The Modes of Ancient Greek Music Part 14

[Symbols] [Greek: tan te do[u]ri[klyton ar-chan au-xet' a-ge-ra-to thal ...]]

This piece also is referred by M. Reinach to the Hypo-lydian mode. It may surely be objected that of three places in which we may fairly suppose that we have the end of a metrical division, viz. those which end with the words [Greek: Delphon, prospolois] and [Greek: agerato], two present us with cadences on the Mese (_d_), and one on the Hypate (_a_). This seems to point strongly to the Minor Mode.

On the whole it would seem that the only _mode_ (in the modern sense of the word) of which the new discoveries tell us anything is a mode practically identical with the modern Minor. I venture to think this a confirmation, as signal as it was unexpected, of the main contention of this treatise.

It does not seem to have been observed by M. Weil or M. Reinach that in all these pieces of music there is the same remarkable correspondence between the melody and the accentuation that has been pointed out in the case of the Seikelos inscription (pp. 90, 91). It cannot indeed be said that every acute accent coincides with a rise of pitch: but the note of an accented syllable is almost always followed by a note of lower pitch. Exceptions are, [Greek: aiolon, hina] (which may have practically lost its accent, cp. the Modern Greek [Greek: na]), and [Greek: molete] (if rightly restored). The fall of pitch in the two notes of a circ.u.mflexed syllable is exemplified in [Greek: manteion, heilen, Galatan, Phoibon, odaisi, klytais, bomoisin, h.o.m.ou]: the opposite case occurs only once, in [Greek: thnatois]. The observation holds not only of the chief hymn, but of all the fragments.