A Popular History of the Art of Music: From the Earliest Times Until the PresentMathews, W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock)
History
A Popular History of the Art of Music: From the Earliest Times Until the Present
Mathews, W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock)
Music -- History and criticism
Take thy pleasure to-day;
Mind thee of joy and delight!
Soon life's pilgrimage ends,
And we pass to silence and night.
Patriarch, perfect and pure,
Neferhotep, blessed one! Thou
Didst finish thy course upon earth,
And art with the blessed ones now.
Men pass to the silent shore,
And their place shall know them no more.
They are as they never had been
Since the sun went forth upon high;
They sit on the banks of the stream
That floweth in stillness by.
Thy soul is among them; thou
Dost drink of the sacred tide,
Having the wish of thy heart,
At peace ever since thou hast died.
Give bread to the man who is poor,
And thy name shall be blest evermore.
All princely households appear to have had their regular staff of
musicians, at the head being the "Overest of Musicians," whose tombs
still furnish some of the most instructive information upon this part
of the ancient life. People of lower social grade had to be content
with the temporary services of the street musicians, such as those
represented in Fig. 6. They played and sang and danced for weddings
and festivities, and undertook the entire contract of mourning for the
dead, the measure being the production of a small vial full of tears,
under the immediate inspection of the relative of the deceased whose
grief might happen to need this official assistance.
For warlike purposes the Egyptians had a short trumpet of bronze, and
a long trumpet, not unlike a straight trombone. They had drums of many
kinds, but as none of these instruments have reference to the
development of the higher art of music, we do not delay to describe
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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