ON MUSIC
(De musica)
Translated
by
ROBERT CATESBY TALIAFERRO, Ph.D.
Portsmouth Priory School
Rhode Island
INTRODUCTION
IHESE six BOOKS On Music were begun, before Augustine's
baptism, at Milan in 387 A.D., and finished
T|^ later in Africa, after the De magistro in 39 1.
1
While
they are, therefore, among the earliest work of his career, they
are not the earliest, but follow the four philosophical dialogues
of Cassiciacum. They also straddle the period of the
De immortaliate animae, the De quantitate animae and the
De libero arbitrio. They are, however, only one of a series of
treatises on the liberal arts which Augustine started, but never
finished. He speaks of finishing one on Grammar and of starting
one each on Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic,
and Philosophy.
2
Treatises on Grammar, Rhetoric, and Dialectic
which have come down to us under his name were not
accepted as genuine by the Benedictines. Recent scholars accept
the last one as being a draft of the original done probably
by Augustine himself, and are doubtful about the first two.
3
But if these six books On Music are only a fragment of a
projected cycle on the liberal arts, they are, also, only a
fragment of a larger treatise on music. They are, in the words
of Augustine, 'only such as pertain to that part called
Rhythm.'
4
Much later, in writing to Bishop Memorius, he
speaks of having written six books on Rhythm and of having
1 See Relractaliones, 1.6,11, Migne 33, and Portalie, 'Augustin/ in DTC.
3 sIe
r
Marroii, St Augustin et la fin de la culture antique 576-578, for
a discussion of the aiithenticit) of De dialectica.
4 Rehact. 1.6.
153
154 SAINT AUGUSTINE
intended to write six more on Melody (de melo)* As we
shall see, this intended part would have been a treatise on
Harmonics.
It is necessary, for the understanding of these books on
Rhythm, to know what the ancients meant by music, by
rhythm, and by melody. It is true St. Augustine tells us that,
of these six books, the first five on rhythm and meter are
trivial and childish,
6
but this is a rhetorical statement to introduce
to us to the more serious business of the sixth book on
the hierarchy of numbers as constitutive of the soul, the
universe, and the angels. In the same letter to Memorius,
written about 408 or 409 A.D., he also distinguishes the first
five books from the sixth, considering them much inferior,
and sends him only the sixth. This has given Westphal the
opportunity to indulge in irony, to agree with Augustine,
and so to dismiss his treatment of rhythm and meter as something
strange and foreign to the correct ancient theories.
7
But
Westphal, in his passion for everything Aristoxenian, did not
always have good judgment; in another case, that of Aristides
Quintilianus, he sacrificed a really excellent treatise on music,
the only complete one to come down to us from the ancient
world, as only a source of fragments of Aristoxenus. Schafke,
in a recent book,
8
has tried to bring Aristides' work back to
its proper place.
It is usually dangerous procedure to ignore the technical
details a thinker uses to test or suggest his general and more
seductive theories. It is too easy to overlook the first five
books and to concentrate on the sixth. It would seem neces-
5 Epist. 101 (Paris 1856).
6 On Music, 6.1.
7 R. Westphal, Fragmcnte und Lehrs&tie der Griechischen Rhythmiker
(Leipzig 1861) 19.
8 R. Schafke, Arisieides Quintilianus von dcr Musik (Berlin -Schdneberg
1937) .
ON MUSIC 155
sary, rather, to place these five technical books in the general
picture of the theory of ancient music, and to try and read
from the Augustinian variations on the ancient themes the
intentions of his mind and doctrine.
As we have said, the only complete treatise on music to
come down to us from the Greeks or Romans is that of
Aristides Quintilianus, a Greek of probably the first part of
the second century A.D.
9
There are a good many treatises on
harmonics, those written from the Pythagorean point of view
such as the Harmonics of Nicomachus, of Ptolemy, and of
Theo of Smyrna, and the Harmonics of Aristoxenus from a
less directly mathematical viewpoint. The treatise of Aristides
combines the two approaches.
The Pythagorean harmonics starts from the fact that two
strings of the same material and thickness, stretched by the
same weight, form the two fundamental consonances (for
the Greeks the only two )
when they are in length in the ratio
of 2 to 3 (the perfect fifth) and 3 to 4 (the perfect fourth).
Thus, in moving from the lower to the higher pitch of the
perfect fourth, the ear rests and is satisfied, and in passing
from the higher to the lower pitch of the perfect fifth it also
rests. For ancient music, no other ratios or intervals provided
such a rest. Further, if from the first pitch to the second is
a perfect fourth, and from the second to the third is a perfect
fifth, then from the first pitch to the third is an interval called
the octave, the ratio of the string lengths being 4/3 3/2
=
2/1. The characteristic of this interval is that the higher pitch
seems to repeat the lower pitch and vice-versa: the higher
pitch can replace the lower one (and vice-versa) in its relations
with other pitches without changing the essential character
of the relation. The octave, therefore, furnishes a cyclic
9 See Schfifkc, op. cit.f for full discussion of possible dates.
156 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pattern for the musical relations.
10
From the Pythagorean
point of view the problem of musical intervals is the problem
of whole-number ratios, the smallest possible numbers furnishing
the octave and the next smallest the consonances.
The further musical problem was to fill in this octave,
made up of the fourth and fifth, with other pitches to make a
systema or scale. The interval between the fourth and fifth,
called the tone, was taken as fundamental here, that is, in
ratios of string-lengths 3/2 divided by 2/3
=
9/8. The diatonic
scale is built by taking two pitches at intervals of a tone
from the lower pitch of the fourth. What is left over of the
fourth is called a leimma: 4/3 divided by (9/8 9/8)
=
256/243, which is approximately a semitone. That is, two
such leimmas add up nearly to a tone (256/243)- nearly
equals 9/8. This is the diatonic scheme of the fundamental
tetrachord. The scale can be completed by adding a tone and
then another such tetrachord to fill out the octave: (9/8)
2 *
256/243 (9/8)
3
256/243
- 4/3 3/2-2/1. This is
one mathematical and one musical solution of the problem
of the octave.
11
There were other solutions. It is also possible
to combine tetrachords in other ways: either by taking the
upper pitch of the fourth as the beginning of a new tetrachord
and so continuing, or by constantly jumping a tone before
beginning the new tetrachord.
12
But neither of these last two
ways solves the problem of the octave as the first one which
alternates the two.
10 For the reader interested in a more extended account of such rcl.it ion*
theie is the introduction to Lord Raleigh's The Theory of Sound.
11 See Plato, Timaeus 35-36, for a particularly fine derivation of this
solution. See also Theo of Smyrna, for a second-hand account.
12 Anstoxenus, Harmonica I 17, HI 59. See also introduction In Mutian
to his edition, pp. 10-17.
ON MUSIC 157
Such principles could not be confined by Greek consonances.
They could extend themselves to all kinds of relations,
indeed to any relation. And although the purely Greek
restrictions could be given a mathematical rationale in contradiction
to what Aristoxenus and his modern supporters
have had to say, since the supply of mathematical relations
is seemingly inexhaustible and all plastic, yet Aristoxenus,
a pupil of Aristotle, preferred to build a system which, if
not totally unmathematical, preserving as it does a necessarily
ordinal character, is
certainly non-arithmetical. The
science [of harmonics]' says Aristoxenus, 'is reduced to two
things: hearing and reason. For by hearing we distinguish
the magnitudes of the intervals, and by reason we consider
the potentialities of the notes.'
13
By potentialities of the notes,
he means their functions within a system of notes, a system
which in turn obeys the fundamental restriction that the only
consonances are the fourth, fifth, and octave, perceived as
such by the ear. The tone is the interval which is the difference
between the fourth and fifth as perceived by the ear.
The fourth is the invariant interval to be filled in by two
movable notes and only two. The movable notes can take
their places continuously within certain limits, and these
limits are further subdivided so that the positions of these
movable notes fall into three classes which define the three
kinds of scales: the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic.
It is not necessary for our purpose to discuss these in detail.
The tetrachords so formed can be added to each other (but
only those of the same kind) by disjunction, by conjunction,
or by a combination of both, as we have already explained
above, that is, with a tone between, no tone between, or first
one way, then the other.
IS Ibid. II 33.4-9.
158 SAINT AUGUSTINE
The upper note of the lower tetrachord, that is, the upper
limit of the lower fourth, properly filled in with the two
movable notes, is called the mese and is the functional center
of the system of two tetrachords; the potentiality of every
note in the scale is with reference to this mese.
