Music Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture PDF

Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical
MUSIC, MYTH and STORY

culture. Far from merely offering material for musical settings, authoritative
MUSIC,
tales from classical mythology, ancient history and the Bible were treated
as foundations for musical knowledge. Such myths were cited in support of
arguments about the uses, effects, morality and preferred styles of music in
in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

sources as diverse as theoretical treatises, defences or critiques of music,
MYTH
art, sermons, educational literature and books of moral conduct. Newly
written literary stories too were believed capable of moral instruction and
influence, and were a medium through which ideas about music could
be both explored and transmitted. How authors interpreted and weaved
together these traditional stories, or created their own, reveals much about
changing attitudes across the period.
and
Looking beyond the well-known figure of Orpheus, this collection explores
STORY
the myriad stories that shaped not only musical thought, but also its styles,
techniques and practices. The essays show that music itself performed
and created knowledge in ways parallels to myth, and worked in tandem
with old and new tales to construct social, political and philosophical
views. This relationship was not static, however; as the Enlightenment
dawned, the once authoritative gods became comic characters and myth
became a medium for ridicule. Overall, the book provides a foundation for
exploring myth and story throughout medieval and early modern culture,
in
and facilitating further study into the Enlightenment and beyond.
KATHERINE BUTLER is a senior lecturer in music at Northumbria University.
SAMANTHA BASSLER is a musicologist of cultural studies, a teaching artist, and an adjunct
professor in the New York metropolitan area. Medieval
and Samantha Bassler
Edited by Katherine Butler
Contributors: Jamie Apgar, Katie Bank, Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, Elina G. Hamilton,
Sigrid Harris, Ljubica Ilic, Erica Levenson, John MacInnis, Patrick McMahon, Aurora Faye Martinez, and Early
Modern
Jacomien Prins, Tim Shephard, Jason Stoessel, Férdia J. Stone-Davis, Amanda Eubanks Winkler.
Cover Image: Suzanne de Court, Minerva Visits the Muses on Mount Helicon, painted enamel mirror,
early 17th century. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Public Domain. Cover design by Greg Jorss. Culture
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd Edited by Katherine Butler
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk I PI2 3DF and and Samantha Bassler
668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620, USA
studies in medieval and renaissance music 19
Music, Myth and Story

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music
issn 1479-9294
General Editors
Tess Knighton
Helen Deeming
This series aims to provide a forum for the best scholarship in early
music; deliberately broad in scope, it welcomes proposals on any aspect
of music, musical life, and composers during the period up to 1600,
and particularly encourages work that places music in an historical and
social context. Both new research and major re-assessments of central
topics are encouraged.
Proposals or enquiries may be sent directly to the editor or the pub-
lisher at the addresses given below; all submissions will receive careful,
informed consideration.
Professor Tess Knighton, Institucio Mila i Fontanals/CSIC,

c/ Egipciaques, Barcelona 08001, Spain
Dr Helen Deeming, Department of Music, Royal Holloway,
University of London, Egham, Surrey tw20 0ex
Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk ip12 3df
Previously published titles in the series are listed at the back of this volume.
Edited by Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler
the boydell press

© Contributors 2019
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
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transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2019

The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978-1-78327-371-3
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii

List of Contributors x
Editors’ Note xiv
Introduction 1
Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler
i myth in medieval music theory and philosophy

1 Music and the Myth of Apollo’s Grove 17
John MacInnis
2 The Consolation of Philosophy and the ‘Gentle’ Remedy of Music 32
Férdia J. Stone-Davis
3 And in England, There are Singers:
Grafting Oneself into the Origins of Music 46
Elina G. Hamilton
ii iconologies of music and myth

4 The Harmonious Blacksmith, Lady Music and Minerva:
The Iconography of Secular Song in the Late Middle Ages 63
Jason Stoessel
5 Foolish Midas: Representing Musical Judgement and
Moral Judgement in Italy c.1520 87
Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon
iii myths in renaissance philosophies of music

6 Marsilio Ficino and Girolamo Cardano under Orpheus’s Spell 107
Jacomien Prins
7 Origin Myths, Genealogies and Inventors:
Defining the Nature of Music in Early Modern England 124
Katherine Butler
vi Contents
iv myth and musical practice

8 How to Sing like Angels:
Isaiah, Ignatius of Antioch and Protestant Worship in England 141
Jamie Apgar
9 In Pursuit of Echo: Sound, Space and the History of the Self 156
Ljubica Ilic
v narratives of performance
10 Ophelia’s Mad Songs and Performing Story in
Early Modern England 169
Samantha Bassler
11 Dangerous Beauty: Stories of Singing Women in
Early Modern Italy 187
Sigrid Harris
vi myth and music as forms of knowledge

12 ‘Fantastic Spirits’:
Myth and Satire in the Ayres of Thomas Weelkes 207
Katie Bank
13 Feeling Fallen: A Re-telling of the Biblical Myth of the Fall in
a Musical Adaptation of Marvell’s ‘A Dialogue
between Thyrsis and Dorinda’ 224
Aurora Faye Martinez
vii re-imagining myths and stories for the stage

14 ‘Armida’s Picture we from Tasso Drew’?: The Rinaldo and Armida
Story in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century English
Operatic Entertainments 241
Amanda Eubanks Winkler
15 Translating Myth Through Tunes: Ebenezer Forrest’s Ballad Opera
Adaptation of Louis Fuzelier’s Momus Fabuliste (1719–29) 259
Erica Levenson
Bibliography 277
Index 305
Illustrations
Colour Plates
i Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze, Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas
(post restoration 2003–4), detail of the Seven Liberal Arts on the
right. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Cappellone degli Spagnoli.
© 2018 Photo SCALA, Florence, courtesy of Musei Civici Fiorentini
ii Sandro Botticelli, Philosophy Presenting Lorenzo Tornabuoni(?) to the
Seven Liberal Arts. Musée du Louvre. © Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft
mbH. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, www.
gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html
iii Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Museen de Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz:
Kupferstichkabinett, MS 78.C.28. Image © 2018 bpk-Bildagentur
iv Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale: Banco Rari 229, fol.IV verso.
Reproduced by permission of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
and Activities, and Tourism (MiBACT). Further reproduction
prohibited
v Dosso Dossi, Allegory of Music. Florence, Museo Horne. © 2018 Photo
SCALA, Florence
vi Cima da Conegliano, Judgement of Midas, oil on panel, 43 × 73 cm,
1513–17. National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen. © SMK Photo
vii Lorenzo Lotto, Allegory of Virtue and Vice, oil on panel, 57 × 42 cm,
1505. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Photograph courtesy
of the National Gallery of Art, Washington
viii Agnolo Bronzino, Apollo and Marsyas, oil on panel transferred to
canvas, 48 × 119 cm, c.1530–2. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard
Kheifets
ix Marco Jadra, Polygonal Virginals, cypress, maple, ebony and ivory,
17.1 × 146.3 (front) × 42.6 cm, 1568. Victoria & Albert Museum,
London. Photograph © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
x Sir Anthony van Dyck (Flemish 1599–1641), Rinaldo and Armida
(1629), oil on canvas, 93 × 90 in. (253.3 × 228.7 cm). The Baltimore
Museum of Art: The Jacob Epstein Collection, BMA 1951.103.
Photograph by Mitro Hood
viii Illustrations
Black and White Plates

Coëtivy Master (Henri de Vulcop?), Philosophy Presenting the
4.1
Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum:
MS. 42, fol.2v. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open
Content Program 69
4.2 Musica shown in an Initial from a Copy of Boethius’s De musica.
London, British Library: Burney 275, fol.359v. Image by the British
Library. Public domain 69
4.3 Minerva. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: frç. 12420,
fol.13v. Reproduced by permission of the library 81
4.4 Minerva. Paris, Bibliothèque National de France: frç. 598, fol.13r.
Reproduced by permission of the library 82
6.1 Girolamo Cardano, ‘Lament’ in De tranquillitate, OO, vol. 2,
pp. 346–7. Reproduced from the facsimile reprint of Cardano’s
Opera Omnia with the kind permission of Frommann-Holzboog
Verlag e.K. 120
Musical Examples
12.1 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Ha Ha’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits (London,
1608), bars 1–5, transcribed by Francis Bevan 213
12.2 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Since Robin’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits
(London, 1608), bars 6–12, transcribed by Francis Bevan 217
12.3 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Aye Me Alas’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits
(London, 1608), bars 8–10, transcribed by Francis Bevan 220
14.1 John Eccles, ‘For Revenge to Armida We Call’, bars 1–7, from
Rinaldo and Armida, London, British Library, Add. MS 29738 248
Figures
1.1 The Order of Planetary Orbits According to Eriugena 27
14.1 Structural Similarities between The British Enchanters and Rinaldo 250
14.2 Comparison of Rinaldo and Armida and Rinaldo 251
Tables
1.1 Greater Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione
musica 22
1.2 Lesser Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione
musica 23
Illustrations ix
1.3 Immutable System, Combining both the Greater and Lesser

Perfect Systems 23
1.4 Eriugena’s Listing of the Tetrachords of the Immutable System
Compared to De nuptiis, Book IX and Boethius’s De institutione
musica, Book I 25
3.1 London, British Library: Lansdowne MS 763, fol.56v 47
3.2 Sources for Definitions of Musicus and Cantores 51
3.3 Comparison of Passages on the Origin of Music in De origine et
effectu musicae 54
4.1 The Ordering of the Liberal Arts 66
4.2 The Pairing of the Liberal Arts with their Inventors 67
4.3 Text and Translation of Francesco Landini’s Musica son 71
15.1 Verse Sung by Momus from Destouches and La Motte’s Issé
(1719), Act IV, Scene 3 269
15.2 Verse Sung by Momus in the Final Vaudeville of Fuzelier’s Momus
Fabuliste (1719) 273
15.3 Verse and Marginalia from ‘Momus Fabuliste’, Recueil de chansons
choisies en vaudevilles. Pour servir à l’histoire, anecdottes depuis 1697
jusques à 1731 273
The editors, contributors and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and per-
sons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright.
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for
any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledge-
ment in subsequent editions.
Contributors
Katherine Butler is a senior lecturer at Northumbria University. Her research

focuses on the musical culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. She
has written on wide-ranging topics, including court music, civic pageantry, ballads
and popular song, gender, death songs and elegies, music philosophy, mythology,
manuscript miscellanies and early music printing. Her book, Music in Elizabethan
Court Politics,was published in 2015. She also has articles published or forthcoming
in Renaissance Quarterly, Early Music, Music and Letters, the Journal of the History of
Ideas, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, The Library and the Royal Musical
Association Research Chronicle.
Samantha Bassler is a cultural musicologist of early music, and teaches music

history and music theory as an adjunct professor at New York University, Mannes
School of Music, Molloy College, and Rutgers University at Newark. Her research
interests include English Reformation music and politics, music, disability and
femininity in early modern England, the reception history of early English music,
and music analysis. Her articles appear in Music Theory Online, postmedieval, The
Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies and Voices: A World Forum for
Music Therapy.
Jamie Apgar received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, with
a dissertation entitled ‘“Singing by Course” and the Politics of Worship in the
Church of England, c.1560–1640’. His secondary interest in reconstruction led to
an article, co-authored with Richard Freedman and Micah Walter, on the former’s
Du Chemin Lost Voices Project, as well as a reconstruction of Alfonso Ferrabosco
the Elder’s Da pacem, Domine for the Byrd Ensemble (Seattle). He currently directs
the music programme at All Souls Episcopal Parish, Berkeley, serves as Chapel
Musician at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and sings countertenor with
professional ensembles in northern California.
Katie Bank completed her doctoral thesis, ‘Music and Minde: Knowledge Building
in Early Seventeenth-Century English Domestic Vocal Music’, at Royal Holloway,
University of London in 2016, supervised by Helen Deeming (Royal Holloway)
and Lisa Jardine (University College London). Her research reflects an interdisci-
plinary attention to the role of music within frameworks of knowledge, particularly
music’s intersection with natural philosophy, the passions and concepts of sense
perception. She is currently an associate of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
at University College London and teaches tutorials at the University of Oxford. An
avid choral singer, she performs regularly in London and abroad.
Amanda Eubanks Winkler is Associate Professor of Music History and Cultures

at Syracuse University. Her research and performance activities focus on English
theatre music, with articles on topics ranging from seventeenth-century didactic
Contributors xi
masques to Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera; a book, O Let Us Howle Some
Heavy Note: Music for Witches, the Melancholic, and the Mad on the Seventeenth-
Century English Stage (2006); two editions of Restoration-era theatre music; and
a co-edited collection, Beyond Boundaries: Rethinking Music Circulation in Early
Modern England (2017). She has been awarded fellowships and grants from the
NEH and the AHRC (UK).
Elina G. Hamilton is an Assistant Professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee,

where she has been a faculty member since 2014. She received her doctorate from
Bangor University in North Wales. She specialises in the history of English music
theory during the transition between the Ars antiqua and Ars nova. Additional
research interests include women’s work in music and Western music in Japan.
Sigrid Harris lectures on the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque
at the University of New England, Australia. She holds a PhD in musicology from
the University of Queensland, Australia, and has received grants to do research
in Florence, London, Modena, Oxford and Paris. She has presented her work at
medieval and Renaissance music conferences in Certaldo, Birmingham, Brussels,
Sheffield, Prague and Maynooth; the American Musicological Society Annual
Meeting, Rochester; the Monteverdi 450th Anniversary Conference, Cremona; the
Musical Humanism Conference, Venice; the Biennial International Conference on
Baroque Music, Salzburg; and the Gesualdo 400th Anniversary Conference, York.
Ljubica Ilic holds degrees from the University of Arts in Belgrade (BA in musicol-
ogy) and the University of California, Los Angeles (MA and PhD in musicology),
where she was a Chancellor’s Fellow. She was an Ahmanson-Getty Postdoctoral
Fellow (2007–8) and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Musicology at
UCLA (2008–9). Her first book, Music and the Modern Condition: Investigating
the Boundaries, was published in 2010. Her research interests revolve around sonic
experiences of space, spirituality and desire in modern Western culture. She is an
Assistant Professor at the Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad.
Erica Levenson received a doctorate in musicology from Cornell University in

2017. She researches the theatrical and operatic exchanges between France and
England that accompanied the flow of music, musicians, dancers and other per-
formers across the Channel during the first half of the eighteenth century. She con-
siders, in particular, how translations, revivals, adaptations and musical borrowings
humorously mediated between French and English, as well as elite and popular
cultures. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art and Music Histories
at Syracuse University.
John MacInnis is Associate Professor of Music and Department Co-Chair at

Dordt College (Sioux Center, IA), where he teaches music history and music
theory. His dissertation (Florida State University, 2014) traces the influence of
music as a liberal art in the writings of John Scottus Eriugena, a ninth-century
xii Contributors
philosopher. His other research interests include the place of music in Neoplatonic
philosophy in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. As a collaborative keyboardist,
he performs regularly in chamber music ensembles on the piano and organ.
Aurora Faye Martinez is a doctoral researcher in English literature at the

University of Birmingham. She has written a review of the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s Henry V in Shakespeare 12 (2016). Her research interests include early
modern and romantic literature, pastoral, satire, historicism, genre theory, and
manuscripts and early printed books. She earned her MA degree in literature at
Northwestern University, Illinois and her BA in psychology at the University of
Chicago.
Patrick McMahon completed his undergraduate studies in music at the University

of Sheffield in 2016. He contributed to the Leverhulme Trust-funded project
‘Music in the Art of Renaissance Italy, 1420–1540’ as a Research Assistant, initially
through the competitive Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience scheme,
and subsequently through work on his final-year dissertation.
Jacomien Prins is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and

Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She has worked extensively
on the interaction between music theory and philosophy in the Renaissance. Her
work includes Echoes of an Invisible World (2014), Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres
(2017), The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being (2018) and an edi-
tion of Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (forthcoming). She is
currently working on a project titled ‘A Well-Tempered Life: Music, Health and
Happiness in Renaissance Learning’, which analyses the conceptions of music psy-
chology and therapy in the writings of a group of Renaissance scholars.
Tim Shephard is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Sheffield,

and also holds a status-only appointment as Associate Professor of Art History at
the University of Toronto. His research into music, art and identity in Renaissance
Italy has appeared in journals including Renaissance Quarterly, Renaissance
Studies and Viator. He is the author of Echoing Helicon: Music, Art and Identity in
the Este Studioli (2014) and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Music and
Visual Culture (2014). From 2014 to 2017 he led the project ‘Music in the Art of
Renaissance Italy, 1420–1540’ funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Jason Stoessel is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of New England,

Australia. His recent publications have appeared in Musicology Australia, Plainsong
and Medieval Music, Intellectual History Review, Musica Disciplina, Sources of Identity
(2017) and Europäische Musikkultur im Kontext des Konstanzer Konzils (2017).
He has held a research visitorship for the Balzan ‘Towards a Global History of
Music’ project at the University of Oxford (2013), was an Associate Investigator
of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
(2014–17) and has received consecutive Australian Research Council Discovery
Project grants (2015–17 and 2018–21).
Contributors xiii
Férdia J. Stone-Davis is an interdisciplinary academic working at the intersec-

tion of music, philosophy and theology, as well as a musician. Her publications
include the monograph Musical Beauty: Negotiating the Boundary between Subject
and Object (2011), a co-edited volume titled The Soundtrack of Conflict: The Role
of Music in Radio Broadcasting in Wartime and in Conflict Situations (2013), an
edited volume on Music and Transcendence (2015) and an edited Contemporary
Music Review journal issue, ‘Home: Creating and Inhabiting Place through Music
Activity’ (vol.34, 2015).
Editors’ Note
T he collection has its origins in a panel brought together for the 2014 Medieval
and Renaissance Music Conference held in Birmingham. The panel, chaired
by Tim Shephard and featuring papers by Katherine Butler, Samantha Bassler and
Katie Bank, was entitled ‘Music, Myth, and Story in Late Renaissance England’.
The editors would like to thank the Music and Letters Trust for their grant to
support the publication of this volume, particularly its colour plate section.
Note that medieval and early modern spelling and grammar have been modern-
ised throughout this volume.
Introduction
Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler
T he primary modern association of myth is with falsehood. A myth is a story

or belief that is untrue, or is used in phrases such as the ‘man behind the myth’,
referring to an exaggerated or idealised persona that blurs the reality. These associ-
ations of myth, however, arose in the nineteenth century.1 Indeed, in the medieval
and early modern periods, the word ‘myth’ was not yet in use; however, ‘mythol-
ogy’ was defined in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English dictionaries as
‘the declaration or exposition of fables’, while mythologising was ‘an expounding
or moralising upon a tale’.2 The expectation was not that such myths were false, but
rather that they held deep meanings that needed to be teased out and interpreted.
In this collection, the phrase ‘myth and story’ is intended to encapsulate the
vast array of stories that were told about music: from the biblical episodes that
were regarded as infallible truth, through the myths about the gods and heroes of
the ancient world that were believed to communicate the wisdom of the ancient
times, through legendary tales of historical personages, to newly created, literary
stories. The roles these stories played in medieval and Renaissance music culture
differed. Biblical and mythical tales were seen as encapsulating ancient or divine
wisdom and were mined for episodes that could be interpreted in support of par-
ticular positions in musical arguments. By contrast, newly created stories held no
authority, but were nevertheless a site for exploring contemporary conceptions
and anxieties surrounding music and musical practices. While the relative author-
ity granted to scriptural, mythical, historical and literary stories differed, all of these
story-types played a role in constructing the period’s musical culture. How authors
interpreted and wove together these traditional stories or created their own reveals
much about changing attitudes across the period.
1
Oxford English Dictionary, ‘myth, n.’, OED Online www.oed.com/view/Entry/124670.
Accessed 25/2/2018.
2
Thomas Elyot, The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot Knight (London, 1538), sig.O3v,
‘Mythologia’; Thomas Blount, Glossographia, or, A Dictionary Interpreting All Such Hard
Words of Whatsoever Language Now Used in our Refined English Tongue with Etymolo-
gies, Definitions and Historical Observations on the Same (London, 1661), sig.Dd2v. See
also Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionary: or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words
(London, 1623), sig.Hv. The word ‘fable’ was variously used to mean a mythological
story, a story told to convey a lesson, or a fictitious or even deliberately false story:
Oxford English Dictionary, ‘fable, n.’, OED Online www.oed.com/view/Entry/67384.
Accessed 25/2/2018.
2 Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler
Music-Themed Myths
The figure who dominates our understanding of the role of myth in the musical
culture of this period is Orpheus. His relationship with opera, poetry and the
powers of music has been the subject of numerous books tracing his influence
from the Middle Ages and Renaissance to modern times.3 To a lesser extent, the
psalmist King David has dominated the biblical stories of music,4 while for stories
relating to female musicians either the dangerous Sirens or the Christian musical
patron Saint Cecilia have been the dominant focus.5 It is true that Orpheus was the
primary figure on the early operatic stage and had a major influence especially on
musical philosophers in the Renaissance, and also that David’s healing of Saul had
a major influence on theories of music’s anti-demonic powers or role as a cure for
melancholy.6 Yet reading any work in the laudes musicae tradition reveals a plethora
of commonly cited stories concerning music’s origins and inventions, influence
on human passions, healing powers, effects on nature, and role in politics, society
and worship, as well as warnings regarding its sensual dangers or improper use.
One distinctive aim of this collection, then, is to look beyond Orpheus and the
handful of other figures that have come to dominate our picture of musical mythol-
ogy, and expose a wider complex of biblical, mythical and otherwise authori-
tative stories that were the foundation for medieval and early modern musical
3
See for example: John Warden, ed., Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth (Toronto,
1982); Daniel P. Walker, ‘Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists’, Jour-
nal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953), 100–20; John Block Friedman,
Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 1970); Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis, ‘The
Triumph and Death of Orpheus in the English Renaissance’, Studies in English Litera-
ture, 1500–1900 9 (1969), 63–80; Vladimir L. Marchenkov, The Orpheus Myth and the
Powers of Music, Interplay: Music in Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Hillsdale, NY, 2009)
and numerous others cited in Chapter 6, note 1.
4
See for example: Werner Kümmel, ‘Melancholie und die Macht der Musik: Die
Krankheit König Sauls in der Historischen Diskussion’, Medizinhistorisches Journal 4
(1969), 189–209; Katherine Butler, ’Divine Harmony, Demonic Afflictions, and Bodily
Humours: Two Tales of Musical Healing in Early Modern England’, Perfect Harmony
and Melting Strains: Transformations of Music in Early Modern Culture, ed. Wolfram
Keller and Cornelia Wilde, forthcoming; Dagmar Hoffmann-Axthelm, ‘David musicus,
or: On the Power of String Music’, Essays on Renaissance Music in Honour of David Fal-
lows: Bon Jour, Bon Mois et Bonne Estrenne, ed. Fabrice Fitch and Jacobijn Kiel (Wood-
bridge, 2011), pp.326–37.
5
On the Sirens, see for example: Linda Phyllis Austern and Inna Naroditskaya, eds,
Music of the Sirens (Bloomington, 2006); Elizabeth Eva Leach, ‘“The Little Pipe Sings
Sweetly while the Fowler Deceives the Bird”: Sirens in the Later Middle Ages’, Music
and Letters 87 (2006), 187–211; Elena Laura Calogero, Ideas and Images of Music in
English and Continental Emblem Books: 1550–1700, Saecula Spiritalia 39 (Baden-Baden,
2009), pp.96–122. For Saint Cecilia, see for example: Richard Luckett, ‘St. Cecilia and
Music’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 99 (1972), 15–30; Thomas Connolly,
Mourning Into Joy: Music, Raphael, and Saint Cecilia (New Haven, 1994); Kelley Har-
ness, Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Flor-
ence (Chicago, 2006), pp.67–9.
6
On Orpheus and early opera, see Frederick W. Sternfeld, The Birth of Opera (Oxford,
1993), pp.1–30; Ruth Katz, Divining the Powers of Music: Aesthetic Theory and the Origins
of Opera (New York, 1986), pp.111–19.
Introduction 3
thought. The chapters here touch on musical stories relating to Pythagoras, Tubal/
Jubal/Tubalcain, Isaiah, Ignatius, Echo, Apollo, the Muses, Pan, Midas, Marsyas,
Minerva, Mercury, Philomena or the nightingale, Amphion and Arion. These are
by no means comprehensive; the pool of commonplace stories was so broad that
a single volume cannot address them all.
Not only were there many myths, but there were also many approaches to their
interpretation. Biblical stories may have been considered infallible, but that did not
mean there was agreement on their interpretation. For example, concerning the
story of David curing the affliction of King Saul with his harp-playing (1 Samuel
16: 14–23), there was disagreement as to whether the illness should be interpreted
as demonic possession or melancholy, and whether the cure should be attributed
to David’s harp-playing or rather God’s providence.7
The interpretation of musical myths from classical mythology was a subject of
even greater debate.8 Stripped of their pagan religious connotations, there was a
general assumption that mythology contained important meanings beneath its
superficial implausibility, but there was no agreement on what that meaning was
and how it should be revealed. The main interpretative traditions had their ori-
gins in classical antiquity, but continued to inform medieval and early modern
readings. The cosmological tradition equated the classical gods with planetary
bodies.9 When coupled with the idea that music governed the universe from the
harmonious movements of the heavens, through the workings of the body and
soul, to its audible manifestation in instrumental and vocal music, this meant that
direct parallels could be drawn between astrology, mythology and music. A famous
visual example is the frontispiece to Gaffurius’s Practica musice (1496), in which
an enthroned Apollo presides over the Muses on one side and the planets on the
other, with the names of the musical tones and modes linking them and demon-
strating the correspondence between all three elements.10 Such correspondences
can be seen stretching from Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mecurii
and Macrobius’s commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis in the fifth century,
throughout the Middle Ages, and into Marsilio Ficino’s attempts to rediscover
Orphic song through which mastery of the harmonies of the spheres could enable
healing, the control of passions and the exorcising of demons.11
The second tradition was the Euhemerist or historical method, named after the
Greek Euhemerus who was credited with instigating this approach in the fourth
7
Kümmel, ‘Melancholie und die Macht der Musik’; Butler, ‘Divine Harmony, Demonic
Afflictions, and Bodily Humours’; Hoffmann-Axthelm, ‘David musicus, or: On the
Power of String Music’.
8
Katherine Butler, ‘Changing Attitudes Towards Classical Mythology and their Impact
on Notions of the Powers of Music in Early Modern England’, Music and Letters 97
(2016), pp.42–60 (44–8).
9
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and its Place in
Renaissance Humanism and Art (New York, 1972), pp.1–83.
10
Franchinus Gaffurius, Practica Musice (Milan, 1496), frontispiece.
11
See chapters 1 and 6 in this volume.
century bc.12 This practice regarded the classical gods as historical men whose
great deeds and inventions caused their peoples to worship them and poets to
exaggerate their exploits further still. Another related and similarly influential per-
spective was that of the Roman scholar Varro (116–27 bc), who had labelled this
period between the unknown age and the beginning of recorded history as the ‘age
of myth’.13 This was an age whose records were not true history, but poetic crea-
tions, founded in reality, but not literally true. The mythical Greek musicians were
typically regarded as rulers who had discovered the art of music and brought their
peoples to civility, or else had invented specific instruments. This interpretation
was generally the method chosen by those narrating the mythical origins of music
throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance.14
The third alternative strategy for interpreting musical myths was the moral
or allegorical method. From this perspective, myths had no grounding in actual
people or events, but were rather a repository of hidden philosophical knowledge.15
Allegory was a central method in Renaissance mythographies such as Giglio
Gregorio Giraldi’s Historia de deis gentium (1548), Natale Conti’s Mythologiae
(1567) and Vincenzo Cartari’s Imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi (1556).16
In the medieval period, there was a tendency to read myths as paralleling biblical
events – equating Orpheus with Christ or Eurydice with Eve.17 In the early modern
period, moral or political interpretations tended to be favoured instead. One of
the most common musical examples of these allegorical interpretations was the
reading of Amphion’s building of the walls of Thebes and Orpheus’s taming of wild
beasts as signifying the civilising effects of music and poetry.18
In practice, the Euhemerist and allegorical positions were closely intertwined.
Authors did not subscribe to one method or the other, but rather integrated aspects
of both. Indeed, sixteenth-century mythographers tended to assume a historical
personage behind the myth even as they allegorised its content, while allegory
also served Euhemeristic thinking by providing a means of explaining away the
incredible elements of myths as the literary exaggerations of poets.19
12
Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, pp.4, 11–36; Arthur B. Ferguson, Utter Antiquity:
Perceptions of Prehistory in Renaissance England (Durham, NC, 1993), pp.11–45; Luc
Brisson and Catherine Tihanyi, How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpreta-
tion and Classical Mythology (Chicago, 2004), pp.128–31, 152–4.
13
Ferguson, Utter Antiquity, p.49.
14
See chapters 3 and 7 is this volume.
15
Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, pp.4, 84–121; Don Cameron Allen, Mysteri-
ously Meant: The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the
Renaissance (Baltimore, 1970); Joseph M. Ortiz, Broken Harmony: Shakespeare and the
Politics of Music (Ithaca, NY, 2011), pp.83–8; Brisson and Tihanyi, How Philosophers
Saved Myths, pp.132–5; Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London, 1958),
pp.17–21.
16
Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, pp.229–56.
17
Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages, pp.2, 38–85, 118, 125–6.
18
Calogero, Ideas and Images of Music, pp.6–43.
19
Ferguson, Utter Antiquity, pp.37–9.
Introduction 5
Allegory has been credited with ensuring the survival of mythology, both by
attributing significant truths to what might otherwise have been rejected as bizarre
or scandalous stories, and by enabling myths to be constantly adapted and reinter-
preted.20 Allegory assigned a deep significance to mythology, while removing its
pagan religious connotations, although some religious commentators still consid-
ered myths to be Satanic creations designed to imitate scriptural truth and confuse
the faithful.21 Moreover, allegory also allowed Francis Bacon to suggest a contin-
ued role for mythological wisdom alongside empirical and experimental forms of
inquiry. In works such as De Sapientia veterum (1609), he came to regard myths as
the imperfectly preserved remnants of humanity’s greater understanding of nature
from an illiterate period soon after the Fall. The allegories contained in these myths
needed to be revealed so that they could guide modern inquiry, the wisdom they
contained pointing the way to knowledge that could be verified through the obser-
vation of nature.22
The changing relationship between mythology and musical knowledge is
another key theme in this collection. These changes do not perhaps occur where
one might expect. There is no stark transformation of the way in which mythology
is interpreted as one moves chronologically between the periods typically labelled
medieval and Renaissance. Indeed, the interpretative methods applied to mythol-
ogy across the period date back to the classical world, and had changed little.23
Only in the seventeenth century do signs of a changing relationship with
mythology begin to occur as a growing emphasis on empirical and experimental
philosophy gradually challenged the authority of ancient wisdom and mytholog-
ical knowledge.24 In The Untuning of the Sky, John Hollander argued for a ‘demy-
thologising’ of music during the seventeenth century, which he traced particularly
through representations of music in poetry. He suggested that musical myths and
images of heavenly and earthly concord were reduced to ‘decorative metaphor
and mere turns of wit’, reflecting a diminishing belief in universal harmony.25 Yet
20
Brisson and Tihanyi, How Philosophers Saved Myths, pp.1–2.
21
Kevin Killeen, Biblical Scholarship, Science and Politics in Early Modern England: Thomas
Browne and the Thorny Place of Knowledge (Farnham, 2009), p.104.
22
Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, trans. Sacha Rabinovitch (Chicago,
1968), pp.73–134; Barbara Carman Garner, ‘Francis Bacon, Natalis Comes and the
Mythological Tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970), 264–
91; Rhodri Lewis, ‘Francis Bacon, Allegory and the Uses of Myth’, Review of English
Studies 61 (2010), 360–89.
23
Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, pp.3–4.
24
On new approaches to musical knowledge see for example: Penelope Gouk, ‘Acoustics
in the Early Royal Society 1660–1680,’ Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London
36 (1982), 155–75; Penelope Gouk, Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Cen-
tury England (New Haven, 1999), pp.61–3; H. Floris Cohen, Quantifying Music: The
Science of Music at the First Stage of Scientific Revolution 1580–1650 (Dordrecht; Boston,
1984); Victor Coelho, ed., Music and Science in the Age of Galileo (Dordrecht; London,
1992); Paolo Gozza, Number to Sound: The Musical Way to the Scientific Revolution
(Boston, 2000).
25
John Hollander, The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500–1700
(Princeton, 1961), pp.18–19.
this demythologisation was a long process and even the emerging tendency to
rationalise mythology had classical origins. As Thomas Browne attempted to root
out ‘vulgar error’ in received wisdom and criticised the ‘mendacity of Greece’ for
‘poisoning the world ever after’ in his Pseudodoxia epidemica (1646), he turned to
the rational explanation for the mythical wonders first put forward by the Greek
Palaephatus in the fourth century bc.26 Palaephatus had argued that Orpheus had
calmed the rage of the Bacchides with his music, who then came down from the
mountain bearing branches, appearing from a distance like a walking wood.27
At the end of the seventeenth century, even members of the Royal Society such
as Robert Hooke and John Wallis were still arguing for some element of truth
within these myths. Hooke saw parallels between the tale of Amphion using music
to move stones and build the walls of Thebes, with experimentally verifiable phe-
nomenon in which inanimate objects can be made to move by music: the sound of
one string being struck can cause vibrations in another string tuned to same pitch,
or a glass filled with water will move if another tuned to same pitch is made to
sound.28 John Wallis meanwhile drew comparisons between the attractive powers
of Orpheus’s music and the behaviour of contemporary country people who ran
after fiddlers or flocked to ballad singers at a fair.29
New Stories
Newly created stories did not have the same authority as myth and could not be
called upon as evidence to support moral, philosophical or musical argument.
Yet literary stories were nevertheless an important site for exploring, shaping and
transmitting knowledge and ideas. Beyond the authority granted to myth as the
material on which arguments and opinions could be founded, a clear distinction
between the two is often impossible to draw. Indeed, poets in this period often
regarded themselves as philosophers whose eloquent language could educate and
instil the values of rational life and a well-ordered society. As the poet Sir Philip
Sidney put it:
the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof Aesops tales give

good proof: whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts,
make many, more beastly then beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue.30
26
Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very Many Received
Tenents and Commonly Presumed Truths (London, 1646), pp.20 and 22.
27
Palaephatus, Peri apiston = On Unbelievable Tales: with Notes and Greek Text from the
1902 B.G. Teubner Edition, ed. and trans. Jacob Stern (Wauconda, IL, 1996), p.65.
28
Gouk, ‘Role of Acoustics’, 593–5, 598–601; Katherine Butler, ‘Myth, Science, and the
Power of Music in the Early Decades of the Royal Society’, Journal of the History of Ideas
76 (2015), 47–68 (57).
29
Butler, ‘Myth, Science, and the Power of Music’, 61–2; John Wallis, ‘A Letter of Dr. John
Wallis, to Mr. Andrew Fletcher; Concerning the Strange Effects Reported of Music in
Former Times, Beyond What is to be Found in Later Ages’, Philosophical Transactions
20 (1698), 297–303.
30
Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (London, 1595), sig.[D4]v.
Introduction 7
Like myth, newly written stories were regarded as capable of communicating

essential truths and shaping the morality and values of their readers.
The pastoral genre offers a clear example of this, as it was widely used as a set-
ting in which political and social ideas could be safely explored.31 The poet George
Puttenham described the pastoral topos as one in which ‘under the veil of homely
persons, and in rude speeches’ one could ‘insinuate and glance at greater matters,
and such as perchance had not been safe to have been disclosed in any other sort’.32
The parallels with allegorical readings of myth are apparent; the anonymous author
of The Praise of Music, for example, advocated that readers of myth should ‘draw the
veil aside, and look nearer into that, which now we do but glimpse at’. 33 Storytelling
in this context is a kind of contemporary myth-making, creating a safe space in
which to explore controversial ideas. Moreover, the pastoral genre was itself closely
connected to the mythical realm of Arcadia, and often borrowed its characters.34
Katie Bank’s chapter in this volume explores the blurred lines between mythology
and pastoral, suggesting that both were sites for self-examination and probing the
boundaries of truth and fiction.35
This ability of literature to act as a site for exploring and shaping contemporary
beliefs, politics, social norms and values was not restricted to pastoral genres. Since
the 1980s, the ‘New Historicists’ have explored how literary texts can not only
reflect wider culture, but also actively shape it. As Jean Howard put it:
literature is an agent in constructing a culture’s sense of reality ... instead of a

hierarchical relationship in which literature figures as the parasitic reflector
of historical fact, one imagines a complex textualized universe in which lit-
erature participates in historical processes and in the political management
of reality.36
This position has been applied extensively in the realm of the court, for example,
where scholars have demonstrated the conscious use of literature for persuasion, to
offer political counsel and to fashion contemporary notions of gender and power.37
Several chapters in this volume apply similar perspectives to exploring the con-
31
See for example: Louis Montrose, ‘“Eliza, Queene of Shepheardes,” and the Pastoral of
Power’, English Literary Renaissance 10 (1980), 153–82.
32
George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy Contrived into Three Books (London, 1589),
p.31.
33
The Praise of Music wherein besides the Antiquity, Dignity, Delectation, and Use thereof in
Civil Matters, is also Declared the Sober and Lawful Use of the Same in the Congregation
and Church of God (Oxford, 1586), p.5.
34
See for example: Giuseppe Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy
(Cambridge, 2009) and chapter 12 in this collection.
35
See Katie Bank’s chapter 12 in this collection.
36
Jean Howard, ‘The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies’, English Literary Renais-
sance 16 (1986), 13–43 (25).
37
For a few examples see: Louis Montrose, ‘“Shaping Fantasies”: Figurations of Gender
and Power in Elizabethan Culture’, Representations 2 (1983), 61–94; Greg Walker, Plays
of Persuasion: Drama and Politics at the Court of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1991); The Pol-
itics of Performance in Early Renaissance Drama (Cambridge, 1998).
struction of cultural conceptions of music through stories, including its relation-

ship with gender, impairment and the knowledge of one’s self, the world and the
divine order.38
Moreover, storytelling in the medieval and early modern world was not
restricted to poetic, theatrical or similar literary creations. Many educational
treatises and conduct books in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe were
written in dialogue form; well-known examples include Baldassare Castiglione’s
Il Cortegiano (1528) and Thomas Morley’s Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical
Music (1597). The root of this communicating is storytelling, enacted through oral
conversation.39 An imaginary dialogue is created through which knowledge can
be communicated and explored. Nor was dialogue the only storytelling form to
transcend the literary sphere. Férdia Stone-Davis’s chapter in this volume explores
how autobiography could be combined with allegorical storytelling to commu-
nicate complex ideas about harmony, human life and the divine order. Literary
forms could be used as the vehicles for communicating knowledge and ideas about
music.
Furthermore, in Stone-Davis’s chapter the story is not solely an invention, but
grounded in autobiographical events. In postmodern scholarship, theories of sto-
rytelling become wrapped up in the transmission of knowledge and the construc-
tion of selves, people and cultures, even in non-fictional texts. One example is the
work of the scholar Natalie Zemon Davis, whose scholarship on early modern
European culture focuses on the documents through which people crafted stories
and narratives about themselves, and on storytelling as a method of historiogra-
phy. Davis’s work requires us to consider the role of veracity in storytelling and
story-making, highlighting how the storyteller or writer crafts the meanings and
knowledge transmitted in stories to suit their own purposes.40 The influence of the
act of storytelling on the creation of meaning spans the realms of myth and new
story, as even myths must be retold or assembled into larger narratives to generate
meaning. Other examples in the following chapters include the retelling of music’s
origin stories, varied operatic versions of the story of Rinaldo and Armida, and
strategies for characterising gender and disability in Shakespeare’s plays.41 In all
38
See chapters 2, 10 and 11.
39
On dialogue form see for example: Cathy Shrank, ‘All Talk and No Action? Early
Modern Political Dialogue’, The Oxford Handbook of English Prose 1500–1640, ed.
Andrew Hadfield (Oxford, 2013), pp.27–42; Virginia Cox, The Renaissance Dialogue:
Literary Dialogue in its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo (Cambridge,
1992).
40
See the following scholarship by Natalie Zemon Davis for examples of her meth-
odology: Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives (Cambridge, MA,
1995); Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France
(Stanford, CA, 1987); The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA, 1983). Other
scholarship inspired by Davis’s method includes: Kathleen Loysen, Conversation and
Storytelling in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century French Nouvelles (New York, 2004) and
Richard M. Fraher, ‘Criminal Defense as Narrative: Storytelling and Royal Pardons in
Renaissance France’, The University of Chicago Law Review 55 (1988), 1010–15 (1010–11).
41
On origin myths see chapters 3 and 7; on Rinaldo and Armida see chapter 14; on nar-
ratives of disability in Shakespeare’s plays see chapter 10.
Introduction 9
these cases – whether the plot is mythological or a new tale – it is the storytelling
strategies that provide insights into cultural concerns on issues as diverse as disa-
bility, gender, morality, musical aesthetics and functions, national identity, politics
and theatre.

If the ways in which both myth and story communicated knowledge and ideas were
numerous, their relationship with music was equally multi-faceted. Myths and
other authoritative stories that featured music and musicians were the foundation
for various kinds of musical knowledge. Music-themed myths, which appeared in
books ranging from theoretical treatises, to sermons, to conduct books, were cited
to criticise or defend music’s role in society, to justify new musical styles or to
attack such innovations. Composers attempting to recapture something of music’s
affective powers as reputed in myth were inspired to create new genres such as
monody, recitative and opera.42 These widely known stories did not need to be
retold in these contexts. Authors could merely reference particular characters or
episodes to support their opinions with the expectation that their audiences would
know the details.
Myths also provided symbolic material for poetic conceits, manuscript illu-
minations, portraiture or emblems on musical themes, and narratives for theatre,
dance, spectacle and song.43 Through these varied media, myths carried musical
concepts into wider cultural consciousness, while musical re-tellings of individual
myths reinforced the continued authority and currency of mythology.
Myths could be liberally adapted in such performances, as was the case in
early opera, for example.44 In such adaptations the boundary between authorita-
tive myth and new literary story is blurred. Performances of myth do not merely
rehearse ancient values, but are rather adapted to express and create new ones.
Moreover, new stories that feature musical plot devices are often inspired by
themes, motifs and ideas, whose inspiration might be traced back to myth. Nor
was it only in the realm of literature that the spheres of myth and newly created
story came within touching distance. Even in theoretical and philosophical works,
authors manipulating the wealth of musical mythology might impose their own
narrative frameworks and organising principles to create coherence.45
42
Marchenkov, The Orpheus Myth and the Powers of Music, pp.62–70; Sternfeld, The Birth
of Opera, pp.1–30; Katz, Divining the Powers of Music, pp.111–19.
43
For some examples see: Calogero, Ideas and Images of Music; Kathi Meyer-Baer, Music
of the Spheres and the Dance of Death: Studies in Musical Iconology (Princeton, 1970);
Elisabeth Henry, Orpheus with His Lute: Poetry and the Renewal of Life (London, 1972);
Rachel Falconer, Orpheus Dis(re)membered: Milton and the Myth of the Poet-Hero (Shef-
field, 1996); Carl van de Velde, ed., Classical Mythology in the Netherlands in the Age of
Renaissance and Baroque: Proceedings of the International Conference, Antwerp, 19–21
May 2005 (Leuven; Paris, 2009); Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia; Bruno For-
ment, ed., (Dis)embodying Myths in Ancien Régime Opera: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
(Leuven, 2012).
44
Sternfeld, The Birth of Opera, pp.1–30.
45
See chapter 7 in this volume.
There were also parallels in how music and myth or story functioned as forms
of knowledge. All could make complex ideas tangible, and were considered means
of secretly instilling morality under the guise of pleasurable entertainment. All
were arts whose narratives influenced the cultural, social and political issues of the
day.46 Musical settings of myths could therefore work in tandem to create meaning
and explore contemporary issues. Moreover, as a new emphasis on experimental
and empirical bases for knowledge emerged during the seventeenth century, music
offered a means for turning myth into a kind of ‘lived experience’, given voice and
life through song.47 Yet equally musical settings could work to undermine myth as
its once authoritative gods and heroes were debased by association with popular
song and comic theatre.48
The latter example illustrates the extent to which music was itself the vehicle
for storytelling and myth-making. A musical setting is no mere passive vehicle for
transmitting a story, but communicates in tandem with verbal or visual means of
storytelling to support, heighten, add new perspectives or even undermine poten-
tial meanings.49 Moreover, music itself can function as a story within a story, affirm-
ing, commenting upon, enhancing or performing socio-cultural values. Music can
tell its own story, as well as act as part of a larger narrative. In this way, chapters in
this collection read narratives of music and disability within Shakespeare plays or
reveal ideas of the early modern self in echo songs within larger operas.50
The essays in this collection take a range of musical, literary, theatrical and
iconographical perspectives to demonstrate the influence of myths and stories
on musical theory, philosophy, performance, meaning and techniques through a
series of case studies spanning the fifth to the early eighteenth centuries. To accom-
modate their conceptual and chronological breadth, the geographical range is nar-
rower. The focus is on Italy – where many of the key mythographical works of the
Renaissance originated – and England – where the moral debates surrounding
music’s role in moral society and religious worship provide a wealth of material for
exploring the role of myth and story in shaping these arguments – and, to a lesser
extent, on France. It is hoped that this volume will inspire an increasing interest in
the roles of myth and story in musical culture, and thereby enable these themes to
be explored across a wider geographical field.
46
On music as a site for exploring or influencing culture or politics numerous works
could be cited, but see for example: Richard Freedman, ‘Claude Le Jeune, Adrian Wil-
laert and the Art of Musical Translation’, Early Music History 13 (1994), 123–48; Kath-
erine Butler, Music in Elizabethan Court Politics (Woodbridge, 2015); Kate van Orden,
Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France (Chicago, 2005); Hyun-Ah Kim,
The Renaissance Ethics of Music: Singing, Contemplation and Musica Humana (London,
2015); and chapters 10, 11, 14 and 15 in this volume.
47
See chapters 2, 12 and 13 in this volume.
48
Curtis Price, ‘Orpheus in Britannia’, Music and Context: Essays for John M. Ward, ed.
Anne Dhu Shapiro (Cambridge, MA, 1985), pp.264–77; Butler, ‘Changing Attitudes
Towards Classical Mythology’, 54–9; chapter 15 in this volume.
49
On music’s ability to change the meaning of its text, see chapters 12 and 15. For exam-
ples of musical settings acting in a more supportive way, see chapters 6 or 13.
50
See chapters 9 and 10.
Introduction 11
The collection’s arrangement is both chronological and thematic. Beginning in

the medieval period, the opening section considers the influence of myth in music
theory. John MacInnis and Férdia Stone-Davis demonstrate the importance of
both music and myth to the medieval understanding of humanity’s place in the
cosmos in Eriugena’s music treatise, glosses on Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et
Mecurii and Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. MacInnis’s chapter demonstrates
how music theorists drew inspiration from allegorical and mythological narratives.
Myths of the ancient Greek gods encapsulated cosmological truths about the har-
mony of the spheres, as well as musical theoretical principles that were equally
foundational to theological understanding of the universe and the human soul.
In Stone-Davis’s chapter on Boethius’s Consolation, similar conceptions of music’s
permeation of the created order and its ability to re-harmonise its subjects are
presented through an autobiographical story presented in allegorical form. Stone-
Davis’s chapter is also the first of several that explore parallels between myth and
music as forms of knowledge. She argues that in Boethius’s Consolation, music
emerges as a means of world-making and making sense of our environment. Like
myth, music is a means of telling stories and creating meaning.
In the final chapter of this section, Elina Hamilton considers the importance
of variants in the re-telling of mythological narratives in the first of two chapters
considering the significance of origin myths and the genealogies constructed for
music. Hamilton analyses how traditional narratives were manipulated to suit local
contexts, and how the positioning of particular types of musician or specific geo-
graphical areas within the received story could fashion musicians’ sense of iden-
tity. The later treatment of these origin myths, in the context of sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century debates about the virtues and vices of music, is the subject of
Katherine Butler’s chapter seven. Butler explores how authors wove the traditional
origin myths into new frameworks and narratives to make sense of competing sto-
ries of music’s origins, defend music’s exceptional nature and qualities, and justify
particular understandings of music’s nature and place in human existence.
The following sections juxtapose essays exploring iconographical rep-
resentation and verbal interpretation of myths during the later Middle Ages and
Renaissance, demonstrating myths’ capacity to influence moral, cultural and phil-
osophical conceptions of music and musicianship. Spanning musicology and art
history, Jason Stoessel’s chapter sheds new light on the iconography of medieval
song by tracing the significance of Minerva and her relationship to the figures of
Jubal/Tubalcain/Pythagoras and Lady Music. He demonstrates how Tubalcain
became iconographically associated with polyphonic, vernacular song collections
in particular (as opposed to liturgical polyphony), explores connections between
the iconography of the liberal and mechanical arts, and builds to a reconsideration
of Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music, based around a new identification of one of
the figures. In the following chapter, Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon draw
connections between the literary and visual modes of representing the myth of
the musical contest between Apollo and Pan, during which King Midas’s poor
judgement earned him ass’s ears. Focusing particularly on visual representations
of the judgement of Midas by Cima da Conegliano, Lorenzo Lotto and Agnolo
Bronzino, they show how the myth was reshaped and retold in ways that engaged
with broader contemporary discourse on musical and moral judgement in 1520s

Italy. This is an example of how musical taste can be constructed through myth.
Turning then to Renaissance philosophy and the written word, Jacomien Prins
contrasts Ficino and Cardano’s interpretations of Orpheus as either a divine being
with supernatural musical-magical powers, or a human being capable of purging
his spirit of mournful emotions through music. These contrasting interpretations
show how the elusive figure of Orpheus could be employed to justify new and con-
trasting aesthetic standards emerging in Italy from the end of the fifteenth century.
As noted above, Butler’s chapter returns to myths of music’s origins, exploring how
the metanarratives used to give coherence to this array of competing stories grad-
ually shifted in light of changed perceptions of humanity’s relationship to nature
and the ancient world.
Mythical influence was far from merely conceptual, however, so part four con-
siders its impact on musical style. Jamie Agpar draws connections between alterna-
tim choral singing and stories of angel song from the Bible and early church, while
Ljubica Llic analyses links between the mythical nymph Echo and echo effects in
Italian opera. Then, in part five, representations of performance in literature shed
light on cultural responses to music-making by social groups defined by gender and
disability. Samantha Bassler argues that the mad songs in Shakespeare’s plays tell
a story of early modern conceptions of music, madness and gender. Sigrid Harris
explores the relationship between women’s music and themes of seduction, ema-
sculation and mortality in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1575), Boiardo’s Orlando
innamorato (1494) and at the court of Ferrara.
The seventeenth century saw distinct changes in the intellectual climate, with
the growing influence of empirical and experimental philosophy and the shifting
status of mythology and ancient wisdom. Part six explores the parallel roles of
music and myth as forms of knowledge, suggesting that despite the challenges to
mythology brought by the new philosophies, musical portrayals of myth might
nevertheless offer a means of negotiating between old and new concepts of truth.
Katie Bank shows how music, myth and satire combined to probe contemporary
awareness of the self in three ayres by Thomas Weelkes. Aurora Faye Martinez
offers a literary perspective, using Edmund Burke’s aesthetic philosophy to suggest
why myths set to or expressed through music persisted in the early modern period,
focusing particularly on a musical adaptation of Andrew Marvell’s ‘A Dialogue
between Thyrsis and Dorinda’.
The final essays in part seven explore musical representations of myths or well-
known stories for the operatic stage. Amanda Eubanks Winkler illustrates how
re-imaginings of the Rinaldo and Armida story could articulate contemporary
anxieties about opera’s connotations of gender, morality, nationalism and political
power. Lastly, Erica Levenson analyses the interrelation of mythology and balladry
on the English and French stages to reveal how, as the Enlightenment dawned,
myth finally became a medium for ridicule as the once authoritative gods and
heroes became ballad opera characters.
Collectively, these essays trace the evolution of concepts of myth and story
before the establishment of modern definitions. People in the medieval and early
Introduction 13
modern periods engaged in teasing out the potential meanings in myths and
stories about influential musical figures, as well as moulding new stories of their
own. Shifts in attitudes to mythical knowledge were at the heart of changing phi-
losophies of the music of the spheres, from the Neoplatonist view of music as a
universal harmony that connects the mind to the body and corrects imbalances,
to the Cartesian view of the separation of mind and body. Yet the influence of
myths and stories also extended beyond the philosophical and theoretical into
wider culture through theatre, art and music to shape everyday morality, politics
and constructions of identity. These essays reveal people’s persistent but changing
relationship with these myths and stories, developing and clarifying our under-
standing of their significance in musical and wider culture. Music, myth and story
are revealed to be fluid and interrelated concepts, deeply embedded in medieval
and early modern thought and practice. This fluidity enabled myths to both drive
and adapt to change, ensuring their continued significance in medieval and early
modern culture, and beyond.
i
myth in medieval music theory

and philosophy
1
Music and the Myth of Apollo’s Grove
John MacInnis
T he myth of Apollo’s sacred and mysterious grove is recounted by Martianus

Capella (fl. fifth century) in the first book of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mecurii
(The Marriage of Philology and Mercury). In Capella’s allegorical narrative, which
frames seven encyclopedic summaries of the liberal arts, the god Mercury, sym-
bolising the Divine mind, weds Philology, a human maiden considered worthy of
deification because of her intellectual accomplishments. Philology is commended
to Mercury by the god Apollo, who then accompanies Mercury as he seeks final
approval for the marriage from Jupiter. At the wedding, Mercury presents seven
maidens who each expound one of the seven liberal arts. The scene depicting
Apollo’s grove, in which Mercury visits Apollo and the two set off for Olympus (De
nuptiis, sections 11–29), is filled with musical references reinforcing foundational
conceptions that persisted throughout the Middle Ages, namely that the structures
of music point to the ordering of the physical universe and the soul’s quest for God.
In Apollo’s grove, Mercury encounters trees that resonate in proportions
expressed in the Pythagorean sequence 12:9:8:6, and Mercury is told that it is
appropriate that the grove of Apollo is so harmonious, because the Sun modulates
the movements of the heavenly spheres. Also, in this narrative, Mercury must cross
seven rivers symbolising the planetary orbits to approach Apollo, and he notes that
many souls, making a similar transit, seem unnaturally captivated by the alluring
melody of Venus. On their journey to Olympus, the gods Mercury and Apollo are
joined by the nine Muses, who each ride a singing swan. Along the way, each Muse
stops at the celestial sphere to which she is particularly attuned, e.g. Melpomene,
Muse of Tragedy, with the Sun’s orbit, and Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry, with
Mercury’s, and so on.1
Though prominent, the musical significance of the scene in Apollo’s Grove is
not limited to the so-called music of the spheres. For Neoplatonists, like Capella
and those who read him in the Middle Ages, the order observed in carefully mod-
ulated musical harmonies pointed not only to the ordering of the cosmos, seen
in the planetary movements, but also to the sort of ordering needed in each indi-
vidual life, described metaphorically as the journey of a human soul to Earth, for
birth in a physical body, a life well lived, and then a worthy return to the heavens
at death.2
1
William Harris Stahl, Richard Johnson and E.L. Burge, Martianus Capella and the Seven
Liberal Arts, 2 vols (New York, 1971–7), vol.2: ‘The Marriage of Philology and Mercury’,
p.16.
2
The supposed movement of souls through the heavens is not unique to Capella; a
Neoplatonic notion, it is found in many other sources, studied throughout the Middle
Ages. For example, the commentary of Macrobius on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis (The
18 John MacInnis
This inter-referentiality of musical order, cosmic order and the responsibil-

ity of individuals to order their inner lives was expounded extensively by the
Carolingian scholar John Scottus Eriugena in the ninth century. With his com-
mentary on Capella’s De nuptiis, Book I, Eriugena included a short musical treatise
titled De armonia caelestium motuum siderumque sonis (Concerning the Harmony of
Heavenly Movements and the Sounds of the Stars). This chapter will demonstrate
that Eriugena, following Capella, described the movement of human souls across
the planetary system as a metaphor for deification, all in the context of describing
musical theoretical principles.
Deification (aka Apotheosis or Theosis) is the process of final union and iden-
tification of the soul with God, its source, and the use of musically rich myth to
describe deification was not uncommon in late Antique writings. For example, in
Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy the Orpheus myth is cited at the end of Book
III as an example of the sort of single-minded attention one must pay to personal
cultivation and spiritual excellence.3 That is, Boethius connects the myth of the
musician Orpheus, travelling upwards from Hades toward the light, as an appropri-
ate description of his own desire for union with God and the need to leave behind
the bondages and trials of those below.
In addition to explaining the connection of a story about deification with music
by Eriugena, this chapter will describe how Eriugena’s placement of his treatise,
De armonia, after his glosses on the scene in Apollo’s grove was purposeful. In fact,
Eriugena drew on this scene to structure his music treatise; Capella’s mythology
served as an inspiration for Eriugena’s musical explanations. In the end, it will be
seen that a unifying theme for Eriugena is the presence of central and proportion-
ally defined mediators such as the Sun, which modulates the celestial spheres, the
mese in the Immutable System of tetrachords, or the human mind that is strength-
ened by learning and erudition and orients the soul toward God, away from the
pollutions associated with corporeal existence.
Dream of Scipio) recounts the ultimate origin and end of the soul in this way: “‘Men
were created with the understanding that they were to look after that sphere called
Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple. Minds have been given to them out of
the eternal fires you call fixed stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened
with divine minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed.
Wherefore, Scipio, you and all other dutiful men must keep your souls in the custody
of your bodies and must not leave this life of men except at the command of that One
who gave it to you, that you may not appear to have deserted the office assigned you.
But, Scipio, cherish justice and your obligations to duty, as your grandfather here, and
I, your father, have done; this is important where parents and relatives are concerned,
but is of utmost importance in matters concerning the commonwealth. This sort of
life is your passport into the sky, to a union with those who have finished their lives
on earth and who, upon being released from their bodies, inhabit that place at which
you are now looking’ (it was a circle of surpassing brilliance gleaming out amid the
blazing stars), ‘which takes its name, the Milky Way, from the Greek word.’” Ambrosius
Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius, ed.
William Stahl (New York, 1990), p.72.
3
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. S.J. Tester (Cambridge, MA, 1973),
pp.307–11. See also Férdia Stone-Davis’s chapter 2 in this volume.
Music and the Myth of Apollo’s Grove 19
John Scottus Eriugena and Capella’s De nuptiis

John Scottus Eriugena (c.810–77) lived during the flourishing of culture, learn-
ing, and ecclesiastical reform that had begun under the reign of Charlemagne
(742–814).4 The ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ is also sometimes described as the
‘Carolingian Renovatio’. However it is named, this period included educational
advances across a vast territory overseen by powerful centralised governments,
beginning with Charlemagne himself, who ruled much of modern Europe at the
height of his power as Holy Roman Emperor.
Eriugena was born in Ireland and came to work in the court of Charles II (‘the
Bald’) sometime before 851, possibly as early as 840.5 Around 851, Bishop Pardulus
of Laon mentioned Eriugena in a letter (Scotum illum qui est in palatio regis, Joannem
nomine, ‘The Scot who is in the king’s palace, by the name of John’)6 and that he was
requested to contribute to the predestination debate stirred up by the Saxon monk
Gottschalk. This letter by Pardulus is the first recorded mention of Eriugena, and
Eriugena’s treatise, De divina predestinatione (Concerning Divine Predestination), is his
earliest known work.
It remains uncertain where Eriugena spent his time while employed by Charles
II, who supported a palace school in the Laon region, perhaps at Quierzy, Laon itself
or Compiègne. Also, there is no certain knowledge of his exact position; perhaps he
was a cleric or monk. Biographical interest in Eriugena began in the twelfth century
in the writings of William of Malmesbury (De gestis pontificum anglorum). William
recorded that Eriugena did serve at the Carolingian court, but in the end returned to
England and settled at Malmesbury.7 It is also from William that we learn the legend
of Eriugena’s martyrdom; his students are said to have stabbed him to death with
their pens.
Eriugena’s ability as a scholar, the opinion of his pupils notwithstanding, is
attested by his vast and varied output. His comments on Martianus Capella’s De
nuptiis are extensive and display specific and speculative knowledge of the lib-
eral arts. De nuptiis was itself widely read and discussed during the Carolingian
Renovatio and throughout the Middle Ages as a summary of the liberal arts,8 and
Eriugena’s comments on this work were studied and referenced by other scholars,
4
The name ‘Eriugena’ (‘Irish-born’) was invented by John Scottus himself, and he used
it to sign his translation of Pseudo-Dionysius’s works (860–2). Although it has become
conventional practice, adding the name Eriugena to Scottus is somewhat redundant,
since both names refer to John’s Celtic background.
5
Dermot Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus (New York, 1989), p.27.
6
Pardulus, ‘Epistola ad ecclesiam Lugdunensem’, De tribus epistolis, ed. Jacques-Paul
Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus ... Series Latina 121 (Paris, 1852), col.1052a.
7
Eriugena’s supposed amiable relationship with Charles II is relayed by William by way
of a famous joke. The King is said to have asked while dining, ‘Quid distat inter sottum
et Scottum?’ (What separates a drunkard from an Irishman?). Eriugena nimbly replied,
‘Tabula tantum’ (Only a table). William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum anglorum
libri quinque, ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton (Cambridge, 2012), p.392.
8
For a translation, see Stahl and Johnson, trans., Martianus Capella ... vol.2. For the
Latin, see James Willis’s edition, Martianus Capella (Leipzig, 1983).
20 John MacInnis
such as Remigius of Auxerre.9 In addition to introducing the artes, De nuptiis also

presented a primer of Neoplatonic thought and summarised aspects of Aristotle’s
categories. The abstruse vocabulary and recondite sentences of De nuptiis necessi-
tated a tradition of glosses, in which Eriugena participated.
Eriugena’s Annotationes in Marcianum (Annotations on Martianus), as they are
called, are preserved in several manuscripts, notably one at Paris’s Bibliothèque
Nationale de France (MS Latin 12960) and one at the Bodleian Library, Oxford
(MS Auct. T.2.19). The Paris manuscript was created in the monastery of St Pierre
in Corbie in the late ninth century, and it was edited and printed in 1939 by Cora
Lutz. The Oxford manuscript dates from the late ninth or early tenth century and
is probably from St Vincent in Metz. Eduard Jeauneau published an edition of
Eriugena’s glosses in the Oxford manuscript in 1978.10 Eriugena’s music treatise, De
armonia, is found in the Oxford manuscript but not in the Paris manuscript, nor is
the material contained in it addressed so extensively by Eriugena in his glosses over
other sections of De nuptiis, such as Books II and IX. In his commentary over De
nuptiis, Eriugena’s approach is markedly philosophical, and he wrote fluently con-
cerning music theory and its connections to cosmology, drawing upon Calcidius’s
Latin translation of and commentary on Plato’s Timaeus and Macrobius’s com-
mentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis.11
Music is a special case in De nuptiis; musical references appear throughout the
first two introductory books, and Harmonia, personifying musical theoretical
knowledge, makes her presentation to the wedding party last of all the maidens,
who embody each of the liberal arts. The overall importance of Harmonia is con-
firmed by Capella at the beginning of Book IX, when Apollo declares of her: ‘It
would be a grave offense to exclude from this company the one bridesmaid who
is the particular darling of the heavens, whose performance is sought with joy and
acclamation.’12
Theorising about the movements and music of the heavens had been a preoc-
cupation and persistent intellectual pursuit since antiquity. Some, like Pliny, in his
Naturalis historia (Book II, chap.20), likened the sounds of heaven to the lyre and
proposed tuning the cosmos in terms of an octave with different musical intervals
9
Cora Lutz, ‘The Commentary of Remigius of Auxerre on Martianus Capella’, Medieval
Studies 19 (1957), 137–56.
10
Edouard Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien sur Martianus Capella (De nuptiis,
Lib.I) d’après le manuscrit d’Oxford (Bodl.Libr. Auct.T.2.19, fol. 1–31)’, Quatre thèmes
érigéniens (Montreal, 1978), pp.91–166. As to the question of whether the Paris and
Oxford manuscripts come from different periods in Eriugena’s career, viz. an original
draft and then a revision, Jeauneau considers them both to be derived from an earlier,
more complete source. For a summary of the different perspectives, see Mariken
Teeuwen, Harmony and the Music of the Spheres: The Ars Musica in Ninth-Century
Commentaries on Martianus Capella (Boston, 2002), pp.45–6.
11
See John Magee’s critical edition and translation of Calcidius: On Plato’s Timaeus
(Cambridge, MA, 2016) and William Stahl’s translation of Macrobius, Commentary on
the Dream of Scipio (New York, 1990).
12
Stahl and Johnson, trans., Martianus Capella, vol.2, p.346. It should be noted that
Ilsetraut Hadot, in Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée antique (Paris, 1984), p.149,
reads Harmony’s placement at the end of De nuptiis not as emphasis, but as affording
the beautiful imagery of singing as the gods proceed to the marriage chamber, at the
story’s close.
between the planets (e.g. a whole tone between the Earth and Moon, a semitone
between the Moon and Mercury, etc.) or in terms of the velocity and size of each
planet’s orbit, each producing a different musical pitch. In fact, Capella presented
a scalar model of the spheres in De nuptiis, Book II, but Eriugena, in his notes on
Capella’s text, expounded a distinctly different approach, in which the heavenly
music is organised like the Immutable System of tetrachords and produces an
infinite variety of musical sounds.13
Eriugena’s Commentary on De nuptiis, Book I

Turning to Eriugena’s approach, then, it should be noted that his music treatise,
De armonia, lies inserted between his comments on sections 15 and 16 of De nup-
tiis, Book I and not at the section of Book II mentioned above, in which Capella
presents an octave model of the planets and their pitches. Eriugena’s choice was
deliberate, for his discussion arises from this earlier portion in Book I. In fact,
Eriugena’s glosses for sections 11-15 outline much of the material presented more
fully in his treatise.
In section 11, Mercury approaches Apollo’s grove and sees the scope of human
history: empires rising and falling, human souls beginning and ending their earthly
lives, and a ‘sweet music’ arising from the trees – symbolising the music of the
spheres:
Amidst these extraordinary scenes and these vicissitudes of Destinies, a sweet

music arose from the trees, a melody arising from their contact as the breeze
whispered through them; for the crests of the great trees were very tall and,
because of this tension, reverberated with a sharp sound [acuto sonitu, i.e. a
high pitch]; but, whatever was close to and near the ground, with drooping
boughs, shook with a deep heaviness of sound [gravitas rauca quatiebat, i.e. the
lowest pitch]; while the trees of middle size in their contacts with each other
sang together in fixed harmonies of the duple [2:1, octave], the sesquialtera [2:3,
fifth], the sesquitertia [3:4, fourth] also, and even the sesquioctava [9:8, whole
tone] without discrimination, although semitones [limmata] came between. So
it happened that the grove poured forth, with melodious harmony, the whole
music and song of the gods.14
The ratios arising from Apollo’s trees are the basis of Pythagorean tuning, system-
atised in the famous series 12:9:8:6. Yet, remarkably, Eriugena moves in another
direction and, in his comments, applies the Immutable System of tetrachords to
the sounding trees.
Inherited from Ancient Greek music theory, the Immutable System was a
two-octave organisation of fixed notes defining tetrachords – groups of four notes
spanning five semitones – with moveable inner notes whose placement specified
13
See Gabriela Currie, ‘Concentum celi quis dormire faciet? Eriugenian Cosmic Song and
Carolingian Planetary Astronomy’, Quomodo cantabimus canticum?: Studies in Honor
of Edward H. Roesner, ed. David Butler Cannata et al. (Middleton, 2008), p.19.
14
Stahl and Johnson, trans., Martianus Capella, vol.2, pp.9–10. Comments in brackets are
my own.
22 John MacInnis
Table 1.1 Greater Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione musica.

Fixed pitches indicated with an asterisk (*)
Pitch Name Tetrachord

Proslambanomenos
or Prosmelodos
}
Hypate hypaton*
Parhypate hypaton
Hypaton
Lichanos hypaton
}
Hypate meson*
Parhypate meson
Meson
Lichanos meson
Mese*
}
Paramese*
Trite diezeugmenon
Diezeugmenon
Paranete diezeugmenon
Nete diezeugmenon*
Trite hyperboleon
Paranete hyperboleon
Nete hyperboleon*
} Hyperboleon
genus, i.e. diatonic, chromatic or enharmonic.15 The Immutable System combined

pitches specified in the tetrachords of the Greater Perfect System (consisting of
two octaves, with two pairs of conjunct tetrachords separated by a middle point of
disjunction, fifteen pitches) and the Lesser Perfect System (spanning an eleventh
with three conjunct tetrachords, eleven pitches). Tables 1.1 and 1.2 show the pitches
and tetrachords of the Greater and Lesser Perfect systems as presented using their
Greek names by Boethius in De institutione musica (The Fundamentals of Music).16
Considered in terms of individual pitches, the two systems mostly overlap and
result in five tetrachords (see Table 1.3).17 In De institutione musica, Boethius also
15
Between the fixed notes of a tetrachord, the diatonic genus followed the pattern of sem-
itone, tone and tone. The chromatic genus followed the pattern of semitone, semitone
and tri-hemitone (i.e. three semitones). The enharmonic genus followed the pattern of
diesis (i.e. quartertone), diesis, ditone (i.e. two tones). Perhaps because the diatonic
genus was preferred in Boethius’s own day, in addition to a perception that its division
of tonal space more closely related to the medieval chant repertoire, the diatonic genus
was emphasised in medieval music theory. Charles M. Atkinson, The Critical Nexus:
Tone-System, Mode, and Notation in Early Medieval Music (Oxford, 2009), p.11.
16
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M. Bower,
ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven, 1989), pp.37–9.
17
Ibid., p.44.
Table 1.2 Lesser Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione musica.

Fixed pitches indicated with an asterisk (*)
Pitch Name Tetrachord

Proslambanomenos
or Prosmelodos
}
Hypate hypaton*
Parhypate hypaton Hypaton
Lichanos hypaton
}
Hypate meson*
Parhypate meson
Meson
Lichanos meson
Mese synemmenon*
Trite synemmenon
Paranete synemmenon
Nete synemmenon*
} Synemmenon
Table 1.3 Immutable System, Combining both the Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems
Pitch Name Tetrachord Latin Name

Proslambanomenos
}
Hypate hypaton*
Parhypate hypaton Hypaton Principales
Lichanos hypaton
}
Hypate meson*
Parhypate meson
Meson Mediae
Lichanos meson
}
Mese*
Trite synemmenon
Synemmenon Coniuncti or Divisarum
Paranete synemmenon
Nete synemmenon*
}
Paramese*
Trite diezeugmenon Diezeugmenon Disiuncti
Paranete diezeugmenon
Nete diezeugmenon*
Trite hyperboleon
Paranete hyperboleon
Nete hyperboleon*
} Hyperboleon Excellentes
24 John MacInnis
included Latin names for these five tetrachords, which are listed beside the Greek
names in Table 1.3.18
In his glosses, Eriugena’s application of tetrachord names to the trees in Apollo’s
grove is as follows:
In all music that is made on strings, fourths and fifths arise. The first tetrachord
is called principalis principalium, the second is called subprincipalis principalium,
the third mediarum, the fourth disiunctarum, the fifth hyperboleon, that is, excel-
lentium. Therefore, in the first tetrachord the lowest voice is made, but in the
last tetrachord is the highest, and whatever is in the middle is some kind of
mixture between low and high. Therefore, Capella says in the following, media
ratis [middle of the raft] that is, in the middle of the tree.19
Subsequently, Eriugena explains that he understands the term ‘tone’ (tonus) to

refer to shifting proportional relationships between the planets, as opposed to
fixed distances from each other, and he affirms that in his conception the music
of the spheres spans two octaves.20 In fact, it appears that the two octaves of the
Immutable System are what Eriugena had in mind, but with a few oddities. First,
in the passage quoted above, Eriugena names the tetrachords, but these designa-
tions do not align with Capella’s description in De nuptiis (Book IX, section 961)21
or Boethius’s in De institutione musica (Book I, chap.25 and Book IV, chap.3).22 In
fact, Eriugena used string names in the first tetrachord, principalis principalium and
subprincipalis principalium (i.e. hypate hypaton and parhypate hypaton), to refer to
the first two tetrachords. Lastly, he named the disiunctarum (diezeugmenon) tetra-
chord, but not the coniunctarum (synemmenon). Eriugena’s tetrachord names are
listed in comparison to Capella’s and Boethius’s in Table 1.4.
Despite the peculiarities in how he names these tetrachords, it must be remem-
bered, with significance for the following, that in the Immutable System the central
pitch, the mese, occupies a central placement in the system considered as a whole
as well as dynamically within the different octave species. The importance of the
mese is observed in the act of tuning a monochord in order to make audible the
intellectually discerned pitches of the Immutable System. The mese is the first pitch
established at a ratio of 2:1, and, beginning with this one pitch, the entire array of
18
Ibid., p.46. Boethius’s alternative name for the Synemmenon tetrachord is Divisarum
(p.125).
19
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, pp.117–18. All translations from this source are
my own.
20
Currie, ‘Concentum celi quis dormire faciet’, p.30. Currie writes, ‘Eriugena generates, for
the first time in the history of medieval re-evaluations of the Neoplatonic music of the
spheres, a two-octave cosmic span with the Sun in the middle, functioning as the mese.
It becomes the unifying element for all Eriugenian discussion of cosmic music.’
21
Stahl and Johnson, trans., Martianus Capella, vol.2, pp.370–1.
22
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, pp.46 and 125.
Table 1.4 Eriugena’s Listing of the Tetrachords of the Immutable System

Compared to De nuptiis, Book IX and Boethius’s De institutione musica Book I
Eriugena Capella DN IX Boethius DIM I.25

principalis principalium principalium principalium
subprincipalis principalium mediarum mediarum
mediarum coniunctarum coniunctarum
disiunctarum separatarum disiunctarum
(or divisarum)
hyperboleon excellentium excellentium
(i.e. excellentium)
other pitches is established (cf. Boethius’s De institutione musica, Book IV, chap.5).23
Therefore, it is important to note that Eriugena, glossing the word lymmata from
Capella’s Latin text, identifies the Sun as mese:
Lymmata, that is, a semitone. He says this, because some say the tones from the
Sun to the Moon are whole. Again, the tones from the Sun to Saturn are said to
be whole. Thence, it turns out that the Sun is the mese, that is, it keeps a middle
place [locum, i.e. orbit].24
Moving past the harmonious trees, in Capella’s story, Mercury explains to his com-
panion Virtue that hearing the celestial music in Apollo’s grove makes sense, since
all the spheres of the cosmos are modulated (moduletur) by the Sun. Mercury then
shows Virtue seven rivers they must cross, beginning in section 14, all symbolising
the planetary orbits. Capella presents these multi-coloured rivers in the follow-
ing order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. In his
description, Capella pays special attention to Venus, an amber river over whose
alluring fragrance and charming melody human souls seem to obsess:
Within shone a river purer than amber, with a crowd of people standing beside it
who desired this more than the other rivers of the Destinies [Fortunarum]; some
of these people were allured by its fragrant perfume; others were charmed by the
sound of gentle melody from its waves. Many were thirsting to taste a drink of
23
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, pp.126ff. ‘Divide AB into four parts with three points:
C, D, and E. Therefore the total, AB, will be the duple of DB and AD, and AD and DB
will each be duples of AC, CD, DE, and EB. Thus AB will be the lowest (the proslam-
banomenos), and DB the mese, for it is half the total length, and as AB is double the
length of DB, DB is twice as high as AB. For, as was discussed above, the relationship
of length and pitch is always reversed; to the degree that a string is higher, it will be
shorter’ (p.128).
24
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, pp.118–19.
26 John MacInnis
its delicious stream, while some people wanted the water to bathe and soothe
themselves and to be immersed in it.25
In Capella’s story, the individual and corporate destinies of humans seem to be

connected to the movements of the planets, symbolised in these rivers, which
sometimes toss and buffet helpless souls. The problem is that, for Capella, all souls
must ascend back to heaven after their earthly death, traversing the same celestial
path they followed before birth, but only some souls make it, while others are lost,
forever caught in ‘the lower regions’. It is here, with this mention of the plight of
souls transmigrating the sounding spheres, that Eriugena inserted his harmonic
treatise, De armonia.
Eriugena’s Music Treatise

In De armonia, Eriugena begins just as he did with glosses for this section of De nup-
tiis, by dividing the heavens into the two octaves of the Immutable System. In his
conception, the lowest pitch is produced by Saturn, the highest by the Firmament;
the Sun stands in the middle as the mese. Specifically, Eriugena explains that there
are eight pitches produced by the seven planets and the Firmament. These pitches
are determined by speed, length of orbit and, in the case of the planets, their rela-
tion to the whirling Firmament. Eriugena states that the pitches rise between
Saturn and the moon (the opposite of Capella’s description in De nuptiis, Book
II) and that those planets below the Sun strain upwards toward those sounds that
are higher in terms of placement.26 The order of the celestial spheres presented
by Eriugena, rising from the Earth, is: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn and Firmament (see Figure 1.1).
In this treatise, Eriugena makes the notable assertion that it is ‘not the position-
ing of the planets, but the proportional ratio of the pitches that produces the heav-
enly harmony’,27 and he explains: 1) why this understanding is significant and 2)
possible sources of confusion. Using the Sun and Saturn as an example, he clarifies
that depending on their placement in relation to each other – not their position
above the Earth – these planets can bring forth an octave, a fifth and a fourth.
That is, as the Sun and Saturn approach each other in their courses, the harmony
between them changes. Eriugena claimed that once this principle is grasped, one
may believe:
that in the eight sounds of the heavens all possible musical consonances can be
made – not only through the three genera, I mean the diatonic, chromatic, and
25
Stahl and Johnson, trans., Martianus Capella, vol.2, pp.10–11.
26
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, p.124. ‘Moreover, the planets located under the
Sun stretch toward the higher sounds, because they are both farther from the speed of
the sphere and run in shorter orbits in the heavens.’
27
Ibid. The full sentence reads: ‘And, through this, not the positioning of the planets, but
the proportional ratio of the pitches produces the heavenly harmony, particularly since
this ratio does not depend upon the position ascending and descending in the cosmos.’
Figure 1.1 The Order of Planetary Orbits According to Eriugena
enharmonic, referring to tetrachords, but, likewise, even in others [i.e. other

genera], which are beyond all mortal reasoning.28
Eriugena discerned that confusion in terminology was a hurdle to be overcome in

understanding his presentation, and, proceeding as he did in his earlier glosses, he
then explained possible meanings for the word tonus. That is, his treatise resem-
bles the material covered in his earlier glosses; he describes his application of the
Immutable System of tetrachords to the sounding spheres, and then he explains
the interpretive possibilities of the word tonus:
And it should be noted that these tones [toni, i.e. considered as distances],
which are calculated from the Earth to the Sphere, e.g. the tone from Earth to
the Moon, may not be in the ratios of the pitches, but in the distances of their
positions. For there are many kinds of tones. Accordingly, tones are distances
between the stars, i.e. how far each planet is apart from another and how far the
Moon is removed from the Earth. These tones vary according to the diversities
of the planets’ arcs and orbits. It is this kind of tone that Martianus defines,
saying, ‘A tone is a distance with a measure, determined by rule.’ This kind of
tone is called ‘interval’ in music. Alternately, there are tones of time, arranged in
28
Ibid., p.126.
28 John MacInnis
long or short duration. There are tones of breath, defined in density or sparse-
ness of sounds. And there are tones of harmonies, which are now under discus-
sion, defined in lowness and highness of sounds, of which each proportion of
consonances is composed.29
In this discussion, Eriugena initially explains Capella’s use of the term tonus in
a way that would encompass one sense of the word modus, as a specific set of
pitches and intervals, though what mattered for Eriugena were the proportional
relationships at play within the entire moving system, the ‘tones of harmonies’ and
not specific pitches applied to each planet.30 As an example, Eriugena pointed to
the organ. The placement of any particular organ pipe makes no difference for the
proportional relationships between all the pipes considered as a complete system.
In another analogy, this time to a choir of vocalists, Eriugena summarised all of the
preceding argument:
Now, let us use a certain example so that it may be clearly evident what we are
trying to assert. In a choir where many singers sing together simultaneously, the
place where each singer is situated is not considered, rather, the proportional
relationship of his sounding voice to the others. For, wherever the person who
sings the lowest pitch will have been positioned, it is necessary that he should
maintain the lowest ratio of all pitches. By the same reasoning, wherever in the
choir might be the one who sings the highest pitch, he necessarily will hold the
highest of all pitches. Accompanying voices should be similarly understood;
of which, not the placed position, but the proportional relationship between
the voices is distinguished in the whole of the melody. Therefore, in vain, one
considers the heavenly music to be constrained by the ratios of local intervallic
distances, in which nothing else is seen except the ascent and descent of lowness
and highness.31
It is here, after such a fascinating and challenging discussion, that previous scholars
have ended their considerations of Eriugena and the harmony of the spheres.32
Examining the context for Eriugena’s treatise suggests that more should be said,
though. Remembering that the last glosses before this treatise begins were on the
plight of human souls, it is striking that, similarly, Eriugena’s music treatise now
continues specifically on the topic of souls:
29
Ibid., p.127.
30
Cf. Barbara Münxelhaus, ‘Aspekte Der Musica Disciplina Bei Eriugena’, Jean Scot
Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie: Laon, 7–12 juillet 1975 (Paris, 1977), p.262. Münxel-
haus summarises the exceptional nature of Eriugena’s presentation and concludes that
the variable system proposed by Eriugena is truly unique in the tradition of theorising
about the music of the spheres.
31
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, p.129.
32
That is, previous scholars have not incorporated Eriugena’s subsequent discussions of
the soul in this treatise when considering this work.
The following is according to the Platonic sect of the most ancient Greeks con-
cerning the fall and returning of souls, who, as with all souls simultaneously
created before earthly bodies, are led astray, having been deceived in the starry
heavens. Being neither strong enough nor willing to follow the speed of the
celestial sphere, they choose the slowness of Saturn. First, down from the celes-
tial seats they fall into the revolutions of Saturn, and from there, beginning to
fall and without reason strong enough to hold them, they are impelled to fall
through the various orbits of the planets all the way to earthly bodies, in which,
by diverse sins and polluted by filth, they are forced again to be loosened and
to descend to the lower regions, i.e. to that life which follows the death of the
flesh.33
For Eriugena, corruptions associated with earthly life keep souls from regaining
heaven, and deification is needed. Deification, the process of final union and iden-
tification with God, is a central idea for Eriugena, as for earlier Neoplatonists. For
example, in Book V of his lengthiest philosophical work, Periphyseon, Eriugena
explained how he understood that the wicked would be lost forever; by persisting
in their resistance to God, their own wilful fantasies will consume them until noth-
ing is left:
It is our belief that the various kinds of punishment will not be found localised
in any place anywhere in the whole of this visible Universe, or, to be succinct,
anywhere within the length and breadth of the nature which is created by God.
Moreover they never shall exist, any more than they do at present, save in the
perverse motions of evil and corrupt wills and consciences, and consist in late
and unavailing repentance, and in every kind of perversion of power, whether in
the human or the angelic creature ... For although the lust and fever will always
be present in perverse wills, seeing that the object of lust can never be attained,
and the flame of evil will have nothing but itself to consume, what else is left
but stinking corpses lacking all vital motion, lacking, that is, all substance and
potency of natural goods? And here it is, perhaps, that we have the most severe
torments of evil men and evil angels, the lust for evil combined with the impos-
sibility of assuaging it, either before or after the Day of Judgement.34
Keeping in mind Eriugena’s theological views and the vivid language he employed
to describe them, consider the final portion of his harmonic treatise, which
describes the plight of souls in Capella’s myth:
Souls are unable to reach their former placement without the purification called
ἀποθέωσις [apotheosis], i.e. redeification, because of the corporeal stains of pol-
lution. The Ancient Greeks believed that as souls cling first to divinity in indi-
visible unity, there they should return, after having been cleansed, but stained
souls are unable to make it back. It is in these pathways of the planets that the
33
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, p.130.
34
Eriugena, Periphyseon, trans. I.P. Sheldon Williams and John O’Meara (Washington,
DC, 1987), pp.612–13.
30 John MacInnis
Greeks believed souls to be cleansed. Since the ethereal spaces are not of the
same nature, indeed, some are said to be cold, some fiery hot, some temperate,
they assigned each soul individually a place according to its own merits. The
pathway of Saturn is called the river Styx; this is sadness, to which Martianus
alludes calling Saturn the ‘most unhappy of the gods,’ because of its excessive
cold, which comes about due to its distance from the Sun and the slowness
of its orbit. The pathway of Mars is called πυριφλεγέθων, i.e. fire inflaming. In
these two pathways [i.e. Saturn and Mars], wicked spirits are either always to
be tormented, if they had been excessively wicked, or to be cleansed, and so are
able to return to a certain respite. This respite was believed to be in the pathway
of Jupiter and Venus, in which are the Elysian fields, this is what they thought
to be the plains for the relaxation from penalty. But, because of love of the flesh,
to which they have been yoked from birth, these souls are neither in the state of
purifications, nor in the forgetful rest of those having been cleansed, they seek
to return again to a body. On the other hand, some souls completely despise
their bodies and naturally approach the stars from which they evidently had
fallen. Therefore, Capella says that some souls are restored to the shores, that
is, to a former state, some to be entirely freed from bodies. Moreover, the free
balance of souls, by which it is considered whether they are going to return to
bodies or, having scorned all fleshly lodging, to return to their former seat, is
signified through one of the destinies moving out of and returning to various
streams. Indeed, not even a malicious wave could restrain them, as he himself
[i.e. Capella] said. So great is the freedom of the human soul that if it should
wish to remain in misery, it remains, and, contrariwise, if in its integrity it should
persevere. So much is sufficient to say concerning the misery of human thinking
and concerning the machinations of the unfaithful.35
Eriugena’s insistence on ‘the free balance of souls’ is interesting to note, consider-

ing his participation in the predestination controversies of the ninth century. But,
more to the point, it seems that as Eriugena preferred a more complex understand-
ing of the tones between planets (proportion in reference to the Sun versus fixed
intervals), so he articulated an approach that considered the soul’s journey through
the heavens to be more than a journey from point A to point B. Stated simply, his
aim in these glosses was to expound his own view that the soul must regulate itself
carefully in pursuit of deification.
Conclusion
At this point, one observes the brilliance in Eriugena’s presentation. For, as human
intellect, cultivated by the liberal arts, may understand musical proportions and
modulate music well,36 the cosmos has a proportional ordering considered in ref-
35
Jeauneau, ‘Le commentaire érigénien’, pp.131–2.
36
Here I am using Augustine’s (as well as Censorinus’s and Cassiodorus’s) definition of
musica as scientia bene modulandi (‘music is the science of modulating well’), i.e. mod-
ulatio, from modus, the application of measure.
erence to the central, modulating Sun, standing for divine intelligence, and, just so,
the soul, metaphorically journeying through the heavens, necessitates an appropri-
ate ordering, guided by intellect, fortified by moral strength and undistracted by
base sensuality.
This examination of Eriugena’s harmonic treatise, placed as it is among his
glosses over the scene in Apollo’s grove in Capella’s De nuptiis, highlights an impor-
tant instance of musically rich narratives shaping and reinforcing philosophical
and theological views in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The supposed har-
mony of the spheres in this and other stories meant more than a song; it provided
a narrative that inspired music theorists with the importance of their art, signified
the beauty of an ordered universe and pointed to the superintending intelligence
from which all things flow and to which they must return.37
37
Perhaps as testament to the power of this sort of story esteemed in the Middle Ages,
one may note that, in the twentieth century, Igor Stravinsky draws on this rich Neopla-
tonic narrative of musical structures reflecting a larger structure to the universe and the
soul’s quest for God in his Poetics of Music. His concluding words are: ‘For the unity of
the work has a resonance all its own. Its echo, caught by our soul, sounds nearer and
nearer. Thus the consummated work spreads abroad to be communicated and finally
flows back toward its source. The cycle, then, is closed. And that is how music comes to
reveal itself as a form of communication with our fellow man – and with the Supreme
Being.’ Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music (New York, 1947), p.146.
2
The Consolation of Philosophy and

the ‘Gentle’ Remedy of Music *
Férdia J. Stone-Davis
I n The Myths We Live By, Mary Midgley addresses the tendency to divide science
from myth (and fact from story) by showing that science is not a disinterested
enterprise, but an ‘ever-changing imaginative structure of ideas by which scien-
tists continue to connect, understand and interpret’.1 In particular she addresses
how certain concepts within scientific discourse act not just ‘as passive pieces of
apparatus like thermostats’, but exert an influence on the materials they examine.2
Her ultimate point is that ‘truth’ is situated in and shaped by frames of experience
and modes of reference. A precedent of Midgley’s view is found directly in Ludwig
Wittgenstein’s ‘language-games’,3 but extends across history, including Martin
Heidegger’s understanding of language as the ‘house of being’, Herder’s ‘consti-
tutive’ view of language,4 and Plato’s theory that world disclosure depends upon
epistemic perspective.5
Drawing upon Plato and the Greek tradition, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy
brings into sharp focus the fluid and narrative character of reality pointed out by
Midgley, as well as the broader validity of her case. As we shall see, the Consolation is
a form of autobiography and as such can be seen as a performative exercise through
which Boethius comes to an understanding of himself. In the light of the situation
he finds himself in, Boethius struggles to tell a story that makes sense of the events
in his life. He requires the intervention of Lady Philosophy, who reveals their coher-
ence. Importantly, the therapeutic mechanisms that Lady Philosophy brings to bear

* This chapter builds on and develops the author’s previous research on Boethius’s Con-
solation of Philosophy in Musical Beauty: Negotiating the Boundary between Subject and
Object (Eugene, 2011).
1
Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (Oxford, 2004), p.3.
2
In particular, Midgley looks at the concepts of the machine, the self-interested individ-
ual and competition between individuals.
3
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker
and Joachim Schulter, rev. 4th edn (Oxford, 2009), section 23.
4
See Johann Gottfried Herder, ‘On the Origin of Language’, On the Origin of Language:
Essay on the Origin of Languages / Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Essay on the Origin of Lan-
guage / Johann Gottfried Herder, trans. John H. Moran and Alexander Gode (New York,
1966). Charles Taylor classes Herder’s view of language as ‘constitutive’ in The Lan-
guage Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity (Cambridge, 2016),
pp.16–20, 28.
5
See in particular the allegory of the cave in Plato, Republic, Book VII, 514a–517a,
in Plato: Complete Works, trans. G.M.A. Grube, rev. C.D.C. Reeve and ed. John M.
Cooper (Indianapolis, 1997), pp.97–1223.
The Consolation of Philosophy 33
in her dialogue with Boethius rely upon an ‘imaginative pattern’6 that sees God as
creator and source, and the world’s existence as dependent on order and harmony.
This manifests not only in terms of the arguments that Lady Philosophy sets
out but underpins the role of music, which is decisive to the re-telling; music is the
principle of harmony and permeates every aspect of the created order, including
Boethius, whom it acts upon to re-order and re-harmonise. Ultimately, however,
music gathers force in the Consolation not simply as a concept within an imagina-
tive structure, but as an action, a means of being in the world. As such, music facil-
itates world-making: the process through which humans attempt to make sense of
themselves and the environment in which they are situated.
The Consolation of Philosophy as Autobiography

The composition of the Consolation of Philosophy draws upon a number of genres,
including consolation, philosophical dialogue and Menippean satire.7 Together
they create a unique type of autobiographical narrative. Thomas Mathien under-
stands autobiography as any text that deals with the author’s life as a central topic
and does so through the use of simple or complex forms of retrospective narrative.8
Consolation is one of the five autobiographical forms he identifies; its purpose is
‘to demonstrate the genuine value of an apparently unhappy life’.9 In considering
how this occurs, it is worth reflecting a moment on autobiographical writing more
generally. Garry Hagberg notes that such writing allows an individual to arrive at
an understanding of him or herself,10 holding, as I have summarised elsewhere, that
‘through self-description the subject relates to aspects of her life and makes sense of
them from the standpoint of the “I” that is here-and-now. It is from this perspective
that events acquire significance and that “I” create a picture to which “I” bear resem-
blance.’11 It is in autobiographical writing that the permeability of fact and story
becomes clear: although objects and events (the ‘facts’ comprising one’s existence)
do not change, their significance and relation to other objects and events, as well as
their relation to a person’s life as a whole, can be perceived differently upon reflec-
tion and in retrospect. Autobiography allows one to create a picture of oneself.
Over the course of the Consolation, Boethius re-assesses the trajectory and mean-
ing of his life, which recent events have caused him to doubt – the work is written
from prison where he awaits execution12 and is set against the backdrop of his radical
6
Midgley, The Myths We Live, p.1.
7
John Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford, 2003), p.97.
8
Thomas Mathien, ‘Philosophers’ Autobiographies’, Autobiography as Philosophy: The
Philosophical Uses of Self-Presentation, ed. Thomas Mathien and D.G. Wright (Oxford,
2006), pp.14–30 (14).
9
Ibid., p.20.
10
Garry L. Hagberg, Describing Ourselves: Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Conscious-
ness (Oxford, 2008), espec. chap.6.
11
Férdia J. Stone-Davis, ‘Music and Worldmaking: Haydn’s String Quartet in E-Flat
Major (op.33, no. 2)’, Music and Transcendence, ed. Férdia J. Stone-Davis (Aldershot,
2015), pp.125–46 (136–7).
12
Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy
(Oxford, 1981), p.54.
34 Férdia J. Stone-Davis
change of circumstance: ‘having been rich, powerful, and influential, he is suddenly

condemned as a traitor and stripped of his goods, imprisoned, and sentenced to
death’.13 Importantly, this re-assessment occurs indirectly: it is the figure of Boethius
(rather than the author)14 who is consoled,15 and he is consoled not through a self-di-
rected process of reflection, but under the guidance of a third party, the persona of
Lady Philosophy.16 More significantly, especially in light of Midgley’s comment about
the active rather than passive character of concepts within discourse, music becomes
a therapeutic tool. Music is a central concept within the metaphysics underpinning
Boethius’s thought; it is a means of understanding the world. However, it is through
its performance that music exerts an influence on Boethius: Boethius responds to
the music Lady Philosophy sings, and in which he becomes immersed.
Music as a Therapeutic Tool

