or ages, but is spread through all pursuits; infants and youths and also old men are so naturally joined to musical measures by a certain spontaneous affection that there is no age at all that is separated from delight in a sweet song. Hence it can also be discerned that it was not said by Plato without reason that the soul of the world was joined together by musical concord. For when by that which is joined and fittingly fitted together in us we take in that which is aptly and fittingly joined in sounds, and are delighted by it, we know that we also ourselves are put together by the same likeness. For likeness is friendly, unlikeness hateful and contrary. Hence the greatest changes of character also come about. A wanton mind is delighted by more wanton measures, or often, hearing them, is softened and broken. Again, a harsher mind either rejoices in more spirited measures or is made fierce by more stirring ones. Hence it is that musical modes also are designated by the names of nations, as the Lydian mode and the Phrygian. For in whatever each nation rejoices, the mode itself is called by that name. A nation rejoices in modes by likeness of character; for it cannot happen that the soft be joined or delighted with the hard, or the hard with the softer, but likeness, as has been said, wins love and delight. Hence Plato also thinks that most care must be taken that nothing be changed in well-ordered music. He denies that there is any so great ruin of morals in a commonwealth as gradually to subvert modest and chaste music. For the minds of the hearers at once suffer likewise and gradually depart, and retain no trace of the honourable and right, if either through more wanton modes something shameless, or through harsher ones something fierce and savage, slip into their minds.
For no way lies more open to the mind for disciplines than through the ears. When, therefore, rhythms and modes have descended through them as far as the mind, there can be no doubt that they affect and shape the mind in a like manner as they themselves are. This can be understood also among nations. For those that are rougher delight in the harder modes of the Getae, those that are gentle in moderate ones; although in this time that is almost nothing. But the human race that is wanton and soft is wholly held by theatrical and stage modes. Music was chaste and modest while it was played on simpler instruments. But when it was handled in varied and mixed fashion, it lost the measure of gravity and virtue and, having almost fallen into baseness, it preserves very little of its ancient beauty. Hence Plato commands that boys should by no means be instructed in all the modes, but rather in strong and simple ones. And here that is chiefly to be kept in mind, that if in any manner something were changed here by the smallest changes, it would at first be scarcely felt, but afterwards make a great difference and glide through the ears as far as the mind. Therefore Plato thinks that a great guard of the commonwealth is music best ordered in morals and chastely joined, so that it be modest and simple and manly, neither effeminate nor fierce nor varied. This the Lacedaemonians preserved with the greatest effort, when among them Thaletas of Crete, of Gortyn, summoned at great price, imbued the boys with the discipline of the musical art. For this was the custom among the ancients and long remained. But when Timotheus of Miletus added one string to those he had before discovered and made music more manifold, a decree was made against him by the Laconians, which, since the language of the Spartans is remarkable, turning the letter G into P, I have set down in the same Greek words.
This decree contains that the Spartans were angry with Timotheus of Miletus because, making music manifold, he harmed the minds of the boys whom he had received to be instructed and hindered them from the modesty of virtue, and because he had turned the harmony, which he had received as modest, into the chromatic genus, which is softer. So great, then, was their care for music that they thought it also held sway over minds. It is commonly known how often song has checked angers, how many wonders it has wrought in affections either of bodies or of minds.
Who does not know that Pythagoras, by a spondee sounding beneath, made gentler and master of himself a drunken youth of Tauromenium who had been stirred up by the sound of the Phrygian mode? For when a harlot had been shut up in a rival’s house and he, raging, wished to burn the house, and when Pythagoras, as was his custom, was observing at night the courses of the stars, and understood that the youth, stirred by the sound of the Phrygian mode, would not desist from the crime despite the warnings of many friends, he ordered the mode to be changed, and so tempered the mind of the raging youth to a state of most peaceful mind. This Marcus Tullius records in the book which he composed on his counsels, otherwise indeed but in this manner: ‘But, led by some similarity to compare the least with the greatest, as when drunken youths, also stirred up, as happens, by the song of the pipes, were breaking the doors of a chaste woman, Pythagoras is said to have admonished the flute-player to play a spondee. When she had done this, the raging wantonness of those men was calmed by the slowness of the measures and the gravity of the player.’ But to gather similar examples briefly, Terpander and Arion of Methymna rescued the Lesbians and Ionians from the gravest diseases by the aid of song. Ismenias the Theban is said to have wiped away all the troubles of many Boeotians who were vexed with the torments of sciatic pain by modes. And Empedocles, when a certain man raging with a sword attacked his host because the host had condemned his father by an accusation, is said to have changed the mode of singing and so tempered the anger of the youth. So far did the force of the musical art become known in the pursuits of ancient philosophy that the Pythagoreans, when they laid down in sleep the cares of the day, used certain songs, that a gentle and quiet slumber might steal upon them. And so, when they awoke, they cleansed the stupor and confusion of sleep with certain other melodies, knowing doubtless that the whole structure of our soul and body is joined by musical fitting. For as the affection of the body is, so also the pulse is stirred by the motions of the heart, which Democritus is said to have taught to Hippocrates the physician, when he visited him, as insane in the opinion of all Democritus’s fellow citizens, for the sake of healing him. But to what end all this? Because it cannot be doubted that the state of our soul and body appears to be composed in a manner by the same proportions by which the later discussion will show that harmonic melodies are joined and coupled. Hence it is that a sweet song delights even infants, while something harsh and cruel keeps them from pleasure in hearing. Every age undoubtedly suffers this, and every sex; though they are distributed in their own actions, yet they are joined by one delight in music. What happens when in weeping mourners themselves modulate their grief? which is most womanly, so that with a certain song the cause of weeping is made sweeter. It was also the custom among the ancients that the song of the pipe preceded mourning. Witness Papinius Statius in this verse:
“The horn bellows low, and the curved pipe, which is wont to lead forth the tender shades.”
And he who cannot sing sweetly yet sings something to himself, not that what he sings affects him with any pleasure, but that, bringing forth a certain sweetness implanted in the soul, in whatever way they bring it forth, they are delighted. Is not this also manifest, that the minds of those fighting in war are kindled by the song of trumpets? If it is likely that anyone can be carried from a calm state of mind into fury and anger, there is no doubt that a more moderate mode can restrain the anger or excessive desire of a troubled mind. What of this, that when someone takes a song more willingly with ears and mind, the body is even unwillingly turned to it, so as to fashion some motion like the song heard; and that the mind itself, mindful, plucks out some measure that it has heard? so that from all these it appears clearly and without doubt that music is so naturally joined to us that, even if we wished, we could not do without it. Wherefore the force of the mind is to be strained that what is implanted by nature may also be held comprehended by knowledge. For as in sight it is not enough for the learned to behold colours and forms unless they have also investigated what their property is, so it is not enough to be delighted by musical songs unless it is also learned by what proportion of voices they are joined to one another.