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“THE MYTHOS OF MUSIC”

                  An interesting point presented right at the beginning of the chapter is the response one can have, which can also be unconscious. Although, Rowell is interested in the deep stratum of musical ideas in Western cultural consciousness. Music, besides the classic concept associated with muses, a metaphorical way to wonder images. As Campbell explains in his work The Power of Myth, “... metaphor is an image that suggests another”(59).  We also have to consider the importance of archetypal criticism. In this attempt, Northrop Frye is suggested as an important reference in the study of archetypes, but he admits it is hard to get a clear picture of the myth of music as a whole. Although, this concept of myth is personal, it may contribute to such a difficult mission to define it. [Cunha 2002] “Myth is the way one can face truth, imposed or acquired, as far as there’s a belief, no matter the variety of interpretations and associations.” In accordance with Rowell, the authors have an agreement that “the single common denominator appears to be our need to explain that which cannot be immediately understood on the basis of everyday experience”(59).

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             The same author also explains, they’re not part of the conscious life, and “sometimes are associated with certain cyclical rhythms of the times and seasons and the spatial structure of the orderly cosmos, and seem -- according to Lévis Strauss -- to perform the same function for most societies, primitive or sophisticated”(59). Campbell explains in his work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, that the effect of successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world and the miracle of this circulation of food substance, dynamically as a streaming of energy, or spiritually as a manifestation of grace (40). Then, the conclusion that  [Rowell 61] “reality imitates myths.” This circulation of energies should also include music, which enlightens such manifestations of grace, as far as there are evidences enough about the fact it has followed the development of societies.

          [Rowell 60] “According to Frye, a cosmic setting is essential to the operation of myth, bringing the divine, human, animal, vegetable, mineral, and sometimes the demonic worlds into alignment by means of some symbol of verticality, called by Frye a “point of epiphany”(A moment of insight, discovery or revelation by which a character’s life is greatly altered (Gioia G11).), also understood because the four musical scale forms the vertical at the point of epiphany, connecting the four material elements (earth, water, air, fire) with the pagan heaven of Apollo and the three Graces, shown in a dance with arms linked (See the illustration, Cunha 01), and his spirit descends into all of the Muses(61)."The original number of muses and their names varies in earlier times as their evolution blossomed in Greek mythology. At first, three muses were worshipped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Melete ("meditation"), Mneme ("memory"), and Aoede ("song").

       

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            Another three were worshipped at Delphi and their names represented the names of the strings of a lyre: Nete, Mese, and Hypate. Several other versions were worshipped until the Greeks finally established the nine muses in mythology as: Calliope , Clio , Erato , Euterpe , Melpomene , Polyhymnia , Terpsichore,  Thalia, , and Urania. The Muses had several epithets which usually referred to places where they had settled.” 01He also sites two musical examples: “Orpheus (he has swayed wild beasts with this art, but to have moved rocks and forests with the modulation of his song... (62)) has descent into the underworld to revive Eurydice and, from Polynesian mythology, the vine by which Hiku climbs down into the undersea world to rescue his wife, Hawelu”(60).

          A relevant point is the fact that “the central issues of the mythos of music were already conventionalized by the beginning of the Christian era, crystallizing around the legend of Orpheus, which remains the single most explicit theme. Virgil mentions Orpheus in the fourth book of his Georgics. But there are more references to Orpheus’ rebirth like the one in Kathi Meyer-Baer who splited his figure in early Christian iconography. Clement of Alexandria also interprets Christ as a new Orpheus in a strikingly beautiful theology that has been conspicuously ignored by the Church in Rome (63). Dionysus is also an important myth (He plays aulos) (80). He was reported in a passage about Midas, “where Pan and Apollo compete, being judged by Tmolus.” 03 But Apollo was also adopted and included in the list of roman gods, because there were relations with Delphi. This god was known as the god of cure, but he became the god of oracles and prophecy, in accordance with Virgil (Harvey 45).

