James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ταύτας -- λεῖπε. The style is intentionally weighty and formal, as befits a solemn pronouncement: cf. X 617 D, E. After ταύτας there is a slight pause: ‘Just these, two modes and none other.’ The insertion of τάς would impair the effect. besides suggesting that Socrates had in view two of the current modes, which, not being himself μουσικός, he professedly had not. It is Glauco's business to fit the cap (398 E, 399 A); Socrates only makes it. The indefinite αἵτινες (before φθόγγους) is therefore strictly appropriate in the mouth of Socrates, although it would not be in Glauco's. ἁρμονίας is rejected by Herwerden in both places (see cr. n.), but it is almost as indispensable here as it is wrong after ἀνδρείων, although Stallbaum rejects the word here and retains it there. The genitives δυστυχούντων etc. must depend on φθόγγους. For βίαιον, ἑκούσιον (‘one involuntary, one voluntary’), Ast suggests βιαίου, ἑκουσίου, Hartman βιαίων ἑκουσίων. A human being cannot however be called βίαιος because he is engaged ἐν βιαίῳ πράξει, although the mode which imitates his accents may be so described with propriety and even elegance: cf. (with Schneider) such expressions as φόνος ξυγγενής for the slaughter of kindred. The words δυστυχούντων—κάλλιστα simply define the meaning of βίαιον and ἑκούσιον (‘whatever musical modes they be that shall best imitate the accents of’ etc.): the relative is postponed in order to keep the essential marks of the ἁρμονίαι together, but the careful reader will note that Plato begins a chiasmus with δυστυχούντων, as if to separate the genitives from what precedes and prepare us to find their construction in the sequel. Had he written εὐτυχούντων, δυστυχούντων, ἀνδρείων, σωφρόνων the double chiasmus would have compelled us to connect the genitives with δύο ἁρμονίας.

οὐκ ἄλλας -- ἔλεγον. The Dorian to express ἀνδρεία, the Phrygian σωφροσύνη. These are the two contrasting virtues which Plato's μουσική endeavours to combine (410 E).

παναρμονίου. In Plato the noun παναρμόνιον occurs only here and in 404 D ᾠδῇ τῇ ἐν τῷ παναρμονίῳ καὶ ἐν πᾶσι ῥυθμοῖς πεποιημένη. In the latter passage it certainly does not denote a musical instrument of any kind. Here the word is sometimes understood of a particular and definite musical instrument, but a careful study of the context shews that it does not bear this meaning even here. Plato has decided to admit only two modes, the Dorian and the Phrygian. ‘Consequently,’ he continues, ‘we shall have no need in our songs and melodies of πολυχορδία or παναρμόνιον, and therefore (ἄρα) we shall dispense with τρίγωνοι, πηκτίδες etc., with all instruments, in short, which are πολύχορδα and πολυαρμόνια.’ The prohibition of certain musical instruments is an inference from the general principle that πολυχορδία and παναρμόνιον are unnecessary, so that παναρμόνιον cannot itself be a particular musical instrument. Probably, as Mr Archer-Hind has suggested to me, the παναρμόνιον was “not a mode or modes, but a style of composition, in which the ‘Tondichter’ passed freely from δωριστί to φρυγιστί and λυδιστί and as many others as he chose. The name may even have been given to well-known compositions in this style—cf. νόμος πολυκέφαλος—the fantasia with many subjects. The effect, I should think, may have been analogous to a series of bold and sudden modulations in modern music.” See also on αὐτὰ τὰ παναρμονία in 399 D.

τριγώνων -- πηκτίδων. These were foreign instruments of high pitch, and many strings. The τρίγωνον in particular was associated with loose and voluptuous melodies. For an exhaustive account of both see Susemihl and Hicks' Politics of Arist. vol. 1 pp. 632—636 or von Jan's de fidibus Graecorum pp. 29 ff., 33 ff.