Ion Chius fr. 5

Ἑνδεκάχορδε λύρα, δεκαβάμονα τάξιν ἔχοισα

εἰς συμφωνούσας ἁρμονίας τριόδους,

πρὶν μέν σ’ ἑπτάτονον ψάλλον διὰ τέσσαρα πάντες

῞Ελληνες σπανίαν μοῦσαν ἀειράμενοι

Elegiac couplets

Cleonides, Introduction to Harmonic Science: therefore those who define the seven-tone phorminx use the term tonos instead of phtongos («sound»), just like Terpander and Ion. For the one says: … [Terp. fr. 4 Gostoli], the other instead:

Eleven-string lyre, which has an arrangement in ten steps

for the three consonant ways of harmony,

once all Greeks played you by seven tones

for consonant intervals of fourths, raising modest music.

In the past, it has gone so far as to revoke the authorship of this elegy to Ion of Chios (WILAMOWITZ 1903, 75 n. 1), to lower its chronology, and to make it contemporary with the activity of Timotheus of Miletus. Immediate appears the comparison of the hapax ἑνδεκάχορδος (l. 1) with the related ἑνδεκακρούματος («of eleven sounds»), attested only in Timoth. fr. 719, 230 PMG, again about the sound of a stringed instrument Timotheus considers himself the inventor. Although a passage from Aristophanes’ Peace (ll. 835-7) and the related Schol. vet. Ar. Pac. 835-7a; 837b attest that Ion was already dead at the time of the performance of this play (421 BC), he is to be fully included in the panorama of those poets who were promoters of the poetic-musical innovations that affected the period at the turn of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Proof of this is, on the one hand, Ion fr. 745 PMG, a dithyrambic incipit with ‘ethereal’ and celestial themes, typical of the new style (cf. Ar. Pax 828-31; Av. 1382-90), and, on the other, his elegies with a metaphorical structure built on bold imagery and adjectives, in line with contemporary trends (see FONGONI 2014). The text is peppered with terms that would become proper to the technical lexicon of Greek music. The invocation to the eleven-stringed lyre was most likely placed at the composition’s opening. The first couplet is built on an effective metaphor that represents the first attestation of the image of ‘sound space’ operating in later musicological speculation (see ROCCONI 1999, 97-8), and refers to the adoption of the hendecachord, in fact backdating that innovation tended to be linked to Timotheus’ name. In l. 1 there is also another hapax, the adjective δεκαβάμων, which, outside of metaphor, seems to allude to the intervals, that is, the ten spaces located between the eleven strings. It is an attribute of τάξις, another term that will later acquire the proper musical meaning of «order of sounds within the musical scale» (ROCCONI 2003, 143). The metaphor is still operative in l. 2, where «the three consonant ways of harmony» seem to describe the structure of the hendecachord, formed by the two conjoined tetrachords already proper to the heptachord system to which a disjunct tetrachord is added (see POWER 2007, 181). The transition to the evocation of the music of the past is marked by the adverb πρίν (l. 3). It was related to a ἑπτάτονος system, here synonymous with ἑπτάχορδος («of seven strings») as it refers to the verb ψάλλω, which properly indicates the act of playing the instrument by plucking the strings with the fingers. It was performed διὰ τέσσαρα (l. 4), a variant of the more frequent διὰ τεσσάρων (scil. χορδῶν), referring to the tetrachord. An aesthetic notation also appears in l. 4, calling ancient music σπανία («meager», «modest»), establishing an implicit comparison, at least for us, with the new melodic possibilities offered by the hendecachord.

B. GENTILI – C. PRATO (edd.), Poetae Elegiaci. Testimonia et fragmenta. Pars altera, Monachii et Lipsiae 2002²; M.L. WEST (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Editio altera atque emendata, II, Oxonii 1998²; A. LEURINI (ed.), Ion Chius. Testimonia et fragmenta, Amsterdam 2000²; F. VALERIO (ed.), Ione di Chio. Frammenti elegiaci e melici, Bologna 2013.

G. COMOTTI, ‘L’endecacordo di Ione di Chio‘, QUCC 13, 1972, 54-61; A. FONGONI, ‘Influenze del ‘Nuovo Ditirambo’ sull’elegia di V-IV secolo a.C.: Ion fr. 1 Gent.-Pr. (= 89 Leurini)’, ARF 16, 2014, 121-131; F.R. LEVIN, ‘The Hendecachord of Ion of Chios’, TAPA 92, 1961, 295-307; T. POWER, ‘Ion of Chios and the Politics of Polychordia‘, in V.J. JENNINGS – A.K. KATSAROS (edd.), The World of Ion of Chios, Leiden-Boston 2007, 179-205; Th. REINACH, ‘Un fragment d’Ion de Chios’, REG 14, 1901, 8-19; E. ROCCONI, ‘Terminologia dello ‘spazio sonoro’  negli Elementa Harmonica di Aristosseno di Taranto’, QUCC n.s. 61, 1999, 93-103; E. ROCCONI, Le parole delle Muse. La formazione del lessico tecnico musicale nella Grecia antica, Roma 2003; M. WESOLY, ‘«Lira dalle undici corde»: per l’interpretazione del fr. 5 G.-P. di Ione di Chio’, AIONFilol. 12, 1990, 89-98; M.L. WEST, ‘Analecta Musica’, ZPE 192, 1992, 23-28; U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORFF, ‘Lesefruechte’, Hermes 37, 1902, 302-314; U. VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORFF (ed.), Timotheos. Die Perser, Leipzig 1903.

Hendecachord, ‘New’ Music, heptachord

[Serena Napoleone]