Ad99998 04 064a/eng
Musik-Instrumente der Alten : Lyren und Cithern
Beschreibungstext eng
Antiquities XI. Vol. IV. No. 62., MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE ANCIENTS. Lyres and Guitars or Lutes., The present picture shews us the Lyres and Guitars or Lutes of the Ancient Greeks and Romans in différent îorms. The Lyre is perhap. s the most ancient Infirument known. The tune of its invention is beyond the reach of hiftory., The shell of a turtle or the scull of an animal into which a pair of ox-or goat-horns or a couple of tree-branches were stuck, a pièce of wood fastened accross thèse horns and stringed with gut or wire-ftrings, were perhaps the firlt ingrédients of the Lyre, which afterwards by art has been so much embelliihed with gilding and other decorations., Thus the différent forais of the Lyre represented in Fig. 1. 3. 4. 5. J. 8» and 10 took their rife., In later times the Guitar, represented in Fig. 2, 6, and 9, proceeded from the Lyre and soon became a more finished instrument; it was provided with pegs and a belly and commonly stringed with seven harmonious strings. Its tone therefore was stronger and more melodious than that of the Lyre., The Greeks and Romans ufed the Lyre with the odes art their facrifices, banquets and feafts, or whenever one of their poets and bards fung a hymn or fong in publick, and hence that part of poetry which contains airs, or single stanzas, is still callcld Lyrick Poetry.