 

 

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1. There are references in musical iconography, like Pythagoras   (playing bells to the sound of hammers), David (with his harp) and Krishna (flute)”(64). Good references for the costumes in Greece concerning instruments can be observed in the vases which are now in the British Museum, and this artistic manifestations also provide rich documentation (Harvey 351).

           After 1700, there was a decline set in, considering the use of myths, because of the ascendant tendency of interpretation based on cosmology and teleology (62). Rowell concludes that “the mythos of music, in a word, went underground and has rarely since emerged in explicit narrative or in other than piece-meal references”(62). “Critics writing from the social perspective in many significant ways mirrors its society and therefore the literary work is a historical document, a lifeless fossil that needs to be vitalized by illuminating that produced it”(Smith 06).

            In this attempt, Guido of Arezzo is an example of a celebrated preserver of the mythos of music because he compiled music repertoires (St. Gregory), during the Middle Age. Saints like St, John, and Saint Cecilia are also invoked by writers like Chaucer, and John Dryden. Names like Niccolò Paganini and Franz Liszt are also mentioned because they are related with the myth of Orpheus to the nineteenth-century musical world (The energy was said to come from the devil). Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus is the most compelling portrait of the demonic in music. Authors, like Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, are also included in the gallery of those who revived myths and music, during middle ages and Renaissance up today. The effect that music produces on people has been considered positive, however, music has associations with sexuality, death, resurrection, powerful force, harmony, but if divine it is also demonic. “Orpheus and Apollo were linked with the curing of disease, oracular prophecy, and purifying ritual-three different ways of focusing the healing forces of nature upon the body and the mind (70).

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In this attempt, music should have three benefits. “First: regulation, the restoring of the soul and / or body to a state of equilibrium... Second: the creation of a sensation of pleasure through movement, and the third is the inducing of an ecstatic experience (catharsis) which purges the soul of emotional conflict expelling evil spirits”(70). And music is described as a specific language that can communicate directly from performer to listener: it penetrates the body in the form of air, pressure, meaning, and soul (71). Another interesting point to incorporate the body of this essay, is transcience. As Rowell explains, the most striking paradox in the myth is that this incredibly powerful force is also infinitely perishable, and forever in danger of being lost (73).

“Concepts about harmony are at once the most abstract and the most grandiose of all musical metaphors”(77).

          The association with the myths and the instruments they play, is very interesting because some of them can be prototypes of later string instruments, symbolizing the principles of Apollo – harmony, formal clarity, reason, moderation, and objectivity. An example of this progress is the “ch’in”, the most respected of Chinese instruments, considered a symbol of harmony. Even bells have been cited in so many literary works, besides flute (it was invented by Mercury) 02, which is the most symbolic of all musical instruments (81).  Percussion symbolism appears in such an assortment of shapes, sizes, materials, and locations that generalization becomes impossible. And the last instrument mentioned by Rowell is the organ, which is another symbol of world harmony, and this is an Elizabethan concept, mentioned even by John Donne in his poetry (82).

 

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For the Greeks, music was understood to several cultural, artistic and intellectual manifestations incorporating a new sense to myths and music. As it’s mentioned in the book “The Republic”: “Physical exercise for the body and music for the soul”(Plato, 136). This statement is an example of the importance of myths and music for educational aims, in such a superior resource level, contributing with didactics. The revolution about this subject is already done. The new century is a promise of sensational productions and resources (especially because of the computers), so that we can enjoy the greatest of life, with music, heroes, and myths, of course! This is our history!

And this is not a privilege of those that can invest on trips, and can be musically educated. This treasure is avaluable with the advent of Internet nowadays. The negative aspect of history is the emergency of negative energies. We also have victims and anti-heroes in the adventure of life. Is there music for them? The sound of a gun? Or a bomb? We already know the sounds of death and misery.  The answers for so many secrets of ancient civilizations and their uses do not remain in secret anymore. Maybe because myths and music could survive. No matter for how long, it has been preserved for us, for such an extraordinary amount of investments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, New York:

       Modern Language Association, USA, 1988.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a thousand faces. Library of the Congress, USA, 1973. 