The Consolation pays witness to the active character of music, where it is embed-
ded both implicitly and explicitly in the narrative. Implicitly, music appears within
Boethius’s allusion to the quadrivium. The quadrivium comprises four disciplines
(arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy).17 Each of these is concerned with
knowledge of that which is unchanging (and is therefore a preparation for the
philosophical enterprise),18 and is so through a mutual dependence on number,
which Boethius argues is the foundation of all things in his treatise on Arithmetic:
From the beginning, all things whatever which have been created may be seen by
the nature of things to be formed by reason of numbers. Number was the principal
13
Marenbon, Boethius, p.96. References to the Consolation are to the book, section, verses
(where appropriate) and page numbers in the translation by Victor Watts (London,
1999). For further information about the context giving rise to Boethius’s situation,
see his own account in Consolation, Book I.4, pp.8–15. Cf. also Chadwick, Boethius: The
Consolations of Music, chap.1, especially pp.46–56.
14
‘There is no good reason to suppose that the circumstances of its composition were
other than they are described – those of a man in the condemned cell, with little hope
of reprieve. But this is not to say that the states of mind attributed to the character Boe-
thius need ever have been those of the real Boethius. Boethius the character is a per-
sona, very possibly fictional in many of his thoughts and feelings, although sharing the
events of Boethius the author’s life. It is important that the two figures be kept distinct.’
Marenbon, Boethius, p.99.
15
Boethius is also a pattern for humankind. The Consolation is written in such a way as
to identify Boethius with humankind. Examples of this synonymy extend throughout:
see ibid., Book I.3, p.7 and Book II.2, pp.25–6. Moreover, Lady Philosophy addresses
Boethius in the plural: see for example Book III.3, p.51 and Book IV.6, p.106.
16
Marenbon says, ‘It is Boethius himself, alone, who is consoled and does the consoling,
but the fiction of the dialogue suggests that he is consoled by another.’ He notes that
the form of the Consolation, ‘in which the author consoles a representation of himself,
through a fictional figure, is unprecedented’. Marenbon, Boethius, p.97.
17
Boethius wrote treatises on all four subjects (although not all have survived) and
reputedly coined the term. For more information on the quadrivium and the partic-
ular importance of music, see Férdia J. Stone-Davis, Musical Beauty: Negotiating the
Boundary between Subject and Object (Eugene, 2011), pp.2–13.
18
See Stone-Davis, Musical Beauty, pp.8–10.
exemplar in the mind of the creator. From it were derived the multiplicity of the
four elements, from it were derived the changes of the seasons, from it the move-
ment of the stars and the turning of the heavens.19
Music also appears within allusions to the three classes of music identified by
Boethius in his treatise The Fundamentals of Music – cosmic, human and instru-
mental music – and their dependence upon consonance and harmony.20 Through
the interrelation of movement, sound, ratio and consonance, each class of music
exists: each sphere contains a number of movements and thus a plurality of sounded
notes that cohere through harmony. Consonance emerges laterally within the dif-
ferent spheres through harmony, which draws the individual movements within
each sphere of the cosmos into concord. Yet it also appears cosmically as each
sphere is harmoniously fitted to its cosmic counterparts. Cosmic music involves
the consonance of celestial bodies, the binding of elements and the arrangement
of seasons.21 Human music is the harmony of the cosmos embodied within human-
kind, in the consonance of body and soul, in the joining of the parts within the soul
itself, of the rational and irrational parts, and in the mixing of the elements and the
fixed proportioning of members within the body alone.22 Instrumental music is
harmony which rests in various instruments.23
Boethius’s recognition in the Consolation that the world is ordered invokes the
quadrivium and connects music both ontologically and epistemologically to real-
ity. Soon after her entrance, Lady Philosophy makes it clear that formerly Boethius
spent a great deal of time studying the quadrivium.24 She remembers how Boethius
as an ‘Astronomer once used in joy / To comprehend and to commune / With
planets on their wandering ways.’25 Boethius’s study of the movement of the sky
implicitly invokes cosmic music: ‘The world in constant change / Maintains a har-
mony, / And elements keep peace / Whose nature is to war.’26 Moreover, both
Boethius and Lady Philosophy recall how he previously rendered the secrets of
19
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Boethian Number Theory: A Translation of the
De Institutione Arithmetica, trans. Michael Masi (Amsterdam, 1983), p.xxx. See also
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M. Bower, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New
Haven, 1989), Book I, section 2, pp.9–10.
20
For a detailed explanation of the importance of consonance, see Stone-Davis, Musical
Beauty, pp.19–25, and for a fuller discussion of the classes of music, see ibid., pp.25–30.
21
Boethius, Fundamentals, Book I, section 2, pp.9–10.
22
Ibid., Book I, section 2, p.10.
23
Ibid.
24
On the figure of Lady Philosophy, see Marenbon, Boethius, pp.153–4. Boethius com-
pares his current situation to that in which he and Lady Philosophy used to meet and
study together: Consolation, Book I.4, p.9. Myra L. Uhlfelder notes that the study of
astronomy had revealed the orderly arrangement and movement of heavenly bodies,
and that perception of this order had served as an exemplum for Boethius in developing
a principle of order for his own life: ‘The Role of the Liberal Arts in Boethius’ Consola-
tio’, Boethius and the Liberal Arts: A Collection of Essays, ed. Michael Masi (Berne, 1981),
pp.17–34 (24).
25
Boethius, Consolation, Book I.2, verses 10–12, p.5.
26
Ibid., Book II.8, verses 1–4, p.45.
nature intelligible.27 Boethius’s previous study of the quadrivium underpins his

continued belief that God is both the source and end of creation:28 ‘I could never
believe that events of such regularity are due to the haphazards of chance. In fact
I know that God the Creator watches over His creation.’29 God’s creation of the
world is inextricable from its ordering,30 and aspects of the world’s order often
accompany the mention of creation in the Consolation. Examples extend from the
organisation of celestial bodies31 to the patterns of the season,32 to the place of
humankind. As will become clear, it is the place of humankind within the order
which is vital, since it enables Boethius to recover:
From one beginning rises all mankind;

For one Lord rules and fathers all things born.
...
He closed in bodies minds brought down from on high,
A noble origin for mortal men.33
Explicitly, music is actively present throughout the various stages of Boethius’s

recovery, preparing his mind for change. This transformation relies on harmony,
extending throughout the created order via cosmic, human and instrumental
music, and ordering everything contained therein. It is this that structures the
Consolation and the recovery of Boethius: music, as the principle of harmony, man-
ifested in performance, impacts on the mind through the body, restoring Boethius’s
capacity to reason so that he can recognise his place within God’s created order and
make sense of his life once again. In this way, as sound, music encourages the soul
and the body to resonate harmoniously.
Music is pivotal throughout the Consolation’s six sections, although its function
changes as Boethius’s reason becomes stronger. The work begins (Book I.1–3) by
introducing Boethius’s situation to the reader. Music signals his change in fortune,
for Boethius ‘once wrote songs with joyful zeal’, but is now ‘driven by grief to enter
weeping mode’.34 It is at this point that Lady Philosophy makes her appearance,
reflecting upon Boethius’s decline and diagnosing his condition (Book I.3–7).
Lady Philosophy observes that in Boethius’s present state of mind a ‘great tumult of
emotion’ has fallen upon him so that he is ‘torn this way and that by alternating fits
of grief, wrath, and anguish’.35 She thus begins treatment by first applying ‘gentler’
remedies that will ‘temper’ Boethius so that he is ‘ready to receive the strength of a
27
Ibid., Book I.2, verses 22–3, p.6.
28
For the assumption that God is source and end, see ibid., Book I.6, pp.19–20.
29
Ibid., Book I.6, p.19.
30
See ibid., Book I.5, verses 1–4, p.15; Book I.6, verses 1–6, p.18; Book I.6, verses 15–16, p.18;
Book I.6, verses 17–18, p.18.
31
See ibid., Book I.5, verses 5–9, p.15 ; Book III.2, verses 1–6, p.50.
32
See ibid., Book I.5, verses 18–22, p.15.
33
Ibid., Book III.6, verses 1–2; 5–6, p.59.
34
35
sharper medicament’ (Book II.1–4).36 Significantly, the gentle remedies consist of

music and rhetoric, selected for their capacity to promote moderation and stabil-
ity. Lady Philosophy then moves on to ‘stronger’ ones (Book II.5–8), countering
Boethius’s belief that Fortune has turned against him. The instability and disorder
of Fortune is contrasted with the stability and order of God. Only at this point
does Lady Philosophy introduce ‘bitter’ remedies, turning attention away from
partial good and happiness towards perfect good and happiness (Book III.1–12).
Following this, the final obstacles to Boethius’s recovery are removed (Book IV.1–
V.6). The use of music changes over the course of the Consolation, and in the final
section, when Boethius is stronger, the reliance upon performed music diminishes
and it acts as a ‘refreshment’ from the exercise of reason.
Book I.1–2: Fortune’s Abandonment of Boethius

Boethius’s perception of his predicament is clear; God has abandoned him.
However, Lady Philosophy is adamant that Boethius’s abandonment is self-im-
posed: ‘you have wandered away yourself, or if you prefer to be thought of as
having been banished, it is you yourself that have been the instrument of it’.37 As a
result, Boethius’s vision is impaired:
So sinks the mind in deep despair

And sight grows dim; when storms of life
Inflate the weight of earthly care,
The mind forgets its inward light
And turns in trust to the dark without.38
This impairment is evident in the opening lament, where Boethius implicitly

expresses his alienation. He seeks the comfort of the Muses rather than God,
vents his sorrow ‘with the help of my pen’, and despairs. Notably, Lady Philosophy
is quick to banish the Muses: ‘“Who,” she demanded, her piercing eyes alight
with fire, “has allowed these hysterical sluts to approach this sick man’s bedside?
They have no medicine to ease his pains, only sweetened poisons to make them
worse.”’39 Having dismissed the Muses and diagnosed Boethius’s condition, Lady
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid., Book I.5, pp.16–17.
38
Ibid., Book I.2, verses 1–5, p.5. Supporting this, Lady Philosophy recollects a previous
and contrasting scenario: ‘Now see that mind that searched and made / All Nature’s
hidden secrets clear / Lie prostrate prisoner of night. / His neck bends low in shackles
thrust, / And he is forced beneath the weight / To contemplate – the lowly dust.’ Ibid.,
Book I.2, verses 22–7, p.6.
39
Ibid., Book I.1, p.4. The Muses encourage Boethius to write elegy. Lady Philosophy sets
herself over and against them: ‘poetry plays the painted whore to Philosophy’s virtu-
ous woman’. Anna M. Crabbe, ‘Literary Design in De Consolatione’, Boethius: His Life,
Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1981), pp.238–41 (250). Crabbe
continues, ‘The stress in the De Musica on the inherent tendency of certain types of
music to produce demoralizing “affectus” is closely parallel to Philosophy’s analysis of
harm done by the Muses.’
Philosophy positions herself as physician.40 She will encourage Boethius to re-eval-

uate his situation and thereby illuminate his darkened vision. Music’s appearance
at this early stage in the Consolation is important. It develops the premise intro-
duced in Boethius’s Fundamentals that music is an expression of the soul,41 since
music exemplifies Boethius’s demise.42 Moreover, granting music the capacity to
express Boethius’s feelings prepares the ground for music as a means of transfor-
mation. This is supported by the Fundamentals where the power of music upon
both body and mind is clear,43 and is crucial to Boethius’s recovery. Finally, the use
of music in Boethius’s treatment reveals its modus operandi: music leads to change
rather than demands it.
Book I.3–7: Diagnosis of the Problem

Boethius’s display of grief allows Lady Philosophy to diagnose his condition and
brings him to a point where he can begin treatment. It becomes apparent that
Boethius holds God as ‘the source from which all things come’44 and that this is
the root of his desolation since he cannot comprehend how the injustice he has
suffered fits into God’s order.45 He concludes that God’s reign does not extend
to humankind.46 Boethius’s quandary is marked, as is the two-fold edge of belief
in the world’s creation. Belief in God’s order is responsible for Boethius’s despair,
since Boethius is unable to reconcile the good works of his life with his current
40
Chamberlain suggests that Lady Philosophy is the ‘complete musicus’ since she ful-
fils the criteria of the perfect musician (instrumental skills, creative, judgement of
rhythms, melodies). D.S. Chamberlain, ‘Philosophy of Music in the Consolatio of Boe-
thius’, Speculum 45 (1970), 80–97; Gerard O’Daly, The Poetry of Boethius (London,
1991), p.55. However, one can perhaps go further and suggest that Lady Philosophy
is the complete embodiment of music as the perfection of ‘human’ music, the conso-
nance of body and mind. Thus, it is music rather than Lady Philosophy that stands as
the true physician.
41
‘Someone who cannot sing well will nevertheless sing something to himself, not
because the song that he sings affects him with particular satisfaction, but because
those who express a kind of inborn sweetness from the soul –regardless of how it is
expressed – find pleasure.’ Boethius, Fundamentals, Book I, section 1, p.8.
42
Interestingly, Seth Lerer views Boethius’s situation and recovery through the loss,
recovery and retrieval of language. One can relate this to Boethius’s incapacity to
reason: he is thus rendered speechless (the Muses dictate to Boethius) and it is music
that attends to him in the first instance. Seth Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue: Literary
Method in The Consolation of Philosophy (Princeton, 1985).
43
Boethius says of the Pythagoreans: ‘they knew that the whole structure of our soul
and body has been joined by means of musical coalescence. For just as one’s physical
state affects feeling, so also the pulses of the heart are increased by disturbed states of
mind.’ Boethius, Fundamentals, Book I, section 1, p.7. The body and soul are intimately
connected, and music can directly impact the mind, purging and modifying mood.
Boethius refers to the Pythagorean use of music in this regard.
44
Boethius, Consolation, Book I.6, p.19. For the strength of this assertion, see Uhlfelder,
‘The Role of the Liberal Arts’, p.23.
45
Boethius, Consolation, Book I.4, p.13.
46
predicament, but it is also crucial to his recovery – it is only by virtue of Boethius’s

continued belief in God’s order that Lady Philosophy is able to treat him.47
Book II.1–4: ‘Gentler’ Remedies

Lady Philosophy first employs gentle remedies since Boethius is too weak for
anything stronger.48 As is made clear later, stronger remedies rely upon the use of
reason. It is thus that the understanding of music within the Consolation presents
itself: just as in the case of the other disciplines of the quadrivium, music is ulti-
mately a preparation for reason, leading to knowledge of the unchanging. Lady
Philosophy treats Boethius initially with the gentle action of music and rhetoric,49
taking his belief in God as creator as her oblique starting point. She examines his
complaint that he has been stripped of all possessions and abandoned by Fortune
and shows him that in Fortune Boethius ‘did not have and did not lose anything
of value’.50 In doing so, Lady Philosophy implicitly contrasts the inconstancy
of Fortune with the constancy of God.51 It is by means of this comparison that
Boethius’s focus begins to sharpen, since God is the proper end through which all
things are understood.
Three points are of note in this initial treatment which reflect positively upon
music, not simply as concept, but as action. First, Lady Philosophy uses sung
melody,52 confirming that music is not simply a metaphor explaining the order
of the world, but directly impacts on humankind through sound.53 Second, Lady
Philosophy employs ‘melodies of varying mood’,54 disclosing the active dimen-
sion of music. In reaction to the weeping modes that lay hold of Boethius, Lady
Philosophy uses different varieties that effect his initial transformation. This capac-
ity for transformation derives from the principle of harmony established in the
Fundamentals and the interrelationship of cosmic, human and instrumental music.
Lady Philosophy uses musical modes that promote order and harmony, and make
consonant the body and soul, orientating Boethius within the cosmos. As a result,
47
48
Ibid.
49
Lady Philosophy uses ‘the persuasive powers of sweet-tongued rhetoric, powers which
soon go astray from the true path’ unless they follow Lady Philosophy’s instruction,
and music, ‘the maid-servant’ of Philosophy’s house, who will sing ‘melodies of varying
mood’. Ibid., Book II.1, p.22.
50
Ibid.
51
Lady Philosophy demonstrates the imperfect character of Fortune, see ibid., Book II.1,
p.23; Book II.2, p.25. Book II.4, p.30.
52
Ibid., Book II.1, p.22.
53
‘Unlike the music and the Muses of the prisoner’s open lament, it [Philosophy’s music]
will be both comforting and meaningful. Like De Trinitate’s spark of intelligence, this
native music comes from within. It somehow belongs to us and resides in us.’ Lerer,
Boethius and Dialogue, p.113. This supports Chamberlain’s reading (‘Philosophy of
Music in the Consolatio of Boethius’) and goes against that of O’Daly, who says that
human music ‘is no more than a metaphor for the body-soul structure’. The Poetry of
Boethius, p.56.
54
Boethius, Consolation, Book II.1, p.22.
through the body’s effect upon the mind, the mind becomes more receptive to the
unpalatable truths that subsequent stronger treatment and the use of reason will
reveal. Third, the action of music connects with pleasure: music presents truths in
an appealing fashion and Boethius responds accordingly.
Music’s therapeutic benefits are limited, however. Although music introduces
harmony to Boethius, it acts largely as a preparation for reason. Moreover, the
transience of sound means that pleasure is temporary:
it is only while one is actually listening that one is filled with pleasure, and
for the wretched, the pain of suffering goes deeper. So as soon as your words
stop sounding in our ears, the mind is weighed down again by its deep seated
melancholy.55
The benefits of the harmony that music establishes as sound are thus partial. Lady
Philosophy agrees: ‘It is true,’ she rejoins, ‘for none of this is meant to be a cure for
your condition, but simply a kind of application to help soothe a grief still resistant
to treatment. When the time comes I will apply something calculated to penetrate
deep inside.’56
Book II.5–8: ‘Stronger’ Remedies

Having tempered Boethius’s grief a little by means of music and rhetoric, Lady
Philosophy moves on to ‘rather stronger’ remedies.57 She reasons with Boethius
by setting aside the transitory nature of Fortune’s gifts outlined to Boethius and
taking a different approach by proving that, even if the gifts of Fortune were
not transitory, they would still not bring true happiness. Once again Fortune is
implicitly contrasted with God – God is the true source of happiness. In arguing
this, Lady Philosophy reaffirms to Boethius that he is ‘weeping over lost riches’
(beauty, wealth and fame appear among the external blessings and riches that Lady
Philosophy calls into question)58 and reminds him that he has found ‘the most
precious of all riches – friends who are true friends’.59
This part of the treatment concludes with a poem linking creation, order and
harmony.60 Here, a conjunction of different forms of music transpires: the poem
about cosmic music is sung by Lady Philosophy. This arrests Boethius’s attention
and instils in him a desire to hear more: ‘She has stopped singing, but the enchant-
ment of her song left me spellbound. I was absorbed and wanted to go on listen-
ing.’61 Music thus presents truths through the poem’s content, but also through
the physical manifestation of harmony in performance. By this means, Boethius’s
recovery advances.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
58
Ibid., Book II.5–7, pp.33–44.
59
60
Ibid., Book II.8, pp.44–5.
61
Ibid., Book III.1, p.47.
Book III.1–12: ‘Bitter’ Remedies

With Lady Philosophy’s song leading Boethius forth, he declares his readiness for
stronger treatment.62 Notably, Boethius regards Lady Philosophy as ‘the greatest
comfort for exhausted spirits’ and has been helped by the ‘weight’ of her ‘tenets’
and the ‘delightfulness’ of her ‘singing’. He implicitly pits the pleasure of music
against the content of reason and draws attention to the character of subsequent
remedies. In contrast to previous remedies, which are sweet and palatable, the next
batch ‘taste bitter to the tongue, but grow sweet once they are absorbed’.63 The idea
of absorption reinforces the fact that reason penetrates more deeply than music.
The Orpheus myth is articulated at the end of Lady Philosophy’s use of bitter
remedies, when Boethius is nearing a full recollection of his self-identity.64 This is
significant: the myth supports Lady Philosophy’s use of music, the sweetness and
pleasure of which have been used to cajole Boethius. In the myth, the power of
music effects creation65 and secures the release of Eurydice from the underworld66
by attracting the listener and bringing about sympathy to change. Significantly, the
myth is delivered in song by Lady Philosophy.67 Moreover, the myth is located at a
transitional point and forms a didactic parallel.68 Boethius is almost free from the
gloom that has imprisoned him, and the myth stresses to Boethius that he must
maintain his upward ascent if he is to hold secure all that he has achieved thus far:
For you the legend I relate,

You who seek the upward way
To lift your mind into the day;
For who gives in and turns his eye
Back to darkness from the sky,
Loses while he looks below
All that up with him may go.69
The bitter remedies aim to lead Boethius towards ‘true happiness’ and Lady
Philosophy sketches an idea of ‘the cause of happiness’ through reasoned argu-
ment in the hope that Boethius will recognise ‘the pattern of true happiness’.70 To
this end, Lady Philosophy first examines examples of ‘false happiness’ and returns
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid., Book III.12, pp.79, 82–4.
65
Ibid., Book III.12, verses 5–13, pp.82–3.
66
Ibid., Book III.12, verses 20–8, p.83.
67
Ibid., Book IV.1, p.85.
68
On how Boethius re-writes the Orpheus myth see Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue, pp.159–
64; O’Daly, The Poetry of Boethius, pp.188–207.
69
Boethius, Consolation, Book III.12, verses 52–8, p.84.
70
to beauty, wealth and fame. This time she places them within their proper order,71
suggesting that the happiness they offer is only partially true since humankind
treats them as absolutes apart from God.72 The problem is plain: humankind has a
faint vision of its origin and an instinctive desire to pursue absolute happiness and
goodness, but is misguided and led astray.73 Elucidating the partial goodness of
those things pursued by humankind, Lady Philosophy signals their source, self-suf-
ficient goodness.74
Lady Philosophy informs Boethius that if he turns his ‘mind’s eye in the oppo-
site direction’ he will see the ‘true happiness’ that Lady Philosophy has promised;
she reasons from effect to cause, thereby locating perfect goodness and happiness
in God.75 Lady Philosophy clarifies by contrasting perfect and imperfect goodness,
and perfect and imperfect happiness, focusing on the contrast between unity and
multiplicity, and the striving of all things for unity. Lady Philosophy maintains that
everything strives towards unity.76 The underlying assumption is that unity is iden-
tical with goodness, and therefore that it is true that everything desires goodness.77
This realisation is pivotal to Boethius’s recovery, confirming to him the order of
the world.78
This prepares the way for the confirmation that is shortly to follow, that Boethius
has recovered well. Boethius confirms his belief in God as creator, which he articu-
lated at the beginning of his journey. However, this time Boethius substantiates it
with reasons, saying, ‘I still do think it is beyond doubt, and will always think so. I
will briefly explain the arguments which convince me in this matter’ [my italics].79 The
arguments that he gives are: (1) the unification of the diverse elements of the world
into a whole; (2) the necessity of a power that holds together the unity of diverse
elements; and (3) the necessity of a stable power which maintains the order of
unstable elements.80 All that has gone before has led Boethius to this recognition
that God is the source of everything. Lady Philosophy acknowledges the signifi-
cance of this progression;81 however, to complete the final leg of Boethius’s recov-
ery, Lady Philosophy addresses Boethius’s continuing conviction that although
71
Ibid., Book III.2, pp.49–50. The rest of Book III.3, pp.52–3, deals with wealth; ibid.,
Book III.4, pp.54–6, deals with appointments of high office; ibid., Book III.5, pp.56–8,
deals with power; ibid., Book III.6, pp.58–9, deals with fame; ibid., III.7, pp.59–60, deals
with bodily pleasure.
72
Ibid., Book III.2, p.49; ibid., Book III.8, p.62.
73
Ibid., Book III.3, pp.51–2.
74
75
Ibid., Book III.10, pp.68–9.
76
77
Ibid. The main reason for seeking all things is goodness: ‘For it is quite impossible for
that which contains no good in itself whether real or apparent, to be an object of desire.
On the other hand, things which are not good by nature are sought after if they never-
theless seem as if they were truly good.’ Ibid., Book III.10, p.72.
78
79
80
Ibid.
81
Ibid.
God orders creation, his order excludes humankind. She does so by echoing her
former assertion that knowing God as the beginning of creation is to know him as
its end. She argues that all things, including humankind, strive towards unity and
therefore goodness, that God is supreme, and that all things thus strive towards
God through their own nature and accord, and not by means of some imposition.82
Book IV.1–V.6: Clearing the Path

Although this insight is momentous, Boethius’s dismay is intensified and attention
returns to the problem at hand: ‘the greatest cause of my sadness is really this – the
fact that in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can still exist and even
pass unpunished.’83 Addressing this major obstacle gives impetus to the last phase
of Boethius’s recovery. The rest of the Consolation deals with the existence of evil
people amid a good ordering of creation and knowledge of God’s plan. It finishes
with the question of the compatibility of providence and divine foreknowledge.
It is at this point that the intimately related distinction between providence and
fate is set in place, substantiating the idea that ‘even if you don’t know the reason
behind the great plan of the universe, there is no need for you to doubt that a good
power rules the world and that everything happens aright’.84 For providence is the
plan which comes from the mind of God, while fate is its outworking in time.85
This distinction underpins the notion that knowledge is appropriate to the human
capacity.
The poem that follows is based on this assumption. Lady Philosophy maintains
that just because the causes of human action are not as evident as the causes of
the world, it does not mean that the human sphere is chaotic. Rather, it is that
the cause remains unrevealed to the human mind. In light of this distinction, the
problem faced by Boethius and all of humankind becomes apparent. Humankind
cannot contemplate God’s order completely and it is this that is the source of many
problems:86
But hidden cause confounds the human heart,

Perplexed by things that rarely come to pass,
For unexpected things the people dread.
Then let the clouds of ignorance give way
And these events will no more wondrous seem.87
82
83
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid., Book IV.6, p.104. Lady Philosophy is clear that everything that comes under Fate
‘is also subject to Providence’. However, ‘certain things which come under Providence
are above the chain of Fate’. Such things ‘rise above the order of change ruled over by
Fate in virtue of the stability of their position close to the supreme Godhead’. The dis-
tinction between Providence and Fate is not clearly defined, but graduated. Ibid., Book
IV.6, p.105.
86
87
Ibid., Book IV.5, verses 18–22, p.103.
Within this final stage, the importance of reason is clear.88 The Consolation has
demonstrated the growing strength of Boethius, such that he can now tackle ques-
tions such as the existence of evil, and problems such as providence and foreknowl-
edge without the sweetening of rhetoric and music. It is pure reason that aids the
remainder of Boethius’s recovery; Lady Philosophy says to Boethius: ‘But seeing
you are so quick of understanding, I will pile the arguments on.’89 As a result, the
sweetness and pleasure of music that coaxed Boethius through the earlier stages of
his treatment now provide a temporary relief to the application of reason:
You are worn out by the prolixity of the reasoning and have been looking for-
ward to the sweetness of song. So take a draught that will refresh you and make
you able to apply your thoughts more closely to further matters.90
Conclusion
The transmission of the Greek worldview to the Latin-speaking world was a central
motivation to Boethius as author, hence the emphasis in his treatises upon number
as the foundation of the created order and music as the manifestation of harmony.
In the Consolation, the guiding principle of Boethius-the-figure’s life – that there
is a divinely instantiated order that gives coherence both to the world and to his
own life – is unsettled by the turn of events that lead to his imprisonment. This
obscures Boethius’s vision so that he is no longer able to make sense of his life and
its place within the larger scheme of the cosmos. He spent time studying the order
of things and yet there seems to be no order to his own life. Over the course of the
Consolation Boethius’s vision is restored; he is able to find meaning in life events.
This occurs through a dialogical interaction with Lady Philosophy, who employs
medicines that simultaneously rely upon and demonstrate the importance of har-
mony and consonance to every level of existence.
Music is important among these medicines. While reason provides the final and
most effective remedy, music is integral throughout the process; it is part of the
fabric of the cosmos and yields knowledge of how things really are. Thus it offers
a way into an imaginative pattern that encourages a reading of the world in terms
of harmony. More significantly, however, music is an action performed by Lady
Philosophy for Boethius, who in experiencing it is affected, and his own mode
of being in the world is altered as a result. The power of music in the narrative of
the Consolation is thus evident: against the physical limitations imposed by the
prison cell, and the psychological obstacles generated by his circumstances, the
performance of music by Lady Philosophy for Boethius has the capacity to draw
Boethius’s gaze so that, rather than being inwardly focused, he turns outwards, rais-
88
Lady Philosophy thinks that ‘useful as it is to know about these matters, they are
somewhat aside from our proposed path’ and that Boethius ‘may be so worn out by
digressions’ that he will be ‘unable to complete the journey.’ Nevertheless, she does as
Boethius wishes. Ibid., Book V.1, p.116.
89
90
ing his vision beyond the confines of his prison cell, and creating a different under-
standing of his own life and relationship to the world in which he finds himself.
Attempts to situate musical meaning in a metaphysical framework, such as
Boethius’s, are less commonplace now than they once were, and are often plagued
with difficulty when made, since any kind of absolute frame has come to be
regarded as suspicious. However, a case for music as a means of making sense, or
world-making, is still viable in contemporary terms without recourse to a grand
frame. A range of current cultural and sociological accounts of music and its uses
powerfully demonstrate that music can be both what we know and how we know.
Philosophically articulated, and in line with the action of music in the Consolation,
music has the capacity to negotiate the tension between the constraining features
of existence and the transcendence of these, even if this transcendence is only
temporary.91 It is in this manner that music enables individuals to find significance
in their lives by allowing them to relate to the world in different ways: musical
activity can be a primary means of perceiving and interpreting an environment,92
it can enable individuals to create ‘manageable sites of habitation’ when traversing
and inhabiting environments not of their making,93 it can challenge the construc-
tions of existing worlds,94 and it can act variously as a ‘technology of the self ’95 or a
‘prosthetic technology of the body’96 that negotiates the entangled emotional and
physical aspects of existence. Thus, just as music in the Consolation acts upon the
limiting conditions of Boethius’s circumstances, allowing him to find and express
a structure to his life and the world, so it continues to do so. Music remains an
integral means through which humankind tells stories and finds meaning.
91
See Andrew Bowie, ‘Music, Transcendence, and Philosophy’, Music and Transcendence,
ed. Férdia J. Stone-Davis (Aldershot, 2015), pp.213–23.
92
See for example, Steven Feld, ‘Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place
Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea’, Senses of Place, ed. Steven Feld and Keith
Basso (Santa Fe, 1997), pp.90–135.
93
Michael Bull, Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday
Life (Oxford, 2000), p.2.
94
Férdia J. Stone-Davis, ‘Worldmaking and Worldbreaking: Pussy Riot’s “Punk Prayer”’,
Contemporary Music Review 34 (2015), 101–20.
95
Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge, 2014), p.46.
96
Ibid., p.102.
3
And in England, There are Singers:

Grafting Oneself into the Origins of Music
Elina G. Hamilton
M usic treatises from the Middle Ages frequently begin by rehearsing a gene-
alogical narrative for the authorities in music. Often these are intertwined
with myths and legends inherited from previous generations. Boethius is cited
as an authority for the division of a tone. Guido is considered the father of the
monochord. Isidore gives the ultimate definition of musica. A number of theorists
also felt it important to establish a story for the origins of music. In the narrative
of origins, some theorists opt for a story of the Muses, while others lean towards
tales of biblical heritage.1 De origine et effectu musicae, a late fourteenth- to early
fifteenth-century music treatise from England, offers slight variants to both options
in a combination story of music’s origin.2 In addition to the tales of Tubal from the
Old Testament and mythical accounts of Pythagoras, De origine et effectu musicae
records numerous authorities that make up the musical tradition from Boethius,
Isidore and Guido, to Franco and Philippe de Vitry. Among what is expected, one
source includes a poem that strategically places English singers among the author-
ities of the past (Table 3.1).
The poem runs through a typical list of protagonists in the origin story, albeit
with slight alteration to the chronology. Such deviation is not entirely uncommon
in medieval texts. The border between legend and myth is sometimes difficult to
distinguish in the different stories surrounding the origin of music, leading the-
orists to pen perplexing interpretations in their treatises. The elusive nature of
these interpretations has resulted in a general dismissal of small deviations that
do not fit into a so-called urtext narrative as unimportant and insignificant, some-
times for good reason. Noel Swerdlow is especially critical of the medieval authors,
whose common sense seems to have escaped them when they wrote etymologies
of music, altering the stories in various extremes. According to Swerdlow, histori-
1
Noel Swerdlow, ‘Musica dicitur a moys, quod est aqua’, Journal of the American Musico-
logical Society 20 (1967), 3–9.
2
The two manuscripts containing De origine et effectu musicae are: Oxford, Bodle-
ian Library: Bodley 515, fols.89r–90r and London, British Library: Lansdowne 763,
fols.55v–59r. The short and incomplete De origine et effectu musicae is divided into
twenty-four chapters. Gilbert Reaney notes that John Hawkins was the first to bring
attention to the two manuscripts. Both versions of De origine et effectu musicae appear
in several other treatises, including portions of the Quatuor principalia, and were writ-
ten in the mid-fourteenth century. The full text for De origine et effectu musicae is tran-
scribed with commentary in Gilbert Reaney, ‘The Anonymous Treatise, “De origine et
effectu musicae,” an Early 15th Century Commonplace Book of Music Theory’, Musica
Disciplina 37 (1983), 101–19.
Table 3.1 London, British Library: Lansdowne MS 763, fol.56v
1
Per Thubal inventa musarum sunt Tubal discovered the principles of the Muses
elementa Which we free from small twin columns.
atque columnellis nobis exempta gemellis, And henceforth from the flood bestow the
et post diluvium tunc subscriptus following words: Hermes Trismegistus,
perhibetur: philosopher and foremost father, invented
Philosophus princeps pater Hermes, hic the Muses, which he bestowed and imparted.
Trimogestus, Though previously confused, with many
5
invenit musas, quas dedit et docuit. blacksmith hammers
Pictagoras tantum per malleos fabricantum, Pythagoras enumerated music into four
antea confusas numeravit tetrarde musas Which begat true harmonies from the Muses.
quem musis genera medium concordia From these parts Boethius disclosed tropes.
vera Singlehandedly Guido constructed the
qua tropus ex parte Boitius edidit. ancient tetrachord to the Gamma,
10
Unum composuit ad Gamma vetus and it is rightly said that the monochord is
tetracordum, his.
et dici meruit fuisse Guido monocordum. Gregory changed what was first a carnal use
Gregorius musas primo carnaliter usas, by the Muses into one in service of the holy
usu sanctarum mutavit basilicarum; basilicas;
ast Augustinus formam fert psalmodizandi, On the one hand, Augustine brings Psalms
15
atque chori regimen Bernardus monachis to form;
offert. And on the other Bernardus offers choral
Ethimologiarum scribat coaduitor direction to monks.
Ysydorus; Isidore writes about Etymologies;
pausas, iuncturas, fracturas atque figuras rests, ligatures, and fractures of mensural
mensuratarum formavit Franco notarum, notation were formed by Franco
et Jhon de Muris variis floruitque figuris: Jehan de Murs flourished from various notes:
20
Anglia cantorum nomen gignit Now England gives birth to the greatest
plurimorum. number of singers.
I am grateful to Michael Tworek who helped me work out a translation for the particularly
difficult Latin grammar in the verse. The Latin is transcribed in Gilbert Reaney, ‘The Anonymous
Treatise, “De origine et effectu musicae,” an Early 15th Century Commonplace Book of Music
Theory,’ Musica Disciplina 37 (1983), 101-19 (p.112)
cal facts were often replaced by mythical understanding of stories based on a pure
trust in ancient texts, sometimes giving ‘the impression that they were not really
understood by the writers themselves’.3
In De origine et effectu musicae, there is a unique addition to the common ancient
list of authorities which is of significant interest: ‘Now England gives birth to the
greatest number of singers.’ It is the conclusion of the poem, a casual final state-
ment that positions England and its singers as the culmination of the origin myth,
3
Swerdlow, ‘Musica dicitur a moys’, p.3.
48 Elina G. Hamilton
that is rarely found elsewhere. By grafting England into the list of authorities, the
author of the poem seems to suggest that English singers played a prominent role
within a commonly inherited musical tradition of medieval Europe. Moreover, the
placement of England in the poem in the final stanza elevates the singers to a place
of significance among other great authorities. The author has made a conscious
effort to position the nation within a historical understanding of the origins of
music.
Elsewhere I have argued that the unusual list for Walter of Evesham Abbey’s
division of music in his De speculatione musicae was not an accident, nor was it
quoted in error from the Isidore/Cassiodorian tradition, as suggested by Gerhard
Pietzsch.4 In his Etymologies, Isidore of Seville separated music into three parts:
harmonica, rhythmica and metrica. Walter’s division is a slight variant from the clas-
sic division and includes organica along with harmonica, rhythmica and metrica as
one of the divisions of music. Pietzsch discarded this division as being inaccurate
because he believed that Walter had confused the parts of music with the division
of music.5 Rather I showed that Walter’s semi-original division may have related
closely to the organisation of his own treatise, therefore being utterly purposeful
in his variation.
In a similar attempt to consider variants as important as a common narrative,
the implication of the English singers in De origine et effectu musicae among the
traditional authorities of music theory may show how deviation from an accepted
narrative can provide insights to the reception of the origin myth in England.
English Singers
During the fourteenth century, and certainly by the fifteenth, there is good reason
to believe that English singers had a solid reputation among musicians in gen-
eral. They are mentioned in a handful of treatises as possessing distinctly different
practices from continental musicians, so the reference to England in the poem
should not be surprising. The reference to England’s singers by Anonymous IV
in the late thirteenth century is now quite famous. According to Anonymous IV,
there were different methods of rhythmic modes in England.6 Their notation was
also peculiar.7 Furthermore, the English understood propriety and perfection dif-
ferently from the Parisians.8 Later, Jacobus de Liège echoes what Anonymous IV
noted and wrote that singers in England allegedly named the notes of a scale in a
different manner from the Parisian musicians.9 In 1357, Johannes Boen also wrote
4
Elina G. Hamilton, ‘Walter of Evesham’s De speculatione musicae: Authority of Music
Theory in Medieval England’, Musica Disciplina 58 (2013), 153–66 (157–62).
5
Gerhard Pietzsch, Die Klassifikation der Musik von Boethius bis Ugolino von Orvieto, Stu-
dien zur Geschichte der Musiktheorie in Mittelalter 1 (Halle, 1929), p.97.
6
Jeremy Yudkin, ed., The Music Treatise of Anonymous IV: A New Translation
(Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1985), p.14.
7
Ibid., pp.34–5.
8
Ibid., p.45.
9
Jacobi Leodiensis, Speculum musicae, ed. Roger Bragard, Corpus scriptorum de musica 3,
8 vols ([Rome], 1973), Book VI, chap.62, vol.6, p.165.
of a personal encounter with singers at Oxford, puzzling over why the English
specifically prefer singing thirds and sixths to fifths.10 Beyond these anomalies from
continental practice, Anonymous IV writes that there are good singers in England
(boni cantores errant in Anglia).11
Few authors in England thought it important to include observations of their
own musicians nor, for that matter, do they include any opinions of continen-
tal practices. The inclusion of the cantor in De origine et effectu musicae not only
diverges the story from music’s origins to introduce a different type of musician
into the mythical narrative, it is also a unique mention of a local tradition by an
English author.
Yet the mention of a cantor among a list of musici, as if equal to them, may not
have been well received. The term cantor specifically refers to practitioners, not
to the theorists or the musicus who are listed at the beginning of the poem. With
the exception of the praiseworthy singers from England, the term cantor during
the Middle Ages specified only one type of musician: an ignorant one. A search
through theoretical texts in Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum confirms that the role
of cantor is reflected as less knowledgeable by nearly all definitions given by the-
orists.12 If the descriptions given by theorists are representative of the common
understanding of musicians’ places, the roles of musicus and cantor were so well
defined that a reader of this poem could be expected to have at least a sceptical
perspective on singers.
Serious consideration of the definition of a musician began with Boethius,
who early in his De institutione musica provides a clear division of three types of
musicians. The first kind is those concerned with the performance of instruments.
Performers, though skilled and dedicated, were not considered to possess knowl-
edge of music and were believed incapable of reason. The second kind was those
who composed music. Talent in this category is found through a natural instinct
for poetry in music, but these musicians still cannot comprehend the principles of
music. The third kind was those who could judge music. This third category, which
covered all aspects of musical activities, was considered to consist of the optimal
musicians because they understood the art as a whole.13
Boethius’s divisions for the ideal musician became the mainstay throughout the
Middle Ages, repeatedly serving as a role model for anyone pursuing music. Yet it
was Guido who provided musicians with a clearer distinction between the musicus
and cantor, emphasising just how vast the difference between the two kinds of
musicians could be. Often misquoted as being from his Micrologus, the poem given
10
Johannes Boen, Musica, Part IV, ed. Rob C. Wegman www.academia.edu/4511289/
Johannes_Boen_Musica_1357_Second_Half. Accessed 4/6/2016.
11
Der Musiktraktat des Anonymus 4, ed. Fritz Reckow, Beihefte zum Archiv für Musik-
wissenschaft 4–5, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1967), vol.1, p.50.
12
Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum, dir. Giuliano Di Bacco http://boethius.music.
indiana.edu/tml/. Accessed 4/6/2016.
13
Boethius, De institutione musica, Book I, chap.34: Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius,
Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M. Bower, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven,
1989), pp.50–1.
in the Regulae rhythmicae became synonymous with the appropriate definition of

a musician:
From musicians down to singers – how immense the distance is!

Singers sing, musicians know about what music’s nature is.
But he who does, and does not know, a beast by definition is.14
An emphasis on knowing, as indicated through the italicised words in this transla-

tion by Charles Atkinson, was most crucial to musicians. The singer who does not
know about music is compared to an animal that is wild, untamed and monstrous.
Contrarily, the musician is praised for knowing how to sing and the nature of
music. The longevity and widespread teaching of the distinction between the two
is noticeable throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Table 3.2).
The author of Summa musice, writing in the early thirteenth century, empha-
sised the importance of differentiating cantor from musicus, likening a cantor to a
drunkard seeking direction.15 Later in the century, Lambertus provided an addi-
tional poem that refines Guido’s beastly and incompetent artisan:
A beast not a singer, is one who sings not by art but by practice;
It is not the voice that makes the singer, but the lesson of art.16
The cantor described here is an even less desirable singer, a beast, who cannot
possess the craft of the art. This beast describes a musician at their lowest possible
quality. In his Lucidarium, Marchetto da Padova defines a musicus as someone who
commands the cantor, as someone able to judge the acts of those who serve:
Thus the musicus is to the cantor as the judge to the herald. The judge sets things
in order and commands the herald to proclaim them. So it is with the musicus
and the cantor: the musicus investigates, perceives, discerns, selects, orders, and
disposes all things that touch on the science, and he commands the cantor, who
serves as his messenger, to put them into practice.17
14
‘Musicorum et cantorum magna est distantia. / Illi dicunt, isti sciunt, quae componit
musica./ Nam qui facit, quod non sapit, diffinitur bestia.’ Translation by Charles M.
Atkinson in: ‘Reviewed Works: Hucbald, Guido, and John on Music; Three Medieval
Treatises by Warren Babb and Claude Palisca; Commemoratio Brevis de Tonis et Psalmis
Modulandis by Terence Bailey’, Journal of Music Theory 24 (1980), 268–77 (271).
15
Christopher Page, ed. and trans., Summa Musice: A Thirteenth-Century Manual for Sing-
ers (Cambridge, 1991), pp.55–6, 145–6.
16
‘Bestia non cantor, qui non canit arte sed usu; Non vox cantorem facit artis sed docu-
mentum.’ Christian Meyer, ed. and Karen Desmond, trans., The ‘Ars musica’ Attributed
to Magister Lambertus/Aristoteles (Farnham, 2015), pp.10–11.
17
‘Est itaque musicus ad cantorem, sicut iudex ad praeconem: nam iudex ordinat, et per
praeconem praeconizari mandat; sic et musicus ad cantorem. Nam musicus cognoscit,
sentit, discernit, eligit, ordinat et disponit omnia, quae ipsam tangunt scientiam: et per
cantorem iubet tamquam per suum nuntium practicari.’ Slightly modified translation
from Marchetto da Padova, The Lucidarium of Marchetto of Padua, ed. and trans., Jan
W. Herlinger (Chicago, 1985), pp.547–51.
Table 3.2 Sources for Definitions of Musicus and Cantores
Treatise Author Quote Source Date

Summa musice Anonymous (Ps. Muris) Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae 1215–17
Tractatus de musica Lambertus/Aristoteles Guido, Regulae rhythmicae c.1280
Tractatus de musica Jerome de Moravia Guido, Regulae rhythmicae 1285–90
(as Micrologus in text)
[Regulae de musica] Anonymous Guido, Regulae rhythmicae 1295
De plana musica breve compendium Anonymous Guido, Regulae rhythmicae Late-13th century
Musica quadrata seu mensurata Ps. Bede Guido, Regulae rhythmicae Late-13th century
Lucidarium Marchetto da Padova Boethius, De institutione musica 1317/18
Compendium de discantu mensurabili Petrus dictus Palma ociosa Guido, Regulae rhythmicae 1336
Quatuor principalia Attr. John of Tewkesbury Boethius, De institutione musica Before 1351
Guido, Regulae rhythmicae
Summula Henricus Helene Guido, Regulae rhythmicae 14th century
Opusculum monacordale Johannes Valendrinus Guido, Regulae rhythmicae 15th century
In many ways, Marchetto’s roles for musicus and cantor here are harsher than
Boethius’s original designation of three types of musician. Marchetto’s distinction
implies a strict hierarchy and suggests slave-like command by the musicus over the
cantor.
There was hope for the singer, however. Where Marchetto strictly identifies
who has command over the other, Jerome of Moravia offers to instruct the cantors
in the knowledge of music so that they will become masters of the art, though
perhaps not a musicus. Upon warning his readers that ignorance of music has been
equated to being like a beast, Jerome’s Tractatus de musica approaches the subject
more gently by uniformly bringing the speculative, practical and creative aspects of
music together for instruction.18 The purpose of his treatise was not only to impart
knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but also to offer a practical guide that would
be helpful to his readers, likely singers. The mission for writing this treatise for his
fellow Dominicans was simple: ‘in order that cantors know what comprises music
and in order that they always proceed in melodies correctly’.19
English authors were aware of the distinction between musicus and cantor
through older texts and through references in their new treatises. The author of
Quatuor principalia, written sometime before 1351, dedicated an entire chapter to
refining the distinction of musicians based on a hybrid of texts from Boethius,
Guido and Lambertus.20 Unlike Marchetto, but in a similar manner to Jerome,
the author of Quatuor principalia understood that singers can, and therefore must,
learn the properties of music. These included the capability to identify consonance
and rhythmic measure, in addition to knowledge of the power of music. Humility
and patience are called for by the author, the musicus, who in the following por-
tions of the treatise enlightens the cantor in the art of music.21
Evidently, there was some discrepancy between practice and theory. In all men-
tions of cantores above, it is impossible to gain an impression that singers were
somehow good artists. They were described as beasts and considered the lesser
servant of the musicus. In such a negative light, the superiority of English singers –
in both competency and innovation, as described by Anonymous IV and Johannes
Boen – must have surprised theorists. Otherwise, it is difficult to believe that the
cantores would have been singled out in the poem, especially following the most
authoritative canon of musicus. If English singers were exceptional in comparison
to singers from other regions, and these observations were made by the musicus
who knew the definition of a true singer, then could it be that English singers were
unique among others in their knowledge?
18
Laura Weber, ‘Intellectual Currents in Thirteenth Century Paris: A Translation and
Commentary on Jerome of Moravia’s Tractatus de musica’, PhD Diss., Yale University,
2009, p.41.
19
‘Igitur scire cantores quid componit musica et eos in melodiis semper per artem recte
incedere cupientes ad honorem Domini nostri Jesu Christi et gloriosissimae Virginis
Mariae, matris ejus et beati Dominici praesentem summulam ex diversis majorum nos-
trorum dictis diligenti studio compilavimus.’ Ibid., pp.84–5.
20
Quatuor principalia, chap.9, First Fundamental; Luminita Aluas, ‘The Quatuor principa-
lia musicae: A Critical Edition and Translation, with Introduction and Commentary’,
PhD Diss., Indiana University, 1996, pp.540–1.
21
Ibid., p.540.
A Creative Myth
It is tempting to place this poem’s positive outlook onto English singers and disre-
gard the context into which the statement is placed. In reality, the origin of music
in De origine et effectu musicae contains a number of small anomalies and inter-
pretative aspects to the legend of music’s origin which do not add up to the fully
knowledgeable musician referred to by other theorists. This led Gilbert Reaney
to describe the anonymous treatise as an essential source for an understanding of
musical practice and historical knowledge in fourteenth-century England.22
Before the poem tells the story of the origin of music, the origin myth is first
recounted in chapter 5 of De origine et effectu musicae, presented below in Table 3.3.
In chapter 4 of this volume, Jason Stoessel offers an extensive survey of the
tradition of the Tubal/Jubal narrative commonly narrated by theorists interested
in discovering the origin of music in a Christian context. Based on Tubal’s status as
the father of all who played stringed instruments and organs in Genesis 4, Stoessel
contextualises the story as it relates to Italian treatises. Evidently, a similar tradition
was also prominent in England.
Slightly different versions of the origin myth can be found in the two English
manuscripts. The opening of the legend as it is recounted in the Lansdowne
manuscript begins with the principal protagonists for music’s origins as Tubal
and Pythagoras, while the version in the Bodleian manuscript places the story of
Pythagoras in the middle of the poem and includes the connection of music to
the words ‘Moses’, ‘water’ and ‘sermon’, perhaps in connection to Noah’s flood.
Both sources seem to repeat a popular version of the origin narrative compiled by
Johannes Aegidius (between 1296 and 1304),23 whose placement of Tubal as the
father of music can be found in other treatises in the fourteenth century, including
those by Walter of Evesham Abbey, Jacobus de Liège, Johannes Boen and Jehan
de Murs.24
In his Ars musica, Aegidius wrote that it was not Pythagoras who had originally
discovered music, as had been narrated in previous legends. Instead, he refers to
the divine authority of Scripture to confirm that Tubal was the father of music
because he played the cithara and organ, and also discovered the pleasures of pro-
portions and consonances to alleviate the burdens of shepherding. Aegidius cor-
rects the famous myth:
22
Reaney, ‘The Anonymous Treatise’, p.108.
23
Johannes Aegidius de Zamora, Ars musica, ed. Michael Robert-Tissot, Corpus scripto-
rum de musica 20 ([Rome], 1974), pp.12–13.
24
James W. McKinnon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras, quis sit inventor musicae?’ The Musical
Quarterly 64 (1978), 1–28 (3). Tubal is also noted as the inventor of the science by
Walter of Evesham (Walteri Odington, Summa de speculatione musicae, ed. Frederick
F. Hammond, Corpus scriptorum de musica 14 ([Rome], 1970), p.61), while Johannes
Boen in Ars (musicae) connects the story of Tubal to the book of Genesis, uniquely
including a nod of recognition to King David as the calmer of the soul (Ars (musicae),
ed. F. Alberto Gallo, Corpus scriptorum de musica 19 ([Rome], 1972, p.30).
Table 3.3 Comparison of Passages on the Origin of Music in De origine et effectu musicae
‘De origine et effectu musicae,’ British Library, London: Lansdowne MS 763, fol.56v ‘De origine et effectu musicae,’ Bodleian Library, Oxford: Bodley 515, fol.89r
Capitulum 5 Chapter 5 Capitulum 5 Chapter 5
1 Erat Tubal nomine quidam faber, qui 1 There was a blacksmith named Tubal, 1 Primo Moyses, quod dicitur a moys quod 1 Foremost Moses, which is called from
per pondera trium malleorum super who striking an anvil through the weight est aqua, et icos quod est sermo. Moys that is water, and icos which is
unam incudem percutiens, consonantias of three hammers, set harmonies in order. sermon.*
ordinavit.
2 Audiens autem Pictagoras illum 2 Pythagoras, upon hearing this sound and 2 Et ante diluvium Noe, Jubal scivit quod 2 And before the flood of Noah, Jubal knew
sonum, domum ingrediens fabri, fecit entering the house of the blacksmith, built deus voluit mundum periclitari, fecit from God that the universe was in danger,
proportionaliter quartum malleum qui in proportion a fourth hammer which by duas columnas, unam aeneam, alteram he built two columns, one of bronze, the
adinvicem sonum mirabilem reddiderunt. turn [they] restored wonderful sound. lateream. other of brick.
3 Quod cum Tubal audivit et scivit quod 3 Since Tubal heard and knew that God 3 Et in ambabus scripsit artem musicalem 3 On both columns wrote the one and only
deus voluit mundum periclitari, fecit duas wished to put the world to the test, he aequiformem, id est planum cantum, art of music, that is plain chant. If the
columnas, scilicet unam aeneam, alteram built two columns, one of bronze, the ut si destrueretur mundus per ignem, world be demolished through fire, the
lateram. other of brick. columpna laterea permaneret, quia later brick would endure, for brick cannot be
non potest cremari. burned.
4 Et in ambabus scripsit artem musicalem 4 On both columns he wrote the one and 4 Si vero per aquam, columpna aenea 4 If [the world would be destroyed]
aequiformem, id est planum cantum, ut si only art of music, that is plain chant, so permaneret. through water, the bronze column would
destrueretur mundus per ignem, columna that if the world might perish through fire, remain until the flood of Noah is fulfilled.
latera permaneret, quia later non potest the brick would endure, for brick cannot
cremari. be burned.
5 Si vero per aquam, columna aenea 5 If indeed the world would be destroyed by 5 Postquam diluvium Noe fuerat 5 After the flood of Noah was fulfilled.
permaneret donec diluvium Noe water, as through Noah’s flood, the bronze perimpletum, isti autores rex Syrus, The authority king Syrus, who was king
perimpletum fuisset column would remain. qui fuit rex Assiriorum, Enchiridias, of Assyria, Enchiridias, Constantine,
Constantinus, et multi alii quorum and many others whose names I forget,
nomina ignoro, laboraverunt in illa laboured for the fulfilment in this
scientia adimplenda. knowledge.
6 Post diluvium Rex Cyrus, qui fuit 6 After the flood, King Cyrus, who was 6 Postea vero Gregorius in illa scientia 6 Afterwards Gregory laboured greatly in
rex Assiriorum, et Encheridias et the king of Assyria, and Encheridias and maxime laboravit, cuius gesta in universali this knowledge, whose work is contained
Constantinus, et post hos Boitius autem Constantine, and after them Boethius, ecclesia continentur. in the whole church.
incipiens cum numerorum proportione also, demonstrated concordance with
concordantias demonstravit, ut in musica numerical proportion, so that in his music
sua inuenti patet. the discovery lay accessible.
7 Deinde Guydo monacus, qui compositor 7 Then Guido the monk, who was the 7 Postea vero Isidorus Ethimologiarum, et 7 Afterwards Isidore the Etymologist, et
erat grammatis quod monocordum creator of the instrument that is called caetera. cetera.
dicitur, voces in lineis et spatiis dividebat, the monochord, divided voices on lines
quod initium est huius libri. and spaces, which is the beginning of this
book.
8 Deinde Guido de Sancto Mauro, et post 8 Then Guido of Sancto Mauro, and after 8 (De musica mensurabili) 8 (Of measureable music)
hos Guido maior et Guido iunior. them Guido Major and Guido Junior.
9 Post hos vero magister Franco, qui 9 After them master Franco, who on 9 Erat quidem faber nomine Tubal, qui 9 There was blacksmith named Tubal, who
in cantu mensurabili figurarum, mensural song established certain per pondera trium malleorum super through the weight of three hammers
alterationum, perfectionum et principles of figures, of alteration, of unam incudem percutiens, consonantias which struck one anvil, regulated
imperfectionum principiorum perfection, and of imperfection. ordinavit. consonance.
certitudinem imposuit.
10 Tunc Philippus de Vitriaco, qui 10 Then Philippe de Vitry, who composed 10 Audiens Pictagoras illum sonum, 10 Pythagoras upon hearing this sound,
composuit illam figuram vocitatam that style called minor prolation in ingrediens illam domum fabri, fecit entered the house of the blacksmith. He
minima prolatio in Navarina. Navarre. proportionaliter quartum malleum built four hammers of equal weight to
qui adinvicem sonum mirabilem bring order to the miracles of sound.
reddiderunt.
11 Deinde sanctus Augustinus et sanctus 11 Then Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory, 11 Postea vero Boetius, Presianus, Omerus, 11 Afterwards Boethius, Presianus, Omerus,
Gregorius, qui cantum aequiformem in who for the first time established uniform Franco, Guido de Sancto Mauro, et alii Franco, Guido de Sancto Mauro, and
universali ecclesia primitus instituerunt. song in the whole church. auctores quorum nomina ignoro, in other authorities of whose names I forget,
illam artem practicam usque hodiernum anxiously labour diversely in the practice
diem secundum diversos colores sollicite of this art until this very day.
laboraverunt.
12 Post quos Ysidorus Ethimologiarum 12 After them, Isidore of the Etymologies
et Johannes de Muris, qui de cantu and Johannes de Muris, who discussed
mensurabili et figuratione regulas the description of measureable song and
descripsit dissertas. rules of figures.
* For more on the myth about moys, see: Noel Swerdlow, ‘Musica dicitur a moys, quod est aqua,’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 20 (1967), pp.3–9.
Assuming from what was previously said, that the philosopher Pythagoras with
his lively ingenuity did discover something of this art, he was nevertheless not
its first discoverer or author. As we have it from the divinely inspired Chronicles
of Hebraic truth, in the fourth chapter of Genesis, and from the gloss on the pas-
sage above, and from Rhabanus, and from Josephus the historiographer extraor-
dinaire, and from Scholastic Histories, Tubal the son of Lamech by his wife Ada,
was the father of those who play upon the cithara and organ.25
In the amended narrative, Aegidius adds further context to the legend by noting
that Tubal knew of two perils, a flood and a fire, which would eventually destroy
the world, though he was not aware through which God would act. In order to pre-
vent the loss of music, Tubal made arrangements to preserve music by inscribing
it onto two columns, one on marble, the other on brick. These specific materials
were a logical choice by Tubal, according to the myth: an inscription on marble
would withstand the flood as marble cannot be destroyed by water, while music
written on the brick would be preserved through fire, for brick cannot be destroyed
by fire.26
In De origine et effectu musicae, however, Aegidius’s myth is recounted with slight
alterations. Whereas Aegidius clearly wished to separate myth from truth through
the authority of Scripture by positioning Tubal above Pythagoras, the author of De
origine et effectu musicae alters the tale to position Pythagoras as a contemporary
of Tubal, returning Pythagoras as an equal in the legend. In the altered tale, the
materials used to preserve music through worldly perils are different. In place of a
marble column in Aegidius’s account, the column in De origine et effectu musicae is
bronze. Moreover, Tubal is the blacksmith whom Pythagoras heard when he dis-
tinguished harmonious sounds (though conflation of the individuals results from
Tubal’s complex family structure recounted in Genesis 4:22, since the blacksmith
referred to by the author of De origine et effectu musicae is likely Tubal’s half-brother,
Tubalcain, their father Lemach’s third son through his second wife Zillah, who
was ‘an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron’).27 This version of the myth
was based on Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica from c.1170, in which the two
narratives are recorded conflated:28
25
‘Sed supposito ex praedictis, quod Pythagoras philosophus vivaci suo ingenio aliquid
invenerit huius artis, attamen non fuit huius artis inventor primarius sive auctor. Sicut
enim habetur ex Chronicis divinitus inspiratis per Hebraicam veritatem, Genesis IV
capitulo, et ex Glossa super eumdem locum, et ex Rabano, et ex Josepho historiogra-
phorum eximio, et ex Historiis Scholastics, Tubal, filius Lamech ex Ada uxore sua,
pater fuit canentium in cithara et organo.’ Aegidius de Zamorensis, Ars musica, p. 36;
translation adapted from McKinnon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras’, pp.3–4.
26
According to Josephus, the marble column was afterwards discovered in Syria. McK-
innon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras’, p.4.
27
Paul E. Beichner, The Medieval Representative of Music, Jubal or Tubalcain?, Texts and
Studies in the History of Mediaeval Education 2 (Notre Dame, 1954), p.7.
28
Though widely accepted as a seminal text in the universities of its time, Peter
Comestor’s Historia Scholastica has received relatively little attention in modern schol-
arship. A recent evaluation of the making and immediate reception of this text is Mark
J. Clark, The Making of the Historia scholastica, 1150–1200 (Toronto, 2015).
The name of his [ Jabel’s] brother was Tubal, the father of players on the harp
and the organ. He was the inventor of music, that is, of harmonies, so that pas-
toral labour might be turned into delights, but not indeed of instruments which
were invented long afterwards. And because he heard that Adam had prophesied
about two judgments, lest the art invented be lost, he wrote it on two columns,
on each complete, one of marble, the other of brick, that the one might not be
destroyed by the fire. Sella begot Tubalcain, who first invented the art of iron,
prudently exercised things of war, and made works of sculpture in metals for the
delight of the eyes. While he was making these things, the above mentioned,
pleased with the sound of the metals, from their weights thought out their pro-
portions [intervals] and their harmonies which were born of them, which dis-
covery the Greeks erroneously attribute to Pythagoras.29
In a time when Aegidius’s version had taken over as the common and accepted
narrative by many music theorists, the specific reference to Comestor’s Historia
Scholastica is quite striking.30 To my knowledge, Comestor is not cited by music
theorists until the end of the fifteenth century when Franchinus Gaffurius brings
the narrative back in 1492. A reference can also be found in the Welsh ‘Val ir ordei-
nied kerdd dant’ (how cerdd dant was ordained) from c.1562–4, but does not appear
anywhere else at the time De origine et effectu musicae was written in England.31
In addition to the unusual source for the origin myth, commonly known
authorities of music theory are either misremembered or incorrectly connected.
Collectively, the list of authorities in the Lansdowne manuscript is impressive. Yet
the haphazard chronology suggests the author may have been writing down the
names of the auctoritas only as they came to mind rather than in a systematic order.
29
‘Nomen fratris eius Iubal, pater canentium in cithara et organo. Non instrumentorum
quidem que longe post inventa fuerunt, sed invenitor fuit musice, id est consonan-
tiarum, ut labor pastoralis quasi in deliciis verteretur. Et quia audierat Adam prophe-
tasse de duobus iudiciis, ne periret ars inventa, scripsit eam in duabus columnis, in
qualibet totam una marmorea, altera latericia, quarum altera non dilveretur dilvuio,
altera non solveretur incendio. Sella genuit Tubalcain, qui ferrariam artem primus inve-
nit, res bellicas decenter exercuit, sculpturas operum in metallis in libidinem oculo-
rum fabricavit. Quo fabricante Iubal, de quo dictum est sono malleorum delectatus
ex ponderibus eorum proportiones et consonantias eorum que eis nascuntur ecogi-
tavit. Quam inventionem Greci Pitagore attribuunt fabulose, sicut et ex opere fruti-
cum excogitavit operari in metallis.’ Latin edition: Petri Comestoris, Scolastica Historia.
Liber Genesis, ed. Agneta Sylwan, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis 191
(Turnhout, 2005), pp.54–5. Translation based on Paul E. Beichner, The Medieval Rep-
resentative of Music, pp.10–11.
30
One of the few modern connections made between the myth given in De origine et
effectu musicae and the Historia scholastica by Peter Comestor is by Kees Verduin on his
personal website ‘A la recherche de GIIOHARGIIIVS’, which seeks to find the myth-
ical connections of the Pythagoras/Tubal tales. https://leidenuniv.nl/fsw/verduin/
ghio/ghio.htm. Accessed 9/2/2018.
31
The Welsh version of this myth can be found in Gwysaney 28, fols.50r–60r: see Sally
Harper, Music in Welsh Culture before 1650: A Study of the Principal Sources (Aldershot,
2007), pp.113–16.
St Augustine and St Gregory are mentioned after Philippe de Vitry, while Isidore
shares a place with Jehan de Murs. Additionally, ‘Enchiriadis’ is thought to be an
individual rather than the title of a treatise. In the Bodleian manuscript, the scribe
actually declares his ignorance of authorities twice.
From what can be gathered through quotations in other medieval treatises, it
is unusual for an author of a music treatise not to be able to distinguish between
authorities and what they wrote. A variant of the type found in De origine et effectu
musicae is quite rare. This distinct lack of accuracy in the Bodleian manuscript led
Brian Trowell to suggest that the version presented in the Lansdowne manuscript
was a later attempt to clean up what had been inaccurately transmitted.32 Gilbert
Reaney suggested that these errors were made by a student, perhaps in the process
of taking notes in a classroom.33 Reaney’s suggestion of student authorship is likely
and more readily consistent with the identification of the poem’s source as coming
from Peter Comestor, rather than directly from Aegedius as in the case of other
theorists of the time.
The Historia scholastica is known to have been a popular text among students at
the early universities and therefore familiar to that scholarly community. In four-
teenth-century England, Comestor’s text also appears more consistently among
literary circles than in music treatises, including a reference by Ranulph Higden in
his Polychronicon.34 For the sixteenth-century Welsh reference in ‘Val ir ordeinied
kerdd dant’, Sally Harper assumes that ‘the text almost certainly came second-hand
from the vast medieval chronicle of world history known as the Polychronicon,
compiled by the Benedictine monk of Chester, Ranulph Higden [who died in
1364]’.35 A reference to the Tubal narrative in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century, when De origine et effectu musicae is thought to have been written, may
indicate an author interested in, but not an expert of, music theory. This would also
explain why, although having heard of the great authors and works of music theo-
rists, the author of De origine et effectu musicae was not able to recall them properly.
He was likely not a musicus himself.
Conclusion
Every musicus knew the protagonists in the myths and legends of music. Not every
singer, however, seems to have been familiar with how, or within what order, each
authority was known. Was the author also a singer, perhaps finding a way to bring
the mythical tales together to prove England’s greatest ability? Perhaps the igno-
32
It has been suggested by Brian Trowell that this Bodley 515 manuscript is an earlier
copy and that the Lansdowne manuscript was written to clarify what the scribe of
Bodley 515 missed. Brian Trowell, ‘Faburden–New Sources, New Evidence: A Pre-
liminary Survey’, Modern Musical Scholarship, ed. Edward Olleson (London, 1980),
pp.28–78 (58).
33
Reaney, ‘The Anonymous Treatise’, pp.101–2.
34
Beichner points out, for example, that in the Polychronicon by Ranulf Higden from 1387,
Higden cites Peter Comestor. Beichner, The Medieval Representative of Music, p.14.
35
Harper, Music in Welsh Culture Before 1650, p.116.
rance displayed in the recitation of the poem could be associated to the stereo-
typical perception and widely accepted medieval description of a cantor. The fifth
chapter of De origine et effectu musicae may be an example of a singer recounting
what he had learned through a musicus, conceivably in the way that Jerome of
Moravia instructed his Dominican singers.
Whoever was responsible for the two poems in De origine et effectu musicae
dutifully included Tubal, Pythagoras, Boethius, Guido, Gregory, Augustine and
Isidore in his treatise in an appallingly haphazard way. If the author were a singer,
the lack of competency would verify why cantores were there to sing the music, but
not to recount its history. For this author writing in England, myth, fact and history
seem to have merged together, perhaps because none of these individuals were
from, or in any way connected directly to, England. The only way to know about
them was through studying texts that the English had incorporated into their own
musical tradition. By adding a final stanza about English singers into the poem,
and integrating their best-known quality into the story, the author seems to imply
that, at least in his opinion, England held a prominent and worthy place among the
authorities who are scattered throughout the history of music. The mixed messages
incorporated into the mythical origins of music in De origine et effectu musicae offer
a new glimpse into how legends became a part of a musician’s own identity in late
medieval England.
ii
iconologies of music and myth

4
The Harmonious Blacksmith, Lady Music and Minerva:

The Iconography of Secular Song in the
Late Middle Ages
Jason Stoessel
T owards the end of Imperial Rome’s dominion of North Africa, Martianus

Capella penned his encyclopedic De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (‘On the
Marriage of Philology and Mercury’).1 The spectacle of Harmony’s entrance in
the last book surpasses that of all other Liberal Arts.2 A train of minor deities,
three musically inclined demigods (Pan, Silvanus and Faunus) and three legendary
musicians (Orpheus, Amphion and Arion) precede her. Harmony enters, clad in
gold, flanked by Phoebus Apollo and Minerva, and trailed by her mother Venus.
She carries a shield decorated with concentric circles, attuned to one another and
pouring forth a concord of all the modes.3 Her shield symbolises celestial har-
mony or the harmony of the spheres.4 Finishing a paean to the gods, Harmony
complains that she has been forbidden to give an exposition of her art even among
the stars when the heavens produce a harmony concordant with ‘the gamut of all
proportions’. Yet, she goes on, she is the twin sister of the heavens, the shaper of
human intelligence and character, and used by the Pythagoreans to assuage men’s
ferocity. She invented musical instruments for humanity, was responsible for the
song by which men praised the gods, and placated the underworld deities through
‘mournful song’. Her songs were used for military purposes, in times of peace, and
– in a reference to Orphic lore – even to bend animals to human will. All mundane
natural and manufactured things mirror the same celestial order that is Harmony,
and Harmony is responsible for placating the gods and moving both humans and
animals.
1
See John MacInnis’s chapter 1 in this volume.
2
Martianus Capella, Martianus Capella, ed. James Willis (Leipzig, 1983), pp.337–89; Wil-
liam Harris Stahl, Richard Johnson and E.L. Burge, Martianus Capella and the Seven
Liberal Arts: The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 2 vols (New York, 1971, 1977), vol.2,
pp.345–82.
3
Stahl et al., Martianus Capella, vol.2, pp.351–3.
4
Compare Macrobius’s commentary on Book V of Cicero’s Dream of Scipio (from the
last book of the latter’s De re publica), Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, Book II,
chaps 1–4; Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentaire au Songe de Sci-
pion, ed. Mireille Armisen-Marchetti, 2 vols (Paris, 2001–3), vol.2, pp.1–3; translation:
Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, trans.
William Harris Stahl (New York, 1990), pp.72–4 (Cicero), pp.185–200 (Macrobius’s
commentary).
64 Jason Stoessel
Martianus’s De nuptiis exercised a profound influence directly and indirectly on

subsequent authors and traditions.5 The author’s vision of Harmony as a formi-
dable young woman would be transformed iconographically into her equivalent,
Musica (or Lady Music), in the following ages. To distinguish the more general
understanding of music prevalent today from that of Antiquity, the Middle Ages
and even the early modern period, I will use musica to refer to the often cosmo-
logically bound idea of music in the Middle Ages and Musica for its allegorical
representation.
The two allegories – one literary, the other pictorial – that frame this essay
encompass the rich mythical iconography of music in the late Middle Ages and
early Renaissance. The subject of the final part of this essay, the early sixteenth-
century Allegory of Music by Dosso Dossi (Giovanni de Lutero), marks a culmina-
tion and complication of this tradition whereby an iconographical polysemy was
unleashed upon the courtiers of Este-ruled Ferrara. My journey from literary to
pictorial imagery, from iconology to iconography (and back again), first outlines
the enmeshing of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian traditions of musical lore
and imagery in the high and late Middle Ages. Although, as its Greek inventor,
Pythagoras was regularly associated with Neoplatonic musica/Musica, a biblically
related iconology emerged in the twelfth century that had a lasting influence on
the iconography of music in the following centuries, especially in the pictorial
arts of Italy from the mid-fourteenth century. The biblical figure of Tubalcain
became synonymous with harmonic and rhythmic music. At first Tubalcain was
associated with Musica, and then he assumed a life of his own in several songbooks
decorated in fifteenth-century Italy. The iconology of Musica and her blacksmith
also served as a model for artists decorating the life of Minerva in French trans-
lations of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris. This blurring of boundaries
finds precedents in the iconology of medieval authors from Isidore of Seville to
Dante Alighieri, who drew comparisons between the making of song and the card-
ing/weaving of wool. In iconographical if not iconological terms, Minerva, as the
mythical inventor of numbers, metalwork and weaving, permeated the allegor-
ical sphere of Musica through the shared symbology of the blacksmith and the
weavers. Admitting Minerva into the musical iconography of the fifteenth century
offers an opportunity to reconsider Dossi’s Allegory of Music, not strictly in terms
of imposing yet another reading, but supplementing existing interpretations to
emphasise this artwork’s iconographical polyvalence, rather than reasserting its
ambivalence.
5
Calvin M. Bower, ‘The Transmission of Ancient Music Theory into the Middle Ages’,
The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge,
2002), pp.136–67; Nancy Phillips, ‘Classical and Late Latin Sources for Ninth-Century
Treatises on Music’, Music Theory and Its Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed.
André Barbera (Notre Dame, IN, 1990), pp.100–35 (132–3); Mariken Teeuwen,
‘Seduced by Pagan Poets and Philosophers: Suspicious Learning in the Early Middle
Ages’, Limits to Learning: The Transfer of Encyclopedic Knowledge in the Early Middle
Ages, ed. Concetta Giliberto and Loredana Teresi (Leuven, 2013), pp.33–59.
Music’s Iconology: Allegory, Symbol and Myth

The iconography of the seven Liberal Arts as young women in the plastic and
pictorial arts from the twelfth century onwards has been studied extensively,6 so
only a brief summary of relevant Italian and some French models is required.
In fourteenth-century Italian frescoes, each Liberal Art is shown carrying or in
close proximity to the various identifying iconographical accoutrements. When
shown together, as in Andrea di Bonaiuto’s Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas in
the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence (see Plate I), they are ranked
according to a lopsided two-fold division. Usually grouped together, the trivium
– the arts of language – contains grammar, logic (or dialectic) and rhetoric. The
quadrivium – the arts of number – consists of arithmetic, geometry, music and
astronomy. In the plastic arts, the feminine personifications of the Liberal Arts are
often shown standing. Almost without exception, they are seated in pictorial art-
works, especially when paired with the so-called inventors of their art. Compared
to their late antique and early medieval iconology, the arrangement of the Liberal
Arts varied in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as shown by selected exam-
ples in Table 4.1.
Mid-fourteenth-century Italian allegories of the Liberal Arts witnessed a fur-
ther iconographical development in which male figures – traditionally associated
with the practice or invention of each field of knowledge – were shown in front
of or below the feminine Liberal Arts (see Table 4.2). Although the Royal Portal
of Chartres cathedral may provide a twelfth-century precedent, a conventional
cycle of Liberal Arts,7 often in close association with the Virtues, seems to have
been firmly established in Bologna and Florence by c.1350.8 Andrea di Bartolo da
Bologna drew a series of illustrations of each Liberal Art with her inventor for
Bartolomeo di Bartoli’s Canzone delle Virtù e delle Scienze, dedicated to Bruzio
Visconti around 1349.9 Nicolò di Giacomo da Bologna depicted a scene show-
6
Julius von Schlosser, ‘Giusto’s Fresken in Padua und die Vorläufer der Stanza della
Segnatura’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses
17 (1896), 13–100; Paolo D’Ancona, ‘Le rappresentazioni allegoriche delle arti liberali
nel medio evo e nel Rinascimento’, L’Arte: rivista di storia dell’arte medievale e moderna
5 (1902), 137–56, 211–28, 269–89, 370–85; Adolf Katzenellenbogen, ‘The Representation
of the Liberal Arts’, Twelfth Century Europe and the Foundations of the Modern Society:
Proceedings of Symposium Sponsored by the Division of Humanities of the University of
Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, November
12–14, 1957, ed. Marshall Clagett, Gaines Post and Robert Reynolds (Madison, 1961),
pp.39–55; Felton Gibbons, Dosso and Battista Dossi, Court Painters at Ferrara (Prince-
ton, 1968), pp.93–4; Philippe Verdier, ‘L’iconographie des arts libéraux dans l’art du
moyen-âge jusqu’à la fin du quinzième siècle’, Arts libéraux et philosophie au moyen-âge
(Montréal, 1969), pp.305–55.
7
Katzenellenbogen, ‘The Representation of the Liberal Arts’, pp.39–40.
8
Luigi Coletti, ‘Un affresco, due miniature e tre problemi’, L’Arte: Revista bimestrale di
storia dell’arte medivale et moderna 37 (1934), 101–22.
9
Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château: MS. 599 (XXC (1) 6); see Howard Mayer Brown,
‘St Augustine, Lady Music, and the Gittern in Fourteenth-Century Italy,’ Musica Disci-
plina 38 (1984), 25–65 (31–43); Donatella Melini, ‘Musical Iconography in the Visconti
Codices’, Music in Art 37 (2012), 45–56 (46–8).
Table 4.1 The Ordering of the Liberal Arts
Literary sources (first to last)a
Varro/Martianus (1st/5th centuries) Grammar Logic Rhetoric Geometry Arithmetic Astronomy Musica
b b b
Cassiodorus (6th century) Grammar Rhetoric Logic Arithmetic Musica Geometry Astronomyb
Isidore (7th century) Grammar Rhetoric Logic Arithmetic Geometry Musica Astronomy
Selected 14th- and 15th-century artworks showing Liberal Arts and their representatives (left to right)
Nicolò da Bologna, Madrid Commentario (c.1350) and
Grammar Logic Rhetoric Arithmetic Geometry Musica Astrology
Milan Novella (1354)
Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze, Spanish Chapel, Santa
Arithmetic Geometry Astronomy Musica Grammar Rhetoric Logic
Maria Novella (1366-7)
Pesellino workshop (c.1450) Arithmetic Geometry Musica Astrology Logic Rhetoric Grammar
Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi (c. 1460) Logic Arithmetic Geometry Astronomy Rhetoric Grammar Musica
a
After Calvin M. Bower, ‘The Transmission of Ancient Music Theory into the Middle Ages,’ The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen
(Cambridge, 2002), pp.136-67 (p.139).
b
Boethius, De arithmetica presents the Quadrivium in the same order as Cassiodorus
ing the Liberal Arts and their inventors twice: in the Madrid copy of Bartolo di
Sassoferrato’s Commentario on the Justinian Legal Code (signed and dated 1354
by Nicolò); and in the Milan autograph of Giovanni d’Andrea’s Novelle on the
Decretals.10 Andrea di Bonaiuto’s Triumph of Saint Aquinas (1366–7) draws upon
the same mid-century model. Relevant aspects of this convention were already
known in mid-Trecento Florence based upon the approximate dating of the
Viennese copy of Corvenevole of Prato’s panegyric for King Robert of Naples,
which contains a cycle of illuminations in which the Virtues and Liberal Arts
appear with their human representatives or inventors.11
At the same time that Andrea di Bonaiuto was painting his masterpiece in
Florence, another Florentine painter, Giusto de’ Menabuoi, was completing his
Liberal Arts cycle along the same lines in the Cortellieri chapel in the Church of
the Eremitani in Padua. Although Menabuoi’s allegory was aggressively reworked
in the seventeenth century and destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944, Paduan stu-
dent and musician Hartmann Schedel of Nuremberg left a description that affirms
this cycle’s connections to the earlier Italian tradition.12 All these examples situated
Musica and her inventor within a larger schema consisting of a textual or visual
allegory for moral education and the liberal arts. Howard Mayer Brown has shown
that this multi-layer system of symbols and metaphors extols the intellectual and
spiritual triumph of St Augustine, or is transferred to St Thomas Aquinas, in the
case of the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.13
From the fourteenth century, Musica was often shown holding a musical instru-
ment – a portative organ, psaltery or lute – although the funerary monument of
Table 4.2 The Pairing of the Liberal Arts with their Inventors
Liberal Arithmetic
Grammar Logic Rhetoric Geometry Musica Astronomy
Art (Abacus)
Tubalcain/
Inventor Priscian Aristotle Cicero Pythagoras Euclid Ptolemy
Tubal
10
Respectively, Madrid, Biblioteca Nazionale: MS. B.2 and Milan, Biblioteca Ambro-
siana: MS. B. 42; see Brown, ‘St Augustine, Lady Music, and the Gittern,’ pp.35–6;
Federica Toniolo, ‘L’immagine di Tubalcain-Iubal e le iniziali a nastro del codice musi-
cale estense’, The Manuscript Modena, Biblioteca Estense, α.M.5.24: Commentary, ed.
Anne Stone (Lucca, 2005), pp.155–71 (pp.158–9); Milvia Bollati, ‘1. Niccolò di Giacomo
(Bologna, documentato dal 1353 al 1401) e Stefano di Alberto Azzi (Bologna, docu-
mentato dal 1354 al 1402): Giovanni d’Andrea, Novella in libros Decretalium. Milano,
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, ms. B. 42 inf ’, I corali di San Giacomo Maggiore: Miniatori e com-
mittenti a Bologna nel Trecento, ed. Giancarlo Benevolo and Massimo Medica (Ferrara,
2003), pp.181–6, illus. p.183.
11
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: Cod. S. n. 2639; see Schlosser, ‘Giusto’s
Fresken in Padua’, pp.19–22.
12
Edition in Schlosser, ‘Giusto’s Fresken in Padua’, pp.91–4.
13
The following reading is informed by Ricouer’s theory that symbols extend supra-lin-
guistically beyond their obvious metaphors; Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Dis-
course and the Surplus of Meaning (Forth Worth, TX, 1976), p.55.
68 Jason Stoessel
King Robert of Naples shows her with a music roll. Although the model of Musica
playing a lute provided a long-lasting precedent in the case of Nicolò da Bologna,
after the mid-fourteenth century and well into the sixteenth century, the portative
organ was Musica’s frequently employed symbol, first in those Liberal Arts series
discussed above, and then independently. The fourteenth-century Florentine
archetype of Musica playing an organ was repeated in the well-known Naples
De musica of Boethius, copied early in the reign of Queen Joanna of Naples.14
Musicians playing an assortment of instruments surround her. Later the Coëtivy
Master provided Musica with a sheet or roll of music notation (see Plate 4.1), but
she still plays a tiny portative organ in Botticelli’s Philosophy Presenting Lorenzo
Tornabuoni(?) to the Seven Liberal Arts (see Plate 4.2).
Musica assumed a life of her own outside cycles like those discussed above.
Tilman Seebass identifies several twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscript illus-
trations or illuminations that show Musica playing a harp, monochord or bells.15 To
the last category can be added an example from the British Library (see Plate 4.2)
in which Musica plays various bells and is joined by three other instrumentalists.
At other times, as in the famous frontispiece to the Florence Magnus Liber Organi,
Musica does not hold any accoutrements, but was associated with symbols for
the three different types of music in Pythagorean-Platonic cosmology – musica
mundana, musica humana and musica instrumentalis.16 To these examples might be
added those from the Codex Manesse.17
The cross-fertilisation of Musica’s iconography spilt over into musicians’ por-
traits and tombstones of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially miniatures
found in the Squarcialupi Codex, and the tombstones of blind organist-composers
Francesco Landini and Conrad Paumann. Tilman Seebass concluded that these
representations embodied ideals of late medieval musicianship.18 Michael Long
took this further by arguing that the creator of Landini’s portrait in the Squarcialupi
Codex – and I would infer his tombstone – cast the composer in the image of
Musica, in contrast to the Davidic iconography permeating Lorenzo Masini’s por-
trait in the same manuscripts.19 The appropriation of Musica’s iconology was by no
means limited to Landini: two other organists, Andrea da Firenze (fol.183v) and
Giovanni Mazzuoli (fol.195v), are portrayed in a similar manner in the same deluxe
14
Naples, Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III: MS. V.A.14, fol.47v.
15
Tilman Seebass, ‘Lady Music and Her Proteges from Musical Allegory to Musicians’
Portraits’, Musica Disciplina 42 (1988), 23–61.
16
Ibid., pp.29–30.
17
Recently discussed in Marc Lewon, ‘Meister Heinrich Frauenlob und Frau Musica:
Eine neue Deutung de Frauenlob-Miniatur im “Codex Manesse”’, Sangspruchdichtung
um 1300: Akten der Tagung in Basel vom 7. bis. 9 November 2013, ed. Gert Hübner and
Dorothea Klein (Hildesheim, 2015), pp.293–306.
18
Seebass, ‘Lady Music’, pp.39–41; Kurt von Fischer, ‘“Portraits” von Piero, Giovanni
da Firenze und Jacopo da Bologna in Einer Bologneser-Handschrift des 14. Jahrhun-
derts?’ Musica Disciplina 27 (1973), 61–4 and unnumbered plates.
19
Michael Long, ‘Singing through the Looking Glass: Child’s Play and Learning in Medi-
eval Italy’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 61 (2008), 253–306 (268).
Plate 4.1 Coëtivy Master (Henri de Vulcop?), Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius.
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum: MS. 42, fol.2v. Digital image courtesy of the
Getty’s Open Content Program
Plate 4.2 Musica shown in an Initial from a Copy of Boethius’s De musica. London, British Library:
Burney 275, fol.359v. Image by the British Library. Public domain
70 Jason Stoessel
manuscript.20 Landini’s portrait has an additional poignancy. It accompanies his

Musica son, in which Musica (whom the illuminator also personifies in the lower
frieze of the page as a seated young woman playing a portative organ) complains that
her art is being spoilt by the ignorance and vice of inept musicians (see Table 4.3).21
Brown observed that when Musica is portrayed with her inventor the latter is
identified as the biblical Tubal (equivalent to Jubal) or Tubalcain.22 I shall hence-
forth refer to this artistic representation as Tubalcain, acknowledging that this
figure was sometimes labelled Tubal in the images examined here. The frontispiece
at the beginning of the Trecento collection of songs, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
de France, Ital. 568 (Pit) is one of the better-known examples of this ‘standalone’
iconology, showing a seated Musica playing a portative organ, below whom
sits Tubalcain beating hammers on an anvil.23 Mirella Levi D’Ancona bestowed
the name of the Master of Songs on the anonymous artist of this frontispiece,24
and associated this artist with the industrious centre of book production at the
Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli.25 Although some uncertainty
remains, the artist’s style supports the conclusion that this frontispiece was added
sometime after 1409, the latest dateable composition in Pit.26 A second example
20
This source appears to have been prepared in the orbit of the scriptorium of Santa
Maria degli Angeli, Florence, and is decorated by no less than two anonymous illu-
minators: Luciano Bellosi, ‘The Squarcialupi Codex Master’, Il Codice Squarcialupi
MS. Mediceo palatino 87, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze: Studi raccolti, ed.
F. Alberto Gallo (Florence; Lucca, 1992), pp.145–57; Magnolia Scudieri, ‘Cat. I. 22
Lorenzo Monaco (Firenze 1370 ca.-1422/1425 ca.) e Ignoto miniatore fiorentino del
quarto decennio del ’400 Secondo Maestro del Codice Squarcialupi’, Miniatura del
’400 a San Marco dalle suggestioni Avignonesi all’Ambiente dell’Angelico, ed. Magnolia
Scudieri and Giovanna Rosario (Florence, 2003), pp.115–20.
21
Giuseppe Corsi, ed., Poesie musicali del trecento, Collezione di opere inedite o rare 131
(Bologna, 1970), p.129.
22
Brown, ‘St Augustine, Lady Music, and the Gittern,’ p.28. The only other exception
occurs in a twelfth-century copy of Boethius’s De Musica, now in the Newberry
Library, Chicago, which associates Musica and Pythagoras diagrammatically. See
Michael Masi, ‘A Newberry Diagram of the Liberal Arts’, Gesta 11 (1972), 52–6; Masi,
‘Boethius and the Iconography of the Liberal Arts’, Latomus 33 (1974), 57–75. Yet, as
seen in several mid-fourteenth-century Italian examples, Pythagoras is invariably asso-
ciated with arithmetic or its medieval technique, the abacus.
23
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: it. 568, fol.1. Colour images can be found on
the library’s website gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84490281.
24
Mirella Levi D’Ancona, ‘Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci e il ‘Maestro delle Canzoni’:
Due miniatori trecenteschi della scuola di S. Maria degli Angeli a Firenze’, Rivista d’arte
32 (1957 [pub.1959]), 3–37; D’Ancona, The Illuminators and Illuminations of the Choir
Books from Santa Maria degli Angeli and Santa Maria Nuova in Florence (Florence,
1994), pp.20–5.
25
Also see Jason Stoessel, ‘The Makers and Owners of Early Fifteenth-Century Song
Books in Italy: The Benedictine Contribution to the Courtly Musical Culture of the
Late Middle Ages’, Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before
1600, ed. Lisa Colton and Tim Shephard (Turnhout, 2017), pp.77–96 (81–8).
26
This dating is based upon Nádas’s reading of Girand’ un bel falcon as an expression of
Florentine antipathy towards Pope Gregory XII at the Council of Pisa in 1409; see
Ursula Günther, John Nádas and John Stinson, ‘Magister Dominus Paulus Abbas de
Table 4.3 Text and Translation of Francesco Landini’s Musica son
Musica son che mi dolgo, piangendo, veder I am Music, and tearfully complain of seeing interested
gli effetti mie dolci e perfetti lasciar per frot- minds forsake my sweet and perfect accomplishments
tol i vaghi intelletti. Perché ignoranza e vizio for trifling street-songs. Everyone is getting so used to
ogn’uom costuma, lasciasi ‘l buon e pigliasi la ignorance and vice that they reject what’s good and go for
schiuma. Ciascun vuol inarrar musical note, the scum. Everyone wants to wrestle with musical notes
e compor madrial, cacce, ballate, tenendo and compose madrigals, hunting songs, ballads; each one
ognor le sue autenticate. Chi vuol d’una virtù claiming artistic authenticity for his own. But whoever
venire in loda conviengli prima giugner a la wants to be praised for any of his accomplishments must
proda. Già furon le dolcezze mie pregiate da first reach his goal. Once my endearments were praised
cavalier, baroni e gran signori: or sono ‘mbas- by knights, barons and great lords: now noble hearts are
tarditi e genti cori. Ma i’ Musica sol non mi corrupted. But I, Music, am not complaining alone: I
lamento, ch’ ancor l’altre virtù lasciate sento. hear that the other Virtues have also been forsaken.
Trans. Giovanni Carsaniga
from the lavish first page of Dante’s Commedia copied by Jacopo Guido di Puccini
in Florence c.1420 exhibits a further connection with Santa Maria degli Angeli.27
The decoration, which shows the seven Liberal Arts and their inventors in separate
frames, has been attributed to Bartolomeo da Fruosino, a lay illuminator regularly
hired by the Camaldolese scriptorium.28
It is also beneficial to review the iconological tradition. Two blacksmiths figure
in the iconology of European music and music theory. Paul Beichner, James
McKinnon and Judith Cohen have examined this topic in detail, although their
studies predate many important critical editions of medieval music theory.29 A
thorough re-evaluation of this scholarship is needed, and the following synop-
Florentia: New Documentary Evidence’, Musica Disciplina 41 (1987), 203–46 (204–

