I saw Bacchus pursued by ravening Mænads, saw Lamia and her ophidian flute, as Orpheus sorrowfully sped, searching his Eurydice. Neptune blew his wreathéd horn. The Tritons gambolled in the waves. Cybele changed her cymbals. And with his music Amphion summoned rocks to Thebes. Jepthah danced to her death before the Ark of the Covenant, praising the Lord God of Israel. Unabashed behind her leered the rhythmic Herodias, while were heard the praiseful songs of Deborah and Barak as St. Cæcilia smote the keyboard. With her timbrel Miriam sang hymns of triumph. Before the Persian Satrap on his purple litter Abyssinian girls, their little breasts carolling to the sky, alluringly swayed; the air was crowded by the crisp tinklings of tiny bells at wrist and ankles as the Kabaros drummed; and hard by in the brake brown nymphs moved in languorous rhythms, droning hoarse sacrificial chants. The colossus Memnon hymned, priests of Baal screamed as they lacerated themselves with knives, Druid priestesses crooned sybillic incantations. And over this pageant of Woman and Music the proud sun of old Egypt scattered splendid burning rays. From distant strands and hillsides came the noise of unholy instruments with names, sweet-sounding, and clashing. Nofres from the Nile, Ravanastrons of Ceylon, Javanese gongs, Chinese Pavilions, Tambourahs, Sackbuts, Shawms, Psalteries, Dulcimers, Salpinxes, Keras, Timbrels, Sistra, Crotala, double flutes, twenty-two stringed harps, Kerrenas, the Indian flute called Yo, and the quaint Yamato-Koto. Followed fast the Biwa, the Gekkin, and its cousin the Genkwan; the Ku, named after a horrid god; the Shunga and its cluttering strings, the Samasien, the Kokyu, the Vamato Fuye--which breathed moon-eyed melodies--the Hichi-Riki, and the Shaku-Hachi. The Sho was mouthed by slant-haired yellow boys, while the sharp roll of drums covered with goatskins never ceased. From this bedlam there occasionally emerged a splinter of tune like a plank thrown up by the sea. No melody could I discern, though I grasped its beginnings. Double flutes gave me the modes: Dorian, Phrygian, Æolian, Lydian, Ionian; after Sappho and her Mixo-Lydian mode I longed for a modern accord.