14
True, one
or more of the lower notes of the lower tetrachord might be
moved up an octave, or down an octave, and the pitch of the
mese relative to the other notes would be different. With the
survival of only the one method of combining teterachords,
by alternate conjunction and disjunction, the different relations
of pitch of the mese gave rise to the tropoi or modes of
the one series of notes.
15
In these different modes the mese is
no longer the center by position, but it remains the musical
center.
Such, then, is the non-arithmetical Greek theory of harmonics
which confines itself to principles laid down within a
certain idiom of notes, abstractions from a certain ordered
experience, but not constitutive of that experience as in
the Pythagorean theory.
No strictly Pythagorean treatise on rhythm exists, and of the
Rhythmics of Aristoxenus we have only the fragments piously
and passionately collected by Westphal, first in Fragmente
und Lehrsdtze der griechischen Rhythmiker and last in Aristoxenos
von Tarent, Melik und Rhythmik des Classischen
Hettenenthums. A fragment of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri is also
attributed to him. But the essential theses are repeated in
Aristides Quintilianus. In both of these writers a clear distinc-
14 Ibid. \\ 33.32-3410; Ausiolle. Ptobleins XIX 20: also I'tolctm,
Harmonica II 7, quoted 1>\ Mauan in Ins Iniiocliiuion.
15 This, at least, is the inteipietation of Macian, which tcilainh his
the facts and the texts hettei than the opposing thcoiics of \\csiphal
and Monio; see Iniiod. to Haimoniia 21-10 See the same \\oik also
foi an account of the extension of the octa\e and the consequent
emergence of the modes as tonoi 01 kevs.
ON MUSIC 159
tion is made between rhythmics and metrics, a distinction
not so clear in Augustine and other Latin writers.
For Aristides, music is divided into theoretical and practical.
The theoretical, in turn, is divided into the technical
and natural, that which has to do with the art and that
which has to do with the nature. The technical is divided into
three parts: harmonics, rhythmics, and metrics. The natural
is divided into two parts: the arithmetical and the physical.
On the other hand, the practical is divided into the applied
and the expressive. The first of these is divided into melopoeia,
rhythmopoeia, and poetry, and the second into instrumental,
vocal, and declamatory.
16
And so the first book of Aristides' treatise is devoted to the
discussion of the technical part of theoretic music :
harmony,
rhythm, and meter; the second book to ends served by the
practical part of music: education and the State; the third
book to the discussion of the natural part of theoretic music :
whole-number ratios and cosmology. Thus, Aristides quite
rightly assigns the Aristoxenian theory its place within the
science of music as a technique, an art depending for its real
validity on the Pythagorean theory. And he might well have
added that it is only one of a possible many, a restricted set
of rules, a particular idiom compared to the mathesis universalis
of the Pythagorean theory.
Let us, then, focus our attention on rhythm. 'Rhythm/
say Aristides, 'is a scale of times collated in a certain order,
and their affects we call arsis and thesis, strong and weak.nT
'Rhythm is determined in speech by syllables, in melody by
the ratios of arsis and thesis, in movements by the figures and
their limits And there are five parts of the art of rhythm*
16 Aristides, op. cit., ed. Meibom, I 7,8.
17 Ibid. I,
p.
49. We give only an outline here. Detailed discussion will
be found in our notes to the treatise.
160 SAINT AUGUSTINE
For we divide it thus: (
1
)
in primary times, (2) on kinds of
feet, (3) on rhythmical tempo, (4) on modulations, (5) on
rhythmopoeia.'
18
A rhythmical foot is a part of the whole
rhythm by means of which we comprehend the whole. And
it has two parts, arsis and thesis.
19
And there are three kinds
of rhythmical foot according to the ratio of arsis and thesis:
the one-one ratio, the one-two, the two-three, and sometimes
a fourth, the three-four. But the inner structure of these
ratios is conditioned by the order of long and short syllables
and, therefore, by the thing rhythmed.
'Metres,' says Aristides, 'are constructed of feet. Then meter
is a scale of feet collated of unlike syllables, commensurable in
length.'
20
Some say meter is to rhythm as part to whole; some,
as matter to form; some say that the essence of rhythm is in
arsis and thesis, and the essence of meter is in syllables and
their unlikeness. And for this reason rhythm is constructed
of like syllables and antithetical feet, but meter never of syllables
all alike and rarely of antithetical feet.
21
Therefore,
rhythm is the repeated sameness of ratio of arsis and thesis,
which informs the syllables of speech, giving a variety of
meters according to the variety of syllable structures and the
variety of strong and weak.
If we compare Augustine's treatise with the traditional
ones and, in particular, with that of Aristides, it does not
appear as strange as some would make it out. The first five
books deal with rhythm and meter. The last book deals with
music in its cosmological and theological aspects, correspond-
18 Ibid. I, p. 32.
19 Ibid. I, p. 34.
20 IbtJ. I, p. 49.
21 Ibid. I, pp. 49-50. See note to Book 2 p. 226, for discussion of meaning
of 'antithetical.' In am case, Anstides seems here to considci
ihuhmn as onh concerned with the ratio of arsis and thesis. Strong
and weak as affects of the collated time of rh>thm apparently belong
to meter rather than to rhvthm.
ON MUSIC 161
ing to the last book of Aristides and to the well known tradition
of the Timaeus. The six books which were never completed
would have dealt with harmony. All this is
perfectly obvious
and perfectly usual. It is, therefore, a grave mistake to accuse
Augustine, along with Plato, of being unfortunately ignorant
of musical sensibility and of the theory of it so highly developed
in the nineteenth century. It is obvious that, in the
case of both, the emphasis on music as a liberal art and
science is the result of their being so well aware of the dangers
of musical sensibility and of the consequent disorders arising
frorr the irresponsible independence of music as a fine art.
The mathematical theory of music has had a long and fruitful
career, taking in such names as Ptolemy and Kepler; it
has no apologies to make. The remarks of Laloy and Marrou
and others like them on this subject, therefore, are quite beside
the point.
If Augustine's treatise as a whole is well within the tradition,
so also are the details of his treatment of rhythm and meter.
The emphasis is decidedly on rhythm in the meaning of Aristides,
and meter in any important sense is almost wholly
ignored. For Augustine, there are two principles of rhythm
which cannot be violated : the rhythmical feet must be equal
with respect to the number of primary times, and the ratio of
arsis and thesis within the rhythmical foot must be kept constant.
The metrical foot, then, is entirely subservient to these
two rhythmical principles and no deviation seems to be allowed;
this subservience goes so far as to allow the complete
dissolution of the molossus into its primary times for the sake of
rhythm. There is no mention in Augustine of the rhythmical
modulation found in Aristides, and, indeed, to some commentators
trained in the tradition of certain Latin grammarians,
it has seemed that Augustine tortures one line of poetry
after another to fit them into the mold of his rhythmical
162 SAINT AUGUSTINE
principles. Every pleasing appearance must be explained by
them. And Augustine pushes his investigations much like a
physicist who must explain every phenomenon in the light
of his fundamental premises. The use of the musical rest is
one of his favorite devices in accomplishing this. But the
theory of the musical rest, without any application, appears in
Aristides' treatise, and there is evidence that the use was quite
in tradition, although in a tradition different from that of
the Latin grammarians such as Diomedes and Victorinus.
22
Yet the severity of Augustine's doctrine is remarkable, and,
as we suggest later in our notes, seems to be the result of a
deliberate attempt to restore a purely musical science of
rhythmics against the usages of a whole tribe of grammarians
and rhetoricians.
Given the Pythagorean themes of Augustine's dialectic in
Book VI, this is not a surprising attempt. If it is also remembered
that Augustine stands at the end of the classical
quantitative metric and at the beginning of the stress or
accentual metric, there may even be more point to it. In the
quantitative metric, the thing rhythmed is informed by the
rhythm through the pattern of primary times given by the
syllables; in the stress metric it is the stress that determines
the pattern primarily and the syllables only determine it secondarily.
Since the stress is associated with each word as a
whole, the stress metric gives more prominence to the word
as a unit than does the quantitative metric. In the confused
situation of metrics, the Augustinian theory, although it takes
as its base the quantitative syllable with many protests at its
mere conventionality, arrives at a pure musical rhythmics
of whole-number ratios which can well apply to any system
22 The justification for these general remarks will be found in the notes
to the treatise itself.
ON MUSIC 163
of metrics whatever. It stands above the metrical conflict of
the period, therefore, and is, as Augustine continually points
out, a purely musical discipline and not a grammatical one.