5, n.203). Another song in the collection, Godi, Firenze, has been dated to 1406; see
Ursula Günther, ‘Zur Datierung des Madrigals “Godi Firenze” und der Handschrift
Paris, B.N. fonds it. 568 (Pit)’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 24 (1967), 99–119.
27
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, it. 74, fol.3r. Colour images can be found at
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10500687r. See Laurence B. Kanter, Painting and
Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300–1450 (New York, 1994), pp.314–17 (illus.
p.316); Katia Zambrelli, ‘Maestro del Codice Squarcialupi’, Dizionario biografico dei
miniatori italiani: Secoli ix–xvi, ed. Milvia Bollati (Milan, 2004), 502–3.
28
Compare Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Corale G 73, fol.35v; see, Ada
Labriola, ‘Lorenzo Monaco miniatore tra il 1410 e gli ultimi anni di attività (e alcune
proposte per la miniatura fiorentina del tempo’, Lorenzo Monaco dalla tradizione giotte-
sca al rinascimento, ed. Angelo Tartuferi and Daniela Parenti (Florence, 2006), 84–95
(89).
29
Paul E. Beichner, The Medieval Representative of Music, Jubal or Tubalcain?, Texts and
Studies in the History of Mediaeval Education 2 (Notre Dame, IN, 1954); Judith
Cohen, ‘Jubal in the Middle Ages’, Yuval: Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre 3
(1974), 83–99; James W. McKinnon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras, quis sit inventor musicae?’,
The Musical Quarterly 64 (1978), 1–28.
72 Jason Stoessel
sis captures some key points in relation to more than forty music theorists from
the late thirteenth to late fifteenth centuries who refer to both the biblical and
Greco-Roman inventors of music. A preliminary review of these theorists ques-
tions McKinnon’s conclusion that from the late thirteenth century music theorists
increasingly favoured the biblical inventor of music. Almost half of the treatises
surveyed favour the Greco-Roman story of music’s invention, about twenty-five
per cent more than those that lean towards the Judeo-Christian tradition.30
The Greco-Roman tradition revolved around the story of Pythagoras’s discov-
ery of the proportional relations between consonant tones after hearing black-
smiths striking an anvil with different proportional weighted hammers.31 Although
Vincenzo Galilei eventually debunked this myth using empirical observations,32
Boethius’s account in De institutione musice was most influential.33 Guido adapted
it in his Micrologus and Vincent of Beauvais extracted it verbatim from Boethius
in his widely read Speculum doctrinale.34 The brief accounts of Isidore and John
of Affligem also trickled down into many versions of the invention of musica at
the beginning of medieval and early Renaissance music treatises.35 Macrobius’s
early fifth-century version in his commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio was less
often cited.36 There was a resurgence of interest in Macrobius among music theo-
rists (some of it negative) after Marchetto da Padova cited the Commentary and
Cicero’s Tusculan Desputations as authorities for Pythagoras’s invention of music.37
30
The collection of data was greatly assisted by the Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum,
directed by Giuliano Di Bacco http://boethius.music.indiana.edu/tml/. Accessed
15/4/2016.
31
Greek authors who also wrote about Pythagoras’s discovery, like Nicomachus in his
second-century Enchiridion harmonices or Iamblichus in his early fourth-century Life
of Pythagoras, remained virtually unknown until the later fifteenth century, although
Boethius seems to have drawn on Nicomachus for his own account.
32
Carla Bromberg, ‘A Preliminary Study of the Origin of Music in Cinquecento Musical
Treatises’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 41 (2010), 161–83
(175).
33
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii De institu-
tione arithmetica libri duo: De institutione musica libri quinque. Accedit geometria quae
fertur Boetii, ed. Gottfried Friedlein (Leipzig, 1867), p.196.
34
Guido of Arezzo, Guidonis Aretini Micrologus, ed. Joseph Smits van Waesberghe (Nij-
megen, 1955), p.229; Gottfried Göller, ed., Vinzenz von Beauvais O.P. (um 1194–1264)
und sein Musiktraktat im Speculum doctrinale, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung,
Band XV (Regensburg, 1959), pp.104–5.
35
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, Book III, chap.16 in Etymologiarum sive originum libri
XX, 2 vols (Oxford, 1957), vol.1, f.K6v.
36
Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius, In somnium Scipionis, Book II, chap.1,
sent.8 in Macrobius, Commentaire au Songe de Scipion, vol.2, p.4; translation: Macro-
bius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, pp.186–7.
37
See Prosdocimo’s rebuttal of Marchetto’s argument in Prosdocimo de’ Beldomandi,
Plana musica. Musica speculativa, ed. Jan Herlinger (Urbana, 2008), p.220; Prosdoci-
mo’s influence is still apparent in Franchinus Gaffurius, ed. F. Alberto Gallo, Extractus
parvus musice (Bologna, 1969), p.64.
Prosdocimo de’ Beldomandi took his Paduan predecessor to task for favouring the
pagan rather than biblical inventor of music.38
Beichner unravelled the knotty problem of the medieval identity of the
so-called biblical inventor of music over sixty years ago. Genesis 4.20–22 describes
the three sons of the first bigamist, Lamech. By his first wife, Ada, he fathered Jabel,
the father of shepherds and tentmakers, and Jubal, the father of singing with the
harp and the flute (fuit pater canentium cithara et organo).39 Tubalcain, who was a
smith and metalworker (qui fuit malleator et faber in cuncta opera aeris et ferri), was
born to Lamech’s second wife, Zillah (Sella). Flavius Josephus, the first-century
Judeo-Roman historian, planted the seed by which this biblical account would be
transformed in subsequent centuries: Jabel became Jobal, Jubal became Jobel, and
Tubalcain confusingly was transformed into Jobel qui ex altera natus est; the first
two sons were no longer the ‘fathers’ of their crafts; and the third was transformed
into a martial figure, who surpassed all in his strength and was adept in matters of
war (fortitudine cunctos excellens, res bellicas decenter execuit).40
Next, the seventh-century encyclopedist Isidore of Seville took the bold step
of describing Jubal, whom he called Tubal, as the finder (repertor) of the musical
arts before the Flood, adding that the Greeks indeed (vero) said that Pythagoras
discovered this art from the sounds of hammers and by striking stretched chords.41
In his twelfth-century Historia scholastica, Peter Comestor synthesised both tradi-
tions, explicitly referring to Josephus. Peter approximated biblical lore by stating
that Tubal was the father of singing on the harp and the flute, although with a
subtle shift from ‘singing with’ to ‘singing on’ the harp and the flute. He clarified by
stating that Tubal was the inventor of instruments, which had long existed and –
in a conflation with the Pythagorean tradition – that the same biblical figure had
discovered music’s consonances only after listening to his half-brother Tubalcain’s
hammering and observing the proportional relationship of the weight of his ham-
mers to each other. Peter also borrows an apocryphal account from Josephus in
which Seth, after hearing Adam’s prophecy that the world will be judged by water
and then fire, makes two columns – one of fireproof brick, the other from water-
38
The issue is partly one of verbal semantics: following Isidore or John of Affligem,
Jubal/Tubal/Tubalcain is regularly described as the repertor or finder of music, while
Pythagoras is bestowed the epithet of the ‘inventor’ or discoverer of music (sometimes
refined to musical proportion or consonance).
39
Organum could refer to – among other things – any wind instrument in the late Middle
Ages, including the flute and the organ, and is only an approximation for the Hebrew
wə-’ū-gˉāb (‫)׃בָֽגּועְו‬, the pipe or flute.
40 ˉ
Titus Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae, Book I, chap.2, sent.64; Medieval Latin
translation: Antiquities [Latin trans.], ed. R.M. Pollard, J. Timmermann, J. di Grego-
rio, and M. Laprade (2013–) http://sites.google.com/site/latinjosephus. Accessed
4/2/2018. Also see Walter Kurt Kreyszig, ‘“Leopold Mozart ... a Man of Much ... Sagac-
ity”: The Revival of Humanist Scholarship in his Gründliche Violinschule (Augsburg,
1789)’, Music’s Intellectual History: Founders, Followers and Fads, ed. Zdravko Blažeković
and Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie (New York, 2009), pp.43–156 (61–2).
41
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, Book III, chap.16 in Etymologiarum sive originum libri
XX, vol.1, sig. K6v.
74 Jason Stoessel
proof marble – on which he inscribes astrological knowledge. In Peter’s account,

Tubal instead inscribes the two columns with musical knowledge.42
That Vincent of Beauvais also extracted the relevant portion from Peter’s Historia
scholastica about Tubal’s invention of music into his enormous and long-lived com-
pendium for the Dominican order illustrates how both legends about the invention
of music continued on an equal footing from the late thirteenth century.43 The
same situation occurred in the case of Isidore’s short passage on the invention of
music, which John of Affligem perpetuated in his Musica. While they take sides,
medieval writers often ‘compendicised’ and conflated the Isidorean and Johannine
tradition with the Boethian and/or that of Comestor.44 Beichner was perhaps too
generous in asserting, ‘Musicians did not confuse Jubal and Tubalcain’. The anony-
mous author of the Middle English Story of Genesis and Exodus conflated Jabel and
Jubal into Jobal, and referred to Tubal instead of Tubalcain.45 Tubalcain was named
as the inventor of music by five authors surveyed for this study, including Jacobus.46
The iconology of music’s biblical inventor ran alongside that of Tubalcain
in Italian art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A statement that situates
42
Beichner noted Peter Comestor’s influence of subsequent authors, including Peter
Riga, Matthew Paris, Ranulf of Hignen and Macé de la Charité; Beichner, The Medi-
eval Representative of Music, pp.11–14; Peter Riga, Aurora: Petri Rigae Biblia versificata
= A Verse Commentary on the Bible, ed. Paul E. Beichner (Notre Dame, IN, 1965), p.45
(lines 461–74). Macé de la Charité translated Riga into French in the early fourteenth
century. For the passage concerning the sons of Lamech, see the edition: Macé de la
Charité, La Bible de Macé de la Charité, vol. I: Genèse, Exode (Leiden, 1964), pp.28–9
(lines 664–708).
43
Göller, ed., Vinzenz von Beauvais O.P., p.105.
44
See examples from the Hollandrinus traditions: Wacław Gieburowski, Die ‘Musica
Magistri Szydlovite’: ein polnischer Choraltraktat des XV. Jahrh. und seine Stellung in der
Choraltheorie des Mittelalters, mit Beruecksichtigung der Choraltheorie und -Praxis des
XV. Jahrh. in Polen, sowie der Nachtridentinischen Choralreform (Posen, 1915), pp.9–72;
Dénes von Bartha, ‘Studien zum musikalischen Schrifttum des 15. Jahrhunderts,’ Archiv
für Musikforschung 1 (1936), 176–99 (180–99).
45
Beichner, The Medieval Representative of Music, p.18. Beichner proposed that the read-
ing ‘ut Tubal, Chayn ante diluvium’ in the nineteenth-century edition of Jacobus’s
Speculum musicae, Book VII, chap.1, be emended to ‘Jubal [or Tubal], qui fuit de stirpe
Cain ante diluvium’, based upon Isidore. The nineteenth-century edition can be found
in: Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker, ed., Scriptorum de Musica Medii Aevii:
novam seriem a Gerbertina altera, 4 vols (Paris, 1864–76; repr. Hildesheim, 1963), vol.2,
pp.383–433. The modern editor of the Speculum read ‘Tubalcain ante diluvium’; Jacobi
Leodiensis, Speculum Musicae, ed. Roger Bragard, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica 3, 8
vols ([Rome], 1955–73), vol.7, p.5. In the sole surviving complete manuscript of the
Speculum, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: lat. 7207, fol.275r, the reading is
‘Tubal chaym ante diluvium’. I warmly thank Karen Desmond for her assistance in
determining this reading during an exchange of emails on 17/6/2016.
46
Tractatus compilatus de musica plana et mensurabili e traditione franconiana in Bergamo,
Biblioteca civica: 2/67 ([Delta] IV 30), fols.252r–258 at fol.252r–v (Tubal Caym);
Opusculum de musica ex traditione Iohannis Hollandrini in Vienna, Nationalbibliothek,
cod. pal. vind. 4774, fols.12r–23v and 30v–33v; Alexander Rausch, ed., Opusculum de
musica ex traditione Iohannis Hollandrini. A Commentary, Critical Edition and Transla-
tion, Musical Theorists in Translation 15 (Ottawa, 1997), p.28; Prosdocimo de’ Beldo-
mandi, Plana musica, p.220 (Iubalchaim).
musica among the Liberal Arts (paralleling iconographical representations) regu-

larly precedes discussions about the invention of music. Tubalcain takes on aspects
of Peter Riga’s late twelfth-century adaptation of Comestor’s story of Tubal dis-
covering musical proportions.47 In his versified biblical commentary, Aurora, Riga
painted a picture of Jubal listening intently to the hammer strokes of his brother,
Tubalcain. This iconology was transferred to the iconographical. Tubalcain appears
before an anvil, a hammer in each hand, his head inclined to one of these hammers
raised beside his ear as if to convey his intense listening.
An early fifteenth-century manuscript of polyphony in Modena is the earliest
witness of a stand-alone depiction of this intensely listening Tubalcain in a music
book.48 Federica Toniolo identified this figure as Tubalcain in her study of the
illumination of the Modena manuscript. I have argued that the so-called Master
of 1411 completed this and other illuminations in the Modena manuscript in late
1410 or soon afterwards.49 The Master of 1411, with his distinctive adaptation of the
Neogothic style of Nicolò da Bologna (fl.1349–1401), can be closely connected with
the social fabric of Bologna from as early as 1404. The initial featuring Tubalcain
draws on Nicolò da Bologna’s earlier model in the Milan and Madrid manuscripts,
and in all likelihood was intended to appear at the beginning of the Modena man-
uscript before it was transformed by the addition of two outer gatherings featuring
the music of Matteo da Perugia.50 Additional support for the latter position comes
from two other sources from the end of the fourteenth century that use the same
iconography in a collection of polyphonic song.
Tubalcain reappears in a later fifteenth-century source prepared for the mar-
riage of Margherita Castellani and Bernardino Niccolini, the so-called Berlin
Chansonnier (see Plate III).51 Iconographically this depiction shares enough
features with the Modena Tubalcain – a scruffy, bearded figure in simple, yellow
clothing alternately beating two hammers on an anvil – to show that they belong
to the same iconographical genealogy, albeit without having to admit any direct
connection. Gallagher’s re-dating of the Berlin Chansonnier to no earlier than
1473 leaves a sixty-year gap in the chronology of this iconography in music man-
uscripts that can nonetheless be supplemented by the ongoing depictions of
the Liberal Arts in panels and manuscripts.52 The Berlin Chansonnier’s origin in
Florence seems beyond doubt, especially since Flynn Warmington identified the
47
Riga, Aurora, p.45 (lines 461–74). On the popularity of the Aurora in the Middle Ages,
see Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, MA,
1955), p.166.
48
Modena, Biblioteca Estense: ms. α.M.5.24 (lat. 568), fol.11r.
49
Jason Stoessel, ‘Arms, a Saint and Inperial sedendo fra più stelle: The Illuminator of Mod
A’, Journal of Musicology 31 (2014), 1–42 (4–15).
50
Ibid., 39–40.
51
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Museen de Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz: Kupferstich
kabinett, MS 78.C.28, fol.2v.
52
Sean Gallagher, ‘The Berlin Chansonnier and French Song in Florence, 1450–1490: A
New Dating and its Implications’, Journal of Musicology 24 (2007), 339–64 (351).
76 Jason Stoessel
same scribal hand in a processional made for the Duomo of Florence.53 Gallagher
finds persuasive reasons, including a prior commission from the Castellani family,
to suspect that Benedetto di Silvestro (fl.1445–73), an illuminator whose work is
found in other manuscripts from the Duomo, decorated the Berlin Chansonnier.54
Another chansonnier completed c.1492–3 in the Florentine workshop of
Gherardo and Monte di Giovanni witnesses a measured but colourful transforma-
tion of Tubalcain (see Plate IV).55 Instead of being plainly clothed and bareheaded,
Tubalcain is depicted wearing a turban and a bright red cloak, still bearded, but
sporting a long moustache. Additionally, a music book to his left intrudes for the
first time into this iconography. Precedents for this exoticisation of Jubal exist in
the Allegories of the Liberal Arts from the workshops of Francesco Pesellino (1422–
57) and Biagio di Antonio Tucci (1446–1516).56
The iconographical link between the Modena and two later Florentine chanson-
niers has not been noted in scholarly literature. In all three, Tubalcain signifies the
nature of the music collection that follows. All three books are completely or mostly
filled with secular song. Pointedly, images of Tubalcain do not appear in any collec-
tions of liturgical polyphony. While one might be tempted to assert that Tubalcain
stood in for mensural (rhythmic) and polyphonic music in general, it seems that
this iconography is chiefly linked with polyphonic, vernacular song collections.
The initials in Modena, Berlin and Banco Rari 229 seem distinct from the
pairing of Tubalcain and Musica discussed above, most notably in relation to the
Trecento song collection Paris Ital. 568. Yet, a circular canon by Bartolomeo Ramos
de Pareja represents Musica metonymically in the preceding frontispiece in Banco
Rari 229. The canon is surrounded by pictorial representations of the four winds
and captioned Mundus et musica et totus concentus (The world, music and all in
harmony). Music and its biblical inventor thus appear on successive openings at
the beginning of Banco Rari 229, analogous to the Musica-Tubalcain iconology
discussed above.57 Brown has already noted the Neoplatonic underpinnings of the
frontispiece of Banco Rari 229 and the connections of its first owner, Alessandro
53
Florence, Opera del Duomo: MS 21; Flynn Warmington, ‘The Missing Link: The
Scribe of the Berlin Chansonnier in Florence’, La musica a Firenze al tempo di Lorenzo il
Magnifico: Congresso internazionale di studi, Firenze 15–17 giugno 1992, ed. Piero Gargiulo
(Florence, 1993), pp.63–8. See also David Fallows, ‘Polyphonic Song in the Florence
of Lorenzo’s Youth, ossia: The Provenance of the Manuscript Berlin 78.C.28: Naples or
Florence?’, La musica a Firenze al tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico: Congresso internazionale
di studi, Firenze 15–17 giugno 1992, ed. Piero Gargiulo (Florence, 1993), pp.47–61.
54
Gallagher, ‘The Berlin Chansonnier’, p. 351. Ada Labriola dates the Berlin Chansonnier
to 1472, and places its origin in the workshop of Francesco di Antonio del Chierico of
Florence; Ada Labriola, ‘Alcune proposte per Zanobi Strozzi e Francesco di Antonio
del Chierico’, Paragone Arte. Mensile di arte figurativa e letteratura Anno LX - Terza serie
83 (2009), pp.3–22 (14–16).
55
Howard Mayer Brown, Brian Jeffery and Max Knight, eds, A Florentine Chansonnier
from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, ms.
Banco Rari 229, 2 vols (Chicago, 1983), vol.1, pp.23–4.
56
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL, and Chantilly, Musée Condé.
57
Brown et al., eds, A Florentine Chansonnier, p.16.
Braccesi, with late fifteenth-century Florentine, intellectual culture, including the

figure of Marsilio Ficino.58
As a referent to the Liberal Arts, Tubalcain does not stand for a problematic
divide between the sacred and secular, but functions as a sign within an episte-
mology that underlines the place of liberal arts education in medieval literate
society. The formation of knowledge, well into the humanist era, still revolved
around grammar, insofar as it concerned the trivium, and music with regard to the
quadrivium. Arithmetic and geometry had a limited role (and were more the tools
of merchants and tradesmen than clerics), and astronomy/astrology represented
a specialist branch of knowledge beyond the basics of calendric calculation that
could be satisfied by computus. Rather, the status of these chansonniers as personal
or family books is at one or more removes from the liturgical world of the Middle
Ages, even if theological doctrine spilt over into some of their texts and range of
meanings. On his own, Tubalcain signifies the legitimisation of polyphonic song
in late medieval culture and its inalienable connections with musical cosmologies.
Minerva’s Thread: Iconographical

Cross-Fertilisation
The image of a biblical blacksmith is also a site of a rupture in the medieval distinc-
tion between the liberal and mechanical arts. After all, as a symbol, the blacksmith
is both literal and iconic. At the literal level, the blacksmith points to the sweaty
and dirty craft of smithing; at the iconic, it references the discovery of music’s
proportions and its place within the Pythagorean-Platonic cosmos. Several authors
also associated Tubalcain with the martial arts: smithing, after all, could be turned
to the manufacture of weapons of war, and Tubalcain’s strength marked him out as
one proficient in the art of war.
In the case of music, further iconological polysemy occurs in Dante Alighieri’s
De vulgari eloquentia, in which music is metaphorically compared to the mechan-
ical art of weaving. From both the biblical and Dantesque iconology, illumina-
tors appropriated iconography of Musica and Tubalcain for decorating the life
of Minerva in the French translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris
(c.1360). The slippage between images of Musica and Minerva is striking and
foreshadows some of the bold adaptations of traditional iconography during the
Renaissance.
In Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia Book II, chap.8, sent.5, the boundary between
poetry and song is a narrow one. Even though no instrumentalist would call their
wordless melody a canzone (cantio) and a canzone can consist of written words
alone, the union of words and music is also called a canzone. Yet the musical
nature of the canzone is a potential one: ‘the canzone is nothing other than the self-
58
Ibid., pp.32–41; Klaus Pietschmann, ‘Zirkelkanon im Niemandsland: Ikonographie
und Symbolik im Chansonnier Florenz, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari
229’, Uno gentile et subtile ingenio, ed. M. Jennifer Bloxam, Gioia Filocamo and Leofranc
Holford-Strevens (Turnhout, 2009), pp.605–15. On this and other circular canons,
see Katelijne Schiltz, Music and Riddle Culture in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 2015),
pp.281–2.
78 Jason Stoessel
contained action of making words to be harmonised with melody’.59 The words

themselves are not musical, but their arrangement according to rules of versifi-
cation and metre make them apt to be set to music. In other words, a canzone is
lyrical.
Antonio da Tempo’s discussion of the madrigal c.1330 illustrates how easily this
relationship between lyric and music collapsed into other metaphors. Antonio
begins by noting that the mandrialis is commonly called the marigalis, and that this
genre’s name derives from mandra, ‘flock’, since its manner of rhyming and singing
was handed down from shepherds (primo modum illum rithmandi et cantandi habu-
imus ab ovium pastores). He continues with a well-known passage on the setting of
the madrigal in the modern musical style:
The setting or madrigal according to modern song ought to be beautiful and in

its song have rustic or pastoral parts, so that the song concords with the words.
And for this, to have a beautiful sound, it ought to be sung by at least two singers
in different concordant voices. It can be sung by more singers, according to what
we commonly see today, and even by one; but when it is sung by one it doesn’t
sound as good to the ears of listeners as when it is sung by many.60
Antonio, although denying he was a master musician, expressed his strong prefer-
ence for polyphonic settings of the madrigal. His linking of the madrigal with the
song of shepherds resonates with Dante’s earlier formulations about the nature of
lyric versification, which include metaphors derived from the wool industry.
At the beginning of Book II of De vulgari eloquentia, Dante employed vocab-
ulary associated with the spinning of wool to explain poetic metres. Before he
can proceed to a discussion of prose, he ‘will first disentangle what metres poetry
uses’. Readers would have understood the rich semantics of Dante’s verb carminare,
meaning both ‘to disentangle’ figuratively and ‘to card wool’ or ‘disentangle wool
with the use of a carding comb’ literally.61 Both Isidore of Seville and Uguccione
da Pisa connect the verb carminare etymologically to the phrase carmina facere,
‘to make songs’. Just as a carding comb straightens out wool’s fibres in preparation
for spinning into useful thread for weaving and knitting, metre ‘straightens out’
language into structures suited to poetry. In his Commedia, Dante explicitly linked
59
Et ideo cantio nichil aliud esse videtur quam actio completa dictentis verba modulationi
armonizata; Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, Book II, chap.8, sent.6. Botterill translates:
‘the canzone is nothing else than the self-contained action of one who writes harmo-
nious words to be set to music’; Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia, ed. and trans.
Steven Botterill (Cambridge, 1996), pp.70–1.
60
‘Sonus vero marigalis secundum modernum cantum debet esse pulcher et in cantu
habet partes rusticales sive madriales, ut cantus consonet cum verbis. Et ad hoc, ut
habeat pulchram sonoritatem, expedit ipsum cantari per duos ad minus in diversis
vocibus concordantibus. Potest etiam per plures cantari, secundum quod quotidie
videmus, et etiam per unum; sed non ita bene sonat auribus audientium quando per
unum cantatur sicuti quando per plures’; Antonio da Tempo, Summa artis rithimici vul-
garis dictaminis, ed. Richard Andrews, Collezione di opere inedite o rare 136 (Bologna,
1977), pp.70–1.
61
Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, p.96, n.99.
the ideas of weaving and song-making when he describes how a twelfth-century

Florentine woman ‘drawing strands from her spindle … span tales of the Trojans,
Fiesole, and Rome’ (Il Paradiso Book XV, lines 124–6).62 The metaphor of spinning
permeates late medieval discourse about poetry and ideas about the moral educa-
tion of youths, illustrating how imagery of the mechanical arts often transgressed
the realms of the liberal arts.63 Mythological discourse of the fourteenth century
also provides further evidence of connections between the iconology of the liberal
and mechanical arts.
Boccaccio’s account of Minerva in his De mulieribus claris, chapter 6, began
by recounting tales of her mythical origin, including the well-known story of her
sprouting from Jupiter’s head fully formed.64 Of greatest interest are Minerva’s
purported inventions. Notably, she is credited with the invention of wool-work-
ing. Although Boccaccio did not use the verb carminare, the imagery evoked of
wool being cleansed, straightened and softened with carding combs, and then spun
into thread on a distaff, is one already employed by Dante. Yet the textual meta-
phor would not have been far from the mind of the reader as Boccaccio described
how Minerva taught the art of weaving (intextrine excogitavit officium) and fulling
woven cloth (calce solidaretur intextum), especially conspicuous through the use of
terms derived from the same word root, textus. After reporting that Minerva dis-
covered the pressing of olives for oil, Boccaccio noted Minerva’s discovery of the
chariot, iron weapons and armour, and strategic warfare. She was also responsible
for the gentler arts, having invented the flute or shepherd’s pipes from a bird’s leg
bone or reed; but she cast them away after she learned that playing it deformed
her face and throat.
Minerva’s inventions in the mechanical arts nonetheless transgress the space
occupied by music, thereby brushing up against the liberal art of musical knowl-
edge. In Dante, her art of weaving serves as a metaphor for the creation of lyric apt
for setting to music. As the Greco-Roman mythical inventor of metalwork, warring
and the flute, she melds into the space occupied by the biblical Tubalcain, the
blacksmith, and his brother Jubal/Tubal, ‘the father of players of the harp and the
flute’. Josephus and Comestor had emphasised Tubalcain’s martial characteristics
(not present in the Bible), characteristics that can be only described as Minervan.65
This intersection between the mythical and biblical becomes more apparent in
the early sixteenth century, but it is present in Minerva’s iconography in the early
fifteenth century.
62
‘L’altra, traendo alla rocca la chioma, / favoleggiava con la sua familia / d’i Troiani, di
Fiesole et di Roma’; Dante Alighieri, La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. Giorgio
Petrocchi, Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, Edizione Nazionale a cura della Società Dan-
tesca Italiana, VII, 1–4 (Milan 1966–7; repr. Florence 1994).
63
Jason Stoessel, ‘Howling like Wolves, Bleating like Lambs: Singers and the Discourse
of Animality in the Late Middle Ages,’ Viator 45 (2014), 201–35 (217–20).
64
Giovanni Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris, trans. Vittorio Zaccaria, 2nd edn (Milan,
1970), pp.48–53; Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous women, trans. Virginia Brown (Cambri-
dge, MA, 2001), pp.34–9.
65
Dante, Convivio, Book II, chap.13, verse 24, assigns Musica to the planet Mars; Fran-
cesco Ciabattoni, Dante’s Journey to Polyphony (Toronto, 2010), p.108.
80 Jason Stoessel
On New Year’s Day 1403, Philip the Bold took delivery of a copy of Des cleres
et nobles femmes from Parisian book merchant Jacques Raponde. Each life in this
manuscript, which survives in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, is decorated
with a so-called portrait of the illustrious woman in question.66 A copy was soon
made for Jean de Berry, which responded to and developed its model’s iconogra-
phy.67 The French translation closely follows Boccaccio’s Latin, deviating only to
provide more idiomatic French or to amplify some of the original author’s more
measured, humanist Latin. In this respect, Des cleres et nobles femmes resembles
other French translations of Boccaccio by Laurent de Premierfait, to whom this
translation has sometimes been attributed.
In the life of Minerva, the same strong link between textuality and weaving is
maintained, even if the words tissure (weaving) and tisture (weave) mark a popu-
larising shift from the more elite texture:
Some affirm that she [i.e. Minerva] invented wool-working and wool-craft which
was previously unknown to all. For after it was shown by what procedure and
manner the wool was purged and cleaned of its impurities, then how it could be
softened by iron prongs that are called combs, it was put on a distaff for making
into thread. She invented and conceived the work and craft of weaving from the
former craft. She taught how threads were joined together by caressing the shut-
tle and how by lime [a mistranslation of the Latin calce, ‘by the heel’, a metonym
for stomping] they were drawn together in the weave.68
The illuminations of the first two Des cleres et nobles femmes witness the infusion
of iconography associated with the Liberal Arts, especially that of Musica. Already
we have seen how later developments of this iconography paired the feminine
metaphor for each Liberal Art with the art’s inventor or first practitioner. A Liberal
Art is usually placed high and in the background, her inventor in the foreground
holding or even busy with the accoutrements that symbolise the art in question.
In Philip the Bold’s copy of the French Boccaccio, Minerva sits like a Liberal Art
surrounded by representatives of her arts (see Plate 4.3). Musicians’ eyes are imme-
66
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: fr. 12420. On the iconography in this manu-
script, see Brigitte Buettner, Boccaccio’s Des cleres et nobles femmes: Systems of Significa-
tion in an Illuminated Manuscript (Seattle, 1996).
67
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 598. Brigitte Buettner, ‘Profane Illumina-
tions, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society’, The Art Bulle-
tin 74 (1992), 75–90 (85, n.56).
68
‘Afferment oultre quelle trouva premierment l’ouvrage et le mestier de laine qui estoit
par avant incongnu a tous. Car après ce que fust monstre par quel ordre et manière la
laine estoit apurgier et nettoier des superfluites di celles, en après comment il couve-
noit quelle fut amollie par broches de fer que l’en appelle pignes, devant ce quelle fut
mise en la kenoille pour la filler. Elle trouva et pourpensa l’office et le mestier de tis-
sure par laquel mestier. Elle enseigna comment les filz estoient a joinder ensemble par
l’atouchement de la navette et comment par la chaux estoient a fermer ensamble par la
tisture.’ This passage is transcribed and edited from the two early Parisian manuscripts
described above. An edition from the earliest Parisian source – Giovanni Boccaccio,
Des cleres et nobles femmes, 2 vols (Paris, 1993, 1995) – has not been consulted.
Plate 4.3 Minerva. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: frç. 12420, fol.13v.
Reproduced by permission of the library
diately drawn to a chalumeau player to her right, a reference to her musical inven-
tion. Three figures, one directly in front of Minerva and two to her left, are shown
as a woolworker, an olive or nut worker, and a banker counting money. Brigitte
Buettner observes that the reference to banking would have resonated with the
maker of this book, the merchant Jacques Raponde.69 Conversely, Michael Long
has emphasised how Nicole Oresme explicitly linked music to money and fiscal
management in his De moneta.70 Yet Minerva’s eyes are focused on the smith in
the foreground, whose skills in the technology of warfare are suggested by the
fact that he is working on a modern-looking bassinet helmet. The imagery of this
blacksmith references several elements observed in Tubalcain’s iconography: a
bearded figure with a turban-like headdress is using two hammers. Furthermore,
he is crafting an instrument of war. His small armourer’s anvil is just visible, stick-
ing out the bottom of the helmet.
Jean de Berry’s copy of Des cleres et nobles dames closely follows its exemplar
(see Plate 4.4). There are nonetheless noticeable differences in the textual trans-
69
Buettner, Boccaccio’s Des cleres, p.13.
70
Michael Long, ‘The Sound of Money and Late Medieval Music,’ Money, Morality, and
Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Juliann M. Vitullo and Diane
Wolfthal (Farnham, 2010), pp.87–108.
82 Jason Stoessel
Plate 4.4 Minerva. Paris, Bibliothèque National de France: frç. 598, fol.13r.
Reproduced by permission of the library
mission and in the iconography from a different, yet equally high-quality, work-
shop. Minerva is still enthroned, but is bareheaded, with a nimbus, and in a stylish
blue dress. The number of figures around Minerva has expanded from five to seven,
made possible by the addition of a coin-maker, a weaver and a second figure at the
banker’s table. The armourer takes on elements of Tubalcain’s iconography: he
is still shown as a bearded figure making a bassinet helmet, thereby emphasising
Minerva’s martial character.
The cross-fertilisation of Italian models of the Liberal Arts and the iconogra-
phy of Minerva in the early Valois manuscripts of Des cleres et nobles dames is not
unexpected. The papal court at Avignon had already been a melting pot of artistic
styles made possible by the presence of French and Italian artists. A spectacular
confluence of styles from either side of the Alps occurred around the end of the
fourteenth century when a Bologna-trained illuminator worked for several years in
Paris. Known by generations of art historians as the Master of the Brussels Initials,
Massimo Medica has recently proposed that this illuminator be identified with
Giovanni di fra Silvestro, who painted in 1393 a frontispiece for the Statutes of
the confraternity of Santa Maria delle Morte in Bologna.71 He was the same artist
71
Massimo Medica, ‘Un nome per il “Maestro delle Iniziali di Bruxelles”: Giovanni di fra’
Silvestro’, Arte a Bologna. Bollettino dei Musei Civici d’Arte Antica 7–8 (2010–11), 11–22.
who contributed miniatures to books created in Paris for Jean de Berry, Charles
II of Navarre, Benedict XIII and Louis of Guyenne, brother of King Charles VI of
France.72
Mixed Metaphors: The Clash of Symbols in

Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music
Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music (c. 1522) serves as my final example of the mythical
representation of music (see Plate V). The painting’s imagery has proven resil-
ient to several recent interpretations. Nonetheless its play of symbols evokes a
multi-threaded discourse of late medieval representations of Musica. Symbols are
contextually bound, the sites of metaphor, even of literal representation at various
levels (for example, their resemblance to individuals at the court of Ferrara), but
they also circle around and supervene the linguistic realm, as contextual pointers
to contemporary cultural life and values. While not exploring all facets of the sym-
bology within Dosso’s painting, I hope to recapture the richness of its mythical
representation of music.
Dosso’s artistic legacy during his time at the Ferrara Court of Alfonso d’Este
between 1514 and 1542 included several allegorical paintings.73 Like many of his
allegories, Dosso forged new ground by combining Greco-Roman and Judeo-
Christian iconography into new formulations and schema, several of them not
altogether transparent after the span of almost half a millennium. Felton Gibbons
reads the Allegory primarily as a biblical counterpart to other Greco-Roman alle-
gories that Dosso painted at Ferrara.74 Gibbons identifies the smith literally beat-
ing out a tune on his anvil as Tubalcain, despite his decidedly clean-shaven and
near-naked appearance. He reads the two nudes to this figure’s left, one seated and
facing the viewer and the other with her back to the viewer, as Tubalcain’s mother
Zillah and sister Naomah respectively. Gibbons also argues that Dosso fused the
biblical with Greco-Roman myth, just as Peter Comestor had done centuries ear-
lier: the hammers have Pythagorean numbers VIII and XII on them, Tubalcain
transforms into a type of Vulcan,75 and the iconography of the nudes closely resem-
bles other Renaissance models of Venus disrobing.76
72
Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century
and the Patronage of the Duke, 2nd edn, 2 vols (London, 1969), vol.1, pp.229–41; Robert
G. Calkins, ‘An Italian in Paris: The Master of the Brussels Initials and His Participation
in the French Book Industry’, Gesta 20 (1981), 223–32.
73
On the life of brother painters Giovanni and Battista Dossi see Gibbons, Dosso and Bat-
tista Dossi, pp.24–39. Although Dosso’s Allegory is not discussed, an in-depth account
of music and visual culture in Alfonsian Ferrara occurs in Tim Shephard, Echoing Hel-
icon: Music, Art and Identity in the Este Studioli, 1440–1530 (Oxford, 2014).
74
Gibbons, Dosso and Battista Dossi, pp.92–8.
75
On the parallelism between Tubalcain and Vulcan in late-fifteenth-century Ferrara, see
Phyllis Williams Lehmann and Karl Lehmann, Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the
Revival of the Antique (Princeton, 1973), pp.149–54.
76
Gibbons, Dosso and Battista Dossi, pp.92–8.
84 Jason Stoessel
Dosso’s Allegory is best known to musicologists through H. Colin Slim’s iden-

tification of the piece of music notated on one of two tablets as the canonic Agnus
dei II from Josquin Des Prez’s Missa L’Homme armé super voces musicales.77 Notated
in the shape of a triangle, with the riddle ‘Trinitas in un[itate]’ visible above it, this
notation is a reference to sacred polyphony. The other canon in Dosso’s Allegory,
notated in the shape of a circle, has not been identified. Slim provides a transcrip-
tion in which he finds stylistic similarities with the music of Mouton, Willaert or
Jacquet de Mantua.78 The circular canon in Dosso’s Allegory also links this painting
with the metonymic iconology for music found in the frontispiece of Banco Rari
229, although any direct connection between the two artists seems implausible.
Slim accepts Gibbon’s reading of Dosso’s allegory as biblical, but rejects his
views on its polyvalence. Slim’s study was published before Franca Trinchieri
Camiz’s fresh argument that connects a reading of the blacksmith as Vulcan with
the pastimes of Alfonso d’Este, which included casting his own cannons in his
personal workshop at Ferrara.79 James Haar also questions Slim’s interpretation of
the two notated tablets as a reference to the apocryphal legend of Tubal inscribing
musical knowledge on a brick and marble in Comestor’s Historia scholastica.80 Yet
Haar does not address Paul Beichner’s earlier observations that Comestor’s col-
umns were transformed into tile and brass tablets in the Middle English Story of
Genesis and Exodus.81
Both Slim’s and Camiz’s readings of Dosso’s Allegory are plausible. Still, there
is another possibility. Gibbons observed how the cycle of Liberal Arts completed
under Dosso’s supervision in the Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento, pairs each
Liberal Art with an unusual inventor.82 Grammar is paired with Apollodorus,
Dialectic with Chrysippus, Rhetoric with Gorgias, Music with Pandemphion
(a fusion of Pan and Amphion), Geometry with Archimedes, Arithmetic with
Pythagoras and Astronomy with Berosus de Alas.83 Although Gibbons concluded
that the presence of Hellenised practitioners of the arts were the result of an eccen-
tric and provincial scholar in the orbit of the ceiling painting’s commissioner, he
nonetheless noted that the presence of Chrysippus, Archimedes and Amphion
demonstrated the artist’s or commissioner’s knowledge of Capella’s Marriage of
Philosophy and Mercury.84
77
H. Colin Slim, ‘Dosso Dossi’s Allegory at Florence about Music’, Journal of the Ameri-
can Musicological Society 43 (1990), 43–98 (58–62).
78
Ibid., p.57.
79
Franca Trinchieri Camiz, ‘Due quadri musicali del Dosso’, Frescobaldi e il Suo Tempo nel
Quarto Centenario della Nascita (Venice, 1983), pp.85–91.
80
James Haar, ‘Music as Visual Language’, Meaning in the Visual Arts: Views from the
Outside. A Centennial Commemoration of Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968), ed. Irving Lavin
(Princeton, 1995), pp.265–84 (282, n.213).
81
Beichner, The Medieval Representative of Music, p.12.
82
Gibbons believes that these practitioners’ ‘feebly drawn and weakly executed’ portraits
are not by Dosso himself; Gibbons, Dosso and Battista Dossi, p.49.
83
Ibid., pp.51–3.
84
Ibid., pp.47–54.
The Martianus-inspired originator of the Trent cycle’s unusual iconography may

have been Dosso himself. Returning to Ferrara, Dosso’s Allegory of Music can be
read as a poignant intersection of the medieval tradition of the invention of music
and Martianus’s imagery. There is no escaping that the medieval iconography of
the blacksmith points to both the story of Pythagoras’s discovery of musica and
its transformation into a pseudo-biblical narrative by Comestor. At the same time,
the iconographical tradition that paired Musica with her art’s discoverer identi-
fies the middle figure in Dosso’s Allegory as Musica or Harmonia. Although both
tablets (pace Haar) seem to refer to the apocryphal tale of Jubal’s pillars on which
were recorded musical knowledge, the circular staff on the middle tablet recalls
Martianus’s description of Harmonia’s shield and its concentric circles ‘attuned
to one another and pouring forth a concord of all the modes’.85 The circular piece
in Dosso’s painting is written on a six-line staff, a notational convention found in
Italian sources during the fourteenth century, but rendered obsolete in the second
quarter of the fifteenth century. Dosso’s antiquated music staff may instead refer
to the six-note hexachord, by which all notes are kept in harmony to one another
in all the modes.
The two classically inspired nudes in Dosso’s allegory might stand for the two
Venuses (the celestial and the mundane), well known from Marsilio Ficino’s writ-
ings.86 Conversely, if, as Gabriele Frings has proposed, the young woman is Musica
or Harmonia, the figure on the right with her back to the viewer could well be
Venus, who is foregrounded in Martianus’s allegory.87 Yet, when Harmonia finally
enters in The Marriage, she walks between Apollo and Minerva, and is followed
by Venus. That the rightmost figure instead represents Minerva might be inferred
from additional iconographical elements. A headpiece closely binds her hair, evok-
ing the image of helmeted Minerva and the craft of weaving.88 In contrast to the
full-frontal nudity of Venus and Hera in several Judgements of Paris, Minerva –
sometimes wearing a helmet or severe hairstyle or identified by a pile of armour
at her feet – turns her back to the viewer in an act of modesty just like Dosso’s
Allegory.89
Minerva’s intrusion into Dosso’s allegory may be further explained in terms of
her long association with music, and the cross-fertilisation of iconographical lan-
guage witnessed in the Parisian sources of Boccaccio’s Des cleres et nobles femmes.
The presence of musical notation into Dosso’s Allegory points to the elevation of
85
Stahl et al., eds, Martianus Capella, vol.2, p.353.
86
Marsilio Ficino, El libro dell’amore, ed. Sandra Niccoli (Florence, 1987), pp.36–7 (Book
II, chap.37).
87
Gabriele Frings, ‘Dosso Dossis Allegorie der Musik und die Tradition des “inven-
tor musicae” in Mittelalter und Renaissance’, Imago musicae 9–12 (1992–5), 159–203
(188–90).
88
Boccaccio discusses the iconology of the armoured Minerva; Giovanni Boccaccio,
Geneology of the Pagan Gods, trans. Jon Solomon, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 2011), vol.2,
Book V, chap.48, pp.760–1.
89
For example, Raphael’s Judgement of Paris (1512, private collection, UK), which was
best known through Marcantonio Raimondi’s print engraving after it, c.1515–16 (New
York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1919, acc. no. 19.74.1).
86 Jason Stoessel
music beyond arcane mathematical knowledge to a practised or indeed mechanical

art.90 That Minerva rests her hand on an identifiable piece of sacred music may also
serve to separate a more sober music from secular song (to speculate on this can-
on’s identity on which Venus’s daughter rests her left hand). The duality of music as
techne and music as praxis represents the long development of musical knowledge
from the esotericism of Pythagorean harmonia handed down from antiquity to a
system of musical knowledge that supported the training of musically literate (that
is notation-reading) musicians. Behind both musics, the cherubim-like genius of
music or the flame of music’s inspiration, to whom Tubalcain looks, contrasts with
Musica/Harmonia, whose gaze is firmly fixed upon Minerva.
90
Cf. Slim, ‘Dosso Dossi’s Allegory’, pp.81–3, who proposes that Dosso responds to
Leonardo da Vinci’s critique of music’s evanescence and mortality compared to paint-
ing, and his annoyance that music, not painting, is a liberal art by asserting the perma-
nence of notated musical composition over improvisation.
5
Foolish Midas: Representing Musical Judgement and

Moral Judgement in Italy c.1520 *
Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon
I n an ancient story told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, the Phrygian King

Midas, freshly released from his famous golden touch, retreats to the hills and
becomes a devotee of the rustic god Pan.1 Enjoying the acclaim of the nymphs and
of Midas for his piping, Pan challenges Apollo – another, much greater, god of the
countryside – to a musical contest. The judge of the contest, the mountain Tmolus,
declares Apollo the winner; but Midas disagrees, holding Pan to be the better
musician. In anger, Apollo changes Midas’s ears into those of an ass.
This story presents an account of the operation of musical judgement that is
rich and ideologically charged, in such a way that it could readily serve as a touch-
stone text for a set of principles that were central to the discourse on musical taste
in Italy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Midas is involved not as a
performer, but as a bystander who attempts to pass judgement on the competitors.
The outcome of the contest is obvious – Ovid states at the outset that it is ‘unequal’
(inpar). On the one hand, Pan’s instrument is identified by Ovid as ‘rustic pipes’
(calamis agrestibus), and his champion Midas as ‘foolish’ (stultae) and ‘barbarous’
(barbaricoque), equipped with ‘uncultivated ears’ (aures … stolidas). On the other
hand, Apollo has golden locks, a laurel wreath from Parnassus, purple robes and
a beautifully decorated lyre; Tmolus’s ‘judgement’ (iudicium) in Apollo’s favour
satisfies all save Midas. Pan is required by Tmolus to make his pipe ‘submit’ (sub-
mittere) to the lyre. The punishment inflicted by Apollo upon Midas serves to make
his internal deficiencies evident in his physical form. The entire story follows on
directly from that of Midas’s golden touch, as a second example of Midas’s stu-
pidity; his poor musical judgement is further evidence of his poor judgement in
general.
The argument of this study is that the myth of the judgement of Midas was
presented and encountered by Italians c.1520, in both literary and visual modes,
reshaped and retold in ways that engaged with the broader contemporary dis-
course on musical judgement. In studying Renaissance treatments of the myth,
we are also studying articulations of the operation of musical judgement, which

* This research was conducted within the three-year project ‘Music in the Art of Renais-
sance Italy, c.1420–1540’ funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant. Pat-
rick McMahon’s involvement was sponsored by the Sheffield Undergraduate Research
Experience scheme at the University of Sheffield.
1
Ovid in Six Volumes: IV Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, 2 vols (Cambridge,
MA, 1976), vol.2, pp.130–3 (XI.146–93).
88 Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon
can reveal important features of elite musical culture in Italy and the values in
which it was founded. Ultimately, to study the judgement of Midas in Italy c.1520
is to study musical taste and its construction through myth, as a component of the
social ideology of elite culture.
Musical Judgement and Moral Judgement

Boethius’s Fundamentals of Music – the textbook for the study of music within the
liberal arts syllabus of the medieval universities, first printed in Venice in 1492 –
opens with two chapters devoted to describing the influence of music over moral
character, and outlining the reasons lying behind that influence.2 The sense of
hearing, writes Boethius at the opening of the treatise, ‘is capable of apprehend-
ing sounds in such a way that it not only exercises judgement and identifies their
differences, but very often actually finds pleasure if the modes are pleasing and
ordered, whereas it is vexed if they are disordered and incoherent. From this it
follows that … music is associated not only with speculation but with morality as
well.’3 As music is capable of influencing the passions, it can effect ‘radical trans-
formations of character’ that both reflect and generate ethical states, a view ulti-
mately dependent upon the discussion of music pedagogy in Plato’s Republic and
Aristotle’s Politics.4 Boethius continues, ‘a lascivious disposition takes pleasure in
more lascivious modes or is often made soft and corrupted upon hearing them. On
the other hand, a rougher spirit finds pleasure in more exciting modes or becomes
aroused when it hears them.’5 Obviously, therefore, music should be employed in
the moral education of the young, but only that music which is ‘temperate, simple
and masculine, rather than effeminate, violent or fickle’.6
2
On the circulation and influence of this text in the Renaissance, see Nan Cooke Car-
penter, Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Universities (Norman, OK, 1958), pp.115–
27 and pp.313–28; Claude V. Palisca, ‘Boethius in the Renaissance’, Music Theory and
Its Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. André Barbera (Notre Dame, IN, 1990),
pp.259-80; and Ann E. Moyer, ‘The Quadrivium and the Decline of Boethian Influence’,
A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed. Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr. and Philip
Edward Phillips (Leiden, 2012), pp.479–518.
3
‘Idem quoque de ceteris sensibilibus dici potest, maximeque de arbitrio aurium,
quarum vis ita sonos captat, ut non modo de his iudicium capiat differentiasque
cognoscat, verum etiam delectetur saepius, si dulces coaptatique modi sint, angatur
vero, si dissipati atque incohaerentes feriant sensum. Unde fit ut … musica vero non
modo speculationi verum etiam moralitati coniuncta sit.’ Anicius Manlius Severinus
Boethius, Anicii Manlii Torquati Severini Boetii, De institutione arithmetica libri duo;
De institutione musica libri quinque Accedit geometria quae fertur Boetii, ed. Gottfried
Friedlein (Leipzig, 1867), p.179; Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Fundamentals of
Music, trans. Calvin Bower, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven, 1989), p.2.
4
‘Hinc etiam morum quoque maximae permutationes fiunt.’ Boetii, De institutione,
p.180; Boethius, Fundamentals, p.2.
5
‘Lascivus quippe animus vel ipse lascivioribus delectatur modis vel saepe eosdem audi-
ens emollitur ac frangitur. Rursus asperior mens vel incitatioribus gaudet vel incitati-
oribus asperatur.’ Boetii, De institutione, p.180; Boethius, Fundamentals, p.2.
6
‘Ita ut sit modesta ac simplex et mascula nec effeminata nec fera nec varia.’ Boetii, De
institutione, p.181; Boethius, Fundamentals, p.4.
Musical and Moral Judgement in Italy, c.1520 89
Boethius’s Fundamentals of Music was an ancient text, but it was also a

Renaissance text, read and used by professional musicians, university students and
those attending the private humanist schools.7 Thus, these principles that advocate
the cultivation of musical judgement as a way of improving moral judgement were
well known to Renaissance musicians and literati. They are mentioned within the
introductory material of many Renaissance music treatises, both specialist and
non-specialist. The Milanese choirmaster Franchinus Gaffurius, for example,
notes in his Practica musicae (1496) that music is ‘a discipline especially designed
to enhance character, as the wisest men agree’.8 Similarly, the Brescian humanist
Carlo Valgulio, in his Contra viruperatorem musicae (1509), affirms that to listen to
good music is ‘to adjust the opposing and differently orientated motions of our
minds like lyre-strings, and make them always concordant’.9 The same points about
music are also made in texts in which music is not the primary concern. Writing
on the ideal cardinal in his De cardinalatu (1510), the Roman literato and Vatican
administrator Paolo Cortesi, for example, notes that ‘music must be sought after
for the sake of morals, inasmuch as the habit of passing judgement on what is simi-
lar to morals in its rational basis cannot be considered to be different from the habit
of passing judgement on the rational basis of morals themselves, and of becoming
expert in this latter judgement through imitation’.10
As a discipline of judgement that trains the capacity for moral judgement in
general, the treatment of music is here closely aligned with the treatment of the
virtue of prudence. In Italian Renaissance discussions of the virtues, prudence
is identified precisely as the capacity for sound moral judgement in general.
Castiglione articulates a common position when he claims that ‘[virtue as a whole]
may be defined more or less as prudence and the knowledge of how to choose what
is good’.11 The question of ‘judgement’ and its cultivation is a central concern for
Castiglione, especially in relation to the virtues. To harbour virtue was to relin-
7
On the study of music in the humanist schools, see for example, Claudio Gallico,
‘Musica nella Ca’ Giocosa’, Vittorino da Feltre e la Sua Scuola: Umanesimo, Pedagogia,
Arti, ed. Nella Giannetto (Florence, 1981), pp.189–98.
8
‘Quae presertim et moribus conferret: ut peritissimis placet.’ Franchinus Gaffurius,
Practica Musice (Milan, 1496), [unpaginated] dedication; Franchinus Gaffurius,
Practica Musicae, trans. and ed. Irwin Young (London, 1969), p.5.
9
‘Contrarios et diversa spectantes animorum nostrorum motus quasi fides temperare
et consonos semper inter se efficere poterimus.’ Carlo Valgulio, ‘Riposte to a Slanderer
of Music’, pp.29–32, in The Liberal and Virtuous Art: Three Humanist Treatises on Music,
ed. and trans. J. Donald Cullington (Newtownabbey, 2001), pp.89 and 99.
10
‘Multi eam cantanque disciplinam quandam adhibendam esse volunt, que in sympho-
nie modorumque cognitione versetur ... eodemque modo dicendum est, eam morum
causa esse expetendam, siquidem consuescere de eo iudicare, quod simile morum
rationi sit, nihil aliud videri potest quam consuescere de morum ratione iudicare, in
eoque exerceri imitando.’ Paolo Cortese, De Cardinalatu libri tres (San Gimignano,
1510), chapter 2, published and translated in Nino Pirrotta, ‘Music and Cultural Ten-
dencies in 15th-Century Italy’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 19 (1966),
127–61 (147–55, specifically 148 and 152). See also Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of
the Courtier, trans. George Bull (London, 1967), pp.94–5.
11
‘La virtú si po quasi dir una prudenzia ed un sapere eleggere il bene.’ Baldassare Casti-
glione, Il Cortegiano, con una scelta delle Opere minori, ed. Bruno Maier (Torino, 1955),
quish vice, and in Il Cortegiano he explains that it is the ‘imprudence and ignorance’
(imprudenzia ed ignoranzia) of vice that draws us into ‘making false judgements’
(giudicar falsamente). Like an art or skill, virtue needs to be taught, for it is a ‘skilful
practice’ (artificiosa consuetudine) that requires nurturing and assistance from a
teacher in order to fully develop.12 Learning musical judgement was repeatedly
claimed to be an effective way of acquiring and practising such moral ‘skill’.
In his Theorica musicae (1492), Gaffurius gives an account of the three catego-
ries of musician and of the nature of musical judgement that is heavily indebted to
Boethius. The first two, lower, categories include those who play instruments and
those who compose songs. Gaffurius’s third and highest category is ‘those who
possess the expertise for judging, so that they are truly able to grasp rhythms and
melodies and also song as a whole’, something they achieve through ‘reasoning
and speculation’ (ratione e speculatione).13 He goes on, in a chapter devoted to ‘The
Judgement of Music’ (De Iudicio Musices), to draw a clear distinction between
those musical insights accessible to the ear alone, and those which can only be
achieved with the help of the intellect. ‘Every exercise of musical art is appropriate
to the sense of hearing’, Gaffurius acknowledges, ‘Yet not hearing alone, which is
often inconsistent and variable, but the reason arrogates to itself firm judgement.’14
Even though ‘life itself is produced instant by instant through the senses, yet in
them there is no certain judgement and no comprehension of truth if the judging
power of the intellect is absent’.15
In this conception, musical judgement according to rational principles is clearly
identified with the ‘liberal’ musician, a person of noble status for whom profes-
sional activities would be inappropriate. Gaffurius was a professional musician, but
nonetheless sought to identify himself among ‘those who possess the expertise for
judging’, because to do so confirmed (or constructed) his elite status. The demon-
stration of musical judgement was therefore an activity that linked morality and
status: the moral training afforded by music confirmed participants in their ethical
nobility – that is, their nobility as described in Aristotle’s influential Nicomachean
Ethics, rather than as defined by their financial resources. Musical judgement is
here linked directly with the enormous Renaissance discourse on the ‘virtues’ as
markers of ethical nobility.
p.463; Castiglione, The Courtier, p.292. Prudence is treated first of all the virtues by
Cortesi, on the very first page of De cardinalatu.
12
Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, pp.462–3; Castiglione, The Courtier, pp.291–2.
13
‘Quod iudicandi peritiam summit: ut rhythmos et cantilenas atque totum carmen
veraciter appraehendere possit.’ Franchinus Gaffurius, Theorica musicae (Milan, 1492),
fol.15r; Franchinus Gaffurius, The Theory of Music, trans. Walter Kurt Kreyszig, ed.
Claude V. Palisca (New Haven, 1993), p.41.
14
‘Quanquam aurium sensibus omnis competat musicae artis exercitatio … nec tamen
solus auditus qui saepe inconstans et varibilis est: sed ipsa ratio certum sibi assummit
iudicium.’ Gaffurius, Theorica musicae, fol.16v; Gaffurius, The Theory of Music, p.44.
15
‘Nam quanuis omnium pene artium momenta atque ipsius vitae sensuum occasione
producta sint: nullum tamen in iis iudicium certum: nulla veri est compraehensio si
arbitrium rationis abscedat.’ Gaffurius, Theorica musicae, fol.16v; Gaffurius, The Theory
of Music, p.45.
Boethius and Gaffurius give several indications as to the types of music-critical

understanding and comment that might signal membership of their elite third
category of musicians, including discernment in mode, rhythm, types or genres of
song, consonance and ‘the songs of the poets’, which presumably draws aspects of
poetics into the mix. It is clear from a reading of Plato and Aristotle that the first
and most important judgement to be made concerning mode is that of their eth-
ical effect, good or bad – a perspective repeated in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria,
which enjoyed an enormous circulation in Italy following its ‘rediscovery’ by
Poggio Bracciolini in 1416 and appeared in an Aldine edition in 1514.16 Quintilian’s
account in particular is echoed in Gaffurius’s Practica musicae, where ‘theatrical
and effeminate music which destroys rather than forms public morals’ is differen-
tiated from ‘moderate, manly music celebrated by the ancient heroes … which was
certainly a great inducement to kindle their eagerness for brave deeds’.17
This basic principle of musical judgement also structured widely read,
non-specialist discussions of music, for example the initial treatment of music in
Castiglione’s dialogue Il Cortegiano. First, Lodovico Canossa recommends music
for the ideal courtier, in terms that give first place to ‘understanding’, second place
to ‘reading’ and only third place to ‘playing’.18 Gaspare Pallavicino counters with
the view that music is effeminate and effeminising. Lodovico argues in response
that musical understanding (held by philosophers, not practical musicians)
allows rational investigation of universal and human truths, that it is associated
with ancient heroes and commanders, and that it controls the emotions.19 Both
of the positions in this argument reflect ‘knowledge of the principles of music’, in
that Gaspare and Lodovico both refer to music’s capacity to control ethical states;
understood as a bifurcation of Castiglione’s own subject position, the two together
allow him to articulate his own capacity to distinguish between ‘effeminate music’
and ‘manly music’ (to borrow Gaffurius’s terminology), thus demonstrating his
status-affirming membership of Boethius and Gaffurius’s third – highest – category
of musician.
When music returns as a topic for discussion in the second book of Il Cortegiano,
it is practical rather than speculative musicianship that is at issue, but nonetheless
the entire passage can similarly be read as a series of correct ‘judgements’ about
music – indeed it is introduced as such, with the phrase: ‘My judgement is the
16
See Quintilian, The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, trans. H.E. Butler (London, 1920),
p.175.
17
‘Non hanc Theatralem atque effoeminatam intelligo quae mores publicos corrumpit
potius quam informet: sed illam modestam atque virilem antiquis heroibus celebratam
… quod maximum profecto ad virtutis studia incitamentum fuit.’ Gaffurius, Practica
Musice, dedication; Gaffurius, Practica Musicae, p.6.
18
‘Signori … avete a sapere ch’io non mi contento del cortegiano s’egli non è ancor
musico e se, oltre allo intendere ed esser sicuro a libro, non sa di varii instrumenti’
(Gentlemen, I must tell you that I am not satisfied with our courtier unless he is also a
musician and unless, as well as understanding and being able to read music, he can play
several instruments). Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, p.168; Castiglione, The Courtier, p.94.
19
Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, pp.169–71; Castiglione, The Courtier, pp.94–5.
same with regard to music.’20 First a judgement is made about the appropriate
occasion for and manner of musical performance – that is, infrequently and reluc-
tantly. Next, a judgement is made about the genre and instrumentation to be used
– song and stringed instruments, and especially solo song to the accompaniment of
bowed strings, but not wind instruments. Then, a judgement must be made about
the setting and the audience for a performance: among those of the same elite
status, and in relative privacy. Finally, a judgement must be made concerning one’s
own suitability as a performer: echoing Aristotle (Politics, Book 8), Castiglione
recommends that musical performance should be undertaken during youth, to
cultivate good judgement that may be enjoyed and displayed in old age. To the
extent that Il Cortegiano can be taken to offer a guide to ideal courtly manners,
this section on music sets out a series of sound musical judgements that the reader
might take as a model. Here the connection noted earlier between musical judge-
ment and status is again made clear: the speaker, Federico Fregoso, encapsulates
the topic of music in a courtly context as a series of essentially social judgements
about the practice of music-making, modelling which will confirm a courtier in his
entitlement to that status.
The Judgement of Midas

Writing in his Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum completed in Naples late in
1476, Tinctoris complains of the defects he had found in the musical judgement of
his contemporaries:
I have known and put to the test many people, not deaf, but experts in the art
of music, who, admiring the size, not the beauty, of the voice, prefer calflike bel-
lowings to moderate rationalities and, as I say, angelic songs. Concerning such
people, I consider it appropriate that divine power turn their stupid ears from
their human form into those of an ass, just as happened to King Midas when he
absurdly placed the pipe of Pan before the cithara of Apollo.21
In this passage Tinctoris contrasts those who judge musical value on the basis of
sheer noise, thus preferring animalistic vocalisations, with those who judge musi-
cal value on the basis of beauty, who are able to recognise the rational foundations
of harmony and its relationship to the divine. In this he follows a line similar to
that of Gaffurius, who, as we saw above, noted that the judgement of the sense of
20
‘Il medesimo giudico della musica.’ Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, p.207 (the passage runs
pp.207–10); Castiglione, The Courtier, p.120 (120–2).
21
‘Si quae vera fateri licet, complures non surdos, sed artis musicae expertes novi, et
expertus sum qui vocis grossiciem non venustatem admirantes, vitulinos mugitus
moderatis rationabilibus, et ut ita dicam, angelicis cantibus praeferunt. Quos existimo
dignos, ut numine divino, quemadmodum regi Midae cytharam Phoebi fistulae Panos
insulse postponenti contigit, stolidarum aurium eorum humana figura in asininam
convertatur.’ Johannes Tinctoris, Opera Theoretica, ed. Albert Seay, 2 vols (Rome, 1975),
vol.1, pp.65–104 (p.69); Tinctoris, Concerning the Nature and Propriety of Tones, trans.
Albert Seay, 2nd edn (Colorado Springs, 1976), p.5 (substantially altered).
hearing was not in itself reliable, but must be made subject to the intellect. Both
forms of musical judgement, Tinctoris affirms sardonically, can be presented as
‘expert’, but, he implies, only one is truly so.
To give his point rhetorical force, Tinctoris refers directly to the story of the
judgement of Midas. Literate Italians of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries would have encountered the Midas story first and foremost in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. But few would have engaged directly or exclusively with Ovid’s
text; rather, in line with the entire medieval reception of Ovid, their encounters
with the myth would have been mediated by the rich tradition of commentaries,
allegories and re-tellings surrounding and sometimes entirely replacing Ovid’s
text.22 These texts assume that behind each of Ovid’s stories lies an allegorical
meaning, and they purport to explain to the reader, either implicitly (by para-
phrasing or translating the myth) or explicitly (by commenting upon it) what that
meaning is. As such, the role of Ovid’s stories in any particular context is revealed
not so much by the events narrated as by the way in which they are told.
Italians able to read Ovid’s Latin in the years around 1520 would most likely have
encountered it surrounded by the commentary of the Veneto humanist Raffaele
Regio. Sometime lecturer in classical literature at the University of Padua and a
dedicated polemicist, Regio’s edition of the Metamorphoses enhanced with his
‘enarrationes’ was first published in pirate editions in 1492 and 1493, and went on
to be the most-printed Latin Metamorphoses of the sixteenth century.23 In his rel-
atively restrained commentary on the Midas story, Regio is at particular pains to
assert the King’s dull-wittedness. His dissent from the ‘true verdict’ (vero sententia)
of Tmolus arises directly from his ‘natural foolishness’ (naturali stultitia), and the
ass’s ears are the means ‘by which his stupidity would be made known’ (quibus
ipsius stoliditas indicaretur), the result and the evidence of his ‘senseless judgement’
(sententia vecordiam).24
The Latin text presented and glossed in Regio’s Metamorphoses was often read
alongside Giovanni Boccaccio’s hugely influential mythographic reference work,
the Genealogia deorum gentilium, which was published several times in Venice in
the years around 1500.25 On looking up Midas in the Genealogia, readers would
find no mention of his involvement in a musical contest, but would find his golden
22
A useful survey of the Metamorphoses commentary tradition up to the fifteenth cen-
tury can be found in William Caxton, The Booke of Ovyde Named Methamorphose, ed.
Richard J. Moll (Oxford, 2013), pp.7–19.
23
See Edoardo Fumagalli, ‘Osservazioni sul primo libro del commento di Raffaele Regio
alle Metamorfosi’, Metamorphosen: Festschrift für Bodo Guthmüller zum 65. Geburtstag,
ed. Heidi Marek, Anne Neuschäfer and Susanne Tichy (Wiesbaden, 2002), pp.81–93
(82–3); and Raffaele Regio, In Ovidii Metamorphosin Enarrationes I (Libri I–IV), ed.
Matteo Benedetti (Florence, 2009).
24
Ovid, Metamorphosis cum luculentissimis Raphaelis Regii enarrationibus: quibus cum alia
quondam ascripta sunt: qui exemplaribus antea impressis non inveniuntur: tum eorum
apologia quae fuerant a quibusdam repraehensa (Venice, 1513), copy consulted at Pilsen,
Západočeské muzeum v Plzni: 503 F 007, fol.279r.
25
See Giovanni Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, trans. Jon Solomon, 2 vols
(Cambridge, MA, 2011), vol.1, p.827.
touch adduced as an example of those who are ‘influenced by wrong judgement’

(falso tracti iudicio) and thereby fall into poverty.26 Boccaccio has more to say
about Apollo’s musicianship, however, identifying him securely with the rational
Pythagorean tradition, indeed as its originator:
[the Ancients] thought him to be the moderator and conductor of the celestial
harmony and that by knowledge and demonstration of their measures he pro-
duced the modes assigned to the nine different orbits of the spheres.27
Perhaps the earliest printed Italian vernacular account of the Midas story is
that appearing in the commentary on Dante’s Divina Commedia written by
the Florentine humanist and Medici client Cristoforo Landino, first printed in
Florence in 1481 and often thereafter. Landino tells the story in his commentary on
Canto XX, where Midas is adduced as an example of avarice (Dante points only to
the golden touch story).28 Here there are substantial deviations from the Ovidian
narrative, drawing on the alternative version transmitted in the widely dissemi-
nated Mitologiarum of the late antique mythographer Fulgentius, who conflates
the Midas story with that of the flaying of Marsyas.29 Fulgentius’s version begins
with Minerva inventing the aulos, but casting it aside when she realises that playing
it gives her face a ‘shameful’ (turpia) appearance: in rejecting the aulos, Minerva
symbolises ‘wisdom’ for Fulgentius. Marsyas then finds the pipe and challenges
Apollo; they choose Midas as the umpire, and his erroneous judgement follows.
Landino, departing in this respect from Fulgentius, extends Minerva’s role by
having her join Midas in the role of judge: ‘Sitting in judgement were Minerva and
Midas, King of Lydia. Apollo won according to the true judgement (vero iudicio) of
Minerva; but Midas, as a dunce (indocto), favoured Marsyas.’30 Whereas Fulgentius
labels Marsyas a ‘fool’ for his lack of technical understanding of music in favouring
the aulos over the lyre, Landino accepts that the satyr was ‘expert’ (docto) in music;
his error, for Landino, was instead one of social decorum – he was sufficiently
‘insolent and rash’ (insolente e temerario) to think of challenging Apollo, the god
26
Boccaccio, Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Book I, chap.23, line 1.
27
‘Lyra canere et Musis preesse eum ideo voluere, quia putaverint eum celestis melodie
moderatorem et principum et inter novem sperarum circuitiones varias, tanquam inter
novem Musas, notitia et demonstratione earundem modulos exhibentem.’ Boccaccio,
Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Book V, chap.3, line 10.
28
Cristoforo Landino, Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri: col commento di Christoforo
Landino (Brescia, 1487), no page nos, but image 480 in the e-viewer provided by the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2063109/
f7.image. Accessed 20/2/2018.
29
Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii ... Opera, ed. Rudolfus Helm
(Leipzig, 1898), pp.73–7; Fulgentius the Mythographer, ed. and trans. L.G. Whitbread
([Columbus], 1971), pp.93–5. On the medieval and Renaissance reception of Fulgenti-
us’s Mitologiarum, see Fulgentius the Mythographer, pp.24–31.
30
‘Sedevono iudici Minerva et Mida re dilidia: Vinxe Appolline secondo eluero iudicio di
Minerva. Ma mida chome indocto favori a marsia’. Landino, Divina Commedia, image
480.
of the art of music (dio dellarte musica).31 Musical skill is here linked with social
skill and status, a common theme in contemporary reflections both on this story,
and on the topic of musical judgement. Fulgentius and Landino are in agreement,
though, that Midas was ‘inexpert’ (indocto – Landino), ‘an ignoramus’ (nihil sciens
– Fulgentius) and entirely lacking in musical understanding of any kind.
For readers who required a vernacular Ovid, a more obvious source was the
Ovidio Metamorphoseos vulgare, an Italian moralised paraphrase completed in the
1370s by Giovanni Bonsignori, a prominent politician in his home town of Città
di Castello, which was first printed in an illustrated Venetian edition of 1497.32
Unlike the French prose Ovide, which follows Fulgentius in focusing on the com-
parison of aulos and lyre, in the Ovidio vulgare (as in Ovid’s text) the contest plays
out between people, not instruments, and the musical outcome is caught up in
questions of social position.33 Pan is the ‘god of rustics’ (dio di villani), living in
the mountains, making music that is ‘very bucolic and rustic’ (ta[n]to contadino e
rustico) and even ‘barbarous’ (barbaro). Midas, Pan’s devotee, is similarly ‘barba-
rous’, and he is also ‘dull-witted, … mad and stupid’ (hauea in se assai grosseza …
mato e stolto). Apollo, in contrast, is the laurel-crowned inhabitant of Parnassus,
and his playing is ‘sweet’ (sonaua dolcemente).
The allegorical explanation that follows the story in the Ovidio vulgare is
indebted to, but differs from, that of Fulgentius. Apollo is identified simply as
‘wisdom’ (la sapientia), and Tmolus is to be understood as ‘the judgement of the
wise’ (lo iudicio di sauii). Pan, in contrast, stands for ‘ignorant people’ (ignora[n]ti)
whose speech is like the wind, signifying nothing. The ‘error and disgrace’ of such
people ‘is that inwardly [they] are devoid of wisdom, just as the reeds are vacant
and empty and are said to be played by shepherds, and thus people such as these
are praised by the ignorant, [but] are of little account’.34 Midas’s musical judgement
is subjected to a subtle critique: he signifies ‘the person who only considers the
voice and not the intrinsic melody, which means to consider only that which an
ass hears’.35 Like an ass, he is capable of hearing, but not of musical comprehension.
These variations upon Ovid outline a range of complementary reflections on
the operation of musical judgement, and on its relationship with judgement in
general. As Regio makes particularly clear, Midas is not just musically inept, rather
31
Fulgentius: ‘Marsyas enim Grece quasi morosis, id est stultus solus, qui in arte musica
tibiam praeponere voluit citharae’. Fulgentius, Opera, p.76; Fulgentius the Mythographer,
p.95.
32
See Bodo Guthmüller, Ovidio metamorphoseos vulgare: forme e funzioni della traspo-
sizione in volgare della poesia classica nel Rinascimento italiano, trans. Paola Pacchioni,
rev. Italian edn (Fiesole, 2008).
33
Ovide, Metamorphose (Bruge, 1484), copy consulted Bruges, Openbare Bibliotheek:
3877, fols.272v–273v; Ovidio metamorphoseos vulgare (Venice, 1497), copy consulted
Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale: Pal. D.7.5.19, fols.93r–94r.
34
Ibid. ‘El loro errore ela loro vergogna lequale gente sono dentro vacui di sapientia: si
como le chane son vode e buse & dice che e sonate da li pastori e cussi e percio che
quelli cotali sono laudati da gente ignorante: e de picolo afare.’
35
Ibid. ‘Per Mida: … itendo lhomo che solo considera la voce e non le melodie intrinsi-
che: & tale e a considerare questo: qual che audire uno asino.’
his poor musical judgement arises from, and is an example of, his stupidity in gen-
eral: he is ‘naturally foolish’, ‘stupid’, ‘dull-witted’. His poor judgement, and that of
Pan and Marsyas, is also made evident in other ways in the story. Ovid notes that
from the outset the contest is ‘unequal’: it cannot be won for the simple reason that
Apollo is of higher status than Pan (or Marsyas). To provoke such a contest, then, is
in itself an error of social judgement – ‘insolent and rash’, as Landino says. The low
status of Pan, Midas and Marsyas is clarified and linked with their musicianship in
their pervasive characterisation as rural simpletons: as per the Ovidio vulgare they
are ‘rustic’, ‘bucolic’ and ‘barbarous’, sharing their musical practice with shepherds
(who are ‘of little account’), and they are ‘ignorant’. Ignorance here is not an excuse
for poor judgement, in the sense of ‘untutored’, rather it is a clear marker of status,
evidence of the ethical ‘poverty’ that Boccaccio identifies as arising from ‘wrong
judgement’. As in the golden touch episode, however wealthy King Midas may be,
his noble status is ethically undermined by his ignorance. In the particular context
of the musical contest, the nature of Midas’s ignorance, and that of his cohort, is
specific: as Fulgentius explains at length, he lacks a technical understanding of
music; he is ‘inexpert’ in it, to use Landino’s term. Midas’s punishment allows
Bonsignori (like Gaffurius above) to distinguish between two types of musical
perception: one led by sense alone, which is essentially bestial (and in this the ass’s
ears are a mirror of Pan’s goat legs), and one inflected by intellect. Capable only
of the former, for Midas to presume to pass musical judgement is in itself another
example of his poor judgement in general; his pronouncements are empty, ‘like the
wind’, and serve only to draw attention to their own vacuity.
While musical ignorance provides signal evidence of Midas’s ‘senseless judge-
ment’ in general, and thereby undermines his ethical nobility, in contrast the ‘true’
and ‘just’ musical judgement of Tmolus, Apollo and Minerva is ample demonstra-
tion of their ‘wisdom’. As Boccaccio and Fulgentius both make clear, the nature of
Apollo’s musical expertise lies in his mastery of Pythagoras’s rational account of
musical harmony, an accomplishment that is allied to divine understanding (as
Tinctoris hints). Minerva, in discarding her pipe, also demonstrates that she pos-
sesses the technical understanding that Fulgentius shows was needed to distin-
guish the qualities of the different instruments.
Representing Midas
Renaissance readings of the Midas story allow for the myth to articulate the con-
temporary understanding of musical judgement in a number of different ways.
The poor musical judgement demonstrated by Midas and Pan exemplifies and
symbolises their ‘wrong judgement’ in general; and conversely, the ‘true’ musi-
cal judgement of Tmolus, Apollo and Minerva demonstrates their ‘wisdom’ in
general. Thus, the story as a whole reflects the intimate relationship between the
judgement of music specifically and moral judgement in general that is a central
precept of the discourse on musical judgement. The musical choice on offer –
between barbarous, lusty Pan and rational, refined Apollo – maps readily onto the
distinction between lascivious, animalistic music and rational, heroic music that
was the defining judgement required of the expert musician. Midas’s error can be
read as one of strictly musical judgement – a misunderstanding of the hierarchy of

the instruments arising from a lack of familiarity with Pythagorean music theory
– or as one of social judgement about music-making – failing to appreciate the
inappropriateness of Pan’s challenge to Apollo and of his rustic musical manner.
Midas’s bestial disfigurement reveals that his judgement relies on sensory experi-
ence alone, as does that of a beast, lacking the admixture of intellect that results in
‘firm judgement’ (Gaffurius). Midas’s musical ignorance, exemplifying his wrong
judgement in general, can be understood to undermine his noble status as a king,
reducing him to a ‘poverty’ (Boccaccio’s term) that is both ethical and financial.
Visual representations of the Midas myth articulate and emphasise different
aspects of this constellation of readings, in varying contexts, and stand alongside
the texts discussed above as distinctive interventions in the Renaissance discourse
on musical judgement.
The story of the flaying of Marsyas enjoyed a substantial visual reception in
fifteenth-century Italy, thanks largely to the survival of an ancient cameo on the
subject in the collection of the Medici.36 The story of the judgement of Midas,
meanwhile, gathered a much more limited visual corpus, both in the ancient world
and in Renaissance Italy. The subject was taken up by visual artists and their cus-
tomers only in the context of the general growth in mythological painting wit-
nessed from the 1490s and across the first decades of the sixteenth century.37
Among the earliest Italian paintings of Midas is a panel by the Veneto artist
Cima da Conegliano. Experienced and esteemed as a painter of religious subjects,
Cima completed only a handful of surviving secular works, all of them dating
from the last decade or so of his life.38 Among the latest of all is a panel of the
Judgement of Midas dated by Peter Humfrey to 1513–17 (see Plate VI).39 This paint-
ing shares its pastoral setting, and its mingling of ancient characters with moderns
in Renaissance dress, with contemporary Venetian painting in the style associated
with Giorgione. Instead of conveying a sense of narrative in its treatment of the
story, the composition emphasises the moment of Midas’s erroneous judgement,
or rather it focuses in on the act of judgement itself. A young Midas, in elite con-
temporary dress, occupies the centre of the painting, seated on a rock, looking
directly at the (no doubt similarly attired) viewer. His hand is poised to indicate his
judgement with a pointing finger, but he has not yet made his choice. Apollo and
Pan, on either side of Midas, mirror one another in their poses. On the King’s left,
Pan, goat-legged and horned, holds a lira da braccio rather than his usual pipe; his
36
On the flaying of Marsyas, see Emmanuel Winternitz, ‘The Curse of Pallas Athena’,
Musical Instruments and their Symbolism in Western Art (New Haven, 1967), pp.150–65;
and Edith Wyss, The Myth of Apollo and Marsyas in the Art of the Italian Renaissance
(Newark, NJ, 1996).
37
See for example, discussion of the ‘Ovidian Renaissance’ in Leonard Barkan, The Gods
Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism (New Haven, 1986), pp.171–242.
38
On Cima’s secular works, see Peter Humfrey, Cima da Conegliano (Cambridge, 1983),
pp.54–60. Cima also executed an earlier tondo of The Judgement of Midas dated c.1505–
10, not discussed in the present study.
39
Humfrey, Cima, catalogue no.38.
bow, at rest in his left hand, projects forward from his groin, standing in for his ana-
tomical phallus, which is obscured by an ivy wreath about his waist.40 On Midas’s
right, Apollo, golden-haired, still playing upon his lira da braccio, is presented in
ancient military garb (attire as archeologically inappropriate as Pan’s lira).41 Pan’s
bow aligns his musicianship unambiguously with his lascivious nature; Apollo, on
the other hand, plays the role of an ancient hero or commander refreshing himself
with music as he rests from battle (textual sources often cite Achilles in this role).
Behind Apollo, in shadow, Tmolus stands leaning on a staff, older in years than
Midas and dressed in contemporary attire that is more modest and sober.
This image presents Midas as a youth faced with the paradigmatic musical/
moral judgement between lascivious, effeminising music and manly, heroic music
outlined in numerous textual sources of the period. That the composition con-
figures his musical judgement unambiguously in moral terms is confirmed by a
comparison with similar contemporary images in which music is located within
a broader moral choice between virtue and vice. In an Allegory of Virtue and Vice
painted by Lorenzo Lotto as a cover for his 1505 portrait of the Bishop of Treviso
(see Plate VII), the picture space is divided into two halves by means of a tree, one
side of which is sprouting while the other side is dead.42 On the side of vice, tall
trees and clouds cast a sombre shadow over a drunken satyr with an erect penis
who gazes into the depths of a wine vessel; in the background a ship sinks in a
stormy sea. On the side of virtue, a break in the clouds casts a genial light upon a
putto busy with the dividers of a geometrician, surrounded by other instruments
symbolising the study of the liberal arts: a set square, sextant, books and musical
instruments. Behind this studious child, a winged figure struggles up a steep hill
towards a divine radiance. Hanging from the tree, as if guarding the boundary
between virtue and vice, is a diaphanous shield bearing a gorgon’s head, the armour
of the wise and virtuous goddess Minerva; leaning at its base on the side of virtue
is a second shield bearing the arms of the painting’s owner, whose portrait this
40
No doubt responding to musicological literature emphasising the dichotomy between
wind and stringed instruments, David Alan Brown takes the fact Pan is playing a lira
da braccio rather than a pipe to be a symbolic problem requiring subtle interpreta-
tion (David Alan Brown et al., Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Vene-
tian Painting (New Haven, 2006), p.154). In fact, the opposition of wind and strings
has generally been overstated, coming to stand in for and obscure the more subtle
moral categories and oppositions described in the present study. Satyrs do normally
play pipes, but stringed instruments are not uncommon: see for example, Jacopo di’
Barbari, Satyr’s Family, engraving, c.1503–4, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC;
Giovanni Agostino da Lodi, Pan and Syrinx, oil on panel, c.1510, Thyssen-Bornemisza
Collection; and Girolamo Romanino, Concert champêtre, pen and brown ink, brown
wash, over black chalk, c.1520–30, Metropolitan Museum, New York.
41
A real contemporary stringed instrument graced with the same name (‘lyre’) as an
ancient stringed instrument, the lira da braccio was already well-established in Italian
elite culture as the modern equivalent of the instrument played by Apollo, Orpheus,
Arion and their cohort. See especially Nino Pirrotta and Elena Povoledo, Music and
Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans. Karen Eales (Cambridge, 1982), p.23ff.
42
Peter Humfrey, Painting in Renaissance Venice (New Haven, 1995), pp.138–40.
allegory served both to conceal and to gloss. This composition is not unique: other
Venetian examples of similar date are known.43
These images offer the viewer a straightforward choice between vice – exem-
plified by the lusty satyr – which leads to death, and virtue – exemplified by the
rational discipline of the liberal arts (including music) – which leads to eternal
life. The viewer, like Midas in Cima’s panel, is caught in the moment of exercising
their moral judgement, challenged to interrogate their behaviour and choose their
path. Moral scenes such as these were often incorporated into items of domes-
tic furniture such as decorated chests or cassoni. Such objects were intended to
instruct their owners, presenting examples and counter-examples of praiseworthy
behaviour for the viewer to reflect upon and seek to emulate.44 Cima’s Midas panel
also very likely formed part of a decorated chest, as Humfrey has argued, and the
challenge it poses to the viewer to exercise their musical judgement and thereby
demonstrate their moral expertise should be seen in the context of domestic
objects intended to fashion and improve their owners.45 A young Veneto nobleman
of the 1510s would look into the foppish Midas’s eyes staring back as into a mirror,
and consider the judgement that they would make in his place.
The messages of another, slightly later, depiction of the judgement of Midas
may have been aimed instead at a noblewoman, for reasons that are not immedi-
ately obvious. The Apollo and Marsyas by the Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino
(see Plate VIII) presents a very different version of the Midas story, close to and
probably inspired by the Fulgentius-derived account found in Landino’s commen-
tary on Dante.46 Landino writes:
It is written in the fables that Minerva, playing the pipe – that is, the flute or
shawm – above the water of Lake Tritonis, saw herself puffing out her cheeks.
Because this seemed an ugly thing she threw the pipe away, no longer wishing to
43
For example, Venetian school, Allegory, oil on panel, c.1530, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC.
44
See for example, Graziano Manni, Mobili in Emilia: con una indagine sulla cività
dell’arredo alla corte degli Estense (Modena, 1986), pp.74–86; Denise Allen and Luke
Syson, Ercole de’ Roberti: The Renaissance in Ferrara (Los Angeles, 1999), pp.xxxii–
xxxiii; Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy
(London, 2001), pp.69-77; Luke Syson, Renaissance Siena: Art for a City (London,
2007), pp.220–45; and Tim Shephard, ‘A Mirror for Princes: The Ferrarese Mirror
Frame in the V&A and the Instruction of Heirs’, Journal of Design History 26 (2013),
104–14.
45
Humfrey, Cima, catalogue no.38. Humfrey’s alternative suggestion that the panel
formed the lid of a clavichord is unlikely given the painting’s size (43 x 73 cm) – a clav-
ichord lid would normally be somewhat larger.
46
This painting is discussed in Wyss, The Myth of Apollo and Marsyas, pp.108–11; Mau-
rice Brock, Bronzino (Paris; London, 2002), pp.42–8; and Carlo Falciani and Anto-
nio Natali, eds, Bronzino: Painter and Poet at the Court of the Medici (Florence, 2010),
pp.84–5. John T. Spike’s assertion that the Hermitage panel is actually an early copy of
Bronzino’s original, which in his view is to be identified with a painting held in a private
collection, has not been widely accepted: see Spike, ‘Rediscovery: Apollo and Marsyas
by Bronzino’, FMR 73, English edn (1995), 14–24.
play it. It was found by the satyr Marsyas, and persevering in practising on the
pipe he became expert in music, but was so insolent and rash that he thought
himself better than Apollo the god of the art of music, and challenged him to
sing. Sitting in judgement were Minerva and Midas, King of Lydia. Apollo won
according to the true judgement of Minerva; but Midas, as a dunce, favoured
Marsyas. For this reason Apollo gave to Midas the ears of an ass, and flayed
Marsyas.47
On Bronzino’s panel Landino’s account is split into three episodes, with a fourth
added from a source closer to the Ovidian original. At the extreme right, the con-
test is in process. Marsyas, depicted as a human rather than a satyr, holds his pipe
dramatically upward as he plays, such that it forms a direct line with the vertical
leafy stem obscuring his loins: like Pan with his bow in Cima’s painting, Marsyas’s
musicianship is aligned both visually and metaphorically with his lascivious nature.
Apollo faces away from the viewer, a dramatic light falling onto his broad, muscular
back, whose contours obscure and are echoed in the broad curving back of his
lira da braccio: his musicianship, in contrast to Marsyas’s, is one with his heroic
masculinity. Sitting in judgement are a gormlessly slumped Midas, and Minerva,
a goddess associated with wisdom and feminine virtue, but also a military figure
equipped (as here) with armour, shield and lance. In the middle of the panel,
Apollo appears again, knife in hand, imposing his terrible penalty on Marsyas; the
skin on the satyr’s legs has already been peeled back to reveal red muscles. Further
back, towards the left, Apollo has Midas firmly by the ears, and Minerva looks on
in approval as they are turned into the ears of an ass.
Three references to this painting dating from later in the sixteenth century place
it in a striking context. In a book printed in 1584, Raffaello Borghini notes that
Bronzino ‘painted for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino on the case of an arpicordo the
myth of Apollo and Marsyas with many figures, the which work is held to be a most
rare thing’.48 Giorgio Vasari mentions the painting twice in his biographical com-
pendium of visual artists, Le Vite de’Piu Eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori: he
notes that ‘Bronzino was forced to remain longer than he wished with this prince,
and painted for him the case of an arpicordo, which pleased the prince greatly’, and
later describes ‘the aforementioned arpicordo case’ as ‘full of figures, which was a
47
‘E scripto nelle fauole che Minerua sonando latibia che e o zufolol: o piffero sopra
lacqua della pallude tritone si uide gonfiare legote. Ilche gli parue chosa si brutta che
gitto latibia: Ne piu uolle sonarla: Marsia satyro latrouo: e perseuerando nel sonarla
diuento docto musico: ma tanto insolente e temerario che si preponeua ad appolline
dio dellarte musica & prouocollo a cantare. Sedeuono iudici Minerua et Mida re dili-
dia: Vinxe Appolline secondo eluero iudicio di Minerua. Ma mida chome indocto
fauori a marsia. Ilperche apolline fece amida orecchi dasino: & marsia scortico.’ Lan-
dino, Divina Commedia, image 480.
48
‘Dipinse a Guidobaldo Duca d’Urbino entro una cassa d’Arpicordo la favola d’Apollo,
e di Marsia con molte figure, la qual opera è tenuta cosa rarissima.’ Raffaello Borghini,
Il reposo (Florence, 1584), p.534.
rare thing’.49 Bronzino’s encounter with Guidobaldio II della Rovere, then in his
late teens and not yet duke, took place in Pesaro in the early 1530s, and the painting
is dated to c.1530–2. The term ‘arpicordo’ in sixteenth-century Italy denoted not a
harpsichord as one might expect, but a rather smaller keyboard instrument, the
polygonal virginals (see Plate IX).50 The technical report on the painting prepared
by the Hermitage Museum notes that its shape was altered early on to bring it
from an irregular trapeze to a regular rectangle, indicating that its original form did
indeed match the usual shape of a polygonal virginals lid.51
This means, of course, that the cautionary tale of Midas and Marsyas’s poor
judgement was presented specifically to the instrument’s user, as they sat down and
lifted the lid ready to play. The keyboard of a polygonal virginals is conventionally
slightly offset to the left, such that the more disquieting punishment of Marsyas
would be most directly in front of the player. The rose in the instrument’s sound-
board, meanwhile, notionally the gap through which the sound escapes, was usu-
ally offset to the right in relation to the keyboard, locating it approximately beneath
the performers Apollo and Marsyas, as if the owner’s playing is also presented to
Minerva and Midas for their judgement.
The figure lying on the ground at the extreme left of the painting refers to the
final episode of the Midas story, which has not yet been mentioned in this study.
After receiving his ass’s ears, Midas enlists his barber to help camouflage them and
thus save him from embarrassment. Sworn to secrecy, the barber struggles to keep
his employer’s disfigurement to himself, so he digs a hole in the ground, whispers
the secret into the earth, and then fills in the hole again. Unfortunately the reeds
that subsequently grow in the spot, when voiced by the wind, publish the secret
abroad. In the case of Bronzino’s panel, the barber is effectively whispering Midas’s
secret into the body of the virginals, so that it might be voiced by its owner’s play-
ing. The instrument in performance here completes a kind of symbolic circuit,
echoing around the different episodes of the Midas story: at the extreme left the
secret of the King’s ears is given voice by the instrument, the sound of which is then
presented to the judges Minerva and Midas at the extreme right; the potential out-
come of their judgement, visited upon the person of the performer, is then acted
out in the centre of the panel.
The judgement between effeminate and manly music is clearly central to
Bronzino’s treatment of the story, as it was to the others considered above: Apollo’s
heroic musculature is aligned with wise Minerva’s military bearing, while Marsyas’s
lusty musicianship is affiliated to Midas’s gormless recumbency. In the dead centre
of the panel, Marsyas’s punishment takes precedence over Midas’s because it is
the punishment appropriate to the performer, rather than the judge, and, attached
to a virginals, this image is presented first and foremost to a performer. The real
49
Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’Piu Eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori Scritte da Giorgio
Vasari, Pittore Aretino, con Nouve Annotazioni e Commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. Gae-
tano Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence, 1878–85), vol.6, p.276; vol.7, p.595.
50
See Denzil Wraight, ‘Arpicordo,’ Grove Music Online www.oxfordmusiconline.com/
subscriber/article/grove/music/01330. Accessed 9/2/2015.
51
Falciani and Natali, eds, Bronzino, pp.84–5.
performer, in using the instrument, is evidently invited by Bronzino’s panel to

consider their relationship to the different figures in the Midas story and the musi-
cal/moral positions they adopt. Will their playing be approved by Minerva, or by
Midas? Will they play the role of the flayer, or the flayed? Will their playing, voicing
the barber’s secret, reveal their musical expertise, or their lack thereof?
Although Vasari and Borghini report that the panel was made for Guidobaldo,
it may well be that the instrument was not played exclusively, or even primarily,
by the young heir. Bláithín Hurley has argued, on the basis of Venetian domestic
inventories, that in sixteenth-century Italy, keyboard instruments were particu-
larly popular among women and girls.52 Guidobaldo’s mother Eleonora Gonzaga,
Duchess of Urbino is one possible user, as is Guidobaldo’s younger sister Ippolita,
who would have been around seven years of age when the virginals case was dec-
orated. In 1534, probably falling a year or two after the painting was completed,
Guidobaldo married the eleven-year-old Duchess of Camerino, Giulia Varano, and
she may also have played on the instrument. It is perhaps with these female users
specifically in mind that Landino’s version of the story, assigning the role of true
musical judge to the goddess Minerva, was chosen.53 The practical instruction in
music received by the della Rovere women from their keyboard tutors was, per-
haps, accompanied by ethical instruction in music received from their instrument’s
decorations.
Conclusions
These paintings by Cima and Bronzino partake in the instructional tone of con-
temporary decorated domestic furniture, presenting a choice between virtue and
vice, articulated through music, and challenging the viewer to interrogate their
own musical and moral expertise, and formulate their position in relation to the
story’s poles of Midas/Pan/Marsyas and Tmolus/Apollo/Minerva. The two
images also articulate the myth, and place it in relation to the broader discourse on
musical judgement, in different ways. Both foreground the first and most impor-
tant distinction achieved by the expert musical judge: that between effeminising,
lascivious music that will make the listener fear death, and manly, heroic music
that will inspire them to brave deeds. Both also thereby highlight the relationship
between musical judgement and moral judgement. In Cima’s painting the oppo-
sition between Apollo and Pan is presented as a musical choice between vice and
virtue: Midas is on the point of making his judgement, choosing between the
two performers, and the moment of his judgement is at the heart of the painting.
Social judgements, on the other hand, are implicit in Bronzino’s version of the
story, in which Marsyas’s grizzly punishment – arising not from his musical ‘inex-
pertise’ but from his musical ‘insolence’ – takes centre stage. Here, though, the
composition is designed to locate the myth’s messages about musical judgement
52
Bláithín Hurley, ‘Music and Domesticity in Sixteenth-Century Venice’, PhD Diss., Uni-
versity of Cambridge, 2015, pp.156–65, espec. p.160.
53
On the value of Minerva as a model for women’s musicianship, see Tim Shephard,
Echoing Helicon: Music, Art and Identity in the Este Studioli, 1440–1530 (New York, 2014),
pp.84–90.
specifically in relation to a viewer caught in the act of musical performance – most

