The ancients therefore were right in
forbidding the flute to youths and freemen, although they had once
allowed it. For when their wealth gave them a greater inclination to
leisure, and they had loftier notions of excellence, being also elated
with their success, both before and after the Persian War, with more
zeal than discernment they pursued every kind of knowledge, and so
they introduced the flute into education. At Lacedaemon there was a
choragus who led the chorus with a flute, and at Athens the instrument
became so popular that most freemen could play upon it. The popularity
is shown by the tablet which Thrasippus dedicated when he furnished
the chorus to Ecphantides. Later experience enabled men to judge
what was or was not really conducive to virtue, and they rejected both
the flute and several other old-fashioned instruments, such as the
Lydian harp, the many-stringed lyre, the 'heptagon,' 'triangle,'
'sambuca,' the like- which are intended only to give pleasure to the
hearer, and require extraordinary skill of hand. There is a meaning
also in the myth of the ancients, which tells how Athene invented
the flute and then threw it away. It was not a bad idea of theirs,
that the Goddess disliked the instrument because it made the face
ugly; but with still more reason may we say that she rejected it
because the acquirement of flute-playing contributes nothing to the
mind, since to Athene we ascribe both knowledge and art.
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