Questions of stress, of the relative position of arsis and thesis,
and even of syllabic quantity, are simply modes by which
rhythm is incarnated in the rhythmed; they are not of its
essence. And so Augustine gives the very innocuous definition
of meter as the measuring off of rhythms, but a definition
wholly traditional and mentioned by Aristides Quintilianus.
At first glance, we are tempted to consider the great concern
of Augustine with these details of rhythm and meter as something
of a tragedy. If we think of the comparable mathematical
concerns of Plato, those of Augustine seem trivial,
unworthy vehicles of the weighty dialectical truths they are
supposed to carry. We think of Augustine as the victim of a
period which had lost the profound mathematical insight of
the great Greek age and could offer little for those living in it
to reason on. There was not much a deep and sensitive soul
could avail itself of, to escape the all-pervading rhetoric. But
such a view is, perhaps, too simple, true in part though it
may be.
For anyone reading the treatise On Music and then Books
X and XI of the Confessions, the dovetailing of the themes
is striking. Augustine remains a rhetorician. But, from the
frivolous rhetorician that he was before his conversion, he
becomes the real rhetorician, he who wins the outer to the
inner man, the world to number, and the soul to its Redemption.
Again and again he returns to the example of the
syllable as a strange arbitrary quantum of time and of motion.
And, properly, the locus of this rhetorical problem is the
problem of motion and time. For, if time is an irreversible
succession of before and after, then there is no Redemption
possible; what has been, has been. And if mind and sense
164 SAINT AUGUSTINE
are to have a common point, it must be in memory and time,
where motion as pure passage is caught in its numerableness
and unchangingness, and number in its immobility is incarnate
in change.
The problem of motion and time is also the focus for the
problem of creation. Each moment of time, appearing ever
as something new from a relative non-being, is symbolic of
creation ex nihilo. If one is hypnotized as Aristotle by the
successiveness of time, then no creation ex nihilo stems possible.
But Plato sees not only this aspect, but the aspect of
'jump,' of the discontinuous and abrupt instant, indicative of
the radical contingency of all temporal appearance. So, too,
Augustine is fascinated by these instants which are and are
not, and which are really understood only in so far as they
are held distinct and together in the memory, just as the
creation is only a whole and its parts as seen in Christ.
Memory, in the Concessions, is a principle of intellectual
mediation like Christ. Ihrough it the past is and the future
is, and, therefore, through it repentance and salvation are
possible. It is a cry of intellectual triumph, the cry of Augustine,
'In te, anime meus, tempora metior/ For now necessity
is overruled and the struggle with the implacable is won,
not by denying nor escaping it, but by mediation and
comprehension.
This is the train of thought begun in the treatise On Music,
where Augustine finds his attention strained to number at
the point where body meets soul and action meets passion, in
the rhythmical song and speech of man.
ON MUSIC 165
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Te\ts of the treatise:
S. Augufttinus, De musica, ed. J. P. M*igne, Patrotogiae cursus cornpletus:
Series Latma 52 (Paris 1877) ,
, editio Pansina altera (Pans 1856) .
Translations:
C. J. Perl, Augustins Musik.
'
Erste deutsche Ubeitragung (Strassburg
1957).
R. Cardamone, S. Agostino Delia musica libn set traduti ed annotati
(Firenze 1878).
Secondary works:
F. Amerio, 'II "De mosica" di S. Agostino/ Didaskaleion, Nuova
serie 8 (1929) 1-196.
Aristides Quintilianus, De musica libin III (in Meibom, Antiquae
rnusicae auctores septem, Amsterdam 1652) ; also ed. A. Jahn
(Berlin 1882).
Aristoxenus, Harmonica, ed. H Macran (Oxford 1902) .
J. Bartels, Anstoxeni Elementoium Rhythmicorum Fragmentum
(Bonn 1854).
H. Edelstem, Die Musikanschauung Augustins (Ohlau m Schesien
1929) .
E. Graf, Rhythmus und Metrum (Marburg 1891) .
N, Hoffman, Philosophtsche Interpretationen de Arte Musica (Marlburg
1951) .
J. Hure, St. Augustm, musicien (Paris 1924) .
L. Laloy, Anstoxene de Tarente et la musique de I'antiquiM (Paris
1904).
Martianus Capella,
De nuptiis Philologiae, ed. Meibom (Amsterdam
1652, as above for Aristides Quintilianus) .
H. I. Marrou, St. Augustm et la fin de la culture antique (Bibliotheque
des Ecoles d'Athenes et de Rome 145, Paris 1958) .
M. G. Nicolau, L'origine du 'cursus' rhythmique et les debuts de Vaccent
d'intensM en latin (Paris 1950) .
R. SchSflke, Aristeides Quintilianus von der Musik (Berlin-Schoneberg
1957) .
W. Scherer, 'Des hi. Augustins 6 Bttcher De musica/ Kirchenmusikalisches
Jahrbuch 22 (1909) 65-69. Not consulted.
K. Svoboda, L'Esthettque de St. Augustm et ses sources (Brno 1955) .
Victorinus^rs grammatica, ed. H. Keil, grammatici Latini 6 (LeipH.
Vincente, Analyse du traitt de metriqu* et de rhythmique de St.
Augustin intitul^: De musica (Paris 1849) . Not consulted.
166 SAINT AUGUSTINE
H. B. Vroom, Le psaume abe'ce'daire rie St. Augustin et la pofcie
latme rhythmique (J. Schrijnen [ed], Latinitas Christianorum
primaeva 4, Nijmegen 1933) .
H. Weil, Etudes de literature et de rhythmique grecques (Paris
1902).
K. Wenig, 'Uber die Quellen der Schrift Augustins de Musica,' Listy
Philologicke 33 (1906) . Not consulted.
R. Westphal. Anstoxenus von Tarent. Melik und Rhythmik des
classtschen Hellinenthums (Leipzig 1883, 1893) .
,Fragmente und Letrsatze der griechischen Rhythmniker (Leipzig
1861) .
r
A. Wikman, Beitrage zur Asthetik Augustins. Not consulted.
C. F. A. Williams, The Anstoxeman Theory of Musical Rhythm
(Cambridge 1911).
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
The definition of music is given; and the species and proportion
of number-laden movements, things which belong
to the consideration of this discipline, are explained . 169
BOOK TWO
Syllables and metrical feet are discussed 205
BOOK THREE
The difference between rhythm, meter, and verse; then
rhythm is discussed separately; and next the treatise on
meter begins 237
BOOK FOUR
The treatise on meter is continued 260
BOOK FIVE
Verse is discussed 297
BOOK SIX
The mind is raised from the consideration of changeable
numbers in inferior things to unchangeable numbers in
unchangeable truth itself 324
ON MUSIC
BOOK ONE
The definition of music is given; and the species and
proportion of number-laden movements, things which belong
to the consideration of this discipline, are explained.
Chapter 1
(1) MASTER. What foot is 'modus
9
?
DISCIPLE. A pyrrhic.
M. And it contains how many times?1
D. Two.
M. What foot is 'bonus'?
D. The same as 'modus.
3
M. So, what is 'bonus' is also 'modus'
D. No.
M. Why are they, then, the same?
D. Because they are the same in sound, but other in
signification.
M. You say, then, the sound is the same when we say
'modus/ and when we say 'bonus'.
D. I see of course they differ in the sound of the letters,
but are otherwise alike.
M. Now when we pronouce the verb 'pone' and the adverb
'pone' except for the difference in meaning, do you
perceive no difference in sound?
D. There is
quite a difference.
1 The doctrine of the tempus, or prdtos chtonos, is more thoroughly
examined in 2.2.
169
170 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. Where is the difference, since both consist of the same
times and the same letters?
D. The difference is they have the acute accent
2
in different
places.
M. Now to what art does it belong to distinguish these
things?
D. I have always heard them from grammarians, and that
is where I learnt them. But whether they are proper to this
art or taken from somewhere else, I don't know.
M. We shall see later. But for the present I shall ask you
this. If I should strike a drum or a string at the same intensity
and speed we pronounce 'modus' or bonus/ would you recognize
the times to be the same or not?
3
D. I should.
M. Then you would call it a pyrrhic foot.
Z>. I should.
A/. Where did you learn the name of this foot; wasn't it
from the grammarian?
D. Yes.
2 The problem of the accent is never mentioned again in this treatise.
This is probably because it is considered by Augustine as belonging
to the purely grammatical side of metrics and not properly to rhythmics
and music. As we shall see later, Augustine's definition and treatment
of meter is a purely rhythmical and musical one.