likely, a female viewer, to whom Minerva is proposed as a model musician whose
heroically ‘manly’ rational judgement she should seek to emulate.
The coherence of the contemporary conception that linked musical training
with moral judgement and the choice between virtue and vice is clear from the
extent to which these images resonate not only with contemporary literary re-tell-
ings of the myth, but also with contemporary comments on musical judgement
arising from both musical specialists and non-specialists. Of course, this raises
the perplexing question of exactly which musical styles would have been seen at
the time as ‘lascivious’ and which as ‘heroic’, but the answer to that would depend
heavily on which Renaissance Italian you asked. A theologian might argue that
plainchant and the psalms alone are wholesome, and that all other music breeds
vice. A moralistic poet might argue in favour of epic verse declaimed to the lira and
decry love lyric sung to the lute; but a lyric poet could argue that the judgement lay
in recognising the proper philosophical treatment of love. A secular singer might
distinguish between an ‘effeminate’ performing style that employs vigorous orna-
mentation, and a ‘manly’ style that is plain and simple. A courtly amateur might
want to argue that the judgement lies more in the manner and occasion of the
performance – that is, that virtuous musicianship is a matter of decorum.
More interesting, and more successful, than trying to pin contemporary Italians
down to a single view of musical virtue and vice is to examine the broader impli-
cations of the Midas story and of the conception it articulates for our understand-
ing of elite musical culture c.1520. To do so we need to recognise that a set of
principles for the correct judgement of music is essentially an account of musical
taste. Pierre Bourdieu famously argued that the formulation of taste judgements in
twentieth-century France could be seen as a way of articulating social status, and
of establishing that status as ‘natural’ and therefore legitimate, and the same can be
said about musical taste in Renaissance Italy.54
In the story of Midas, musical difference is presented as an inevitable outcome
of the difference in status between the elevated Apollo, Tmolus and Minerva, and
the ‘rustic’ and ‘barbarous’ Pan, Marsyas and Midas. On the one hand, Midas’s
poor judgement so undermines his noble status as a king that he is reduced to
‘poverty’ and to wandering the woods and hills in the company of lowly shepherds.
On the other hand, the true musical judgement of Minerva and Tmolus identifies
their high status as being founded in their ethical nobility. These differences are
described as ‘natural’ – Midas is ‘naturally stupid’, bestial even, and no amount of
instruction will cure his ignorance. Similarly, in the contemporary discourse on
musical judgement the capacity for judgement is cultivated through the rational
study of the liberal arts (meaning, of course, the arts suited to gentlemen and gen-
tlewomen), and is contrasted with the illiberal labour of musical performers and
with those whose judgement relies on sense alone. The natural ‘rightness’ of true
musical judgement is clearly established with the help of the Pythagorean tradi-
tion, according to which the heavens and the human soul operate on the same
54
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (London, 1984).
principles of harmony as music: audible music is simply an envoicing of the har-

mony present in nature.
To display ‘true’ musical judgement, therefore, was to stake a claim for elevated
status arising from liberal education and ethical nobility; and the ‘trueness’ of elite
musical taste arose directly from its foundations in the ordering of the universe
at large. Understood in this way, elevated musical taste, as described in this essay,
allowed the elite self to differentiate itself from its peasant other, in a way that
established its elite status as natural and therefore legitimate. This is an important
function indeed, within both courtly societies and patrician republics. Musical
judgement, and especially the distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ music, was
mentioned often in Renaissance writings on music not because writers were mind-
lessly repeating a literary topos, but because that topos played an essential role in
constructing their social world (a world in which writers must contest their status
as vigorously as everyone else). Seen in this light, contemporary debates – within
the spheres of theology, poetics, decorum and music itself – over exactly what con-
stitutes ‘right’ music take on a new urgency, because it was through such cultural
work that individual judgements on musical value were aligned with the general
principle, which in itself was too vague to indicate a specific answer. Assertions
about musical judgement, and arguments over musical value, are revealed in this
analysis to play a fundamental role in the elite social world of Italy c.1520.
iii
myths in renaissance
philosophies of music
6
Marsilio Ficino and Girolamo Cardano

under Orpheus’s Spell
Jacomien Prins
T he myth of Orpheus has cast a spell on some Italian Renaissance philos-

ophers that is quite difficult to explain. To explain why they were so fasci-
nated by Orpheus as a historical and mythological character, in this chapter I
propose that precisely because of his elusive character, Orpheus could be used
as a model to shape diverse, innovative theories about the relationship between
God, nature, history, man, music and creativity.
I begin with the place of Orpheus in Marsilio Ficino’s Timaeus commentary
(1484/96). Ficino used Orpheus to dissolve temporal and cultural discrepan-
cies between pagan philosophy and Christian thought. In line with some of his
ancient and medieval predecessors, Ficino saw Orpheus as one of the earliest
prophets and the founding father of Orphism, a religious cult concerned with the
mysteries of the cosmos and with the secrets of the afterlife. In order to be able
to reveal these secrets, Ficino stressed that the implication of the myth was that
music possessed the power to alter the nature of all parts of the Creation to the
extent of even conquering death.
The second part of this chapter contrasts Ficino’s interpretation of
Orpheus with that of Girolamo Cardano’s De tranquillitate (On Tranquillity,
1561). Cardano made the search for the secret behind those extraordinary
lost powers of Orphic music one of the main themes of his musical thought.
Although inspired by Ficino’s philosophy, Cardano departs strikingly from his
famous predecessor in seeing Orpheus above all as a mythical, secular hero,
and interpreted the famous myth of the power of his music through the lens of
Aristotelian philosophy.
Both case studies demonstrate how the myth of Orpheus in the Italian
Renaissance functioned as a justification of new intellectual and aesthetic
standards that emerged in Italy from the end of the fifteenth century onwards.
In these new philosophies, Orpheus played an important role: he testified to
the new powers attributed to words and music in Italian Renaissance philos-
ophy and music theory as vehicles of the healing and enlightening power of
music.
108 Jacomien Prins
Marsilio Ficino
Ficino’s philosophy is closely connected with music and theology, and therefore the
myth of Orpheus seems to fit his philosophy very well.1 He conceived of Orpheus
as a historical figure, whose tale of the magical power of music served as a source
of inspiration for his philosophy, in which enchanted song was given an impor-
tant place.2 Above all, Ficino envisioned Orpheus as an ancient sage, a prophet,
who was associated with Apollo, Christ and King David, and who conquers death
in his search for ultimate wisdom. In his view, Orpheus was third in the succes-
sion of prisci theologi (ancient sages), being preceded by Zoroaster and Hermes
Trismegistus and followed by Pythagoras and Plato.3 He used these ancient sages
to reconcile ancient philosophy with Christian theology. He argued that a kind of
wisdom was revealed to these sages that was compatible with the Bible and which
therefore could be beneficially used to understand the Word of God.
The secondary literature on Ficino’s reception of Orpheus is extensive, but a few
passages in Ficino’s Timaeus commentary that have never been studied in detail
before shed new light on Ficino’s complex and ambiguous relationship with one
of his greatest sources of inspiration.4 Following Proclus’s Timaeus commentary,
Ficino did attempt to revive the notions of an Orphic enchanted music that could
move the supernatural and the natural world, and of Orpheus himself as a Platonic
sage. Yet he experienced problems in reconciling the scientific worldview and the
Christian theology of his own time with Orpheus’s musical magic.
1
The literature on the Italian Renaissance reception – including Ficino – of the myth of
Orpheus is vast, but particularly instructive are: August Buck, Der Orpheus-Mythos in
der Italienischen Renaissance (Krefeld, 1961); Nino Pirrotta, Li due Orfei: Da Poliziano
a Monteverdi (Turin, 1969); Daniel P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in Chris-
tian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London, 1972), chap.1; John
Warden, ed., Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth (Toronto, 1982), especially War-
den’s own contribution on Orpheus and Ficino, pp.85–110; Don Harrán, ‘Orpheus as
Poet, Musician and Educator’, Essays on Italian Music in the Cinquecento, ed. Richard
Charteris (Sydney, 1990), pp.265–76; Mario Martelli, Il mito d’Orfeo nell’età laurenzi-
ana, in Orfeo e l’Orfismo (Rome, 1993), pp.319–51; Angela Voss, ‘Marsilio Ficino, the
Second Orpheus’, Music as Medicine, The History of Music Therapy since Antiquity, ed.
Peregrine Horden (Aldershot, 2000), pp.154–72; Voss, ‘Orpheus redivivus: The Musi-
cal Magic of Marsilio Ficino’, Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy,
ed. Michael J.B. Allen et al. (Leiden, 2002), pp.227–41; and Michael J.B. Allen, ‘Eury-
dice in Hades: Florentine Platonism and an Orphic Mystery’, Nuovi maestri e antichi
testi: Umanesimo e Rinascimento alle origini del pensiero moderno: Atti del convegno inter-
nazionale di studi in onore di Cesare Vasoli (Mantova 1–3 dicembre 2010), ed. Stephano
Caroti and Vittoria Perrone Compagni, Ingenium 17 (Florence, 2012), pp.19–40.
2
For Ficino’s astrological music therapy, see Daniel P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic
Magic from Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958; repr. University Park, PA, 2003),
espec. pp.3–29; and Jacomien Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World: Marsilio Ficino and
Francesco Patrizi on Cosmic Order and Music Therapy (Leiden, 2014), pp.186–207.
3
Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World, pp.30–6.
4
Marsilio Ficino: Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, ed. and trans. Jacomien Prins (Boston,
forthcoming).
Ficino and Cardano under Orpheus’s Spell 109
Ficino’s Timaeus commentary is written both to explain Plato’s Timaeus and

to use the dialogue as a scientific source of knowledge to fathom the structure
of God’s harmonic creation. Fully in line with the Pythagorean-Platonic tradi-
tion, Ficino argues that musical harmonies, especially the musical intervals of the
fourth, fifth and octave, are the key to the universe, since they govern the entire
harmonious cosmos, especially the movement of its planetary spheres.5 Plato had
given a detailed explanation of the musical structure of the universe at Timaeus
35b–[36]b. In line with the commentary tradition on the dialogue, Ficino argues
that the discipline of music, especially harmonics, is a preparatory subject for the
study of philosophy and theology. Moreover, just as in Plato’s dialogue, this knowl-
edge of a cosmos in which all parts are harmonically tuned to each other serves as
an important key to gaining the tranquillity of one’s soul.
Most of the time, Orpheus is used in Ficino’s Timaeus commentary to confirm
the harmonic order and beauty of the universe. Ficino argues with Plato and Moses
that the universe is the Creation of a divine Architect who, imitating an unchang-
ing and eternal harmonic model, imposes mathematical order in the form of a
World-Soul on a pre-existent chaos to generate a beautifully ordered cosmos. The
governing explanatory principle of the Timaean creation myth is teleological: the
universe as a whole as well as its various parts are so arranged as to produce a per-
petual series of harmonious effects. Ficino firmly believed that this arrangement
is not accidental, but an expression of the deliberate intent of the divine Intellect
or Mind of God, anthropomorphically represented by the figure of the divine
Architect, who devises and creates the best possible world.6 All the parts of this
animated cosmos – including its four elements and seven planets – are imprinted
with the divine harmonic proportions of the World-Soul. Ficino finds corrobora-
tive evidence for this worldview in Orphic and Neoplatonic sources, and argues:
I have ventured to arrange the World-Animal in this way, so to say, on the basis
of its parts. For Orpheus, Varro, Plotinus, and Porphyry arranged the World-
Jupiter, be it not exactly in the same way, but rather in a similar way. Presumably
the Platonists are also inclined to say that the firmament refers to the mind,
Saturn to the hidden reason, and Mercury to the common reason. But in both
cases they refer to the speculative reason. Jupiter refers to the practical reason,
the Sun to the sensory faculty and the animosity of anger, which fights on behalf
of reason. Mars also refers to anger, but it is a kind of anger that is beneficial for
the senses. Venus and the Moon refer to the nature of desire.7
5
For the tradition of the harmony of the spheres and its Renaissance reception, see
James Haar, ‘Musica Mundana: Variations on a Pythagorean Theme’, PhD Diss., Har-
vard University, 1961; Simeon K. Heninger, Jr, Touches of Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean
Cosmology and Renaissance Poetics (San Marino, CA, 1977); and Prins, Echoes of an
Invisible World.
6
Marsilio Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.9, Commentaria in Platonem (Flor-
ence, 1496), fol.61v.
7
Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.38, fols.75v–76r. Cf. Proclus, In Timaeum III,
102.29–103.16.
110 Jacomien Prins
Subsequently, aspects of the human mind are projected onto the cosmos, pairing
cognitive faculties and human emotions with planets, for example Saturn with the
highest form of reason, Mars with anger and Venus with lust. These correspond-
ences govern all life on earth, including the life of the four elements.
In Ficino’s Timaeus commentary, Orpheus appears again in a demonstration
of the Pythagorean harmonic quadruple structure of the whole universe, which
is exemplified by the four elements: ‘Finally, we shall say with Orpheus that there
are also four elements in the underworld: the Pyriphlegeton, the Acheron, the
Oceanus and the Cocytus.’8
Orpheus, who knew the underworld from his own experience, is presented in
this context as an ancient sage who is able to confirm that ‘whereas Moses writes,
“In the beginning God made heaven and earth”9 and Plato writes ‘First God made
fire and earth’‘,10 they both refer to the fact that the cosmos is created from four
elements. Moreover, the harmonic proportional structure of these four elements
can be found in the planetary spheres, in the sublunary world, and even in the
underworld, which Orpheus knew from personal experience.
Following Timaeus 47c–e, Ficino also argues in his commentary that by turn-
ing the movements of one’s soul into a perfect imitation of the eternal harmonic
movements of the planets one can temper one’s soul and by doing so reach physical
and spiritual well-being.11 Above all, his attempts to imitate ancient Orphic singing
must be seen as a part of this philosophical project.
Ficino is indeed particularly interested in ancient musical practices, in which
music was used to alter or stabilise the musicians’ or listeners’ moods, and to bal-
ance their temperamental or mental states by way of the beneficial use of music.
In his Timaeus commentary, he focuses on the question of how in earthly music
the harmony of the spheres can be imitated, invoked or expressed.12 To his mind,
knowledge of ancient Greek ideas and practices of tuning and temperament are the
key by which the power of ancient music can be revived. From his De vita (Three
Books of Life, 1489) and other documents reporting his musical performances, we
know that Ficino tried to imitate these ancient musical practices in his own recitals,
in which he made vocal improvisations accompanied by his lyre or lira da braccia,
8
Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.24, fol.66v, corresponding to Plato’s Timaeus
32B–C. Ficino is following Plato’s dialogue Phaedo 107b–115a here, in which a certain
type of harmonic order is attributed to the elements of the underworld. This is an order
of contraries (discordia concors) in which the rivers Ocean (Swift-flowing) and Ache-
ron (Distressing) are paired with one another, as are Pyriphlegethon (Fire-blazing)
and Cocytus (Shrieking). Cf. Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates’
Conversations and Plato’s Writings (Philadelphia, 2011), p.28; Ficino, ‘Compendium in
Timaeum’, chap.24, fol 66v. Cf. Proclus, In Timaeum II, 49.18–20.
9
The Bible, Genesis 1:1.
10
Plato, Timaeus, 49A–50A. Both this and the above source are cited by Ficino in ‘Com-
pendium in Timaeum’, chap.24, fol.66v.
11
For the Pythagorean sources of inspiration for Ficino’s reception of Orpheus, see
Allen, ‘Eurydice in Hades’, pp.22–4.
12
Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, pp.12–24.
which were inspired by the Orphic hymns.13 These songs were meant for healing
and for achieving spiritual enlightenment and tranquillity. The musical instrument
par excellence to use for these purposes was supposed to be the lyre, which was seen
as a musical instrument whose music, tuning and string vibrations came closest to
the music of the spheres.14 Indeed, to express the order and beauty of God’s har-
monic Creation in his Timaeus commentary, Ficino uses the metaphor of a world
lyre, which is tuned by God, and on which God is perpetually playing his perfect
world symphony.15
In ancient Greek sources, Ficino encountered various descriptions of the
amount of strings on the lyre; originating from a simple combination of four
strings, the instrument developed into different types with seven, eight or even
fifteenth strings.16 In the historical overview of the lyre included in his Timaeus
commentary, Ficino argues that Orpheus standardised the simple lyre with four
strings:17
As regards the tuning of strings in musical instruments, be it in a single tetra-

chord,18 which was discovered by Mercury [Hermes Trismegistus] and stand-
ardised by Orpheus, or in two conjunct tetrachords that are connected through
seven strings, which was invented by Terpander, as is being said, or in a double
disjunct tetrachord that is subdivided into eight strings, of which Lycaon of
Samos is said to be its inventor, or in four conjunct tetrachords that to the
approval of all Greeks consist of fifteen strings: in all these tetrachords resounds
one by one the consonant of a diatesseron [fourth].19
This suggests that based on his intensive study of ancient Greek music theory,
Ficino came to the conclusion that no matter what kind of lyre was used precisely,
it could be beneficially used for imitating the harmonies of the spheres, as long as
the tuning of the strings exemplified the archetypal Pythagorean consonances of
the musical intervals of the fourth (4:3; diatesseron), fifth (3:2) and octave (2:1), as
13
For Ficino’s conception of the Orphic hymns, see Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic,
pp.22–4, and Daniel P. Walker, ‘Le chant Orphique de Marsile Ficin’, Music, Spirit and
Language in the Renaissance, ed. Penelope Gouk (London, 1985), pp.17–28; Gary Tom-
linson, Music in Renaissance Magic: Towards a Historiography of Others (Chicago, 1993),
pp.84–9, 101–36; Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World, pp.186–207.
14
Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, p.19.
15
Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World, pp.104–6.
16
Its different combinations of intervals produced different scales, of which the ancient
diatonic scale was the closest to the tuning that was in use in Ficino’s time. Cf. Haar,
‘Musica Mundana’, p.355.
17
For Ficino’s knowledge of ancient theoretical sources on music, see Prins, Echoes of an
Invisible World, pp.55–67.
18
A tetrachord is a series of four adjacent pitches.
19
Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.30, fol.69v.
112 Jacomien Prins
defined in terms of their numerical proportions in the Timaeus (35b–36b), which

were the key to the universe.20
Whereas Orpheus was seen as a reliable guide for the interpretation of the
harmony of the spheres (musica mundana) and for ideas about tuning and tem-
perament (musica instrumentalis), Ficino clearly struggles to integrate Orphic
ideas about the power of music (musica humana) in his Timaeus commentary.
There are sources that testify to the fact that some of his contemporaries envis-
aged Ficino as another Orpheus who had brought Orphic song back to life.21 We
can only speculate about the specific character of Ficino’s songs, because they
were improvisations that were not notated in any way. What we know from con-
temporary testimonies of his musical ceremonies is that he induced a state of
divine frenzy or trance both in himself and in some of his susceptible listeners or
patients. Next to inducing spiritual enlightenment and healing, Ficino’s Orphic
singing was meant to regain the lost Eurydice, which was equated in his Timaeus
commentary with the Pythagorean-Platonic knowledge of the harmonic struc-
ture of the universe.22
Orpheus’s most remarkable deed has always been his descent into the under-
world to rescue Eurydice from death and bring her back to the world of the living.
Orpheus was a singer who could perform such miracles, because he was initiated
in the secrets of the heavenly spheres, including their animated and musical nature.
By imitating Orpheus, Ficino also wanted to obtain the key to the harmony of the
spheres, which would enable him to master unruly passions and exorcise demons,
which were associated with the wild beasts who were tamed in the Orpheus myth.23
In Neoplatonic sources from late antiquity, a collection of hymns that were
addressed to various gods, such as Apollo, and divine concepts, such as the world
lyre, had been attributed to a historical Orpheus who lived in Greece before
Pythagoras and Plato.24 Ficino firmly believed that the Orphic hymns were authen-
20
For the discussion of Ficino’s lyre, see Allen, ‘Eurydice in Hades’, pp.24–5. As Allen
explains, Warden assumes that Ficino’s Orphic lyre was seven-stringed, whereas Allen,
on the basis of his own study of Ficino’s commentaries on Plato’s Phaedrus and Ion, is
more inclined to think that Ficino’s lyre was a tetrachord, that is, an instrument that
is similar to Orpheus’s lyre with four strings. Even though a lyre in Ficino’s time was
usually seven-stringed and thus the ideal instrument for imitating the harmonies of the
seven planets, of course, Ficino was not really imitating the harmony of the spheres,
but projecting ideas about the musical practice of his own time onto the heavens. In
line with Haar (‘Musica Mundana’, pp.346–7), I believe that his lyre was not a histor-
ically informed reconstruction of an ancient Greek instrument, but a lyre or lira da
braccia, which was used in his own time.
21
Voss, ‘Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus’, p.155.
22
Voss, ‘Orpheus redivivus’, p.228; and Allen, ‘Eurydice in Hades’, p.30.
23
The classical treatment of Ficino’s ideas about music and medicine can be found in
Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, pp.4–24; and Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panof-
sky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy,
Religion, and Art (London, 1964).
24
For a study of the ancient Orphic hymns, see Martin L. West, The Orphic Poems
(Oxford, 1983); for the place of the Orphic hymns in Ficino’s theory of an ancient
tic and he used them as a model for Pythagorean-Platonic effective music and
song, which could enlighten, temper and heal people. Regrettably, Ficino’s Latin
translation of the Orphic hymns has not survived or has not yet been rediscov-
ered.25 It is highly likely that he never published them for fear of being accused by
the Church of illegitimate practices in which demons were invoked.26 Based on his
astrological beliefs, Ficino seems to have been especially fearful of rousing demons
that were associated with the planets Saturn and Mars, and the Moon, which he
conceived of as malevolent heavenly bodies. These demons could interfere in a
negative way with the harmonic master plan of God’s Creation.27
In a revision of the first printed edition of his Timaeus commentary (1484),
Ficino tried in 1496 to purge the text of musical magic associated with harmful
demons. In the 1496 edition, he only wanted to keep the invocation of God in sung
prayers, and the manipulation of planetary correspondences in nature as forms of
musical magic.28 He preserved his explanation of how God and a kind of imper-
sonal, planetary spirit could have a beneficial influence on man. These impersonal
spirits worked through the spiritus mundi to affect the human spirit. Ficino argued
that spirits were not capable of acting directly on man’s rational soul, as demons
could do.
In Distinctio 24, a chapter of miscellanea (Distinctiones) presented at the end of
the Timaeus commentary in the 1496 edition, which was removed from the original
main text of the 1484 commentary, Ficino reports that he successfully exorcised a
Saturnian demon.29 During a ceremony which took place at a beneficial astrolog-
ical hour, holy prayers were sung or recited to create such a hostile atmosphere
for harmful demons that they would be driven out from the physical space as well
as from the mental space of the bewitched servants. Before reporting the story of
his exorcism, Ficino takes great pains to explain that there are two different kinds
of demons under the Moon: a higher kind of divine demons with celestial bodies
who do good and are reliable, and a lower kind of demons with airy bodies, which
can be deceptive:
theology, see Ilana Klutstein, Marsilio Ficino et la théologie ancienne: Oracles Chal-
daïques, Hymnes Orphiques, Hymnes de Proclus (Florence, 1987).
25
Klutstein, Marsilio Ficino et la théologie ancienne, pp.21–52.
26
Allen, ‘Eurydice in Hades’, p. 25.
27
Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, p.17. Walker explains that in Ficino’s De vita Book
3, chap.21 the Sun, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are seen as benign planets with their
own particular kind of music, while Saturn, Mars and the Moon, as more malevolent
heavenly bodies, have only ‘voices’, that is, no music.
28
In Ficino’s ‘Compendium in Timaeum’ he deals with prayers in chap.6, fol.60r and with
music as a form of natural magic in chap.31, fols.70v–71r. It is unclear how religious
and astrological music precisely relate to each other. Yet, there is evidence that Ficino
linked natural magic to the sacred goals of traditional Christian psalmody and worship,
David the Psalmist being identified as the biblical counterpart to Orpheus in De vita
Book 3, chap.21.
29
Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.24 ‘Distinctiones’, fol.83r. This passage is ana-
lysed in detail in Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World, pp.205–6.
114 Jacomien Prins
Among the demons that dwell in the mixed air the theology of the pagans and
the school of Plato count certain demons without reason, or just as if they were
dumb demons, demons that have a very piercing imagination and big powers.
For they hold that just as there is a being on earth with two natures, that is to say
a rational and an irrational nature, so there is also in water a twofold being, there
where Orpheus and the poets sing about certain aquatic divinities. Likewise
they deemed it possible that also in the mixed air, apart from demons that live by
reason, there are demons that are as though without reason, and that they clearly
use their very powerful imagination to the utmost, with which they also trigger
our imagination, just like bodies trigger other bodies.30
For the first time, Orpheus is presented in the Timaeus commentary as an author-
ity on demonology. Presumably, for the exorcism reported in the text after this
quotation Ficino used music to chase away the demons of the servants of a Jewish
family in Florence. Music could either help to drive out negative outer influences
or draw in positive outer influences, especially those of the animated beings with
which the heavens were populated. In Ficino’s view, music could especially help
a listener to overcome the destructive influence of the planet Saturn. This could
be achieved by creating a musical antidote against Saturn’s influence, that is,
by making music with musical aspects that were associated with the beneficial
planets of the Sun, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury. By invoking the planetary gods,
spirits or reliable demons, they could work through the spiritus mundi and the
musical spirit directly on the human spirit. Yet in the exorcism described in his
Timaeus commentary, Ficino evidently manipulated malicious demons that were
capable of influencing the imagination and thereby of acting directly on man’s
rational soul.
A clear distinction between beneficial, white, spiritual magic and dangerous,
black, demonic magic is impossible to draw here, even though Ficino was trying
hard to create such a distinction by arguing that there are two kinds of demons.
This case study of an exorcism clearly suggests that Ficino was involved in black,
dangerous magic by exorcising demons with an exceptionally powerful imagina-
tion that were supposed to have an equally powerful effect on the human mind. It
is possible that Ficino was aware of the fact that his project to distinguish between
spiritual and demonic magic had failed, because it was theoretically impossible to
distinguish between benign spiritual and harmful demonic influence. For if one
argues for the existence of a channel for supernatural influence, it is impossible to
control what kind of beings could make use of it.
To explain why Ficino banished all the passages on demons to the ‘Miscellanea’
(Distinctiones) section of his Timaeus commentary, we may argue that he acted in
fear of the religious authorities of his time. However, it is equally possible that he
did this because he believed that he could only rescue the Orphic secret knowl-
edge of the harmony of the spheres if he could distance himself from Orpheus’s
demonic practices. To put it into the terminology of the myth of Orpheus: it is
30
Ficino, ‘Compendium in Timaeum’, chap.24 ‘Distinctiones’, fols.82v–83r. Cf. Proclus,
In Timaeum II, 49.18–20.
highly likely that because of its harmful potential, Orpheus had decided to leave
Eurydice – understood in this context as knowledge of demonic magic – behind
in the underworld.
Ficino tried hard to make a distinction between Orpheus as an ancient sage
whose work could be beneficially studied to understand the wonders of Creation,
and Orpheus the musical magician whose practices undermined this very knowl-
edge of the harmonious universe. Yet he did not realise that Orpheus’s knowledge
of the harmonic secrets of the world and his demonic magic were two sides of
the same coin; that is, that removing explicit passages on demonology from his
Timaeus commentary did not effectively eradicate the implicit magic on which
Ficino’s worldview was founded.
Girolamo Cardano
In addition to being an important astrologer, mathematician, philosopher and phy-
sician, Cardano occupies an important place in the history of theories about music
theory and music therapy. His contributions to these fields can be found in his De
musica (On Music, 1574), his most extensive and important text on music theory, of
which a summary is included in his De subtilitate (On Subtlety, 1552).31 Moreover,
they are scattered among texts such as his De utilitate ex adversis capienda (On
Gaining Advantage from Misfortunes, 1561) and De tranquillitate (On Tranquillity,
1561), in which Cardano tries to formulate an answer to the questions of what
one can gain during life on earth that is enduring and meaningful, and how one
can cultivate a tranquil soul.32 Orpheus appears in De tranquillitate as a guide in
Girolamo Cardano’s search for the extraordinary, lost power of ancient music to
influence the human mind.
31
For a complete edition of Cardano’s writings, see Girolamo Cardano, Opera Omnia
(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1966 [facsimile of the 1663 Lyon edition]), hereafter abbre-
viated as: OO. For a translation of Cardano’s De musica, see Hieronymus Cardanus,
Writings on Music, ed. and trans. Clement A. Miller ([Rome], 1973), pp.73–191. For
a translation of Cardano’s De subtilitate, see The De subtilitate of Girolamo Cardano,
ed. John M. Forrester with introduction by John Henry and John M. Forrester, 2 vols
(Tempe, AZ, 2013). On Cardano’s music theory, see Guido Giglioni, ‘Bolognan Boys
are Beautiful, Tasteful and Mostly Fine Musicians’, The Sciences of Homosexuality in
Early Modern Europe, ed. K. Borris and G. Rousseau (London, 2008), pp.201–20, espec.
pp.218–19; Anne E. Moyer, Musica Scientia: Musical Scholarship in the Italian Renais-
sance (Ithaca, NY, 1992), pp.158–68; Ingo Schütze, ‘Cardano und die Affektenlehre der
Musik,’ Bruniana e Campanelliana 1 (2001), pp.453–67; and Jacomien Prins, ‘Girolamo
Cardano and Julius Caesar Scaliger in Debate about Nature’s Musical Secrets’, Journal
of the History of Ideas 78 (2017), 169–89.
32
On Cardano’s ideas about the art of living with oneself, see Markus Fierz, Girolamo
Cardano, 1501–1576: Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astrologer, and
Interpreter of Dreams (Boston, 1983), pp.156–66. On Cardano’s ideas about illness and
health, see Nancy S. Siraisi, The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renais-
sance Medicine (Princeton, NJ, 1997).
116 Jacomien Prins
Building on and further developing earlier notions of the power of music from
scholars such as Ficino, Cardano associates the mythical hero with his extraordi-
nary musical powers. Yet, whereas Ficino used Orpheus above all in an account
of supernatural musical powers and knowledge, Cardano uses him to explain the
same powers in terms of the physiological and the affective. He envisions making
or listening to music, especially instrumental music played on a string or keyboard
instrument, as an effective way of influencing someone’s morals, affections and
behaviour in a purely natural way:
In this kind of [instrumental] music one can meet the three conditions that
Aristotle proposed, namely, the confirmation of change of morals, affections or
behaviour. These conditions also apply to the present times, both in the morals
of children and adolescents and in the organisation of life.33
In principle, Cardano is also convinced of the power of vocal music, but negative
experiences with the singers of his time prompted him to issue a warning in De
utilitate to avoid their company.
Fully in line with the above quotation from De utilitate, in De tranquillitate,
a treatise on activities that are favourable to the cultivation of a tranquil soul,
Cardano praises the beneficial effect of solo music. In a discussion between a phi-
losopher, a citizen and a hermit that is included in the book, he addresses the
power of the Orphic lyre to tranquillise the human mind.34 Against the backdrop
of his general philosophical quest for longevity and happiness, this discussion can
be understood as a lesser musical precept, which might enhance human life in both
a quantitative and qualitative sense. It belongs to a group of precepts which are
primarily aimed at the avoidance and cure of mental problems such as anxiety. In
addition, this musical precept is an expression of the general rule of the pursuit of
moderation in all things.35 In this regard, making and listening to music can be used
to learn how to be moderate in the passions, and how to avoid harmful affections
such as fear. Exposure to good music played by virtuous musicians will not only
induce temperance, but will also help fortify the human soul so that it is capable of
combatting certain vices. In short, music is a powerful tool to moderate emotion
and to avoid vice. In addition, it can also bring a moderate amount of pleasure to
one’s life that is associated with the tranquillity of mind. In this regard, music is
given an essential role in Cardano’s philosophy of life.
In his attempt to account for music’s power to influence the affections in his
De musica, Cardano addresses the ancient and medieval view that specific musical
modes would have specific emotional effects.36 He reports that ‘concerning the
33
Cardano, De utilitate, OO, vol.2, p.117; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, p.199.
34
Cardano, De tranquillitate, OO, vol.2, pp.299–371. Chap.42, ‘On the lyra and the lyre’, is
translated in Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, pp.199–206.
35
Eugene Rice, The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom (Cambridge, MA, 1958), p.173.
36
Cardanus, ‘De musica’, chap.13, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, pp.97–101, ‘Modes’.
nature of the modes, Plato considered the Lydian useless … The Mixolydian was
suitable for tragedies because it affected the emotions … The Mixolydian is joined
to the Dorian in tragedies, for the latter is filled with majesty, and tragedy has both
majesty and emotional meaning.’ Moreover, Aristotle states ‘that the Mixolydian
was effective in causing weeping and commiseration, and that the Phrygian caused
fury and was inimical to peace of mind. So he approved of the Dorian above all,
for it withdrew from passionate emotions and led to moderation.’37 Yet in contrast
with ancient and medieval theories in which certain musical modes were linked
with specific affections and mental states such as love, hate and sleep, Cardano’s
treatment of the subject bears witness to his awareness that music cannot carry
specific meaning in the same way as language.38 Moreover, he acknowledges that
an affection is not induced simply by hearing a specific pattern of musical conso-
nances and dissonances, but by the context in which these combinations of tones
appear:
better things are always pleasing after worse ones, but the opposite is displeasing.
So light pleases after darkness, sweetness after bitterness, oil of roses after dill,
and consonances after dissonances.39
Hence ‘happiness’, as one of the affections that can be induced by music, is not a
characteristic of a certain musical mode, but will most likely appear when a musi-
cian modulates in a certain passage from a musical passage with dissonances asso-
ciated with fear and tension to one with consonances associated with relaxation.
In chapter 18 of his De musica, Cardano discusses the advantages and disad-
vantages one can gain from making or listening to music in further detail. Music
can be used as a tool for the care of the self in three ways. First, music ‘pertains to
instruction and study’; second, it can be used for ‘the cleansing of the spirit’; or,
third, music is pertinent ‘to spending time pleasurably in leisure, tranquillity, and
freedom from the pressure of more serious matters’.40 Ultimately, the three con-
verge in one theory of the musical cultivation of a tranquil soul, in which mental
problems can be cured by tempering certain affections:
Teachers and disciplinarians have agreed on the expiative and purgative force of
strong affections. When these affections subside they may become excessively
reversed and softened by giving way especially to affections of misery and pity,
37
Ibid., pp.100–1 (translation modified).
38
On Cardano’s theory of musical affects, see Moyer, Musica Scientia, pp.163–8; and
Schütze, ‘Cardano und die Affektenlehre der Musik’, pp.453–67.
39
Cardano, De subtilitate, OO, vol.3, p.572, translated in Cardanus, Writings on Music,
trans. Miller, p.212.
40
Cardanus, ‘De musica’, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, p.105.
118 Jacomien Prins
causing dejection and depression. Music also was meant to fill such affections
with a certain innocuous pleasure.41
Understanding how the ancient Greeks could cleanse the spirit musically becomes
one of the ruling passions of Cardano’s life. In his De tranquillitate he addresses the
theme again in order to find a cure for an unquiet human mind. The diagnosis of
this disease is formulated by the philosopher in the dialogue:
Since this tract is long enough, it is sufficient in the remaining part to show how
men daily are distracted and even tormented with vain desires. We seek pleasure
that is either good or bad, useful or useless, attainable or unattainable, and in this
way we spend our entire life, just as did Tantalus.42
This reference to the punishment of Tantalus, who longed for water he could not
drink and food he could not eat, is a simile for people who during their lives on
earth cannot reach the spiritual food that they need in order to reach happiness in
life. However, if one would begin a more virtuous and fulfilling life by learning how
to play a musical solo instrument, Cardano – through the persona of the philoso-
pher in the dialogue De tranquillitate – warns that this might turn out to be a less
effective remedy than originally thought. Mastering an instrument involves a lot of
practice, discipline and concentration, and often turns out to be a frustrating activ-
ity, which is ‘hostile to tranquillity’ because ‘the source of this impediment is found
nowhere else than in ourselves’.43 Having discussed the great inconvenience of the
contemporary lyre with strings which ‘when they are tuned break from humidity
and rain or from dryness and wind’, the philosopher in this passage nevertheless
comes to the conclusion that it is the most perfect instrument. Moreover, he argues
that it is similar to the ancient lyra, and therefore should be used to revive ancient
Greek secret musical powers such as catharsis:44
The lyre possesses a mellifluous suavity found in no other instrument. From this
it is thought that Orpheus moved rocks and trees with the lyra, not to mention
that with it he also compelled brute animals to dance. In this way also he saved
Eurydice from the underworld gods and brought her back to the upper regions
of earth.45
Subsequently, Cardano – through his representative, the philosopher – makes it

clear that he attributes the most extensive emotional power in music to vocal music
or song, and that it is the text that is responsible for an additional power: ‘the lyre
41
Ibid. (translation modified).
42
De tranquillitate, OO vol.2, p.343; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, p.200.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid.
45
De tranquillitate, OO, vol.2, p.345; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, p.202
(translation modified).
blends well with every other instrument, but above all with the human voice, so that
one who plays it beautifully seems to be a god among mortals’.46 Notwithstanding
his negative opinion about the singers of his time, Cardano seems still to firmly
believe in the power of vocal music. Fully in line with the musical aesthetics of his
time, he is convinced that a combination of words and tones has the most powerful
effect on the human mind, because together they seize the mind in its entirety.
As explained above, the musical cultivation of a tranquil soul can be best
achieved by the imitation of strong affections in music, which will induce cathar-
sis.47 Cardano gives an example of how a ‘negative’ emotion can be induced by a
particular kind of musical figure: ‘a mood of commiseration by slow and serious
notes by dropping downward suddenly from a high range imitates the manner of
those who weep’.48 If musical figures, such as slow and serious descending notes,
imitate certain physical manifestations, such as weeping, this can lead to a ben-
eficial release of the emotion.49 If someone would listen to a kind of mournful
monodic song performed by a singer and a lyre player together, it could induce a
form of musical catharsis resulting in a more carefree mood:50
Therefore, if there is an instrument appropriate to tranquillity and also a relation

of metre and poetry to it, the instrument will be a cithara and the song will be
mournful and almost tragic. In this way we can lighten the cares that result from
the misery of human misfortune.51
Music is presented here as a leisure activity providing temporary freedom from

care.
De tranquillitate also includes a small musical composition with a text by
Cardano, which is meant as an opiate to sorrow (see Plate 6.1). The accompanying
lute music, presumably composed by his friend Giudeo, is an example of how
knowledge of ancient Greek powerful music was reinvented in Italy in the second
half of the sixteenth century.52
46
De tranquillitate, OO, vol.2, p.345; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, pp.202–3
(translation modified).
47
Cardanus, ‘De musica’, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, pp.142–4.
48
Ibid., p.143.
49
Moyer, Musica Scientia, p.167.
50
On the Aristotelian theory of musical catharsis, see Aristotle, Politics, 1339a11–1342b34,
translated in Greek Musical Writings, ed. Andrew Barker, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1984–9),
vol.1, pp.172–82.
51
Cardano, De tranquillitate, OO, vol.2, p.345; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller,
p.204. The title of this chapter is taken from this quotation.
52
Henry Morley, Jerome Cardan: The Life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, Physician, 2 vols
(London, 1854), vol.1, pp.239–40. Morley refers to Giudeo as ‘a composer who was
then ninety-seven years old’. Presumably, this is the famous Jewish lutenist Gian Maria
Giudeo, who worked at the Medici court.
120 Jacomien Prins
Plate 6.1 (above and opposite) Girolamo Cardano, ‘Lament’ in De tranquillitate, OO,
vol. 2, pp. 346–7. Reproduced from the facsimile reprint of Cardano’s Opera Omnia with
the kind permission of Frommann-Holzboog Verlag e.K.
The English translation of Cardano’s Lament is as follows:
A purple flower cut by the hard plough

droops, so to me my dying son appears;
worthy a Nestor’s life, I see him bow
under the axe, and long upon mine ears
murmurs a voice, ‘O pitiable sire!’
it says, ‘O infant born hard years to know!
Three souls at once under one stroke expire, –
my own death is the least part of my woe.
My little child, my father’s age, I mourn,
the piteous image fills me with alarm;
though I die young, and give the senses born
for loving nurture to the headsman’s arm,
while evil-doers sheltered by your laws
drag life with gladness through the ways of crime,
I heed not that. A keener sorrow draws
my spirit downward. In the coming time,
my noble father, solace who shall give
to your great sorrow; who, firm to your side,
will be your comrade onward? Ah, yet live!
To you our helpless infant I confide.
Harden his soul to bear the hurts of fate.
Cherish the grandchild; in his bloom behold
your son again – Oh, wish that comes too late!
Could but my dying arms you both enfold!
In vain. I tell my last desires, and fade
departing through eternal shades. Farewell!’
God covered up the stars when this was said;
Brutes moaned, and, dropping from the rock, tears fell.
122 Jacomien Prins
In this ‘Lament’ (or ‘Dirge’) on the death of his son, Cardano and Giudeo follow
a set of rules of imitation, according to which art should imitate both classical
Greek and Roman poetry and music, and the objects and events of ordinary life,
in order to be pleasurable and effective.53 Music should be modelled after both
ancient Greek musical modes and the four basic affections of sorrow, joy, tranquil-
lity and excitement. The Lydian mode is appropriate for consolation in distress,
and commiseration can be musically expressed by imitating ‘the manner of those
who weep, for at first they wail in a very high and clear voice and then they end
by dropping into a very low and rather muffled groan’.54 In the ‘Lament’, this is
translated into a specific use of rhythm, pitches and scales. First, to express the
meaning of the text rhythmically, in the word ‘doloris’ (‘woe’, line 6), for example,
the second consonant is given a long note followed by two short notes in order
to depict a sob. Furthermore, to express the meaning of the text melodically, the
word ‘doloris’ (‘sorrow’, line 18) is depicted by slow and serious, dropping notes.55
Moreover, in the line ‘Nunc tres concordes anima moriemur in una’ (‘Three souls
at once under one stroke expire’, line 7), the expiration is musically expressed by
repetition on the same low pitch. This is contrasted with words such as ‘coelo’ and
‘Deus’ (‘God covered up the stars when this was said’, line 27), which are given the
highest pitches of the whole composition. Musically, the composition is an aural
picture of the consoling hope that the soul of Cardano’s son will have a blessed life
in the hereafter. This hope was quite vain against the backdrop of the Christian
belief that sinners such as Cardano’s son, who murdered his wife, were punished
in the hereafter. We may only hope that Cardano’s ‘Lament’ had a self-consolatory
quality and that his enormous grief about the death of his son was lightened by his
self-induced music therapy.
Conclusion
The myth of Orpheus experienced a genuine revival during the Italian Renaissance
because it was believed to provide new answers to questions surrounding the mys-
teries of the cosmos, man and music. The myth was read by Renaissance scholars
on at least two levels: a literal one, referring denotatively to a historical figure in the
possession of the key to knowledge about the universe; and a metaphorical one,
referring connotatively to musical practices based on this knowledge. The balance
between both levels was different in the philosophy of Ficino and Cardano, but
they shared the belief that by studying and reviving an Orphic singing practice one
could master harmful demons, unruly passions and overwhelming affections or
emotions, which they associated with the wild beasts that Orpheus had enchanted
in the famous myth.
During the Italian Renaissance, it became increasingly important to imitate and
express aspects of (human) nature in music. For this purpose, Italian Renaissance
scholars such as Ficino and Cardano took the ancient Greek doctrine of imitation
53
Cardanus, ‘De musica’, chap.36, Writings on Music, trans. Miller, pp.142–4.
54
Ibid., p.143.
55
Cardano, De tranquillitate, OO, vol.2, p.346; Cardanus, Writings on Music, trans. Miller,
p.205.
as their point of departure, that is to say, they argued for the imitation of nature as
the basis for musical expression. The myth of Orpheus functioned as a source of
inspiration for ways in which one could manipulate the natural and the supernat-
ural with music. In some of these interpretations Orpheus was envisaged above
all as a divine being with supernatural, musical-magical powers, and in others as a
human being who was capable of purging his spirit of mournful emotions by wit-
nessing the playing out of such emotions during a musical experience. In sum, for
many Italian Renaissance scholars the myth of Orpheus functioned as an excellent
focus for reflecting on music’s power to alter the nature of the human psyche to the
extent of conquering even deadly sorrow. These reflections were so powerful and
convincing that they became a lasting paradigm for musical experience in Western
culture.
7
Origin Myths, Genealogies and Inventors:

Defining the Nature of Music
in Early Modern England
Katherine Butler
I n early modern England, a traditional starting point for essays on music was its
origins and invention. The Elizabethans inherited numerous myths and theories
from classical mythology, bird-lore, the Bible, theology and ancient philosophical
thought. These myths included Pythagoras’s discovery of the principles of harmony
in a blacksmith’s hammers, Jubal the biblical inventor of harps and instruments, the
assertion that humanity learned music from the birds and the breeze, the Greek
inventors of instruments including Amphion, Orpheus, Mercury and Pan, not to
mention Pythagorean and Platonic notions of universal harmony.1 To our current
mind-set, these myths – and, indeed, discussion of music’s origins – are mere curi-
osities; however, authors who wrote in praise of music in early modern England
did so against a backdrop of radical Protestant attacks on music, which flared up at
regular intervals throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.2 Issues such
as whether music was a gift originating from God, or a worldly, human endeavour,
had a particular immediacy and relevancy in this context. While music’s defenders
would typically go on to explain music’s wondrous effects, it was through these
stories of origin and invention that thinkers put forward their theories concerning
the circumstances and reasons for music’s existence.
Authors drawing on these origin myths were faced with the tricky task of
charting a path through competing and contradictory stories in order to achieve
a meaningful argument. These origin myths explained both the creation of divine
and natural harmony, and the development of the human art of music. Moreover,
as the term ‘invention’ in the early modern period encompassed both aspects of
what we today separate as ‘discovery’ and ‘invention’, the inventors of music could
1
For the medieval approaches to this tradition, see the chapters of Elina Hamilton
and Jason Stoessel in this collection. On Jubal/Tubal and Pythagoras, see: James W.
McKinnon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras, quis sit inventor musicae?’, The Musical Quarterly 64
(1978), 1–28; Carla Bromberg, ‘A Preliminary Study of the Origin of Music in Cinquec-
ento Musical Treatises’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 41
(2010), 161–83.
2
See for example, Rob C. Wegman, The Crisis of Music in Early Modern Europe, 1470–1530
(New York, 2005); Jonathan Willis, Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation
England: Discourses, Sites and Identities (Farnham, 2010), pp.11–80; and Jamie Apgar’s
chapter in this collection.
The Nature of Music in Early Modern England 125
be variously said to have been gifted the knowledge from God, to have discovered
harmony in nature, or to have fashioned the musical instrument or art through
their own intellect.3 While some regarded the various inventors of music as his-
torical humans who had become treated as gods because of their great discoveries,
most found it productive to read myths allegorically to draw out deeper conceptual
truths about music. Similarly, it was not uncommon for authors to combine these
historical and allegorical readings.4
At their least coherent, the relation of music’s origins in Elizabethan treatises
collapses into a mere listing of all the possible theories, their contradictions left
unreconciled.5 For others, however, the narratives employed to select, organ-
ise and explain their mythical materials reveal much about their conception of
music and their strategy for its defence. This chapter explores how early modern
English authors writing in the ‘praise of music’ tradition constructed their own
mythical narratives and allegorical characters as a framework for organising the
various stories and putting forth their philosophies of music. In doing so, they
both asserted music’s status and defined its nature. Some used the language of
parentage and offspring to affirm music’s antiquity and moral legitimacy, while
others grappled with the complex relationship of music to the divine, human and
natural realms.6 Moreover, the conclusions they reached were slowly shifting:
whereas late sixteenth-century writers tended to emphasise the divine inspiration
behind humanity’s musical endeavours, growing confidence in both humanity’s
ability to master the acoustical secrets of nature and in modern music’s progress
beyond that of the Ancients, gradually encouraged more human-centred narra-
tives of music’s origins.
Music’s Antiquity and Parentage

At a time when Humanist thinkers looked to the ancient world for their intel-
lectual inspiration, demonstrating music’s antiquity and mythical ancestry was
an important means of establishing its cultural status. Polydore Vergil’s De inven-
toribus rerum was a major source for discussions of music’s origins (there was an
abridged version in English in 1546 that went through numerous editions), and
his approach focused on the earliest individual musicians named by classical and
Hebrew authorities. Vergil recounts, for example, that Pliny regarded Amphion
3
Catherine Atkinson, Inventing Inventors in Renaissance Europe: Polydore Vergil’s De
inventoribus rerum (Tübingen, 2007), pp.17–19.
4
On strategies of interpreting myth: Arthur B. Ferguson, Utter Antiquity: Perceptions of
Prehistory in Renaissance England (Durham, NC, 1993), pp.13–60; Jean Seznec, The Sur-
vival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and its Place in Renaissance Human-
ism and Art (New York, 1953), pp.11–147.
5
For example, Lodowick Lloyd, The Pilgrimage of Princes, Penned Out of Sundry Greek
and Latin Authors (London, 1573), fol.112v–115r.
6
Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth, and the Musician in Early Modern
England’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 51 (1998), 1–47.
126 Katherine Butler
son of Jupiter as the first finder of music, while Josephus attributes the discovery
to ‘Tubalcain, an Hebrew’.7
In the latter half of the sixteenth century, however, English writers praising
music tended to begin by undermining the whole idea of seeking out music’s ori-
gins among these demi-gods and early humans. Instead, the ultimate strategy was
to trace music’s origins back to God, thereby asserting music’s timeless value and
divinity beyond other arts. The musician and autobiographer Thomas Whythorne
makes this argument on the basis of scriptural references to heavenly song, angel
music and celestial trumpets, which, he argues, prove that music existed in heaven
before Creation:
Now considering that it is not to be doubted that there is heavenly music or

music in heaven, it is not otherwise to be thought but that it was used before
the world began, or else you must grant that it was learned there since the world
began, which is most unlike to be true. It is more like that God gave the same gift
unto his angels and ministers before the world began.8
Others made similar arguments from a Neoplatonic stance. An early Jacobean

‘Praise of Music’, found only in manuscript, traces a three-stage origin for musical
harmony from angelic music, passed to the cosmos and the earth in Creation, and
finally to humanity via the actions of Adam:
for so soon as after his creation through disobedience he had procured to the
earth a curse … God in mercy pitying the misery of man … instructed his
grandchild Tubal in the excellent skill of music and making of instruments to
the end that in the midst of his toilsome labour he and his posterity might take
delight and pleasure in the painful passing over of their life by that most excellent
skill of music.9
As the latter part of this extract reveals, there is usually more at stake than merely
proving that music was as old as Creation itself. Consideration of origins often
opened up deeper issues concerning music’s nature and purpose. In this early
Jacobean treatise, the author’s ultimate aim was to prove ‘the necessary use of it
[music] in the service and Christian Church of God’. Therefore, in this narrative
music emerges as a special gift from God given directly to humanity. Indeed, this
author gives no space to the classical inventors of music, preferring instead to
focus on biblical musicians (such as King David) and music’s divine justification
7
Polydore Vergil, An Abridgement of the Notable Work of Polydore Vergil Containing the
Devisers and First Finders Out as well of Arts, Ministries, Feats and Civil Ordinances, as
of Rites, and Ceremonies, Commonly used in the Church, ed. Thomas Langley (London,
1546), fol.xxi verso–xxv recto (fol.xxii). There were three editions in 1546 and a further
three in 1551, c.1560 and 1659.
8
James Marshall Osborn, ed., The Autobiography of Thomas Whythorne (Oxford, 1961),
p.222.
9
‘The Praise of Music’, London, British Library: Royal MS 18 B XIX (early Jacobean),
fol.1r–v.
(though a few ancient philosophers are admitted as witnesses of music’s virtuous

effects). The author continues by explaining that music’s seemingly more limited
powers in modern times are a result of man’s corrupted nature. While Adam had a
‘pure natural body’, succeeding generations have been increasingly ‘corrupted by
external commixtion coming of sustenance’.10 Humanity has been diluted by the
natural world through the food and water people must consume, implicitly making
us less human and more earthly and therefore less sensitive to music’s powers.
This implicitly counters arguments for music’s morally corrupting influence by
reversing the argument to suggest, in contrast, that it is humanity that is corrupt
and therefore less able to take advantage of music’s beneficial qualities.11
Most authors were not so willing to jettison all the classical myths of music’s
origins and inventions, but they similarly selected and arranged them according
to their broader purposes and theories. The anonymous author of The Praise of
Music (1586) was primarily concerned with establishing music’s moral legitimacy
and saw this challenge as parallel to how one might establish the reputation, status
and lineage of a person. The personification of music as a woman had its origins
in antiquity and depictions of Lady Music are found from early medieval times
onwards.12 Yet in this treatise the allegory is no longer a static, timeless representa-
tion of music. Rather, Lady Music is given parents, ancestors, offspring and a life-
cycle, which provide a narrative thread to this author’s re-telling of the origins of
music.
Music is first presented to the reader in the preface as ‘so sweet, so good, so
virtuous, so comely a matron among other arts’.13 Defining her as a matron implies
motherhood, maturity and respectability. Yet in the opening chapter, the author
finds this respectability difficult to establish due to the uncertainty that arises from
the competing myths. In human genealogy, legitimacy is founded on birth and par-
entage, but the details of music’s nativity were obscure because her ‘continuance is
great but not defined, her birth day ancient but not dated’.14 The author sidesteps
this initial problem using the same strategy we saw above: making music so ancient
10
Ibid., fol.2r.
11
For examples of arguments regarding music’s corrupting influence, see Stephen
Gosson, The School of Abuse Containing a Pleasant Invective Against Poets, Pipers, Play-
ers, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth (London, 1597), fols.7r–11r;
Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses Containing a Discovery, or Brief Summary of Such
Notable Vices and Imperfections, as now Reign in Many Christian Countries of the World
(London, 1583), sigs.O3v–[O7]r.
12
See Jason Stoessel’s chapter in this collection; Tilman Seebass, ‘Lady Music and Her
“Proteges” from Musical Allegory to Musicians’ Portraits’, Musica Disciplina 42 (1988),
23–61; Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘“My Mother Musicke”: Early Modern Music and Fan-
tasies of Embodiment’, Maternal Measures: Figuring Caregiving in the Early Modern
Period, ed. Naomi J. Miller and Naomi Yavneh (Aldershot, 2000), pp.239–81 (240–1,
250–4); Austern, ‘Portrait of the Artist as (Female) Musician’, Musical Voices of Early
Modern Women: Many-Headed Melodies, ed. Thomasin K. LaMay (Aldershot, 2005),
pp.15–62 (22–6).
13
and Church of God (Oxford, 1586), ‘The Preface to the Reader’.
14
Ibid., p.2.
that she predates Creation itself, ‘for time cannot say that he was before her, or
nature that she wrought without her’.15
The author glosses over the relationship between natural and artificial music by
skipping over Music’s early years, so that her reputation might rest on the qualities
of her maturity:
As for her infancy, let us bury it in silence, and wrap up as it were in her swathing
clouts. For no doubt she was not enquired, talked, or written of till she waxed
and grew in years, that is in perfection and ripeness.16
Instead the author begins the tale when Music had come of age and was ‘fit to wed
men’s ears and hearts unto her’.17 Like an Elizabethan woman of marriageable age,
Music’s status depended on her ancestry. Music, however, was ‘challenged by this
nation and that country, so claimed by this man and that God, that it was doubtful
in such variety of judgement, to whom she was most beholding for her birth-
right’.18 At this point the author is taking a risky tack, as Music’s lack of clear par-
entage would seem to imply the taint of illegitimacy. Instead the author attempts
to put a different spin on the situation, arguing that with so many lands, peoples,
gods and even heaven and earth arguing over her, she is shown to be no ‘base born
child’, but rather such a one as ‘commends him that invented her’.19
Music is not only tainted with hints of illegitimacy, but also with promiscuity.
Acknowledging the lack of agreement among authorities regarding the inventors
of various musical instruments, the author admits that ‘because she is as pregnant
as Libia always breeding some new thing … it will be the harder in such fruitful-
ness of issue to father every child aright, and to assign to every one his proper and
peculiar invention’.20 A critic of music could certainly twist this passage to sug-
gest Music’s promiscuity and the illegitimacy of her children, though the author
attempts to present this positively as the productivity and flourishing of music.
The biographical and genealogical narratives that were intended to bring structure
are straining under the weight of the incoherence of the traditional stories, and the
author is in danger of losing control over the allegorical readings of music’s nature
and virtues that he is trying to weave from these myths.
The author’s strongest defence, however, is the illustrious gods whom Music can
claim as her ancestors. The author describes the Muses as ‘christening her Music
after their own name’.21 Moreover, it is not surprising that her mother is many
instead of one, for ‘how could ordinary parents have conceived such extraordinary
perfection?’ The author’s genealogy also provides grandparents for Music: Jupiter,
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., p.3.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid., p.4.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., p.5.
who is explained as symbolising ‘dexterity and quickness of wit’, and Memory, ‘that
aged and reverend mistress of all sciences’.22 Taking another tack, the Graces are
suggested as an alternative set of parents, suggesting Music’s virtuous and attractive
qualities: amiability, youth, chastity with a suggestion of fertility, concord, mirth,
liberty, eternity and purity. The charting of Music’s pedigree is therefore also an
account of the virtues and qualities through which the art arises. ‘How’, the author
asks, ‘can a graceless fruit come of so gracious a stock?’23
Despite the biographical and genealogical models used in this narrative, the
author of The Praise is not writing a history of music, but rather a philosophical
meditation on its nature and qualities. The author does not intend for readers to
believe in these figures as gods, nor to regard them as real historical personages
from ancient times. Rather, the method is allegorical, requiring readers to ‘draw
the veil aside, and look nearer into that, which now we do but glimpse at’ to find
the true meaning behind the narrative created: that music is ‘the gift and invention
of the gods, and therefore ordained to good use and purpose’.24
God, Nature and Humanity

The Praise of Music’s approach to establishing music’s legitimacy as if it were a
person was distinctive, but it was not the only work to use allegory and personifi-
cation as a method for creating a structure for the chaotic collection of tales that
surrounded music’s origins and inventions. Rather than considering its legitimacy
and virtues, however, for other authors allegories were a means of highlighting the
underlying forces and circumstances behind the creation or discovery of music.
The Oxford philosopher and physician John Case used allegory in his Apologia
musices (1588) to draw out perhaps the most thoroughly worked-out conception
of the relationship of divine, natural and human music of any Elizabethan author,
following Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s categorisation of music as ‘natural, celes-
tial and human’ in the second book of De occulta philosophia (1533).25 He dismisses
the competing mythical inventors of music in a sentence and instead asserts his
own reading of Apollo as an allegory of ‘our wise and ever-living God’, before cre-
ating his own mythical account of music’s birth using reproductive metaphors that
briefly echo the genealogical narratives of The Praise of Music.26
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid., pp.5–6.
24
Ibid., p.5.
25
John Case, Apologia musices tam vocalis quam instrumentalis et mixtae (Oxford, 1588),
p.8 (‘musicam naturalam, coelestem, humanam’). All translations from this work are
by Dana F. Sutton www.philological.bham.ac.uk/music/. Accessed 7/9/2015.
26
Ibid., p.1. On debates surrounding whether or not John Case might be the author of
the anonymous The Praise of Music (1586), see: Howard B. Barnett, ‘John Case, an
Elizabethan Music Scholar’, Music and Letters l (1969), 252–66; J.W. Binns, ‘John Case
and The Praise of Musicke’, Music and Letters 55 (1974), 444–53; Ellen E. Knight, ‘The
“Praise of Musicke”: John Case, Thomas Watson and William Byrd’, Current Musicology
30 (1980), 37–59; Hyun-Ah Kim, ed., The Praise of Musicke, 1586: An Edition with Com-
mentary, Music Theory in Britain 1500–1700 (London, 2018), pp.27–49.
Case presents Music as the daughter of God and Nature. These two musical
parents point to the ambivalent nature of music. In its divinity music speaks to
the human mind, the image of God. Indeed, Case argues that the mind arises
from the first cause (i.e. God) and music. As a physical and natural phenomenon,
music delights the ears and senses.27 He traces a clear line of descent from music’s
divine origins, through the celestial spheres to its infusion in Nature, until music is
made vocal and instrumental by ‘a kind of human imitation’ and finally ‘polished
by art, usage and experience’.28 He interposes nature between God and humanity
such that human music is seen as an imitation of the divine harmony as revealed
via nature. This hierarchical chain from God via nature to humanity is similar to
that later depicted in Robert Fludd’s ‘Integrae naturae speculum artisque imago’
(‘Mirror of the Whole of Nature, and the Image of Art’).29 Here Lady Nature is
firmly chained to a godly hand, while she simultaneously holds the chain that more
loosely controls the Ape of Nature, Art. Although inferior in status, nevertheless
the Ape can improve upon Nature, even as it serves her.30 Case’s conception is
slightly modified by his belief that music acts as a direct link between God and the
human mind or soul, such that humanity’s relationship with music can be both
divine and worldly. Ultimately this close interrelationship enables him to form the
foundation of his argument in defence of music: that ‘we are injurious to God, to
ourselves, and to Nature if we should debar it from heaven, from the church, from
the marketplace, from men’s public, and private employment’.31
Elizabethan theories of procreation, however, mean that Case’s union of God
and Nature was no equal partnership. Women were often considered to be simply
the vessels to carry the child and provide the matter and nourishment, while the
male semen gave the form of the child.32 That this is what Case had in mind is
clear from his later adaptation of the personification to make God the ‘author’
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid., p.3 (‘musica a Deo orta, motibus caelestium corporum insita, rebus singulis et
effectis naturae secundum divinam providentiam infusa, ab hominibus imitatione
quadam vocalis ac instrumentalis (ut aiun) facta, a maioribus honorifice suscepta, arte,
usu, experentia perpolita …’).
29
Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris et minoris metaphysica, physica, atque technica
historia, 2 vols (Oppenheim, 1617), vol.1, pp.4–5. Fludd attended St John’s College,
Oxford, where Case had previously been a Fellow, and shared his profession as a phy-
sician as well as his musical interests.
30
Austern, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth’; Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘“ ’Tis Nature’s Voice”: Music,
Natural Philosophy and the Hidden World in Seventeenth-Century England’, Music
Theory and Natural Order from the Renaissance to the Early Twentieth Century, ed.
Suzannah Clark and Alexander Rehding (Cambridge, 2001), pp.30–67 (45–7).
31
Case, Apologia musices, p.4 (‘iniuriosi Deo, nobis, naturae sumus si a coelo, a templo, a
foro, si a publico et privato usu hominum’).
32
Jennifer Wynne Hellwarth, The Reproductive Unconscious in Late Medieval and Early
Modern England (New York, 2002), pp.2–4; Ian Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of
Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intel-
lectual Life (Cambridge, 1980), p.74.
and Nature the ‘nurse’ of music.33 Case’s Nature is a passive vessel for God’s har-
monious creativity. Here Case follows a Reformation theology that saw God as
the only active force in existence and Nature as passive, made and controlled by
God for the sake of humanity.34 Case’s language implies God’s active role in tuning
creation’s harmony, whether by touching Nature’s lyre or tuning the spheres, and
believes music to have been ‘granted us for the worship of God and the consolation
of human life’.35
Nor does Nature have any proactive influence over humanity for Case, being
merely a model for imitation. Nature was frequently portrayed as the source of
inspiration for people’s discovery of music in their attempts to imitate nature, typ-
ically birdsong or whistling breezes.36 The premise that humanity could learn from
nature’s harmonies informed Charles Butler’s transcription of the ‘music’ of hum-
ming bees in staff notation and his later transformation of these sounds in a ‘bees’
madrigal’.37 While our immediate perception might be that Butler has musicalised
their hum into the more perfect form of the human art, Butler’s words blur the
hierarchies and boundaries of art and nature. Butler claims to show ‘the grounds
of their art’ and if any listener finds the dissonances that result in the bees’ practice
too harsh, Butler argues that ‘he showeth himself no experienced artist’.38 Later, in
a nod to creation stories that credited natural sounds as the inspiration for human
music, he claims that ‘if music were lost, it might be found with the Muses’ birds’.39
33
Case, Apologia musices, pp.5–6 (‘authorem’ and ‘nutricem’).
34
Austern, ‘’Tis Nature’s Voice’, p.38; Gary B. Deason, ‘Reformation Theology and the
Mechanistic Conception of Nature’, God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encoun-
ter Between Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers
(Berkeley, 1986), pp.167–91 (175–85).
35
Case, Apologia musices, pp.7–9 (‘primus motor veluti plectro suo cytharam naturae
tangit’; ‘ex corporibus dextra Dei perpetuo circumrotatis ... sonus’; ‘quae ad Dei cultum
vitaeque humanae solamen datur’).
36
This Renaissance origin myth was perhaps inspired by the Roman poet Titus Carus
Lucretius, De rerum natura, ed. and trans. William Ellery Leonard (New York, 1916),
Book V, lines 1379–415 http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0550.
phi001.perseus-eng1:5.1379-5.1415. Accessed 23/12/2017; or in a more general sense by
Pliny’s account of the nightingale teaching and learning its song, Natural History, ed.
and trans. H. Rackman (Cambridge, MA, 1938), Book X, Section 43, pp.334–7. The
avian origins of music also had a medieval precedent in Johannes Aegidius of Zamora’s
thirteenth-century Ars Musica, though the majority of medieval writers denied bird-
song the status of music on the grounds that music was a rational, human activity: Eliz-
abeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds: Music, Nature and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca,
2007), pp.72–4, 274 and 284. For the continued influence of birdsong in discussion of
music’s origins see Matthew Head, ‘Birdsong and the Origins of Music’, Journal of the
Royal Musical Association 122 (1997), 1–23 (12–17).
37
Austern, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth,’ pp.8–17; Nan Cooke Carpenter, ‘Charles Butler and
the Bees’ Madrigal’, Notes and Queries 200 (1955), 103–6; Charles Butler, The Feminine
Monarchy or A Treatise Concerning Bees and the due Ordering of Them (Oxford, 1609),
sig.F[1]r; The Feminine Monarchy: or The History of Bees (London, 1623), sigs.K4v–L2r.
38
Butler, The Feminine Monarchy (1623), sig.K4r.
39
Ibid.
Despite the advantages of human music shown in his transcriptions and com-
position – not least humanity’s ability to record these sounds – Butler neverthe-
less calls into question the superiority of human music over the natural: nature is
intended to provide humanity with a model for developing its own art of music
and if human ears do not like what they hear then the fault lies with humanity, not
the bees. Similarly, in his music treatise he asserts the superiority of the voice – the
natural instrument – over manmade musical instruments.40 The suggestion is that
humanity can mimic and perhaps even refine nature, but not rival it, as music’s
foundations are ultimately those of nature.
Case too avoids a clear-cut hierarchy between natural and artificial music,
though for different reasons. For Case, the God-created harmony of the mind
means that human music – though able to be learned from nature – is ultimately
inspired by the divine. He believes that the first design of instruments originated
with God, reading this as the meaning behind the classical stories attributing
instruments to various divinities.41 Similarly, he argues for the parity of vocal (natu-
ral) and instrumental (artificial) music in divine worship, because both are created
by a person through divine inspiration:
A man indeed has done this, who, after he has conceived celestial harmony in his
mind, touches, strikes and moves instruments with finger, plectrum and breath,
and shapes, forms and modulates their voices and tongues in accordance with
divine inspiration and affection.42
Moreover, the union of instrumental and vocal music is the most divine because
it combines art and nature, with their shared foundation that – as we saw in Case’s
line of descent above – can ultimately be traced back to God.
Case and Fludd’s image of the relationship between divine, human and natu-
ral music was by no means the only conception. The earliest of the Elizabethan
‘praise of music’ pieces is the Commendation of Music and a Confutation of them
which Dispraise it by the otherwise unknown Nicholas Whight. Printed as a sin-
gle-sheet publication, most likely in 1563, this was essentially a poeticised summary
of Polydore Vergil’s De inventoribus rerum.43 Following Vergil’s person-centred
account, Whight minimises the role of God in his account of music’s origins,
despite recounting numerous biblical musicians. Yet Whight adds a distinctive
narrative through the addition of two allegories: Dame Nature and Dame Reason.
40
Charles Butler, The Principles of Music, in Singing and Setting with the Two-Fold Use
Thereof, Ecclesiastical and Civil (London, 1636), p.95.
41
Case, Apologia musices, p.38.
42
Ibid., p.39 (‘Tribuit quidem homo, qui postquam coelestem harmoniam animo con-
cepit suo, digito, plectro, flatu tangit, pulsat, movetque instrumenta, eorumque voces
et linguas pro divino afflatu et affectu format, flectit, moderatur’).
43
Nicholas Whight, A Commendation of Music and a Confutation of them which Dispraise
it (London, 1563). Whight’s verses were unlikely to have been intended for singing as
there is no indication of tune or demarcation of stanzas.
Whight begins with Nature seeing the troubles of humanity and granting him
the gift of music to drive away their cares. Just as Nature taught the birds to sing,
so she teaches nurses to sing to children, and ploughmen and carters to sing to
ease their toils. For Whight then, natural music is not merely the music of the nat-
ural world, but also the untutored singing of humanity. This idea was not uncom-
mon. The author of the Praise of Music would later describe this as the ‘instinct’
of the harmonious soul which ‘compelled’ even ‘ignoble persons’ to whistle or
sing.44 Moreover, for Whight Nature is not passive material to be imitated, but an
active tutor of humanity. Indeed, one myth often cited in the sixteenth century had
people taught to sing by the birds, particularly the nightingale.45
Unlike Case and Butler, Whight does, however, draw a clear hierarchical dis-
tinction between the music taught by Dame Nature and that inspired by Dame
Reason. While Whight sees Nature as the source of humanity’s innate musical-
ity, the origins of art music are presented as inspired by human ingenuity. He
continues:
Indeed I think soon after that, dame Nature made the sound:
That Reason did the measure make, the concord and the ground.
And then in Mercury first it wrought, as author of the same.46
Here he refers to the myth that Mercury created music in three parts ‘set and pro-
portioned to the three times of the year, the bass to winter, the treble to summer,
the mean to the spring, being a mild season between summer and winter’ (as the
Praise of Music put it).47 Whight suggests that Nature has provided the basis for
melodious sound production, but Reason has discovered the principles of har-
mony and metre. Furthermore, Reason goes on to devise instruments, inspiring ‘a
forward wit in Mercury, for to invent the same’. There follows the tale of Mercury
coming across a dead tortoise where just a few dry sinews remained stretched
across the shell. Noting the musical sound they made, he went on to use this prin-
ciple to create the first harp. Whight’s emphasis on this being ‘by th’invent of his
brain’ emphasises the reason and wit of man as creating a sophisticated musical art
distinct from natural music in its understanding of harmony, control of polyphonic
voices and new technologies of musical production.
The absence of the divine influence is atypical in sixteenth-century accounts
of music’s origins, but Whight’s emphasis on the rationality and inventiveness of
44
The Praise of Music, p.43.
45
For example: Pierre Boaistuau, Theatrum Mundi: The Theatre or Rule of the World,
Wherein may be Seen the Running Race and Course of Every Man’s Life, as Touching Misery
and Felicity, trans. John Alday (London, 1566), sig.[C6v]. On the early modern fascina-
tion with the relationship between birdsong and human music see Austern, ‘Nature,
Culture, Myth’, pp.18–24; Richard A. Jensen, ‘Birdsong and the Imitation of Birdsong
in the Music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance’, Current Musicology 40 (1985),
50–65.
46
Whight, A Commendation of Music.
47
The Praise of Music, p.11.
the musical can be explained both by his paraphrasing of Vergil’s De inventoribus

(which is primarily concerned with earthly origins and inventors) and by Whight’s
polemical strategy. His closing shot to those who would condemn music declares
such an opinion to be ‘a great dispraise to his wit’. He irreverently compares the
music critic’s words to ‘wind’, implicitly contrasting their unreasoned words with
the rationality of music. Nevertheless, the relationship between natural and human
music is a recurring issue across all these defences of music, and this narrative
of nature being superseded by reason enables Whight to organise his account of
music’s origins to suit his approach to music’s defence. Moreover, his emphasis
on human reason would become an increasingly dominant approach during the
seventeenth century.
From Jarring Winds to Organ’s City

Contemplation of the divine, natural and human origins of music continued to
follow similar themes from the sixteenth into the seventeenth centuries. Yet the
discourse of the origins of music was not untouched in a century defined by new
experimental approaches to natural philosophy through which it was believed
humanity might gain a new understanding and mastery of the natural world, and
which saw both new acoustical investigations into the properties of sound and
renewed mathematical interest in the definition of harmony.48 Natural harmony
could not just be imitated, but perfected by rational and mechanical control. There
was a fascination with how human ingenuity might surpass nature with new inven-
tions and instruments, extending human abilities and natural harmony.49
Whereas The Praise of Music and John Case’s Apologia musices were typical of the
Elizabethan emphasis on God as the inspiration for human musicality, in the latter
half of the seventeenth century there was a growing emphasis on human endeavour
in the portrayal of music’s origins and development. The way in which humanity
had come to discover music was becoming significant. Francis Bacon had criti-
cised earlier writers on the first inventors of things for celebrating ‘chance [rather]
than art’. The stories leave humanity ‘beholden to the nightingale for music … to
chance, to anything else, rather than to logic’.50 In the musical section of Thomas
Powell’s Human Industry or, A History of Most Manual Arts (1661), the narrative
materials are familiar, but the story is now a human-centred one. While still begin-
48
See for example, Penelope Gouk, ‘Acoustics in the Early Royal Society 1660–1680’,
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 36 (1982), 155–75; Penelope Gouk,
Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, 1999);
Benjamin Wardhaugh, Music, Experiment and Mathematics in England, 1653–1705 (Farn-
ham, 2008).
49
On instruments as the perceived means to improve of human abilities and nature’s
harmony, see: Austern, ‘’Tis Nature’s Voice’, pp.41–4; Austern, ‘Nature, Culture, Myth’,
pp.26–7. On the changing relationship between the natural and the artificial, see Lor-
raine Daston, ‘The Nature of Nature in Early Modern Europe’, Configurations 6 (1998),
149–72.
50
Francis Bacon, The Two Books of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Advancement of
Learning, Divine and Human (London, 1605), fols.48v–49r.
ning with divine and celestial music that taught the human soul to delight in music,
and acknowledging God as humanity’s creator, Powell swiftly moves to a detailed
portrayal of the human body as a musical instrument:
God made the body of man … a kind of a living organ or musical instrument
… There is but one pipe to this organ (to wit) the weasand [i.e. oesophagus];
the lungs are the bellows to make wind, and to inspire this pipe; yet with this
one pipe (being variously stopped) we can express a thousand sorts of notes and
tunes, and make most ravishing music.51
In Powell’s account, it is no longer the physical world or avian singers, but rather
the human body which inspires inventors to improve on nature and create artificial
instruments:
In imitation of this musical pipe in the throat of man, men devised to make
music with a syringe or reed; which being bored with holes, and stopped with
the fingers, and inspired with man’s breath, was made to yield various and
delightful sounds.52
His rehearsal of the invention of the various instruments (biblical and ancient)
ends with the ‘marvellous curiosities’ of more recent times, including ‘a pair of
organs made in Italy that would sound either drum or trumpet, or a full … choir
of men, as the organist pleased’.53
Attitudes to nature had undergone some fundamental shifts since the
Elizabethan authors. In a shift of emphasis from the naturally harmonious world of
the Elizabethan ‘praise of music’ texts, seventeenth-century perceptions of nature
increasingly emphasised its unruly and wild character, and there was a greater
emphasis on the need for humanity’s ability to master and improve on it. In the
frontispiece to Thomas Salmon’s Essay to the Advancement of Music (1672), the
hand of God presents the author’s new system of musical notation as ‘concor-
dia’ opposite the discord of conventional notes and clefs, while Lady Music sits
between a dark, shadowy wood and a light and elegant, formal garden. Untamed
nature is disordered and sinister, while the garden represents humanly imposed
order that perfects nature into new beauty. The implication is that Salmon’s newly
invented notational systems will also apply divinely inspired, human ingenuity to
achieve a new musical order and perfection.54
51
Thomas Powell, Human Industry, or, A History of Most Manual Arts (London, 1661),
pp.102–3.
52
Ibid., p.103.
53
Ibid., pp.108–9.
54
Austern, ‘’Tis Nature’s Voice’, pp.47–9; Thomas Salmon, An Essay to the Advancement
of Music by Casting Away the Perplexity of Different Clefs, and Uniting All Sorts of Music,
Lute, Viol, Violin, Organ, Harpsichord, Voice, &c in One Universal Character (London,
1672).
The difference from the sixteenth-century praises of music is one of emphasis

more than substance, but the portrayal of harmony as less a quality of nature than
a human intervention continues in the poet Andrew Marvell’s ‘Music’s Empire’
(published 1681).55 Here the newly created world is not a harmonious place, but
rather likened to a cymbal, with ‘jarring winds’ and ‘solitary sound’. It was Jubal that
‘first made the wilder notes agree’ and therefore humanity that brought harmony
to nature. Paralleling musical harmony with the development of civil society, Jubal
takes on the attributes of Amphion to found ‘the organ’s city’, while the double
meaning of consort – musical ensemble and spouse – parallels the social organisa-
tion and procreation of humanity with the propagation of musical instruments and
genres. The language of ‘Jubilee’, the punning evocation of Moses in the epithet
‘Mosaic of the Air’, and the idea of calling echoes from their ‘cells’, characterises
humanity’s actions as a liberating music from the strictures of nature. This artificial
music ultimately gains the ‘empire of the ear/Including all between the Earth and
Sphere’.
Yet although ‘victorious’, this music is called to do homage to a ‘gentler
Conqueror’, whose identity is a subject of controversy. Following Jonathan
Goldberg’s interpretation and based on the religious language that underpins the
poem, the conqueror can be considered as Christ, with humanity’s efforts to har-
monise the earth ultimately positioned as second to God’s.56 Other scholars have
read the conqueror as the music-loving Oliver Cromwell – previously praised in
musical terms in Marvell’s ‘The First Anniversary of the Government under O.C.’57
– in which case human harmonic endeavour is the sole subject of this narrative of
music’s origins.58 Either way, Marvell’s story of humanity harmonising a jarring
nature marks a significant shift in the relationship between natural and human
music.
Conclusion
There is one widely known myth that has surprisingly played almost no role in these
English accounts of music’s origins: Pythagoras and his legendary discovery of har-
monic proportions, from hearing the striking of a smith’s hammers (sometimes
also ascribed to the biblical Jubal, whose brother Tubalcain was the first black-
smith59). The omission is significant and strikingly different to Italian treatises of
the cinquecento, in which Carla Bromberg finds Pythagoras or Jubal’s discovery at
55
Andrew Marvell, Miscellaneous Poems (London, 1681), pp.47–8.
56
Jonathan Goldberg, ‘The Typology of “Musicks Empire”’, Texas Studies in Literature
and Language 13 (1971), 421–30.
57
Marvell, Miscellaneous Poems, pp.119–29.
58
Patsy Griffin, The Modest Ambition of Andrew Marvell: A Study of Marvell and his Rela-
tion to Lovelace, Fairfax, Cromwell, and Milton (Newark, 1995), p.91; John Hollander,
The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500–1700 (Princeton, 1961),
pp.310–14.
59
McKinnon, ‘Jubal vel Pythagoras’. See also the chapters of Elina Hamilton and Jason
Stoessel in this collection.
the blacksmith’s workshop are referred to in nearly every treatise.60 The story was
nevertheless well known in early modern England: Edmund Spenser drew on the
myth in Book IV of The Fairy Queen and William Browne in Britannia’s Pastorals;
Robert Dowland mentions it in Variety of Lute-Lessons (1610), and numerous bib-
lical exegetes refer in passing to Jubal’s weighing of his brother’s hammers, suggest-
ing that it would have been common knowledge.61 Partly this can be explained by
the fact that many English authors were following the example of Polydore Vergil.
He had emphasised musical performance and its effects on listeners rather than
compositional development, and in doing so omitted this legend of Pythagoras.62
Yet this notable difference, while otherwise drawing on a common set of materials,
also highlights the different tone and purpose of the English authors’ considera-
tions of music’s origins.
In the Italian treatises, Pythagoras and Jubal are often followed by lists of
contemporary composers and theorists, suggesting that their concern is primar-
ily music’s harmonic development. For theorists such as Zarlino, the story of
Pythagoras/Jubal’s hammers provided a foundational myth from which to build
towards their own musical theories.63 For English authors, the theoretical basis of
music was not the issue at stake. English theoretical treatises were largely practical
guides for amateurs in no need of such speculative discussions of music’s origins.64
Rather, English authors dealing with the origins of music were more likely to be
writing works of philosophy, attempting to define music’s moral, civil and theolog-
ical status in a context in which music’s place in human society – and particularly in
church worship – was regularly questioned. Nor for the most part was their inter-
est in these stories an attempt to find a starting point for a history of music (the
exception being Powell’s Human Industry, which does create a narrative of progress
from the first inventors of instruments to the ingenious modern designs). While
the Pythagoras myth was essential for a narrative of discovering music’s intellectual
and mathematical properties, the story of the hammers had much less to contrib-
ute to an understanding of music’s morality and roles in human life. Spanning the
supernatural, the natural and the artificial, music was simultaneously divine and
heavenly, natural and physical, and the result of human wit and invention. This
60
Bromberg, ‘A Preliminary Study of the Origin of Music’, pp.164–5.
61
Elizabeth Eva Leach, ‘The Unquiet Thoughts of Edmund Spenser’s Scudamour and
John Dowland’s First Booke of Songes’, ‘Uno gentile et subtile ingenio’: Studies in Renais-
sance Music in Honour of Bonnie Blackburn, ed. Gioia Filocamo and M. Jennifer Bloxam,
(Turnhout, 2009), pp.513–20; John M. Steadman, ‘The “Inharmonious Blacksmith”:
Spenser and the Pythagoras Legend,’ PMLA 79 (1964), 664–5; William Browne, Bri-
tannia’s Pastorals: The Second Book (London, 1625), p.127; John Dowland, ‘Other Neces-
sary Observations belonging to the Lute’, Variety of Lute-Lessons viz. Fantasies, Pavans,
Galliards, Almains, Corantos, and Voltas: Selected Out of the Best Approved Authors, as
Well Beyond the Seas as of our own Country, ed. Robert Dowland (London, 1610), sig.
D1r–E1v (sig.D2r).
62
Atkinson, Inventing Inventors, p.164.
63
Bromberg, ‘A Preliminary Study of the Origin of Music’, pp.163–5.
64
Rebecca Herissone, Music Theory in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 2000),
p.224.
gave defenders a three-pronged attack against music’s critics – to deny the benefits
of music was to do injustice to God, the natural world and human nature. In The
Praise of Music, this emphasis on music as an essential constituent of human exist-
ence even inspired a personification that gave music itself a human-like lifespan.
Nevertheless, the arguments being made by English authors would have been
recognised by continental readers. Moreover, such beliefs in the divine origins
of music, the inspirational effect of natural sounds on art music, and the role of
human ingenuity would remain common themes well into the eighteenth cen-
tury. They held their ground even as the writing of music histories developed a
greater concern for verifiable history, before eventually losing ground to newer
theories of music being an innate language of human expression, or having devel-
oped from language.65 These mythical accounts of music’s beginnings continued
to hold importance because of their significance for articulating music’s perceived
relationship to humanity, nature and the divine.
65
Head, ‘Birdsong and the Origins of Music’, pp.1–23.
iv
myth and musical practice

8
How to Sing like Angels: Isaiah, Ignatius of Antioch

and Protestant Worship in England *
Jamie Apgar
R eligions are deeply invested in stories. An important reason for this is their
capacity to make political and moral suggestions through allegory and meta-
phor, but stories also shape religious observance in literal ways. The Last Supper,
recounted in the four gospels, is commemorated not simply in words, but by the
act of breaking bread, a form of remembrance Luke’s version of the story explicitly
commands. Those accounts recall a doctrinally significant episode, but they also
physically inform its ritualisation.1
This chapter examines two stories with a similarly material relationship to litur-
gical tradition. These ancient tales of eminent figures who saw and heard angels
praising God were used in the medieval and early modern periods to assert that
alternating or responsive performance had heavenly roots.2 Changing ritual prac-
tices and contemporary religious politics fundamentally shaped the ways in which
the stories were received. Yet a political narrative of the favour and disfavour they
found offers only a partial picture of their role within contemporary religious
cultures. After explaining their histories, I argue that they appealed to common
beliefs about the spiritual function of music and the effects of collaborative wor-
ship, empowering their survival in the face of critique. I further suggest that this
reflects the capacities of myth to instruct, inspire and explain, not in lieu of, but in
fluid relation to, empirical, rational and critical inquiry.