Dicionário de Mitologia Greco Romana. Abril Cultural, 1976, Brasil.

Campbell, Joseph. O Poder do Mito. Editora Palas, São Paulo, Brasil, 1990.

Gioia, Dana. Literature. Longman, USA, 2002.

Harvey, Paul, Dicionário Oxford de Literatura Clássica. Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro,

       Brasil, 1987.

National Geographic. The Eternal Etruscans. June 1988.

Philip Neil. The illustrated book of myths: tiles and legends of the world, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 

Rowell, Lewis. Thinking about Music, The University of Massachusetts Press, USA, 1983.

Smith, Lyle E.  Archetypal Criticism: Theory and Practice, Carson, CSUDH, USA, 1997.

 Seyffert Oskar. Enciclopédia Clássica. Ateneo Editorial, Buenos Aires, 1947.  

 

 Appendix

• List of some  myths associated with music and its mythical powers.

 

1.      Apollo

Son of Jupiter was born in Deos. He was exiled in Olympus, refuges in the reign of Admetus. He had a long journey in the Earth till his father gave him the mission to spread light throughout the world.   He drove the car of the sun and conquests eternal youth. He’s the god of music, arts, medicine, and poetry.

2.      Calliope

Calliope (Calliopeia), the "Fair Voiced" and the eldest Muse, is the muse of epic poetry and is seen holding a writing tablet in hand, sometimes seen with a roll of paper or a book, and crowned in gold. Calliope is known for taking a fancy to Achilles and taught him how to cheer his friends by singing at banquets. She also was called by Zeus to mediate the quarrel between Aphrodite and Persephone over possession of Adonis. She settled the dispute by giving them equal time, providing Adonis some sorely needed free time to himself. By Apollo, she bore Linus, who was slain by Hercules, and Orpheus.

3.      Clio  

  

4.      Dionysus

Dionysos is an atypical Greek deity. While the Olympian gods are bright beings of sunlight, Dionysos is a creature of mystery, his very essence an enigma. His realm is shadowy, and his followers flirt with madness, drunkenness, and death. He is the patron deity of the Maenads (or Bacchantes), those wild women who roamed the lofty peaks shouting "evoi, evoi" and were said to tear living animals apart in their trance of divine possession. He is the god who brings wine, but also an intoxication that merges the drinker with the deity. And, perhaps most significantly, his connection with a certain type of cult activity, known as a "mystery", separates him from his fellow Olympians (with the exception of the goddess Demeter, who inspired her own mystery cult).  

5.      Erato

 

 Erato the "Lovely" is the muse of love poetry and mimicry, and is seen with a lyre and sometimes wears a crown of roses.

6.  Euterpe

Euterpe the "Giver of Pleasure" is the muse of music and is represented with a flute. It has been said she is the inventor of the double flute. By the river Strymon, she bore Rhesus who was slain at Troy. 

7. Hebe

She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. She is the goddess of youth. She, along with Ganymede are the cupbearers to the gods. Hebe is Heracles wife. 

 

 8. Hercules

 

The most popular of Greek heroes, Hercules (sometimes called "Herakles") was celebrated in stories, sculptures, paintings, and even in the geography of the ancient world. 

 9. Krishna

Krishna foi um Mensageiro de Deus que viveu na Índia antiga há mais ou menos 5.000 anos. Sua Mensagem foi a Mensagem do amor. Ele nasceu numa prisão. Isso foi um sinal para ficarmos sabendo que todos nascemos na prisão do "eu", a prisão deste mundo.  

10.   Mercury

Mercury in Roman Mythology. Hermes – Greek. According to Hesiod] "Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia. He presided over commerce, wrestling, and other gymnastic exercises, even over thieving, and everything, in short, which required skill and dexterity. He was the messenger of Zeus, and wore a winged cap and winged shoes. He bore in his hand a rod entwined with two serpents, called the caduceus. Hermes is said to have invented the lyre. He found, one day, a tortoise, of which he took the shell, made holes in the opposite edges of it, and drew cords of linen through them, and the instrument was complete. The cords were nine, in honor of the nine Muses. Hermes gave the lyre to Apollo, and received from him in exchange the caduceus."