If Nicolau is right, the accent, however, played
a conspicuous role
in the development of the vocal ictus as distinguished from the purelv
mechanical ictus. See his L'Origine du 'cursus* rythmique et les debuts
de I'accent d'intensM en latin (Paris 1950) . The fusion or confusion
of the vocal ictus and the accent will in turn radically change the
material to be rhythmeti and finally establish accentual meters in
the place of quantitative meters.
3 The primacy
of rhythm and beat and the complete subordination of
syllable and metrics are here suggested. Quite a part of this is
Augustine's war on grammar. If we remember that rhythm was
treated in the
discipline
of grammar by Marius Victorinus, Diomedes,
and other Latin writers, and that the culture Augustine lived in was
declining under the weight of grammar and grammarians, this flight
of a rhetorician to rhythm, and to rhythm we shall see at pure number,
it not without deep significance.
ON MUSIC 171
M. Then the grammarian will judge concerning all such
sounds. Or rather, didn't you learn those beats through
yourself, but the name you imposed you had heard from a
grammarian?
D. That's it.
M. And you have ventured to transfer the name which
grammar taught you to that thing you admit does not belong
to grammar?
D. I see the measure of the times is the only reason for
imposing the name of the foot. And so, wherever I recognize
the proper measure, why shouldn't I just give it its name?
But even if other names can be imposed when sounds have
the same measure, yet they do not concern grammarians.
So, why should I bother about names when the thing itself
is clear?
M. I don't wish to, either. And yet when you see a great
many kinds of sound in which distinct measures can be
observed, and we admit these kinds are not to be attributed
to the art of grammar, don't you think there is some other
discipline which contains whatever is numerable or artful
in utterances of this sort?
D. It would seem probable.
M. What do you think its name is? For I don't believe it
is news to you that a certain omnipotence in singing is usually
granted the Muses. If I am not mistaken, this is what is called
Music.
D. And I also say it's that.
Chapter 2
(2) Af. But we want to bother as little as possible about
the name. Only let us inquire, if you will, into all the power
and reason of whatever art this is.
172 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. Let's do so by all means. For I should like very much
to know the whole of this affair.
M. Now define music.
D. I shouldn't dare to.
M. Well, you can at least test my definition?
D. I'll try, if you will give it.
M. Music is the science of mensurating well [modulandi].
4
Doesn't it seem so to you?
JD. It might seem so, if it were clear to me what mensuration
[modulatio] is.
M. This word 'to mensurate' [modulari] you have at no
time heard it used anywhere, except in what has to do with
singing or dancing?
Z). Just so. But because I know 'to mensurate' [modulari]
is taken from 'measure' [modus], since in all things well
made measure must be observed, and because I also know
many things in singing and dancing, however much they
charm, are very reprehensible, I want to understand fully
what this mensuration is. For almost in this one word is
contained the definition of a very great art. And certainly
we are not to study here what any singer or actor knows.
4 It is
impossible to render modulari by 'to modulate,' because 'modulate'
in English has a technical musical meaning: it means a change
from one mode or key to another mode or key according to certain
reasonable rules. It is even used in rhythmics by Anstides to denote the
art of changing from one rhythm to another. The Greek word for
this is metabole, which is also used in Latin. We have, therefore, used
the rather harsh and strange 'mensurate.' Aside from the fact that it
fits well with 'measure,' its adjective 'mensurable' has a musical
connotation. See the Oxford English Dictionary. This definition appears
in Cassiodorus, Instituliones, 11,5,2 (ed. Mynors, Oxford 1937, p. 143) .
In the previous chapter, Censorinus to Quintus Carellius, de Natali eius
die is mentioned as a source for musical doctrine. The same definition
is found indeed in Censorinus, de die Natali liber, 10,3 (ed. Hultsch,
Leipzig 1867, p. 16) . Holzer therefoie concludes it must be from the
lost works of Varro on the liberal arts. See Holzer, Varroniana (Ulm
1890) , 6, 14, 15.
ON MUSIC 17
M. Don't let this disturb you, that, as you just said, in al
things made, music included, measure must be observed
and yet that this is called mensuration in music. For you ar
aware 'diction' is
properly restricted to the orator.
D. I am. But what has that to do with this?
M. Because when your servant, no matter how unculturec
and peasant-like he may be, replies with as much as on
word to your question, don't you admit he is saying [dicere
something?
Z). I do.
M. And therefore he is an orator?
D. No.
M. Then he hasn't used diction when he has said some
thing, although we admit diction is derived from saying.
D. I agree. But I want to know what all this is about.
M. For you to understand that mensuration can regarc
music alone, while measure, from which the word is derived
can also be in other things. In the same way diction i;
properly attributed to orators, although anyone who speak:
says something, and diction gets its name from saying.
Z). Now I understand.
(
3 )
M. Now what you said a while ago, that many thing!
in singing and dancing are reprehensible, and that, if we
take the word mensuration from them, the almost divin<
art becomes degraded and that you have very prudenth
observed. So, let us first discuss what it is to mensurate; ther
what it is to mensurate well; for that is not added to th<
definition without reason. Finally, too, it shouldn't be forgot
ten the word science has been put there. For with these three
I believe, the definition is complete.
D. All right.
Af, Now, since we admit mensuration is named fronr
174 SAINT AUGUSTINE
measure, you never think, do you, you have to fear the
measure's being exceeded or not fulfilled, except in things
moving in some way or other? Or rather, if nothing move,
we can't fear anything's being out of measure, can we?
D. No, not at all.
M. Then, mensuration is not improperly called a certain
skill in moving, or at any rate that by which something is
made to move well. For we can't say anything moves well
unless it keeps its measure.
D. No, we can't, but, on the contrary, we have to understand
this mensuration in all things well done. For I see
nothing to be done, if not in moving well.
M. What if, perhaps, all these things are done by music,
although the name mensuration is more used in connection
with instruments of a certain kind, and not incorrectly? I
am sure you think the thing fashioned, whether it be of wood
or silver or some other material, is one thing, and the artist's
movement by which these things are fashioned is another.
D. Yes, they differ a great deal.
M. Now you can't say, can you, the movement is desired
for itself, and not for the sake of that which the artist wants
to be fashioned?
D. That's evident.
M. But if he should move his limbs for no other reason
than that they should be moved gracefully and harmoniously,
we should say he was dancing and nothing more, shouldn't
we?
D. It seems so.
M. When do you think a thing is
superior, and you might
say to rule, when it is desired for its own sake or for the sake
of another?
D. For its own sake, of course.
M. Begin again with what we have just said about mensu-
ON MUSIC 175
ration (for we had assumed it to be a certain skill in moving)
and see where this name ought rather to be applied: to that
movement which is free, that is, is desired for itself and
charms through itself alone, or to that which serves in some
way. For all those things are somehow servile which are not
for themselves but are referred to something else.
D. To that which is desired for itself.
M. Then it is now to be assumed the science of mensurating
is the science of moving well, in such a way that the
movement is desired for itself, and for this reason charms
through itself alone.
D. That is very likely the case.
Chapter 3
(4) M. Why, then, is 'well' added, since there cannot
even be mensuration, unless the thing move well?
D. I don't know, and I don't know how it
escaped me. For
it had been in my mind to ask this.
M. There could be no dispute at all over this expression,
so long as we dropped 'well' and defined music only as the
science of mensurating.
D. And there would be none now, if you would clear it
all up.
M. Music is the science of moving well. But that is because
whatever moves and keeps harmoniously the measuring of
times and intervals can already be said to move well. For
it is
already pleasing, and for this reason is already properly
called mensuration. Yet it is possible for this harmony and
measuring to please when they shouldn't. For example, if
one should sing sweetly and dance gracefully, wishing thereby
to be gay when the ocasion demanded gravity, such a
person would in no way be using harmonious mensuration
176 SAINT AUGUSTINE
well. In other words, that person uses ill or improperly the
motion at one time called good because of its harmony. And
so it is one thing to mensurate, and another to mensurate
well. For mensuration is thought to be proper to any singer
whatever if only he does not err in those measurings of voice
and sounds, but good mensuration to be proper to the liberal
discipline, that is, to music. Now, even if the motion itself,
because it is misplaced, does not seem to you good, even
though you admit it is harmonious in construction, yet let
us hold to our definition and keep it the same everywhere,
not to have a merely verbal battle upset us where the thing
itself is clear enough. And let us not bother whether music
be described as the science of mensurating or as the science
of mensurating well.