* The following abbreviations will be used: MECL = Music in Early Christian Literature,
ed. James W. McKinnon (Cambridge, 1987); CCSL = Corpus Christianorum Series
Latina (Turnhout, 1953–); CCCM = Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis
(Turnhout, 1976–); PL = Patrologiae Cursus Completus … Series Latina, ed. Jacques-
Paul Migne (Paris, 1844–55); STC = A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave, A Short-Title
Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed
Abroad, 1475–1640, 2nd edn (London, 1976–86). Latin translations are my own unless
otherwise indicated, but I am grateful to Leofranc Holford-Strevens and Sean Curran
for assistance with Greek and Latin respectively.
1
The Eucharists of early Christianity indeed placed more weight on the actions than on
the words. Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2009), p.112.
On theories of the relationships between myth and ritual, see Catherine Bell, Ritual:
Perspectives and Dimensions, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2009), chap.1.
2
Reinhold Hammerstein devoted three sentences to these stories in Die Musik der Engel
(Munich, 1962), pp.44–5. He mentions their original sources and quotes the story of
Ignatius in German translation.
142 Jamie Apgar
Hearing Heaven
The first story is found in Isaiah 6:2–3. The prophet sees the Lord sitting on a
throne attended by two angels called seraphim, who ‘cried one to another and
said, “Holy, holy, holy the Lord, God of hosts; all the earth is full of his glory.” ’ 3
Interpretations of this familiar hymn have rested largely on the symbolism per-
ceived in its words, not on its scriptural context.4 Yet scripture does remark on
how the hymn is sung: the angels ‘cried one to another’. This point did not escape
early Christian authors. Augustine likened the seraphim to the Old and New
Testaments, which also seemed to speak reciprocally by presenting and fulfilling
prophecy.5 Isidore of Seville added a component to the Augustinian comparison to
illuminate an emerging liturgical practice. ‘Two choirs singing together alternatim’,
he writes, is ‘like the two seraphim and the two testaments calling to one another’.6
This alternatim manner – one half of the choir, standing on one side, sings a verse,
and the other, standing on the opposite side, sings the next – was the daily bread of
medieval and early modern liturgy, used to perform psalms and certain other items
in both chant and polyphony.
The second story originated in an ecclesiastical history written in the fifth cen-
tury by Socrates of Constantinople.7 He states that Ignatius, a first-century bishop,
saw a vision of angels hymning the Trinity with ‘ἀντιφώνων ὕμνων’ (‘antiphonal
hymns’) and transmitted their manner to his church at Antioch, whence the prac-
tice spread throughout Christendom.8 The meaning of ‘ἀντιφώνων’ (‘antiphonal’)
and related words in early Christian texts is, in the words of James McKinnon, a
‘thorny question’.9 Yet Western readers encountered Socrates only in the Historia
Tripartita, a sixth-century Latin translation and compilation of his narrative and
two others, where ‘ἀντιφώνων ὕμνων’ is rendered as the noun ‘antiphonas’.10 Early
medieval authors hewed closely to this wording, which, as some scholars have
3
Angela M. Kinny and Edgar Swift, eds, The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation, 6
vols (Cambridge, MA, 2010–13), vol.4, p.25.
4
Most notable is the ancient claim that the three iterations of ‘holy’ symbolise the Trin-
ity. See for instance, Augustine, Contra Adimantum, Book I, chap.28 (PL 42, col.170).
5
Augustine, Contra Faustum, Book XII, chap.48 (PL 42, col.280); Enarratio in Psalmum
XLIX (PL 36, col.567). Early modern preachers also referenced this simile.
6
‘Antiphonas Greci primi composuerunt, duobus | choris alternatim concinentibus
quasi duo seraphin duoque testamenta inuicem sibi conclamantia.’ Isidore of Seville,
De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, Book I, chap.7 (CCSL 113, p.7).
7
Socrates, Histoire Ecclésiastique: Livres IV–VI, trans. Pierre Périchon and Pierre Maraval
(Paris, 2006).
8
Ibid., Book VI, chap.8 (p.298). English translation in MECL no.218 (p.102).
9
MECL, no.218 (p.101). See Edward Nowacki, ‘Antiphonal Psalmody in Christian Antiq-
uity and Early Middle Ages’, Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed.
Graeme M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995), pp.287–315 (espec. 301–4) and Terence
Bailey, Antiphon and Psalm in the Ambrosian Office (Ottawa, 1994), pp.111–12.
10
Cassiodorus, Cassiodori-Epiphanii historia ecclesiastica tripartita: historiae ecclesiasticae
ex Socrate, Sozomeno et Theodorito, Book X, chap.9, ed. Rudolphus Hanslik, Corpus
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 71 (Vienna, 1952), p.596. [Commonly known
as Historia Tripartita.]
Isaiah, Ignatius of Antioch and Protestant Worship 143
cautioned, may refer only to the items called ‘antiphons’ – the refrains of Office
psalms – not to the alternatim practice used to chant those psalms.11 Others argue
that a distinction between the use of antiphons and two alternating choirs would
have made little sense to the typical cleric, who did not experience one without
the other.12
At the height of the Middle Ages, alternatim singing was standard fare, and
medieval authors turned to the visions of Isaiah and Ignatius to explain its ori-
gins and continuing significance. The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (c.1291–6), a
synthesis of the tradition of medieval ritual commentary compiled by the French
bishop Durandus, offers a glimpse of this approach.13 Durandus handles Isaiah
simply by quoting Isidore.14 He dispatches Ignatius almost as efficiently. In the
most detailed of three references to the story, Durandus explains:
The holy fathers ordained that [the psalms] be performed alternatim, that is, one
part of the choir sings one verse, the other part sings another verse, which the
blessed Ignatius is said to have first established in the Church of Antioch because
in a vision he heard angels singing psalms antiphonatim.15
If the adverbs antiphonatim and alternatim intended a distinction, it was again

of limited relevance to the average reader. Indeed, one fifteenth-century English
author, possibly working from the Rationale, simply elided it: ‘psalms should be
sung one verse on the one side of the choir, another on the other side’, he declared,
because Ignatius had heard angels ‘sing psalms in such manner; choir to choir.’16
In ritual commentary the visions of Isaiah and Ignatius established angelic prec-
edents for alternatim practice, serving the larger purpose of the genre by inviting
clerical reflection on the theological coherence and meaning of the liturgy. The
stories were also mentioned in other literary domains. Durandus, for instance,
borrowed his first reference to Ignatius from the popular Legenda Aurea, a thir-
11
For instance, Amalar of Metz, On the Liturgy, Book IV, chap.7, ed. and trans. Eric
Knibbs, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 2014), vol.2, pp.361–2.
12
Peter Jeffrey, ‘The Introduction of Psalmody into the Roman Mass by Pope Celestine
I (422–432)’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 26 (1984), 147–65 (151).
13
CCCM140–140b. The Rationale was widely disseminated in several hundred manu-
scripts and later in numerous prints. For more on its historical context and signifi-
cance, see Timothy M. Thibodeau, ed., The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William
Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One (New York, 2007),
pp.xvii–xxii.
14
Durandus of Mende, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, Book V, chap.2 (CCCM 140a,
pp.26–7).
15
Ibid, Book V, chap.2 (CCCM 140a, pp.29–30): ‘Sancti patres ordinauerunt ut alterna-
tim dicerentur, id est una pars chori unum uersum, altera alium diceret, quod beatus
Ignatius primus statuisse fertur in Ecclesia Antiochena pro eo quod in uisione audiuit
angelos antiphonatim psalmos psallentes.’
16
J.H. Blunt, ed., The Mirror of Our Lady containing a Devotional Treatise on Divine Service
(London, 1873), p.37.
144 Jamie Apgar
teenth-century hagiographical compendium.17 In these other spaces, Ignatius’s

vision proved particularly flexible. One ninth-century music treatise cited both
tales, but connected only the seraphim to alternatim performance.18 Yet none of
these figures were driven to question the stories or how they were used. Convention
was to mention them – perhaps citing scripture, Isidore or the Historia Tripartita
– and to forge ahead.
A ‘Mere Fable’ and a ‘Greater Authority ’

The religious, political and intellectual conditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, however, prompted such questions. Early modern thinkers scrutinised
existing authority on a number of topics using an array of intellectual strategies;
perhaps best known are the empirical methods they applied to natural phenom-
ena.19 Yet they also grappled with history and myth using tools that came to
define modern historical scholarship, such as a critical approach towards sources.
As several scholars have recently argued, the adoption of these methods cannot
adequately be explained through narratives of historiographical secularisation or
technical progress.20 Indeed, situating early modern scholarly practices in their ide-
ological contexts reveals religious debates as central factors in their development.
As Alexandra Walsham notes: ‘Ostensible advances in historical method were at
least in part a side-effect of the polemical conflicts engendered by the Reformation
and Counter-Reformation themselves.’21 Ecclesiastical histories were key weapons
in these quarrels, promoting rival narratives of past events and doctrines to further
competing visions of true Christianity. We will explore how the authors of one
such work implemented the technique of viewing sources critically to question
traditional connections between angels and choral practice.
In the sixteenth century, the ancient stories that had forged those connections
remained current in orthodox circles.22 Challenging them would require care.
Sixteenth-century reformers united around the belief that scripture was the great-
17
Jacobus da Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni (Florence, 1998),
p.1272. Cf. Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, Book I, chap.1 (CCCM 140,
p.18), and translation in Thibodeau, ed., The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William
Durand of Mende, p.17.
18
Aurelian of Réôme, Musica Disciplina, ed. Lawrence Gushee, Corpus scriptorum
de musica 21 ([s.l.], 1975), p.129. More examples in Martin Gerbert, ed., Scriptores eccle-
siastici de Musica sacra potissimum, 3 vols (St Blaise, 1784), vol.3, pp.197–8 and p.343.
19
Music and sound were at the forefront of these investigations. See Gina Bloom, Voice in
Motion: Staging Gender, Shaping Sound in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2007),
pp.73–7, and Bruce Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the
O-Factor (Chicago, 1999), pp.98–9.
20
David Womersley, ‘Against the Teleology of Technique’, The Uses of History in Early
Modern England, ed. Paulina Kewes (San Marino, CA, 2006), pp.91–104; Alexandra
Walsham, ‘History, Memory, and the English Reformation’, The Historical Journal 55
(2012), 899–938, espec. 905–7.
21
Walsham, ‘History, Memory, and the English Reformation’, p.906.
22
Johann Eck, a famous antagonist of Luther, referred to Isidore’s simile and Ignatius’s
vision in quick succession in his 1525 Enchiridion (reprinted London, 1531), sig.I3v.
est – and only infallible – religious authority. This placed Isaiah beyond reproach.
Socrates, by contrast, enjoyed no such immunity, opening the door to an exam-
ination of his account in its historical context. The most influential critics of his
story of Ignatius were the Protestant authors of what is now called the Magdeburg
Centuries, which, when its first volumes were published in 1559, was the most ambi-
tious ecclesiastical history ever conceived.23 These so-called Centuriators openly
doubted the old tale:
But what is said about hymns, responsories or antiphons, having been revealed
to Ignatius through a vision of angels, lacks credibility: even if Socrates, author
of the Historia Ecclesiastica, says it. For it does not seem that this issue is of such
importance that on its account angels inevitably would have descended and
appeared before him singing: mostly because the church already had psalms
and hymns.24
Contrary to what we might expect, the possibility of angelic intervention was

not the problem.25 The scepticism expressed here was instead rooted in the over-
all methodology of the Centuries, which applied the source-critical apparatus of
contemporary French jurisprudence to a providentialist mindset in which the
Bible was considered the most reliable historical document.26 In this context,
the Centuriators’ crucial move is to characterise Ignatius’s invention as ‘hymns,
responsories or antiphons’. This broad reading of the story placed it in the pre-
carious position of contradicting the vastly greater authority of scripture, which
confirmed that by Ignatius’s time ‘the church already had psalms and hymns’.27 In
the Centuriators’ approach, that fact easily trumped Socrates’s uncorroborated
testimony.
23
Centuriators of Magdeburg, Ecclesiastica historia, integram ecclesiae Christi ideam, quan-
tum ad locum, Propagationem, Persecutionem, Tranquillitatem, Doctrinam, Haereses, Cer-
emonias, Gubernationem, Schismata, Synodos, Personas, Miracula, Martyria, Religiones
extra Ecclesiam, et statum Imperii politicum attinet, secundum singulas Centurias, per-
spicuo ordine complectens (Basel, 1559–74). The project is so named because the group
of scholars spearheading it were initially based in Magdeburg. See discussion in Irena
Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378–
1615) (Leiden, 2003), pp.358–64.
24
‘Sed quod de hymnis, responsoriis seu antiphonis, per uisionem angelorum Ignatio
indicatis, dicitur, fide caret: etiamsi id Socrates, historiae ecclesiasticae scriptor, narret.
Nec enim uidetur tanti eam rem momenti eβe, ut propter eam neceβe fuerit e coelo
angelos descendere, et praecinentes apparere: maxime cum psalmis et hymnis eccle-
sia iam noncaruerit.’ Centuriators of Magdeburg, Ecclesiastica historia, cent.II, chap.6,
col.116.
25
Protestant confessions accommodated angels because of their clear scriptural founda-
tion. See Peter Marshall and Alexandra Walsham, ‘Migrations of Angels in the Early
Modern World’, Angels in the Early Modern World, ed. Peter Marshall and Alexandra
Walsham (New York, 2006), pp.1–40.
26
Gregory B. Lyon, ‘Baudouin, Flacius, and the Plan for the Magdeburg Centuries’, Jour-
nal of the History of Ideas 64 (2003), 253–72; Backus, Historical Method, pp.358–64.
27
One oft-cited piece of evidence was the ‘hymn’ mentioned in Matthew 26:30 and Mark
14:26; MECL no.3, p.13.
146 Jamie Apgar
The Centuries quickly found Elizabethan audiences.28 Among its eager readers
were a group of radical Protestants infuriated by ‘Popish abuses yet remaining in
the English Church’, including what they memorably ridiculed as the ‘tossing’ of
psalm verses ‘like tennis balls’.29 Publishing these criticisms in 1572 as part of a larger
campaign against existing ecclesiastical structures sparked a debate with the estab-
lishment called the Admonition Controversy.30 When Thomas Cartwright, stand-
ard-bearer for the radical cause, joined the fray the following year, he denounced
Socrates as an instrument of Satan himself. The devil, Cartwright alleges, had worked
through the historian to secure authority for alternating psalmody by ‘deriving it
from Ignatius’s time’ and by ‘making the world believe that this came from heaven/
and the angels were heard to sing after this sort/which as it is a mere fable/so it is
confuted by historiographers.’31 Four years later, Cartwright revealed that this attack
had been grounded in an attitude towards history mirroring that of his German pre-
decessors.32 Yet he reacted far more zealously than they had. Like other radicals who
attributed the follies of the Roman faith and their English remnants to the devil’s
designs, Cartwright viewed this ‘mere fable’ as exemplary of nothing less than Satan’s
eternal project to deceive humanity through the advancement of false religion.
These challenges to Socrates’s credibility left a mark on advocates of Protestant
church music because they exploited the historian’s lack of authority relative to
scripture. This issue was addressed explicitly in 1597 by one of the most influen-
tial defenders of the established church, Richard Hooker, in a three-page discus-
sion ‘Of singing or saying psalms and other parts of common prayer, wherein
the people and minister answer one another by course’.33 This exhaustive survey
of the origins and benefits of responsive worship was a much-belated reply to
Cartwright’s 1573 critique of alternating psalmody. Hooker, however, expanded
the debate to include all of the vocal exchanges between pastor and people found
in the services of the Book of Common Prayer. This simple strategy re-conceptu-
28
Felicity Heal, ‘Appropriating History: Catholic and Protestant Polemics and the
National Past’, The Uses of History in Early Modern England, ed. Paulina Kewes (San
Marino, 2006), pp.105–28 (111).
29
John Field and Thomas Wilcox, An Admonition to the Parliament ([Hemel Hemp-
stead?], 1572), sig.B4v (STC 10848, the longer of the two published versions). This
‘tennis’ simile remained a favourite criticism of Elizabethan and Stuart services.
30
See Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought
from Whitgift to Hooker (London, 1988), pp.1–70.
31
Thomas Cartwright, A Reply to an Answer made of M. Doctor Whitegift ([Hemel Hemp-
stead?], 1573), p.203. This pagination is from the longer (STC 4712) of the two pub-
lished versions.
32
Thomas Cartwright, The Rest of the Second Reply ([Basel], 1577), p.214. Evidence from
a more reliable witness, he argued, contradicted Socrates. The key difference, however,
was the narrower terrain of the Elizabethan conversation. By invoking the Centuria-
tors’ critique to counter establishment claims to the worthiness of alternating psalm-
ody, Cartwright had also reined in their broad characterisation of Ignatius’s invention.
His more reliable witness was thus not scripture but Theodoret, author of one of the
other histories bundled in Historia Tripartita.
33
Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (London, 1597), pp.76–9. Jamie
Apgar, ‘ “Singing by Course” and the Politics of Worship in the Church of England,
c.1560–1640,’ PhD Diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2018.
alised alternatim practice as only one aspect of a larger category of ritual acts. Yet
it also armed Hooker with a slew of stories that traditionally had been offered in
support of choral alternation, including the two discussed here.
To handle Cartwright’s offensive, Hooker abandons Socrates in favour of Isaiah.
He retorts to the charge of ‘mere fable’ with a question: ‘Whether Ignatius did at
any time hear the angels praising God after that sort or no, what matter is it?’34
This is no concession. ‘If Ignatius did not,’ Hooker continues, ‘yet one which
must be with us of greater authority did.’ That ‘greater authority’ was Isaiah. The
phrase ‘which must be with us’ is Hooker’s way of suggesting that Cartwright had
at best ignored, at worst rejected, the ultimate authority of scripture by denying
that alternating psalmody ‘came from heaven’. The quotation of Isaiah 6:3 even
sets the phrase ‘one cried to another’ in Roman type to emphasise it against the
complete verse, printed in italics. These four words are Hooker’s proof that angels
are always ‘praising God after that sort’. The visions of Isaiah and Ignatius both
claimed angelic precedent for worshipping in alternation, but only the former
had been passed down in an irreproachable source.35 Some like-minded authors
hedged even further towards the seraphim. Before becoming Dean of Canterbury
Cathedral, John Boys published a series of defences of the prayer book and the lec-
tionary in which he notes Socrates’s attribution of the first ‘interlocutory passages’
to Ignatius, but omits the vision of angels.36 More revealing, however, is that Boys
still transitions to the angelic example: ‘If any shall expect greater antiquity and
authority,’ he writes, ‘we can fetch this order even from the choir of heaven.’ His
subsequent quotation of Isaiah 6:3 suggests that the association between earthly
and heavenly ‘answering’ is demonstrated only in scripture.
Despite this damage, the story of Ignatius’s vision of angels was still frequently
mentioned, with varying degrees of credulousness and enthusiasm, in a range of
Elizabethan and Stuart writings.37 These expose the impact of genre, audience and
authorial ideology on whether and how the story was told. Most revealing in the
first two regards is the contrast between The Praise of Music (1586) and John Case’s
Apologia musices (1588). The similarities between these works still fuel suspicion
34
Ibid., p.78.
35
Hooker’s stance on the authority of scripture was decidedly Reformed. See Michael
Brydon’s summary of relevant scholarship in The Evolving Reputation of Richard
Hooker: An Examination of Responses, 1600–1714 (New York, 2006), pp.4–7.
36
John Boys, An Exposition of all the Principal Scriptures used in our English Liturgy
(London, 1609), p.51.
37
One important reason for its survival was its inclusion in an ecclesiastical history by
the medieval, Byzantine author Nicephorus Callistus. This work became available
to the West in a Latin translation published widely on the Continent from 1553. See
Franco Mormando, ‘Pestilence, Apostasy, and Heresy in Seventeenth-Century Rome:
Deciphering Michael Sweerts’s Plague in an Ancient City’, Piety and Plague: from Byz-
antium to the Baroque, ed. Franco Mormando and Thomas Worcester (Kirksville, MO,
2007), pp.237–312 (265–7). This work clearly circulated among English divines: in the
metrical psalter prepared for Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker, the story of
Ignatius appeared in an English translation of Nicephorus’s version. The Whole Psalter
Translated into English Metre (London, 1567), sig.G2r. The Byzantine historian came
to be cited alongside Socrates, for instance in Donald Lupton, The Glory of their Times
(London, 1640), p.18.
148 Jamie Apgar
that Case also wrote the earlier, unattributed text, but their handling of Ignatius’s
vision could hardly have been more different.38 The author of The Praise of Music
exercised circumspection, conceding that the story ‘may seem somewhat fabu-
lous (as perhaps it is, and as the Magdeburgenses [i.e. the Centuriators] are of
opinion, saying that this is not a matter of so great moment, that therefore Angels
should come down from heaven and appear singing)’.39 In the Apologia musi-
ces, published only two years later, Case paid no mind to this conversation. His
description of Ignatius’s vision reads as plainly as the original Latin version of the
story from a full millennium earlier.40 Regardless of authorship, the key to this
discrepancy likely lies in the ends and audiences to which these works were aimed.
The Praise contributed directly to an ongoing debate over the use of music in the
services of the national Church. Its use of the vernacular and extensive reliance on
biblical, patristic and Reformed authorities indicate that it was meant to appeal to a
domestic, Protestant readership.41 Deference to recent developments in Protestant
critique kept with this orientation. By contrast, the Latin Apologia was accessible to
an international milieu that perhaps demanded less sensitivity to the finer points
of Protestant discourse.42 Several contemporaries even alleged that Case was, as
Anthony Wood put it, ‘Popishly affected’.43 This might explain his unawareness or
avoidance of the Centuries and the close resemblance of his treatment of the tale to
that of medieval authors.
The role played by religious and political affiliations in shaping the story’s recep-
tion became clearest in the work of Peter Heylyn, one of the most brazen advocates
for the policies of ritual uniformity and elaboration being pushed by the ecclesias-
tical regime of Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud. In 1636, Heylyn observed
that the earliest Christian singing was:
little more then a melodious kind of pronunciation, such as is commonly now

used in singing of the ordinary psalms and prayers in Cathedral Churches. And
so it stood, till in the entrance of this age, Ignatius Bishop of Antiochia, one who
was conversant with the apostles, brought in the use of singing alternatim, course
38
The historian Peter McCullough has recently renewed the argument for Case’s author-
ship in ‘Music Reconciled to Preaching: A Jacobean Moment?’, Worship and the Parish
Church in Early Modern Britain, ed. Natalie Mears and Alec Ryrie (Farnham, 2013),
pp.109–29. For a full discussion of the issue, including an extensive argument for an attri-
bution to the composer John Bull, see Hyun-Ah Kim, ed., The Praise of Musicke, 1586: An
Edition with Commentary, Music Theory in Britain 1500–1700 (London, 2018), pp.27–49.’
39
and Church of God (Oxford, 1586), p.96.
40
John Case, Apologia musices tam vocalis quam instrumentalis et mixtae (Oxford, 1588),
pp.28–9.
41
McCullough, ‘Music Reconciled to Preaching’, p.119.
42
Case’s works were printed more often on the Continent than at home. Edward
A. Malone, ‘Case, John (1540/41?–1600)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biogra-
phy (Oxford, 2004; online edn, 2008) www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4853.
Accessed 21/1/2016.
43
Ibid.
by course, according as it still continues in our public choirs, where one side
answers to another, some show whereof is left in parochial churches, in which the
Minister and the people answer one another, in their several turns. To him doth
Socrates refer it, and withal affirms that he first learnt it of the angels, whom in a
vision he had heard to sing the praise of God after such a manner.44
Heylyn was hardly deterred by the critiques that had so noticeably affected his
predecessors. This passage reads as if Ignatius’s vision and the intervention it
inspired were the most important events in the history of church music.45 Yet the
impassioned narrative has several distinct objectives. First, Heylyn uses Ignatius’s
proximity to the apostles to reinforce the Church of England’s apostolic ancestry.
Second, he links choral and congregational answering, explicating the ideology of
performance that Hooker had implied through his expanded application of old
origin stories for alternatim singing. Finally, he commends those acts by celebrat-
ing their angelic roots. As Tim Shephard and Patrick McMahon observe in their
contribution to this collection, the way in which stories are told reveals the types
of investments made in them.46 Indeed, these contentions express a bold position
regarding the pedigree of the Church of England and the divine coherence of its
religious practices.
Heylyn’s commitment to the trappings of elaborate ritual, however, points
to the equally strong reaction against Laudian policy that helped to catalyse the
English Civil War. Choral music was among the ceremonial elements vehemently
condemned by anti-establishment voices. This allows us to return at last to Isaiah’s
vision, which had caused less discursive turmoil during the Elizabethan and early
Stuart years. As Hooker had boasted, the authority of the biblical source had fore-
closed any argument that Isaiah’s account ‘lacks credibility’, and Jacobean com-
mentators had continued to adduce to the seraphim in reference to contemporary
liturgical practice.47 Yet an account published in 1644 by the iconoclast Richard
Culmer also allows us to witness the nature of the resistance to such appeals.
Reflecting on the abolition of sung worship at Canterbury Cathedral, Culmer
described some of the most grievous offences recently committed by local author-
ities. He alleges that on Trinity Sunday 1642, Isaac Bargrave – John Boys’s brother-
in-law and successor as Dean – had preached on Isaiah 6:3, concluding, ‘hence is
justified our Cathedral singing of psalms from one side of the choir to the other’.48
44
Peter Heylyn, The History of the Sabbath (London, 1636), p.40.
45
Its division of Christian song into pre- and post-Ignatian eras also seems to make ‘sing-
ing alternatim’ the most fundamental characteristic of contemporary practice.
46
See chapter 5 in this collection.
47
For example, in 1622, Godfrey Goodman, soon-to-be Bishop of Gloucester, described
‘one side of the choir answering another’ as ‘a custom which hath anciently been
brought into the Church, according to the pattern and precedent of the Seraphim’,
The Creatures Praising God: or, The Religion of Dumb Creatures (London, 1622), p.25.
48
Richard Culmer, Cathedral News from Canterbury (London, 1644), p.18. See also Roger
Bowers, ‘The Liturgy of the Cathedral and its Music, c.1075–1642’, A History of Canter-
bury Cathedral, ed. Patrick Collinson, Nigel Ramsay, and Margaret Sparks (Oxford,
1995), pp.408–50 (444–50).
150 Jamie Apgar
The Bible may have been bullet-proofed, but interpretations of it were not. To
Culmer this episode epitomised how willingly conformists abused scripture to
defend their Popish ways. He registers his relief at the simpler style of worship that
had prevailed by quipping that the ‘Cathedral Seraphims … tossing their choir
service’ had been silenced.49
Angelic Actions
Such disagreements generally fell along predictable ideological fault lines and
certainly expose the religious and political commitments that to some degree
motivated these citations and critiques. The remainder of this essay, however, will
offer a different view of why the visions of Isaiah and Ignatius were invoked, in
some cases with exceptional enthusiasm, even against scepticism or charges of
misinterpretation.
By indicating that (particular forms of) human worship could be ‘angelic’, the
stories engaged several basic beliefs regarding music, ritual and devotion. First,
they provided practical strategies for improving piety. This pursuit was commonly
conceptualised as imitating angels, but mainly in the metaphorical sense of aspir-
ing to angelic virtues like chastity and tireless devotion to God.50 Yet angelic com-
mitment to unceasing worship provided another kind of model for humanity. As
John Calvin – one of the sixteenth-century reformers most prized in England – put
it in his commentary on Isaiah 6:3 (in the 1609 translation):
Now when we hear that the angels are continually busied in sounding forth
God’s glory, let us know that their example is set before us for our imitation …
in as much then as he herein makes us companions with his angels, it is to the
end that whilst we wander here below, we should notwithstanding be conjoined
and made like to the heavenly inhabitants.51
In calling for ‘imitation’ of ‘their example’, Calvin ostensibly encourages nothing

more than being as ‘continually busied’ in glorifying God as the angels. Isaiah and
Ignatius had simply revealed literal ways to attain that metaphorical goal.
Mortal devotion, however, was not improved merely by going through angelic
motions. Instead, vocal collaboration provided a framework for the mutual escala-
tion of piety, a process that angels were thought to model.52 As Durandus asserted
49
Culmer, Cathedral News, p.20.
50
These aspirations were particular hallmarks of monastic life. David Keck, Angels and
Angelology in the Middle Ages (New York, 1998), pp.115–28.
51
John Calvin, A Commentary upon the Prophecy of Isaiah, trans. C.C. (London, 1609),
p.65. The translator worked from the French version (1552, revised 1572) dedicated to
Edward VI, but this passage also appears in the 1559 Latin edition, which David Stein-
metz considers Calvin’s final word on Isaiah. David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New
York, 2010), p.96.
52
In this respect, discourses of ritual collaboration offer a contrast with the subjectivity
of echo described by Ljubica Ilic in chapter 9 of this collection. Far from self-reflexive,
the sonic exchanges of worship were residues of constructive, communal engagement.
immediately following his first reference to Ignatius: ‘The two choirs of singers
represent the angels and the spirits of the just, as if to say in singing praises back
and forth, they exhort each other to do good works.’53 Following the seraphim
was particularly productive; their cries were reciprocal, but their zeal was also
thought to be unmatched even by their angelic kin.54 For Heinrich Bullinger, a
major foreign influence on the Elizabethan Church, they thus exemplified effective
corporate devotion: ‘One [seraph] cries to the other, doubtless mutually encour-
aging themselves towards the acclamations or praises of God, just as elsewhere
men are directed by the example of the angels to encourage themselves towards
the praises of God.’55 English divines drew keenly on this rhetoric of teamwork,
providing a crucial subtext for their interest in imitating angels.56 That subtext sug-
gests why John Boys punctuated his 1609 discussion of ‘interlocutory passages’ –
immediately following his quotation of Isaiah 6:3 – with the observation: ‘Blessed
spirits in praising God answer one another interchangeably.’57 The implication
here is that we, aspiring to their devotional intensity, should do the same. For
some, Ignatius had already blazed this trail. In 1637, on the occasion of a visitation
from Archbishop Laud, the clergyman Samuel Hoard preached: ‘Having heard
some angels in a vision chanting out the praises of God with interchangeable notes,
[Ignatius] thought it would be a good exercise for God’s earthly angels in their
public assemblies, which are … a heaven on earth.’58 The phrase ‘earthly angels’ is
figurative, while the word ‘exercise’ gestures to the role of the practice in producing
piety. The example of the heavenly host thus taught ‘God’s earthly angels’ a kind of
worship that stirred greater zeal.
Hoard’s phrase ‘heaven on earth’ also hints at how the visions of Isaiah and
Ignatius marshalled musical connections between earth and heaven with the
possible outcome of strengthening not just religious commitment, but spiritual
experience in worship. Ancient authorities, and later writers who relied on them,
asserted that because music joined or was shared by corporeal and spiritual realms,
53
Translation from Thibodeau, ed., Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand
of Mende, p.17. ‘Duo ergo chori psallentium designant angelos et spiritus iustorum
quasi reciproca uoce laudantium et se ad bonam operationem inuicem exhortantium’
(CCCM 140, p.18).
54
Their religious ardour was signified by burning wings, which Isaiah describes, and their
repetitions of ‘holy’ were taken as confirmation that they never ceased glorifying God.
55
‘Clamat alius ad alium, nimirum mutuo sese adhortantes ad Dei praeconia uel laudes.
Sicuti & homines alias angelorum exemplo, sese iubentur adhortari ad laudes Dei.’
Heinrich Bullinger, Isaias Excellentissimus Dei Propheta cuius testimoniis Christus ipse
Dominus et eius apostoli creberrimè usi leguntur, expositus homilijs CXC (Zurich, 1567),
fol.32v.
56
Richard Hooker wrote that the minister and people ‘[divide] between them the sen-
tences wherewith they strive which shall most show his own, and stir up others zeal to
the glory of that God whose name they magnify’. Of the Laws, p.77.
57
Boys, An Exposition, p.51.
58
Samuel Hoard is talking about the invention of ‘anthems’, the English translation of
‘antiphonas’. The Churches Authority Asserted in a Sermon Preached at Chelmsford at the
Metropolitical Visitation of the Most Reverend Father in God, William, Lord Archbishop of
Canterbury his Grace, &c. March 1. 1636 (London, 1637), p.30.
152 Jamie Apgar
it led the senses and affections from the former to the latter.59 Medieval churchmen,
and Henrician conservatives after them, consistently distilled the ritual function of
music by a similar logic, applying an interpretative technique called ‘anagogy’ (a
cousin of allegory) that discovers invisible or celestial meanings.60 According to this
approach, music provoked the faithful to contemplate the joys of heaven in which
they would eventually partake. Throughout the early modern period, these joys
were often described as the eternal singing of angelic choirs, in many cases led by
the seraphim in an unceasing ‘holy, holy, holy’. The sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies saw vigorous debate as to which music and which ritual contexts were appro-
priate for directing meditation in this way. Yet conformist and even Puritan rhetoric
about the anagogical effects of the right kind of music, and about the choral parallel
between heaven and earth, deviated surprisingly little from medieval orthodoxy.61
Such rhetoric also complemented the survival of the traditional belief that in
worship mortals joined forces with angels to praise God.62 Lancelot Andrewes
developed this idea in a series of court sermons during the 1610s; in 1619 he
preached that angels and men ‘join in one consort’ during the Gloria, allowing
men to sing ‘of very congruity’ with their spiritual counterparts and drawing them
‘something near to the angels’ estate’.63 We might speculate about the extension
of this emphasis on ‘congruity’ and union with angels into a material dimension.
Perhaps alternatim singing, as a corporeal shadow of angelic practice, reminded
worshippers of their spiritual concelebrants in conjunction with the visual depic-
tions of angels that adorned so many church interiors.64
59
As Boethius put it, ‘from earth to heaven … from the empty noise of mortals to the
glorious chorus of celestial spirits’. (‘A terra ad caelum ... ab inani strepitu mortalium
ad gloriosum chorum celestium spirituum.’) Quoted in John Case, Sphaera Civitatis
(Oxford, 1588), p.712.
60
Dana Marsh, ‘Sacred Polyphony “Not Understandid”: Medieval Exegesis, Ritual Tra-
dition and Henry VIII’s Reformation’, Early Music History 29 (2010), 33–77. Durandus
gives an example of the difference: Jerusalem is understood allegorically as the church
militant, but anagogically as the heavenly Jerusalem.
61
For instance, the most popular Protestant devotional text of the seventeenth century
advised, ‘When thou hearest a sweet consort of music, meditate how happy thou shalt
be, when (with the choir of heavenly angels and saints) thou shalt sing a part in that
spiritual Alleluiah.’ Lewis Bayly, The Practise of Piety Directing a Christian How to Walk
that he may Please God (London, 1613), p.198. The first edition (1612) is lost, but the
work was reprinted in 1613, 1616, 1619, 1620 and 1626, and later translated into other lan-
guages. Ian Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2000),
pp.348–51.
62
Keck, Angels and Angelology, p.37.
63
Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI. Sermons by the Right Honourable and Reverend Father in God,
Lancelot Andrewes, Late Lord Bishop of Winchester (London, 1629), p.128; McCullough,
‘Music Reconciled to Preaching’, pp.109–29.
64
Alexandra Walsham, ‘Angels and Idols in England’s Long Reformation,’ Angels in the
Early Modern World, ed. Alexandra Walsham (New York, 2006), pp.134-67. Jessie Ann
Owens makes a similar suggestion about other musical representations of angels in
‘“And the Angel Said ...”: Conversations with Angels in Early Modern Music’, Conver-
sations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100–1700, ed.
Joad Raymond (New York, 2011), pp.230–49 (244).
The most intriguing evidence for this hypothesis is found in musical settings
that may have been shaped by the association of alternatim singing with angels, a
connection forged through the circulation of these stories. The simplest example
is seen by comparing two sixteenth-century arrangements of the same Te Deum
setting. The single-choir version, surviving in the ‘Wanley’ partbooks (Oxford,
Bodleian Library: Mus.e.420–2), features no textual repetitions.65 The dou-
ble-choir version, found in the ‘Lumley’ partbooks (London, British Library:
Royal Appendix 74–6), features only one repetition, at ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
of Sabaoth.’66 As the two choirs sing in strict alternation by verse throughout, these
words are performed antiphonally – sung through by choir I and then repeated
by choir II – unlike any other portions of the text. The Lumley scribes may have
added this repetition because they were working with two choirs, which could
thus represent the two seraphim ‘[crying] one to another’. This possibility also
affords a new perspective on the elaborate handling of ‘Holy, holy, holy’ in later Te
Deum settings by Byrd, Morley, Tomkins and others. Antiphonal activity is a basic
feature of vernacular service music from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, but
the moment in Te Deum settings at which it usually begins or increases is at ‘Holy,
holy, holy’.67 In the absence of contemporary testimony to the significance of this
pattern, we can still note its theological context. Traditionally, ‘angelic’ texts such
as ‘holy, holy, holy’ – the eternal refrains of the heavenly host – were high points
of liturgical contact between humans and angels.68 English Protestants did not
abandon this view.69 While choral alternation in general was claimed to reflect a
seraphic model, employing it to sing the seraphic hymn itself could have provided
a way of staging Isaiah’s vision, thereby enhancing the moment’s spiritual force.
The Contexts for Truth and Falsehood

The attraction of these stories, then, depended less on their historical accuracy
than on the broader devotional discourses with which they resonated. Their literal
claim of correspondence between angelic and mortal practice enabled their ana-
gogical meaning, making the actions of worship point towards the spiritual realm.
Through the visions of Isaiah and Ignatius, ecclesiastics from Durandus to Heylyn
articulated a theological vision for the Church’s role in the musical imbrication
65
James Wrightson, ed., The Wanley Manuscripts, 3 vols (Madison, WI, 1995), vol.3,
pp.43–53.
66
Judith Blezzard, ed., The Tudor Church Music of the Lumley Books (Madison, WI, 1985),
pp.111–17.
67
This can of course be explained in other ways, for instance as an acknowledgement of
the ‘holiness’ being declaimed.
68
Keck, Angels and Angelology, p.37.
69
As the Book of Common Prayer itself indicates, at communion ‘holy, holy, holy’ is sung
‘with angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven’. The Book of Common
Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662, ed. Brian Cummings (New York, 2011), p.136.
For the Oxford preacher Thomas Bastard, the seraphic hymn as it appears in the Te
Deum was a point of ‘spiritual rendezvous’ for angels and mortals: Twelve Sermons
(London, 1615), p.78.
154 Jamie Apgar
of earth and heaven. In the wake of early modern objections, this occasionally
required allowing for incredulous reactions. Such was the tactic of the preacher
Humphrey Sydenham in a 1637 sermon devoted to the praise of church music:
The over-carving and mincing of the air either by ostentation or curiosity of art,
lulls too much the outward sense, and leaves the spiritual faculties untouched,
whereas a sober mediocrity and grave mixture of tune with ditty, rocks the very
soul, carries it into ecstasies, and for a time seems to cleave and sunder it from
the body, elevating the heart inexpressibly, and resembling in some proportion
those Hallelujahs above, the choir and unity which is in heaven. And this glances
somewhat at that story of Ignatius by Socrates, who took a pattern of his Church-
melody from a chorus of angels; which (as the historian testifies) he beheld in a
vision extolling the blessed Trinity with hymns interchangeably sung. Or if this
perchance prove fabulous, that of Saint Augustine will pass for canonical, where
he styles this voicing of psalms aloft, Exercituum coelestium Spiritale Thymiama, the
music of angels themselves.70
Despite using Ignatius’s vision to reinforce this stirring meditation on music’s

transcendent capabilities, Sydenham offers that it might ‘prove fabulous’ and sup-
plies an alternative example.
Even more forthrightly, John Cosin followed Hooker in writing that:
this vision is derided by our new masters [presumably a reference to Puritans],

and of what authority it is we cannot tell but by Socrates’ words; howsoever,
whether the story be true or no, I am sure the thing itself is good, and if Ignatius
did not hear the angels sing so, that which is better, the prophet Isaiah did.71
These examples are particularly significant given Sydenham’s and especially Cosin’s
connections to Laudianism; comparing their accounts to Peter Heylyn’s shows
that the regime’s ritual policies did not necessitate Heylyn’s arguably reckless disre-
gard for critiques of this ‘fabulous’ tale. Yet, while Sydenham and Cosin admit that
historical accuracy mattered, the fact that they still gravitated towards the story
of Ignatius shows how well they felt it exhibited the musical ideals they sought
to extol. These choices to invoke Ignatius in the first place, with what Sydenham
called ‘canonical’ alternatives at the ready, displayed a commitment to the story’s
ability to illustrate broader points.
While some focused on this capacity to convey a kind of spiritual truth, critics
concentrated on how these stories deceived. They objected not simply to the fictions
peddled, but to the evil forces behind their peddling. When Thomas Cartwright
dismissed the vision of Ignatius as ‘a mere fable … confuted by historiographers’,
his urgency stemmed from more than the one-time use of a purportedly false story
70
Humphrey Sydenham, Sermons upon Solemn Occasions (London, 1637), p.23. Syden-
ham’s preference for ‘sober mediocrity’ over ‘curiosity’ reflects a conformist heritage
stretching back to the Tudor years.
71
John Cosin, The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, John Cosin, Lord Bishop of
Durham, 5 vols (Oxford, 1843–55), vol.5, p.54.
in support of a ‘Popish abuse’. It instead proceeded from the broader fear of decep-
tion and pretence – often traceable or comparable to the workings of the devil –
that underwrote much Puritan invective during the Elizabethan and Stuart years.
This anxiety, which manifested prominently in anti-theatrical tracts, also provided
a powerful reason to reject wholesale the very notion of worshipping like angels
that these stories were made to promote. To Puritan critics, performance was at
best a lie that creates a gap between ‘inward’ and ‘outward’, and at worst a thorough
transformation that ‘infuseth falsehood into every part of soul and body’.72 Both
players and audiences were prone to this cancerous hypocrisy. Similarly, aiming
for ‘angelic’ performance risked the inherent ‘falsehood’ of convincing a singer,
speaker or listener of just such a transformation – contradicting the premise that
mortals are not angels. Richard Culmer’s derision of Canterbury choristers as
‘Cathedral Seraphims’ seems to exert precisely this rhetorical thrust, as if singers
might mislead themselves and others into believing too strongly that they have
been, as Calvin put it, ‘made like to the heavenly inhabitants’. For Culmer, aspiring
to sing like angels perhaps looked suspiciously like a performative denial of mortal
reality. That discrepancy constituted a devilish lie masquerading as pious worship.
This discussion illustrates that the historical, geographic, generic and ideo-
logical conditions under which stories are evaluated produce different attitudes
towards their proper relationships to various types of truth.73 Like the philosoph-
ical works Katherine Butler explores elsewhere in this volume, these positive and
negative citations sought to define the moral and spiritual status of church music
and other practices of public worship.74 The reception history outlined here wit-
nesses neither a triumph of critical objectivity nor a simple-minded adherence
to ecclesiastical tradition and confessional ideology. Instead, it shows that stories
exist in complex relationships to other sources of and approaches to knowledge
and truth, a balance that constantly shifts in response to a rich network of contex-
tual factors.
72
Ramie Targoff, ‘The Performance of Prayer: Sincerity and Theatricality in Early
Modern England’, Representations 60 (1997), 49–69 (52).
73
Aurora Faye Martinez and Erica Levenson make similar observations in chapters 13
and 15 in this collection.
74
See chapter 7 in this collection.
9
In Pursuit of Echo: Sound, Space and

the History of the Self
Ljubica Ilic
W hen Jephte’s daughter beautifully laments by relentlessly exploiting a chro-

matic inflection of the Neapolitan sixth chord in Giacomo Carissimi’s orato-
rio Jephte (c.1650), it becomes clear that this piece is actually about her and not about
her father as the title suggests, for she is the one who sings the most memorable
music. This nameless, obedient creature from the Old Testament is in Carissimi’s
oratorio depicted in a rather different light: the musical representation of her accept-
ance of the destiny forced upon her is of a truly dramatic diva whose inner struggle
moves from grieving to rage and despair, and from bitter memory to final acceptance.
Carissimi even makes her cries resound in echo, thus giving her the power to reflect
through music. ‘Lament, ye valleys, bewail, ye mountains and in the affliction of my
heart be afflicted’: the first soprano repeats the daughter’s phrase, and the second
soprano imitates it at the upper third, simulating the reverberations of the voice
through the mountains. The combination of various rhetoric devices – the deflection
to the Neapolitan harmonic sphere, the use of echo and its elevated repetition –
create the powerful effect in this lamenting scene. Jephte displays many of the expres-
sive potentials of seventeenth-century music, but the echoing voice brings them all
together. The echoing voice is a rhetorical reinforcement of the personal outburst
of sorrow and the musical representation of a reflective early modern self, which,
although aware of personal potentials and limits, is still deeply conflicted about
the same: what are the potentials, and where do the limits begin? Jephte’s daughter
accepts her destiny, not with an easy acceptance, but with a questioning one.
Around the time of the creation of Carissimi’s oratorio, Athanasius Kircher
(c.1602–80) – ‘the last man who knew everything’ – writes about the phenomenon of
echoing and its connection to the ancient classical myth of a runaway nymph, Echo:1
But as I pursue her, she runs away, while I run away, she pursues me, and she
redoubles her voices by taking on additional voices like attendants, as she seduc-
tively tricks me and I cry out aloud, for she is incapable of yielding. At times, as
though angry, she turns away and stealthily shuns any reply, at other times with
a most ill-mannered talkativeness she pours out ten further words in reply to
one word of mine.2
1
Here I am referring to the title of the collection of essays edited by Paula Findlen, Atha-
nasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything (New York, 2004).
2
Kircher’s poetic language inspired the title of this chapter. Spending most of his life
at the Roman College, Kircher compiled a vast body of knowledge in about thirty
Sound, Space and the History of the Self 157
‘Pursuing echo’ is, of course, an impossible task. Yet its pursuit – which I propose is
a sonic metaphor for self-reflection – is something that we keep on persisting with
in a manner similar to Kircher’s powerful description of his own research on the
subject. The breadth of Kircher’s exploration, in which the empirical, poetic and
mythical intersect, inspired my personal quest of ‘following the runaway nymph’
from classical mythology and poetry to early modern music and culture. In this
chapter, I interpret several correspondences between the occurrences of this echo
phenomenon, focusing on Italian music at the turn of the seventeenth century,
while exploring the story of the early modern self as heard in sound.
The laments of Jephte’s daughter that resound through the valleys and moun-
tains, and Kircher’s metaphoric depiction of echoing testify to persistent rela-
tionships between the phenomena of echo, nature and lamentation in Western
mythology and culture. These connections, already well established in classical
sources, reappear in the early modern period. Yet even in the oldest classical texts in
which the theme of echoing appears, it is impossible to make a difference between
the personified Echo (the nymph whose voice resounds through mountains) and
the phenomenal echo, or if and when an echo becomes Echo. As John Hollander
correctly claims, any mythology of echoing is inseparable from the acoustic aspect
of it. He points out that ‘we first hear echoes in Homer as reverberations and ampli-
fications of battle noise or trees falling in forests. They can be fearful, as when the
rocks roar around the shouting Polyphemus.’3 In the Homeric Hymn to Pan (sixth
or fifth century bc), the distinction between the personified and the acoustic is
already unclear, while the connection between nature, space, sound and the per-
sonification contained in the lines dedicated to Pan persists centuries afterwards:
At that hour the clear-voiced nymphs are with him and move with nimble feet,
singing by some spring of dark water, while Echo wails about the mountain-top,
and the god on this side or on that of the choirs, or at times sidling into the
midst, plies it nimbly with his feet [my italics].4
Robert Germany notices that the nymph in this Homeric hymn ‘is not an abstrac-
tion arbitrarily turned into a deity, but in the first instance a deity whose name is
extended to denote the same natural phenomenon as the noun (ἠχή) from which
books, writing on such heterogeneous themes as the subterranean world, Egyptian

hieroglyphs, plague and fossils. He also wrote an entire study on the phenomenon of
echoing entitled ‘Phonosophia Anacamptica’ (‘The Knowledge of Reflected Sound’)
and published it on two occasions: the first time as a part of his monumental study on
music, Musurgia Universalis (1650), and the second time in a more elaborate version
in his work entitled Phonurgia Nova (1673). My source is ‘Phonosophia Anacamptica’,
Phonurgia Nova (Kempten, 1673), Book I, p.2. The translation is mine.
3
Hollander is here referring to Homer’s Odyssey. See John Hollander, The Figure of Echo:
A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After (Berkeley, 1981), p.6.
4
Homeric Hymn 19 to Pan in Hugh G. Evelyn-White, ed. and trans., Hesiod, Homeric
Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica, Loeb Classical Library 57 (Cambridge, MA, 1914),
pp.443–5.
158 Ljubica Ilic
her name was formed’.5 In other words, the myth and the physical phenomenon are
inseparable, as evidenced by the poetic language.
These two threads of meaning – the mythical and phenomenal – can be fol-
lowed in almost all classical and early modern sources in which the theme of
echoing appears. In the fifth century bc in Euripides’s Andromeda, Echo
answers the lament of the heroine, while Aristophanes masterfully mocks the
same idea in the supposed dialogue between Euripides and Mnesilochus in his
Thesmophoriazusae. Frederic Sternfeld claims that, technically and topically,
Euripides and Aristophanes establish the tradition: ‘Technically, the end of a
line receives polish and emphasis by repetition. Topically, the repeated words
are terms of woe (such as bewail, alas, death).’6 The seventeenth-century laments
of Jephte’s daughter demonstrate how this manner of lamentation through echo
found its way into early modern poetics.
The reference to the nymph by the Greek poet Moschus (second century bc)
brings into the tradition of mythological storytelling the motive of unrequited
love, and introduces Pan’s yearning for Echo as one of the most relevant storylines
related to the mountain nymph.7 The other one is based on Echo’s unrequited love
for Narcissus. These two narrative strands established in classical texts dominate
the early modern imagination, yet they are quite different. As Hollander puts it, ‘if
Pan’s echo is lyric, Narcissus’s is satiric’. The satirical strand originates from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (first century ad), the most influential classical text to tell the tragic
story of Echo and Narcissus. The personified (nymph) and acoustical (resonance)
echoes in the Metamorphoses transform and shape the poetic structure (via repeti-
tion), thus becoming a powerful rhetorical device that would become omnipresent
in early modern poetry. The echoing word game in Ovid’s work is simultaneously
amusing and tragic:
One day, by chance, the boy now separated from his faithful friends cried out:
‘Is anyone nearby?’ ‘Nearby’, was Echo’s answering cry. And stupefied, he looks
around and shouts: ‘Come! Come!’ and she calls out, ‘Come! Come!’ to him
who’d called. Then he turns round and, seeing no one, calls again: ‘Why do you
flee from me?’ And the reply repeats the final sounds of his outcry. That answer
snares him; he persists, calls out: ‘Let’s meet.’ And with the happiest reply that
5
Robert Germany, ‘The Figure of Echo in the Homeric Hymn to Pan’, The American Jour-
nal of Philology 126 (2005), 187–208 (188). He is here referring to the Greek word sound
(ἠχή, ēkhē).
6
Frederic W. Sternfeld, ‘Repetition and Echo in Renaissance Poetry and Music’, English
Renaissance Studies, Presented to Dame Helen Gardner in Honor of Her Seventieth Birth-
day, ed. John Carey (Oxford, 1980), pp.33–43 (36).
7
Moschus shares a very important lesson about the love that is not returned: ‘Pan loved
his neighbour Echo; Echo loved a frisking Satyr; and Satyr, he was head over ears for
Lydè. As Echo was Pan’s flame, so was Satyr Echo’s, and Lydè master Satyr’s. ’Twas
Love reciprocal; for by just course, even as each of those hearts did scorn its lover, so
was it also scorned being such a lover itself. To all such as be heart-whole be this lesson
read: If you would be loved where you be loving, then love them that love you.’ John
Maxwell Edmonds, ed. and trans., Greek Bucolic Poets, Loeb Classical Library 28 (Cam-
bridge, MA, 1912), pp.459–61.
ever was to leave her lips, she cries: ‘Let’s meet’; then, seconding her words,
she rushed out of the woods, that she might fling her arms around the neck she
longed to clasp. But he retreats and, fleeing, shouts: ‘Do not touch me! Don’t
cling to me! I’d sooner die than say I’m yours!’; and Echo answered him: ‘I’m
yours.’8
The connection of Echo with Pan and Narcissus persists in the transmissions of
the myth throughout the Middle Ages, whether in Macrobius’s take on the rela-
tionship between Echo and Pan (fifth century) or in the popularity of the ‘Ovide
Moralisé’ at the beginning of the fourteenth century.9 The early modern revival
of classical antiquity brought about a renewed interest in echo rhymes in poetry.
Sternfeld, who traces the history of the trope of echoing from Euripides to T.S.
Eliot, refers to two important influences on the development of echo poetry in
this period: the first is Angelo Poliziano’s work Miscellanea (1489) and the second
– crucial for the history of sixteenth-century music and especially the madrigal – is
Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido (1590). Poliziano, probably familiar with
Ovid’s use of repetition and echo rhyme, reintroduces it to early modern vernac-
ular literature. Yet Sternfeld points out that Poliziano actually names Gauradas as
his poetic role model.10 This mysterious Greek poet is the author of an undated
epigram dedicated to Echo:
Dear Echo, grant me some what. – What?

I love a girl, but do not think she loves. – She loves.
But to do it Time gives me not good chance. – Good chance.
Do thou then tell her I love her, if so be thy will. – I will.
And here is a pledge in the shape of cash I beg thee to hand over. – Hand over.
Echo, what remains but to succeed? – Succeed.11
This satirical take on love refers to echoing on both structural (repetition) and
poetic levels (conversation with the nymph). Its similarity with Ovid’s use of
poetic repetition is evident.
Poliziano, in his ‘Eco e Pan’ from Miscellanea (1489), imitates Gauradas; Echo
provides the answer to the question asked and reiterates only the sound of words,
while the meaning becomes entirely different:
8
Ovid, Metamorphoses of Ovid: A New Verse Translation, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New
York, 1993), pp.94–5.
9
In his Saturnalia, Macrobius makes connections between Pan’s love for Narcissus and
the harmony of the spheres: ‘It is not Echo itself which is the harmony of the spheres
but the syrinx – Pan makes it out of the reeds into which his beloved Echo had changed
– and the seven reeds of Pan’s pipe are indeed the seven planets, the shortest represent-
ing the moon, the longest Saturn.’ Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend,
Hamlet’s Myth: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time (Boston, 1977), p.286.
10
Sternfeld, ‘Repetition and Echo’, p.36.
11
W.R. Paton, ed. and trans., The Greek Anthology, Loeb Classical Library 86, 5 vols
(Cambridge, MA, 1993), vol.5, books 13–16, pp.248–51.
160 Ljubica Ilic
Where while I seek you, Echo, do you lie, Love? (I love!)

Yes, and you love me say, none other – none? (One!)
You, you alone I love, for you there’s no one else? (One else!)
Can you not say, ‘I love you. Pan, none other?’ (Another!)
By this you tell me all my joy is sped? (Dead!)
Say his cursed name, that stole my love that throve! (Love!)
What shall he do that loved, that loved as I? (Die!)12
The simplicity of the repetitive technique recalls Gauradas rather than Ovid, but
the overall tone is much more sombre, depicting the tragic story of the nymph and
Pan’s unrequited love for her.
Guarini’s pastoral tragicomedy Il Pastor Fido, on the other hand, reintroduces
the echoing effect in the context of the pastoral fashion of the late sixteenth cen-
tury and the symbolic retreat to the mythical Arcadia. The motive of unrequited
love, so important for the classical myth of the ‘runaway nymph’, here gets relived,
especially in the sylvan dialogue between one of the main protagonists Silvio and
Cupid in Act IV Scene 8, where the love god himself is unseen, but heard as an
echo. The dramatic power of this conversation lies in the rhetorical opposition
between Silvio’s questioning disdain for love and Cupid’s adamant replies. ‘Who
are Thy subjects?’ Silvio asks, ‘sure thou rul’st alone the follies of the world?’ And
Cupid echoes his words: ‘The world’. ‘What wilt thou make of me who have a
heart of adamant all over?’ And Cupid simply repeats: ‘A lover’.13 Indeed, Silvio, at
first disinterested and carefree, by the end of the play falls in love with his destined
one, Dorinda, as the echoing answers of Cupid have predicted. After Guarini, the
fashion of the effect by which the prophetic echo answers back the questions asked
becomes one of the favourite narrative and musical techniques of the time, signif-
icantly impacting the experiments of musical drama.
Imago vocis
For Kircher, Echo is the ‘image of a voice’, Narcissus’s twin.14 This analogy is related
to mythology as much as to physical phenomena: both Echo and Narcissus are
punished by gods, and as a consequence are suffering unrequited love. The nymph,
cursed by Juno to mirror others’ voices, loses the ability to speak her mind and
to express herself and her love for Narcissus. The vain boy falls in love with his
12
English translation by E. Geoffrey Dunlop www.hyperion-records.co.uk/
notes/55050-B.pdf. Accessed 2/10/2015.
13
English translation by William Clapperton, Il Pastor Fido: Or, The Faithful Shepherd: A
Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, Attempted in English Blank Verse, from the Italian of Signor Cav-
alier Giovanni Battista Guarini (Edinburgh, 1809), p.136.
14
He opens his study of ‘Phonosophia Anacamptica’ (‘The Knowledge of Reflected
Sound’) with the following: ‘The echo, that jest of Nature when she is in a playful
mood, is called the “image of a voice” by the poets, in accordance with that well-known
line of Virgil’s: The rocks resound and the image of the voice that has struck them bounces
back. It is called a reflected, rebounding and alternating voice by scientists and “the
daughter of the voice” by the Israelites.’ Athanasius Kircher, ‘Phonosophia Anacamp-
tica’, Phonurgia Nova (Kempten, 1673), Book I, p.1. The translation is mine. The italics
are the author’s.
own image, not knowing that he is in love with himself. The relationship between
the two is metaphorically reciprocal to Narcissus’s inability to be infatuated with
anyone but himself. As Narcissus’s Other, Echo is merely his aural reflection; she
is an aural metaphor for his visual self-infatuation. The unbreakable barriers in
understanding themselves and communicating with others turn them into tragic
loners. This motive of loneliness, sadness and seclusion becomes intriguing to the
early modern mind. There is no better metaphor for an early modern ‘discovery
of man’ than the Narcissus myth of ‘knowing oneself ’, and this is exactly how
Narcissus was cursed – if he got to know himself, he would die. In the words of Julia
Kristeva: ‘The object of Narcissus is psychic space; it is representation itself, fan-
tasy. But he does not know it, and he dies. If he knew it he would be an intellectual,
a creator of speculative fictions, an artist, writer, psychologist, psychoanalyst. He
would be Plotinus or Freud.’15 Indeed, only the humanist turn can explain the per-
sistent popularity of this myth from early modernity to the artistic avant-garde.16
Mauro Calcagno notices that in early modern plays on Narcissus, the focus
is mainly on his relationship with Echo and the medium of voice. He concludes,
however, that Echo is less represented as a mythical figure, and more as pure imago
vocis:17 ‘She is represented as an oracle, responding offstage to questions posed by
characters who find themselves in identity crises, confronting life-changing deci-
sions.’18 Indeed, the manner that Calcagno describes can be found in almost all
examples of early modern secular or sacred musical drama as well as in the pre-
viously discussed example by Guarini. Although the personified, acoustical and
poetical forms of echo are closely intertwined since classical antiquity, the theat-
ricality of the early modern period prefers the acoustic aspect of echoing for stage
effects and the use of repetition for dramatic purposes.
In early modern music, however, the use of echo appears in both vocal and
instrumental genres, with much more complex signifying potential than in purely
narrative dramatic forms. An array of meanings can be traced in numerous echo
pieces written in nearly all musical genres of the time: ludic mannerisms in vocal
works of Luca Marenzio (c.1553–99), Orlando di Lasso (1530/2–94) or Claude
Le Jeune (1528/30–1600); spiritual dialogues in the dramatised sacred music of
Emilio de’ Cavalieri (c.1550–1602) and Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643); rep-
resentations of rhetoric potency, self-questioning and doubt in operatic exper-
iments of Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), Claudio Monteverdi, Marco da Gagliano
(1582–1643) or Stefano Landi (1587–1639); as well as experimental explorations
of performing space in instrumental works by Adriano Banchieri (1568–1634) or
Biagio Marini (1594–1663). The fashion for echo effects is particularly prominent
15
Julia Kristeva, ‘Narcissus: The New Insanity’, Tales of Love, trans. Leon S. Roudiez
(New York, 1987), pp.103–21 (116).
16
In 1892, André Gide exclaims: ‘Ah! To be unable to see oneself! a mirror! a mirror! a
mirror! a mirror.’ ‘Narcissus: A Treatise on the Theory of Symbolism’, The Return of the
Prodigal: Preceded by Five Other Treatises with Saul, A Drama in Five Acts, trans. Dorothy
Bussy (London, 1953), pp.1–15 (3).
17
John Hollander points out that in Latin the term ‘imago’ or ‘imago vocis’ actually refers
to ‘echo’. This use of the term thus precedes our common understanding of ‘image’ in
an exclusively visual context. Hollander, The Figure of Echo, p.11.
18
Mauro Calcagno, From Madrigal to Opera: Monteverdi’s Staging of the Self (Berkeley, 2012), p.12.
162 Ljubica Ilic
from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, when Carissimi writes

the famous lament of Jephte’s daughter, reiterating the poetics of echoing already
established in classical antiquity.
Furthermore, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century echo pieces, the mytho-
logical, acoustical and poetic intersect with the newly discovered potentials of
musical rhetoric, thus creating complex auditory metaphors, and more funda-
mentally, posing important questions related to issues of early modern selfhood
and identity.19 Early modern echoes are not merely decorative, but explore issues
such as: how to reconcile the body with the soul? What is the power of music?
Where are the limits of human perception? How can music be merely playful in
its self-referentiality?
In order to understand these connections, however, musical representations
of echoing, and especially their link to the pastoral mode, need not be seen as a
mere entertainment, sentimental nostalgia for classical antiquity or a mere game
of musical rhetoric. Giuseppe Gerbino rightly notices that musicology in general
‘has paid little attention to the pastoral tradition’ because, as in literary criticism,
‘pastoral was condemned as an aberration of taste, as a naïve game of a bored
society’. He refers to Alfred Einstein’s characterisation of the pastoral trend in late-
Cinquecento music as ‘the disease that had attacked the taste of the time’.20 With
the long-lasting heritage of valuing the ineffable, non-representational qualities of
music in Western culture, however, the pastoral realm’s inclusion of simulations
of echoing and musical imitations of singing birds and lightning thunders may
appear as banal, not ludic but merely playful. Yet if that common disdain for the
representational power of music is set aside, there is much more to be discovered
about these musical phenomena.
In the case of echoing, letting the sound out and receiving its feedback means
that the subject is aware of the space it inhabits, or at least that the boundaries of
the surrounding space are being explored, in the same manner that the painting
subject is exploring its own position in the world. This basic understanding of the
sound reflection also translates into the metaphorical one: echo often signifies a
connection between the human and divine, or it is the voice of conscience. The
phenomenological level of echoing is crucial for this discussion, however, because
here the imaginary and real spaces intersect in the moment of musical perfor-
mance. For what is an echo? It is sound that bounces back; the sound that deline-
ates the borders and confines of what it can or cannot reach. It is a psychophysical
manifestation of the distance between the human being and its surroundings, an
empirical exploration of spatial existence performed in sound. In this context, I
would like to address only one of many questions raised here, and that is the use of
imago vocis for the exploration of self-expression via rhetorical prowess.
19
There is another, purely musical, meaning of the word echo that I will not consider at
this point, but it is important to mention it. Charles Burney comments on Stamitz’s
use of ‘the piano, which was before chiefly used as an echo, with which was generally
synonymous’ in The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and Upper Prov-
inces (London, 1773), p.94.
20
Giuseppe Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge,
2009), p.3. He also explains the Renaissance pastoral as a subversive genre – a narrative
strategy that uses the imaginary universe of Arcadia to explain the real universe of the
Renaissance court.
‘Let Tityrus be Orpheus, Orpheus in the Woods,

Arion among the Dolphins’
The interrogation of space and sound in space is what inspired Kircher’s interest
in echoing. Yet Kircher’s quest is always poetically voiced and rooted in classical
mythology and poetry. On the cover of his Musurgia universalis (1650), which
contains representations of various themes covered in the study, he refers to his
research on echoing by representing the scene from the first of Virgil’s Eclogues. The
first eclogue is a dialogue between the two herdsmen: Meliboeus, who is in exile
and dispossessed of his farm, and Tityrus, who managed to save his possessions by
going to Rome and asking for amnesty. In Rome, the authorities told Tityrus to put
his cows out to pasture, as he did before (‘Pascite, ut ante, boves’). Since Virgil’s
time, this short motto has signified a possibility of freedom not affected by war, or
social and political upheaval. The detail on the cover of Kircher’s study shows the
two shepherds and the famous line echoed against the hillside.
This notion of freedom and peace in Virgil, however, is closely tied to his
descriptions of the relationship between nature and sound: at the very beginning
of the same Eclogue, Meliboeus complains:
You, Tityrus, under the spreading sheltering beech,

Tune woodland musings on a delicate reed
We flee our country’s borders, our sweet fields,
Abandon home; you lazing in the shade,
Make woods resound with lovely Amaryllis.21
Indeed, Tityrus does not hide the pleasure over his blissful state:
O Melibee, a god grants us this peace-

ever a god to me, upon whose altar
a young lamb from our fold will often bleed.
He has allowed, you see, my herds to wander
And me to play as I will on a rustic pipe.22
The connection between freedom, space and singing in these lines does not merely
stand for an idyllic peaceful environment. The connection implies the possibility
that human beings can peacefully exist and coexist: resounding woods and the
carefree playing of Tityrus’s pipe represent having the space and time for expres-
sion, while Virgil’s herdsmen represent poets who have the luxury (or not) of
uninterrupted creativity.23
This relationship between space and song personified in Virgil’s resounding
woods becomes crucial in early modern representations of echoing. Of course,
21
Translation by Paul J. Alpers in What is Pastoral? (Chicago, 1997), p.23.
22
Ibid.
23
This ethical perspective – in contrast to our tradition of understanding pastoral as an
escapist mode – has been extensively explored in two studies by Paul Alpers: What is
Pastoral? and The Singer of the Eclogues: A Study of Virgilian Pastoral with a New Trans-
lation of the Eclogues (Berkeley, 1979).
164 Ljubica Ilic
Virgil’s references to Roman reality now become impregnated with the reality
of the humanist age: what is the space that the poet inhabits (or that the sub-
ject inhabits), and what are his creative powers? A connection between Tityrus,
Orpheus and Arion made by Virgil (‘Let Tityrus be Orpheus, Orpheus in the
Woods, Arion among the Dolphins’) appears again on the early modern stage with
mythical musicians whose songs freely and powerfully resound in space.24
In his most famous aria performed in the intermedi between the acts of the play
La Pellegrina at the spectacular 1589 Florentine wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici
and Christine de Lorraine, Jacopo Peri endowed the mythical singer Arion with
powerful vocal skills emphasised by elaborate echo effects. As the story goes, Arion’s
singing, like that of Orpheus, moved not only humans, but enabled him to summon
a dolphin to rescue him from the ship’s crew, who planned to rob and kill him on his
way back home from Sicily to Corinth. In the fifth intermedio, the mythical singer
laments his ordeal while the vast space of the seashore echoes his voice back:
Thus over troubled waters I shall exhale my final sighs. Gentle Echo, with your
tender accents, redouble my torments. O tears, O pains! O death, too bitter and
too hard! Oh, who on the Earth or in the Sky would accuse me of a wrongful
complaint? And if I grieve with reason, have pity on me in my grief.25
The spectacular ‘ecco con due risposte’ performed at the Uffizi Theatre connects
the Medici politics of using space in the promotion of political power and Peri’s
desire to demonstrate his own vocal talent and musical creativity (the composer
performed the piece himself). From the perspective of compositional technique,
Peri focuses on ‘redoubling’ words related to grief and its onomatopoeic expres-
sion (‘tormenti’, ‘ahi’, etc.), which are conventionally emphasised in lamentation.
This emphasis is even stronger because of the elaborate melismas strategically
placed on the echoing words.
Yet besides echo rhymes and lamentation, Arion’s song also displays new musi-
cal developments: the emergence of monody and a display of vocal virtuosity.
These specifically musical characteristics, however, can be easily read in the con-
text of classical revival: Virgil’s poet is not only free to sing now, but he is also a very
skilful singer. He mirrors himself with the image of his voice in the grandiosity of
the Uffizi Theatre.
This trend of relating early modern artistic prowess and virtuousic performing
skills to those of mythological musicians continues in Claudio Monteverdi’s ‘favola
in musica’ L’Orfeo (1607). Like Peri’s Arion, Monteverdi’s Orpheus also possesses
supernatural powers represented by excellent musicianship. In the central aria
‘Possente spirto’, Monteverdi magnifies Orpheus’s ability to persuade the gods to
return his beloved Eurydice from the dead: while Orpheus sings powerful melis-
mas, the instruments exuberantly echo his voice. Even if ‘Possente spirto’ cannot
be heard by gods, but only by Charon – for the real song able to persuade the gods
24
This is yet another reference to Virgil’s Eclogues, no.VIII, lines 55–6.
25
The text was probably written by Ottavio Rinuccini. English translation by Cecile
Stratta in La Pellegrina: Music for the Wedding of Ferdinando De Medici and Christine
de Lorraine, Princess of France, Florence 1589, Huelgas Ensemble conducted by Paul van
Nevel, Columbia Records/Sony, 1998, CD.
will always remain absent and unattainable to mortals, as Daniel Chua and Carolyn
Abbate suggest – there is no doubt that the purpose of the aria is to celebrate exqui-
site individual music creativity and connect mythical music- making with the skills
of early modern composers and performers.26
Yet Monteverdi goes a step further and presents an entirely different role for
the echoing device at the end of the opera, when Orpheus, like a true modern
subject, starts to question his own power. Monteverdi uses ‘rimes en écho’ as a
dramatic vehicle to display not only prowess, as Peri does in Arion’s song, but
also the weakness of the musician who previously tried so powerfully to appeal
to the gods. In comparison to the length of Orpheus’s soliloquy ‘Questi i campi di
Tracia’, the echo rhymes are scarce (‘ahi pianto – hai pianto’; ‘basti – basti’; ‘tanti
guai – ahi’) and interwoven into the dramatic structure, revealing a rhetorical lack
and pointing towards Orpheus’s final frustration. Annoyed by hearing only his last
words thrown back at him, Orpheus asks: ‘but while I thus lament me why dost
thou answer me alone with the last of my plainings? Answer me back in full my
lamentation.’27 In other words, the librettist Alessandro Striggio and Monteverdi
masterfully manipulate poetic convention in order to depict the development of a
character.28 In this moment of Orpheus’s critical introspection, Peter Szendy sees
Echo as a replica of Musica from the very beginning of the opera, her mortal copy,
a reversion or fragmentary version.29 That may well be the case, but this lack of
rhetorical prowess is also what makes Orpheus a modern subject, once powerful
and now weak, aware of his limitations.
Peri and Monteverdi’s musical rhetoric of echoing testifies to the revival of clas-
sical mythological modes and topoi with an early modern twist: the focus is on the
acoustic (echo) and the poetic (repetition), while the presence of the personified
(nymph) is traditionally embedded in public imagination. The topos of lament, the
pastoral mode, the motive of unrequited love and the technique of poetic repeti-
tion – all established in classical texts – reappear in the early modern context, and
via Poliziano and Guarini enter early modern dramatic music experiments. From
this perspective, Arion and Orpheus represent early modern subjects, inspired
by classical mythological topoi, but revealing modern dilemmas of self-empow-
26
I am, first of all, interested in the phenomenological aspect of echoing sound and its
role in the performance act. On the echoing as the noumenal, however, see Daniel K.L.
Chua, ‘Untimely Reflections on Operatic Echoes – How Sound Travels in Montever-
di’s L’Orfeo and Beethoven’s Fidelio with a Short Instrumental Interlude’, Opera Quar-
terly 21 (2005), 573–96 (575–6).
27
English translation by R.L. Stuart www.hoasm.org/VB/LOrfeoLibretto.pdf . Accessed
2/10/2015.
28
Mauro Calcagno sees Guarini’s influence in Striggio’s use of echo effect, but there is a
striking similarity, I believe, between Striggio’s lines and Seneca’s depiction of echoing
in his Trojan Women and the lament of the fall of Troy: ‘now, now, O Grief, put forth
thy strength. Let the Rhoetean shores resound with our mourning, and let Echo, who
dwells in the caves of the mountains, not, after her wont, curtly repeat our final words
alone, but give back our full mourning for Troy.’ Seneca’s Tragedies, trans. Frank Justus
Miller (Cambridge, MA, 1938), p.133; Calcagno, From Madrigal to Opera, p.13.
29
Peter Szendy, ‘Echoing the “Mortal Ear”: Orfeo’s Indiscipline’, In(ter)discipline: New
Languages for Criticism, ed. Gillian Beer, Malcolm Bowie and Beate Perrey (London,
2007), pp.63–6 (65).
166 Ljubica Ilic
erment and doubt.30 They both miraculously get saved from their woes and in the
act of performance their power translates into the sense of wonder created by their
echoing voices.31 In exploring the boundaries of physical and theatrical space, these
pursuits of echo reflect the complexity of the selfhood that mirrors itself not only
against its own image, but also against the divine.32
The display of early modern subjectivity (especially that of a musician or artist)
through an exploration of rhetorical empowerment results in the re-reading of
classical mythological texts in the context of the birth of European modernity,
with early modern musical drama being one of its most relevant testaments. By the
end of the seicento, however, with the rise of the stage-oriented performance, in
which music is ‘framed’ as some kind of sonic ‘prospettiva’ entirely separate from
the world that surrounds it, echoing effects lose their rhetoric and dramatic effec-
tiveness. Due to their ability to sabotage the fantasy of a staged world, they become
a kind of meta-performing procedure that reveals the illusion of the stage-cen-
tred performance. Christoph Willibald Gluck’s (1714–87) use of echo effect in the
first act of his Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), for example, includes the instrumental off-
stage echoing of a choir as a simple and yet emotional reiteration of lamentation.
Incorporated into musical structure, it reflects a mood or inner state rather than a
spatial relationship – it is a musical abstraction of a psychophysical phenomenon.
By Gluck’s time, every inclusion of offstage space in musical performance only
reiterates and deepens this separation between the world of stage illusion and the
space that surrounds it.33 At the beginning of the seicento, however, this separation
is not yet complete, and echo effects play a powerful role in the experimenting with
sound in space. Moreover, they are the sonic testimonies to the moment in music
history when the interest in classical mythology and representations of the early
modern self intersect, creating a series of exciting experiments. In this chapter, I
touched upon just a few of these experiments, leaving many more to be explored
in this metaphorical pursuit of Echo.
30
As Jephte’s daughter’s echoing display of sorrow from the mid-seventeenth century
demonstrates, lamenting after Arion and Orpheus becomes mostly a signifier of
female emotionality. For a discussion of Orpheus’s effeminate lamentation see Susan
McClary, ‘Constructions of Gender in Monteverdi’s Dramatic Music’, Feminine End-
ings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis, 1991), pp.35–52.
31
Calcagno believes that echoing in the fifth act of Monteverdi’s opera actually has a very
specific dramatic role. Since Striggio does not follow the classical storyline from Virgil
and Ovid, and decides to leave out Orpheus’s tragic ending, the echo serves to suspend
the action. Calcagno believes that Striggio follows the advice of theatre theorist Angelo
Ingegneri, who recommends the use of echo for facilitating the resolution of the plot.
Calcagno, From Madrigal to Opera, p.13. Indeed, in another Mantuan opera, La Dafne
(1608) by Marco da Gagliano (1582–1643), the echoing scene helps in resolving the
conflict with the terrible dragon Python: Apollo is first heard as an echoing voice and
then miraculously appears and kills the monster.
32
For more on this interpretation of echoing, see my ‘Mirrors and Echoes: Beyond the
Confines of Theatrical Space’, Music and the Modern Condition: Investigating the Bound-
aries (Farnham, 2010), pp.19–52. Some new interpretations can be found in Julian John-
son, Out of Time: Music and the Making of Modernity (Oxford, 2015), espec. pp.174–6.
33
Here I am influenced by William Egginton, How the World Became a Stage: Presence,
Theatricality and the Question of Modernity (Albany, 2003), espec. pp.67–85.
v
narratives of performance
10
Ophelia’s Mad Songs and Performing Story in

Early Modern England
Samantha Bassler
T he twinned ideas of music and disability – particularly madness and melan-

choly – shaped pre-Enlightenment views of gender, disability and conceptions
of normativity, through both performances on the stage, and also performances
during literary characterisation and narrative. The dramatic works of Shakespeare
and other playwrights performed stories of disability and music, illuminating early
modern cultural tropes of gender and disability through music. This chapter begins
with consideration of Ophelia as an archetype of madness and femininity, and then
expands to other examples of performing stories of femininity, madness and disa-
bility in early modern English culture. The first section describes the connections
of madness and melancholy to disability, explaining how theoretical perspectives
from disability studies can enhance our understanding of music, myth and story
in early modern English culture. The second section illuminates the relationship
between music, story, disability and gender in the character of Ophelia, while the
third section examines female madness and melancholia in Desdemona, followed
by male madness and melancholia in Richard II and Duke Orsino, and ends with
a consideration of the ambiguously gendered Viola. The chapter closes by decon-
structing the seventeenth-century understanding of melancholy and relating it to
concepts of disability in early modern English culture.
Madness, Melancholy and Disability in

Early Modern English Culture
This chapter relies upon the framework of disability studies. This is a relatively
new methodology of history, literature, cultural studies and musicology, which
constructs a historical narrative that recognises the relationship between music,
impairment, gender and (dis)ability in late Renaissance culture. The field of disabil-
ity studies is significant for providing a language and a framework for understanding
non-normative ways of being, and for relating closely to Neoplatonist theories of
music and the body.1 Music and being also have similarities to the soul. According
to the philosopher Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, both ‘imperceptible’
and ‘perceptible’ harmonies affect the soul’s ability to comprehend beauty:
1
See Samantha Bassler, ‘Music, Madness and Disease: Disability Studies in Early Musi-
cological Research’, postmedieval 3 (2012), 182–94; and ‘Madness and Music as (Dis)
ability in Early Modern England’, Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies,
ed. Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-Moulton, Neil Lerner and Joseph Straus (Oxford,
2015), pp.529–38.
170 Samantha Bassler
The harmonies in sounds, too, the imperceptible ones which make the percepti-
ble ones, make the soul conscious of beauty in the same way, showing the same
thing in another medium. It is proper to sensible harmonies to be measured
by numbers, not according to any and every sort of proportion but one which
serves for the production of form so that it may dominate.2
Harmony not only manifests as musical concord, but is present in the unity of the
universe and pervasive in the Neoplatonic hierarchy of reality.3 In his commentary
on Plato’s Timeaus, Proclus, the influential Neoplatonist philosopher, argues that
‘just as bodies can be divided in an infinite number of parts since they are divisi-
ble, when souls are divided it is into a limited plurality’.4 Such multi-faceted and
hierarchical aspects of soul and body, and proportion and form, filter into the early
modern conception of music and its cultural attitudes about gender and other
forms of difference, including disability and impairment. In written stories, like
plays, concepts of the body, music and the soul aid the reader’s understanding of
myths, cultural attitudes and values in early modern England.
Before the work of disability studies, the history of disabled people was absent
from the historiography of culture, literature and music. Despite an absence of
consideration about disability, several impaired conditions featured prominently
throughout the arts during the early modern period. Madness was a persistent
trope of disability in early modern England, often tied to women and expressions
of femininity. Lindsey Row-Heyveld argues that madness in early modern England
usually indicates ‘a more volatile and often temporary loss of reason’, which ‘roughly
correspond[s] with what we today think of as mental illness’.5 ‘Foolishness’, on the
other hand, ‘signalled a wide spectrum of longer-term mental incapacities, roughly
corresponding with what we today think of as developmental or intellectual disa-
bility.’6 Due to the imprecision of medical terminology in the early modern period,
2
Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge, MA, 1969), sixth tractate
from the First Ennead, ‘On Beauty’, section 3, line 28. Another translation of this pas-
sage refers to ‘non-sensible harmonies’ and ‘sensible harmonies’: Plotinus, The Enne-
ads, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson, trans. George Boys-Stones, John M. Dillon, Lloyd P. Gerson,
et al. (Cambridge, 2017). This is particularly interesting in light of disability studies,
since the language refers to a binary opposition of harmonies in music, similar to the
binary opposition of ability and disability in the body. Even with this translation of
‘imperceptible’ versus ‘perceptible’ harmonies, there are two separate and extreme
types of harmonies. Both sets of words by Plotinus about intelligible music could refer
to a condition of the body that prevents perception of the harmonies.
3
Sebastian Francisco Moro Tornese, ‘Philosophy of Music in the Neoplatonic Tradi-
tion: Theories of Music and Harmony in Proclus’ Commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus
and Republic’, PhD Diss., Royal Holloway, University of London, 2010.
4
Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, ed. E. Diehl, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1903–6, repr.
Amsterdam, 1965), Book II, Section 138, lines 17–26.
5
Lindsey Row-Heyveld, ‘Dissembling Disability: Performances of the Non-Standard
Body in Early Modern England’, PhD Diss., University of Iowa, 2011, p.32.
6
See Angela Heetderks, ‘“Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit”: Song, Fooling, and
Intellectual Disability in Shakespearean Drama’, Gender and Song in Early Modern
England, ed. Katherine R. Larson and Leslie C. Dunn (Aldershot, 2014), pp.63–76.
Ophelia’s Mad Songs 171
however, the terms ‘madness’ and ‘foolishness’ were often used interchangeably.7
Melancholy, on the other hand, is intertwined with concepts of the connection
between soul, mind and body: as much an art as it is a science, occupying poets,
physicians, artists and philosophers alike. As Linda Phyllis Austern puts it, ‘like
other affective disorders of the era, melancholy, including its diagnosis and its
treatment, occupied the vast and extremely diverse middle ground between body
and soul’.8 Significant writers on melancholy in the period, such as Timothy Bright
and Robert Burton, compiled massive tomes on its characteristics and manifesta-
tions. Furthermore, literary works, such as the Shakespeare plays in this chapter,
include discussions of the condition of melancholy, and mirror the society’s cul-
tural values of difference.9
Most applicable to this collection is the role of disability in mediating sto-
ries within culture, functioning as a ‘narrative prosthesis’ of normativity within
culture.10 The narratives of disability in many cultures, including early modern
England, utilise the device of the narrative prosthesis to posit that disabled char-
acters, throughout history, frequently appear as a device of characterisation in lit-
erature, and in later cultures these stories are also present in film. Unlike other
marginalised groups and identities, disabled people are often represented as a foil
to able-bodied characters, in order to define normality and normalised bodies.
Disabled characters exemplify disorder and non-normative bodies to better estab-
lish notions of the idealised body, such as in the case of Old Testament Saul, lame
Oedipus and Shakespeare’s King Richard III.11 In early modern England, harmful
music, or discord of harmony or metre, is a foil for the healthful, curative proper-
ties of accepted and normalised musical styles, and facilitates the understanding of
good versus bad music. It is easier to comprehend what not to do when there is an
example to avoid. Generally, the narrative prosthetic is used for two main goals: to
generate tension through expressive contrast, and to provide a story with a solvable
problem. Within literary narratives, such as those of Shakespeare, characters like
the lovesick Duke Orsino, the melancholic Dane and the mad Ophelia are com-
plements to the more reasonable and able-bodied characters. Boethius’s work on
music was also influential to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, particularly by
influencing their alignment of musical discord/concord with physical or spiritual
discord/concord of the body, mind or soul, and in upholding music as capable of
balancing the mind–body connection.12
7
Ibid.
8
Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘“No Pill’s Gonna Cure My Ill”: Gender, Erotic Melancholy and
Traditions of Musical Healing in the Modern West’, Musical Healing in Cultural Con-
texts, ed. Penelope Gouk (New York, 2017), pp.113–36 (116–17).
9
See Timothy Bright, Treatise on Melancholy (London, 1586), and Robert Burton, The
Essential Anatomy of Melancholy (New York, 2002).
10
See David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the
Dependencies of Discourse (Ann Arbor, 2000).
11
Ibid.
12
See Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M.
Bower, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven, 1989); see also chapters 1, 3 and 4 in this
I have argued elsewhere for the legitimacy of examining disability in pre-

modern eras, despite the anachronism resulting from the absence of the term
before the nineteenth century.13 Before the nineteenth century, which is prior to
when ideas of ‘normal’/’abnormal’ and ‘disability’/’ability’ were commonplace
cultural concepts, the standard of ability versus disability (what one can or cannot
do) was often imagined as an idealised body that since the Fall of humankind is
now morally compromised.14 The non-standard body, or the body that is lacking
the ideal, is often conflated with music that deviates from ideal music and requires
better tuning or consonant harmonies to reach an idealised state.15 Early modern
literary and philosophical sources on music reveal conflicting accounts of music as
capable of both curing and inflicting illness.16
An examination of Shakespeare’s Hamlet demonstrates that the songs of mad
characters, and the genre of mad songs, construct a narrative of madness and fem-
ininity vis-à-vis the performance of disability, and thereby solidify the narrative
and character development of the plays. The music is necessary for performing
the stories and myths inherent in conceptions of madness, melancholy and other
early modern ailments. Music and madness are consistently linked together, and
mad characters, such as Ophelia, are pivotal in the plot of Shakespeare’s play.
Furthermore, Ophelia’s character and the mad songs she utters constitute a per-
formance of how madness and femininity – and ultimately disability – were under-
stood in early modern English culture. Ophelia, as the mad feminine character,
volume, which discuss the influence of Boethius on medieval and early modern con-
ceptions of music.
13
See Bassler, ‘Music, Madness and Disease’, pp.182–94, and Bassler, ‘Madness and Music
as (Dis)ability’, pp.529–38.
14
Lindsey Row-Heyveld discusses the complications of disability since the Reformation
in ‘“The Lying’st Knave in Christendom”: The Development of Disability in the False
Miracle of St Alban’s’, Disability Studies Quarterly 29 (2009) http://dsq-sds.org/arti-
cle/view/994/1178. Accessed 20/12/2016.
15
See Bassler, ‘Madness and Music as (Dis)ability’; see also Blake Howe, ‘Music and Dis-
ability Studies: An Introduction’, Musicology Now, American Musicological Society,
9 February 2014 http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2014/02/music-disability-stud-
ies-introduction.html. Accessed 10/2/2014.
16
There have been numerous studies written on the complexities of music and illness
in early modern England. See especially Amanda Eubanks Winkler, O Let Us Howle
Some Heavy Note: Music for Witches, the Melancholic, and the Mad on the Seventeenth-
Century English Stage (Bloomington, 2006); Sarah F. Williams, Damnable Practises:
Witches, Dangerous Women, and Music in Seventeenth-Century English Broadside Bal-
lads (London, 2015); Laurinda S. Dixon, Perilous Chastity: Women and Illness in Pre-
Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Ithaca, 1995); Linda Phyllis Austern, Music in English
Children’s Drama of the Later Renaissance (London, 1992), pp.167–202; Katherine
Hodgkin, Madness in Seventeenth-Century Autobiography (Basingstoke, 2007); Steph-
anie Shirilan, Robert Burton and the Transformative Powers of Melancholy (Aldershot,
2015); Peregrine Horden, ed., Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since
Antiquity (Aldershot, 2000); Christine Goettler and Wolfgang Neuber, eds, Spirits
Unseen: The Representation of Subtle Bodies in Early Modern European Culture (Boston,
2008); Katrine K. Wong, Music and Gender in English Renaissance Drama (New York,
2013), espec. pp.1–19 and 103–65; and Hyun-Ah Kim, The Renaissance Ethics of Music:
Singing, Contemplation and Musica Humana (London, 2015), espec. pp.23–34; among
others.
serves as a narrative prosthesis to Hamlet’s more sane and masculine character.

Ophelia reads as mad, whereas Hamlet’s melancholy attributes give him an allure,
almost as a trope of genius or mystery. Furthermore, the stories of disability are
a departure point for a more nuanced understanding of early modern culture in
England, particularly with regards to Neoplatonism, the histories of madness,
melancholy and disability, and music. While not understood as analogous to our
modern conception of ‘abnormal’, disability was nevertheless an operational and
fascinating category in early English musical culture.
Music could be both a blessing and a curse for the body, mind and soul; depend-
ing on the type of music, it could either rehabilitate or provoke disorder. There
were mystical properties to music, and when performed by a skilled practitioner,
music could perform miracles and cure illnesses by altering the humours. Most
early modern English thinkers espoused humoral theory, which posited that four
fluids, or humours, circulated within the body, each corresponding with a temper-
ament: blood (sanguine), phlegm (phlegmatic), yellow bile (choleric) and black
bile (melancholic). If an individual possessed an excess of a single humour, or an
overheating humour was rendered black (adust), the result was mental and physi-
cal illness. The cure for such imbalance was the balanced harmony of music, which
had the power to return the body to its balanced state.17 Concordant-sounding
music, like the perfect proportions of the heavens, was pleasing to the ear and
could cure maladies of the body.
In 1603, the lutenist Thomas Robinson wrote that music ‘cureth melancholy’
and ‘prevaileth against madness; if a man be in pains of the gout, of any wound, or
of the head, it much mitigateth the fury thereof: and it is said, that music hath a
salve for every sore.’18 Timothy Bright, in his Treatise on Melancholy (1586), wrote
that ‘solemn music’ balances the symptoms of madness: a disordered mind can
be reordered through musical organisation, affecting behaviour by calming the
spirit. Similarly, Bright claims that ‘cheerful music’ balances melancholic tempera-
ments, notably in triple metre. According to Ficino, music also possesses the abil-
ity to rebalance humours through its power over the spirit.19 In The Anatomy of
Melancholy, Robert Burton further accentuates the varying effects of music on the
early modern constitution, underscoring that music’s role in health is anything but
simplistic and straightforward:
Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it
causeth, and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected,
it is a most present remedy, it expels cares, alters their grieved minds, and easeth
in an instant. Otherwise, sayeth Plutarch, music makes some men mad as a tiger;
like Astolpho’s horn in Ariosto: or Mercury’s golden wand in Homer, that made
17
Eubanks Winkler, O Let Us Howle, p.6.
18
Thomas Robinson, The School of Music (London, 1603), sig.B1r.
19
Bright, Treatise on Melancholy, pp.40–1; see also Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, ed.
Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark (Tempe, 2002), pp.113–14, 355–63.
some wake, others sleep; it hath diverse effects: and Theophrastus right well
prophesied, that disease were either procured by music, or mitigated.20
Curative music, with its harmonious, melodious, consonant and well-tuned qual-
ities, symbolised balance and order, which could affect the body positively. Early
modern tropes of what we now recognise as disability were at the root of discus-
sions of music, spirit, voice, and also gendered narratives of voice, in Shakespeare
and his contemporaries. The plays of Shakespeare offer many examples of the
influence of Boethius and Neoplatonist theories of music, which uphold music as
a medium for enacting the balance of mind, body and soul. The disability of the
feminine voice is underscored in Shakespeare, as generally singing is only done by
women, or men overcome with some sort of ailment (and are thereby feminised
and disabled). Four common early modern ailments are illnesses of the mind:
feeblemindedness, madness, melancholy and lovesickness.
Shakespeare’s Ophelia:
Music, Disability and Femininity
In Shakespeare studies, Ophelia is the most-often cited example of the con-
nections between music, madness and femininity. Amanda Eubanks Winkler
invokes Ophelia and the relationship between gender and madness, arguing
that Shakespeare created the prototype for alluring female madness in Ophelia.
Ophelia’s songs provide the sonic background and accompaniment to her mad-
ness, underscoring her precarious mental state through early modern tropes of
music and its power to affect the body.21 Similarly, Leslie Dunn argues that the
musical discourse and dramaturgy surrounding Ophelia’s mad scenes in Hamlet
demonstrate her mental state to the audience. The mad songs are constructed as
disruptive and invasive, in opposition to social conventions. Ophelia is herself a
figure of song: Ophelia’s madness is a vehicle for connecting her gender and psy-
chological difference with the ‘discursive “difference” of music’.22 In other words,
the depiction of Ophelia’s madness, communicated through song, tells a story of
how social and cultural difference and the mind–body connection is understood
in early modern England.
In Act IV, Scene 5 of Hamlet, Ophelia enters after going mad, and begins with
a song, possibly accompanied by herself on a lute.23 Ophelia continues singing
20
Burton, The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy, pp.150–1; discussed in Mary Ann Lund,
Melancholy, Medicine and Religion in Early Modern England: Reading ‘The Anatomy of
Melancholy’ (Cambridge, 2010), pp.5–6.
21
22
Leslie C. Dunn, ‘Ophelia’s Songs in Hamlet: Music, Madness, and the Feminine’,
Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture, ed. Leslie C. Dunn
and Nancy A. Jones (Cambridge, 1994), pp.50–64 (52).
23
The text to the Willow Song appears with a lute accompaniment in London, British
Library: Additional MS 15117, and there is debate over whether or not Desdemona did
actually accompany herself, but the song nonetheless is associated with the broadside
ballad tradition and lute song. See David Lindley, Shakespeare and Music (New York;
throughout the scene, disrupting the other action, and switching between songs
on love and lamenting the death of her father, Polonius. Leslie Dunn draws atten-
tion to the invasive and socially isolating aspects of Ophelia’s songs, such as their
seeming disruptiveness to the action of the play, the antisocial aspects of a woman
singing in early modern England, and the bawdy nature of the texts.24 Ophelia’s
performance of a mad woman thereby enacts a story of disability and gender
throughout the play, such as in the following excerpt from Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5:
Ophelia: [Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t if they come to’t
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,
You promis’d me to wed.’
He answers:
‘So would I “a” done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.’
… He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
O, ho!25
Dunn argues for the privileged status of music in Shakespeare’s ‘dramatic construc-
tion of Ophelia as madwoman’ in Hamlet.26 Dunn argues that ‘Ophelia’s songs
dominate her mad scene, not only in their profusion, but in their disruptive and
invasive power’.27 In Act IV, Scene 5, Ophelia’s singing interrupts her dialogue with
Queen Gertrude, underscoring her scattered mental state. It appears as if Ophelia’s
madness is so extreme that she suffers from excessive song. In the following quo-
tation, Ophelia ignores Queen Gertrude’s engagement with her in conversation,
consistently interrupting her with nonsensical song:
Ophelia: [Sings] How should I your true-love know

From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon.
Gertrude: Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
London, 2005), pp.162–4; Eubanks Winkler, O Let Us Howle, pp.74–5; see also Freder-
ick W. Sternfeld, Music in Shakespearean Tragedy (London, 1963), p.32.
24
Dunn, ‘Ophelia’s Songs in Hamlet’, pp.50–2.
25
Texts from Ophelia’s song, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Den-
mark, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles www.fol-
gerdigitaltexts.org. Accessed 18/2/2018, Act IV, Scene 5.
26
Dunn, ‘Ophelia’s Songs in Hamlet’, p. 50.
27
Ibid.
Ophelia: Say you? Nay, pray you mark.

[Sings] He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
O, ho!
Gertrude: Nay, but Ophelia –
Ophelia: Pray you mark.