11.  Melpomene

 

12.  Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary singer and musician in Greek mythology. Indeed, many stories about Orpheus focus on his ability to enchant audiences with a song. From his exploits with the Argonauts, to his most memorable myth - that of rescuing his wife Eurydice from the Underworld - Orpheus dazzled listeners with his mellifluous voice in tale after tale. To learn more about this master musician, read on.

According to some sources, Orpheus was the son of the god Apollo and the Muse Calliope. These parents - a god of music and the Muse of epic poetry - help to explain the origin of Orpheus' extraordinary musical gift. And the power of this god-like gift for song was undeniable. The ancient poets Aeschylus and Euripides both tell of how Orpheus used his talents to charm wild animals, trees, and rocks.  

 

13.  Pan

Pan is the son of Hermes. He is the god of goatherds and shepherds. He is mostly human in appearance but, with goat horns and goat feet. He is an excellent musician and plays the pipes. He is merry and playful frequently seen dancing with woodland nymphs. He is at home in any wild place but, is favorite is Arcady, where he was born. He is always in pursuit of one of the nymphs but, always rejected because he is ugly.  

 

14.  Pythagoras

Pythagoras (fl. 530 BCE) must have been one of the world's greatest men, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development. It is also hard to say how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trustworthy; for a mass of legend gathered around his name at an early date. Sometimes he is represented as a man of science, and sometimes as a preacher of mystic doctrines, and we might be tempted to regard one or other of those characters as alone historical. The truth is that there is no need to reject either of the traditional views. The union of mathematical genius and mysticism is common enough. Originally from Samos, Pythagoras founded at Kroton (in southern Italy) a society which was at once a religious community and a scientific school. Such a body was bound to excite jealousy and mistrust, and we hear of many struggles. Pythagoras himself had to flee from Kroton to Metapontion, where he died.  

 

 

 

15.  Polyhymnia

Polyhymnia (Polymnia), "She of Many Hymns," is the muse of Sacred Poetry and is seen with a pensive look upon her face. She brings distinction to writers whose works have won them immortal fame. She has also been called the Muse of geometry, mime, meditation and agriculture. Polyhymnia is often veiled.

 

 

16.  St. Cecilia

St. Cecilia
d.
Feastday November 22
In the fourth century appeared a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian, written, like those of Chrysanthus and Daria, Julian and Basilissa, in glorification of the virginal life, and with the purpose of taking the place of the sensual romances of Daphnis and Chloe, Chereas and Callirhoe, and so on.

 

17.  Terpsichore

 

 

 

18.  Thalia

Thalia (Thaleia) the "Flourishing" is the muse of comedy and of playful and idyllic poetry, and is seen with a comic mask. She is sometimes seen with a crown of ivy and a crook. By Apollo, Thalia had the Corybantes, priests who castrated themselves in identification with the goddess, Cybele. 

19.  Urania

Urania the "Heavenly" is the muse of astronomy and is represented by a staff pointed at a celestial globe. She foretells the future by the position of the stars. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terpsichore the "Whirler" is the muse of dancing and is often seen dancing with her lyre and a plectrum, an instrument used for plucking stringed instruments. By the river god Achelous, she bore the Sirens.

Melpomene the "Songstress" is the muse of tragedy in spite of her joyous singing and is represented by the tragic mask. She is sometimes seen with garland, a club and a sword. She is often seen wearing cothurnes, boots traditionally worn by tragic actors, and a crown of cypress.

Clio the "Proclaimer" is the muse of history and is often seen sitting with a scroll and accompanied by a chest of books. She has been credited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet into Greece. Clio had teased Aphrodite's love of Adonis, and in consequence of her wrath, Clio fell in love with Pierius, the son of Magnes and the king of Macedonia. By Pierus, she bore Hyacinth.

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