Then again, that the ancients did not through ignorance abstain from the third string in the spondaic style,
their use of it in play makes apparent. For had they not
known the use of it, they would never have struck it in
harmony with parhypate; but the elegancy and gravity that
attended the spondaic style by omitting the third string induced them to transfer the music to paranete. The same
reason may serve for nete; for this in play they struck in
concord to mese, but in discord to paranete, although in
song it did not seem to them proper to the slow spondaic
motion. And not only did they do this, but they did the
same with nete of the conjunct heptachords; for in play
they struck it in concord to mese and lichanos, and in discord
to paranete and parhypate;1 but in singing those touches
were no way allowable, as being ungrateful to the ear
and shaming the performer. As certain it is from the
Phrygians that Olympus and his followers were not ignorant of the third string; for they made use of it not only
in pulsation, but in their hymns to the Mother of the Gods
and several other Phrygian songs. Nor is it less apparent,
with regard to the ὑπάται, that they never abstained for
want of skill from that tetrachord in the Dorian mood;
indeed in other moods they knowingly made use of it, but
removed it from the Dorian mood to preserve its elegant
gravity.
1 See Westphal's interpretation of this difficult and probably corrupt passage, II. ,p.89. (G.)
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