[Sings] White his shroud as the mountain snow –
Enter King.
Gertrude: Alas, look here, my lord!
Ophelia: [Sings] Larded all with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go
With true-love showers.28
Defying convention, Ophelia barely even acknowledges Queen Gertrude, nor

does she acknowledge the King’s entrance: she is consumed with grief and with
her song.
Also in Act IV, Ophelia receives criticism from two male characters: an unnamed
gentleman, and Horatio. When commenting upon Ophelia’s disposition, the gen-
tleman uses musical language to describe Ophelia’s state. The discussion precedes
Ophelia’s entrance into the scene, wherein the characters are discussing Ophelia’s
mental state. Interestingly, the gentleman character emphasises that Ophelia’s
‘speech is nothing’, underscoring that it is not speech, but song. Later in the scene,
Horatio warns that Ophelia is treacherous for possibly encouraging ‘dangerous
conjectures in ill-breeding minds’:
[Enter Horatio, Queen and a Gentleman.]
Gertrude: I will not speak with [Ophelia].
Gentleman: She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.
Gertrude: What would she have?
Gentleman: She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
28
Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, ed. Mowat et al., Act IV, Scene 5, lines 33–45.
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Horatio: ‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Gertrude: Let her come in.
[Exit Gentleman.]
[Aside] To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is)

Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Enter Ophelia distracted.29
This scene is a demonstration of Ophelia’s mental state and madness, and also
presents her as the narrative prosthesis and foil for the play. As the scenes illustrate,
Ophelia is the mad character, who expresses her madness through music, which
the characters, such as Queen Gertrude, notice and comment upon throughout her
action in the play. The stage directions also draw attention to Ophelia’s disordered
and unconventional state, as in calling for Ophelia to enter distracted, as above.
Music continues to surround Ophelia, even to the grave, when the clown sings as
he works in the graveyard. Hamlet comments upon the clown’s song, highlighting
the disconnect between grave-digging and song: ‘Has this fellow no feeling of his
business, that he sings at grave-making?’30 Hamlet’s comment underscores how
music is used to communicate the clown’s disconnect from what Hamlet perceives
as social convention surrounding death.
In this way, music and disability bring together the underlying cultural themes
of the story. The disabilities of madness and melancholy in the story of Ophelia
and Hamlet are a window into early modern attitudes towards music. Reflexively,
music also illuminates early modern cultural conceptions of disability, the body
and gender. As Lindsey Row-Heyveld argues, disability and femininity are insep-
arable in early modern England. Both disability and femininity were defined by
their lack of able-bodiedness and idealised standard, a circular notion that makes
it impossible to define disability without ability. She writes, ‘women were stigma-
29
Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, ed. Mowat et al., Act IV, Scene 5, lines 1–25.
30
Ibid., Act V, Scene 1, lines 67–8.
tised because they were like people with disabilities, and people with disabilities
were stigmatised because they were like women’.31 Ophelia as a character is the
embodiment of early modern madness characterised as particularly feminine and
musical.
Cultural Tropes of Music, Disability and

Gender in Shakespeare
While Ophelia and her singing are most often cited as the emblem of feminine
madness, another significant Shakespearean example of feminine gender and dis-
ability within song is Desdemona in Othello. While Desdemona is not strictly a
mad character, she exhibits traits of lovesickness, and serves as a foil to the mas-
culine mad characters of Othello and Iago. Desdemona’s relationship with her
husband, Othello, is altered from its harmonious state by Iago, who claims, ‘O you
are well-tun’d now!/But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music’.32 As a woman,
Desdemona exists outside of the acceptable norms of early modern society and
social music-making. Othello claims that she is ‘fair, feeds well, loves company,/Is
free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well’,33 but her famous Willow song – sung
to her maiden, in secret and away from the public – is the only point when she sings
during the play. In the song, Desdemona demonstrates lovesickness, a kind of mel-
ancholy. In Act IV, Scene 3, Desdemona recalls a story to her maid, Emilia, about
the maid Barbary, who ‘was in love, and he she loved proved mad/And did forsake
her’. Barbary died singing ‘a song of willow’, a song that resonates with Desdemona
so much that she sings it at the end of Act IV, alongside a conversation with Emilia
about her own duties and expectations as a wife.34
Desdemona’s lovesickness is a particular kind of melancholy – erotic mel-
ancholy – caused by her husband’s poor treatment and neglect.35 Early modern
medical texts describe lovesickness as intense, unfulfilled erotic desire, which is
regarded as a real disease, and a species of melancholy with physical manifesta-
tions and cures.36 While lovesickness is generally a male affliction, Desdemona
demonstrates traits of lovesickness when she interrupts her singing of the song to
interject her own bawdy texts. The line interjected into the song by Desdemona
– ‘If I court more women, you’ll couch with more men’37 – refers to Desdemona’s
own plight as a scorned woman. The word ‘couch’ (to lay down) has lascivious con-
31
Row-Heyveld, ‘Dissembling Disability’, p.13.
32
William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston and
Rebecca Niles www.folgerdigitaltexts.org. Accessed 18/2/2018, Act II, Scene 1, lines
185–7.
33
Ibid., Act III, Scene 3, lines 215–16.
34
Ibid., Act III, Scene 3.
35
Eubanks Winkler, O Let Us Howle, pp.74–6.
36
Lesel Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature (Oxford,
2008).
37
Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Mowat et al., Act IV, Scene 3, lines 60–2.
notations, and sufferers of lovesickness often invoked bawdy talk.38 Desdemona’s

feminine voice takes on male qualities, and traverses the gender duality, to draw
attention to her plight as a scorned woman. Her song, also scattered with conver-
sation, much like Ophelia’s, emphasises further her precarious social situation,
foreshadowing her dire future. David Houston Wood has located similar themes
of early modern narrative prosthesis in Othello, examining how difference, ability
and abnormality are constructed through the inward humoral self and evidenced
in representations of drunkenness as a representation of melancholy.39 Similarly,
Kirsten Gibson’s work on melancholy and masculinity in the early modern era
exposes a fundamental contradiction between sixteenth- and seventeenth-cen-
tury comprehension of the humoral and anatomical theory, which centred around
discourses of ‘sameness’, and socio-political theories asserting inherent hierarchi-
cal differences on the basis of gender. There was an appearance of contradiction
between, firstly, medical claims that men’s and women’s bodies’ psyches consisted
of the same materials, and secondly, intrinsic beliefs that women were socially
inferior:40 Nicolas Ling’s description of women from 1598 states that ‘Women,
being of one and the self same substance with man, are what man is, only so
much more imperfect as they are created the weaker vessels.’41 Ling gleans his
conclusions about the female body from ancient and biblical precedent, which are
mapped onto the body, and encrypted in anatomical writings and in the materials
of humoral theory. Early modern English views of how various bodily disorders
affect and exhibit in men and women are understood through a gender hierarchy
of bodily discourses of sameness, which specify how the disorder of melancholy
was gendered, and its power for effeminising male sufferers. Aristotelian theory
also shaped Renaissance anatomical understandings: both men’s and women’s
sexual organs were the same, and result in one biological sex, as women’s organs
were present within the body because of their colder temperament and physio-
logical weakness.42
Another Shakespeare play that is unquestionably musical, and also engages with
early modern ideas about melancholy, is Twelfth Night. The play performs an over-
all healthful music, but which is peppered with demonstrations of lovesickness,
melancholy, madness, foolery and other examples of disability and impairment,
and underscores the different gendered aspects of madness and melancholy. The
play’s famous opening speech by Duke Orsino calls attention to his lovesick state
with evocative musical terminology:
38
39
David Houston Wood, ‘“Fluster’d with Flowing Cups: Alcoholism, Humoralism, and
the Prosthetic Narrative in Othello’, Disability Studies Quarterly 29 (2009) http://dsq-
sds.org/article/view/998/1182.
40
Kirsten Gibson, ‘Music, Melancholy and Masculinity in Early Modern England’, Mas-
culinity and Western Musical Practice, ed. Ian Biddle and Kirsten Gibson (Farnham,
2009), pp.41–66 (46–8).
41
Nicolas Ling, Politeuphuia Wits Common Wealth (London, 1598), fol.24v; cited in
Gibson, ‘Music, Melancholy and Masculinity’, p.46.
42
Gibson, ‘Music, Melancholy and Masculinity’, pp.47–8.
If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.43
Orsino’s opening speech is significant for demonstrating symptoms of lovesick-

ness.44 As Carol Thomas Neely argues, love fills Orsino’s ‘liver, brain, and heart’
(Act I, Scene 1, line 38); his ‘fancy’ is ‘full of shapes’; his ‘desires’ ‘pursue’ him (Act
I, Scene 1, lines 14, 23–4), and music – which should remediate his symptoms –
only worsens them. The ‘dying fall’ referenced recalls the opening of composer
John Dowland’s ‘Flow My Tears’, which features what some music scholars term
a ‘falling tear motive’, set to the text ‘Flow my tears, fall from your springs’ in
Dowland’s song.45 This musical gesture, here a depiction of melancholy, is linked
to earlier gestures in Lasso and Marenzio, and also the seventeenth-century cult
of melancholia, often associated with Dowland, especially in his repertoire of lute
songs and consort music with melancholic poetry and titles (for example, ‘Semper
Dowland, Semper Dolens’ [‘Always Dowland, Always doleful’], ‘Flow my Tears’
and ‘In Darkness, Let Me Dwell’).46
In Act II, Scene 4, Orsino again conflates music and melancholy with love:
Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love,

In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?’
43
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston
and Rebecca Niles www.folgerdigitaltexts.org. Accessed 18/2/2018, Act I, Scene 1, lines
1–15.
44
Carol Thomas Neely, Distracted Subjects: Madness and Gender in Shakespeare and Early
Modern Culture (Ithaca, 2004), pp.99–100.
45
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ed. Mowat et al., Act I, Scene 1, lines 17–22. For a discus-
sion of Dowland and the ‘falling tear’ motive, see Peter Holman, Dowland: Lachrimae
(1604) (Cambridge, 1999).
46
Holman, Dowland: Lachrimae, pp.40–4.
Here, the ‘sweet pangs [of love]’ are alongside music and characteristics of love-
sickness, an altered consciousness of ‘unstaid and skittish’ motions, soothed only
by the ‘constant image of the creature’. Men could also be feminised through an
ailment and depict madness, often communicated through musical metaphor.
Similarly, women with an ailment might display a combination of feminine and
masculine traits, using music as a catalyst. This gender duality and disability
appears in men and women who are unbalanced in their bodily humours, and yet
demonstrate sensitivity to the mind–body connection, and of course, to music.
In women, however, disability is considered more common and natural than in
men. Men’s minds and bodies need to be even more unbalanced to first take on
femininity before being disabled, and symbolised a more severe departure from
the normalised ideal in early modern culture.
The range of music’s ability includes the possibility of harmful music.47 This
reading recognises disability and impairment as operational categories in the early
modern era, and how this affected early modern views on gender and music.48
Throughout the play, music is central to the dramatic action, often due to Duke
Orsino’s great affinity for music, and music – perhaps harmful music – affirms
and characterises his (dis)ability. As Angela Heetderks has shown, Feste’s perfor-
mances of fooling in Twelfth Night demonstrate the treatment of embodied ability
on the Shakespearean stage, stressing the marginalisation of both female charac-
ters and male characters who do not confirm to criteria of idealised masculinity.49
Feste’s songs, and songs sung by other characters in Twelfth Night, identify char-
acters as having intellectual disability or feeblemindedness, separating them from
able-bodied or able-minded characters.50 By contrast, generally the socially and
economically privileged white male, who is the mature male protagonist or male
romantic lead, does not sing. Heetderks calls this phenomenon the ‘unmarked
position of power’ within Shakespearean drama.51 Examples of male leads who
do not sing include Antony, Henry IV, Henry VIII, Romeo, Troilus, Prospero,
Theseus, Demetrius, Lysander, Orsino, Claudio, Orlando and Bassanio. Even
Othello and Shylock, who are socially marginalised by ethnicity and religion while
occupying powerful positions, do not sing. When Shakespeare’s privileged adult
male protagonists do sing, it usually signifies that they are slipping into marginal-
ised positions. Music is then the first example of their imbalance, accompanying
their feminisation and disability.
47
James Kennaway argues that before the nineteenth century music was portrayed as a
medium that restored health, citing new medical theories that connected overstimu-
lation to sickness: Bad Vibrations: The History of the Idea of Music as a Cause of Disease
(London, 2016), pp.29–31.
48
See Bassler, ‘Music, Madness and Disease’; Bassler, ‘Madness and Music as (Dis)
ability’; Row-Heyveld, ‘Dissembling Disability’; Irina Metzler, Disability in Medie-
val Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, c.1100–c.1400
(London, 2006); Sari Katajala-Peltomaa and Susanna Niiranen, eds, Mental (Dis)
Order in Later Medieval Europe (Boston; Leiden, 2014).
49
Heetderks, ‘Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit’, pp.63–76.
50
Ibid., p.64.
51
Ibid., p.66.
This duality – music’s masculine potential to promote reason and strong-mind-

edness and its feminine potential to provoke distress and feeblemindedness, its
healing and harmful qualities – fits Mitchell and Snyder’s observation that the
disabled are often constructed as a foil to able-bodiedness, providing a conflict that
literary narratives seek to resolve.52 In addition to its feminine qualities, harmful
music could also be discordant, as evidenced by this speech in Richard II:
Music do I hear?
[Music]
Ha, ha, keep time! How sour sweet music is
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men’s lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock.53
As the soliloquy begins, Richard blatantly comments upon the gender duality with
less musical (but still rhythmic) language, and referring to his melancholy:
My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented.54
Richard II constructs a gendered mind–body duality, naming his brain as the

female and his soul as the father. The benighted king grapples with melancholy
and what might be considered a crisis of identity. Yet music interrupts his brooding
and fills him with dread:
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is

Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours: but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’ the clock.
52
Mitchell and Snyder, Narrative Prosthesis, pp.47–9.
53
William Shakespeare, Richard II, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston
and Rebecca Niles www.folgerdigitaltexts.org. Accessed 1/3/2018, Act V, Scene 5, lines
43–51.
54
Ibid., lines 6–11.
This music mads me; let it sound no more;

For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For ‘tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.55
Returning to Twelfth Night, music is not only fascinating in relation to its perfor-
mance of male (dis)ability, but also in the context of the play’s constant perfor-
mance of gender ambiguity, bringing into the foreground the tension of gendered
duality of masculine and feminine voice. In Act I, Scene 2, Viola calls upon the
Captain’s aid to create her disguise, using music and song as an indication of her
probable success:
Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him:

It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing
And speak to him in many sorts of music
That will allow me very worth his service.56
Thus, Viola’s ability to sing and pass as a eunuch will make her disguise possible. In
assuming the ambiguous gender of a eunuch, Viola will also execute ‘many sorts
of music’, and these musics have the ability to be persuasive and worthy of service.
This alludes to the healing properties of music, and also the power of music to
make Viola a worthy servant.
Conclusion
Consonant, harmonious, well-tuned music promotes healthful order. Conversely,
dissonant, discordant and out-of-tune music promotes distress. The principles
underlying these views derive from Boethius’s De institutione musica. Developing a
mind–body connection, apropos of Aristotle, Boethius writes:
Music of the universe is especially to be studied in the combining of the ele-

ments and the variety of the seasons which are observed in the heavens … What
human music is, anyone may understand by examining his own nature … What
else joins together the parts of the soul itself, which in the opinion of Aristotle
is a union of the rational and the irrational? What causes the blending of the
body’s elements?57
With reference to the Sirens, Richard Mulcaster (1532–1611) constructed a similarly

complex model for the emotional power of music on the soul and the corruption
55
56
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ed. Mowat et al., Act I, Scene 2, lines 59–64.
57
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, translated and reprinted in W. Oliver Strunk and
Leo Treitler, eds, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1998), pp.140–1; see also
footnote 10.
of the mind. Boethius influenced Mulcaster’s ideas, but Mulcaster took it one step
further, and added a gendered element to the discussion of music:
[Through the] delight of the ears … the weak soul may be stirred up into a feel-
ing of godliness … to some [music] seems offensive, because it carrieth away the
ear, with the sweetness of melody, and bewitcheth the mind with a Siren’s sound,
pulling it from that delight, wherein of duty it ought to dwell, unto harmoni-
cal fantasies, and withdrawing it, from the best meditations, and most virtuous
thoughts to foreign conceits and wandering devices.58
The Siren, gendered female with the power of bewitching the listener, is held up
as an example of music’s ability to affect the listening with ‘foreign conceits and
wandering devises’, which distract the listening from ‘the best meditations, and
most virtuous thoughts’.
Indeed, beyond Shakespeare, there is further literature from early modern
England on melancholy and its relation to music. The lute appears in the early
modern imagination in conjunction with music and love in the poetry collection
entitled The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). In the eighth poem, John Dowland appears
named as a lutenist with a heavenly touch that can ‘ravish human sense’ through
his lute, Phoebus’s lute creating the queen of music, and Edmund Spenser through
his poetry:
If music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great ‘twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus’s lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown’d
When as himself to singing he betakes.59
In this poem, music is equated with poetry and love, which can affect one’s mental
or physical state.
Other writers discuss the powers of music over the body. In the 1583 The
Anatomy of Abuses, Philip Stubbes discussed dangerous music, arguing that cer-
tain music could emasculate man, overtaking his reason and diminishing him to an
58
Richard Mulcaster, Positions Wherein those Primitive Circumstances be Examined which
are Necessary for the Training up of Children, either for Skill in their Book or Health in their
Body (London, 1581), p.38.
59
William Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), ed. Hardy M. Cook, Internet
Shakespeare Editions (Victoria, 2016) http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/
Texts/PP/. Accessed 5/6/2014.
overexcited, womanish state.60 This depiction of music as ravishing a man’s mind to

a womanish state, and possibly over-exciting his feelings for a woman, seems along
similar lines to the story of madness and melancholy constructed by Shakespeare,
and speaks to how music can affect the body’s abilities.
One explanation for this contradiction of music, as capable of both healing
and harming, might be the persistent belief of the mind–body connection in early
modern England. With regards to medieval and early modern medicine, intellec-
tual historian Elena Carrera demonstrates that before the widespread Cartesian
separation between rationality and emotion, the predominant conventional
wisdom taught that ‘grief, obsessive worry, excessive anger, and so forth would
damage hearts, give ulcers, destroy complexions, and make one more prone to
infections’.61 English, French and Italian sources from medieval and early modern
medicine emphasise the mind–body connection, presenting ‘anger, joy, fear, or
sadness as being caused by evaluative perceptions, [and] as physiologically base
processes, manifesting as movements and alterations of the spirits in the brain’.62
While the feminine excess of music could be destructive, the masculine rational-
ity of music as ordered could edify the mind and body. Since music possessed a
dual nature as both harmful or healing, it worked well as a metaphor to mediate
between ideas of ability and disability, with melancholic music or mad songs, such
as those performed by Ophelia, Desdemona and in the opening of Twelfth Night
functioning as a performance of melancholy and cultural ideas about disability.
Disability, then, is a state of both bodily disorder (the unbalanced humours that
cause melancholy) and mental disorder (the mind-oriented pensive and doleful
character of melancholia and lovesickness).
Like Shakespeare, Robert Burton conflates melancholy with the lute and love-
sickness. Burton’s book, The Anatomy of Melancholy, includes ‘The Argument of
the Frontspiece’, which explains the volume’s illustrations, naming one figure as
‘Inamorato’, referring to the title character of Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando inna-
morato (1482). Burton’s text describes the heroic knight Orlando as a vain charac-
ter, pictured with a hanging head, surrounded by his lute and books. Such language
is similar to the melancholy depicted in Dowland’s music, including songs such as
‘Flow My Tears’, ‘Sorrow, Sorrow, Stay’, ‘Go Crystal Tears’ and ‘In Darkness Let Me
Dwell’, with their sighs, tears and references to unrequited love. In this definitive
text on melancholy, Burton goes on to discuss different facets of melancholy, not
only in relation to the individual, and to early modern English beliefs on the causes,
dangers and cures for melancholy, but also situating melancholy as a European
epidemic. Melancholy was not only an imbalance of the humours, but there were
also societal and political forces at work, and the background of religious turmoil,
60
Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses Containing a Discovery, or Brief Summary of Such
Notable Vices and Imperfections, as now Reign in Many Christian Countries of the World
(London, 1583), sigs.[O4]v–[O5]r.
61
Elena Carrera, ‘Anger and the Mind–Body Connection in Medieval and Early Modern
Medicine’, Emotions and Health, 1200–1700, ed. Elena Carrera (Leiden, 2013), pp.95–146
(96).
62
Ibid., p.96.
political upheaval and war affected Burton’s writings.63 Interacting within this com-
plicated framework of politics, religion and society was also a cultural expectation
of gender roles, which often were considered around descriptions of ability and
what was acceptable and allowed behaviour for the genders. Despite the confusion
of the conflict surrounding the cultural landscape, music exercised power.
The following passage from Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy speaks to the
power of music, equating it with divine excellence:
But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise of divine music, I will confine
myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many
other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy, and will
drive away the devil himself. Camus, a Rhodian fiddler, in Philostratus, when
Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him
… that he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much
merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout.64
This passage is illuminating not only for its appeal to music as divine, but also for
its reference to music as having the power to cure melancholy and other diseases,
and to enhance other conditions, such as the amorousness of love and religious
devotion.
Illuminating the relationship between music, impairment, gender and (dis)
ability in early modern culture, narrative prosthesis provides a social model for
melancholy, abnormality and disability in early modern England, with its confla-
tion of melancholy with madness and the socio-cultural expectations of gender. It
suits the complex relationship between understandings of music as both ordered
and disordered. Exploring the connections of madness and melancholy with other
early modern maladies, as well as the role of Shakespearean characters such as
Ophelia and Desdemona as narrative prostheses to able-bodied characters, reveals
how elements of music and disability were understood in early modern England.
63
Lund, Melancholy, Medicine and Religion, pp.1–24.
64
Burton, The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy, pp.150–1.
Plate i Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze, Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas (post restoration 2003–4),
detail of the Seven Liberal Arts on the right
Plate ii Sandro Botticelli, Philosophy Presenting Lorenzo Tornabuoni(?) to the Seven Liberal Arts
Plate iii Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Museen de Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz: Kupferstichkabinett, MS 78.C.28
Plate iv Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale: Banco Rari 229, fol.IV verso
Plate v Dosso Dossi, Allegory of Music
Plate vi Cima da Conegliano, Judgement of Midas, oil on panel, 43 × 73 cm, 1513–17
Plate vii Lorenzo Lotto, Allegory of Virtue and Vice, oil on panel, 57 × 42 cm, 1505
Plate viii Agnolo Bronzino, Apollo and Marsyas, oil on panel transferred to canvas, 48 × 119 cm, c.1530–2
Plate ix Marco Jadra, Polygonal Virginals, cypress, maple, ebony and ivory, 17.1 × 146.3 (front) × 42.6 cm, 1568
Plate x Sir Anthony van Dyck (Flemish 1599–1641), Rinaldo and Armida (1629),
oil on canvas, 93 × 90 in. (253.3 × 228.7 cm)
11
Dangerous Beauty: Stories of Singing Women in

Early Modern Italy
Sigrid Harris
O ne of the most brutal tales in Greek mythology tells of the dangers of

women’s voices. This is the story of the nightingale.1 As related in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, the virgin Philomela is violated by Tereus, husband of her sister
Procne. Maddened and shamed, Philomela threatens to reveal her ‘unspeakable
bedding’ to the world, upon which Tereus excises her tongue to prevent exposure.2
Despite being mute, however, Philomela regains her voice by weaving a message in
a tapestry sent to Procne, who frees her. The two sisters then enact a bloodthirsty
revenge on Tereus – tricking him into cannibalising his own son – before all three
characters are transformed into birds. Procne turns into a swallow, while Philomela
becomes the nightingale, whose powerful voice could not be silenced through the
removal of her tongue. In her avian form, she sings laments and songs to welcome
the spring.3
During the early modern period, responses to the myth of Philomela often
connected the bird’s beautiful song and violence.4 As an icon of music this myth-
encrusted bird revealed male suspicions regarding sonic beauty and femininity,
closely related phenomena in the Renaissance epistemology.5 For example, the
links between music, women and malevolence are made explicit in Cesare Ripa’s
1
The nightingale or philomela, as it is also known, has been an important symbol for
poets and singers in European literature throughout the ages. See for example, Albert
R. Chandler, ‘The Nightingale in Greek and Latin Poetry’, The Classical Journal 30
(2010), 78–84; Elizabeth Eva Leach, Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later
Middle Ages (Ithaca, 2007), pp.92–107; Simona Cohen, Animals as Disguised Symbols
in Renaissance Art (Leiden, 2008), pp.48–9.
2
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis, 2010), p.165, Book VI,
line 626.
3
On the different classical representations of the nightingale singing, see Chandler, ‘The
Nightingale’, pp.78–80.
4
On the links between violence and the song of Philomela in the medieval and early
modern periods, see Lisa S. Starks-Estes, Violence, Trauma, and Virtus in Shakespeare’s
Roman Poems and Plays (London, 2014), pp.160–1.
5
‘Myth-encrusted bird’ is a paraphrase of Jorge Luis Borges, ‘To the Nightingale’, which
views the bird as ‘encrusted with mythology’. Borges, Selected Poems, ed. Alexander
Coleman (London, 2000), p.355. On the connections between sonic beauty and femi-
ninity throughout history, see Elizabeth Eva Leach, ‘The Sound of Beauty’, Beauty, ed.
Lauren Arrington, Zoe Leinhardt and Philip Dawid (Cambridge, 2013), pp.72–98 (96).
188 Sigrid Harris
Iconologia (1593), which was reprinted throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. In this popular book of emblems, the nightingale is an attribute of two
iconographic females: Music, who is described as ‘a beautiful young woman’,6
and the ugly old hag who represents Cruelty.7 Meanwhile, in Italian poetic re-
appropriations of the myth of Philomela, male writers emphasised feminine cul-
pability while doing with their pens the same thing that Tereus achieved with his
knife: even if only within the stories they told, they muted female self-expression.
In much pastoral poetry, the songs of the newly created birds either recede
into the background by becoming common springtime sounds, or are silenced
altogether. For example, in Petrarch’s ‘Zephiro torna’ (from the Canzoniere), the
musical plaints of the nightingale and swallow are among the many poetic devices
used to evoke the pastoral landscape:
Zephiro torna, e ’l bel tempo rimena,

e i fiori et l’erbe, sua dolce famiglia,
e garrir Progne et pianger Philomena,
et primavera candida et vermiglia.8
[The zephyr returns and brings back good weather,

and the flowers and the grasses, his sweet family,
and the complaints of Procne and the weeping of Philomela,
and spring, pure white and crimson.9]
Rather than being centre stage, the female voices serve as an accompaniment to the
male lover’s sad lament; they are simply part of a peaceful soundscape serving to
emphasise, through contrast, the desolate inner world that he inhabits.
Sannazaro goes still further than Petrarch; in his eleventh eclogue, the women’s
cries prove their guilt,10 and are eventually replaced by the male voice, who orders
them to be silent:
6
See Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter, Con Che Soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and
Dance, 1580-1740 (Oxford, 1995), p.9.
7
The bird sits on the head of the woman personifying Cruelty. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia
overo descrittione dell’ imagini universali cavate dall’antichita et da altri luoghi (Rome, 1613
reprint), p.55.
8
Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere, ed. Ugo Dotti (Milan, 1992), no.310, p.384.
9
Translation quoted in Ann Rosalind Jones, ‘New Songs for the Swallow: Ovid’s Phi-
lomela in Tullia d’Aragona and Gaspara Stampa’, Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on
Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schiesari (Ithaca;
London, 1991), pp.263–79 (270).
10
Jones observes that this re-telling of the myth typifies the pattern by which a crime
against a woman is blamed on the woman herself, making her a perpetrator rather than
the victim she truly is. Jones, ‘New Songs’, pp.270–1. See also Barbara Spackman, ‘Inter
musam et ursam moritur: Folengo and the Gaping “Other” Mouth’, Refiguring Woman:
Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, ed. Marilyn Migiel and Juliana Schie-
sari (Ithaca; London, 1991), pp.19–34.
Singing Women in Early Modern Italy 189
Lasciate, prego, i vostri gridi intensi,

e fin che io nel mio dir diventi roco,
nessuna del s uo mal ragioni o pensi.
[Leave off, I pray, your wild cries,

and until I myself become hoarse from speaking,
let neither of you females tell or think of her misfortune.11]
Ann Rosalind Jones has pointed out that in this version of Arcadia, ‘the bird sisters’
are ‘poetic rivals who threaten to drown out his [Sannazaro’s] own performance’;
it would appear that there is ‘air space for only one singer at a time’.12 The male
narrator feels threatened by the women’s music: he may be concerned that the
singing women will eclipse him not only in volume but in talent, as he mentions
Philomela’s ‘soavi accenti’. Yet it can be argued that, as in other male-authored
retellings of the myth, the reasons for the censorship of female singing voices are
more profound. Here as elsewhere, women’s music may be feared because it brings
with it the potential threats of seduction, emasculation, bestialisation and even
death, simultaneously giving the women who perform it power.
While the nightingale is perhaps the most significant symbol of music in literature,
a preoccupation with female singing and its implicit dangers lies at the heart of the
tradition of poetry about music; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Sirens,
sorceresses and nymphs that inhabited the mythical landscape inspired countless
verses in which women were often blamed for the beauty of their songs. Yet despite
the burgeoning number of studies of Renaissance female musical culture, and
despite the fact that fictional representations of female music-making at once echoed
and influenced contemporary attitudes to women and their music, early modern
poetic depictions of feminine musical performance remain largely unexplored in
the musicological scholarship.13 This chapter investigates accounts of women’s music
in Renaissance Italy, from stories of female singing found in two widely influential
epics written for the court at Ferrara, Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1575)
and Matteo Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato (1494), to the poems of the courtesans.
Broadly speaking, the picture of women’s singing that emerges from early modern
Italian literary representations of female music is a sinister one. Although singing
ladies (and courtesans) were also celebrated – ensembles such as the Ferrarese con-
certo delle donne flourished in the late 1500s – their performances clearly generated
11
Jacopo Sannazaro, ‘Eclogue XI’, Eclogae piscatoriae (1526), quoted with translation in
Jones, ‘New Songs’, p.271.
12
13
Probably the most in-depth studies of early modern literary representations of wom-
en’s musical performances are Elena Laura Calogero, ‘“Sweet Aluring Harmony”:
Heavenly and Earthly Sirens in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literary and
Visual Culture’, Music of the Sirens, ed. Linda Phyllis Austern and Inna Naroditskaya
(Bloomington, 2006), pp.140–75; and Stephen M. Buhler, ‘The Sirens, the Epicurean
Boat, and the Poetry of Praise’, Music of the Sirens, pp.176–93.
190 Sigrid Harris
much unease.14 Like their fictional counterparts, real-life female singers were often
censured or feared because of their ability to gain control over men.15 Thus, stories of
singing women in early modern Italy can be seen to reveal deeply entrenched male
anxieties about femininity and about (feminine) music.
Seduction
Sixteenth-century male poets’ suppression of female voices on the page reflected
a real-world distrust of women’s singing. As debates surrounding feminine propri-
ety escalated in the 1500s, women’s voices were increasingly seen as immoral, and
singing was closely interlinked with licentiousness.16 Within both the Church and
the laity, long-held associations between women and sin were intensified as the tra-
ditional connections between female voices and temptation or seduction became
increasingly pervasive.17 As Paolo Cortese observed in his De cardinalatu (1510):
many, estranged from the natural disposition of the normal sense, not only reject
it [music] because of some sad perversion of their nature, but even think it to be
hurtful for the reason that it is somehow an invitation to idle pleasure, and above
all, that its merriment usually arouses the evil of lust.18
Music – particularly women’s music – came to be equated with sexuality. In 1537,

Pietro Aretino commented that ‘the sounds, songs, and letters that women know
are the keys that open the door to their modesty’.19 Women’s speech was itself seen
as a threat; writing in his 1555 treatise on good wives, Francesco Barbaro voiced the
common view that ‘the speech of a noble woman can be no less dangerous than
the nakedness of her limbs’.20 As is clear from Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (1528) and
14
This chapter does not attempt to delve into the positive aspects of female musical per-
formance in early modern Italy, which are already well known.
15
As Tim Shephard has pointed out, ‘commentators on Italian song c.1500 often iden-
tified women not as performers of music, but as its ideal listeners’. Shephard, ‘Noble-
women and Music in Italy, c.1430–1520: Looking Past Isabella’, Gender, Age and Musical
Creativity, ed. Catherine Haworth and Lisa Colton (Farnham, 2015), pp.27–40 (27).
16
Martha Feldman, ‘The Courtesan’s Voice: Petrarchan Lovers, Pop Philosophy, and
Oral Traditions’, The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Martha Feldman
and Bonnie Gordon (Oxford, 2006), pp.105–23 (105).
17
For a discussion of the restrictions placed on women’s voices in the Church, see Ian
Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman: A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and
Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (Cambridge, 1980), p.15, also p.18.
18
Paolo Cortese, De cardinalatu libri tres (San Gimignano, 1510), translated in Nina Pir-
rotta, ‘Music and Cultural Tendencies in 15th-Century Italy’, Journal of the American
Musicological Society 19 (1966), 127–61 (152). A facsimile of the original Latin appears
on p.148.
19
From a letter published in 1537, quoted in Tim Shephard, ‘Voice, Decorum, and Seduc-
tion in Florigerio’s Music Lesson’, Early Music 38 (2010), 361–8 (362).
20
Quoted in Bonnie Gordon, ‘The Courtesan’s Singing Body as Cultural Capital in Sev-
enteenth-Century Italy’, The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Martha
Feldman and Bonnie Gordon (Oxford, 2006), pp.182–98 (189).
other conduct books of the time, female chastity and female silence were virtually
inextricable.21 Female singing could therefore be seen as an extreme violation of
feminine virtue. In a poem written for Adrian Willaert, the Venetian Girolamo
Fenaruolo claimed that the corrupting influence of music was inescapable:
Ne si trovano donna cosi strana

Ne tanta casta, che s’egli cantava
Tosto non divenisse una puttana.
[Never do we find a woman so rare

Nor so chaste, that if she sings
She does not at once become a whore.22]
The fact that music was so deeply entwined with sexuality was problematic. Lust
was thought to ‘unman’ men, even sometimes making them less than human.23
Alberti, for example, tells us that a man consumed by lust becomes ‘thoroughly
contemptible, lower than any weak and insignificant beast, vile and despicable’;
such a man ‘does not care for fame, for honour, or for any tie, however sacred, if he
may but fulfil his vile appetite.’24 According to the Venetian courtesan Tullia d’Arag-
ona (c.1510–56), sexual desire was capable of ‘subordinating reason, which ought to
be the queen of the body, to the senses, and thus very quickly turn[ing men] from
being rational … into being brute animals’.25 Music, which aroused lust, could there-
fore potentially emasculate and even bestialise its audiences. This was equally true
of the singing by ladies whose modesty was ensured by their employers and of per-
formances by women whose songs were part of their sexual merchandise. Both at
the court of Ferrara and elsewhere in Italy, poets made clear the dangers of all sing-
ing women, just as did treatises on music and conduct books from across Europe.
Mary Midgley, in her seminal work on myth, contends that ‘myths are not lies’
but instead ‘imaginative patterns, networks of powerful symbols that suggest par-
21
On the virtue of feminine silence in conduct books of the Italian Renaissance, see
Meredith K. Ray, Writing Gender in Women’s Letter Collections of the Italian Renaissance
(Toronto, 2009), pp. 8–9. As Stefano Guazzo put it in his Civil conversazione (1574),
‘most highly prized in a woman is that silence which so suits her and augments her
reputation for prudence’. Translation quoted in Ray, Writing Gender, p.8. Meanwhile,
Castiglione tellingly gives the women of Il Cortegiano no meaningful role. On the
implications of feminine silence in Castiglione, see Valeria Finucci, The Lady Vanishes:
Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto (Stanford, 1992), pp. 27–73;
Giuseppa Saccaro Battisti, ‘La donna, le donne nel Cortegiano’, La corte e il Cortegiano,
ed. Carlo Ossola, 2 vols (Rome, 1980), vol.1, pp.219–50 (221).
22
Quoted with translation in Shephard, ‘Voice, Decorum, and Seduction’, p.366.
23
See for instance, H. Peter Klein, The Graphic Worlds of Peter Bruegel the Elder (New
York, 2014), pp.60–2.
24
Leon Battista Alberti, Opere volgari, ed. Cecil Grayson, 3 vols (Bari, 1960), vol.1, p.94.
Translation quoted in Paola Tinagli, Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Repre-
sentation, Identity (Manchester, 1997), p.25.
25
Tullia d’Aragona, Dialogue on the Infinity of Love, trans. Rinaldina Russell and Bruce
Merry (Chicago, 1997), p.94.
192 Sigrid Harris
ticular ways of interpreting the world. They shape its meaning.’26 If myth and story
serve to construct worldviews, it is telling that all the most representative female
characters who sang in the epic poetry of the long sixteenth century were ‘mad,
bad, and dangerous to know.’ Perhaps the most influential of these characters was
the sorceress Armida. Throughout Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, the temptress
uses singing to entrap men; music, along with coquetry, deceitful words and her
physical beauty, becomes a tool for persuading men to do her bidding. She thus
effectively subverts masculine power using feminine ploys; her voice is a weapon
of seduction, and even, sometimes, of mass destruction.
At first glance, one of the key scenes in the epic that features her music leaves
her with no real agency of her own, as she is instead the agent of masculine evil.
In Canto IV of Gerusalemme liberata, the Devil himself influences Armida’s uncle
Idraote to send her to seduce the Christian army.27 The parallels with the story of
the Fall are unmistakable. Like Eve, Armida is a beautiful woman swayed by the
Devil to tempt man away from God and into sin, so it may seem as if the real fault
here is with the male Satan.28 Yet the connections between Armida’s musical per-
formance and sin arguably run deeper. Upon closer inspection, neither Armida nor
Eve is merely an instrument of evil, but instead deeply connected with the author
of it, who was, in fact, ambisexual in Renaissance iconography. The Devil could be
either male or female; his gender fluidity draws him closer to his female ‘victims’
who are, in fact, his helpers. In early modern depictions of the Fall, the snake often
has the face of a woman, one that is typically very similar in its features to that of
Eve.29 On the one hand, the Devil takes female form in order to be more sympa-
thetic to Eve, but his femininity here, as in other instances, is more profound.30
The gender-fluid figure of Satan is certainly more proximate to women than most
men – after all, sex, death and the body were traditionally associated with the
female. Women were thus not only damned for being devilish, but the Devil was
26
Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (London, 2011), p.1.
27
Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, ed. Lanfranco Caretti (Milan, 1957), Canto IV,
stanzas 24–6, pp.99–100. In translation, Torquato Tasso, The Liberation of Jerusalem,
trans. Max Wickert, (Oxford, 2009), pp.62–3. For a discussion of Satan’s role in the pro-
cess, see Naomi Yavneh, ‘The Ambiguity of Beauty: Tasso and Petrarch’, Sexuality and
Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images, ed. James Grantham Turner
(Cambridge, 1993), pp.133–57 (135).
28
Indeed, following Tertullian, many believed that all women were culpable for Origi-
nal Sin. For a discussion of the debates surrounding women and sin and the impact of
these debates on Renaissance thought, see Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman,
espec. pp.15–17.
29
See for example, Kathleen M. Crowther, Adam and Eve in the Protestant Reformation
(Cambridge, 2010), p.28. The tradition of linking Eve with the serpent and the Devil
dates at least to the twelfth century. Petrus Comestor, in his influential Historia scholas-
tica (c.1173), claimed that Satan took on a female form to lure Eve to sin because ‘like
prefers like’ (‘Elegit etiam quoddam genus serpentis, ut ait Beda, virgineum vultum
habens, quia similia similibus applaudant’). Quoted in Nona Cecilia Flores, ‘“Vir-
gineum vultum habens”: The Woman-Headed Serpent in Art and Literature from 1300
to 1700’, PhD Diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1981, p.5.
30
Flores, ‘Virgineum vultum habens’, espec. pp.31–40.
evil because he was, in significant ways, a woman.31 Thus Armida, performing her
seduction for the Devil, is carrying out a plot that is itself feminine in its deceitful-
ness, and authored by one who is more womanly than manly.32
Armida therefore exemplifies the links between sin and music, as her story has
resonances with Genesis 3, perhaps the most powerful biblical narrative to enter
the cultural consciousness of early modern Europe. Just as Eve was believed to have
‘flattered Adam with soft words’33 in order to persuade him to eat the forbidden
fruit, Armida sows discontent in the Christian army through sweet music, words,
looks and gestures that are all calculated to incite lust. She uses her feminine wiles to
create chaos, leading men astray from the Crusade and making them generally unfit
for battle. Her music – a key component of her seduction – is therefore responsible
for the potential spiritual death of Christendom at the hands of the pagans:
prima che ‘l suo pensier le sia preciso,

dispon di trarre al fin opra sí rea,
e far con gli atti dolci e col bel viso
piú che con l’arti lor Circe o Medea,
e in voce di sirena a i suoi concenti
addormentar le più svegliate menti.34
[before her plot can weaken, to complete

her criminal design upon their hearts,
to gain by her fair looks and gestures sweet
more than Medea or Circe by their arts.
Out of her siren throat such music creeps
that the most watchful mind is lulled and sleeps.35]
The devastating effects of Armida’s physical and vocal beauty here serve to illus-
trate the Church’s fears that music and femininity could lead Christians away
from morality. Furthermore, Armida’s character embodies the broader anxieties
concerning women and music that were current in the Renaissance. Her art, like
her female personality, is stereotypically dishonest and manipulative. Unlike the
sorceresses of Ariosto and Trissino, Armida is not later exposed as an ugly hag,
but like them she demonstrates the fact that the beauty of poetry and music can
be deceptive, hiding darker truths.36 Hers is a cautionary tale about why women
needed to remain silent.
31
Karl Guthke, The Gender of Death: A Cultural History in Art and Literature (Cambridge,
1999), p.127.
32
See for example, Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman, pp.15–18.
33
From the well-known anonymous text Speculum Humanae Salvationis (c.fourteenth
century); quoted in Crowther, Adam and Eve, p.29.
34
Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, stanza 86, p.120.
35
Tasso, The Liberation of Jerusalem, Canto IV, stanza 86, p.75.
36
Melinda Gough, ‘Tasso’s Enchantress, Tasso’s Captive Woman’, Renaissance Quarterly
54 (2001), 523–52 (524–5).
194 Sigrid Harris
Death and Transfiguration

The corrupting power of Armida’s music – and, given Armida’s status as an icon of
singing women, of women’s music more broadly – is further made clear by the paral-
lels Tasso draws between the sorceress and her mythical forebears.37 Armida is closely
associated with Circe and the Sirens, singing women whose attractiveness masks
their malevolence and who use music to gain power over men, ultimately bestialising
or even killing them.38 During the Renaissance, the myth of Circe was the prototype
tale of animal hybrids and human transformations, used to exemplify monstrosity
in a time fascinated with (un)natural curiosities.39 Sixteenth-century connections
between lust, animality and the enchantress-singer Circe are crystallised in Giovanni
della Porta’s Della fisionomia dell’uomo (On the Physiognomy of Man, 1610). Valerie
Finucci points out that ‘Della Porta underscores the extent to which such identifica-
tion [of the men] with the animal is to be understood as the decadent consequence
of their seduction by Circe, whom he depicts herself as beastlike.’40 In other words,
Tasso’s reference to Circe draws parallels between the two musical seductresses and
the animality to which those in the grip of carnal passions inevitably succumb.
Feminine music is dangerous because it has the potential to strip man of his
human soul. According to early modern scientists, there were three types of soul:
anima vegetativa, which allowed plants to grow; anima sensitiva, the animal soul,
which added to the plant soul new layers of feeling and perceiving; and anima
rationalis, the soul of the human, which incorporated elements of the other two
souls but also included the ability to think and reason.41 The transformation of
Odysseus’s companions into swine makes concrete the idea that through inciting
lust, Circe and her music diminish men’s reason and, therefore, their humanity.
Although the men at the Christian camp of Canto IV of Gerusalemme liberata
remain men in the usual sense, Armida’s connections with Circe make clear that
at a deeper level, the targets of her mass seduction have been dehumanised. As
Francisco Arias warned in a 1602 treatise on spirituality: ‘For as Saint Augustine
says, it is much more tolerable to hear a basilisk hiss than a woman sing, because
the view of a basilisk kills the body, while the singing of a woman … kills the
37
38
As Judith Yarnall puts it, Alcina and Armida were both the ‘mythological descendants’
of Circe: Transformations of Circe: The History of an Enchantress (Urbana, 1994), p.146.
39
For instance, the English used the tale of Circe to denounce ‘Englished’ Italian works;
as Joshua Reid points out, these ‘enchantments of Circe’ were thought to have ‘the
power to transform the English into moral and aesthetic swine’. Joshua Reid, ‘The
Enchantments of Circe: Translation Studies and the English Renaissance’, Spenser
Review 44 (2014) www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/review/volume-44/441/
translation-studies/translation-studies-and-the-english-renaissance. Accessed
16/9/2015.
40
Juliana Schiesari, Beasts and Beauties: Gender and Domestication in the Italian Renais-
sance (Toronto, 2010), p.68.
41
Susanne Hehenberger, ‘Dehumanised Sinners and their Instruments of Sin: Men and
Animals in Early Modern Bestiality Cases, Austria 1500–1800’, Early Modern Zoology:
The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, ed. Karel A.E.
Enenkel and Paulus Johannes Smith, 2 vols (Leiden, 2007), vol.2, pp.381–418 (381).
soul.’42 Armida’s many conquests, then, have lost their masculine power, authority,
virtù, reason – and also their souls.43
In addition to linking his sorceress to Circe, Tasso also calls her a Siren, further
exacerbating the associations between female music and danger.44 As Tasso would
have known, the Sirens of classical antiquity do more than seduce – they also kill.
Men, first made beast-like by the removal of their faculties of reason, may then die
from the excess of sweet song. In early modern Italy this was thought to be literally
true: lust and love became lovesickness, a deadly illness that caused the body to
burn up, shrivel and die. Pierre Boiastuau summarised the popular view of love-
sickness in his Theatrum Mundi (1566):
I have seen anatomy made of some of those that have died of this malady, that
had their bowels shrunk, their poor heart all burned, their liver and lights all
vaded and consumed, their brains endomaged, and I think that their poor soul
was burned by the vehement and excessive heat that they did endure, when that
the rage of love had overcome them.45
Just as the mythical Sirens killed their victims, so too does Armida inflame them
with lovesickness-unto-death. Her performance arouses love in the breasts of
those who hear her, an emotion (or ‘passion’) that Tasso explains as deadly:
Ahi crudo Amor, ch’egualmente n’ancide

l’assenzio e ’l mel che tu fra noi dispensi,
e d’ogni tempo egualmente mortali
vengon da te le medicine e i mali!46
[Cruel Love! You bear our death in murderous vials

filled now with gall, now with your honeyed treasure –
equally fatal all that you ensure,
whether it be the sickness or the cure.47]
In order to understand Tasso’s ‘Siren’, it is instructive to look back to another influ-

ential epic from the court of Ferrara that was composed at the turn of the six-
teenth century, Matteo Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato (1494), which influenced
the genesis of Gerusalemme liberata. The scene that depicts Orlando’s battle with
the Siren is rich with allegorical meaning; most importantly, it carries the message
42
Francisco Arias, Profitto spirituale tr. dal commendatore fra G. Zanchini, 2 vols (1602),
vol.2, p.396.
43
She envelops the men in a ‘double pleasure, / as if she tore their souls out’, making the
men amenable to her desires and, as we have seen, reducing them to animal status.
44
45
Pierre Boaistuau, Theatrum mundi, the Theatre or Rule of the World Wherein may be Seen
the Running Race and Course of Every Man’s Life, as Touching Misery and Felicity, trans.
John Alday (London, 1566), p.194.
46
Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, Canto IV, stanza 92, p.122.
47
196 Sigrid Harris
that beauty may be deceiving. Unlike the many bird-woman Sirens of classical
antiquity, Boiardo’s creature is essentially mermaid-like, perhaps fortifying the
connections between water and sin that were endemic in early modern thought:48
Non gionse il conte in su la ripa apena,

Che cominciò quell’acqua a gorgoliare;
Cantando venne a sommo la Sirena.
Una donzella è quel che sopra appare,
Ma quel che sotto l’acqua se dimena
Tutto è di pesce e non si può mirare,
Ché sta nel lago da la furca in gioso;
E mostra il vago, e il brutto tiene ascoso.49
[The Count had hardly reached the bank

when that pool gurgled.
As she sang, a siren surfaced.
What arose above the surface was a maiden,
but what beneath the surface stayed
was fish – invisible because
her loins remained within the lake.
She showed her form, yet hid her waist.
She sang a song so pleasantly
that birds and wild beasts flocked to hear,
but when they reached her, instantly,
that sweetness made them fall asleep.50]
Just as the Siren is dual, so too is her singing: the sweet music she uses to entrap
Orlando is a thing of beauty, which conceals the metaphorical fishtail of its danger-
ousness. The sweetness (dolcezza) here is deadly.51 If she is true to her classical pre-
decessors, this Siren wants more than to prey on Orlando sexually; she presumably
wants him for lunch. The idea of the seductress eating her killings is a potent meta-
phor for female empowerment, as feeding has always been a means of inflating one-
self – eating and killing are both a means of absorbing the life force of the other.52
48
The first fishtailed Sirens date from the eighth century ad. In Renaissance Italy, bath-
houses were condemned by religious men as the watery equivalent of brothels; fur-
thermore, water was seen as a corrupting influence, potentially leading to death. Sara
F. Matthews Grieco, ‘The Body, Appearance and Sexuality’, A History of Women in the
West: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette
Farge (Cambridge, MA, 1993), pp.46–84 (48).
49
Matteo Boiardo, Orlando innamorato, ed. Aldo Scaglione (Turin, 1974), stanzas 36–7,
pp.734–5.
50
Matteo Boiardo, Orlando in Love, trans. Charles Stanley Ross (Indiana, 2004), Book II,
Canto IV, stanzas 36–7, p.281.
51
For a discussion of the negative connotations of dolcezza, see Richard Wistreich, War-
rior, Courtier, Singer: Giulio Cesare Brancaccio and the Performance of Identity in the Late
Renaissance (Aldershot, 2007), pp.267–8.
52
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York, 1973), p.98; James Calderwood, Shake-
speare and the Denial of Death (Amherst, 1987), pp.17, 29–30.
In the Western literary canon, women are not often portrayed in the act of
eating precisely because the consumption of food is linked with authority.53 For
the Siren, devouring any food would already assert her dominance, but the fact that
she is a literal man-eater is even more deeply significant. As Freud would later point
out, cannibalism is a form of possession, in which the gastronome assumes the
properties of the victim, including social status.54 To eat Orlando, therefore, is to
become Orlando. In singing to a man, then, the female here threatens to supplant
him. The only way to defeat the Siren is to become literally deaf to her singing –
Orlando fills his helmet with rose petals to stop any sound from reaching his ears,
so that he can kill rather than be killed.
Tasso would have used this Siren as a model for Armida and for ‘real’ Sirens
of his own. Elsewhere in Gerusalemme liberata (Canto XV, stanza 57), Rinaldo’s
friends encounter Sirens whose deceitful singing invites them to partake in the
pleasures of the flesh:
‘Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio

che mortali perigli in sè contiene.
Or qui tener a fren nostro desio
ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene:
chiudiam l’orecchie al dolce canto e rio
di queste del piacer false sirene,
così n’andrem fin dove il fiume vago
si spande in maggior letto e forma un lago.’55
[‘Behold the Laughing Spring,’ they cried, ‘behold

the stream where peril spreads a deadly gin.
Now must we keep wills bridled and controlled,
and be most watchful how we venture in.
Let us shut up our ears, nor be cajoled
by these false Sirens’ songs of joy and sin.
So shall we come where the stream’s windings make
a wider bed and spread to form a lake.56]
Like Boiardo’s Orlando and Odysseus himself, Tasso’s knights must stop their ears
to the sound of the women’s singing if they are to survive. It can be argued that the
Sirens, who would symbolically castrate men through decapitation, embody a real
53
For a discussion of the symbolic meanings of eating, and of the lack of literary repre-
sentations of women eating in Western literature, see Emma Parker, ‘You Are What
You Eat: The Politics of Eating in the Novels of Margaret Atwood’, Twentieth Century
Literature 41 (1995), 349–69 (349).
54
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages
and Neurotics, trans. A.A. Brill (New York, 2012), p.107. In the psychology of death
denial in the tradition of Ernst Becker, ‘to kill your enemy is to consume him. The
object of such consumption is not … to fill your belly with food but to enlarge your
soul with mana, to recharge your spiritual batteries with your enemy’s vital principle.’
Calderwood, Shakespeare and the Denial of Death, p.18.
55
Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, Canto XV, stanza 57, pp.463–4.
56
Tasso, The Liberation of Jerusalem, Canto XV, stanza 57, p.283.
198 Sigrid Harris
castration anxiety that was provoked by early modern singing women; but the fear
of emasculation was not the deepest anxiety.
It is no coincidence that Tasso’s Sirens, Armida and Boiardo’s fish-woman
hybrid in the Innamorato are three prominent examples among the many instances
of Renaissance poetic depictions of singing women who wished to bring death
on their male targets (and sometimes succeeded). That stories of singing women
repeatedly warn of dangers suggests that these same women were censured
because on a deeper level their voices provoked anxiety about death: as the psy-
chologist Ernest Becker put it, ‘sex is of the body, and the body is of death’.57 Their
connection with sex meant that singing women became reminders of mortality;
women’s embodied voices produced physical effects in the world around them,
acting on the minds and bodies of their listeners in ways that invoked animal
instincts and thus the fear of death. Although it has been convincingly argued
that the denial of death was strong in early modern Europe, singing women like
Armida and her real-life counterparts brought with them the unwanted realisation
of the basic existential fact that man is ‘out of nature and hopelessly in it … dual,
up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body’.58 One
day, the body that listened and was aroused would be, to borrow Shakespeare’s
phrase, ‘dead and turn’d to clay/Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.’59 The
sixteenth century was a time of increased preoccupation with death, so it makes
sense that the anxieties surrounding women’s music should likewise escalate.60
Dangers at Court
In 1580, Tasso was in the midst of revising and publishing the section of Gerusalemme
liberata in which the Sirens appear; at around the same time, he penned a poem
addressed and dedicated to a courtier and singer named Giulio Cesare Brancaccio,
who on occasion joined the ladies of the concerto delle donne in performance.61
As Richard Wistreich has pointed out, this poem exactly mirrors Canto XVI of
Gerusalemme liberata; at times even the choice of wording is uncannily similar.62 The
poem, ‘A Giulio Cesare Brancaccio per il concerto de le dame da la corte di Ferrara’
(Le rime, vol.3, no.717), is significant in that it portrays the real-life singers of the con-
certo using mythical tropes. Tasso’s reconstitution of his own earlier text to portray
real women in the process of real singing, demonstrates the extent to which myth-in-
fused poetry could reveal ideas about the real world and construct its perception. In
‘A Giulio Cesare’, Tasso warned his friend against the ‘mad pleasures and feminine
wiles’63 which threatened to ensnare him as he – like many other courtiers – listened
to the sweet voices of the donne:
57
Becker, The Denial of Death, p.162.
58
Ibid., p.26.
59
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. T.J.B. Spencer (London, 2005), Act V, Scene 1, lines
213–14, p.127.
60
See Guthke, The Gender of Death, pp.44–5.
61
Brancaccio was a famous bass, though he preferred to be recognised first and foremost
as a warrior, not a musician, for reasons of masculine honour.
62
See Wistriech, Warrior, Courtier, Singer, p.271.
63
Translation quoted in Wistriech, Warrior, Courtier, Singer, p.269.
Signore, Amor t’ha colto

tra novelle sirene,
quai non so s’udir mai le nostre arene,
gli orecchi al suon, deh, chiudi
ed apri gli occhi al sonno.64
[Sir, Love has surprised you

among sirens hitherto unknown,
such as I do not know our sands have ever heard;
close, I say, close your ears to the sound
and open your eyes to the [danger of lethal] sleep.65]
This passage is indeed astoundingly evocative of the Gerusalemme liberata text;

however ‘virtuous’ they may be, the women of the concerto delle donne are still
overtly identified with the deadliest, most vicious, singing creatures in mythology.
Further, they collectively sing the part of Eros himself. The poem is primarily a
re-imagining of the myth of Phoebus (Apollo), Amor and Daphne;66 in the myth,
Apollo taunts Cupid, saying he is too young to handle ‘a man’s weapons’,67 caus-
ing Cupid to retaliate by piercing Apollo with one of his arrows, thereby making
him fall in love with the nymph Daphne. ‘A Giulio Cesare’ is therefore a kind of
meta-fiction, telling the story of Brancaccio and the lady singers as they themselves
re-tell the myth with all its nested references. While Brancaccio sings the part of
Apollo, the ladies – the chaste Anna Guarini and Laura Peverara – together sing as
Amor. Tasso uses the poem to urge Brancaccio, the second Apollo, not to lose the
conflict with Eros, and suggests that the only way he can ensure his victory is by
winning the singing contest, effectively overpowering the women’s voices using his
own singing to make himself deaf to them:
i sensi vaghi, il cor circonda

de la dolcezza del tuo proprio canto:
ch’a dolcezza esterna
ti farà quasi sordo al suo diletto,
novo Narciso al suon, non a l’aspetto.
[compass round your errant senses, surround your heart

with the sweetness of your singing;
for this to that sweetness that comes from without
will make you as if deaf to its delight,
a new Narcissus at the sound, not at the sight.68]
64
Torquato Tasso, Le rime di Torquato Tasso: Rime d’occasione o d’encomio, ed. Angelo
Solerti, 3 vols (Romagnoli dall’Acqua, 1900), vol.3, p.272.
65
Translation quoted in Wistriech, Warrior, Courtier, Singer, p.269.
66
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I, lines 470–601, pp.18–22.
67
Ibid., Book I, line 475, p.18.
68
Tasso, Le rime, ed. Solerti, vol.3, pp.270–2. Quoted with translation in Wistriech, War-
rior, Courtier, Singer, p.268.
200 Sigrid Harris
Here, as in the pastoral text by Sannazaro examined earlier, women’s voices are
annihilated; however, unlike Sannazaro, Tasso unambiguously states the reason:
the male listener may listen only at his peril. Tasso’s reinvention of Ovid makes
explicit the connections between Apollo, masculinity and rationality on the one
hand, and Amor, femininity and irrationality on the other. The singing competi-
tion is effectively therefore reason versus lust, and if Brancaccio/Apollo wins it, he
will remain an upright soldier. If he loses, he will become weak and feminine; he
will have succumbed to the lure of the Sirens without stopping his ears, and the
ultimate price he may have to pay is death.
Empowerment
Yet what of the real women who sang? There may have been dangers, but ladies who
sang during the Renaissance were ultimately able to acquire wealth, social standing
and at least some degree of control over the men around them. Through music,
women were able to seduce, thus gaining power even within the confines of a strict,
patriarchal society. As Tomaso Garzoni put it in his La piazza universale di tutte le
professioni del mondo (1589), ‘Where do you think such songs, dances, jokes, parties,
and so on come from, but from the desire to seduce with angelic soprano voice and
attract with divine sounds of harpsichord and lute.’69 In 1588, Pope Sixtus V issued a
ban forbidding women from performing in Rome. In the Italian Cinquecento, to be
female and sing meant to be empowered. Returning to the myth of the nightingale,
we can see some of the ways in which women used music to liberate themselves.
Three notable female poet-singers of the Italian Renaissance used the story of
Philomela as part of their self-expression, blending their own voices with that of
the nightingale in verses that described their emotions or even singing, and cate-
gorically denying the male plea that women should be seen and not heard. Perhaps
the most striking treatment of the myth comes from the pen of the Venetian cour-
tesan Tullia d’Aragona (c.1510–56), who compares her newfound freedom from
the bonds of love to the liberty of the songbird. D’Aragona uses the nightingale as
an emblem of her freedom from male domination. Philomela has fled Tereus, who
would put a stop to her music, and d’Aragona has run from her lover and master.
Neither woman is now subjected to the will of a male other; instead they are both
autonomous, free to give voice to anything they choose.
Qual vaga Philomena, che fuggita

E da la odiata gabbia, et in superba
Vista sen’va tra gli arboscelli, et l’herba
Tornata in libertate, e in lieta vita;
Er’io da gli amorosi lacci uscita
Schernendo ogni martire, et pena acerba
De l’incredibil duol, ch’in se riserba
Qual ha per troppo amar l’alma smarrita.70
69
Tomaso Garzoni da Banacavallo, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo
(Venice, 1589), p.605. Translation quoted in Gordon, ‘The Courtesan’s Singing Body’, p.185.
70
[The lovely Philomela, escaped

From the hated cage, looks splendid
As she darts among the trees and greenery,
Returned to liberty and a happy life.
I, too, from amorous ties
Was freed, scoffing at the torment and bitter pain
Of the unbelievable grief that is reserved for one
Who has, for loving too much, lost her soul.71]
Like many courtesans, d’Aragona used singing to entrap male desire and, therefore,
clients. By identifying herself with the nightingale she is referring to her own par-
ticular fame as a singer; she kept a library of music books and was especially well
known for her sight-singing prowess.72 Just as the transformed Philomela’s singing
voice finally told the world of her story, empowering her once and for all, so too
was d’Aragona’s singing voice crucial to her sovereignty; like Philomela, she was a
self-directed subject defined by her music-making.
In a portrait of d’Aragona by Moretto da Brescia, the courtesan-poet is identified
by the Latin inscription as Salome, ‘Quae Sacro Ioannis/Caput Saltando/Obtinit’
(She who dancing obtained the head of St John).73 D’Aragona would have been famil-
iar with the Renaissance retellings of the biblical narrative, where Salome dances her
way to complete control over her stepfather the king, eventually gaining half a king-
dom and being granted her wish to be given St John the Baptist’s head on a platter.
If d’Aragona had any choice in her portrayal, which seems likely, she consciously
aligned herself to a woman who used the performing arts to overthrow male power.
By contrast, the treatment accorded to the myth of Philomela by Gaspara
Stampa (1523–54) is an empathetic response to the sorrow felt by the nightingale
and her sister, in which the poet self-identifies as a member of the group of women
harmed by men. Whereas Tereus raped and silenced Philomela, Stampa’s beloved
Count has caused her similar pain in abandoning her:
Cantate meco, Progne e Filomena,

anzi piangete il mio grave martìre;
or che la Primavera e’l suo fiorire,
i miei lamenti, e voi tornando mena.
A voi rinova la memoria, e pena
de l’onta di Tereo, e le giust’ire,
e me l’acerbo, et crudo dipartire
del mio Signore morte empia rimena.74
71
Translation quoted in Irma B. Jaffe, Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune: The Lives and Loves of
Italian Renaissance Women Poets (New York, 2002), p.87.
72
Virginia Cox, Lyric Poetry by Women of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore, 2013), p.88;
Courtney Quaintance, Textual Masculinity and the Exchange of Women in Renaissance
Venice (Toronto, 2015), p.143.
73
Moretto da Brescia, Portrait of Tullia d’Aragona as Salome, c.1537, Pinacoteca Tosio Mar-
tinengo, Brescia. Jaffe, Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune, p.82.
74
Gaspara Stampa, Rime, ed. C.R. Ceriello (Milan, 1976), no.173, lines 1–8, p.178.
202 Sigrid Harris
[Procne and Philomena, sing with me,

or better, weep: weep for my suffering
now that spring returns in its flourishing
to usher in my laments, and you,
for whom the season renews the memory
and pain of your just wrath and Tereus’s shame;
for me, the cruel and bitter parting
of my lord brings with it only evil death.75]
In direct contrast to Sannazaro’s silencing of the women’s complaints, then, Stampa

begs the bird-women to sing along with her. What emerges is effectively a women’s
chorus of suffering, in which the female voices support each other in deploring
masculine behaviour.
Veronica Franco (1546–91), another Venetian courtesan, similarly used the
imagery of the female nightingale and swallow to lament the cruelty of a male
beloved; here, the birds harmonise Franco’s ‘sad melody’, singing along, presum-
ably in counterpoint, in order to express their mutual anguish. In each case, the
female chorus emphasises the experience of pain within the women’s communal,
subjective, emotional world, and implicitly or explicitly cites male wrongdoing as
the cause of their shared suffering:
da le loro spelunche uscite fuora,

piansero fin le tigri del mio pianto
e del martir che m’ancide e m’accora;
e Progne e Filomena il tristo canto
accompagnaron de le mie parole,
facendomi tenor dí e notte intanto.76
[Coming out of their secret lairs,

even tigers wept at my weeping
and the mortal pain that stabs my heart.
And Procne and Philomela joined in
with my sad melody and words,
singing in harmony both day and night.77]
Even with all her associations of violence, lust and death, the (female) symbol of
music that is the nightingale thus also becomes the symbol of women’s liberation
in the poetry of the singing women. Whether, like Philomela, they escaped the
cage of patriarchal confinement, or they used the bird in a conscious gesture of
feminine self-expression, these female poets demonstrated that music was empow-
ering to them; it was, after all, a tool that allowed them to gain control over men.
75
Gaspara Stampa, The Complete Poems: The 1554 Edition of the “Rime,” a Bilingual Edition,
ed. Troy Tower and Jane Tylus, trans. Jane Tylus (Chicago, 2010), p.213.
76
Veronica Franco, Poems and Selected Letters, ed. Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F.
Rosenthal (Chicago, 1998), p.72.
77
Ibid., p.73.
Their representations of women’s singing were in direct contrast to the treatment

afforded the subject by their male contemporaries. Just as music gave women new
power, so too it disempowered men.
Viewed in the context of tales from epic poetry, female musical performance in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries appears in a disquieting light. In reality as in
fiction, women and their music were a hazard both to men as individuals and to
the male-dominated structure of society – as in Armida’s conquest of the Christian
army through song and seduction. No matter how innocent, ladies’ songs had the
power to overcome reason and thus to undermine masculine authority and iden-
tity. In addition, stories about female singing reflected widespread anxiety over the
power of music to transform its audiences, whether for better or for worse. Music
may have triggered a fear of emasculation in its male audiences, but also – like
Armida and the Sirens – real-life singing women threatened not only bestialisa-
tion and symbolic castration, but death. Just as the singing nightingale-woman
Philomela was a figure of terror for overthrowing her abuser and conspiring to
murder his son, so too were singing women of the Renaissance feared for their
ability to upset the masculine balance of power, and so too was the music they
sang – in all its feminine sweetness – deadly.
vi
myth and music as

forms of knowledge
12
‘Fantastic Spirits’: Myth and Satire

in the Ayres of Thomas Weelkes
Katie Bank
I n 1640, the bishop and writer Edward Reynolds wrote that God gave us ‘musi-
cal, poetical, and mythological persuasions’ to arouse our imaginations, with
an end to teach and moralise. He saw music, poetry and myth as means to make
lofty spiritual matters tangible to mortals, as these three fictions ‘best affect the
imagination’. He justified this in biblical terms, explaining:
we find some room in the Holy Scriptures for mythologies; as that of the vine, the
fig-tree, and the bramble, for riddles, for parables, similitudes … whereby heav-
enly doctrines are shadowed forth, and do condescend unto human frailties.1
He described how these arts functioned in subtle ways by ‘secretly instilling [moral-
ity] into the will, that it might at last find itself reformed, and yet [we] hardly per-
ceive how it came to be so’.2 Reynolds explained that imagination worked to ‘open
and unbind the thoughts’, as imagination is freer than the ‘rigor and strictness’ of
reason or the ‘severity of truth’.3 Like many of his contemporaries, Reynolds upheld
an essentially Aristotelian approach to the arts, maintaining that as long as music,
poetry and myth worked to teach us virtue, these imitative, metaphoric arts were
worthy pursuits.4 Whether a force for gaining knowledge or for deception, myth,
music and poetry were thought to be the key modes for accessing and stimulating
imagination, the internal sense responsible for feigning reality.
This chapter considers three case studies from Thomas Weelkes’s Ayres or
Fantastic Spirits (1608), in which established tropes of music, poetry and mythol-
ogy are manipulated to satirical ends, as both satire and mythologies were contem-
porarily understood as discursive processes related to truth. Myth, for example,
was a highly metaphorical form, and therefore allowed authors to use its tropes as
a ‘palette’ to veil and colour a variety of themes, often topical, political, erotic or of
1
Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (London,
1640), sig.D3r.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., sig.D4v.
4
William Webbe used pastoral justifications to support the arts by stating: ‘If that the
shepherds’ god did merit praise’, then ‘Why should the fear of base detraction / Bury
thy art in black oblivion?’: Thomas Greaves, Songs of Sundry Kinds (1604), sig.A3v.
208 Katie Bank
religious and moral allegory.5 Eero Tarasti reports, ‘there is no doubt that the main
cultural function of mythology is the establishment of precedent, the vindication
of the truth of magic, of the binding forces of morality and law, and the real value
of religious ritual by referring to events which have occurred in a dim past, in the
Golden Age’.6 One might argue that mythologies and pastorals, by rooting present
behaviour in an ahistorical past, urge people to question the nature of knowledge
through self-examination. Giuseppe Gerbino suggests that in the fantasy experi-
enced through pastoral, ‘the real issue is not self-deception, but self-representation.
Pastoral did not offer an easy way out from oneself; but a symbolic space within
which to play oneself.’7
Satire, too, forces the hearer to contemplate the relationship between reality and
fiction, and moreover satire also serves a common function with myth, as both are
fictions that create spaces of ambiguity in which subjects could engage in signif-
icant and challenging discourses. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the half-goat,
half-man Arcadian Satyr made a common appearance in madrigalian texts, and was
sometimes confused with ‘satire’, as they were often spelled interchangeably.8 The
examples under consideration in this chapter reveal how music, myth and satire
could work together to probe early modern awareness of the self, a process that not
only reflected, but also contributed to contemporary conceptions of truth.
Approaches to Satire and Myth

Contemporary writers believed that satire worked to reveal knowledge, or, in
Everard Gulpin’s words from 1598, to ‘speak the truth’.9 As satire is often enter-
taining, it is also ‘veiled’, speaking truth, but not too directly. Moreover, it was
noted that satire was often reliant on the performer’s delivery. Henry Peacham
pointed out in 1577 that appropriate performance was crucial to satirical uptake.
He explained that ‘ironia’ is:
when a sentence is understood by the contrary, or thus, when our meaning is

contrary to our saying, not so well perceived by the words, as either by the pro-
5
Many of the English domestic music books published in the sixteenth and early sev-
enteenth centuries are of an explicitly pastoral nature, rife with figures from classi-
cal myth, skipping nymphs, kissing shepherds, fields of daisies – the pleasures of ‘the
simple life’ that is ‘remembered’ in a perceived past that exists not in history, but in the
mind. Joseph Kerman, The Elizabethan Madrigal: A Comparative Study ([s.l.], 1962),
p.200; Laurence Lerner, The Uses of Nostalgia: Studies in Pastoral Poetry (London,
1972), p.41.
6
Eero Tarasti, Myth and Music: A Semiotic Approach to the Aesthetics of Myth in Music,
Especially that of Wagner, Sibelius and Stravinsky (The Hague, 1979), p.17.
7
Giuseppe Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge,
2009), pp.4–5.
8
It is for this reason that in Greek drama Satyrs are often the characters attributed with
giving satirical speeches. Oxford English Dictionary, ‘satyr, n.’, OED Online www.oed.
com/view/Entry/171301. Accessed 24/6/2014.
9
‘Satyre Preludium’, line 76 in Everard Gulpin, Skialetheia or A Shadow of Truth, in Cer-
tain Epigrams and Satires, ed. D. Allen Carroll (Chapel Hill, 1974), p.61.
nunciation, by the behaviour of the person, or by the nature of the thing … By

this figure we do forbid by a mocking grant, and command by a frumping for-
bidding, and also commend that, that is worthy of dispraise, and dispraise that,
that is worthy of high commendation.10
Particularly in sarcastic or ‘deadpan’ performance, the true meaning of words is

unclear until the ‘behaviour of a person’ imbues the text with satirical meaning,
ready for uptake by the savvy hearer.
One can imagine how mythologies made a particularly apt vehicle for satiri-
cal discourse, as both worked to reveal ‘hidden’ truths. George Puttenham wrote
in The Art of English Poesy (1589) that pastoral verse was devised by men who
saw its powerful function as a means to change behaviour: ‘but under the veil
of homely persons … these Eclogues came after to contain and inform moral
discipline, for the amendment of man’s behaviour, as be those of Mantuan and
other modern poets’.11 Puttenham believed that when the passions were moved by
myth, they could motivate tangible change within a person. Moreover, mythol-
ogies held a central place in the theories on knowledge of natural philosophers
like Francis Bacon. Bacon liberally employed myth and fable in his philosophical
writings, thereby demonstrating his belief that fictions reflected truths of nature.12
Furthermore, it is Diana Altegoer’s belief that ‘this intellectualising of myth proved
to be Bacon’s greatest influence on subsequent philosophers’,13 and although he
shows some inconsistency in his approach to myth, by De sapientia veterum (1609)
he is ‘firmly convinced that the veil or dense mist of fable facilitates the modern
advancement of learning’.14
Eero Tarasti explains that mythologies ‘signify a sacred, traditional knowledge,
a primitive belief, which naturally prompts one to ask the nature of this knowledge
and belief ’.15 It makes sense, then, that mythological tropes provide a suitable mode
of dialogue for furthering the nature of knowledge. Gerbino knows that ‘music
played a fundamental role in the construction and preservation of this collective
illusion’ known as Arcadia.16 But as I argue in this chapter, it appears possible that
10
Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence (London, 1577), sig. D2r.
11
George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy Contrived into Three Books (London, 1589),
sig.F4v. Though the pastoral mode is a literary, scholarly and artistic force wholly its own,
for this chapter, the use of the pastoral is in terms of the mythological figures it commonly
employed, like Cupid, Diana, nymphs, etc. Therefore, I will be using theory from myth
and the pastoral interchangeably, though I acknowledge there are nuances that differen-
tiate their histories. Richard Andrews suggests that characters from classical mythology
infiltrated pastoral drama by 1500, a period which saw an increase in texts that mingled the
two traditions. Richard Andrews, ‘Theatre’, The Cambridge History of Italian Literature, ed.
Peter Brand and Lino Pertile (Cambridge, 1996), pp.277–98 (292). Eclogues are the myth-
ological, pastoral works by the poet Virgil. Puttenham, The Art of English Poesy, sig.F4r.
12
Diana Altegoer, Reckoning Words: Baconian Science and the Construction of Truth in
English Renaissance Culture (Madison, NJ, 2000), p.14.
13
Ibid., p.23.
14
Ibid., p.80.
15
Tarasti, Myth and Music, p.18.
16
Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia, p.1.
210 Katie Bank
music, too, might have been altered by this significant affiliation with the mythical.
Tarasti argues that ‘myth and music constitute two forms of discourse which are
closely related’.17 He suspects that ‘there are compositions wherein only the code
of myth is reconstructed’ as ‘the influence of myth upon music is … ascertainable
in the stylistic features of musical discourse’.18 One challenge for Tarasti, who is
looking primarily at the music of Strauss and Wagner, is that ‘in order to see how
musical thematics are involved in the mythical, one must find several musical real-
izations of the same myth or sufficiently similar myths’.19 This is not much of a
challenge in English domestic genres. A simple ballett-like ‘fa-la’ or a word-painted
‘aye me’ acts as a signifier that might as well invoke Diana and her train of dancing
nymphs.20 Tarasti hypothesises that because music ‘possesses a formal world, his-
tory and rules of its own … in the hands of myth it acquires a new function and
its original properties are put in “brackets” because its only task now is to support
the mythical meaning and content’.21 To this end, he concludes that ‘music in some
cases could entirely replace a mythical text’,22 suggesting that because music is like
language without semantic meaning, the notes could indeed detach themselves
from their verbal foundation, while retaining myth’s cultural function.23 In the fol-
lowing case studies, I examine how the domestic genres’ dynamic partnership with
the mythological influenced textual and musical meaning through compositional
tropes, particularly as texts evolved away from strictly pastoral topics.
Edmund Fellowes believed that Weelkes’s 1608 collection contained specific
pieces of ‘political or topical meaning, the explanation of which has been lost’,
which were then ‘aptly styled by the composer [as a song form called] Fantastic
Spirits’.24 If Fellowes is right, then there is no structural difference between ‘ayres’
and ‘spirits’ in musical terms, the distinction is in the poetic content (if there even
is a conscious distinction at all). It seems curious, however, that Weelkes would
name his topical pieces, those with real-world inspirations, ‘fantastic spirits’, as
the reverse seems more logical.25 It is clear, however, that the deeply embedded
17
18
Ibid., pp.15–16.
19
Ibid., p.16.
20
For more on signifiers, see: Tarasti, Myth and Music, p.75. Though Tarasti’s theories rely
primarily on, in Nicholas Cook’s words, ‘terms which maintain the underlying values
of formalism’, I still find his analysis useful even though I embrace diverse phenomena
of musical meaning. Nicholas Cook, ‘Theorizing Musical Meaning,’ Music Theory Spec-
trum 23 (2001), 170–95 (174).
21
22
Ibid., p.30.
23
Tarasti argues that such ‘transfer of structures from the area of one to that of the other
is based on the fact that myth and music as discourses have similar functions, as a result
of which they can, in certain cases, substitute for each other’. Ibid., p.33.
24
Thomas Weelkes, Airs, or, Fantastic Spirits (1608), ed. Edmund Fellowes and Thurston
Dart, English Madrigalists 13 (London, 1965), p.iii.
25
This is the only instance of a musical ‘spirit’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
See definition IV. 15. (d.) in Oxford English Dictionary, ‘spirit, n.’, OED Online www.oed.
com/view/Entry/186867. Accessed 18/4/2016.
connection between music and myth in this genre allowed for meaningful conver-
sation to occur through both the presentation and absence of formal and poetic
tropes.
‘Ha Ha! This World doth Pass’

In the three case studies addressed here, Thomas Weelkes and his anonymous text
authors do not completely do away with textual inference to traditional mythol-
ogy, but in each instance the classical pastoral is in some way perverted, indicating
that appearances may prove more complex than they are immediately presented. In
Weelkes’s ‘Ha Ha! This World doth Pass’, the composer set a seemingly whimsical
text to a seemingly whimsical tune:
Ha ha, ha ha, this world doth pass,

most merrily I be sworn,
for many an honest Indian ass
goes for a unicorn,
farra diddle diddle dino,
this is idle fino.
Tee hee, tee hee, O sweet delight,

he tickles this age that can,
call Tully’s ape a marmasite.
And Leda’s goose a swan,
Fara diddle deyno,
this is idle fino.
So, so, so, so, fine English days,

for false play is no reproach,
for he that doth the coachman praise,
may safely use the coach,
fara diddle deyno,
this is idle fino.26
On first examination, the poem appears to be a silly, strophic ditty without much
interpretative potential. Indeed, multiple modern readers have called this text
‘nonsense’.27 The poem juxtaposes objects from the New World with classical
mythology: Leda and Tullia are both characters stemming from Greek myth
and they appear in company with marmosets, Indian asses, as well as the ever-
26
Thomas Weelkes, ‘Ha Ha! This World doth Pass’, Ayres or Fantastic Spirits (London,
1608), sig.D2r.
27
Though outside the scope of this study, it is worth considering that just because the
syllables are ‘nonsense’ does not mean they do not have meaning. See Christopher
Wilson, ‘Reviewed Work: English Renaissance Song by Edward Doughtie’, Music and
Letters 68 (1987), 266–8 (267).
212 Katie Bank
ambiguous unicorn, all figures with equivocally mythical and real origin.28 Yet the
irony of Weelkes’s capricious setting is substantial. When read literally, the text may
come across as nonsensical, though perhaps amusing in its social commentary, and
the musical setting appears to support this.29 Though the music is strophic (with
the repeated refrain of ‘Faradiddle’), the music’s word-painting works well on all
three strophes of text, a rare occurrence in this repertoire. In spite of the strophic
form, however, ‘Ha Ha’ manages to accommodate both overt word-painting and
multiple verses. To do this, the poet has opened all three verses with laughing
pseudo non-lexical vocables (ha ha, ha ha/tee hee, tee hee/so, so, so, so), the effect
of which is exaggerated by the musical setting which repeats them even more, to
almost ridiculous effect (see Example 12.1). The music begins with slow rhythms
including hocket-like staggered entries, doubling the frequency of each iteration
within the first three bars, and culminating in successive crotchets. After this open-
ing sequence, the song falls into a dance-like sense of three, which continues for
most of the piece in relative homophony, making the text clearly audible. The
‘faradiddle’ refrain may be an indication that whoever wrote the text intended it
for musical setting, and perhaps it was with that in mind that they wrote a text that
worked well for a strophic, yet still word-painted, setting.
The close connection between truth and deception lies at the heart of the ‘Ha
Ha’ poem, and the self-conscious musical setting amplifies this haziness yet fur-
ther. The overall musical effect of the madrigalised laughter, skipping rhythms,
major mode and transparent homophonic writing may initially give the impres-
sion of a more stereotypical pastoral English work. Yet in conjunction with the
pointed words, these self-conscious musical features lack sincerity. Though the
music laughs along with the text, the message of the poem is darkly cynical. When
interpreted as a piece of irony, a different impression emerges, which highlights the
sceptical environment in which ‘false play is no reproach’, a place where there are
neither consequences for deception, nor rewards for honesty. The text notes the
role of the gullible as well as that of the scammer, as it takes two to sell a donkey
for a unicorn. As the onlooker watches life, and all its falsities, he cannot help but
chuckle to himself. Objects from the New World are somehow portrayed as more
‘real’ than the ones from myth – but also more mundane than the vivid English
imagination might desire.
28
When Marco Polo first beheld a rhinoceros in the late thirteenth century, he lacked the
relevant terminology to describe the animals to people back in Europe who had not
seen one themselves. Naturally, he turned to analogy and likened the animal to buffalo,
elephant and boar, and called it a Unicorn. Of course, what we know a rhinoceros to
look like now is not exactly the beautiful horse-like stallion with a goat’s beard, pearl-
white mane, and a single spiralled horn as depicted in Dominico Zampieri’s 1604 fresco
Virgin and Unicorn. The Unicorn can be viewed as a symbol of the ambiguity between
myth and ‘reality’ witnessed by travellers. Jonathan Sell, Rhetoric and Wonder in English
Travel Writing, 1560–1613 (Aldershot, 2006), p.3.
29
Fellowes believed this was ‘undoubtedly’ a political text, and I would agree that cer-
tain figures, particularly ‘the Coachman’, could possibly reference a specific political or
social figure. There is possible sexual innuendo with this figure as well, as the Coach-
man is the one who ‘drives’ and ‘whips’ the horses. Gordon Williams, A Dictionary of
Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, 3 vols (London,
1994), pp.416 and 1519; Weelkes, Airs or, Fantastic Spirits, ed. Fellowes and Dart, p.xvi.
Ex. 12.1 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Ha Ha’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits (London, 1608), bars 1–5,
transcribed by Francis Bevan
  
Cantus                   
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Tenor                       
          
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
       

   

Bassus
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
             
3
  
 
      
ha ha ha this world doth pass most mer - ri - ly, most mer - ri - ly I'll be
        
      
ha this world doth pass most mer - ri - ly, most mer - ri - ly I'll be
     

 

 ha this world doth pass most mer - ri - ly, most mer - ri - ly I will be
Moreover, the text is ironically self-aware, as the first way the poet justifies his
truth claims is with ‘I’ll be sworn’, the very sort of self-testament of truth that he
is criticising. Kingsley Amis, editor of The New Oxford Book of English Light Verse
(1978), thought that the fourth line of the second stanza implies one ‘call Audrey’s
goose Leda’s swan’, and this was just a poorly worded poem.30 Edward Doughtie
is correct in criticising Amis for this assumption, asserting that ‘the poet is merely
citing another example of flattery, and that what we call Leda’s swan was always a
goose’.31 Yet Doughtie is still underestimating the poem in assuming that the text
is simply a ‘satire on flattery’, as it has a much heftier subject of ironic criticism,
manipulation and false representation.32 Taking this a step further, one might sug-
gest that the poet was not only correct in ordering the phrase ‘Leda’s goose a swan’,
establishing that the object has always been just a goose, but also that this stanza
questions a more general reliance on mythological truths. The text’s scepticism
works like a pin, popping the bubble of the Golden Age, thereby revealing an uglier
truth (a goose), a motion that suggests doubt in myth’s authority as the ideal past.
The criticism of this text is both self-conscious and divided, in that it is denouncing
misrepresentation through myth and via the ayre, a musical form often allied with
mythology. The setting recognises myth’s capacity as a medium of delusion and
fantasy, as well as music’s role in supporting that delusion.
30
Kingsley Amis, ed., The New Oxford Book of Light Verse (Oxford, 1978), p.x.
31
Edward Doughtie, English Renaissance Song (Boston, 1986), p.107.
32
Ibid.
214 Katie Bank
The musical form adds to textual meaning as the ironic criticism relies on the ayre’s
established relationship with mythology. To this effect, Weelkes’s chirpy setting adds
a further layer of false impression to poetic meaning, one that thrives on the ironic
use of expected musical tropes, rather than sincere representation. Julian Johnson
defines musical irony as the process through which ‘the expected sense of the music’
is then ‘inverted by presenting familiar conventions of a genre (waltz, march) but
conspicuously deformed’.33 Consequently, ‘the powerful expressive effect arises from
cognitive dissonance of normative meaning in a non-normative context’.34 The cheer-
ful and sprightly musical setting of this ayre enhances a contrast already hinted at in
the poem alone, one that juxtaposes the ostensibly carefree musical presentation of
the text with the actual message of the poem, one wary of manipulation and decep-
tion in modern life. Through a word-painted yet strophic setting, Weelkes’s compo-
sition drives home the eeriness in the poem, a feeling of redundancy in a world of
human nature that does not change. The repetitive, strophic setting emphasises the
incongruity between the poem’s meaning and its outward appearance, as the music
remains unmoved with each verse in spite of textual alterations. Johnson concludes:
The authorial interruption of the music’s formal and grammatical logic inscribes
the presence of a divided self-consciousness, one that both creates the work and,
at the same time, underlines its own awareness of the fictive and constructive
nature of that creation.35
Moreover, he supposes that ‘the significance of this far exceeds questions of musi-
cal style or familiar accounts of idiosyncratic composers “playing” with musical
conventions’.36 Though this work is from Ayres or Fantastic Spirits, the fantasy lies
not in the realistic representation of a fantastic mythological text, as one might
expect from a typical example from the genre, but rather through the satirical
exposure of an uncertain reality in a dubious world. Perhaps the ‘ha ha’ laughs are a
version of what Gilbert Highet calls ‘the happy perception of incongruity’ between
appearances and meaning, as ‘the satirist, though he laughs, tells the truth’.37
‘Since Robin Hood’

Though ostensibly a short ditty about a folktale, ‘Since Robin Hood’ is not a piece
about Robin Hood at all, but a more general rejection of idealised heroes and
fondly remembered traditions in favour of commercial gain. Perhaps local folklore
somehow appears more rooted in reality than Greek mythology, but the pastoral
affiliations were similar.38 Topically, it is perhaps no coincidence that Weelkes’s
33
Julian Johnson, ‘Irony’, Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Perspectives, ed. Stephen
Downes (Abingdon, 2014), pp.239–58 (239).
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid., p.257.
36
Ibid.
37
One of the author’s explanations of ‘parody’. Gilbert Highet, An Anatomy of Satire
(London; Princeton, 1962), pp.67 and 234.
38
Figures and tropes like shepherds, Diana and Cupid are common to both modes.
‘Since Robin Hood’ follows ‘Ha Ha’ in Weelkes’s 1608 collection, as the cynicism
about ‘modern’ life continues in this setting. Though there are plenty of secular
songs that question or show wariness of contemporary life (particularly by Byrd,
Carlton and even Weelkes), usually these are paired with minor modes and longer
rhythms that are, in Byrd’s words, ‘framed to the life of the words’.39 In ‘Since Robin
Hood’, however, Weelkes’s setting uses musical contrast to highlight textual irony:40
Since Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Little John are gone-a,
the hobby horse was quite forgot, when Kemp did dance alone-a,
he did labour after the tabor for to dance then into France,
he took pains to skip in hope of gains,
he will trip it on the toe diddle doe.41
Robin Hood was a common hero in ballad lore, and a character, along with com-
patriots Little John and Maid Marian, common in May Day celebrations involving
Morris dancing. Though a short text, the poem is brimming with references to
contemporary popular culture. The first stanza ‘sets the scene’: nostalgic figures of
folklore are deemed no longer relevant, and the hobbyhorse, a symbol of a more
innocent past, is also forgotten. Mary Ellen Lamb argues that the forgotten hobby-
horse, widespread in plays and literature of the period, was a symbol of nostalgia
for the old ways.42 By the late sixteenth century, the hobbyhorse, a formerly ‘much
loved’ figure of legitimate entertainment, became sexualised, a process related to
the commercialisation of popular culture.43 As late Elizabethans remember both
a more innocent, delightful hobbyhorse and also its vulgar evolution, the phrase
‘the hobby horse was quite forgot’ indicates nostalgia for a recent past, one that
problematises culture-for-profit.
The last line of the first stanza mentions William Kemp, one of Shakespeare’s
original comedians, who made headlines in 1600 by Morris dancing over 100 miles
from London to Norwich. As an actor, Kemp played clown roles, like Bottom in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, and is thought to have played, and been the inspiration
for, Falstaff. As Lamb points out, however, Kemp was also the face of lowbrow
popular culture, one side of a cultural tension within early modern theatre com-
panies.44 Eventually, ‘Kemp’s very ability to draw a crowd no doubt constructed
him, like the once popular hobbyhorse, as an object of contempt to those defining
39
As translated in Kerry McCarthy, Byrd (Oxford, 2013), p.74. For an example of a more
expected contemplative setting, see Richard Carlton’s ‘The Love of Change,’ English
Madrigal Verse 1588–1632, ed. Edmund Fellowes (Oxford, 1920), p.68.
40
Which begs the question, what is the ‘life of the words’ when setting ironic texts that
inherently contain a double and often contrasting meaning. Does one musically attend
to surface (‘explicit’) or ironic (‘concealed’) meaning? Can one attend to both? McCa-
rthy, Byrd, p.74.
41
Thomas Weelkes, ‘Since Robin Hood’, Ayres or Fantastic Spirits (London, 1608), sig.
D3v.
42
Mary Ellen Lamb, The Popular Culture of Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson (Abingdon,
2006), p.65.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid., p.158.
216 Katie Bank
themselves by a discerning aesthetic taste.’45 Perhaps it was tension between forms

of cultural value in the theatre that drove Kemp to attempt his Nine Days’ Wonder
(1601), as the pamphlet documenting his journey was called.46 As a freelance enter-
tainer, he could make money in any way he preferred, though as Weelkes’s text
suggests, Kemp probably did not gain much from his publicity stunt, despite his
attempt to charge onlookers a fee.47 He probably died of plague in 1603 and with-
out much to his name.48 Thus Weelkes’s text cynically describes the death of the
folk tradition and the folk hero, a role replaced by entertainers like Kemp, a fame-
and money-seeking professional clown.
Weelkes’s seemingly light-hearted poem has a cynical underlying message. The
illusion of light-heartedness is reinforced in the text through the forced rhyme
scheme (‘alone-a’), nonsense syllables, and the alteration of well-known details
of the event. Though France clearly rhymes with dance (certainly more so than
Norwich), perhaps this is not just an expedient of rhyme, but an indication that
Kemp sought fame abroad through his antics. Either way, it would be physically
impossible to dance to France, yet exaggeration of detail is almost expected in the
re-telling of this type of event. As he did in ‘Ha Ha’, Weelkes wrote a cheery setting
that is literally word-painted and highlights the text’s overt rhyme scheme, illus-
trates dance rhythms (for example, the use of triple time at ‘he did labour’), and
skips and trips where appropriate, as expected from the genre (see Example 12.2).
Though the events described in this poem seem ballad-like, and Robin Hood is
a figure that made frequent appearances in ballads, by through-composing the text,
Weelkes sets the poem within a fixed musical framework that is not transferrable to
other lyrics in the way that a traditional ballad would be, thus reinforcing the musi-
cal setting’s important role in the text’s interpretation. Though the music is a literal
depiction of the poem’s words, the meaning of the poem is enhanced through the
overtly straight representation of text, one similar in effect to deadpan humour.
What is interesting about this musically masked cynicism, however, is that at its
core the speaker of the song is still longing for a past, as indicated by the nostalgic
figure of the hobbyhorse, much like a traditional pastoral madrigal. Yet it is not a
naive self, longing for a place and time that never was, but one more aware of its own
history. This self demonstrates the split self-consciousness described by Johnson,
one that creates through a particular medium, but simultaneously demonstrates
awareness of the constructive nature of that medium.49 In a way somewhat similar
to contemporary utopian fiction, Weelkes uses the space of ambiguity created by
mythologically allied music to explore a self-aware scepticism about the sources of
true knowledge and their representations. This is not dissimilar to the spaces repre-
sented by the islands of Shakespeare’s Tempest or Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis.50 In
45
Ibid.
46
William Kemp, Kemp’s Nine Days’ Wonder Performed in a Dance from London to Nor-
wich (London, 1600).
47
Lamb, The Popular Culture of Shakespeare, p.76.
48
David Wiles, Shakespeare’s Clown: Actor and Text in the Elizabethan Playhouse (Cam-
bridge, 2005), p.41.
49
Johnson, ‘Irony’, p.257.
50
This is probably why it was common in both pastoral and utopian modes for the reader
to be taken to another place, like Arcadia.
Ex. 12.2 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Since Robin’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits (London, 1608), bars 6–12,
    
6
   
Cantus     

he did la - bour aft - er the
 

       
Tenor


      

  
 

Bassus

 

9
     
  
ta - bor for to dance then in - to
  
    
    

ta - bor for to dance then in - to
     
      
  
 ta

- bor for to dance then in - to
Guido Giglioni’s words, the ‘eerie opaqueness’ or ‘precarious poise’ that surrounds
these types of spaces, is:
due to a skillful mixing of real events, idealized reality, and suspended imagina-
tion [and] is reinforced by the use of ironic, ambivalent, and tragicomic effects
… for the sense of suspended tension between reality and appearance is con-
stantly heightened by stylistic devices that deliberately subvert established rela-
tionships between truth and its representation.51
Yet in Weelkes’s case, irony and subverted perspectives are reinforced through
musical rather than purely literary devices. As Esti Sheinberg shows, there is often
ambiguity in satire, as it has two coexisting meanings, one explicit and one con-
cealed.52 This much seems obvious in literature, but it is a more complicated rela-
tionship when it comes to music. As she points out, ‘how can a musical message be
“concealed” or “explicit” ’ as ‘music does not have “true” and “false” statements?’53
In these ayres, the integration of the ‘real’ into a space of fantasy relies upon a
music that attends only to the ‘explicit’ half of textual irony to achieve the desired
effect, making even more defined the dissonance between ‘explicit’ and ‘concealed’
51
Guido Giglio, ‘Fantasy Islands: Utopia, The Tempest, and New Atlantis as Places of
Controlled Credulousness’, World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination, ed. Alli-
son Kavey (New York, 2010), pp.91–117 (94).
52
Esti Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A
Theory of Musical Incongruities (Aldershot, 2000), p.15.
53
Ibid.
218 Katie Bank
poetic meanings. This dissonance is indicative of the discursive process through

which satire questions the fundaments of knowledge. Though in this instance both
poetic meanings exist in the texts alone, one should not underestimate the pow-
erful meaning contributed by its musical context and performance, as self-aware
singers could bring rather different meaning to a performance of this song than
passive, ignorant ones might.
‘Aye Me, Alas’

Weelkes’s ‘Aye Me, Alas’ features a pseudo-historical ancient character, Messalina.
As the third wife of Roman Emperor Claudius (who ruled 41–54ad), Messalina
is technically a historical rather than mythological woman; yet in early modern
England her literary and artistic reputation as a stock character for ‘the adulter-
ess’ falls somewhere between antiquity and myth.54 Used within a form that tra-
ditionally featured characters from Greek and Roman mythology, a figure like
Messalina acknowledges both the mythologically affiliated form in which she
appears, but also the idea that she does not quite fit the traditional model. Though
all mythological tropes are thought to exist in an ahistorical ‘Golden Age’, when an
ancient figure from ‘real’ history is invoked it complicates the traditional ahistorical
‘memory’ invoked by conventional pastoralism.
Aye me, alas, hey hoe

thus doth Messalina go
up and down the house a-crying,
for her monkey lies a-dying.
death thou art too cruel,
to bereave her jewel,
or to make a seizure
of her only treasure,
if her monkey die
she will sit and cry,
fie, fie, fie!55
Musically, the piece adheres to many tropes of the canzonet style: it opens with
a descending semitone on ‘aye me’, an Anglicisation of the Italian sigh, ‘ohimé’.
54
As Richard Rainolde reported in 1571, Messalina ‘was so beastly that she used her adul-
terous lust openly, for the which abominable fact many good men withdrew them-
selves, from thence and therefore they were murdered’. Richard Rainolde, A Chronicle
of all the Noble Emperors of the Romans (London, 1571), sig.E3v. For the history of Mes-
salina, the symbol of insatiable female sexuality, see Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B.
Skinner, Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997), p.222. For more on early modern English
appropriation of all things Roman, see Lisa Hopkins, Cultural Uses of the Caesars on the
English Renaissance Stage (Abingdon, 2013), p.2. For a description of the early modern
use of Livy as a source of Roman history, existing somewhere between myth and his-
tory, see Warren Charnaik, The Myth of Rome in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries
(Cambridge, 2013), pp.25–34.
55
Weelkes, ‘Aye me Alas’, Ayres or Fantastic Spirits (1608), sig.C3v.
Weelkes illustrates the words ‘up and down’ with descending octave leaps in all
voices, and ‘crying’ with an ascending and returning semitone movement, aptly
depicting recurring cries (see Example 12.3). He demonstrates animated mon-
key-like swinging with dotted skips on ‘for her monkey’, which seems irreverent
(and overly literal) considering this particular monkey is not very lively. The ‘lively
monkey’ word-painting is a persuasive indicator of satire within the music, as a
more apt illustration of a dying monkey would be akin to ‘morire’ tropes, with
longer lines, suspensions or descending semitone movement. Here the ‘monkey-
ing’ is contrasted with a homophonic declamatory statement (in the Italian tra-
dition) on ‘death thou art too cruel’, a dramatic move akin to comic overacting,
considering that the death here is not a terribly tragic one (though it seems that
way to Messalina).
In fact, the exaggerated drama of the musical setting, complete with tropes like
‘aye me’, ‘alas’ and a minor mode, must be ironic when one considers the absurdity
of her reaction to the ‘death’ of a silly object of affection, a monkey.56 In Sheinberg’s
terms, this is satire achieved through ‘quantitative exaggeration by accumulation’,
in that it is through the inclusion of so many of the expected madrigalisations that
a satirical effect is achieved.57
The monkey is Messalina’s thinly veiled object of desire and could equally refer
to a man or just his phallus. As a generally unfavourable character (though per-
haps sexually fascinating), sympathy for Messalina’s sexual habits was probably
rather sparse. She was a stereotypical hysterical woman, helpless to do anything
but mourn her fate and cry an indignant (and ineffective) ‘fie’ at death. One must
also wonder about her responsibility in her monkey’s ‘death’. The bawdiest reading
would be that this is a flaccid penis metaphor and her sexual insatiability has spent
all her lover’s energy, leaving her pouting in self-pity.58 The jewel is ostensibly her
monkey/lover, taken by death (the ‘monkey’ is sexually spent).59 Yet the poem
somewhat awkwardly states the same thing twice by saying that death ‘bereave[s]
her of her jewel’ and also ‘make[s] a seizure of her only treasure’. This doubled use
of the same metaphor gives reason to suggest that the poet is also implying that her
‘jewel’ or ‘only treasure’ is not just her lover, but also her sexuality.60 Her behaviour
at the potential death of her ‘lover’ is not one of a grown woman in love, it is the
reaction of a child who has lost a plaything.
56
Definition B. ‘Freq. humorous. Typified as lecherous or libidinous (esp. in similes), or
as a substitute partner to a woman with insatiable desires. Also (in extended use): a
lecherous person, esp. a lecherous woman. Obs’. Oxford English Dictionary, ‘monkey, n.’,
OED Online www.oed.com/view/Entry/121265. Accessed 25/3/2015.
57
Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque, p.120.
58
This is not Weelkes’s only flaccid penis metaphor in this collection. See also ‘Upon a
Hill the Bonny Boy’, Ayres or Fantastic Spirits (1608).
59
Williams, A Dictionary of Sexual Language, p.373.
60
It is also possible that the ‘jewel’ taken from her is a metaphor for orgasm. Note that
death does eventually take Messalina’s sexuality away from her, in that she is forced to
commit suicide for her adultery, a detail of her end that may have been well known in
early modern times.
Ex. 12.3 Thomas Weelkes, ‘Aye Me Alas’, Ayres and Fantastic Spirits (London, 1608), bars 8–10,
    