D. 1 prefer to get beyond a mere scuffle of words and to
make light of such things. After all, I don't object to this
distinction.
Chapter 4
(5) M. Finally, we must consider why the word 'science*
is in the definition.
-D. All right, for I remember the order of our discourse
demands it.
M. Tell me, then, whether the nightingale seems to mensurate
its voice well in the spring of the year. For its song is
both harmonious, and sweet and, unless I'm mistaken, it
fits the season.
D. It seems quite so.
M. But it isn't trained in the liberal discipline, is it?
D. No.
M. You see, then, the noun 'science' is
indispensable to
the definition.
ON MUSIC 177
D. 1 see it clearly.
M. Now tell me, then, don't they all seem to be a kind
with the nightingale, all those which sing well under the
guidance of a certain sense, that is, do it harmoniously and
sweetly, although if they were questioned about these numbers
or intervals of high and low notes
5
they could not reply?
D. I think they are very much alike.
M. And what's more, aren't those who like to listen to them
without this science to be compared to beasts? For we see
elephants, bears, and many other kinds of beasts are moved
by singing, and birds themselves are charmed by their own
voices. For, with no further proper purpose, they would not
do this with such effort without some pleasure.
D. I judge so, but this reproach extends to nearly the whole
of human kind.
M. Not as much as you think. For great men, even if they
know nothing about music, either wish to be one with the
common people who are not very different from beasts and
whose number is great; and they do this very properly and
prudently. But this is not the place to discuss that. Or after
great cares in order to relax and restore the mind they very
moderately partake of some pleasure. And it is very proper
5 \Ve have heie ttanslaied intenmlhs actttaiwn giavurnque vocum by
mteivals of high and low notes' These aie moie or less technical
woicts in hat monies 'Inteivar is equivalent to the Greek woicl
diastema, meaning ditteience of pitch;
and wx, in the usage of
Maitianus Capella, is equivalent to the phone of Anstoxenus and
Aiistides and includes voice and the sound of msti undents, covering both
the speakine voice and the singing voice, that is, the phont syneches
and the phone dtastematike of Anst.des. See Anstovenus, Harmonica,
I 3 4-5 Anstides, De Musica, I, 7; Maitianus Capella, De Nuptns
Met CM tt' ft philologae IX, 1S2 Theiefore. vox strictly should not 1*
translated l>> 'note/ which is equivalent to phthdngos, and translated
bv Maitianus as sonus. There aie latei passages wheie Augustine
evidentlv uses SOHHS foi sound in general. \ discussion of these terms
would have belonged to the De tnelo which Augustine never wrote.
178 SAINT AUGUSTINE
to take it in from time to time. But to be taken in by it, even
at times, is improper and disgraceful.
(6) But how about this? Those who play on flutes or
lyres or any other instrument of this kind, they can't be
compared to the nightingale, can they?
D. No.
M. How, then, do they differ?
D. In that I find a certain art in these instrument players,
but only nature in the nightingale.
M. That's true. But do you think it
ought to be called an
art even if they do it by a sort of imitation?
D. Why not? For imitation seems to me to be so much a
part of the arts that, if it is removed, nearly all of them are
destroyed. For masters exhibit themselves to be imitated, and
this is what they call teaching.
M. But don't you think art is a sort of reason, and those
\vho use art use reason? Or do you think otherwise?
D. It seems so.
M. Therefore, whoever cannot use reason does not use
art.
D. I grant that, too.
M. Do you think dumb animals, which are also called
irrational, can use reason?
D. Not at all.
M. Then, either you would be forced to say magpies,
parrots, and crows are rational, or you have been pretty
rash in calling imitation by the name of art. For we find that
these birds sing and make many sounds because of their intercourse
with human beings, and that they utter them only by
imitation. Or do you object to this?
D. I don't yet fully understand how you have reached
this conclusion and how far it invalidates my reply.
M. I have asked you whether you would say lyre-players
ON MUSIC 179
and flute-players or any other men of this sort had an art,
even if what they do in singing they do by imitation. You
have said it is an art, and you have affirmed this so true it
seems to you that, if imitation were done away with, nearly
all the arts would be destroyed. And from this it can be
concluded that anyone who does something by imitating
uses an art, although, perhaps not everyone who uses an art
acquired it by imitating. But if all imitation is art, and all
art reason, all imitation is reason. But an irrational animal
does not use reason; therefore, it does not possess an art. But
it is capable of imitation; therefore, art is not imitation.
D. I said that many arts consist in imitation. I did not call
imitation itself art.
M. And so you don't think those arts consisting in imitation
consist in reason?
D. Certainly, I think they consist in both.
M. I have no objection. But where do you place science,
in reason or in imitation?
D. Also in both.
M. Then you suppose those birds endowed with reason
which you have supposed capable of imitation.
D. I do not. For I have supposed science to be in both, in
such a way that it cannot be in imitation alone.
M.
Well, do you think it can be in reason alone?
D. It can.
M. Then you think art is one thing, science another. If,
then, science can be in reason alone, then art joins imitation
with reason.
D. I don't see that follows. For I did not say all arts, but
many arts, consisted in both reason and imitation together.
M. Well, will you also call that science which consists in
these two together, or will you attribute only the reasonable
part to it?
180 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. What is to prevent me from calling it science when
imitation is joined with reason?
(7) M. Since now we are concerned with the citherplayer
and the flute-player,
that is to say with musical things,
I want you to tell me whether, when such people do something
by imitation, that is to be attributed to the body, that
is, to a kind of bodily obedience.
D. I think it ought to be attributed to both the mind and
the body, although the word which you used, 'bodily obedience,'
was properly enough introduced by you. For it can
only obey the mind.
Af. I see you are very careful about not wishing to attribute
imitation to the body alone. But you won't deny
science belongs to the mind alone, will you?
D. Who would deny that.
M. Then you certainly would not allow anyone to attribute
the science of the sounds of strings and pipes to both
reason and imitation together. For, as you admitted, there is
no imitation without a body; but you have also said science
is of the mind only.
D. I admit this conclusion follows from the premises I
granted you. But what of it? For the piper will have science
in his mind. And when he happens to be imitating, which
I admitted impossible without a body, this act of his does not
destroy what is embraced by the mind.
M. No, it doesn't. Nor do I affirm that all those who handle
such instruments lack science, but I say they do not all have
science. For we are considering this question for the following
purpose: to understand, if we can, how correct it is to include
science in the definition of music. And if all pipers,
flute-players, and others of this kind have science, then I
ON MUSIC 181
think there is no more degraded and abject discipline than
this one.
(8) M. But be as attentive as possible, so that what we
have been strenuously looking for may appear. For you have
already granted me that science lives only in the mind.
D. And why shouldn't I?
M.
Further, do you attribute the sense of hearing to the
mind, to the body, or to both?
D. To both.
M. And memory?
D. To the mind, I think. For if we perceive by the senses
something we commit to memory, that is no reason to think
we must consider memory to be in the body.
M. This happens to be a great question, and one not
proper to this discussion. But I believe you can't deny and
that is enough for the subject in hand that beasts have
memory. For swallows come back to their nests the next year,
and it is very truly said of goats : 'And even goats remembering
return to their sheds.'
6
And a dog is said to have recognized
the hero, his master, already forgotten by his men.
And we can bring up many cases, if we wished to prove
our claim.
D. I don't deny it, and I am anxiously awaiting what help
this will give you.
M.
Why this, of course, that whoever attributes science to
the mind alone refuses it to all irrational living things, and
places it neither in sense nor memory, but in the intellect
alone. For sense is not without body, and both sense and
memory exist in beasts.
f). And I am still waiting to see how this will help you.
M. In this way. That all who follow sense and what is
6 Vergil, Ceorgics 3.316.
182 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pleasing in it commit to memory, and in this way, by moving
their body, acquire a certain power of imitation; and
that they do not have science even if they seem to do many
things cleverly and skillfully unless they possess in the purity
and truth of the intellect the very thing they profess or exhibit.
And if reason demonstrate these comedians to be just people,
there is no reason, I believe, why you should hesitate to
deny them science, and, therefore, music which is the science
of mensurating.
D. Explain this. Let's see about it.
(9) M.I believe you attribute the greater or less mobility
of the fingers not to science but to practice, don't you?
D. Why do you believe so?
M. Because just now you attributed science to the mind
alone. But, although in this case the mind commands, you
see the act belongs to the body.
