Apollo and music
• By bringing consonance and agreement
among the sounds, the harmony of
music is created, just like the balance
between the fast and the slow
appropriately combined produces its
rhythm.
Medicine and music
• All these agreements, in both medicine
and music, are ruled by Apollo, who has
been called Musegetes (Leader of the
Muses) account of his musical and
inspiring gift.
Hermes and the lyre
• In the process of recovering the cattle that the newborn
Hermes had stolen from him, Apollo discovered the lyre
that Hermes had invented and was willing to give
Hermes the cattle in exchange for the musical
instrument.
• So they did, and Hermes went pasturing the cattle and
he now made a shepherd's pipe for himself; and this
pipe was so amazing that Apollo desired it too.
• So Apollo offered to give Hermes the golden wand
which he used while he herded cattle, but in the bargain
Hermes received from Apollo, besides the wand, the art
of divining by pebbles.
From 3 to 7
• But although Hermes invented the threestringed lyre, it was Apollo, some say,
who added four more strings to it.
Pythian Games
• What delineated the games at Delphi was
that it also included the competition of the
courting of the Muses.
• Emphasis on poetry, song, dance, and
instrumentals elevated the championship
contests to the higher arts.
Musical contest at Delphi
• Musical and poetical contests were held
at Delphi among singers and
composers, and prizes were offered to
the best hymn to the god.
• A crown of laurel was the prize for a
Pythian victory on account of the love of
Apollo for Daphne who turned into a laurel
tree, a branch of which the god made into
a wreath for himself.
Winners
• The first contest was won by
Chrysothemis, son of Carmanor, the
man who purified Apollo after the latter
had killed the dragon Python, and the
same who received Apollo in his house.
• The third contest was won by Thamyris, son of
Philammon and the Nymph Argiope. This
Thamyris is the same that loved Hyacinthus,
being the first man to fall in love with males.
• He is also known for having engaged in a
musical contest with the Muses and when he
lost they took both his eyes and his
minstrelsy in accordance with what they had
agreed before the contest.
• In addition, he is still being punished in the
Underworld for having opposed these
goddesses.
• Also Eleuther, son of Apollo and
Aethusa (daughter of Poseidon and the
Pleiad Alcyone), is said to have won a
Pythian victory for his loud and sweet
voice.
• This musical contest, the youngs performed
the peana, a song accompained by the lyre and
a dance in honour to Apollo. The performance
and the competition belongs to the spere of the
maturation rites.
• For this reason the inventor of the lyre is
Hermes, a god connected with the rites of
passages and the boundary-crossing rites.
Dionysus and Apollo at Delphi
• Apollo is traditionally opposed to Dionysus by the scholars. But
Apollo seems not in conflict with the brother. But they have also a
lot of thinks in common.
• For both music, divine mania and prophecy are very important: they
rule different aspects of the same things.
• Plutarc, that was initiated at the Delphic Mysteries, wrote that
"Delphi belong to Dionysus not less than to Apollo”.
• Some sources tells us that first the also the oracle was of
Dionysos.
• When the Thiads (Bacchantes of Dephi) went to the Mountains to
"wake and call the god”, the priests of Apollo help them singing
the peana.
• And in wintertime, the period sacred to Dionysus, the people sung
the dythiramb, the sacred songs of Dionysus.