Cantus            
Aye me a - las, hey hoe, hey
     
Tenor          

    
Aye me a - las, hey hoe, hey
         
 Aye
Bassus
me a - las, hey hoe, hey
    
3
          

hoe, hey hoe, hey hoe, thus doth Mes - sa - li - na go

               
          
hoe, hey hoe, hey hoe, thus doth Mes - sa - li - na go a -
     
 hoe,

hey hoe, hey hoe, thus doth Mes - sa - li - na go
 
5
 
           
     
  
up and down the house a cry - ing, up and
        
 
  
bout the house a cry - ing up and down the house a cry -
    
   

 
up and down, up and down, up and

7
            
down the house a cry - - ing, a cry - ing,
        
    
         
ing, up and down the house a cry - ing,
 
   
 down the house a cry - ing, a

cry - ing,
   
9
          
 
for her Mon - key lies a - dy - ing, for
 
    
     
 

for her Mon - key lies a - dy - ing, for her
 
    


  
 for
 
her Mon - key lies a - dy - ing, for her
In both continental and English music there was precedent for non-satirical
pastoral madrigals that set highly sexual topics, as erotic desire was one of the
foremost actions played out through mythological allegory, stemming from works
like Ovid’s Metamorphoses.61 Yet in these cases there is sincerity in both the poem
and the ballett/canzonet musical structure that leaves the ‘dying’ veiled as simply
possibility.62 In ‘Aye Me, Alas’, the monkey is the key absurdity that other sexual-
ised settings lack, and it is this farcical feature that demarcates Weelkes’s trope-
filled musical setting as satire. There are plenty of madrigals about unfulfilled or
unattainable love, even with extreme, dramatic and somewhat romanticised con-
sequences, like dying of a broken heart. Yet the use of the pseudo-mythological
Messalina and the absurdity of her monkey suggest that the subject of mockery
here is self-reflective, as it parodies the Italianate musical-poetic trend in England
more generally. By extension, Weelkes could be seen to be parodying himself, or at
least a tradition that he was part of. In this sense, Weelkes’s ‘Aye Me, Alas’ embodies
the kind of self-awareness in musical irony that Julian Johnson has characterised as
fundamentally indicative of a type of modernity.
Conclusion: Performing Knowledge

Lastly, I think it prudent to caution against textual analysis of these lyric works
apart from their musical context. Though the poems examined here outwardly or
topically appear to adhere to poetic tropes of the genre by invoking mythological
figures, in each case this appearance is misleading when one contemplates textual
meaning. The music contributes to this false outward appearance, as the ‘packag-
ing’ for the text seems directly in line with expected musical forms. Music’s lack
of traditional semantic meaning makes it well-suited for questioning inherently
ambiguous and paradoxical concepts, like that of the relationship between appear-
ances and truth.63 Through these ‘fantastic spirits’, Weelkes was able to use tropes
of the light genres to contribute to the discourse on the reliability of exterior per-
61
See John Kingsley-Smith, ‘Mythology’, A New Companion to English Renaissance Liter-
ature and Culture, ed. Michael Hattaway (Oxford, 2010), pp.134–49. Also Agnes Lafont,
Shakespeare’s Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture (London, 2013), p.1.
62
Kerman states that Francis Pilkington’s 1613 setting ‘All in a Cave’ is satirical because the
long iambic heptameter allows for the author to go a bit ‘over the top’ in illustrating an
inexperienced lover’s attempts at seduction. The poem reflects the awkwardness of the
encounter by abandoning the obvious iambic option of ‘Oh no! Said he’ for the less
wieldy ‘Oh no! He said’. Though perhaps parodying metaphysical poetry, as Kerman
suggests, Pilkington’s setting does not appear to enhance or play off of any humorous
elements in the poetry. Though one can only guess, one would think that if Pilkington
had wanted to emphasise the parodical elements in the poem, he could have. Kerman,
The Elizabethan Madrigal, p.36.
63
Though his is only one opinion within a divisive aesthetic debate, Lawrence Kramer
believes it a folly to assume music is either non-semantic or all semantic, leaving its
precise quality open for debate. If, as Kramer asserts, there is always a semantic gap
between interpretation and the object interpreted, it makes sense to me that the
semantic opacity of music might effectively interrogate ideas with similarly complex
relationships. Kramer, Interpreting Music (Berkeley, 2011), p.15; Kramer, Expression and
Truth: On the Music of Knowledge (Berkeley, 2012), p.19.
222 Katie Bank
ception. Though the sceptical caution against modern life communicated in some
of these texts is a far cry from the extreme scepticism articulated by Descartes a
couple of decades later, it is through this type of self-aware processing that discur-
sive practices like irony are able to engage in the negotiations of relevance to epis-
teme. These case studies demonstrate how mythology and music laboured actively
and jointly to challenge assumptions about reality.
Additionally, these examples reveal the variety of ways in which the idea or
function of myth could be distorted to contribute to discourse about a variety of
‘real world’ topics. Aided by a mythologically affiliated musical form, Weelkes was
able to use actual mythological figures from ancient Greece like Leda, as well as
folk myths like Robin Hood, and characters like Messalina that might as well stem
from Ancient Greek legend, but who have their roots in ‘real’ history – all to sim-
ilar effect. In each case the function of the ‘myth’ is essentially the same, a veiled
fantastical Other that was used poetically to reveal truth. The lack of adherence to
strictly Arcadian figures, contrary to what one might find in other ayre or madrigal
collections, demonstrates how the Arcadia ‘remembered’ in domestic music could
morph and expand the pastoral to accommodate ambiguous fictional Others that
may not be as separate or foreign as we may think. Though the figures in the ayres
changed, as well as the meaning derived from them, the function of the musical
space remained the same. This residual coupling of music and myth allowed for a
space in which singing groups could work together to construct and meaningfully
distort or challenge perceptions about external realities using a variety of ‘fictions’.
Though little is certain about the contemporary performance practice of these
pieces, we can assume that the performer also played a role in satirical uptake, as
ironic elements would have been enhanced by an aware and engaged performance
of these pieces. As Henry Peacham knew, the ‘behaviour of a person’ in perfor-
mance, whether in an official capacity or in casual conversation, was, and still is,
key to satirical understanding.64 The centrality of performance in the creation of
meaning here suggests that an approach that considers the importance of expres-
sion not found in the score is essential to understanding satirical music historically,
as the meaning of the music is inherently reliant on the experience of the music.
Moreover, as Angela Esterhammer argues, ‘performance affects not only the way
knowledge is transmitted, but even the way it is produced. Whenever knowledge
is being performed it is also, to some extent, being formed.’65 As Giuseppe Gerbino
has pointed out, mythology and the pastoral offered ‘a symbolic space in which to
play oneself ’.66 What makes these examples by Weelkes particularly interesting,
however, is how the musical form does not simply accompany textual meaning,
but makes visceral the eerie sense of irony suggested by the text.
One can imagine how the uptake of meaning in a contemporary experience
of performance (from either a musician or a hearer) would vary from person to
person, perhaps even more so in these examples than it would more generally. Yet
64
Peacham, Garden of Eloquence, sig.D2r.
65
Angela Esterhammer, ‘Afterword: The Audience, the Public, and the Improvisator
Maximilian Langenschwarz’, Performing Knowledge, 1750–1850, ed. Mary Helen Dupree
and Sean B. Franzel (Berlin, 2015), pp.341–6 (341).
66
Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia, pp.4–5.
as Julian Johnson says, ‘the communication of the voice itself is always prior to
whatever is spoken’ and meaning ‘lies partly in the words. But much more, it lies
in the physicality of the voice and its mode of performance.’67 A knowing wink,
naughty hand gesture, facial expression or overly dramatic sighing would com-
pletely alter reception of ‘Aye Me, Alas’. The singers’ dynamics and stresses would
enhance ulterior meaning in ‘Ha, Ha’. Moreover, contemporaries would have had
immediate and relevant knowledge on topical references like Kemp’s dance. As
these examples interrogate reality through representation, they simultaneously ask
fundamental questions about certain knowledge. I believe that in analysing these
works we can embrace a rational analysis of both the historical context and the
musical form alongside the emotional possibilities inherent in a performance of
wonder, love, fear or other aspects of human consciousness. When fundamen-
tal questions about the certainty of reality are viscerally presented to the body
through musical performance (text in experience), consideration of experiential
possibilities allows us to access how music contributed to the way early modern
awareness and knowledge was shaped and organised.
67
Julian Johnson, Mahler’s Voices: Expression and Irony in the Songs and Symphonies
(Oxford, 2009), p.4.
13
Feeling Fallen: A Re-telling of the Biblical Myth of

the Fall in a Musical Adaptation of Marvell’s
‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’
Aurora Faye Martinez
M yth and story are forms of communicated knowledge that find their origin
in an oral tradition later committed to written word. As such, biblical myths
might function as kinds of history, reflecting man’s understanding of human expe-
rience and his struggles to grasp what it means to be human. The most familiar
of these biblical stories is that of the Creation, the serpent’s seduction of Adam
and Eve, and their consequent banishment from the Garden of Eden for disobey-
ing God’s mandate, which offers an explanation for human mortality. The poetic
adaptation of this myth with which most modern readers are acquainted is John
Milton’s Paradise Lost. The latter part of the story recounts Adam and Eve’s con-
sciousness of their fall from God’s grace to a state of sin in which the hope of
re-capturing the Edenic bliss they once lived seems impossible. Andrew Marvell’s
poem ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’ also captures that consciousness
of the effects of such a state of sin.
The exact date of composition of Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ is difficult to determine,
but occurred before William Lawes set the poem to music preceding his death in
1645.1 The poem circulated in later manuscripts, of which there are several extant
copies, and then appeared in Marvell’s posthumously published Miscellaneous
Poems (1681). In the poem, Adam and Eve are recast as the shepherd Thyrsis and
the shepherdess Dorinda, who discuss the nature of heaven. Thyrsis’s attempt to
explain it in the idyllic terms of a pastoral frame only causes Dorinda to express
her despair arising from her sense that redemption from their fallen state on earth
is beyond their grasp. Matthew Locke adapted the poem to be sung as a musical
dialogue. Locke’s musical adaptation of ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’
was included as an example of the pastoral dialogue in John Gamble’s Ayres and
Dialogues (1659), as well as in John Playford’s Choice Ayres (1675) and Theater of
Music (1687), and Henry Playford’s New Treasury of Music (1695). Transcriptions
of Locke’s musical setting also circulated in manuscript.2
1
See Nigel Smith’s discussion of ‘manuscript publication’ in Andrew Marvell, ‘A Dia-
logue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’, The Poems of Andrew Marvell, ed. Nigel Smith
(Harlow, 2007), pp. 242–5 (243).
2
H.M. Margoliouth, ‘Marvell’s “Thyrsis and Dorinda”,’ The Times Literary Supplement,
Friday 19 May 1950, p.309.
Re-telling the Biblical Myth of the Fall in Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ 225
Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ itself suggests the reason why the reception of such myths
as the Fall of Man proved problematic in a contemporaneous climate of emerg-
ing philosophical inquiry. Dorinda’s response to Thyrsis’s description of a heaven
beyond human sight voices a prevailing belief that some knowledge was simply
beyond human capacity for understanding. Authors such as Sir John Davies, who
likewise expressed in poetry similar attitudes derived from the story of the Fall,
characterised the pursuit of knowledge through natural philosophy as a sinful curi-
osity.3 Yet Francis Bacon, at the same time, would effect a ‘masterful manipulation
of contemporaneous moral and theological concerns’ about knowledge to advance
his case for learning by contending that such knowledge was neither forbidden
nor beyond human capacity.4 This was evident, according to Bacon, in the useful-
ness of such knowledge God had enabled us to attain, fitting the world to human
capabilities.5 This position is also supported in Thyrsis’s ability to reason about the
essence of heaven in the familiar terms of pastoral.
Where biblical history provided the dominant means for interpreting individ-
ual, familial and political identity in early modern society, Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ also
characterises Dorinda in a manner that demonstrates how the biblical myth of
the Fall distorted perceptions of women and had complex and negative effects on
relations between the genders.6 One of the most pervasive and influential interpre-
tations of the myth concerned the propagation of the doctrine of original sin and
its physical transmission to Adam and Eve’s descendants as a consequence of the
Fall. This doctrine was derived from the writings of St Augustine to the statements
of Martin Luther and John Calvin, and seemingly reinforced a patriarchal societal
structure and negative images of women.7 While the example of Eve served as
scriptural precedent for a religiously justified oppression of women, by imagin-
ing Eve’s voice, such early modern female authors as Amelia Lanyer used biblical
exegesis to rewrite patriarchal historiography.8 In doing so, she showed that such
monumental works of antiquity need not be viewed as monolithic or univocal, dis-
pelling the myth that the story of the Fall was used to simply disempower women.9
In Marvell’s verse too, we hear Eve’s voice in that of Dorinda, in which her sense
of loss and desire for redemption and the effects of its expression on Thyrsis sug-
gest a female capacity for virtue and positive influence. Her response to Thyrsis’s
description of heaven also suggests her capacity for understanding of knowledge
communicated to our reason in the language of sensory perception arising from
empirical observation.
3
Peter Harrison, ‘Curiosity, Forbidden Knowledge, and the Reformation of Natural
Philosophy in Early Modern England’, Isis 92 (2001), 265–90 (266).
4
Ibid., p.279.
5
Ibid.
6
Michelle M. Dowd and Thomas Festa, ‘Introduction: Adam’s Rib, Eve’s Voice’, Early
Modern Women on the Fall: An Anthology, ed. Michelle M. Dowd and Thomas Festa
(Tempe, AZ, 2012), pp.1–21 (2).
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid., p.6.
9
Ibid.
226 Aurora Faye Martinez
The Royal Society’s experimental and mathematical investigations established

new areas of musical and acoustical understanding, but also demonstrated how
mythology and empirical science were not incompatible ways of knowing. Their
discoveries did not simply invalidate older traditions of knowledge where ancient
wisdom often informed enquiries.10 Both might lead to a deeper understanding of
the power of music. A precursor to such experimentation, Francis Bacon demon-
strated how the study of the language and figures of rhetoric employed in ancient
myth and poetry might serve as a useful model for understanding the effects of
comparable figures in music on human emotions.11 Notions of musica mundana
continued to inform the enquiries in natural philosophy of Robert Hooke and
Isaac Newton.12 In keeping with this tradition, Royal Society members did not
simply disregard mythological stories but ‘drew parallels between mythology,
experiments, and their beliefs about music’s effects in the modern world’.13
Edmund Burke (1729–97), politician and author of his better-known satire A
Vindication of Natural Society, would pursue similar investigations in his treatise
An Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757).
This philosophical work displays the prevailing interest in human psychology and
cultural phenomena, approaching it through a discussion of aesthetic taste.14 The
empiricism underlying Edmund Burke’s aesthetic philosophy might offer insight
as to why myth set to or expressed through music persisted in the early modern
period. His theory provides a model for the connections between sensory percep-
tion and the complex of sensation, emotion and ideas that arises in response to
external stimuli, including sound. Myth that could not be experienced first hand
could be set to music such that the knowledge conveyed in the myth was gained
through lived experience.
This chapter will examine Andrew Marvell’s pastoral poem ‘A Dialogue between
Thyrsis and Dorinda’ as a re-telling of the biblical story of the Fall and what was
potentially achieved through its frequent adaptation for musical expression. I
will explore the manner in which the poem’s devices and allegorical nature treat
Marvell’s familiar theme of human fallenness, using sensory language to depict
both heaven and earth in terms of pastoral landscapes, to suggest humanity’s sus-
ceptibility to seduction through the senses. Marvell’s methods will be compared
to Milton’s Paradise Lost, whose use of confused imagery of pastoral and georgic
labour as a metaphor it anticipates. Such use was a technique to evoke notions of
the sublime to characterise the Fall and the subsequent punishment of Adam and
Eve in Paradise Lost.15 The original verse and Locke’s musical adaptation of it will
10
Katherine Butler, ‘Myth, Science, and the Power of Music in the Early Decades of the
Royal Society’, Journal of History of Ideas 76 (2015), 47–68 (47).
11
Penelope Gouk, Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England
(New Haven, 1999), pp.163–4.
12
Ibid., pp.218, 253, 256, 267.
13
Butler, ‘Myth, Science, and the Power of Music’, p.56.
14
Paul Langford, ‘Burke, Edmund (1729/30–1797)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biogra-
phy (Oxford, 2004) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4019. Accessed 31/1/2018.
15
Paddy Bullard, ‘Edmund Burke Among the Poets: Milton, Lucretius and the Philosoph-
ical Enquiry’, The Science of Sensibility: Reading Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry, ed. Koen
Vermeir and Michael Funk Deckard (New York, 2012), pp.247–63.
be compared to Burke’s aesthetic model for the sublime. Burke’s model suggests
his reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost through the lens of Lucretius – both of which
he quotes in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime
and the Beautiful16 – and echoes Marvell’s own references to both Lucretius and
Milton in ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’. Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ and Locke’s adaptation
of it will be examined in relation to Burke’s discussion of physiological responses
to sound as distinguished from imaginative yet distinctly non-visual responses to
sublime imagery communicated confusedly through words. This context will allow
us to question whether music can better convey to the auditor Dorinda’s sense of
her fallenness and longing for such a return to innocence than words alone. This
chapter therefore seeks to understand the place of musical settings of myth and
story as a form of knowledge within early modern culture, complementing rather
than competing with scientific ideologies about the nature of knowledge and how
it might be attained.
The Tradition of the Sublime:

Lucretius, Milton, Marvell and Burke
Despite postdating Marvell’s writing, Burke’s aesthetic theory is a revealing lens
through which to examine Marvell’s poem and its musical adaptations. Marvell’s
use of a vicarious experience of the sublime to facilitate an understanding of
Dorinda’s fallen earthly state places an emphasis on the physiological mechanism
and demonstrates an impulse to reconcile myth as knowledge and that of the
empirically based science, both themes to which Burke’s aesthetic theory responds.
Although there is an absence of direct evidence that Burke read Marvell, in the
form of references in notebooks or correspondence or direct quotation, reading
Marvell’s ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’ with Burke’s citations from Lucretius’s De
Rerum Natura and Milton’s Paradise Lost in mind suggests that Burke was familiar
with Marvell’s second poem. ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’ served as prefatory verse
to the second edition of Paradise Lost in 1674 and perhaps framed his understand-
ing of the works of the other two poets. Paddy Bullard notes how Burke’s reading
of both Roman and British poets informed A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins
of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful: Burke used ‘scenes from the Bible,
Milton, Virgil and Lucretius as a secondary object world … for conducting virtual
experiments on the passions’ that allowed the reader to realise the truth about the
experience of the sublime and the beautiful second-hand.17 This is the method
that Marvell seemingly employs in his ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’.
Milton, according to Bullard, is Burke’s particular source for ‘poetic instances of
the Christian religious sublime’,18 but Burke appears to draw his understanding of
Lucretius and Milton’s theory and use of the poetic language to invoke the religious
sublime from Marvell’s ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., p.248.
18
Ibid., p.249.
Burke turns to Lucretius for the basis of his ‘physiology of the sublime’ or his
model for the references explaining the intrinsic meaning of such utterances as
‘delightful horror’ and ‘tranquillity tinged with terror’, and to Milton’s Paradise
Lost to glean examples of how poetic language elicits such.19 His model attempts to
explain the relation between the characteristics of external objects or persons; such
physiological responses to them as the respective tensing and relaxing of nerves
which produce the sensations that he terms pain and pleasure; the emotions of
fear and terror, or love, happiness and delight we associate with such physical
responses; and the corresponding ideas of the sublime and the beautiful that are
evoked in us. Dissatisfied with John Locke’s narrow definition of pleasure that does
not permit its combination with a mixture of uneasiness,20 Burke adds to the class
of ‘desirable discomfort’ feelings of astonishment, admiration and horror, each a
form of delight associated with tranquillity. Such ideas result from his examina-
tions of conceptions of pain and pleasure, what their modification suggests about
their relation to the experience of the sublime and the beautiful, and how pain
functions as a kind of relative pleasure when presented with the idea of danger that
is not imminent.21
Kantian misreadings of Burke’s physiological explanation for the sublime’s
effect on the emotions have suggested the empowering nature of the experience
of the sublime resulting from passing from an initial feeling of vexation, because
of our imagination’s inability to grasp the object, to delight at the outpouring of
vital forces in response.22 Kant’s discussion of the aesthetic judgement, by contrast
to Burke’s, places particular emphasis on the importance of an object’s appear-
ance to our representational capacities and our experience of pleasure arising from
our convictions.23 Relevant to our study of Marvell’s poem within the context of
Burke’s treatise is Burke’s use of a quotation from Lucretius that testifies to the
affinity shared between sublimity and poetic language, and demonstrates the emo-
tional effect of language on readers, even in the absence of distinct images of ideas
attached to a writer’s words.24 Burke suggests that imagination supplies an equiv-
alent for sensation where imagination can be creative as it combines, but remains
passive.25 He limits association to its role in assisting imagination to expand the
sensory impression, whereas associationists were interested in the moment where
cognition awakens the interpretative faculty and the experience is then treated as
the beginning of a series of impressions, characterised by augmentation.26
19
Ibid., p.254.
20
Ibid., p.251.
21
Ibid.
22
Vanessa Lyndal Ryan, ‘The Physiological Sublime: Burke’s Critique of Reason’, Journal
of the History of Ideas 62 (2001), 265–79 (266–7).
23
Frances Ferguson, ‘Reflections on Burke, Kant, and Solitude and the Sublime’, Euro-
pean Romantic Review 23 (2012), 313–17 (315).
24
Bullard, ‘Edmund Burke Among the Poets’, p.257.
25
Ryan, ‘The Physiological Sublime’, p.271.
26
Ibid., p.272.
In focusing on the sublime’s limiting or diminishing effect, Burke seemingly

deems the sublime to be a sensual experience without the intervention of the
understanding as distinguished from Kant’s attempt to characterise particular
ways of having mental representations that would grant autonomy to the perceiv-
ing subject. The descriptions of Satan such as that in Book I of Milton’s Paradise
Lost offer Burke support for his hypothesis that indistinct descriptions are more
likely to evoke a ‘passionate response from the reader’s imagination’ and ‘leave an
impression … of mimetic power’.27 A second illustration of the experience of the
sublime in the absence of clear imagery that provides ‘in positive sensational terms
a physiological analogy to an experience of the divine presence’ is that of Milton’s
rising sun.28 The rising sun is experienced as a dark, excessive bright which over-
powers.29 The second example supports Burke’s use of a Lucretian physiological
model for the sublime. In Book III of De Rerum, Lucretius refutes the conventional
conception that the senses are gateways through which the mind perceives the
world, employing a discussion of the effect of bright light on the retina, while Book
IV addresses ‘the simulacra and the deceptiveness of some visual information’.30
The evocative power of poetic language and lack of correspondence between
its visual specificity and the experience of the sublime is an idea that is likewise
developed in Marvell’s ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’. Nigel Smith writes that Capel
Lofft noted Marvell’s allusion to Lucretius’s notion of the sublime in his edition
of Paradise Lost, Books I and II.31 Lucretius’s words in De Rerum Natura, Book III,
lines 28–30, are, as Smith translates them, ‘Thereupon from all these things a sort
of divine delight gets hold upon me and a shuddering, because nature thus by thy
power has been so manifestly laid open and uncovered in every part.’32 Marvell
echoes the notion of divine delight at the experience of nature, writing:
That majesty which through thy work doth reign

Draws the devout, deterring the profane.
And things divine thou treats in such state
As them preserves, and thee, inviolate.
At once delight and horror on us seize,
Thou sing’st with so much gravity and ease;
And above human flight dost soar aloft
With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.
The bird name from that paradise you sing
So never flags, but always keeps on wing.33
27
28
Ibid., p.260.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid., p.261.
31
John Milton, Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books, ed. Capel Lofft (Bury St Edmunds,
1792).
32
Andrew Marvell, ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’, The Poems of Andrew Marvell, ed. Nigel
Smith (Harlow, 2007), pp.180–4 (183).
33
Burke likewise cites Lucretius, but his reading also recalls to mind Marvell.
Lucretius, notes Burke:
is a poet not to be suspected of giving way to superstitious terrors; yet where

he supposes the whole mechanism of nature laid open by the master of his phi-
losophy, his transport on this magnificent view which he has represented in the
colours of such bold and lively poetry, is overcast with a shade of secret dread
and horror.34
The poem, however (as a prefatory verse to the second edition of Paradise Lost),
makes reference in its measured praise to Milton’s poetic vision despite his blind-
ness. The poem begins:
When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold,

In slender book his vast design unfold,
Messiah crowned, God’s reconciled degree.35
Similarly, Milton is, according to Marvell, ‘Just heaven thee like Tiresias to requite/
Rewards with prophecy the loss of sight’.36 Milton is painted as a sublime poet
where Marvell writes:
I too transported by the mode offend,

And while I meant to praise thee most commend
Thy verse created like thy theme sublime,
In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.37
Marvell’s use of the word sublime in reference to both the verse itself and the
theme suggests both the meaning of sublime as a description of an experience of
the divine and the desirable discomfort or delightful tranquillity that takes hold of
the reader of such verse. Such a sublime effect is achieved not through visual details
of ekphrastic description. Instead, Marvell comments that: ‘Where couldst thou
words of such a compass find?/Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind’.38
Smith notes that in the choice of the word ‘expense’ there are echoes of the notion
of an expanse as associated with heaven.39 The line thus draws upon connections
with that which is not perceptible to sight, but engages the imagination in a way
that communicates a sense of God through the connotation of an overwhelming
vastness of possibly infinite dimension. Burke imitates Marvell’s suggestion in his
34
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and
the Beautiful, ed. Adam Phillips (Oxford, 2008), p.63 (Section II.V).
35
Marvell, ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’, lines 1–3.
36
37
38
Ibid,. lines 41–2.
39
See note 42 by Nigel Smith: Marvell, ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’, p.184.
discussion of how vastness and thus infinity are productive of the sublime. Infinity,
writes Burke:
has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror, which is the
most genuine effect, and truest test of the sublime. There are scarce any things
which can become objects of our senses that are really, and in their own nature
infinite. But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they
seem to be infinite, and they produce the same effects as if they were really so.40
Thus, visual perception is not necessary to the experience of the sublime, but such
an experience of the sublime often is the result of that which suggests the limita-
tions of such senses, and thus human frailty and vulnerability.
Although Burke’s literary predecessors credit the power of poetic language – a
notion that Burke does reiterate – his physiological model for sublime experience,
offers a possible explanation for the power of music (whether or not combined
with poetic language) to produce a sublime effect. It is also Lucretius’s writings
from which Burke draws his aesthetic psychology where he contends that the
effects sublime objects have on the mind can be explained in terms of physiology:
sublime views, sounds or smells cause a tension or strain and stress on the sensory
organs, producing equivalent tensing of the nerves corresponding with our imagi-
nation.41 Although in his comments about infinity Burke proposes that ‘Whenever
we repeat any idea frequently, “the mind” by a sort of mechanism repeats it long
after the first cause has ceased to operate’, the emphasis is not on memory, but on
‘perception’ where ‘if the parts of some large object are so continued to any indefi-
nite number, that the imagination meets no check which may hinder its extending
them at pleasure’.42 The stimulus to the sublime, then, is an initial sensory percep-
tion, leaving the question as to the degree to which language alone can produce the
same physical response to effect an experience of the sublime.
Burke’s claim that pain induces a violent tensing of the nerves, while fear or
terror arising from the apprehension of pain or death in the absence of an imme-
diate threat approaches the same effects, raises the question as to whether the
vague imagery of poetry suffices as a cause or stimulus to memory or imagination
through the indistinct ideas communicated. ‘In reality poetry and rhetoric’, writes
Burke, ‘do not succeed in exact description so well as painting does; their business
is to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effects of things
on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things
themselves … But descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by means of
sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities.’43 In his discussion of the arti-
ficial infinite, Burke explains that because of the tension that increases with every
blow in combination with the stroke itself, and the expectation and surprise, as the
result of the increasing intensity, it is capable of producing the impression of the
40
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, p.67 (Section II.VIII).
41
42
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, p.67 (Section II.VIII).
43
Ibid., p.157 (Section V.VI).
sublime. This is because the tension verges on pain where the greatness of the effect
is aided by the successive striking of the organs of hearing in a similar manner even
after the cause has ceased.44
Of such sounds capable of producing the sublime, Burke comments that mod-
ulations of sounds have representational capacities. He offers the example of the
natural cries of all animals, even those strange to us, or persons with whom we
are not acquainted, as evidence, since such creatures are able to make themselves
understood, though the same cannot be said of language.45 Poetry set to music,
then – which incorporates the modulations of the human voice – could effect an
artificial reality through the inducing of such intermittent tensing and relaxing of
the nerves so as to affect the imagination and understanding. It would therefore
be more productive of the sublime than words alone. A discussion of Marvell’s ‘A
Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’ will explore the potential truth of such
suppositions.
Marvell’s Sublime Landscape and

the Evocative Power of Music
Marvell’s mimetic use of pastoral landscape description to suggest a sublime expe-
rience in which consciousness of the divine is contrasted with human frailty finds
its origins in the history of landscape to which Marvell’s model, the ancient poet
Ovid, was only a successor.46 As Stephen Hinds notes, ‘ideal landscape, blessed
with preternatural copiousness, its constituent elements predictable but admit-
ting of infinite variations of detail, and configured more to the requirements of
rhetoric than to the proprieties of climate and season’ is a recurring pattern to
be found both in Ovid’s ‘fair field of Enna’ and Milton’s Eden.47 Marvell does not
recreate that first garden, but modifies it to depict a shepherd’s pasture free from
danger and care and suggestive of heavenly bliss. The images of ‘sheep [that] are
full/Of sweetest grass, and softest wool’ and ‘birds sing[ing] consorts [while]
garlands grow [and]/Cool winds do whisper, springs do flow’,48 however, are not
rich with the language of acute, visual perceptions. Instead the rhetoric is mimetic
through its appeal to the other senses. The alliteration, in particular, suggests
the pleasurable quality of the texture and taste of the things described, recalling
Burke’s comment that descriptive poetry achieves its effect through a substitution
of sounds.
Such a paradise is not given a specific location, but instead is beyond human
sight. Thyrsis tells Dorinda when she asks where Elysium is:
44
Ibid., pp.124–5 (Section IV.XI).
45
Ibid., p.77 (Section II.XX).
46
Stephen Hinds, ‘Landscape with Figures: Aesthetics of Place in the Metamorphoses
and its Tradition’, The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Philip Hardie (New York,
2002), pp.122–49 (122).
47
Ibid., p.123.
48
Andrew Marvell, ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’, The Poems of Andrew Mar-
vell, ed. Nigel Smith (Harlow, 2007), pp. 242–5 (lines 3–34).
Turn thine eye to yonder sky,

There the milky way doth lie;
‘Tis a sure but rugged way;
That leads to everlasting day.49
Such descriptions bring to mind Burke’s use of a quotation from Paradise Lost
describing the rising sun as a dark, excessive bright that overpowers (noted above)
to illustrate the experience of the sublime in the absence of clear imagery. There is
the same sense, as in Marvell’s ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’, of the connection the
imagination makes between what is beyond perceptible sight and a sense of the
divine.
Dorinda’s sense of her and her lover’s fallenness is likewise communicated in
language that is not visually suggestive. Thyrsis’s words in response to her reference
to the cell from which they ‘have no wings and cannot fly’50 use a series of negatives
in which an absence alludes to the pain or suffering of the human condition:
Oh, there’s neither hope nor fear,

There’s no wolf, no fox, no bear,
No need of dog to fetch our stray,
Our lightfoot we may give away;
No oat-pipes needful; there thine ears
May sleep with music of the spheres.51
Each negation corresponds to a concern of the shepherd and shepherdess in per-

forming his or her duties of tending the flock or an unhappy aspect of his or her
existence on earth. In contrast to the previous stanza, which uses the elements of
pastoral to describe heavenly paradise, this stanza instead depicts the shepherd and
shepherdess no longer at play, but employed in the labour corresponding to their
fallen state. The imagery employed, however, not only lacks visual specificity, but
also uses confused imagery in its series of negatives with little pause or transition
between so that the reader is unable to attach specific images to such particular
ideas. Such imagery is more productive in engaging the imagination than acute
visual detail, an idea which, as noted, Burke gleans from Lucretius. Rhyme – or
that which approximates it in early modern English pronunciation – is also used
to link ideas: ‘fear’ with ‘bear’, for example. This prefaces the use of the word ‘stray’,
or those who have wandered from the path, using rhyme to prompt the reader’s
interpretation of the word ‘away’.
The couplet adopts an additional layer of interpretation where the fetching only
emphasises the notion of distance or separation from heaven suggested in the word
‘away’. The ‘lightfoot’ they may not ‘betray’ on earth is then contrasted with the
49
50
Ibid., line 14.
51
ears blessed with the ‘music of the spheres’ to underscore the notion of pastoral
labour as distinguished from paradise.52
The contrast between a heaven that is beyond Dorinda’s perception and the
dangers she presently faces – the absence of which come to form her notion of
such a place – represents the kind of modification of pain related to the human
experience of fear and terror. Such emotion functions as the kind of relative pleas-
ure or desirable discomfort, according to Lucretius, to which Burke adds delightful
tranquillity, as Bullard notes.53 Here, however, the sublime is achieved less through
Dorinda’s loss of identity or autonomy as she identifies with God, than through her
consciousness of her separation from Him. The sense of immeasurable distance
between heaven and earthly danger both communicates Dorinda’s fall from grace,
and through such distance, the delight tinged with terror arising from a sense of
such a fall’s consequences or implications. The readers’ minds then equate this
with Dorinda’s sublime experience so that they might come to understand their
relation to the divine or supernatural as she does.
Myths or stories through which a person or audience might feel the ecstasy or
transport of the inspiration prompting the individual expression of sublime reli-
gious experience, be it secondhand, were part of an oral tradition meant to be said
or sung to which ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda’ is heir. As noted above,
Burke concedes the limitations of descriptive poetry, which does not achieve its
effect through the use of visual detail, but through sound. Marvell’s poem itself
privileges that which is heard above that which is seen. Paradise, as envisioned, is
a place where ‘No oat-pipes needful; there thine ears/May sleep with the music of
the spheres’54 and where ‘Cool winds whisper’,55 suggesting the power of sound to
engage the imagination. Dorinda herself, ironically, suggests the problem posed by
written texts that lack voice:
Oh sweet! Oh sweet! How do I my future state

By silent thinking antedate:
I prithee let us spend our time to come
In talking of Elysium.56
‘Silent thinking’, akin to silent reading, does not offer the same stimulus to ‘sweet’
sensation or emotion that ‘talking’ does. As a myth-like literary text, the poem
is inadequate in its communication of individual expression of sublime religious
experience. The reader does not participate in a mystical experience in which the
reader loses him or herself by identifying either with the divine or Dorinda who,
like the reader, is mortal and therefore fallen.
Musical adaptations such as that of Matthew Locke combine musical signs, or
notes, with poetry in a kind of ‘transmutation’, according to William P. Dougherty,
52
53
54
55
Ibid., line 34.
56
that allows an auditor or interpreter to view an ‘immediate object’ and a ‘dynamic

object’ from the ‘context of that musical sign’. The immediate object might be dis-
tinguished from the ‘cultural unit’, which might be ‘anything real or potentially real
(including expressive states) to which a sign may refer’.57 Musical song, then, makes
use of ‘the sounds as imitate the natural inarticulate voices of men or any animals
in pain or danger, [which] are capable of conveying great ideas’,58 to which Burke
refers to communicate the sublime experience that words alone cannot. Words
do not carry a connection with the nature of the things they represent, but only
come to be linked in the mind with experience or learning. Locke’s adaptation of
Marvell’s dialogue to music illustrates how musical signs may be combined with
language to communicate the sublime effects of Dorinda’s fallenness.59 The dia-
logue is set in D minor, with Dorinda’s questions about death and heaven tending
to end on the dominant chord of A major (or E major as the song modulates to
A major for the triple-time section). The unsettled nature of such questions she
poses as ‘When death shall part us from these kids … whether thou and I shall
go?’ is reflected in the harmony which at such moments in the dialogue are har-
monically open-ended. This represents in musical terms Dorinda’s sense of the
limitations of her humanity that prevent her from both perceiving heaven and her
struggle to comprehend it because of that. Both the language of the question and
the melody prompt the auditor to expect a resolution, but in doing so, commu-
nicate Dorinda’s emotional state that results from that sense in terms that denote
the sublime. Thyrsis’s answer, ‘To Elysium’, moves the dialogue cadences onto a
D-minor chord and brings about that firm, secure resolution, only to return to
the A-major chord with Dorinda’s next question, ‘Where is’t?’ Thyrsis’s reply of
‘a chaste soul can never miss it’ again moves to a cadence, though this time on an
unexpected and tonally quite distant C-major chord.
This difference in the harmonic behaviour of the music accompanying Dorinda’s
questions and Thyrsis’s replies continues. When Dorinda sighs, ‘There birds may
rest, but how can I, that have no wings, and cannot fly?’ to express her despair at
what seems an impossible journey to reach heaven, the music cadences onto D
minor, but Thyrsis again seeks to change her perspective, shifting the harmony to
the relative major (F) when he responds with ‘do not sigh … heav’n’s the centre
of the soul’.
Interestingly, at the end of Thyrsis’s next phrase an F-major chord on ‘hope’
is juxtaposed with an A-major chord on the word ‘fear’, paralleling Dorinda’s fre-
quent phrases ending on an A-major chord in these short exchanges. The harmonic
contrast of these two chords highlights Thyrsis and Dorinda’s contrasting positions
of hope and fear. The resulting dissonant false relation between C natural and C
sharp registers the emotional distress musically that arises from the ideas Thyrsis
associates with heaven (as represented in the word ‘hope’) juxtaposed with the two
57
William P. Dougherty, ‘Longing for Longing: Song as Transmutation’, Essays on Word/
Music Adaptation and on Surveying the Field, ed. David Francis Urrows (New York,
2008), pp.161–75 (162).
58
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry, p.77 (Section II.XX).
59
Matthew Locke, ‘A Dialogue between Thirsis and Dorinda’, Songs and Dialogues: For
Voice and Basso Continuo, ed. Mark Levy (London, 1996), pp.47–54.
lovers’ earthly existence (represented in the word ‘fear’), echoing Dorinda’s sense
of her own position when speaking of her fallen state and distance from Elysium.
By contrast, the harmony modulates to a bright A major for the triple-time
section where Dorinda suggests ‘talking of Elysium’, both of which are evocative
of joyful, pastoral paradise. The auditor, however, is abruptly returned to Dorinda’s
present earthly reality as she responds ‘Ah me’ over a G-minor chord to Thyrsis’s
responding description of heaven in pastoral terms. Dorinda’s explanation for her
distress is chromatic and harmonically unsettled until Thyrsis responds by declar-
ing that he cannot live without her, bringing the song to a cadence on the tonic (D)
before the final resolution of the chorus.
Throughout the song, the repeated association of the dominant chord with
Dorinda’s questions, and cadences onto the tonic or relative major with Thyrsis’s
responses, would increase the intensity of the effects of the sound both physi-
ologically and psychologically. That repetition, when combined with Dorinda’s
successive questions suggesting her struggle to resolve herself to an unsure fallen
state, would, according to Burke’s theory, recreate Dorinda’s sense of the sublime
in the auditor. Words alone, then, may not be clearly tied in a reader’s mind to that
which they signify, particularly in the case of expressive states such as the mixture
of terror or fear and anguish or despair, which connote Dorinda’s fallenness. The
modulations of a human voice singing the musical adaptation and thus tying a
musical sign to an immediate object or word and its corresponding cultural unit
of an expressive state allows the auditor to experience such an expressive state in
real terms. If Burke’s claims are valid, the singer’s modulations of sounds would
cause intermittent tensing and relaxing of nerves in the auditory system, and per-
haps the whole human frame, such that a listener is able to feel the sensations and
potentially understand, if not feel, the emotions that Dorinda’s sublime experience
induces.
Textual variants suggest the degree to which such an occurrence might be true.
If we compare Locke’s musical adaptation to the text-only transcription in Oxford,
Bodleian Library: MS Rawl. Poet 90, we find that he has replaced some words,
suggesting that he was recalling the musical adaptation from memory rather than
transcribing from a copy. The transcriber substitutes the word ‘can’ for ‘shall’ when
Dorinda asks Thyrsis, ‘There birds may nest, but how shall I, that have no wings,
and can-not fly?’ ‘Shall’ suggests a strong assertion and the certainty with which
it is made. The substitution of ‘can’, by contrast, suggests the transcriber’s sense of
Dorinda’s doubt or surprise about the possibility of her ascending to heaven being
true. We also find that the transcriber substitutes the word ‘Ah’ or ‘Aye’ each time
Locke’s musical adaptation shows Dorinda to exclaim ‘Oh’ to Thyrsis’s explana-
tions. For example, ‘Oh sweet!’ suggests Dorinda’s surprise mixed with pleasure
when she considers ‘How I my future state by silent thinking may antedate!’ in
Locke’s musical setting. ‘Oh sweet!’ as preface to the same line above, however,
indicates the degree to which the transcriber grasps the significance of Dorinda’s
realisation about the nature of Elysium and her distance from it. This is denoted
in the substitution of the word ‘Oh’, as she seeks to ‘antedate’ the time to come
when to her it is forever lost, and is also reflected musically in the unexpected
G-minor chord. The transcriber’s substitution of the word ‘comforts’ for ‘consorts’
when Thyrsis relates that ‘birds sing consort’, and ‘cold’ when in Locke’s adapta-
tion he tells ‘Cool winds do whisper’, likewise registers the transcriber’s sense of
the fallenness Dorinda expresses. ‘Consorts’ suggests the image of birds singing
both in unison and in accord or harmony to represent the joyful state in heaven.
‘Comforts’, by contrast, suggests the auditor’s consciousness of Dorinda’s need
for solace. The variations between the musical manuscripts and prints, and this
miscellany containing only the words of the extract used in the musical adaptation,
suggest the degree to which the association of musical sound with key words in
the poem shaped the auditor and author of the miscellany’s ideas about Dorinda’s
earthbound human life as contrasted with heavenly bliss.
In Pursuit of Knowledge: Reconciling Feeling and

Knowing through Music
The key binary (construction though it may be) to understanding the place of
musical myth in early modern culture is that which persists today – that of feeling
versus knowing. Whether for Renaissance subjects or us, the intrinsically unver-
ifiable nature of first person accounts about emotional experience suggests that
encounters with their display can occasion reflection on the criteria we use to
identify and assess the source of the display and the explanatory limits of such
criteria.60 That is the problem one encounters when reading a poem such as ‘A
Dialogue between Thyrsis and Dorinda,’ in which the reader’s own understanding
of Dorinda’s sense of fallenness or her sublime religious experience relies upon a
report which aims to cultivate sympathy, but by nature of its status as a written text
precludes the reader’s ability to confirm the veracity of the report.
In the seventeenth century, feeling was thought to preclude knowing.
Postlapsarian man was presumed to lack the superior knowledge and clearly rea-
soned thought expressed in a perfect language of correspondence between word
and thing that prelapsarian Adam possessed. Where fallen man languished with
partial knowledge and confused thought, mediated by the senses and clouded by
the passions, this understanding of the Fall promoted, even demanded, the rejec-
tion of emotions and sensory experiences as signs and tainted artefacts of the Fall.61
The most ideal state of human knowledge, then, is not fixed, but a process that
passionate intuition and reasoning grounded in the absence of knowledge derived
from the empirical evidence of sensory perception. This means that sensory expe-
rience of the world creates the conditions that establish referentiality, identity and
self-knowledge that allow an individual to reason about his environment as well.
Yet the incomplete or flawed nature of fallen human language illustrates a gap
rather than a congruity between sign and reference. Such a gap would appear to
prevent man from attaining such knowledge, the development of his subjectivity,
and an understanding of the human condition as a fallen state. That understanding
60
Drew Daniel, The Melancholy Assemblage: Affect and Epistemology in the English Renais-
sance (New York, 2013), p.3.
61
Katherine Fletcher, ‘Uncertain Knowing, Blind Vision, and Active Passivity: Sub-
jectivity, Sensuality and Emotion in Milton’s Epistemology’, Passions and Subjectivity
in Early Modern Culture, ed. Brian Cummings and Freya Sierhuis (Farnham, 2013),
pp.113–28 (114).
would be unattainable through reading in light of the absence of actual interaction

with external objects. Though poetic language is a stimulus to imagination, the
truth of such ideas that arise in response to it cannot be ascertained with empirical
proof.
Music, then, reconciles feeling with knowing as sensory data is paired with cor-
responding language. That pairing allows the reader’s mind to form an association
between sensation and its accompanying emotion, and the words to which they
would be the appropriate response. The mind might not otherwise recognise and
evaluate the correspondence between word and thing. The voices of the perform-
ers singing a song link musical and textual signs in such a way that the intermittent
tensing and relaxing of nerves that the sound produces creates a physiological
experience of the emotion that the words are intended to elicit. This permits the
auditor to simultaneously experience the emotion of the characters that the singers
portray, and evaluate the emotion felt, the criteria used to assess such display, and
its capacity and limits for explaining what the words describe. In the absence of
prior knowledge of what is depicted, feeling becomes a way of evaluating the truth
of the statements.
This is particularly true with the musical settings of Marvell’s dialogue about
the relation between heavenly bliss and a fallen earthly existence that is productive
of that desirable discomfort which is termed the sublime. Feeling, through the
experience of music, becomes a way of knowing or learning in which referentiality
facilitates knowledge that forms individual subjectivity and an identity grounded
in a sense of a shared earthly existence that might be attained. Distance from God
is experienced as a physiological sensation of fear or terror that such physical space
between the auditor and paradise, and therefore the separation from the divine,
should prompt. The listener gains a sense of his or her own fallenness by feeling
the longing and despair that Dorinda feels to which Thyrsis’s words are anodyne,
and uses sensation to determine the validity of not only her emotional response,
but their own, so that knowledge is not only of an objective world, but of one’s self.
vii
re-imagining myths and stories

for the stage
14
‘Armida’s Picture we from Tasso Drew’?:

The Rinaldo and Armida Story in Late Seventeenth-
and Early Eighteenth-Century English Operatic
Entertainments *
Amanda Eubanks Winkler
A nthony Van Dyck’s painting, Rinaldo and Armida (c.1629), was commis-
sioned by Endimion Porter for Charles I and was widely disseminated as an
engraving throughout Europe (see Plate X).1 Thus, this evocative image reveals a
great deal about the ways the painter and his contemporaries understood Torquato
Tasso’s epic poem of the Crusades, Gerusalemme liberata (1581). Van Dyck illus-
trated a famous moment: Rinaldo, the erstwhile warrior, has completely given
himself over to pleasure. He slumbers, coaxed into sleep by a Siren’s seductive
song, as his lover Armida binds him with a garland of flowers – a clear symbol
of the dangers of the sensual excess in the sorceress’s luxurious bower. Van Dyck
emphasised the eroticism of the scene as cupids cavort around the lovers, trans-
forming martial pursuits into humorously phallic ones as they use Rinaldo’s tool of
war, his sword, as a hobbyhorse. Rinaldo’s rescuers, Carlo and Ubaldo, are voyeurs
peeking out from the bushes – for the time being, war can wait. Armida, however,
is also not immune to the dangers of love. Above her a cupid is about to infect her
with love’s dart. In short, Van Dyck highlighted the powerful, yet problematic, sen-
suality of Rinaldo and Armida’s relationship, while sidelining the military conflict
between Christians and Muslims, the central narrative of the original poem.
We might expect to find this amorous Rinaldo and Armida in the musical ver-
sions of the story performed on the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century
English stage: John Dennis and John Eccles’s Rinaldo and Armida (1698) and Aaron
Hill, Giacomo Rossi and George Frederic Handel’s Rinaldo (1711).2 Yet strangely,
both these works display anxiety about this passionate relationship, re-shaping
the characters created by Tasso and so evocatively portrayed in Van Dyck’s paint-
ing. This squeamishness – the desire to moderate the lovers’ passion or to frame
their emotions as problematic – reflected and participated in turn-of-the-century

* This material was first presented at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century
Studies meeting, Atlanta (2007) and talks at Cornell University (2008) and
Northwestern University (2010). I thank these audiences for their valuable feedback.
1
For more information about this painting, see Susan J. Barnes, Nora De Poorter, Oliver
Millar and Horst Vey, Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings (New Haven,
2004), p.294.
2
Erica Levenson also considers the adaptation of pre-existing material for the London
stage in chapter 15 of this collection.
242 Amanda Eubanks Winkler
debates about morality, theatre and musical aesthetics. Contemporary political

discourses, including those with regards to gender and English national identity,
also influenced these re-tellings of Tasso’s epic.
John Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida (1698):

Collier , Vice and the Performance of Eroticism
Moral and ethical concerns shaped the way John Dennis (1657–1734), a well-known
critic and playwright, approached Tasso’s famous story. In 1698, the same year as
Rinaldo and Armida’s debut, Jeremy Collier had excoriated the producers of con-
temporary drama in A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
Stage, a work that documented theatrical smuttiness in exquisitely lurid detail.
Collier’s attack targeted two of Dennis’s close friends, playwrights John Dryden
and William Congreve, and this moved Dennis to respond in print a few months
later in The Usefulness of the Stage (1698).3 While Dennis defended his friends and
did not want to outlaw the stage, he agreed with Collier that it should be reformed:
If Mr Collier had only attack’d the corruptions of the stage, for my own part I
should have been so far from blaming him, that I should have publicly return’d
him my thanks: For the abuses are so great, that there is a necessity for the
reforming them.4
When he arrived at his defence of the stage, Dennis’s rhetoric took on a political
and moralistic cast, as he argued that tragedy could be used to promote social
harmony:
If you consider them in relation to those who govern them, you will find that
tragedy is very proper to check the motions, that they may at any time feel to
rebellion or disobedience, by stopping the very sources of them; for tragedy
naturally checks their ambition, by showing them the great ones of the Earth
humbled, by setting before their eyes, to make use of Mr Collier’s words, the
uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of state, and the unhappy
conclusion of violence and injustice. Tragedy too, diverts their apprehension
of grievances, by the delight which it gives them, discovers the designs of their
factious guides, by opening their eyes, and instructing them in their duty by the
like examples; and lastly, it dispels their unreasonable jealousies, for people who
are melted or terrified with the sufferings of the great, which are set before their
eyes, are rather apt to feel a secret pleasure, from the sense that they have, that
3
For an analysis of Dennis’s role in the Collier controversy, see H.G. Paul, John Dennis:
His Life and Criticism (New York, 1966), pp.30–1. Robert Hume noted that Collier did
not succeed in his desired reforms; however, Collier’s critiques clearly held particular
resonance for Dennis. As Hume outlined, Collier was part of a larger discourse regard-
ing the ‘obscenity’ of the stage; ‘Jeremy Collier and the Future of the London Theater
in 1698’, Studies in Philology 96 (1999), 480–511.
4
John Dennis, The Usefulness of the Stage to the Happiness of Mankind, to Government, and
to Religion (London, 1698), sig.[A3r].
Rinaldo and Armida in English Operatic Entertainments 243
they are free from the like calamities, than to torment themselves with the vain
and uncertain apprehensions of futurity.5
Tragedy, according to Dennis’s formulation, directed audiences morally while

allowing spectators to indulge in Schadenfreude, grateful that they were not suffer-
ing the trials faced by the protagonists onstage.
How, then, did Dennis’s concern with stage reform and the moralistic use of
tragedy shape his Rinaldo and Armida? First, on the title-page Dennis labelled
Rinaldo and Armida a ‘tragedy’, eschewing ‘opera’, ‘dramatick opera’ or ‘masque’
– the more usual terms for works with a significant proportion of music.6 The
specific moral connotations that the generic designation ‘tragedy’ had for Dennis
informed his characterisation of Rinaldo, the warrior knight, and Armida, the love-
sick sorceress. In his prologue Dennis argued that he had to make changes because
Tasso’s portrayal of Rinaldo was deficient.7
To change Rinaldo’s manners, we had ground,

Who in the Italian is unequal found.
At first he burns with fierce ambition’s fire,
Anon he dotes like any feeble squire,
The mere reverse of all that’s noble in desire.
Then in a moment leaves the lovesick dame,
And only burns, and only bleeds for everlasting fame.8
For Dennis the conflicted, changeable passions of Tasso’s Rinaldo were ill-suited
to his moralistic tragedy, which required a more straightforwardly noble protago-
nist.9 Dennis was not alone in his disparaging view of Tasso. Although Tasso was
well regarded by the English in the early seventeenth century, his reputation had
begun to falter by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. For example,
5
Ibid., pp.56–7.
6
Kathryn Lowerre made a similar point in ‘Dramatick Opera and Theatrical Reform:
Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida and Motteux’s The Island Princess’, Theatre Notebook 59
(2005), 23–40 (28–9).
7
Dennis’s contemporaries considered his changes to Tasso to be presumptuous. As the
anonymous author of A Comparison Between the Two Stages remarked: ‘The renown’d
author thought himself immortal in that work, and that the world was to last no longer
than his Rinaldo; and tho’ he stole every thing from the Italian, yet he said, what the
Italian did was but Grub-Street to his.’ A Comparison Between the Two Stages, with an
Examen of the Generous Conqueror; And Some Critical Remarks on the Funeral, or Grief
a la Mode, The False Friend, Tamerlane and Others (London, 1702), p.36.
8
John Dennis, Rinaldo and Armida: A Tragedy (London, 1699), prologue.
9
A more practical reason may have also affected Dennis’s characterisation of Rinaldo.
In his dedication, Dennis equated the heroic derring-do of Rinaldo with that of his
patron, the Duke of Ormond, who had been a major player on the battlefield, cam-
paigning with William III in the Low Countries. As Dennis wrote, ‘The world has not
been displeased to see in Rinaldo a character resembling Your Grace’s’ (dedication).
Indeed, Dennis seems anxious to highlight Rinaldo’s martial prowess. When describ-
ing the reasons why she adores her beloved Rinaldo, Armida proclaims: ‘Fortune, and
fame, and victory obeyed him, / Him, the sole power of that victorious army’, p.12.
Dennis’s friend and mentor, John Dryden, who had been complementary about
Tasso earlier in his career, lambasted the Italian in his Discourse Concerning the
Original and Progress of Satire (1693):
he is too flatulent sometimes, and sometimes too dry; many times unequal
[using the same term here as Dennis], and almost always forc’d; and besides, is
full of conceits, points of epigram, and witticisms; all which are not only below
the dignity of heroic verse, but contrary to its nature.10
Given such sentiments, we might speculate that Tasso’s rambling narrative was
also antithetical to the goals of the emerging Age of Reason. Indeed, Dennis was
particularly concerned to establish that Rinaldo was a reasonable man, as opposed
to the lascivious and irrational hero in Tasso:
I design’d Rinaldo then neither a languishing nor a brutal hero; he is fond of

Armida to the last degree, and yet resolves to leave her, but owes that resolution
to the strength of his reason, and not the weakness of his passion.11
Dennis also adjusted the Armida he finds in Tasso. In keeping with his moralistic
re-fashioning, Dennis’s Armida converts to Christianity before dying of a self-in-
flicted wound (Tasso’s Armida survives and is reconciled with Rinaldo). For sim-
ilar moralistic reasons, the seductive Armida from Tasso is nowhere to be found.
Dennis admitted that he had chosen to downplay the sorceress’s sexual power, as
he claimed that the enchantress’s amorous behaviour in the original was opposed
to the noble goals of tragedy:
Armida’s picture we from Tasso drew,

And yet it may resembling seem too few;
For here you see no soft bewitching dame,
Using incentives to the amorous game,
And with affected, meretricious arts,
Secretly sliding into hero’s hearts.
That was an error in the Italian Muse,
If the great Tasso were allow’d t’ accuse;
And to descend to such enervate strains,
The Tragic-Muse with majesty disdains.12
10
[ John] Dryden, The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis ... To which is Prefix’d a Discourse
Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (London, 1693), p.vii. On Tasso’s repu-
tation in England, see Kathleen M. Lea and T.M. Gang, eds, ‘General Introduction’,
Godfrey of Bulloigne: A Critical Edition of Edward Fairfax’s Translation of Tasso’s
Gerusalemme Liberata, Together with Fairfax’s Original Poems (Oxford, 1981), pp.3–64
(25–34).
11
Dennis, Rinaldo and Armida, sig.A[1]r.
12
Ibid., prologue.
Dennis’s explanation notwithstanding, contemporaries obviously noticed a defi-

ciency in Dennis’s less seductive characterisation of Armida. As Dennis defen-
sively tells us in his preface:
There is, say some gentlemen, a softness that is natural to love, and only that
softness, say they, should be capable to engaging Rinaldo’s heart; for ’tis
hard to conceive, say they, how such a hero should be passionately fond of a
woman, who appears always either in a furious disorder, or using of horrible
incantations.
To this I answer that the action of the play begins but between three and four
hours before the death of Armida.13
Nevertheless, given the title of Dennis’s tragedy, it is strange that he chose to begin
the action shortly before the end of their romantic relationship. As the lovers only
have two interludes together before Armida’s spell is fully broken (and Rinaldo is
asleep for one of these), one cannot fully comprehend what Armida has lost when
Rinaldo deserts her.
Although Dennis justified his changes by invoking the ‘Tragic-Muse’ and labo-
riously explained his dramatic choices, it is also likely that Collier’s attack made
Dennis a bit cautious about portraying amorous (or, as Collier would have it, las-
civious) behaviour onstage. Perhaps further motivating Dennis’s restraint, in 1697,
in response to complaints about the stage, the Lord Chamberlain had promised to
supervise things more closely.14
Dennis’s desire to provide a moral entertainment also spilled over into the
musical portions of Rinaldo and Armida. Here, too, Collier’s critiques may have
catalysed Dennis’s own thinking. Collier did not believe that all music was bad, but
rather that it was being dangerously misused:
Now granting the playhouse music not vicious in the composition, yet the design
of it is to refresh the ideas of the action, to keep time with the poem, and be
true to the subject. For this reason among others the tunes are generally airy and
galliardizing: They are contriv’d on purpose to excite a sportive humour, and
spread a gaiety upon the spirits. To banish all gravity and scruple, and lay think-
ing and reflection asleep. This sort of music warms the passions, and unlocks the
fancy, and makes it open to pleasure like a flower to the Sun. It helps a luscious
sentence to slide, drowns the discords of atheism, and keeps off the aversions of
conscience. It throws a man off his guard, makes way for an ill impression, and is
13
Ibid., sig.A2r.
14
Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, A Register of English Theatrical Documents, 1660–
1737, 2 vols (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1991), vol.1, p.324. Lowerre also noted the
potential influence of the Lord Chamberlain’s edicts of 1697 and the Collier contro-
versy in ‘Dramatick Opera and Theatrical Reform’, pp.26–7.
most commodiously planted to do mischief. A lewd play with good music is like
a loadstone arm’d, it draws much stronger than before.15
For Collier, music was dangerous because it made the immoral palatable, circum-
vented reason, and often served no purpose beyond empty titillation. Although
Dennis did not substantially address Collier’s concerns about music in his writ-
ings,16 as Kathryn Lowerre has noted, Dennis shared some of Collier’s fears about
music’s ability to misdirect the listener’s passions. In his Essay on the Operas after
the Italian Manner (1706) – which postdates Rinaldo and Armida but is still reveal-
ing about Dennis’s musical philosophy – he opined:
Music may be made profitable as well as delightful, if it is subordinate to some

nobler art, and subservient to reason; but if it presumes not only to degenerate
from its ancient severity, from its sacred solemnity, but to set up for itself, and to
grow independent, as it does in our late operas [here referring to Italian opera],
it becomes a mere sensual delight, utterly incapable of informing the under-
standing, or reforming the will, and for that very reason utterly unfit to be made
a public diversion.17
In Rinaldo and Armida, Dennis wanted to demonstrate music’s higher purpose – it

could be an integral part of the tragedy. In developing his philosophy of music and
drama, Dennis drew upon classical ideals and English precedents. He included a
quotation from Horace on his title-page to Rinaldo and Armida, and in his preface
cited the influence of Sophocles. In England, earlier operatic works had generally
followed one of three approaches: 1) through-composed ‘masques’ (Blow’s Venus
and Adonis; Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas); 2) works with spoken text where music was
relegated to self-contained masques and interludes that had little to do with the
play’s overarching narrative (The Fairy Queen); and 3) works that sought to more
fully integrate music and spoken drama (Locke’s Psyche, Dryden’s King Arthur).
Rinaldo and Armida pursues the latter course, as Dennis ambitiously structured his
work to allow a synthesis of music with classically inflected tragedy.18
15
Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage
Together with a Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument (1698), facsimile reprint edn
(New York, 1972), pp.278–9.
16
Dennis mentioned music briefly on p.56 of The Usefulness of the Stage. After citing a
long passage from Dancier on the moral benefits and drawbacks of music, Dennis con-
cluded, ‘what may we not justly affirm of tragedy, of which music is but a little orna-
ment; and which as far transcend it, as the reasoning speech of a man excels the brutes
inarticulate voice, which never has any meaning.’
17
Dennis, ‘An Essay on the Operas After the Italian Manner, which are About to be
Establish’d on the English Stage: With Some Reflections on the Damage which they
may Bring to the Public (1706)’, The Critical Works of John Dennis, ed. Edward Niles
Hooker, 2 vols (Baltimore, 1939), vol.1, pp.382–93 (385) [spelling modernised].
18
Dennis’s selection of topic (and his insistence on calling it a ‘tragedy’) makes one
wonder if Lully’s Armide of 1686 was an influence. If it were, Dennis, who was outspo-
ken in his loathing for the French, would not have admitted it.
In a separate publication, Musical Entertainments in Rinaldo and Armida, Dennis

further described his aesthetic goals, reinforcing the notion that John Eccles’s
music for Rinaldo and Armida is an integral ‘part of the tragedy’ (i.e. not just music
for empty entertainment) and that Eccles ‘has everywhere so thoroughly enter’d
into my design, that if I had not known him well, I should have often wonder’d at
it’.19 In every case, Eccles’s musical interludes forward the drama: there is no fifth-
act celebration where all dramatic action stops (as happens in King Arthur, for
example). There is no amusing, yet dramatically empty duet (such as the flimsily
justified yet amusing ‘Now the Maids and the Men are Making of Hay’ from The
Fairy Queen). Each musical episode, Dennis insisted – even the music between the
acts – is part of the ‘action of the play’.20 All of these aesthetic choices, in addition to
advancing the drama, speak to Collier’s criticism of music as empty entertainment
and Dennis’s later declaration that music should be subservient to a nobler art (in
this case tragedy).
The sleep scene from Rinaldo and Armida demonstrates how Dennis and Eccles
achieved their aesthetic and moralistic aims. In Act II, Armida reveals that her ded-
ication to the black arts is wavering; love has taught her to fear ‘The torments which
the souls in Hell endure’.21 Nevertheless, her desire to keep Rinaldo in her thrall
prompts her to put aside such fears, and she conjures spirits or dreams to appear
to Rinaldo in the shape of his parents. Bertoldo and Sophia musically entreat their
son to stay with Armida, ‘Or destiny decrees, / Thou shalt feel woes, which but to
hear / Would distract thy soul with fear’.22 A chorus of spirits of those Rinaldo has
slain then threaten him, appealing to Armida to assist them in revenge, declaring
their intentions in stark homophonic terms (see Example 14.1).23
Eccles’s straightforward, unadorned musical threats are the perfect aesthetic
match for Dennis, a man suspicious of musical frippery without dramatic justifica-
tion. In terms of efficacy within the play, however, the efforts of Armida’s musical
spirits come to naught. In order to maintain Rinaldo’s heroism, Dennis’s protago-
nist ‘smile[s] at all their threats’.24 Fame’s trumpet then sounds, dispelling Armida’s
antimasque. Virtuous music thus thwarts the music of Hell: Jeremy Collier would
have approved.
19
John Dennis, The Musical Entertainments in the Tragedy of Rinaldo and Armida (London,
1699); reprinted in Theatre Miscellany: Six Pieces Connected with the Seventeenth-Century
Stage (Oxford, 1953), pp.99–115. This quotation comes from p.105 in the reprint [spell-
ing modernised].
20
Dennis, The Musical Entertainments, p.107.
21
Dennis, Rinaldo and Armida, p.13.
22
Ibid., p.17.
23
For a critical edition of the music, see John Eccles, Rinaldo and Armida, ed. Steven
Plank, The Works of John Eccles, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era
176 (Middleton, WI, 2011).
24
Dennis, Rinaldo and Armida, p.18.
Ex. 14.1 John Eccles, ‘For Revenge to Armida We Call’, bars 1–7, from Rinaldo and Armida, London, British Library, Add. MS 29738
6 8
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Rinaldo and the Politics of English Music

and Identity
Thirteen years after the debut of Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida, Aaron Hill, the
director of the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket, dedicated Giacomo Rossi’s
libretto for George Frederic Handel’s Italian opera Rinaldo to Queen Anne. Hill
had been responsible for writing the scenario to Rinaldo, which the Italian Rossi
then versified.25 Hill was determined for Rinaldo to succeed with the English public
and shaped his entertainment to appeal to their tastes. Hill’s scenario for Rinaldo
incorporated the lavish scenic spectacle that had been an integral part of English
dramatick opera (Dryden’s term for works that combined spoken text with music)
– an obvious attempt to coax London audiences accustomed to such entertain-
ments to his theatre. At this point in his career, Hill had no Dennis-like qualms
about deploying music and theatrical spectacle for entertainment and pleasure. In
his preface to Rinaldo he declared:
I resolv’d to frame some drama, that, by different incidents and passions, might
afford the music scope to vary and display its excellence, and fill the eye with
more delightful prospects, so at once to give two senses equal pleasure.26
His efforts to introduce his adapted style of Italian opera to the London public met
with success, although Hill proved to be a disastrous theatre manager and his licence
to run the Haymarket was revoked just nine days after the premiere of Rinaldo.27
Although Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida and Handel’s Rinaldo were both drawn
from the same episode of Gerusalemme liberata, the plots are substantially dif-
ferent. As Curtis Price and James Winn have observed, there seems to be a rela-
tionship between Rinaldo and earlier English works, which explains some of the
alterations Hill made to the story (and perhaps this was another strategy by which
Hill rendered the foreign entertainment of Italian opera palatable to London
audiences).28 In particular, Price has argued that Hill’s scenario was indebted to
25
Donald Burrows described the libretto as being the joint work of Hill and Rossi; others
(see n.29) disagree; in any case, the opera appears to have been written in great haste
– Handel recycled a great deal of material from his earlier works. Donald Burrows,
Handel (New York, 1994), p.65.
26
Preface to ‘Rinaldo’, The Librettos of Handel’s Operas: A Collection of Seventy-One
Librettos Documenting Handel’s Operatic Career, ed. Ellen T. Harris, 13 vols (New York,
1989), vol.2, p.7.
27
Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, ‘The Haymarket Opera in 1711’, Early Music 17
(1989), 523–37 (523). Milhous and Hume demonstrate that Rinaldo was not a big ‘hit’
– ‘receipts were barely enough to cover salaries and routine expenditures’ (p.526).
See also Robert D. Hume, ‘The Sponsorship of Opera in London, 1704–1720’, Modern
Philology 85 (1988), 420–32 (428); Reinhold Kubik, Händels Rinaldo: Geschichte, Werk,
Wirkung (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1982), pp.46–9. For a further account of Hill’s involve-
ment with Rinaldo, see Christine Gerrard, Aaron Hill: The Muses’ Projector (Oxford,
2003), pp.32–8.
28
Burrows noted that Handel may have also interpreted the ‘visual-scenic element’ in
terms of his previous experience in Hamburg, where spectacle was also highly valued;
Handel, p.83.
British Enchanters Rinaldo

Christians Amadis ↔ Oriana Rinaldo ↔ Almirena
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
Pagans Arcabon ↔ Arcalaus Armida ↔ Argante
(brother and sister)
Figure 14.1 Structural Similarities between The British Enchanters and Rinaldo
George Granville’s dramatick opera The British Enchanters (1706), a re-telling of

the chivalric romance Amadis of Gaul.29 In both The British Enchanters and Rinaldo
a beautiful sorceress falls in love with the ‘enemy’ and ensnares him through magic.
Furthermore, in both works multiple lovers engage in romantic intrigue rather
than just one couple (see Figure 14.1).30
While Price has pointed out the considerable similarities between Hill’s scenario
for Rinaldo and The British Enchanters, it is equally fruitful to compare Rinaldo with
Dennis’s work (see Figure 14.2). It is worth asking why Hill’s portrayals of Rinaldo
and Armida are so different from Dennis’s (and, indeed, from Tasso’s).
Hill may have chosen another path because Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida had
met with only a lukewarm response, but it is also possible that other factors had
changed over the course of thirteen years – factors concerning morality, politics
and the specific challenges of importing Italian opera onto the English stage.
The character of Armida in Handel’s opera is radically different from the one in
Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida. Dennis carefully downplayed the sorceress’s sexual
power, but in Handel’s Rinaldo her eroticism is amplified. In a departure from
Tasso’s original story, Armida engages in an affair with Argante before she meets
Rinaldo. Her affections prove remarkably fickle, as she falls instantly in love with
Rinaldo, then, at the end of the opera, returns to Argante. Her changeability is fully
evident in Act II, Scene 6 of the opera, when the sorceress becomes smitten with
the handsome Rinaldo. While previous composers accorded significant musical
and theatrical weight to this moment (Lully’s ‘Enfin, il est en ma puissance’ being
the obvious example), Handel’s Armida changes her mind about the Crusader in
the course of a few lines of recitative.
In the dialogue that follows her change of heart, ‘Crudel, tu ch’involasti’, Armida
is almost comically portrayed as a lustful woman who will deploy any means nec-
essary to have her erotic way. She transforms herself into Almirena to trick Rinaldo
into loving her and he is duped by the ruse, until Armida reverts back to her natural
form and he rejects her, repulsed. Handel and Rossi reinforced this portrait of an
29
Curtis Price, ‘English Traditions in Handel’s Rinaldo’, Handel: Tercentenary Collection,
ed. Stanley Sadie and Anthony Hicks (Basingstoke, 1987), pp.120–35; James A. Winn,
‘Heroic Song: A Proposal for a Revised History of English Theater and Opera, 1656–1711’,
Eighteenth-Century Studies 30 (1996–7), 113–37. For a sceptical view of Price’s argument,
particularly regarding Hill’s role in crafting the libretto, see J. Merrill Knapp, ‘Aaron Hill
and the London Theater of his Time’, Handel-Jahrbuch 37 (1991), 177–85 (178–9).
30
For more on The British Enchanters, see my ‘Music and Politics in George Granville’s
The British Enchanters’, Queen Anne and the Arts, ed. Cedric D. Reverand II (Lewisburg,
2015), pp.187–204.
Rinaldo and Armida Rinaldo

Christians Rinaldo Rinaldo ↔ Almirena
↑
↓ ↑ ↑
Pagans Armida ↔ Phenissa Armida ↔ Argante
(female companions)
Figure 14.2 Comparison of Rinaldo and Armida and Rinaldo
amorously out of control Armida in the accompanied recitative, ‘Dunque i lacci

d’un volto’. While Dennis’s Armida focuses her praise on her beloved’s morality
and bravery, Armida in Handel’s Rinaldo waxes rhapsodic about her own physical
appearance, wondering why the hero has rejected her:
And cannot then the beauties of my youth,

The promis’d joys I offer’d to his view,
Nor Hell’s big threatenings, lure him to my will?31
The music Handel wrote for this scene, however, imbues the sorceress with an
emotional weight denied to Dennis’s Armida, who only speaks.32 The accompanied
recitative abounds with concitato interjections from the orchestra; this, coupled
with a halting vocal line punctuated by rests (much like Lully’s famous soliloquy
in Armide), illustrates Armida’s considerable emotional distress as she swerves
between murderous and amorous impulses. Armida’s sense of confusion and erotic
longing is heightened in the aria, ‘Ah! crudel’. Handel continued to use the key of G
minor heard in the recitative, a key long associated with lament on both the English
and Italian stages; notably it is also the key Handel chose for Rinaldo’s first aria in
the opera (discussed below). Woodwinds, particularly the oboes, add a plaintive
tone in the opening ritornello and, when Armida’s voice enters, a held note on ‘Ah’
followed by a dissonant, downward leap of a seventh on ‘crudel’ expertly artic-
ulates her pain.33 In the B section, the unsettled concitato from the accompanied
recitative returns, as Armida moves from longing to anger at the prospect that
Rinaldo will not capitulate. Thus, the oscillations between anger and love found in
miniature in her accompanied recitative are given full voice in her aria.
Hill, Rossi and Handel also present the character of Rinaldo – the focus of the
sorceress’s irrational desire – differently from Dennis or Tasso. Price has argued
31
Rossi, Rinaldo, ed. Harris, Librettos of Handel’s Operas, vol.2, p.49.
32
As Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp commented, this scene is one of the most
musically effective moments in the entire work; see Handel’s Operas, 1704-1726, reprint
edn (Woodbridge, 2009), p.174.
33
As Kubik demonstrated, this opening vocal gesture appears in three works before
Handel’s Rinaldo: the cantata Un sospir, the cantata Ah! crudel and in Agrippina;
Händels Rinaldo, p.96.
that Handel’s Rinaldo is a flawed Orpheus figure.34 Just as the mythological musi-
cian Orpheus loses his beloved Eurydice to bitter death and vows to seek her in the
Underworld, Rinaldo loses his beloved Almirena, who is kidnapped by Armida.
After this pivotal moment, Rinaldo’s buffoonish, incompetently executed quest
to recover Almirena becomes the primary focus of the opera. By departing from
Tasso in this significant way, the creators altered the relationship between Rinaldo
and Armida. Armida might temporarily trick Rinaldo, but he never wavers in his
love for Almirena. Despite his constancy to his beloved, in eighteenth-century
terms Rinaldo is still a problematic character, for he consistently places love before
duty.35 Upon Rinaldo’s first appearance onstage, Goffredo, the Christian general,
warns him that to succeed as a warrior he must temper his passion for Almirena.
Goffredo advises, ‘Yet in the road to glory fall not back, / But pass by love when
thy fair fame invites thee’. Almirena even cautions him: ‘The force of love has valour
oft suppress’d / And glory freezes in an amorous breast’.36 Rinaldo, however, is too
carried away by love to listen. His first aria, ‘Ogn’ indugio d’un amante’, is not an
ode of praise to glory, duty and military might; instead Handel and his collabora-
tors present a man controlled by his unsettled emotions and irritated by what he
perceives as an unnecessary delay in the fulfilment of his amorous ambitions.
This obsession with deferred pleasure – and a concomitant lack of goal orien-
tation – pervades the musical rhetoric of this piece. The opening ritornello begins
with a hesitation in the violins, and this rhythmic awkwardness (hardly the square
rhythms expected of a military hero) continues as persistent syncopations obscure
the pulse. A disjunct and meandering melodic line reinforces the impression of
Rinaldo’s instability. When Rinaldo begins to sing, his weakness is further empha-
sised by his weak-beat entrance, which, coupled with some awkward text setting,
gives the impression that our soldier is not a master of his own discourse.
This portrayal of Rinaldo as a man wholly given over to love from the start
represents a significant departure from Tasso and Dennis. According to Edward
Fairfax’s English translation of Tasso’s allegory – familiar in early eighteenth-cen-
tury England – Rinaldo and the other knights represented ‘the conflict and
rebellion which the concupiscent and ireful powers do make with the reasonable’.37
Indeed, in Tasso we see this conflict between reason and passion – in the opening
cantos, Rinaldo’s considerable abilities as a noble knight and Crusader are clearly
delineated before he is ensnared by Armida’s charms. Dennis’s Rinaldo is even
more strongly weighted toward rationalism, as he never completely gives himself
to Armida – his reason is never completely compromised. In contrast, Handel’s
34
Price, ‘English Traditions’, pp.127–30. As Price noted, this would have appealed to
English audiences, as versions of a comically tinged Orpheus figure can be found in
plays by Fletcher, Settle, Davenant and D’Urfey. There are other instances of this mock-
ing, anti-heroic impulse in Handel’s oeuvre, as discussed by Winton Dean, ‘Antiheroic
Operas’, Handel and the Opera Seria (Berkeley, 1969), pp.100–22.
35
On normative masculine behaviour in this period, see Anthony Fletcher, Gender,
Sex, and Subordination, 1500–1800 (New Haven, 1995), pp.322–46; Karen Harvey, ‘The
History of Masculinity, circa 1650–1800’, Journal of British Studies 44 (2005), 296–311.
36
Rossi, Rinaldo, ed. Harris, Librettos of Handel’s Operas, vol. 2, p.17.
37
Lea and Gang, eds, Godfrey of Bulloigne, p.90 [spelling modernised].
hero never behaves reasonably. He is infected by love’s darts from the beginning of
the opera and those around him, even his lover, Almirena, are worried.
It is difficult to explain why the creators of the 1711 Rinaldo portrayed their hero in
such questionable terms. After all, one of the purposes of opera seria was to provide
edifying, moral entertainment that showed its noble audiences how to behave.38
As Paul Monod and David Hunter have observed, it was precisely this audience
of aristocratic and wealthy Londoners who frequented the Queen’s Theatre in the
Haymarket.39 Yet, while the lesser characters of Goffredo and Eustazio might serve
as exemplars of proper aristocratic behaviour, Rinaldo falls miserably short. Again,
the question is why?
Naturally, there is no single answer. Yet it is illuminating to consider Rinaldo
within a broader historical milieu. As Reinhard Strohm averred, ‘It is no secret ...
that contemporary political events played a part in determining the choice of an
opera’s subject.’40 Thomas McGeary, Hunter and Monod have put forth different
readings of how Handel’s operatic output relates to eighteenth-century English
politics. McGeary and Hunter claimed that it is impossible to pin down Handel’s
politics (and whether contemporary events shaped his compositions), as he asso-
ciated with people of all political stripes and enjoyed the support and sometimes
animosity of Whigs, Tories and Jacobites alike – thus, they argued, Handel’s works
are politically inscrutable.41 Monod, on the other hand, stated that ‘Handel’s early
operas became closely linked to issues of Whig self-definition, and to efforts to
impose new standards on public art.’ Monod believes that Hill imbued Rinaldo
with a moralistic tone in order to answer the Whiggish criticism of Dennis and
others against Italian opera, and that the choice of Rinaldo and Armida as a topic
was not coincidental: Hill wanted to improve upon Dennis’s efforts. Furthermore,
the martial subject matter would have encouraged audiences to associate the tri-
umphs of the Crusaders with the military triumphs of the Duke of Marlborough.42
Although I tend to agree with Hunter and McGeary’s warnings about close polit-
38
Handel frequently did not conform to the norms of Italian opera seria, a point made by
Reinhard Strohm in ‘Handel and His Italian Opera Texts’, Essays on Handel and Italian
Opera (Cambridge, 1985), pp.34–79 (35–7).
39
Paul Monod, ‘The Politics of Handel’s Early Italian Operas, 1711–1718’, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 36 (2006), 445–72 (450); David Hunter, ‘Patronizing Handel,
Inventing Audiences: The Intersections of Class, Money, Music and History’, Early
Music 28 (2000), 32–49.
40
Strohm, ‘Handel and His Italian Opera Texts’, p.35. For a survey of the larger English
context, see William Weber, ‘Handel’s London – Social, Political, and Intellectual
Contexts’, The Cambridge Companion to Handel, ed. Donald Burrows (Cambridge,
1997), pp.45–54.
41
David Hunter, ‘Handel Among the Jacobites’, Music and Letters 82 (2001), 543–56;
Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge, 2013).
42
Monod, ‘The Politics of Handel’s Early London Operas’, p.448. In an earlier article,
Richard Leppert agreed that Whigs were the primary sponsors of opera, although
he believes that Tories were opposed to the genre (some Tories may have lambasted
opera, but Monod convincingly demonstrated that the most vociferous anti-opera par-
tisans – Addison, Steele, and Dennis – had Whiggish tendencies). Leppert, ‘Imagery,
Musical Confrontation and Cultural Difference in Early 18th-Century London’, Early
Music 14 (1986), 323–45, espec. pp.330–1. For Monod’s argument, see pp.453–9.
ical readings of Handel’s operas, it is fruitful to view Rinaldo as a product of the

larger uncertainties and upheavals that faced early eighteenth-century England,
situating these anxieties particularly within the context of attempts to forge a
coherent British identity, both inside and outside the musical realm. Through this
lens the relationship between the two musical Rinaldos and their creators comes
into sharper relief.
In 1707, Parliament passed the Act of Union, bringing Scotland, England and
Wales together. A newly unified British identity needed to be fashioned out of
these disparate elements. As Linda Colley put it, ‘Britishness was superimposed
over an array of internal differences in response to contact with the Other, and
above all in response to conflict with the Other.’43 Such anxieties about British
identity (and what constituted British manhood and womanhood) echo through
early eighteenth-century polemics about the foreign genre of Italian opera, and
elements of this debate affected the way Rinaldo was written for and understood
by its first audiences.44
According to Colley, one of the unifying factors of this new British identity,
beyond a hatred of all things French, was Protestantism.45 Indeed, contemporary
critiques of Italian opera by Joseph Addison (a frustrated opera librettist himself),
Richard Steele and John Dennis are remarkable in their xenophobia, as they equate
the foreign (Catholic) musical genre with effeminacy and sexual depravity.46
Steele’s epilogue to his play The Tender Husband (1705) appeals to his countrymen
in the strongest terms:
Britons, who constant war, with factious rage,

For liberty against each other wage,
From foreign insult save this English stage.
No more th’Italian squalling tribe admit,
In tongues unknown; ’tis popery in wit.
The songs (their selves confess) from Rome they bring;
And ’tis High-Mass for ought you know, they sing.
Husbands take care, the danger may come nigher,
The woman say their eunuch is a friar.47
43
Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992), p.6.
44
See Monod, ‘The Politics of Handel’s Early London Operas’, pp.453–9. Suzanne
Aspden argued the other side of the case, claiming that English opera, balladry and folk
tales (as opposed to Italian opera) were held up as the true patriotic British alternative
(with all the concomitant rhetoric regarding religion, reason and gender identity),
‘Ballads and Britons: Imagined Community and the Continuity of “English” Opera’,
Journal of the Royal Musical Association 122 (1997), 24–51.
45
Colley, Britons, espec. chap.1, pp.11–54.
46
Thomas McGeary, ‘Gendering Opera: Italian Opera as the Feminine Other in Britain,
1700–42’, Journal of Musicological Research 14 (1994), 17–34; and ‘“Warbling Eunuchs”:
Opera, Gender, and Sexuality on the London Stage, 1705-1742’, Restoration and
Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research, 2nd ser. 7 (1992), 1–22.
47
Richard Steele, The Tender Husband; or the Accomplish’d Fools (London, 1705).
For Steele, Italian opera was popery and listening to such music (and associating
with the singers – especially the castrati – who performed it) caused familial disin-
tegration, as wives preferred eunuchs to their husbands, cloaking affairs under the
pretence that their lovers were [Catholic] spiritual advisors – ‘a friar’.
Another prominent feature of early eighteenth-century discourses about British
identity is their preoccupation with what constituted a proper Englishman. As
recent scholarship on early eighteenth-century masculinity has demonstrated, aris-
tocrats as well as other wealthy landowners solidified their status by shifting the
critiques regarding their own decadence onto – in the words of Thomas King – ‘a
male body figured as outside privacy: the theatrical, effeminate, and finally queer
male body’.48 Yet as Steele’s epilogue suggests, this public, theatrical, effeminate
male body had the disturbing ability to infiltrate and disrupt private domestic life.
Such anxieties work their way into discourses about the musical proclivities of
the English in the criticism of John Dennis, particularly in his aforementioned An
Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manner (1706) and An Essay upon Public Spirit
(1711), the latter appearing in the same year as Rinaldo. Here Dennis used similar
strategies to Steele – although he was concerned with male as well as female lust.
For Dennis, Italian opera also fractured the family unit, as it caused men to fall into
the snare of same-sex desire:
The ladies, with humblest submission, seem to mistake their interest a little in
encouraging operas: for the more the men are enervated and emasculated by
the softness of the Italian music, the less will they care for them, and the more
for one another.49
Beyond the promotion of sexual misconduct and the disintegration of families,

Dennis and other commentators of the day believed that Italian opera could
damage the country in the larger sense, actually contributing to the dissolution
of British society.50 Therefore, Dennis believed that listening to Italian opera was
morally dangerous and unpatriotic:51
Why then, if these gentlemen love their country, do they encourage that which
corrupts their countrymen and makes them degenerate from themselves so
much? If they are so fond of the Italian music, why did they not take it from the
48
Thomas A. King, The Gendering of Men, 1600–1750, 2 vols (Madison, 2004), vol.1, p.6.
Kristina Straub makes a similar case about male actors in Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth-
Century Players and Sexual Ideology (Princeton, 1992), pp.27–8.
49
John Dennis, An Essay upon Public Spirit; Being a Satyr in Prose Upon the Manners and
Luxury of the Times, the Chief Sources of our Present Parties and Divisions (London, 1711),
p.25.
50
Suzanne Aspden, ‘“An Infinity of Factions”: Opera in Eighteenth-Century Britain and
the Undoing of Society’, Cambridge Opera Journal 9 (1997), 1–19, espec. 10–13.
51
Leppert made a similar point about Dennis; ‘Imagery, Confrontation, and Cultural
Difference’, p.337.
Haymarket to their houses, and hug it like their secret sins there? ... Where, say
they, is the gratitude and justice of preferring foreigners to Britons, and in a time
of a deplorable war their enemies to their countrymen? Is there not an implicit
contract between all the people of every nation, to espouse one another’s inter-
est against all foreigners whatsoever?52
Not only was the genre of Italian opera problematic, so were the singers who
performed it. Castrati were chided for their effeminacy (in the early eighteenth
century this term was associated with two types of man: one who loved women
so much that he became like one and the homosexual).53 Dovetailing with the
controversy over effeminacy was the debate over the verisimilitude of castrati
portraying heroes. Joseph Addison had conflicted feelings about Nicolini, the
castrato who first portrayed Rinaldo. In a review of Nicolini’s performance in
L’Idaspe fedele, Addison praised the singer’s acting, describing him as a ‘person
whose action gives new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to
lovers’. Yet, puzzlingly, a few sentences earlier he had snickered at the singer’s
attempt at lion-taming, reporting that audiences did not fear for the Italian’s safety
because it was a well-known fact that a lion would not harm a ‘virgin’.54 Addison’s
colleague, Richard Steele, was harsher in his criticism of Rinaldo. He mocked the
idea that effeminate castrati are playing heroes (‘by the squeak of their voices the
heroes ... are eunuchs’).55
The Italian divas that graced the London stage did not fare much better than
their male counterparts. They were also decried in pamphlet publications for their
omnivorous sexual appetites and their disruptive influence on the morals of good
Englishmen and women. Singers such as Faustina and Cuzzoni, according to these
pamphlets, enjoyed female and male lovers as well as non-reproductive sex with
castrati. Frequently these pamphlets are written in the voice of the diva in question,
adding to the titillation. For example, in An Epistle from Signore F---a to a Lady
(1727), the pseudo-Faustina declares, ‘Inconstant as the wind, free as the air, / I
rang’d from man to man, from fair to fair’.56 Unfortunately, the pamphlet literature
52
Dennis, An Essay Upon Public Spirit, p.22. For more on Italian opera and patriotism, see
Peter W. Cosgrove, ‘Affective Unities: The Esthetics of Music and Factional Instability
in Eighteenth-Century England’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 22 (1988–9), 133–55, espec.
145: ‘The threat to Britishness is feared, as it were, both from an inner Italian and an
outer Italian.’
53
On the shifting relationship between effeminacy and homosexuality in the early eight-
eenth century see Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks
to Freud (Cambridge, MA, 1992), pp.149–92; Randolph Trumbach, ‘Sodomitical
Assaults, Gender Role, and Sexual Development in Eighteenth-Century London’,
Journal of Homosexuality 16 (1989), 407–29.
54
The Spectator 13 (15 March 1711).
55
The Spectator 14 (16 March 1711).
56
An Epistle from Signora F----A to a Lady (Venice [sic, London], 1727), p.3.
is silent about Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti, the Italian diva who played Armida,
so no scurrilous rumours survive about her proclivities, sexual or otherwise.57
In the context of these contemporary debates about Italian opera and the sing-
ers who performed it, Handel’s Rinaldo would have produced a complicated set
of meanings for listeners at the Queen’s Theatre. Given the long-standing English
tendency to draw biographical connections between actors and actresses and the
roles they performed, contemporary theatre-goers might have drawn parallels
between the characters Rinaldo and Armida and the widely circulated debates
about the sexual decadence of Italian opera singers.58 The pagan Armida’s fickle,
lustful behaviour would have dovetailed neatly with rumours about the sexual
profligacy of insatiable female opera singers imported from Catholic Italy. An
overly passionate warrior, a man who forsakes his sacred Christian duty on the
battlefield, instead pursuing his own amorous desires—Rinaldo’s behaviour rep-
licates the critics’ worst fears about the influence of Italian opera upon the ‘public
spirit’: that Italian opera (and its castrato singers) would cause men to become soft,
over-amorous and effeminate, more interested in personal gratification than civic
duty.59 It also echoes Addison and Steele’s critical opinion that emasculated castrati
could not adequately play heroes. Admittedly one cannot fully read Rinaldo as the
embodiment of the dangers represented by Italian opera or the castrati. Rinaldo,
despite his considerable flaws, never falls for the foreign charms of Armida: he is
patriotic in his steadfast choice of the beloved Almirena, unlike the English parti-
sans of Italian opera described by Dennis, who rejected native entertainments for
the insidious charms of a foreign genre.
Placing Dennis’s ‘tragedy’ and Hill’s opera side by side, it is striking how two
authors working with the same source material found such divergent solutions to
the problem of making Tasso’s epic palatable to Londoners. Elements outside the
57
Suzanne Aspden discussed the portrayal of female singers in the pamphlet literature
in “‘An Infinity of Factions”’, pp.7–10, and particularly Faustina and Cuzzoni in The
Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage (Cambridge, 2013). On
Pilotti-Schiavonetti’s collaborative relationship with Handel, her musical reputation
and her performance in Rinaldo, see Alison Clark DeSimone, ‘The Myth of the Diva:
Female Opera Singers and Collaborative Performance in Early Eighteenth-Century
London’, PhD Diss., University of Michigan, 2013, pp.294–335.
58
For example, my exploration of this phenomenon with regards to Anne Bracegirdle: O
Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note: Music for Witches, the Mad, and the Melancholic on the
Seventeenth-Century English Stage (Bloomington, 2006), pp.93–105; ‘“Our Friend Venus
Performed to a Miracle”: Anne Bracegirdle, John Eccles, and Creativity’, Concepts of
Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. Rebecca Herissone and Alan Howard
(Woodbridge, 2013), pp.255–80.
59
In revivals Rinaldo was sometimes played by a woman; however, this does not change
the thrust of my argument regarding Rinaldo’s initial reception; for information about
the casts of the revivals, see Dean and Knapp, Handel’s Operas, pp.183–6. My argument
regarding the castrati and their roles follows, to a certain extent, Roger Frietas’s in
‘The Eroticism of Emasculation: Confronting the Baroque Body of the Castrato’, The
Journal of Musicology 20 (2003), 196–249. Freitas theorised that the vogue for castrati
led to the vogue for ‘effeminate’ heroes on the operatic stage. Aspden further explored
this in The Rival Sirens, pp.207–44.
playhouse – in particular, overlapping anxieties regarding morality, gender and

national identity – seem to have shaped dramatic and musical choices. Dennis, pre-
occupied with matters of morality and musical rationality, crafted a bloodless yet
high-minded work that sought to fully integrate Eccles’s music into his otherwise
spoken drama. Hill and Rossi’s Rinaldo, on the other hand, is more inscrutable.
Infused with the pleasures of Handel’s music and visual spectacle, it is nonethe-
less troubling because the opera features a strangely ineffectual (even effeminate)
protagonist and a lustful pagan sorceress. Were Hill and his creative team having
their cake and eating it too? In other words, were they simultaneously forwarding
the cause of Italian opera in London even as they were gently mocking the genre?
There is, of course, an ironic footnote to the tale outlined here. Later in his
career, Hill became an outspoken critic of Italian opera (and perhaps some of the
ambiguities we find in Rinaldo might be a result of Hill’s own conflicted views
about the genre). He had always hoped that Italian opera would be modified to
suit English tastes and proclivities – that by supporting entertainments such as
Rinaldo, he would eventually see ‘English Opera more splendid than her mother,
the Italian’.60 Of course, this resurgence of English opera never came to pass. As
Christine Gerrard eloquently put it, ‘the mother had suffocated the infant in its
cradle’.61 Hill’s bitterness over his failure to create a space for English opera reso-
nates throughout his 1737 publication, The Tears of the Muses. He railed against the
immorality of Italian opera and its ability to corrupt even as it enthrals:
Near Opera’s fribbling fugues, what Muse can stay?