D. But, since the knowing mind commands this of the body,
I think the act ought to be attributed to the mind rather
than the servile members.
M. But, don't you think it is possible for one person to
surpass another in science, even though the other person
move his fingers much more easily and readily?
D. I do.
M. But, if the rapid and readier motion of the fingers
were to be attributed to science, the more science anyone had
the more he would excel in the rapidity of the motion.
D. I concede that.
M. Consider this, too. For I suppose you have sometimes
noticed how artisans or craftsmen of this sort keep striking the
same place with an axe or hatchet and how the blow is only
carried where the mind intends it, and how, when we try
and can't do likewise, they often ridicule us.
ON MUSIC 183
D. It's as you say.
M.
Then, since we can't do it, do you think we do not
know what ought to be struck or how much ought to be cut?
D. Often, we don't know, often we do.
M. Suppose, then, someone who knows everything artisans
ought to do and knows it
perfectly, and yet is less able than
they in practice; who nevertheless prescribes for these same
people who work with such ease, more wisely than they
could for themselves. Would you deny that came from
practice?
D. I shouldn't.
M.
Then, not only the speed and facility of moving but
also the manner itself of the motion is to be attributed to
practice rather than science. For, if it were otherwise, the
cleverer one were the better he would use his hands. Now,
we can translate this in terms of pipes or citherns, in order
not to think that what fingers and joints do in such cases,
because it is difficult for us, is done by science and meditation
rather than by practice and diligent imitation.
D. I have to give in. For I am always hearing how even
doctors, very learned men, in the matter of amputating or
binding limbs, are often surpassed by less clever men in their
use of the hand or knife. And this kind of curing they call
surgery. The word itself signifies a certain operative habit
of curing, developed in the hands. But pass on to other
things, and let's finish up this question of ours.
Chapter 5
(10) M. I believe it remains for us to find, if we can,
the arts which please us in the practical mastery they give
our hands, and which do not derive immediately from science,
but from sense and memory. For of course you can tell me
184 SAINT AUGUSTINE
that it is
possible for there to be science without practice, and
very frequently greater science than in those who excel in
practice; but that on the other hand they can't even acquire
practice without science.
D. Go on, for it is clear that ought to be the c ase.
M. Have you never listened carefully to actors of this sort?
D. More perhaps than I should wish.
A/. How do you explain the fact that an ignorant crowd
hisses off a flute-player letting out futile sounds, and on the
other hand applauds one who sings well, and finally that the
more agreeably one sings the more fully and intensely it is
moved? For it isn't possible to believe the crowd does all
this by the art of music, is it?
D. No.
M. How then?
D. 1 think it is done by nature giving everyone a sense of
hearing by which such things are judged.
M. You are right. But now consider this, too, whether
the flute-player himself is also endowed with this sense. And
if it is so, he can, by following his own judgment, move his
fingers when he blows on the flute, and can note and commit
to memory what he decides sounds well enough; and by
repeating it he can accustom his fingers to being carried
about without hesitation or error, whether he gets from
another what he plays or whether he finds it himself, led on
and abetted as he is by the nature we spoke of. And so, when
memory follows sense, and the joints, already subdued and
prepared by practice, follow memory, the player sings as
he wishes, the better and more easily the more he excels in
all those things which reason just now taught us we have
in common with the beasts: that is, the desire of imitating,
sense, and memory. Have you any objections to that?
D. No, I haven't. Now I want to know what kind of disci-
ON MUSIC 185
pline this is I see so nicely appropriated by knowledge belonging
to the lowest animals.
Chapter 6
(11) M. We haven't yet done enough. And I shall
not allow us to pass to its explanation unless we have already
agreed how actors without this science can satisfy the popular
jar. And it also will have been established that actors can
in no way be students of, and learned in, music.
D. It will be marvelous if you do this.
M. That is easy, but you must be more attentive.
D. Never that I know have I been even a little careless
in listening from the very beginning of this dialogue. But
low, I admit, you have made me more intent.
M. I am grateful, although you more or less suit yourself.
But, tell me whether you think a man who wishes to sell
i
gold piece for a fair price, and judge it to be worth ten
:ents knows what it is.
D. Well, who would think so?
M. Then tell me, which is to be considered dearer, what
s contained in our intellect or what is accidentally attributed
o us by the judgment of an ignorant people?
D. No one doubts the first is far above all others, even
hose things which are not to be thought ours.
M. And so you don't deny, do you, all science is contained
n the intellect?
D. Who does?
M. And, therefore, music is in the intellect.
D. That seems to follow from its definition.
M. Well then, don't the people's applause and all those
heatrical rewards seem to you to be of the kind which is at-
186 SAINT AUGUSTINE
tributed to the power of chance and the judgment of the
ignorant?
D. I don't suppose anything is more fortuitous and liable
to chance, or subject to the domination and pleasure of the
many, than these things are.
M. Would actors, then, sell their songs for this price, if
they knew music?
D. I am not a little shaken by this conclusion, but I can't
gainsay it. For it doesn't seem that the seller of the gold piece
ought to be compared with the actor. For when he accepts
applause or when money is
given him, he doesn't give up
his science, if he chanced to have any, to please the people
with. But, heavier with pennies and happier with the praise
of men, he returns home with the same discipline entire and
intact. But he would be a fool if he despised these advantages.
For, if he hadn't gotten them, he would be much
poorer and more obscure; having gotten them, he is no less
skilled.
(12) M. Let's see if we can get what we want in this
way. For I suppose you think that for the sake of which we
do a thing is much more important than the thing we do.
D. That's evident.
M. Then he who sings or who is
learning to sing for no other
reason than to be praised by many or some other man, doesn't
he judge the praise to be better than the song?
D. It does seem so.
M. And he who judges wrongly about a thing, does he
seem to you to know it?
D. Certainly not, unless he has somehow been bribed.
M. And so he who really thinks something inferior to be
superior is, no doubt, lacking in the science of it.
D. That's so.
ON MUSIC 187
M.
Therefore, when you have persuaded me or proved to
me that any actor, if he has any talent, neither has developed
it nor does he exhibit it to please the people for gain or fame,
then I shall concede it is possible both to possess the science
of music and to be an actor. But if it is very likely all actors
conceive the end of their profession in terms of money and
glory, then we must admit either that actors do not know
music or one is right in seeking other people's praise or some
chance gain rather than his own understanding.
D. I see that in conceding the other things, I must also
accept these. For I don't believe there is any way of finding
a man on the stage who loves his art for itself, and not for
outside advantages. For it is hard to find one even from a
school of higher learning. Yet if one exists or should exist,
liberal artists are not for that reason to be despised; so why
isn't it possible that actors ought sometimes to be honored.
And then explain, if you will, this great discipline which
now can't seem to me so degraded as you make out.
Chapter 7
(13) M. I shall do so; or rather you will do so. For all
I shall do is
question you. And by your answers you will
explain all of what you now seem to be after, without knowing
it. And now tell me whether anyone can run both fast
and for a long time.
D. It is possible.
M. How about both slow and fast?
J5. By no means.
M. Then 'for a long time' signifies something different
from 'slow,'
D. Quite different.
188 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. Again, tell me what you think is the contrary of 'longness
of time,' just as 'speed' is the contrary of 'slowness.'
D. No usual word occurs to me. And I find nothing I
may oppose to 'of a long duration* except 'not of long duration,'
so that the usual contrary of 'for a long time' is 'not
for a long time.' Because if I didn't wish to say 'fast' and said
'not slow* instead, there would be no difference in meaning.
M. That's so. For it doesn't affect the truth any when we
speak this way. And as for me, if this word exists you say
hasn't occured to you, then either I don't know it or at present
it doesn't come to my mind. And so let's go on, calling contraries
each of the pairs, 'for a long time' and 'not for a
long time,' 'slow' and 'fast.' And first, if you will, let's discuss
'of long duration' and 'not of long duration.'
D. Very well.
Chapter 8
(14) M. Now it is clear what is said to be done
for a long time [diu] is done over a long period of time [per
longum tempus], but what is said to be done not for a long
time [non diu] is done over a short period of time [per breve
tempus] .
D. That's clear.
M. For example, doesn't a movement accomplished in
two hours have twice the time of that accomplished in one
hour?
