Stringed instruments are a more elaborate invention, and may have been suggested by the vibration of a bow-string when it is twanged. The bow is common to all modern savages, and was also found among extinct peoples and those which are now civilized, as well as in prehistoric times. The Sanscrit word for a stringed instrument, _tata_ or _vitata_, is derived from the root _tan_, to stretch. Pictet observes that one name for a lute is _rudri_, from _rud_, to lament, that is, a plaintive instrument; in Persian we have _rod_ for song, music, or a stringed instrument. The etymology of _arcus_ is the same; the root _arc_ not only means to hurl, but to sing or resound. Homer and Rannjana often allude to the sonorousness of the bow and its string. Homer says in speaking of the bow of Pandarus, "_stridit funis, et nervus valde sonuit_." And when Ulysses drew his avenging bow, the cord emitted a clear sound like the voice of a swallow. _Locaka_, another name for a cord, also means one who speaks, from _loc_, _loqui_; and the Persian _rud_, _roda_, a bow-string, also means a song. In the Veda the root _arc'_ is used in speaking of the roaring wind, or of a long echoing sound. Again _tavara_, a bow-string, is from _tan_, to stretch, to sound. The Greek [Greek: tonos] must be referred to the same root, and signifies, a bow-string, a sound, an accent, a tone. Benfey traces the Greek [Greek: lura], in which this root is wanting, through [Greek: ludra], or _rudra_. Kuhn confirms this transformation by the analogy between the Vedic god _Rudra_ and the Greek Apollo, both of whom are armed with a bow. Rudra, like Apollo, is a great physician; the former is called _kapardin_, from his mode of wearing his long hair, and _vanku_ from his tortuous gait as the god of storms; to the latter the epithets of [Greek: achers echomes] and [Greek: loxias] are applied; the mouse was sacred to Rudro, and Apollo had the surname of Smintheus, from the mouse, [Greek: Smintha], which was his symbol. These wind and stringed instruments were not, in their primitive forms, at once used as an accompaniment to song. Before such use was possible, there must have been considerable progress in the specification of language, and special songs must have been disintegrated from common speech, which was at first an inchoate song. Possibly some rude instruments were invented for amusement or some other purpose before this specification had taken place. At any rate the use of various instruments for accompaniment was preceded by gesticulation, or the spontaneous striking of some object which coincided with animated speech, or which accompanied it in sonorous cadences.