Where wordless warbling winnow thought, away!
Music, when purpose points her not the road,
Charms, to betray, and softens, to corrode.
Empty of sense, the soul-seducing art
Thrills a slow poison to the sick’ning heart.62
It is one of the strangest twists of musical history that the man known for promot-
ing Italian opera so vigorously early in his career would come to hold it in such con-
tempt, or that Hill would come to sound so much like John Dennis, his compatriot
in the struggle to nourish a native English opera.
60
‘To Her Most Sacred Majesty, The Queen’, dedication to Rinaldo in Harris, ed., Librettos
of Handel’s Operas, vol.2, p.5.
61
Gerrard, Aaron Hill, p.157.
62
Aaron Hill, The Tears of the Muses; in a Conference Between Prince Germanicus, and a
Malcontent Party (London, 1737), p.24. Hill even wrote to Handel, beseeching him to
use his talents to forward the cause of opera in English; see Gerrard, Aaron Hill, p.159.
15
Translating Myth Through Tunes:

Ebenezer Forrest’s Ballad Opera Adaptation of
Louis Fuzelier’s Momus Fabuliste (1719–29)
Erica Levenson
E benezer Forrest’s 1729 ballad opera Momus Turn’d Fabulist: Or, Vulcan’s
Wedding opens with a self-conscious conversation between actor and author:
Player: I perceive your scene is in the poetical Olympus, and your per-
sons are introduc’d under the imaginary characters of the heathen
gods.
Gentleman: ‘Tis true, sir, but those ancient fictions and characters are so
accommodated, as to expose and ridicule the vices and follies of
the present age.1
The Gentleman – here, a loosely veiled stand-in for the author – repeats a common
view on the power of myth in order to justify his opera’s setting on Mount Olympus:
that which is most fictional, ‘poetical’ or down-right imaginary can reveal society’s
most fundamental truths. For Augustan authors from John Gay to Jonathan Swift,
no genre was more truthful than the fable. Consisting of imaginary, talking ani-
mals or stock deities, fables were pithy tales that conveyed moral lessons through
allegory.2
Forrest’s opera is not only constructed of fables; it is itself a commentary on
the fable genre. The lead character, Momus, the god of ridicule, is banned from
speaking and is allowed only to communicate in the coded language of the fable.
As Momus encounters gods and goddesses throughout the opera, he sings each
of them a fable that reveals their very human flaws. Forrest combined the genre of
ballad opera – constructed from popular tunes interspersed with spoken dialogue
– with an ongoing concern for the fable as social commentary and, indeed, oblique
conduit for conveying otherwise silenced critiques.
1
Ebenezer Forrest, Momus Turn’d Fabulist: Or, Vulcan’s Wedding (London, 1729), intro-
duction, p.ii.
2
On the use of the fable in early eighteenth-century British literature, see Jane Elizabeth
Lewis, The English Fable: Aesop and Literary Culture, 1651–1740 (Cambridge, 1996), p.10;
Mark Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable (Cambridge, 1998), pp.3, 60. Loveridge
explains that the word ‘myth’, used as a noun, did not enter the English or French lan-
guage until the nineteenth century, so ‘fable’ was used to connote myth in the eigh-
teenth century.
260 Erica Levenson
In an era when censorship was becoming increasingly stringent, writers

often employed allegorical strategies similar to Forrest’s to distance them-
selves from potentially offensive material while making their intentions clear
enough to political sympathisers. Moreover, by obscuring authorship, they
could attempt to prevent their publications from being banned.3 These condi-
tions make the origins of Momus Turn’d Fabulist even more intriguing. Forrest
based his opera on Louis Fuzelier’s comedy Momus fabuliste, ou les noces de
Vulcain, which premiered at the Comédie-Française in Paris to great acclaim
in 1719.4 In re-working this French comedy for the London stage, Forrest trans-
lated the text and turned the spoken fables into sung ballads. Why would he
turn to this particular French source and how did he approach the task of
adaptation? Did he use ballads for similar ends as the original had used fables?
To answer these questions, this essay compares the English and French
versions of Momus fabuliste. I demonstrate how the French version parodied a
popular fable collection by Fuzelier’s literary rival, which quickly escalated into
a debate about the powers of fable itself. In comparison, I show how Forrest
turns the French play into a satirical commentary on censorship in England.
By deploying a complex web of fables and popular tunes – with ultimate autho-
rial responsibility hidden in distant French origins – he obscures his political
convictions and lets audiences draw their own interpretations concerning his
views on freedom of speech in Augustan England.
Music, Myth and Ballad Opera

What was the effect of inserting mythical content – long a staple of operatic
tragedies – into a comic genre? How did such a strategy help reveal ‘the fol-
lies of the present age’, as Forrest seems to have believed? The mythological
and historical characters frequently found in seventeenth- and early eight-
eenth-century English operas – as well as in Handel’s Italian operas – became
altogether supplanted in John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera of 1728 by thieves, beg-
gars and prostitutes. The Beggar’s Opera was a major success, despite having
been interpreted as a satirical portrayal of England’s then Prime Minister,
Sir Robert Walpole. It paved the way for a new operatic genre with popular
tunes interspersed with spoken dialogue and plots that concerned real people
instead of gods, goddesses and historical heroes. Yet several ballad operas,
including Momus Turn’d Fabulist, returned to mythological tropes after The
Beggar’s Opera had so strikingly discarded them. They include: Thomas Cooke
and John Mottley’s Penelope (1728), John Breval’s The Rape of Helen (1733),
John Gay’s Achilles (1733) and Henry Fielding’s Eurydice (1737). These operas
3
Matthew Kinservik, Disciplining Satire: The Censorship of Satiric Comedy on the
Eighteenth-Century London Stage (Lewisburg; London, 2002); on the politically
coded rhetoric of Augustan satirists, see Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable,
pp.189–246.
4
Louis Fuzelier, Momus fabuliste, ou les noces de Vulcain (Paris, 1719).
Forrest’s Adaptation of Fuzelier’s Momus Fabuliste 261
employ myth and music for satirical aims, whether to critique high culture, or
politics and politicians, or myth itself.5
On a general level, the mere association of lofty gods and goddesses singing
raunchy popular tunes undermined traditional notions of sovereign power asso-
ciated with myth.6 The paratexts of these ballad operas frequently highlight this
tension between high and low. In the preface to Penelope, the author states: ‘The
graver part of our audience may be offended that Ulysses and Penelope should be
presented as singing and dancing; indeed, we never heard that one could hum a
tune or the other cut a caper; but I hope they have lost nothing by this addition
to their characters.’7 Likewise, in John Gay’s Achilles the preface comments on the
ludicrous image of brave Achilles learning to carry a tune:
His scene now shows the heroes of old Greece;

But how? ‘tis monstrous! In a comic piece.
To bushkins, plumes, helmets, what pretence,
If mighty chiefs must speak but common sense?
Shall no bold diction, no poetic rage,
Foam at our mouths and thunder on the stage?
No – “tis Achilles, as he came from Chiron
Just taught to sing as well as wield cold iron;
And whatsoever critics may suppose,
Our author holds, that what he spoke was prose.8
Music was therefore an essential tool in these ballad operas for unsettling notions
of power traditionally associated with mythological heroes. Tunes were not merely
added to ballad operas for the sake of spectacle and enjoyment, then, but played a
key role in delineating the social identity of these works.
While music held the power to disrupt mythical conventions, myth helped
critique musical conventions, especially those of Italian opera seria. In Henry
Fielding’s Eurydice, for instance, a critic and author hold a staged conversation
about the opera as it is taking place. The critic remarks, ‘but pray sir, why does
Orpheus talk sometimes in recitativo and sometimes out of it?’ To which the
author responds, ‘Why, sir I do not care to tire the audience with too much reci-
tativo; I observe they go to sleep at it at an opera.’9 This scene underscores Berta
5
Reprinted in Walter H. Rubsamen, ed., Classical Subjects I: Satire and Burlesque, Ballad
Opera 7 (New York, 1974).
6
The relationship between myth and sovereignty in Italian opera seria has been theo-
rised by Martha Feldman; however, Feldman mentions that the ‘very apposite issues
surrounding opera buffa’, or comic opera, remain to be dealt with. See Martha Feldman,
Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy (Chicago, 2007),
p.38.
7
John Mottley, Penelope, a Dramatic Opera, as it is Acted at the New Theatre in the
Haymarket (London, 1728).
8
John Gay, Achilles an Opera. As It Is Performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden
(London, 1733).
9
Henry Fielding, ‘Eurydice’, in Rubsamen, ed., Classical Subjects I, pp.253–90.
262 Erica Levenson
Joncus’s observation that elements of dramma per musica, popularised in London

by Handel, were integrated into ballad operas, though often re-contextualised for
humorous purposes.10 While the unnamed author of this staged dialogue points
to recitative as the staple feature of Italian opera, the tragic character of Orpheus is
equally integral to the comedy of this scene. Here, Orpheus – known for charming
all beings with his music – becomes musically befuddled and feels laughably out
of place in Fielding’s comic rendition; the displaced mythical and musical tropes
(underscored by the critic’s and author’s dialogue) mutually reinforce this sense of
incongruity.11 Though they engage with contrasting musical and fabulist traditions,
both the French and English versions of Momus fabuliste convey this same disparity
between high and low cultures through the interactions of satire, music and myth.
The Politics of Adapting French Sources

in England
Transforming a French play into an English work was a common yet, neverthe-
less, controversial practice because of ongoing political conflict between England
and France during the early eighteenth century. Why, then, did Forrest base his
opera on a French play if such a decision might have been viewed unfavourably
by English audiences?12 The answer to this question pertains to the ballad opera’s
relationship to English national identity.
In the early eighteenth century, the project of reclaiming popular ballads to
create English operas was largely a nationalistic one, as Suzanne Aspden has
shown; moreover, the view of ballad opera as a native English genre that was estab-
lished in opposition to Italian opera has persisted until recently.13 Recent studies,
however, have shown that ballad opera was modelled on a similar French genre –
comédies en vaudevilles – produced contemporaneously in both Paris and London.14
Nonetheless, these studies have yet to probe how the French origins of the genre
were dealt with in ballad operas, and their contemporaneous reception. To do so
yields a new perspective on ballad opera’s ideological commitments: instead of
being hidden or denied, apprehensions about appropriating French sources were
openly performed as part of the translated work.15
10
Berta Joncus, ‘Handel at Drury Lane: Ballad Opera and the Production of Kitty Clive’,
Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131 (2006), 179–226.
11
On Eurydice, see Vanessa Rogers, ‘Writing Plays “In the Sing-Song Way”: Henry
Fielding’s Ballad Operas and Early Musical Theater in Eighteenth-Century London’,
PhD Diss., University of Southern California, 2007, pp.36–7.
12
Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992); Jeremy
Black, Natural and Necessary Enemies: Anglo-French Relations in the Eighteenth Century
(Athens, 1987).
13
Suzanne Aspden, ‘Ballads and Britons: Imagined Community and the Continuity of
“English” Opera’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 122 (1997), 24–51.
14
Vanessa Rogers, ‘John Gay, Ballad Opera and the Théâtres de La Foire’, Eighteenth-
Century Music 11 (2014), 173–213; Daniel Heartz, ‘“The Beggar’s Opera” and “Opéra-
Comique en Vaudevilles”’, Early Music 27 (1999), 42–53.
15
On the formation of an English ‘nation’ through and against France, see Colley, Britons.
In Momus, neither the title-page of the printed London edition nor the adver-
tisement for the performance reveal that Forrest’s ballad opera derives from a
French comedy; nonetheless, the author explicitly acknowledges this fact in the
introduction:16
Sir, I was myself an eyewitness of it, being in France when this piece first appeared
on the stage, and saw it represented several nights with considerable share of
pleasure, which put me upon rendering it into English. In this performance, I
have taken the liberty of turning the fables, which were spoke in France, into
ballads to be sung, and have heightened several of the scenes by the addition of
other ballads, suitable to the present taste of the town. In short, I have made that
an English Opera, which was but a French farce.
As with many of the prefaces and prologues of English dramatic works that used
borrowed foreign source material, the gentleman’s rhetoric blends admiration and
condescension.17 He advertises the changes he made to the French play, stressing
the potential of genre, music and nationality to make his version distinctive. The
added cachet of ‘opera’ shows him trying to elevate his version above the French
original, which he deems merely a farce.18
Forrest may have also emphasised the play’s new status as an English ‘opera’ in
order to position it in the ballad opera lineage begun by Gay or, indeed, as part of
the larger project to create a native English opera begun in the 1700s and 1710s.19
Many of the English ballad tunes used in Forrest’s opera (and most other ballad
operas) extended into the recesses of English aural memory and were already
familiar to eighteenth-century English theatre-goers to varying degrees. When the
texts of the tunes were altered in ballad operas, the overlapping meanings of new
text and old tune often produced ironic, humorous or satirical associations. These
moments of shared auditory recognition had the potential to bring the audience
into direct engagement with their own musical heritage.20 Forrest’s goal was not
solely to translate the French, then, but to create something entirely new: to turn
French into English not only in terms of language, but also in terms of the work’s
engagement with English history and culture.
16
The Daily Journal advertisement states: ‘Never acted before, by command of his Royal
Highness. By the company of comedians at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields,
this day, being Wednesday the 3rd day of December, will be presented, a New Opera,
called Momus Turn’d Fabulist: Or, Vulcan’s Wedding. After the manner of The Beggar’s
Opera. All the habits and scenes entirely new’ (Daily Journal, Wednesday 3 December
1729, issue 2779).
17
Paulina Kewes, Authorship and Appropriation: Writing for the Stage in England, 1660–
1710 (Oxford, 1998).
18
Eighteenth-century theorists of comedy ‘excoriated farce as vulgar’. See Jan Hokenson,
The Idea of Comedy: History, Theory, Critique (Madison, NJ, 2006), p.32.
19
See Roger Fiske, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1973), pp.51–
62; Eric Walter White, A History of English Opera (London, 1983), pp.137–52.
20
For more on the use of ballads to formulate British nationhood, see Aspden, ‘Ballads
and Britons’, pp.24–51.
264 Erica Levenson
In order to convey why Forrest might have chosen the French play that he
did for his adaptation, it will help to explain the theatrical politics at the time of
the French version’s creation. The French source for Forrest’s ballad opera, titled
Momus fabuliste, ou les noces de Vulcain, premiered in Paris on 26 September 1719.
Louis Fuzelier wrote it as a parody of the newly published Fables nouvelles – a col-
lection of fables written by Fuzelier’s contemporary, Antoine Houdar de la Motte.21
Fuzelier wrote predominantly for the Théâtres de la Foire (the fairground theatres)
in Paris. However, he created Momus fabuliste for the Comédie-Française, the fair
theatres’ rival. This switch in theatrical company was necessitated by the fact that
all fairground performances were suspended throughout the entirety of 1719 for
having been too satirical.22 The French version of Momus fabuliste therefore origi-
nated in an environment where censorship was an issue, resulting in closed thea-
tres, exiled performers and the restriction of fairground entertainments.23
The plot of Fuzelier’s play reflects this current historical moment. When
Momus ridicules Jupiter for his adulterous intentions, Jupiter forbids him from
speaking satirically, threatening to banish him from the heavens. Jupiter’s ban
on satire prompts the plot’s central formula: Momus invents fables to convey his
thoughts ‘without speaking’ (‘sans parler’). Like La Motte’s fables, Momus’s fables
use animals to allegorically portray a general vice or virtue. Under Fuzelier’s pen,
however, fables become more than a means of instruction: they critique both La
Motte – Fuzelier’s literary rival – and, more generally, the injustices of censorship.
The plot as a whole can be understood as a fable in its own right – one that depicts
the restriction of free speech and the creative means by which writers evaded such
restrictions.24 Despite its controversial subject matter, Momus fabuliste became a
huge success in Paris: it was performed thirty-eight times in 1719 alone and was
subsequently revived in 1733.25 Momus, no matter how biting his ridicule, always
seemed to win the public’s approval. 26
Although it was created ten years later, the English ballad opera version of
Momus fabuliste would have been experienced in a similar atmosphere as the orig-
inal French version, complete with theatrical rivalries and stringent censorship
21
Antoine Houdart de La Motte, Fables nouvelles, dédiées au Roy (Paris, 1719).
22
François Parfaict, Memoires pour servir à l’histoire des spectacles de la foire (Paris, 1743),
‘1718 Foire Saint Laurent’, pp.218–19.
23
For more on the French fairground performers who left Paris to perform in London,
see Erica Levenson, ‘Traveling Tunes: French Comic Opera and Theater in London,
1714–1745’, PhD Diss., Cornell University, 2017, pp.49–54.
24
Like Momus, Fuzelier was also on contentious turf (given the play’s satire of La Motte and
Parisian theatrical institutions at large), but his tactic for evading censorship was to pro-
duce the play anonymously. See Antoine de Léris, Dictionnaire portatif historique et litté-
raire des théâtres (Paris, 1763), and Fuzelier’s preface in the 1719 edition of Momus fabuliste.
25
Alexandre Coupé de Saint-Donat, Fables (Rousselon, 1825), p.210. See also ‘Momus
Fabuliste: Performances’, Calendrier électronique des spectacles sous l’anciens régime
et sous la révolution www.cesar.org.uk/cesar2/titles/titles.php?fct=edit&script_
UOID=153018. Accessed 1/9/2015.
26
For a detailed account of the character Momus’s role as a ‘philosophe’ in this play and
others, see Dominique Quéro, Momus philosophe: recherches sur une figure littéraire du
XVIIIe siècle (Paris; Geneva, 1995).
of plays.27 It too was in dialogue with a contemporary work: although Forrest

still maintains general allusions to La Motte’s fable collection, his ballad opera
resounds more explicitly with the echoes of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera – not as a
parody, but as a coded form of political critique.
After The Beggar’s Opera’s immediate success in 1728, London theatre managers
seized upon the lucrative possibilities of this new genre and produced numer-
ous ballad operas that imitated John Gay’s. Momus Turn’d Fabulist, one among
them, premiered on 3 December 1729 under the management of John Rich, who
also played the title-role of Momus. The work was reasonably popular in London,
with a total of twenty-three performances at Lincoln’s Inn Fields between 1729 and
1731, in addition to three performances at Covent Garden between 1733 and 1735.28
Forrest blatantly announces his ballad opera’s imitation of The Beggar’s Opera on
the title-page of the printed edition: ‘An opera after the manner of The Beggar’s
Opera, as it is perform’d at the Theatre Royal at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’ The Player
and the Gentleman from the introduction also allude to the The Beggar’s Opera in
their opening conversation:
Player: And so this may properly be said to be the Opera of the Gods.
Gentleman: Right, Sir! – And I wish you may get as much by the gods as you
did by the beggars. Tho’ I have no proportion of merit.
On one level, to announce that a ballad opera was imitating Gay’s could be inter-
preted as a commercial ploy; on another, though, it was a political statement. After
The Beggar’s Opera critiqued the Walpole administration, the censorship of plays
became strictly enforced. In fact, Gay’s Polly, the sequel to The Beggar’s Opera,
was banned from public performance.29 As Forrest’s Momus Turn’d Fabulist was
performed directly following this incident, his deliberate references to Gay could
have signified a political move to align the play with the ‘Tory wits’ (Swift, Fielding,
Gay and others) who gained a reputation for speaking out against the Whig gov-
ernment using satire.30 Although the transformation of a French comedy into an
English ballad opera had its own political undertones at the time, Forrest’s allegor-
27
Kinservik describes the atmosphere in England: ‘From the vantage point of January
1728, nobody could have guessed how radically the theatre world was about to change.
Over the next ten years, the number of theatres operating on a regular or semi-regular
basis more than doubled; official censorship of plays – including outright suppression
– became more common; and satiric plays began increasingly to deal with topical,
political matters and were often oppositional.’ Disciplining Satire, p.55.
28
See A.H. Scouten, W. Van Lennep, E. L. Avery et al., eds, The London Stage, 1660–1800;
A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and
Contemporary Comment, 5 vols (Carbondale, IL, 1960–8), prt.3, vol.1, pp.21–517.
29
There is extensive scholarship on this topic: see Kinservik, Disciplining Satire, p.65;
Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable, p.228; White, A History of English Opera,
pp.177–8; Calhoun Winton, ‘Polly and the Censors’, John Gay and the London Theatre
(Lexington, 1993), pp.128–44 (130–3); David Nokes, John Gay, A Profession of Friendship
(Oxford, 1995), p.456.
30
Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable, p.228.
266 Erica Levenson
ical use of the French source along with allusions to John Gay reveals how he was
able to navigate tense years of artistic censorship in London.
Transforming Fables from French to English

As we have seen, the allusions to John Gay and The Beggar’s Opera were doubtless
a primary conduit for Forrest’s coded political critiques. Yet his intriguing deci-
sion to highlight the original French version’s fables with sung ballads represents a
potentially richer terrain for transmitting coded speech. Did Forrest employ fables
as an analogously cloaked form of political rhetoric? To illuminate Forrest’s unique
adaptation, we need to explore the cross-Channel history of the fable genre.
Augustan writers who were interested in fables largely drew on the examples of
their French peers, especially La Fontaine and La Motte. These authors had writ-
ten foundational collections, and just as important, lengthy prefaces that offered
theories of how fables should be composed, used in education, and even dissemi-
nated.31 La Motte’s fable collection was translated into English in 1721 and exerted
an influence on both fable discourse and composition in Britain for decades.32 Its
popularity among British readers would have informed audience members’ inter-
pretation and understanding of Forrest’s ballad opera. Yet despite the availability
of La Motte to English readers, Forrest draws most heavily on John Gay’s fable
collection – a kind of home-grown response to the French collections – published
in 1727.33 Comparing how Forrest and Fuzlier engage with the fable collections of
their time reveals how fables were used as satirical commentary in each country.
In the French version of Momus fabuliste, Fuzelier parodies La Motte’s Fables
nouvelles in both text and music. La Motte dedicated his fable collection to King
Louis XV, who was only nine years old at the time of its publication. He intended
the collection to be a form of moral education in the guise of entertaining tales,
which he makes apparent in his dedication: ‘while fables in appearance, these tales
present truths’.34 Fuzelier chooses to have Momus, the god of ridicule, relate the
majority of the fables, twisting La Motte’s philosophical tales for the young king
into portraits of infidelity and corruption; though these portraits still reveal the
‘truth’, Fuzelier adds a satirical dimension not present in the original collection.
For instance, Fuzelier parodies the stylistic features of La Motte’s fables. As he
describes in his preface to Fables nouvelles, La Motte believed that a fable’s truth
should arrive ‘neither at the end nor the beginning’ lest it should disrupt the entire
allegory.35 Fuzelier lampoons this idea in his play when the character Mars inter-
31
For a discussion of how fable discourse developed during the long eighteenth century,
see Thomas Noel, Theories of the Fable in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1975).
32
Antoine Houdart de La Motte, One Hundred New Court Fables: Written for the Instruction
of Princes, and a True Knowledge of the World, trans. Robert Samber (London, 1721),
Houdart de La Motte, Fables nouvelles.
33
John Gay, Fables (London, 1727).
34
Paraphrased from the French, ‘Fables en apparence, en effet vérité’, Houdart de La
Motte, Fables nouvelles, p.iii.
35
‘La vérité une fois choisie, il faut la cacher sous l’allégorie, & à la rigueur, on ne devrait
l’exprimer ni à la fin ni au commencement de la Fable.’ Houdart de La Motte, Fables
nouvelles, p.xv.
rupts Momus’s fable, exclaiming that he already knows the answer to its moral.
Momus, echoing La Motte’s preface, states, ‘Ahem! Pray, hold! Have you ever seen
the commentary precede the text? What impropriety!’36 When Mars identifies
the ‘truth’ at the beginning of the fable, instead of allowing it to unfold organically
throughout Momus’s narration, he breaks one of La Motte’s central rules for fable
construction.
Forrest omits this subtle allusion to La Motte’s Fables nouvelles in his ballad
opera, but includes other references that might have resonated with English play-
wrights and audiences. In the French version, Fuzelier mocks La Motte’s belief that
fables should be both entertaining and educational: ‘Ah! But, is not satire instruc-
tive and, what’s more, enjoyable? Well, let him make some purely moral fables and
he will judge accordingly. For me, I will be careful not to take that tone; it does
not succeed.’37 His commentary implies that moralising fables, such as La Motte’s,
fall short of being either instructional or entertaining unless they are enlivened by
satire. The corresponding passage in the English version promotes a similar view,
though with a slightly loose translation: ‘They’ll say perhaps my Fables are nothing
but Satyrs – but is not satire [satyr] instructive and diverting at the same time?
‘Egad, let he who will make your musty moral fables for me; I hope, I shall never
be so dull.’38 If a theatre-goer overlooked this critique of La Motte in the English
version, this statement could have still been relevant as English writers and play-
wrights shifted away from using fables for moral education during the late seven-
teenth century to using them for political satire in the 1720s and 1730s.39 Indeed, we
see this shift exemplified in John Gay’s own collection of fables published in 1727,
just two years before Forrest wrote Momus Turn’d Fabulist.
Like La Motte, Gay did not merely write fables; he formulated theories about
how they should be written and why they were important. Yet, like Fuzelier, Gay
seemed particularly interested in the fable’s satirical potential. In his fable ‘The Dog
and the Fox’, Gay questions the epistemological basis of satire: ‘Like him, I draw
from general nature; Is’t I or you, then fix the satire?’40 In other words, when satire
is allegorical, or derived from ‘general nature’, does the writer or reader supply its
meaning?
Forrest emphasises this same idea from Gay’s fables in his ballad opera, by
making several additions to his translation of the French text. First, in the added
introduction, the Player states: ‘Well I wish your satire may not give offence’, to
36
‘Eh! De grâce, arrêtez: a-t-on jamais vu le commentaire marcher devant le texte? Quel
dérèglement!’ Fuzelier, Momus fabuliste, p.33.
37
‘Eh! Mais, la satire n’est-elle pas instructive et de plus réjouissante? Ma foi fasse des
fables purement morales qui le jugera à propos, pour moi, je me garderai bien de pren-
dre cette ton-là; il ne réussit pas.’ (ibid., p.16).
38
Forrest, Momus Turn’d Fabulist, p.17.
39
Amanda Eubanks Winkler recognises a similar shift in operatic treatments of myth,
from moralising to political, in her chapter in this volume. See also Kinservik,
Disciplining Satire; Annabel M. Patterson, Fables of Power: Aesopian Writing and Political
History (Durham, 1991).
40
Gay, Fables, p.205.
268 Erica Levenson
which the Gentleman replies, ‘Impossible; since it exposes vice in general, and
is levell’d at no particular persons. Besides, he that takes the satire makes it.’
Moreover, at the end of the ballad opera, Mercury relates a fable about a cat (also
not in the French version) stating: ‘Who seeks a moral to this tale, shall have their
wants supply’d.’41 Both statements imply that it is up to the reader to make the
satirical associations, which renders the author’s satirical intent ambiguous and,
as a result, makes him difficult to condemn. As scholars have noted, the claim of
general satire – or ‘general expression’ – was a rhetorical ploy commonly used
among Augustan satirists in their anti-Whig writings.42 As I will demonstrate, this
approach contrasts with Fuzelier’s delivery of satire in the French version, in which
he unveils, rather than obscures, each fable’s target of critique; his use of music
takes on a similar role.
From French Vaudevilles to English Ballads

When adapting Fuzelier’s Momus fabuliste as a ballad opera, Forrest also con-
fronted the challenge of translating a theatrical genre that, in France, used music to
build complicated allusions, usually for satirical ends. Given Forrest’s emphasis on
the original French play’s non-musical characteristics (‘I have taken the liberty of
turning the fables, which were spoke in France, into ballads to be sung’), an English
audience might not realise that the French original did in fact include music: an air
sung by Momus, in addition to a final divertissement with music by Jean-Baptiste
Maurice Quinault. As I will demonstrate, these musical moments – even if few in
number – were vital to the French work’s satirical underpinnings and created aural
allusions to other works that the original audience would have known. How did
Forrest translate this music for an English audience and was his approach to the
music, like his adaptation of spoken fables, laden with political significance?
Fuzelier employs diegetic music during a scene where Mars and Apollo are
fighting about who represents the worthier suitor of the goddess Venus. Apollo
brags about his musical abilities, while Mars touts his military prowess. Momus
responds to their quarrel by telling two fables: one about a lion (‘le lion petit
maître’) who believes his courage and military deeds exempt him from satire, and
another about a nightingale (‘le rossignol amoureux’) who thinks he can win any
bird’s love with his song. As the god of music and poetry, Apollo is the obvious
target of the nightingale fable, while Mars, the god of war, is ridiculed in the lion
fable. In the middle of telling the nightingale fable, however, Momus alludes to
another bard besides Apollo – La Motte. He does so by singing a specific operatic
air taken directly from the sommeil, or sleep scene, of André Cardinal Destouches’s
Issé, a pastorale héroïque with a libretto written by none other than La Motte (see
text and translation in Table 15.1)
41
42
Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable, p.228. Winton, John Gay and the London Theatre,
pp.132–3.
Table 15.1 Verse Sung by Momus from Destouches and La Motte’s Issé (1719), Act IV, Scene 3
Que d’éclat! Que d’attraits! What radiance! What beauties!

Contentez-vous, mes yeux; Be contented, my eyes;
Parcourez tous ses charmes; Look upon her charms;
Payez-vous, s’il se peut, des larmes Pay, if possible, with the tears
Qu’on vous a vu verser pour eux. Which you [have been seen to] shed for them.
[my translation]
Issé was first performed in 1697 and revived in 1719, only a few weeks prior to
the premiere of Fuzelier’s Momus fabuliste.43 The words and music that Momus
sings here are quoted unaltered from Issé. Viewed on its own, this air is far from
humorous. Yet a serious, poignant air, sung in its new context by the god of ridi-
cule, underscores both Momus’s and Fuzelier’s satirical intentions. As the music
would have been fresh in the ears of the theatre-going public, it could have evoked
associations with Issé’s plot, which also involves Apollo in a love triangle. The
music therefore equates La Motte, the author of this air’s text, with Apollo, who
is doubly represented in both fable and opera. The air’s association with Issé’s
sommeil would further imply, within the new context of the nightingale fable,
that the female bird (Venus) is sleeping or being lulled to sleep while the night-
ingale (Apollo) serenades her. This connotation is reinforced by an earlier com-
ment Mars makes to Apollo: ‘But if you marry Venus, I fear your harp will lay her
asleep.’44 By invoking La Motte through both music and myth, Fuzelier portrays
Apollo’s music as little more than a cure for insomnia; likewise, he implies the
same of La Motte’s libretto.
The music used for the nightingale fable in the English ballad opera version,
however, is not the sommeil from Destouches’s Issé, a musical allusion that might
have been lost on an English crowd. In its place is ‘an old and very favourite ditty
known in many parts of England’, commonly called the ‘The Merry Haymakers’
or the ‘Haymaker’s Song’. The text set to the tune of ‘The Merry Haymakers’ in
the English version depicts the story of a female linnet that rejects a nightingale
(Apollo) in favour of a sparrow (Mars):
Both parties show’d their eloquence, before the judge belov’d

When (to the Nightingale’s surprise) the sparrow she approv’d;
Assigning for her reason, tho’ music charm’d the ear,
The sparrow’s power could every hour a female heart ensnare.45
43
Issé was revived on many occasions, but notably for the third time on 7 September 1719.
For Issé’s performance history, see the introduction to the facsimile edition of André
Cardinal Destouches, Issé: pastorale héroïque, ed. Robert Fajon, Jérôme de La Gorce
and Wendy Hilton (New York, 1984), p.xxiii.
44
Forrest, Momus Turn’d Fabulist, p.31; Fuzelier, Momus fabuliste, p.27.
45
I have only quoted the final verse (out of three). See Forrest, Momus Turn’d Fabulist,
p.38.
270 Erica Levenson
Despite the similar plot, the English tune evokes different connotations than its
French counterpart; in this case, the original text of the English ballad references
‘hay-making’ (a selection of verses is given here):
1. In the merry month of June,

In the prime time of the year;
Down in the yonder meadows
There runs a river clear:
And many a little fish
Doth in that river play;
And many a lad and many a lass,
Go abroad a-making hay.
3. Here’s nimble Ben and Tom,

With pitchfork, and with rake:
Here’s Molly, Liz, and Susan,
Come here their hay to make.
While sweet jug, jug, jug!
The nightingale doth sing,
From morning unto even-song,
As they are hay-making.
6. And when that bright daylight,

The morning it was come,
They lay down and rested
Till the rising of the sun:
Till the rising of the sun,
When the merry larks do sing,
And each lad did rise and take his lass,
And away to hay-making.46
The original text, with its surreptitious sexual innuendos, was typically used as a
drinking song in the ballad opera repertoire.47 In addition, the nightingale, appear-
ing in the third verse, provides a link to the tune’s new context. Set to the tune of
‘The Merry Haymakers’, the nightingale’s (Apollo’s) serenade becomes reduced to
background music for bacchanal activity in the countryside. Rather than critique a
specific author, the satire implicated by the tune serves on a general level to under-
mine Apollo’s blind pride in his own artistic abilities.
After relating the nightingale fable, Momus sings Mars a fable about a ‘bully lion’
who tries to gain power by force, and who believes power earns him praise: ‘A lion
46
For full text, see Robert Bell, ed., Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of
England (London, 1861), pp.171–2.
47
See, for example, Charles Coffey, The Beggar’s Wedding (1729).
in power was cruel and proud, imagining tyranny gain’d him applause.’48 Although
expressed to gods who represent each other’s opposites, both fables serve as warn-
ings against hubris. When their similar faults are brought into relief, Mars and
Apollo’s distinct allegorical associations collapse. Forrest’s setting of fables to well-
known ballad tunes further augments this process. As I will demonstrate, Apollo
and Mars are released from their roles in mythical tradition – their status as literary
constructs unveiled – once they begin to sing.
In the English version, the tension between tune and myth is most perceptible
when Apollo and Mars sing ballads that musically signify their allegorical perso-
nas. Mars sings about how he is irresistible to women to the tune of ‘Let Burgundy
Flow’ – originally a battle song honouring King George I. He soon launches into
a second ballad, singing similar lyrics to the tune of ‘The Widows Shall All Have
Spouses’ – a war song depicting soldiers returning home to their wives after battle.
Mars, as the great battle god, fittingly sings only war tunes, yet he taints their orig-
inal patriotic flavour with his own arrogant lyrics. Conquest in war becomes con-
quest in the bedroom:
A soldier wins a beauty,

As he gains a frontier town,
By being on constant duty,
Besieging for love or renown.
Love’s garrisons weak and tender,
Have virtue a while their defender,
But the hero comes
With the beat of drums,
And into the Citadel throws his bombs,
He storms, and they surrender.49
By juxtaposing authentic war tunes with sexual swagger, Forrest undermines

Mars’s rhetoric by drawing attention to its incongruity with his allegorical per-
sona. Following Mars, Apollo espouses newfangled ideas about the democratising
power of wit, yet sets them to the tunes of saccharine, pastoral favourites, such
as ‘Much I Lov’d a Charming Creature’ and ‘In Kent so Fam’d of Old’ (the latter
being a story, appropriately, about the triumph of love over war). Apollo’s poetry is
modern; however, his old-fashioned pastoral melodies with repeated strophes do
become, in a sense, sleep-inducing. The tunes sung by both Apollo and Mars thus
symbolise their mythical characters, but their lyrics complicate these associations
and bring them down to earth: although it is an opera of the gods, it just as well
may be an opera of the beggars.
The war heroes and poets attending Forrest’s ballad opera might have been
offended by the characters of Apollo and Mars; however, they no doubt would
have found it difficult to read this satire as critiquing specific individuals. The
48
49
Ibid., p.32.
272 Erica Levenson
music, merely old English ballads, is innocent. The characters – allegorical rep-
resentations of music and war – are also just symbols. The fact, too, that the plot as
a whole has been lifted from a French play, adds yet another layer of allegory. What
meaning does one follow when these different elements are all at play? By contrast,
if La Motte had been present in the audience of Fuzelier’s play, it would have been
all too clear that he was the butt of the joke.50
One final example of a French vaudeville turned English ballad will elucidate
how musical fables function differently in the two versions of Momus fabuliste. As
stated previously, the final scene of the French version contains music as part of
a divertissement, although the tune employed, ‘Ma fable est-elle obscure? lure
lure’, has no known earlier source; in fact, it likely originated in the ending diver-
tissement of Fuzelier’s play. The main characters take turns singing this tune to a
different text, with each of the strophes representing a fable that depicts infidelity.
Momus sings first, to the text in Table 15.2.
This fable implies that a woman has been unfaithful to her husband – her preg-
nancy after only ten days of marriage is testament to her affair with ‘some young-
ster’. The tune ‘Ma fable est-elle obscure?’ became popular in France, and not only
in Parisian theatres. The tune was included in a manuscript collection of vaudeville
tunes that relates historical anecdotes from the years 1697 to 1731.51 The tune is
reworked with new text in this manuscript, and even contains descriptions in the
margins to explain any references the reader might not understand (Table 15.3).
That the new text is also a fable is no coincidence; it helps recall the tune’s origin
in Fuzelier’s play. If the fable of the warbler and the canary is not at first understood,
the clever refrain suggests that the name Richelieu would trigger the correct asso-
ciation. As the marginal comments reveal, the Regent’s daughter (Mademoiselle
Valois, here symbolised by the warbler) had an affair with the Duc de Richelieu
before her marriage to the Prince of Modena (represented by the owl) in 1718, only
a year prior to Momus fabuliste’s production. The tune’s main question – ‘is my fable
unclear?’ – in both the original and new texts, not only urges the reader to recog-
nise the embedded allusion in the fable, but also to make the connection with a
tune that symbolises infidelity in its original context. If one is still unsure, the final
line of the tune always supplies a specific name or reference. In this sense, Fuzelier’s
version does not leave the reading of the fable open to interpretation; music helps
to reinforce rather than obscure the fable’s target of critique.
This same final scene in the English version maintains the French version’s
format: each main character sings a different verse, with each verse being a new
fable on the theme of infidelity. Instead of ‘Ma fable est-elle obscure’, however, the
English version uses ‘Parson upon Dorothy’, one of the most frequently circulated
tunes in the ballad operas produced by theatre manager John Rich.52 This tune first
50
By no surprise, the rival French authors engaged in a pamphlet war. See Louis Fuzelier,
Discours à l’occasion d’un discours de Monsieur de la Motte (Paris, 1731).
51
‘Momus Fabuliste’, Recueil de chansons choisies en vaudevilles. Pour server à l’histoire
anecdottes depuis 1697 jusques à 1731, Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Musique
Manuscrite Res VMA MS-7(2), p.640.
52
See Berta Joncus and Vanessa Rogers, ‘Beyond The Beggar’s Opera: John Rich and
English Ballad Opera’, ‘The Stage’s Glory’: John Rich, 1692–1761, ed. Berta Joncus and
Jeremy Barlow (Newark, 2011), pp.184–204 (Table 11.4, p.195).
Table 15.2 Verse Sung by Momus in the Final Vaudeville of Fuzelier’s Momus Fabuliste (1719)
Un vieux bichon voulant devenir père An old pet dog wanting to become a father
Trouva parti malgré son poil crasseux Found a match despite his dirty fur.
Dix jours après son bichon fut mère, Ten days later his wife was a mother
Et lui donna trois Braques vigoureux And gave him three vigorous pups.
Mari barbon, ma fable est-elle obscure, Married old fogey, is my fable obscure
Lure Lure, Lure Lure
Quelque Cadet l’expliquera Some youngster will explain it.
Lare Larela Lare Larela
[my translation]
Table 15.3 Verse and Marginalia from ‘Momus Fabuliste’, Recueil de chansons choisies en
vaudevilles. Pour servir à l’histoire, anecdottes depuis 1697 jusques à 1731
Une fauvette aimait, malgré son père, A warbler loved ardently, despite her father,
Avec ardeur un jeune canari; a young canary.
Delà les monts son père trop sévère Beyond the mountains, her strict father
Lui a donné un hiboux pour mary married her to an owl.
Belle Valois ma fable est elle obscure? Beautiful Valois, is my fable unclear?
Lure lure lure Lure lure
Richelieu vous l’expliquera Richelieu will explain it to you
Lalala la Lalala la
[Marginalia] Mlle de Valois mariée contre [Marginalia]: Mademoiselle Valois was

son gré au prince de Modène. Elle avait .... married against her will to the prince of
en intrigue avec le Duc de Richelieu qui Modena. She had an intrigue with the Duc
fut mis a la Bastille sous le prétexte qui’il de Richelieu who was put into the Bastille
voulait lutté le royaume au roi d’Espagne under the pretext of having wanted to fight
… the kingdom of the King of Spain...
[my translation]
appeared in John Playford’s The Dancing Master in 1653, and remained in the many
versions of this collection up until 1728.53 As this tune accompanied instructions
for learning a specific country-dance, it could have evoked associations with move-
ment more so than a specific text. John Gay, however, notably used this same tune
in Polly with the following text:
53
See John Playford, The Dancing Master, or Plain and Easy Rules for the Dancing of
Country Dances (London, 1653), p.83.
274 Erica Levenson
The soldiers, who by trade must dare

The deadly cannon’s sounds;
You may be sure, betimes prepare
For fatal blood and wounds.
The men who with adventurous dance,
Bound from the cord on high,
Must own they have the frequent chance
By broken bones to die.
Since rarely then
Ambitious men
Like others lose their breath;
Like these I hope,
They know a rope
Is but their natural death.54
Although it depicts a scene of war and tightrope walkers, this text can be inter-
preted metaphorically to describe the risk of ambition in one’s vocation. On one
level, ‘a rope’ alludes to the highwayman Macheath’s near-death by hanging at the
end of The Beggar’s Opera. On another level, though, the text mirrors how Gay
was risking not only his own career, but also his life, to speak out against censor-
ship and corrupt politics in the playhouse. When the same tune of ‘Parson upon
Dorothy’ is used in Forrest’s Momus Turn’d Fabulist, it may have been intended in a
similar spirit, or as a nod to Polly. Given that Momus Turn’d Fabulist was performed
at the same theatre as The Beggar’s Opera and under the same management, it may
have even served as a kind of substitute sequel for Polly. As such, the use of ‘Parson
upon Dorothy’ for the finale of Momus Turn’d Fabulist, could have been meant as
a tribute to Gay, whose Polly was never produced in his lifetime, or perhaps as a
means of celebrating freedom of expression in a restrictive environment.
Is ‘Parson Upon Dorothy’ simply a beloved dance tune with bawdy connota-
tions, or does its appearance in this ballad opera make an allusion to a work whose
mere mention was viewed as politically loaded in the late 1720s? The latter reading
would have required a theatre-goer to possess some degree of familiarity with this
tune’s text in Polly, otherwise this connection might have gone unnoticed. Some,
like the British commentator below, missed the ‘wit’ entirely:
Last week, I unfortunately went to the first night of the new thing call’d Momus
Fabulist, such stuff did I never see presented under the name of a play, such a
cold absurd heap of downright ribaldry without scenes, voices, plot, or even the
aiming at wit as I believe was scarce ever offered on any Theatre.55
54
John Gay, Polly: An Opera, Being the Second Part of the Beggar’s Opera (London, 1729),
p.54.
55
Thomas Edwards to John Clerke, quoted in Vedder M. Gilbert, ‘Unrecorded Comments
on John Gay, Henry Travers, and Others’, Notes and Queries 198 (1953), 337–9 (338).
Edwards’s commentary later reveals that his negative opinion of the ballad opera was
not shared by the majority of the audience on opening night: ‘the few who would have
damn’d it [Momus Turn’d Fabulist], were vastly outnumbered by the applauders’.
As this review demonstrates, the satire in Forrest’s Momus Turn’d Fabulist is frus-
tratingly abstract, avoiding an explicit target or allegorical coherence. Indeed, the
tune ‘Parson upon Dorothy’s general application in many ballad operas to indicate
dancing and merriment renders a potentially scathing critique of censorship inno-
cent or, at least, ambiguous.
Both the French and English versions of Momus fabuliste fulfilled comparable
socio-political functions in the London and Paris theatrical scenes, resonating with
political tensions and literary traditions that were similar in both cities. In that
sense, Forrest’s adaptation brings the distinct popular theatrical traditions from
both sides of the Channel into closer alignment, even as he tried to differentiate the
French and English versions on musical and generic grounds. Upon comparison,
these works also reflect distinct views about the roles that satire could play within
a musico-dramatic idiom: while the English version leaves the satirical meaning
ambiguous and open to individual – perhaps even conflicting – interpretations, the
French version supplies a clear target in both the tune’s text and aural references.
While the latter includes its own views on how to interpret fables as part of the
text itself, the former reveals how targets of critique could be obscured through
combined yet clashing mythical, musical and linguistic traditions.
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Index
Act of Union 254 in Tasso’s poetry 199–200

Adam and Eve (biblical) 57, 73, 126–7, d’Aragona, Tullia 191, 200–1
192–3, 224–6, 237 Arcadia 7, 160, 189, 208, 210, 222
Addison, Joseph 254, 256–7 Arezzo, Guido of 46, 49–50, 52, 59
Aegidius de Zamora, Johannes 53, 56–7 Guidonis Aretini Micrologus 72
Ars musica 53, 131n36 Arion 3, 63, 164–5, 166n30
Affligem, John of 72, 73n38, 74 Aristophanes 158
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius 129 Thesmophoriazusae 158
De occulta philosophia 129 Aristotle 20, 88, 99, 116–7, 183
Alberti, Leon Battista 191 Nicomachean Ethics 90
allegory Politics 88, 92, 119n50
biblical 84, 141, 152, 208 Armida 8, 12, 192–5, 197–8, 203, 241, 243–5,
and fables 259, 266, 272 247, 250–3, 257
and the liberal arts 67, 85, 98–9, 127, 129 Art (Artist) 130–1
and mythology 4–5, 32n5, 221 see also Liberal Arts, the
in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberate 252 astrology 3, 77
see also Case, John Augustine, Saint 30m36, 58–9, 67, 142, 154,
see also Dossi, Dosso Allegory of Music 194, 225
(painting) Austern, Linda Phyllis 2n5, 127n12, 133n45,
see also Lotto, Lorenzo Allegory of Virtue 134n49, 171
and Vice (painting)
see also The Praise of Music (1586) Bacon, Francis 5
Aligheri, Dante 64, 71, 77–9, 94, 99 on invention of art 134, 225–6
De vulgari eloquentia 77–8 De Sapientia veterum 209
Divinia Commedia 71, 78, 94 New Atlantis 216
Altegoer, Diana 209 ballad opera 259–72, 274–5
Amis, Kingsley Bartoli, Bartolomeo di
The New Oxford Book of English Light Canzone delle Virt. e delle Scienze 65
Verse 213 Beauvais, Vincent of 72, 74
Amphion 3–4, 6, 63, 84, 124–5, 136 Speculum doctrinale 72
angels 29, 126, 141–155 Becker, Ernest 198
seraphim 142, 144, 147, 149–53, 155 The Denial of Death 196n52, 197n54, 198
song of 12 bees 131–2
stories of 142 Beichner, Paul 71, 73–4, 84
Anne, Queen of Great Britain 249 Berlin Chansonnier 75–6
anti-Catholicism 254–5, 257 birds, birdsong 79, 124, 131, 133, 162, 187–9,
Anonymous IV 48–9, 52 196, 200, 202, 229, 232, 235–7,
Apollo 3 268, 270
and allegory 129 blacksmith 56, 64, 71–2, 77, 79, 81, 84–5, 124,
and ballad opera 268–71 136–7
in Capella’s De nuptiis 17–18, 20–21, 24–5, see also Tubal
31, 63 Blow, John
and Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music 85 Venus and Adonis 246
and echoing 166n31 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus
in Eriugena’s De armonia 20–21 Boethius 32–46, 52, 59, 90–91,
Ficino on 108, 112 152n59, 174
and the story of Midas 11, 87, 92, 94–103 Consolation of Philosophy 11, 18, 32–45
306 Index
De institutione musica (The Fundamentals De tranquillitate (On Tranquillity) 107,

of Music) 22, 24–5, 49, 68, 72, 115–6, 118–9
88–9, 171, 183–4 De utilitate ex adversis capienda (On
quadrivium 34–6, 39, 65, 77 Gaining Advantage from
trivium 65, 77 Misfortunes) 116
vision of 37–8, 44–5 and Guideo
Boccaccio, Giovanni 64, 68, 80, 85, 93–4, ‘Lament’ (or ‘Dirge’) 119–22
96–7 Carissimi, Giacomo 162
De mulieribus claris 64, 77, 79 Jepthe 156
Des cleres et nobles femmes 80, 85 Carolingian Renaissance (Carolingian
Philosophy Presenting Lorenzo Renovatio) 18–19
Tornabuoni(?) to the Seven Carrera, Elena 185
Liberal Arts 68 Cartari, Vincenzo Cartari
Boen, Johannes 48, 52–3 magini colla sposizione degli dei degli
Boiardo, Matteo antichi 4
Orlando innamorato 12, 185, 189, 195–8 Cartwright, Thomas 146–7, 154
Bologna, Andrea di Bartolo da 65 Case, John 129–134
Bologna, Nicolò di Giacomo da 65, 67–8, 75 Apologia musices 129, 134, 147–8
Bonaiuto, Andrea di Castiglione, Baldassare 8, 89
Triumph of Saint Thomas Aquinas 65, 67 Il Cortegiano 90–92, 190, 191n21
Bonsignori, Giovanni 95–6 castrato 256–7
Book of Common Prayer, The 146, 153n69 Saint Cecilia 2
Bordoni, Faustina 256, 257n57 Charlemagne 19
Brancaccio, Giulio Cesare 198–200 Charles I 241
Breval, John Charles II 19, 83
The Rape of Helen 260 Christ 4, 108, 136
Bright, Timothy 171 Church of England 149
Treatise on Melancholy 173 Cicero
Bronzino, Agnolo 11, 99–102 Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis) 3,
Apollo and Marsyas (painting) 99–101 20, 63n4, 72
Brown, Howard Mayer 67, 70, 76 Tusculan Desputations (Tusculanae
Browne, Thomas Disputationes, Tusculanae
Pseudodoxia epidemica 6 Quaestiones) 72
Browne, William Circe 193–5
Britannia’s Pastorals 137 concerto delle donne 189, 198–9
Bullard, Paddy 227, 234 Colley, Linda 254
Burke, Edmund 12, 226–236 Collier, Jeremy 242, 245–7
Burton, Robert 171 A Short View of the Immorality and
Anatomy of Melancholy 173, 185–6 Profaneness of the English Stage
Butler, Charles 131–3 242
Byrd, William 153, 215 comédies en vaudevilles 262
Comestor, Petrus
Calvin, John ( Jean) 150, 155, 225 Historia Scholastica 56–8, 73–5, 79, 83–5
Camiz, Franca Trinchieri 84 Congreve, William 242
Canterbury Cathedral 147, 149 Conegliano, Cima da 11, 97
cantor 49–50, 52, 59 Conti, Natale
Capella, Martianus 3, 17, 19, 63, 84 Mythologiae 4
De nuptiis Philologiae et Mecurii 11, 17–21, Cooke, Thomas
24–6, 28–31, 63 Penelope 260
Cardano, Girolamo 12, 115–6, 122 see also Mottley, John
De musica (On Music) 115–7, 119 Cortesi, Paolo 89, 90n11,
De subtilitate (On Subtlety) 115, 117 cosmology 20, 68
Index 307
creation 36, 40–1, 43, 107–8, 126, 128, 157, 224 lovesickness
harmony of 131 madness (mad songs) 170, 173, 185
harmonic creation of God 109, 111, 113, 115 melancholy 173, 185–6
of divine and natural harmony 124 and normativity 169, 171
literary 8 ‘narrative prosthesis’ 171, 173–4, 177, 179,
of lyric 79 186
of meaning 8, 222 narratives of 171, 174, 177
of music 129, 214 performance of 172, 178
poetic 4 stories of 173, 175
Satanic 5 see also music, and disability
of the world 38 divine 132, 162, 166, 230, 232–4, 238
Cuzzoni, Francesca 256 being 12, 123
coherence 149
David, King of Israel (biblical) 2–3, 53n24, concepts 112
68, 108, 126 creation 109
Davies, Sir John 225 delight 229
Davis, Natalie Zemon 8, 196n48 demons 113
Dennis, John excellence 186
An Essay on the Operas after the Italian English 151
Manner 255 foreknowledge 43
Musical Entertainments in Rinaldo and harmony 109, 124, 130
Armida 246n17, 247 influence 133
Rinaldo and Armida 241–7, 249–54, inspiration 132
257–8 intelligent 31
The Usefulness of the Stage 242, 246n16 justification 126
An Essay upon Public Spirit 255 mind 17, 18n2
Des Prez, Josquin music 129, 132, 134–5, 137–8, 200
Missa L’Homme armé super voces order 8, 44
musicales 84 origins 130
Descartes, René 222 power 92
Cartesian 13, 185 presence 229
Destouches, André Cardinal radiance 98
Issé, a pastorale héroïque 269 realms 125
De origine et effectu musicae 46–9, 53, 56–59 Scripture 53, 56
devotion 150–151, 153 understanding 96
Protestant 152n61 wisdom 1
religious 186 worship 132
dialogue 8, 109, 118, 158, 160–161, 175, 209 see also creation
and ballad opera 259–260, 262, 265 Dorinda 12, 160, 224–7, 232–8
with Boethius 33 Dossi, Dosso (Giovanni de Lutero) 83n73
see also ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and Allegory of Music 11, 64, 83, 85
Dorinda’ Doughtie, Edward 213
see also Castiglione, Baldassare Dowland, John 184
see also Virgil ‘Flow My Tears’ 180, 185
disability ‘Go Crystal Tears’ 185
within culture 171, 185–6 ‘In Darkness Let Me Dwell’ 180, 185
definitions of 170, 172 ‘Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens’ 180
and difference 170 ‘Sorrow, Sorrow, Stay’ 185
feeblemindness 181 Dowland, Robert
foolishness 170 Variety of Lute-Lessons 137
and gender (femininity, masculinity) dramatick opera 243, 249–50
8–9, 12, 174, 177–8, 181 Dryden, John 242, 244, 249
308 Index
Discourse Concerning the Original and Eurydice 260–1, 262

Progress of Satire 244 Firenze, Andrea da 68
King Arthur 246–7 Fludd, Robert 130, 132
Dunn, Leslie 174–5 Forrest, Ebenezer 259–60, 262–8, 271, 274–5
Momus 259, 264–70, 272
Eccles, John Momus Turn’d Fabulist: Or, Vulcan’s
Rinaldo and Armida 241, 247, 258 Wedding 259–60, 265, 267, 274–5
‘For Revenge to Armida We Call’ 248 ‘Haymaker’s Song’ or ‘The Merry
see also Dennis, John Haymakers’ 269–70
echo (Echo) 3, 10, 12, 31n37, 43, 100–1, 136, ‘In Kent so Fam’d of Old’ 271
150n52, 156–66 ‘Let Burgundy Flow’ 271
education 8, 19 ‘Much I Lov’d a Charming Creature’
moral 67, 79, 88, 266–7 271
liberal arts 77, 104 ‘Parson Upon Dorothy’ 272, 274–5
effeminacy 254, 256 ‘The Widows Shall All Have Spouses’
Elysium 232, 234–6 271
emotion 36, 45, 110, 185, 202, 223 Fortune 37, 39–41, 243n9
affect of music upon 116–9, 122–3, 183, Franco, Veronica 202
195, 200, 226, 228 Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades 94–6, 99
and lamentation 166 Fuzelier, Louis
mournful 12 Momus fabuliste, ou les noces de Vulcain
in music 234–8, 241, 251–2 260, 264, 266–9, 272
musical understanding of 91
English Civil War 149 Gaffurius, Franchinus 57, 72n37, 89–92,
Laudian policy 149 96–7
An Epistle from Signore F---a to a Lady 256–7 Practica musice 3, 89n8, 91n17
d’Este, Alfonso 83–4 Galilei, Vincenzo 72
Esterhammer, Angela 222 Gallagher, Sean 75–6
Euripides 158–9 Garden of Eden 224, 232
Andromeda 158 Amadis of Gaul 250
Eurydice 4, 41, 112, 115, 118, 164, 252 Gauradas 159–60
see also Fielding, Henry Gay, John 259, 263, 266, 273–4
Eriugena, John Scottus 11, 18–21, 24–26 Achilles 260–1
Annotationes in Marcianum 20 Beggar’s Opera 260, 265–7, 274
De armonia 26–31 Polly 265, 274
ethics 88, 90–91, 96–7, 102–4, 163n23, 242 gender
Euhemerus and disability 174–5, 177–9, 180–4, 186
Euhemerist tradition 3–4 early modern conceptions of 7–9, 12,
169–70
fable 1, 99, 146–7, 154, 209, 259–60, 263–72, and English national identity 242, 258
275 fluidity of 192
Fairfax, Edward 252 relations between 225
falsehood 1, 155 Genesis 53, 56, 73, 193
Faunus 63 Gerbino, Giuseppe 162, 208–9, 222
Fellowes, Edmund 210, 212n29 Gerrard, Christine 258
Fenaruolo, Girolamo 191 Gibbons, Felton 83–4
Ferrara 12, 64, 83–5, 189, 191, 195, 198 Giglioni, Guido 217
Ficino, Marsilio 3, 12, 77, 85, 107–8, 122, 173 Giraldi Giglio, Gregorio
Commentary on the Timaeus 107–116 Historia de deis gentium 4
miscellanea (Distinctiones) 113–14 God (god, goddess)
De vita 110, 113n27–8 angels praising 141–2, 147, 149–53
Fielding, Henry 265 in ballad opera 259–61, 265–6, 268–9, 271
Index 309
and Boethius 33, 42–3 performances of 20, 146–8

and Cardano 118–9, 121–2 in Eriugena’s De armonia 26, 29–31
and creation 36–40 in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy 35
and Ficino 107–114 in Boethius’s De institutione musica 183
godliness 181 in Ficino’s Commentary on the Timeaus
and the Homeric Hymn to Pan 157 110, 113–4
in Italian paintings 100, 102 song of 126
and the liberal arts 17–8, 63 and earth 128, 130, 137, 151–2, 154
and love 160 proportions of 173
and Marvell 230, 234, 238 and John Dowland’s music 183
and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo 164–5 doctrines of 207
and morality 224–5 nature of 224–6
and music and gift from 208 in Marvel’s ‘On Milton’s Paradise Lost’
and the music of the spheres 21 230, 232–8
and myth 1, 3–4, 10–12 in Fuzelier’s Momus fabuliste 264
and Neoplatonists 29–30, 31n37 Heetderks, Angela 181
and origins of music 124–6, 128–32, Heylyn, Peter 148–9, 153–4
134–6, 138 Highet, Gilbert
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses 87, 94–5, 98 Hill, Aaron 241, 249–251
and Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberate 192 Rinaldo 253, 257–8
and Tubal 56 The Tears of the Muses 258
and Virgil’s Ecologues 163 Hinds, Stephen 232
Golden Age 208, 213, 218 Homeric Hymn to Pan 157
Gonzaga, Eleonora 102 Hollander, John 5, 157–8
Graces 129 Hooke, Robert 6, 226
Granville, George Hooker, Richard 146–7, 149, 151n56, 154
The British Enchanters 250 Howard, Jean 7
Guarini, Anna 199 homosexuality 256
Guarini, Giovanni Battista 161, 165 humanism 77, 80, 89, 93–4, 125, 161, 164
Il Pastor Fido 159–160 Hunter, David 253
Gulpin, Everard 208
iconography 11, 64–5, 68, 75–7, 79–83, 85, 192
Haar, James 84–5, 112n20 Ignatius 3, 142–51, 153–4
Handel, George Frederic 260, 262 imago vocis 160–2
Rinaldo 241, 249–254, 257–8 impairment 8, 37, 169–70, 179, 181, 186
‘Ah! crudel’ 251 see also disability
‘Crudel, tu ch’involasti’ 250 irony 212, 214–15, 217, 221–2
‘Dunque i lacci d’un volto’ 251 instruments (instrumental, instrumentation)
‘Ogn’ indugio d’un amante’ 252 musical (music) 3–4, 77, 90, 92, 95–8, 116,
Hagberg, Garry 33 130
Harmony (Harmonia) 20n12, 63–4 aulos 94, 96
see also Martianus Capella, De nuptiis cithara 53, 56, 73, 92, 119
Philologiae et Mercurii flute 73, 79, 99, 103
harmony 8 harp 3, 57, 68, 73, 79, 124, 133
heavenly 26 harpsichord 101, 200
melodious 21 lute 67–8, 103, 119, 173–4, 180, 184–5,
of the spheres 11, 28, 31, 108 200
see also music of the spheres lyre 20, 87, 89, 94–5, 98n41, 110–12, 116,
universal 5, 13 118–19, 131
heaven lira da braccio 97–8, 100
harmony of 3, 5, 21, 63, 103–4 organ (organist) 28, 53, 56–7, 67–8, 70,
spheres of 17, 112 135–6
310 Index
portative organ 67–8, 70 Landini, Francesco 68, 70

pipes 87 Musica son 70–71
virginal, polygonal 101–2 Landino, Cristoforo 94–6, 99–100, 102
in Boethius’s De institutione musica 35–7, Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri 71,
39 94, 100n47
in Cardano’s De tranquillitate 118–9 language
invention of 4, 57, 63, 73, 124–6, 128, 132–7 of philosophers 6, 29, 32, 38n42, 117
see also Tubal arts of 65
of Pan 87 coded 259
performance of 49, 53, as framework 169, 263
use of echo 161, 164, 166 iconographical 85
see also music musical 176, 182, 185, 210, 235
intermedi (intermedio) 164 and origins of music 125, 131, 136, 138
inventors 65, 67, 71, 124 poetic 78, 158, 227–8, 231–3, 237–8
of music 72, 125–6, 129, 134 sensory 225–9
see also instruments, musical, invention of Lasso, Orlando di (Lassus) 161, 180
Isaiah (biblical) 3, 142–3, 145, 147, 149–51, Lawes, William 224
153–4 Liberal Arts, the
in Capella’s De nuptiis 17, 63
Jephte (character) 156–8, 162 in Eriugena’s commentary 19–20, 30
Jerome of Moravia 52, 59 and iconography 75, 77, 79–80, 82, 84,
Johnson, Julian 214, 216, 221, 223 86n90
Josephus, Flavius 56, 73, 79, 126 in Italian allegories 65, 67–8, 71
Jubal 3, 11, 53, 70, 73–6, 79, 85, 124, 136–7 and morality 88, 98–9, 103
see also Tubal Liège, Jacobus de 48, 53
judgement 11–12, 29, 87–104, 128, 228 Lowerre, Kathryn 246
Lucretius 227–231, 233–4
Kant, Immanuel 228–9 Lully, Jean Baptiste
Kemp, William 215–6, 223 Armide 251
King, Thomas A. 255 ‘Enfin il est en ma puissance’ 250
Kircher, Athanasius 156–7, 160, 163 Locke, John 228
Musurgia universalis 163 Locke, Matthew 224, 227, 234, 236
knowledge 207–9, 216, 218, 222–7, 237–8 Psyche 246
Lotto, Lorenzo 11, 98
Allegory of Virtue and Vice (painting)
L’Idaspe Fedele 256 98–9
La Pellegrina 164
see also intermedi madrigal 71, 78, 131, 159, 208, 212, 216, 219,
Lady Music 11, 64, 67–8, 70, 76–7, 80, 83, 86, 221–2
127–8, 135, 165 Man, Fall of 225
Lady Nature 130–133 Macrobius, Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius
Lady Philosophy 38n40 Commentary on Cicero’s Somnium
lament (lamentation) Scipionis 3, 20, 72, 159
in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy Magdeburg Centuries 145
37, 39n53 Centuriators 145, 148
of Cardano 119, 122 Magnus Liber Organi 68
in Carissimi’s Jepthe 156–8, 162 Marenzio, Luca 161, 180
and echo songs 164–6 Marvell, Andrew
in Handel’s Rinaldo 251 ‘A Dialogue between Thyrsis and
by Ophelia 175 Dorinda’ 12, 224–7, 232–8, 250
by Philomela 187–8, 201–2 see also dialogue
Lamb, Mary Ellen 215 Miscellaneous Poems 224
Index 311
‘Music’s Empire’ 136 of performance 223

‘On Mr. Milton’s Paradise Lost’ 227–30, of reference 32
233 rhythmic 48
Marsyas 3, 94, 96–7, 100–103 visual 11, 87
masculinity 100, 179, 181, 200, 255 modulation
Mazzuoli, Giovanni 68 of the human voice 232, 236
McGeary, Thomas 253 of sounds 232, 236
medicine monochord 24, 46, 68
see music, and medicine Monod, Paul 253
Memory 129 monody 9, 164
memory 218, 231, 236, 263 Monteverdi, Claudio 161, 164–5, 166n31
Mercury 3, 21, 25–6 L’Orfeo 164
and ballad opera 268 ‘Possente spirto’ 164
and healing by music 173 morality 7, 9–10, 12–13,
and Orpheus 111, 114, 124, 133 and music 88, 137, 193
and Philology 17, 63 and myth 207–8
and reason 109 and political culture 242, 250–51, 258
mese 18, 24–6 and status 90
metaphor Morley, Thomas 153
arts 207 Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical
in Bronzino’s Apollo and Marsyas 100 Music (1597) 8
decorative 5 Moschus 158
and deification 18 Motte, Antoine Houdar de la (La Motte)
of disability 181, 185 Fables nouvelles 264–9, 272
in Dosso Dossi’s Allegory of Music 83 Mottley, John
in Ficino 111, 122 Penelope (1728) 260
and invention of music 67, 77–80, 129 see also Cooke, Thomas
and order 17, 31, 39 Mulcaster, Richard 183–4
pastoral 226 Murs, Jehan de 53, 58
religious 141, 150 Muses, the 3, 17, 37, 46, 47, 128, 131, 258
sexual 219 music
of Sirens 196 adaptation of 9, 12, 224, 226–7, 235–7,
sonic 157, 161–2, 166 260, 264, 266, 268, 275
Midas 3, 11, 87, 92–103 artificial music 128, 132, 136–7
Midgely, Mary diegetic 268
on myth 191–2 and disability 10, 169, 173, 177–8, 186
Milton, John blind organist-composers 68
Paradise Lost 224, 226–230, 232–3 see also disability
mind-body connection 171, 174, 181, 183, 185 of heaven (celestial music, divine music)
Minerva 3, 11, 63–4 5, 21, 26, 28, 109, 112, 123–6,
in Bronzino’s Apollo and Marsyas 98–103 129–130, 132, 134–5, 137–8, 153,
iconography of 77, 79–82, 85–6 184, 186, 200
invention of aulos 94, 96 human 30, 35–6, 38n40, 39, 124, 126–7,
Mitchell, David T. 182 129–32, 134–6, 138, 150, 183
see also disability, ‘narrative prosthesis’ illegitimacy of 127, 190, 246, 255
modes and magic 12, 108, 113–5, 123, 250
of dialogue 209 and medicine 37, 44, 112n23, 185, 195
literary 11, 87, 207, 230 moral legitimacy of 10–13, 31, 88–91, 96,
musical 3, 36, 39, 44, 63, 85, 88, 91, 94, 98, 102–3, 116, 125, 127, 137, 155,
116–7, 122, 207, 212, 215, 219 207, 242, 245, 247, 250–251, 258,
pastoral 162, 165 267–8
312 Index
and nature (natural music) 2, 11, 50, and the New World 212
76–7, 104, 107, 112–14, 117, 122–3, of the nightingale 200
125–136, 138, 163, 185 origins of 11–12
personification of 127, 129–130, 138, 157 and the origins of music 53, 56–9, 124–5,
see also Lady Music 127–9, 133, 136–8
‘praise of music’ tradition 7, 124–7, 129, of Orpheus 41, 107–9, 112, 114, 116, 122–3,
132–5, 138, 147–8 164–5
as remedy 2–3, 40, 103, 116–8, 171, 173–4, and the passions 209
178, 185–6, 195, 269 of Philomela 187–9, 201
of the spheres 3, 11, 13, 17, 21, 24–8, 31, 35, and poetry 198, 226
63, 94, 104, 109–112, 114, 130–131, power of 159
159n9, 233–4 of Pythagoras 137
therapy 44, 108n2, 115, 122, 172n16 and satire 208, 260–261
vocal music 3, 28, 116, 118–9, 130, 132, 161, and science 32
164, 193, 251 of the Sirens 195
see also instruments and storytelling 8–9, 13, 234
see also musica mythology 1–2, 5–7, 12, 18, 124, 160, 199,
see also song 207–8, 213, 222, 226
Musica of Capella 18
see Lady Music classical 3, 124, 157, 163, 166, 211
musica 47, 64, 72, 75, 85 Greek 187, 214, 218
musica humana 68, 112 musical 9
musica instrumentalis 68, 112 Roman 218
musica mundana 68, 112, 226
musicus 38n40, 49–50, 52, 58–59 Narcissus 158–161
myth see also myth, of Narcissus
and allegory 4–7 narrative 9–10, 97, 149, 158, 160–161, 169
and antiquity 218 allegorical 17
of Apollo 17, 100, 199, 269, 271, 275 autobiographical 33
of Armida 194 biblical 85, 193, 201
biblical 113, 224–5 biographical 128
of the Fall 225 of Boethius 34, 44
of Circe 194 of disability 171
of Creation 111 of gender 174
as critique of music 261–2 genealogical 46, 128–9
definitions of 1–3 historical 169
and deification 18, 29 historiographical 8, 144
and disability 169–170, 172 literary 169, 171–2, 182
discourse of 210–211 metanarratives 12
of Echo 156–160 musical 31
function of 222 of music’s origins 125–7, 136–7
and the iconography of music 64, 72, 79, mythical 49
83 mythological 11, 49, 53, 56, 58, 94, 125, 137
and images 102–3 ‘narrative prosthesis’
interpretations of 3–4 see disability, ‘narrative prosthesis’
and knowledge 10–13, 141, 144, 227, 237 of Ovid 94
of Leda and Tullia 211, 213 poetic 241, 244, 246
and magic 108 political 141
of Midas 87–8, 93, 96–7 pseudo–biblical 85
and morality 207 strategies of
and music treatises 46–9, 53, 56–9 of Socrates of Constantinople 142
of Narcissus 161 of Tubal/Jubal 53, 56–8
Index 313
of Walter of Evesham Abbey 48 in literature 12, 169

of Whight 132, 134 of music in Boethius 34, 36, 40,
nature 44
see Lady Nature of myth 9
see music, and nature of myth and story 10
see words, on art and nature of Nicolini 256
Neely, Carol Thomas 180 in Polydore Vergil 137
Neoplatonism 13, 17, 20, 29, 64, 76, 109, 112, sarcastic 208–9
126, 169, 170, 173 of Weelkes 218
Nicolini (Nicolo Grimaldi) 256 of women 189, 191–2, 195, 198, 203
nightingale 3, 131n36, 133–4, 200–203 Peri, Jacopo 161, 164–5
fable of 268–270 Perugia, Matteo da 75
story of 3, 187–9 Petrarch
see also myth, of the nightingale Canzoniere
‘Zephiro torna’ 188
Odysseus 194, 197 Peverara, Laura 199
Oedipus 171 Philomela 187–9, 200–201, 203
Orpheus 2, 4, 6, 12, 18, 41, 63, 107–112, see also myth, of Philomela
114–18, 122–4, 164–5, 252, philosophy 12, 107–9, 117, 122, 137, 230
261–2 aesthetics 12
as prisci theologi 108 experimental/empirical
Orphic hymns 112–13 impact of 5, 10, 12
see also myth, of Orpheus Lady Philosophy 32–44
Ovid 94, 100, 159–160, 187, 200, 232 musical 246
Metamorphoses 87, 93, 95–6, 158, 221 natural 134, 225–6
see also Neoplatonism
Padova, Marchetto da (Marchetto de Pietzsch, Gerhard 48
Padua, Marchetto of Padua) 50 Pilotti-Schiavonetti, Elisabetta 257
Palaephatus 6 planets (heavenly bodies)
Pan 3, 11, 63, 84, 87, 92, 95–8, 100, 102–3, Jupiter 17, 25–6, 30, 79, 109, 114, 126, 128,
124, 157–60 264
see also myth Mars 25–6, 30, 109–10, 113,
Pareja, Bartolomeo Ramos de 76 266–71
Passionate Pilgrim, The 184 Mercury 3, 17, 21, 25–6, 63, 109,
pastoral 7 111, 113n27, 114, 124, 133, 173,
labour 57 268
literary tradition 188, 200, 208–212, 214, Moon 21, 25–7, 109, 113, 159n9
232–4, 236, 271 Saturn 25–6, 29–30, 109–10, 113–14
mode 162, 165 Sun 17–18, 24n20, 25–6, 30–31, 109, 114,
music 78, 216, 218, 221–2, 224–6, 271 175, 229, 233, 245, 270
painting 97 Venus
tragicomedy 160 see also Ficino, Marsilio
Paumann, Conrad 68 Plato 29, 32, 68, 77, 88, 91, 108–10, 112–14,
Peacham, Henry 208, 222 117, 124
performance, music 49, 92, 101, 103 Timeaus 20, 170
alternatim 144 Playford, John
angelic 155 The Dancing Master (1653) 273
of ballad opera 263–5 Choice Ayres (1675) 225
of disability 172, 175, 181, 183, 185 Theater of Music (1687) 224
in Ficino 110 Pliny 20, 125
of Harmonia 20 Plotinus 109, 161, 169
and knowledge 222–3 The Enneads 170
314 Index
poetry 2 in Gaffurius 90,

of Dante 78–9 loss of 170
echoing 163 moral 27–9
epic 17, 192–3, 198 and music 182, 184, 191, 194–5, 200, 203,
of the Fall 225–6 225, 237, 246, 269
female 202–3 and myth 207, 252–3
melancholic 180 of numbers 34
of Milton 230–2, 234 Regio, Raffaele 93, 95
and music 4–5, 49, 76, 119, 122, 157–9, 184, religion
268, 271 and ethnicity 181
and myth 207 false 146
pastoral 188–9 and gender 186
Poliziano, Angelo 159, 165 investment in story of 141
Miscellanea liturgical tradition of 141
‘Eco e Pan’ 159 politics of 141
Porter, Endimion 241 ritual practice of 141
Powell, Thomas 134–5 repetition 122, 236
Human Industry or, A History of Most of echo 156, 159, 161, 165
Manual Arts 134–5, 137 textual 151n54, 153, 158
Price, Curtis A. 249–51 rhetoric
Proclus devices 156, 158
Commentary on the Timeaus 170 of the Elizabethan church 151–2, 155
Pseudo-Dionysius 19n4 music and 37, 39–40, 44, 162, 165–6,
Purcell, Henry 252
Dido and Aeneas 246 and poetry 160–62, 226, 231–2, 242, 263,
The Fairy Queen 246–7 271
‘Now the Maids and the Men are political 266, 268
Making of Hay’ 247 and the Seven Liberal Arts 84
King Arthur 246–7 of Tinctoris 93
Puttenham, George 7 in the trivium 65
The Art of English Poesy 209 Reynolds, Edward 207
Pythagoras 3, 11, 64, 96 Rich, John 265, 272
De origine et effectu musicae 46–7 Riga, Peter 75
Ficino on 108, 112 Rinaldo (character)
and origins of music 53–57, 59, 72–3, in Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida 243–7
84–5, 124, 136–7 in Hill’s Rinaldo libretto for Handel
see also myth, of Pythagoras 250–3
Nicolini’s performance of 256–7
quadrivium in opera 8, 12
see Boethius in Tasso 197
trivium in Van Dyck’s Rinaldo and Armida
see Boethius painting 241
Quatuor principalia 52 Ripa, Cesare
Queen’s Theatre, Haymarket 249, 253, 257 Iconologia 187–8
Quinault, Jean-Baptiste Maurice 268 Robin Hood (figure) 214–16, 222
Robinson, Thomas 173
Lady Reason (Dame Reason) 109, 132–4 Rossi, Giacomo (librettist)
reason Rinaldo 241, 249–51, 258
age of 244 Rovere, Guidobaldo II della 101–2
of Boethius 36–7, 39–44, 49 Rovere, Ippolita della 102
in Ficino 109–110, 114 Row-Heyveld, Lindsey 170, 177
in echo song 164 Royal Society, the 6, 226
Index 315
Salmon, Thomas Othello 178, 181

Essay to the Advancement of Music (1672) Queen Gertrude 175–7
135 Richard II 169, 182
Sannazaro, Jacopo 188–9, 200, 202 Richard III 171
Satan 5, 146, 192, 229 Viola 169, 183
female-headed serpent 192 mad songs in 12, 172, 174, 185
satire Neoplatonist theories in 169–170, 174
in ballad opera 262, 264–5, 267–8, plays of
270–271, 275 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 215
of Edmund Burke 226 Hamlet 172–7
‘ironia’ 208 Othello 178–9
Menippean 33 Richard II 182–3
and performance 213 Tempest 216
in Weelkes 12, 207–8, 217–9, 221 Twelfth Night 179, 181, 183, 185
satyr 94, 98–100, 159n7, 208, 267 Sheinberg, Esti 217, 219
Saul, King of Israel 2–3, 171 shepherd (shepherdess, shepherding) 53,
self 208, 216, 238 73, 78–9, 95–6, 103, 163, 208n5,
awareness of 12, 213, 218, 221–2 224, 232–3
care of 117 Sidney, Sir Philip 6
early modern 10, 156–7, 162, 166, 208 sight 37, 225, 230, 232–3
elite 104 sight-singing 201
empowerment of 165–6 Silvanus 63
expression of 162, 188, 200, 202 sin (sinner) 29, 122, 177, 192n28–9, 193–4,
humoral 179 196–7, 224–5, 256
knowledge of 8, 33–4, 161, 237–8 singer (singing) 38n41, 39n49, 163, 177, 181,
self-conscious 212–4, 216, 259 218, 222–3, 229, 238
self-definition 253 angel 145–6, 148–9
self-examination 208 of Apollo and Marsyas 100
self-identity 41–2, 201 ballad opera 6, 259, 268–72
self-imposed 37 of birds 135, 162, 232, 236–7
self-induced 122 of Brancaccio 199–200
self-pity 219 Cardano on 116, 119
self-reference 162 Catholic 254–5, 257
self-reflection 157, 221 choral 12, 28, 142–3, 151–5
self-reflexive 150n52 of Desdemona 181
self-sufficient 42 effeminate 103
technology of 45 English 46–50, 52–3, 58–9
Seth (biblical) 73 of gods and goddesses 261
Seville, Isidore of 64, 73, 78, 142 in Homeric Hymn to Pan 157
Etymologies 48 imagery of 20n12
Shakespeare, William 8, 10, 169, 181, 184–6, Italian opera 256–7
198, 215 of Jepthe’s daughter 156
and Boethius 171, 172n12, 174, 183–4 of Jubal 73
characters in plays of Lady Philosophy 34, 40–41
Desdemona 169, 178–9, 185–6 of madrigals 78
Duke Orsino 171 of Ophelia 174–6, 178
Emilia 178 Orphic 110, 112, 114, 122, 164
Feste 181 of Philomela 187, 201–3
Hamlet 171–3, 177 of Rinaldo 252
Horatio 176–7 swan 17
Iago 178 taught by Nature 133
Ophelia 169, 171–9, 185–6 of Viola 183
316 Index
of women (female) 184, 189–192, 194, beliefs about 6, 182–4, 226–7, 231–2,
196–203, 256–7 234–8,
Sirens 2, 183, 189, 194–200, 203 and the early modern self 157–9
Slim, H. Colin 84 of echo 162–3, 166
Snyder, Sharon L. 182 and English opera 258, 274
see also disability, ‘narrative prosthesis’ and harmony 35–6, 39–40, 56–7, 170, 173,
song 180
of angels 12 of heavens 20–21, 25–8, 31n37, 234
of Arion 164–5 of madrigals 78, 131
ayres 210, 212, 215, 218 and morality 88–9, 92, 101
birdsong 131, 188–9, 200, 268–9 and origins of music 73, 131–6, 138
and Boethius 36, 38n41, 44, 91 and pastoral poetry 188
and Dante 77–8 and sexuality 190, 197, 199–200
echo songs 10, 163 Spenser, Edmund 184
and Gaffurius 90–91 The Fairy Queen 137
and gender 178–9, 183, 189, 200, 203, spirit 12, 151, 180
268–9, 271 comfort for 41
of gods 21 music’s effects on 88, 118, 121, 123, 173–4,
iconography of 11 185, 245, 247
judgement of 92 planetary 113–4
of Lady Philosophy 40–41 public 257
mad songs 12, 172, 174–7, 185 and Weelkes 210, 221
and madrigal 78, 216 wicked 30
and melancholy 180, 185 Squarcialupi Codex 68
and Minerva 77, 86 Stampa, Gaspara 201–2
myth and narratives for 9–10, 31 Steele, Richard 253n42, 254–7
and origins of music 63–4, 126 The Tender Husband 254
Orphic 3, 108, 111–3, 164 story (stories) 1, 3
of Philomela 187 of Arion’s singing 164
power of 118–9, 164, 181, 235–6, 238 see also singing, Orphic
and sexuality 190–191, 195–7, 203, 241, and ballad opera 269, 271
254, 270 definitions of 9–13, 32–3
and Tubalcain 64, 70, 75–7, 86 of disability 169, 171, 174–5, 177–8, 185
see also disability see also disability
see also music, and disability of the early modern self 157
soul 3, 201, 247 of Echo and Narcissus 158
beliefs about 28–31 of Echo and Pan 160
cannibalism of 196n54 of Eriugena and Capella 18, 25–6
Cardano on 115–7, 119, 121–2 and Ficino 113
chaste 235 of foolish Midas 87, 93–7, 99, 101–3
Ficino on 109–10, 113–15 as knowledge 224–6
human 11, 17–18, 21, 25–6, 103, 130, 135 of Marvell 136
music and its effects on 35–6, 38–9, musical settings of 227
53n24, 133, 154–5, 162, 169–71, of the nightingale 187, 200–201
173–4, 258 of origins of music 46, 49, 53, 59, 72, 75,
sickness of 177, 182–4 79, 84–5, 137
types of 194–5 and the ‘praise of music’ tradition 134
anima rationalis 194 and religion 141–3, 145, 147–8, 154
anima sensitiva 194 of Rinaldo and Armida 241–2,
anima vegetativa 194 249–50
sound storytelling 7–10, 158
of angels 150 of women singing 192–3, 199
Index 317
Strohm, Reinhard 253 Van Dyck, Anthony

Stubbes, Philip Rinaldo and Armida (painting) 241
Anatomy of Abuses 184–5 Varano, Giulia 102
sublime 226–38 variants
Swift, Jonathan 259, 265 textual 11, 46, 48, 58, 236
Varro 4
Tantalus 118 Vasari, Giorgio 100, 102
Tarasti, Eero 208–10 Vergil, Polydore 134, 137
Tasso, Torquato De inventoribus rerum 125, 132
Gerusalemme liberata 12, 189, 192, 194–5, vice 11, 70, 90, 98–9, 102–3, 116, 259, 264, 268
197–200, 241–4, 250–52, 257 Virgil 227
Te Deum Eclogues 163–4
settings of 153 Virtue 25, 65, 67
Tempo, Antonio da 78 virtue
tetrachord 18, 21–2, 24, 27, 111, 112n20 angelic 150
theory feminine 191, 225
of aesthetics 227, 236 of God’s order 39,
anatomical 179 of music 11, 25, 128–9, 207
of Aristotle 179 of prudence 89–90
humoral 173, 179 and sexuality 271
of knowledge 32 sound of 6
of music 10–11, 20–21, 48, 52, 57–8, 71, 97, and vice 98–100, 102–3, 264
107, 111, 115, 117 vision 42, 142–5, 147–51, 153–4, 230, 234
of psychology 226 Vitry, Philippe de 58
The Praise of Music (1586) 7, 127, 129, 133–4, voice
138, 147–8 and art of singing 50, 92, 95, 101, 119,
see also music, ‘praise of music’ tradition 121–2
Thebes 4, 6 in ballad opera 274
Thyrsis 12, 224–7, 232–8 of choirs 28, 78
Tinctoris, Johannes 92–3, 96 echoing 156–7, 160–164, 166
Tityrus 163–4 of Eve 225
tone and gender 174, 179, 183, 187–90, 192,
combination of 117, 119 198–202
consonant 72 in Marvell’s ‘Dialogue’ 232, 234–6, 238
division of 46 and myth in song 10
musical 3 in Rinaldo settings 251, 256
and the planets 21–2, 24–5, 27–8, 30 superiority of 132–3,
in Weelkes 218–19 and Weelkes 219, 223
Toniolo, Federica 75
Trismegistus, Hermes 108 Wallis, John 6
Tubal (Tubalcain) 3, 11, 46–7, 53, 55–9, 64, Walsham, Alexandra 144
70, 73–7, 79, 81–4, 86, 124n1, Walter of Evesham Abbey 48, 53
126, 136 Weelkes, Thomas 12, 207, 210–12, 214–9,
see also Jubal 221–2
tunings, systems of 20–21, 24, 110–12, 131, ‘Aye Me, Alas’ 218, 221, 223
172 Claudius, Roman Emperor 218
Greater Perfect System 22 Messalina 218–9, 221–2
Immutable System 18, 21–2, 24, 26–7 ayre 12, 210, 213–4, 217, 222
Lesser Perfect System 22 Ayres or Fantastic Spirits (1608) 207, 214
Pythagorean 17, 21, 38n43, 63, 68, 73, ‘Ha Ha! This World doth Pass’ 211
77, 83, 86, 94, 97, 103, 109–13, ‘Since Robin Hood’ 214–5
124 ‘spirits’ 210
318 Index
Whight, Nicholas 132–4 and Minerva 80

Whythorne, Thomas 126 and music 40, 53, 77–8, 107, 119, 122,
Willaert, Adrian 84, 191 227–30, 232–3, 235–8, 242, 255,
Winkler, Amanda Eubanks 174 269
Winn, James A. 249 and religion 141–2, 147, 153–4
Wood, David Houston 179 and satire 208–9, 212, 215–7, 219, 223
words worship 2, 4, 10, 131–2, 137, 141, 146–7,
on art and nature 131–4 149–53, 155
and Echo 156, 158–61, 164–5
and gender 192–4, 202 Zarlino, Gioseffo 137
and madness 177 Zoroaster 108
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music
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Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical
MUSIC, MYTH and STORY

culture. Far from merely offering material for musical settings, authoritative
MUSIC,
tales from classical mythology, ancient history and the Bible were treated
as foundations for musical knowledge. Such myths were cited in support of
arguments about the uses, effects, morality and preferred styles of music in

sources as diverse as theoretical treatises, defences or critiques of music,
MYTH
art, sermons, educational literature and books of moral conduct. Newly
written literary stories too were believed capable of moral instruction and
influence, and were a medium through which ideas about music could
be both explored and transmitted. How authors interpreted and weaved
together these traditional stories, or created their own, reveals much about
changing attitudes across the period.
and
Looking beyond the well-known figure of Orpheus, this collection explores
STORY
the myriad stories that shaped not only musical thought, but also its styles,
techniques and practices. The essays show that music itself performed
and created knowledge in ways parallels to myth, and worked in tandem
with old and new tales to construct social, political and philosophical
views. This relationship was not static, however; as the Enlightenment
dawned, the once authoritative gods became comic characters and myth
became a medium for ridicule. Overall, the book provides a foundation for
exploring myth and story throughout medieval and early modern culture,
in
and facilitating further study into the Enlightenment and beyond.
KATHERINE BUTLER is a senior lecturer in music at Northumbria University.
SAMANTHA BASSLER is a musicologist of cultural studies, a teaching artist, and an adjunct
professor in the New York metropolitan area. Medieval
and Samantha Bassler
Edited by Katherine Butler
Contributors: Jamie Apgar, Katie Bank, Samantha Bassler, Katherine Butler, Elina G. Hamilton,
Sigrid Harris, Ljubica Ilic, Erica Levenson, John MacInnis, Patrick McMahon, Aurora Faye Martinez, and Early
Modern
Jacomien Prins, Tim Shephard, Jason Stoessel, Férdia J. Stone-Davis, Amanda Eubanks Winkler.
Cover Image: Suzanne de Court, Minerva Visits the Muses on Mount Helicon, painted enamel mirror,
early 17th century. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Public Domain. Cover design by Greg Jorss. Culture
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd Edited by Katherine Butler
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk I PI2 3DF and and Samantha Bassler
668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620, USA

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Myths and stories offer a window onto medieval and early modern musical

MUSIC, MYTH and STORY

in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Music, Myth and Story

Professor Tess Knighton, Institucio Mila i Fontanals/CSIC,

Edited by Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler

the boydell press

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

First published 2019

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset in Adobe Arno Pro by

List of Illustrations vii

i myth in medieval music theory and philosophy

ii iconologies of music and myth

iii myths in renaissance philosophies of music

iv myth and musical practice

vi myth and music as forms of knowledge

vii re-imagining myths and stories for the stage

Black and White Plates

1.3 Immutable System, Combining both the Greater and Lesser

Katherine Butler is a senior lecturer at Northumbria University. Her research

Samantha Bassler is a cultural musicologist of early music, and teaches music

Amanda Eubanks Winkler is Associate Professor of Music History and Cultures

Elina G. Hamilton is an Assistant Professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee,

Erica Levenson received a doctorate in musicology from Cornell University in

John MacInnis is Associate Professor of Music and Department Co-Chair at

Aurora Faye Martinez is a doctoral researcher in English literature at the

Patrick McMahon completed his undergraduate studies in music at the University

Jacomien Prins is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and

Tim Shephard is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Sheffield,

Jason Stoessel is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of New England,

Férdia J. Stone-Davis is an interdisciplinary academic working at the intersec-

Katherine Butler and Samantha Bassler

T he primary modern association of myth is with falsehood. A myth is a story

the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof Aesops tales give

Like myth, newly written stories were regarded as capable of communicating

literature is an agent in constructing a culture’s sense of reality ... instead of a

struction of cultural conceptions of music through stories, including its relation-

Music, Myth and Story

The collection’s arrangement is both chronological and thematic. Beginning in

with broader contemporary discourse on musical and moral judgement in 1520s

myth in medieval music theory

Music and the Myth of Apollo’s Grove

T he myth of Apollo’s sacred and mysterious grove is recounted by Martianus

This inter-referentiality of musical order, cosmic order and the responsibil-

John Scottus Eriugena and Capella’s De nuptiis

such as Remigius of Auxerre.9 In addition to introducing the artes, De nuptiis also

Eriugena’s Commentary on De nuptiis, Book I

Amidst these extraordinary scenes and these vicissitudes of Destinies, a sweet

Table 1.1 Greater Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione musica.

Pitch Name Tetrachord

genus, i.e. diatonic, chromatic or enharmonic.15 The Immutable System combined

Table 1.2 Lesser Perfect System as Presented by Boethius in De institutione musica.

Pitch Name Tetrachord

Pitch Name Tetrachord Latin Name

Subsequently, Eriugena explains that he understands the term ‘tone’ (tonus) to

Table 1.4 Eriugena’s Listing of the Tetrachords of the Immutable System

Eriugena Capella DN IX Boethius DIM I.25

In Capella’s story, the individual and corporate destinies of humans seem to be

Eriugena’s Music Treatise

Figure 1.1 The Order of Planetary Orbits According to Eriugena