D. Who would doubt it?
Af. Therefore, what we call 'of long duration' or 'not of
long duration' is
capable of such measurements and numbers
that one motion is to another as two to one; that is, that
one has twice as much as the other. And again that one
movement is to another as two to three; that is, that one has
ON MUSIC 189
three parts of time to the other's two. And so it is possible
to run through the rest of the numbers in a way that avoids
indefinite and indeterminate spaces, and relates any two
movements by some number. Either by the same number,
as one to one, two to two, three to three, four to four; or
not by same, as one to two, two to three, three to four, or
one to three, two to six, and whatever measurements anything
is capable of.
D. I want to get this poini of yours more clearly,
M.
Return, then, to the hours, and apply to each case what
I thought sufficiently explained, since I explained it for one
hour and for two. For certainly you don't deny the possibility
of a movement of one hour, or another of two.
D. That's true.
M. Well, don't you admit the possibility of two-hour movement,
and another of three?
D. I do.
M. And one of three hours, and another of four, again
one of one hour and another of three, or one of two hours
and another of six; isn't that clear?
D. It is.
M. Then why isn't the rest clear? For I said this same
thing when I said two movements could be related by some
number as one to two, two to three, three to four, one to
three, two to six, and any others you wish to enumerate. For
when you know these, you can follow through with the
others, either seven to ten or five to eight and anything else
consisting of two movements having parts so measured with
respect to one another they can be described as so much to
so much, either with equal numbers or with one larger and
one smaller.
D. Now I understand, and I admit its possibility.
190 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 9
(15) M. You understand this, too, I believe, that all
measure and limit is preferred to infinity and immeasur-
ableness.
D. That is very evident.
M. Then two movements which, as I said, are related by
some numerical measurement are to be preferred to those
which are not.
D. And this is evident and logical. For there is a certain
limit and measure in numbers which connect them one with
another. And those numbers lacking this measure are not
joined together by any ratio.
Af. Then, if you will, let us call those which are commensurable
with one another rational, and those which are
not commensurable, irrational.
7
D. I am willing.
M.
Now, tell me whether the agreement doesn't seem to
you greater in the case of the rational movements of those
things equal to each other than of those which are unequal?
D. Who wouldn't think so?
Af. Again, of those which are unequal, aren't there some
of which we can say by what aliquot part of the greater
the greater is
equal to, or exceeds, the less, as two and four
or six and eight? But others of which that cannot be said,
as in the numbers three and ten or four and eleven? You
see immediately for the first two numbers that the greater
is made equal to the less by its half. For those I mentioned
next that the greater is in excess of the less by a fourth
part of the greater. But for the others, such as three and ten
7 These are not the irrational feet defined by Aristoxenus and Aristides
Quintilianus, but irrational movements incommensurable in the sense
of magnitude without common measure.
ON MUSIC 191
or four and eleven, we find some agreement, because at least
the parts are so related it can be said of them so many to so
many. And yet we don't see such a relation as we saw in the
earlier ones. For it can in no way be said by what aliquot
part the greater is
equal to the less or by what aliquot part
it exceeds the less. For no one would say what aliquot part
of ten three is, or what aliquot part of eleven four is. And
when I tell you to consider what part it is, I mean the exact
part, without any addition, like a half, a third, a quarter,
a fifth, a sixth, and so on; so that thirds and twenty-fourths
and such divisions are in no way added on.
D. I understand.
(16) M. Then, of these unequal rational movements,
since I have also proposed two kinds of numbers in the examples
adduced, which do you think are to be preferred,
those in which the aliquot part can be given or those in
which it cannot?
D. Reason seems to force my saying those in which it is
possible to say by what aliquot part of itself the greater is
either equal to the loss or exceeds it, ought to be preferred to
those in which this is not the case,
M. But don't you think we ought to give them names, so
that, when we have to recall them later on, we may speak
of them more easily?
D. I do.
M. Then let us call those we prefer connumerate, and
the others dinumerate, because the former not only have a
common measure one, but also have as a common measure
that part by which the greater is equal to or exceeds the
less. But the latter only have a common measure one and
do not have as a common measure the part by which the
greater equals or exceeds the less. For in the case of these it
192 SAINT AUGUSTINE
is impossible to say either how many times the greater contains
the less, or how many times both the greater and the less
contain that by which the greater exceeds the less.
D. I accept these names, and I shall try as well as I can
to remember them.
Chapter 10
(17) M. Come now, let's see what division there can
be of the connumerate numbers. For I think it is pretty clear.
For one class of the connumerate numbers is that in which
the smaller number measures the greater, that is, the greater
contains it a certain number of times, just as we said the
numbers two and four do. For we see that two is contained
twice in four, and it would be contained three times if we
compared not four, but six to two, four times if it were eight,
and five times if it were ten. The other class is that in which
the part by which the greater exceeds the less measures both,
that is, the greater and less contain it a certain number of
times, and we have already noted this in the numbers six and
eight. For the part by which the less is exceeded is two and
that, you see, is contained four times in eight, three times in
six. And so let us also mark out and designate with names
the movements we are now talking about, and the numbers
which reveal what we want to know about these movements.
For I believe the distinction is
already apparent. And so, if
you will, those in which the greater is a multiple of the less
are called complicate; the others sesquate, a name already
long in use. For that is called 'sesque* in which two numbers
have such a ratio to each other that by whatever aliquot part
of itself the greater exceeds the less, so many parts does it
contain with respect to the less. For if it is three to two, the
greater exceeds the less by a third part of itself; if four to
three, by a fourth; if five to four, by a fifth, and so on. And
ON MUSIC 193
we have the same kind of ratio also in the case of six to four,
eight to six, ten to eight; from these we can find this ratio in
the larger numbers which follow. But I should find it hard
to tell you the origin of this name, unless perhaps 'sesque
9
is said for
f
se absque' or 'absque se
9
[from itself], because in
the case of five to four the greater minus [absque] a fifth of
itself is the same as the less. And what is your opinion of all
this?
D. Why, the ratio of measurements and numbers seems
very correct to me. And the names you have given seem to
be suitable for remembering the things we have understood.
And the origin of the name you just explained to me is
not absurd, although it may not be the one followed by the
person starting the name.
Chapter 11
(18) M. I approve and accept your judgment. But
do you see that all such rational motions, that is, those in
some relation of numerical measure to each other can go
on through numbers to infinity, unless some ratio should
again delimit them and keep forcing them over and over
again into a measure and form? For to speak of the equal
pairs first: one to one, two to two, three to three, four to
four, and if I follow through, what will be the end, since
number has no end? For such is the power of number that
every number named is finite, and not named is infinite.
And what happens in the case of equal pairs also happens,
as you see, in the case of unequal pairs, either complicate
or sesquate or connumerate or dinumerate. For if you take
one to two, and wish to continue with multiples by sayine
one to three, one to four, one to five, and so on, there will
be no end. Or if only the double, as one to two, two to four,
194 SAINT AUGUSTINE
four to eight, eight to sixteen, and so forth, here also there
will be no end. And so, if you want to continue with only
the triple, or whatever else you wish, they will go on to infinity.
And this is true also of the sesquate. For when we say two
to three, three to four, four to five, you see nothing keeps us
from going on, for there is no limit. Or if you wish to proceed
in the same class in this way, two to three, four to six,
six to nine, eight to twelve, ten to fifteen, and so on. And
so, either in this class of numbers or in all the others, no limit
appears. And there is no need now to speak of the dinumerate
numbers, since anyone can understand from what has been
said that their continual recurrence allows no limit. Doesn't
this seem true to you?
(19) D. What could be truer? But I am now waiting
anxiously to learn about the ratio which forces such an infinity
back into some measure, and prescribes a form it
may not
exceed.
M. You will find you already know this, too, as well as the
other things, when you answer my questions right. For, since
we are discussing numerically ordered movements, I wonder
whether we first should not consider numbers themselves,
and decide that whatever sure and fixed laws numbers make
manifest are to be looked for and apprehended in the move-
ments.
D. I certainly agree. I think nothing could be more orderly
than that.
M. Then, if you will, let us start considering numbers
from the very beginning and see, as far as we can grasp such
things with the mind's strength we have, what the reason
8
8 There is a continuous play on the Latin word ratio, which means both
ratio and reason. This intentional ambigmt) runs through the whole
treatise. Ldgos in Greek gives same ambiguity. Since ratio or idgos is
defined b> Euclid as
4
a certain relation according to multiplicability
ON MUSIC 195
is that, although as we have said numbers progress to infinity,
men have made certain articulations in counting by which
they return again and again to one, the beginning or principle
of numbers. For, in counting, we progress from one to ten,
and from there we return to one. And if
you wish to follow
through with the intervals of ten, so that you go on with ten,
twenty, thirty, forty, then the progression is to a hundred.
If with intervals of a hundred, one hundred, two hundred,
three hundred, four hundred, the articulation by which you
return is at a thousand. Now why go farther? You certainly
see the articulation I mean, whose first rule is given by the
number ten. For, as ten contains one ten times, so a hundred
contains the same ten ten times, and thousand contains a hundred
ten times. And so you can go as far as you wish in these
articulations, in a way predetermined by the number ten.
Is there any thing in these matters you don't understand?
Z). It is all very clear and true.
Chapter 12
(20) M. Then let us examine as diligently as we can
what the reason is for there being a progression from one
to ten and thence a return to one again. And next I ask you
if what we call the beginning or principle can be a beginning
at all unless it is the beginning of something.
D. Not at all.
M. Likewise, what we call the end, can it be ah end, unless
it is the end of something?
D. It can't either.
M. Well, you don't think you can go from the beginning
to the end without going through the middle?
between magnitudes of the same kind/ it is obvious in what dialectical
direction and towaid what doctrine this intentional ambiguity directs
196 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. I don't think you can.
M. Then, for something to be a whole, it must consist of
a beginning, middle, and end.
D. It seems so.
M. Now tell me, then, in what number do you think a
beginning, middle, and end are contained.
D. I think you want me to say the number three, for three
is one of those you are looking for.
M. You think right. And so you see there is a certain perfection
in three because it is a whole: it has a beginning,
middle, and end.
D. I see it clearly.
M. And don't we learn from boyhood every number is
either even or odd?
D. You are right.
M.
Recollect, then, and tell me which we usually call even
and which odd.
D. That which can be divided into two equal parts is
called even; but which cannot, odd.
(21 )
M. You have it. Now, since three is the first whole
odd number, and consist of a beginning, middle, and end,
then doesn't an even number have to be whole and perfect,
9
too, so that it also has a beginning, middle, and end?
D. It certainly must.
M. But this number, whichever it is, cannot have an indivisible
middle like the odd one. For if it did, it could not
be divided into two equal parts, for that, we said, was the
property of an even number. Now, one is an indivisible middle;
two is a divisible middle. But the middle in numbers
is that from which both sides are equal to each other. Has
9 Not perfect
in the technical sense of a number which is the sum of
its different factors.
ON MUSIC 197
anything been put obscurely, and do you find it hard to
follow?
D. On the contrary, this, too, is all very clear to me, and
when I look for a whole even number, I first strike the number
four. For how can the three things by which a number is
whole, that is, beginning, middle, and end, be found in the
number two?
M. You have answered the very thing I wished you to,
and reason has forced you to. And now repeat the discussion
beginning with the number one itself, and think. Then you
will see immediately one has no middle and end, because
there is only a beginning, or rather it is a beginning because it
lacks a middle and end.
D. That's clear.
M. What, then, shall we say of two? We can't find a beginning
and middle both in it, can we, since there can be no
middle where there's no end? Nor a beginning and end both,
since nothing can attain its end except through a middle?
D. Reason forces my admission, and I am very uncertain
what to reply.
M. Be careful this number isn't also a beginning of numbers.
For if it lacks a middle and end, as you have said reason
forces us to admit, then there is nothing else for it to be but a
beginning, is there? Or do you hesitate to set up two
beginnings?
D. I hesitate very decidedly.
M. You would be right, if the two beginnings were made
opposed to each other. But in this case the second beginning
is from the first, so that the first is from none, but the second
is from the first. For one and one are two, and so they arc
both beginnings in such a way that all numbers are really
from one. But because they are made by combination and
198 SAINT AUGUSTINE
addition, and the origin of combination and addition is rightly
attributed to two, therefore it is this first beginning from
which [a quo], but the second through which [per quod],
all numbers are found to be. Or have you objections to the
things you are discussing.
D. I have none. And I ponder them with admiration, even
though I am answering them myself under your questioning.
(22) M. Such things are more subtly and abstrusely examined
in the discipline which concerns numbers. But here
let us return as quickly as we can to the task in hand. And so,
I ask, what does two added to one make?
D. Three.
M. So the two beginnings of numbers added together make
the whole and perfect number.
D. So it is.
M. And in counting, what number do we place after two?
D. The same three.
M. And so the same number made out of one and two is
placed after both of them as regards order, in such a way no
other can be interposed.
D. So I see.
M. But now you must also see this can happen to none of
the other numbers, the fact that, when you have singled out
any two next to each other in the order of counting, the one
immediately following them should be made up of these
two.
D. I see that, too. For two and three, which are adjoining
numbers, added together make five. And not five, but four,
immediately follows them. Again, three and four make seven,
but five and six have a place between four and seven. And
the farther I should want to go, the more there are in between.
M. Therefore, this great harmony is in the first three
ON MUSIC 199
numbers. For we say one and two, and three, and nothing
can be put between. But one and two themselves are three.
D. It is a great one certainly.
M. And have you no consideration for the fact that this harmony
tends to a greater unity the more compressed and the
more closely connected it is, and the more it makes a one
from many.
D. On the contrary, the greatest consideration. And I
don't know why, but I admire and love this unity you
commend.
M. I very much approve. But certainly any conjunction
and connection of things most definitely make something one
when the means agree with the extremes, and the extremes
with the means.
D. That certainly must be so.
(23) M. And so we must be careful to find it in this
relation. For when we say one, two, three, isn't two exceeded
by three as one is exceeded by two?
JD. That's very true.
A/. Well now, tell me, in this ordered set
10
how many times
have I named one?
D. Once.
M. How many times three?
D. Once.
M. How many times two?
D. Twice.
M. Then once, and twice, and once, how many is that
altogether?
D. Four times.
M. Then the number four rightly follows these three; to
10 We use 'ordered set* advisedh as a term from modern point-set
theory, although there the term is used with a view to infinite sets.
200 SAINT AUGUSTINE
it in fact is attributed this ordering by proportion. And it is
now time you learn to know how important this thing is,
because the unity you love can be effected in ordered things
by that alone whose name in Greek is analogla and which
some of our writers have called proportion. And we'll use this
name, if you will, for, unless necessary, I should not like to
bring a Greek word over into Latin speech.
D. I am quite willing. But go on with your story.
M. I shall. For we shall try and know more thoroughly by
its place in this discipline what proportion is and how great
is its authority in things. And the more advanced you are in
learning, the better you will know its nature and power. But
you see certainly, and that is enough for the present, that
those three numbers whose harmony you were wondering
at could only have been brought together in the same relation
by the number four. And therefore, to the extent you understand,
it has by rule obtained its own immediate succession
to the other three to be joined with them in that closer
harmony. So that now, not one, two, three only, but one,
two, three, four is the most closely connected progression of
numbers.
D. I entirely agree.
(24) M. But consider these further characteristics, lest
you think the number four has nothing proper all other numbers
lack, and nothing adequate to this relation I speak of,
for making the interval from one to four itself a determinate
number and the most beautiful art of progression. We agreed
a while back something became most one when the means
agreed with the extremes and the extremes with the means.
D. That's so.
M.
Now, when we order one, two, three, tell me which
are the extremes, and which the mean.
ON MUSIC 201
D. One and three seem to be the extremes, and two the
mean.
Af. Tell me now, one and three make what?
D. Four.
M. Well, two, the lone middle number, can't be joined
with anything but itself, can it? And so tell me now what
twice two makes.
D. Four.
. M. So then, the mean agrees with the extremes and the
extremes with the mean. And, therefore, just as there is a
certain virtue in three in that it is
placed in order after one
and two, while consisting of one and two, so there is a certain
virtue in four in that it falls in counting after one, two, and
three, while consisting of one and three, or twice two. And
this agreement of the extremes with the mean and of the
mean with the extremes is
by proportion which in Greek is
called analogia. Now say, have you understood this?
D. I have.
(25) M. Try and see whether the property we attributed
to the number four can be found in other numbers or not.
D. I shall. For if we fix upon two, three, four, the extremes
added together make six, and the mean added to itself also
makes six; yet not six, but five, is the number immediately
following. Again I take three, four, and five. The extremes
make eight, as also twice the mean. But between five and
eight I find no longer one number but two, namely six and
seven. And in the case of this ratio the farther I progress
the greater these intervals become.
M. I see you have understood and know thoroughly what
has been said. But now, not to delay, you certainly see that
from one to four is the most complete progression, either
from the point of view of odd and even numbers, since three
202 SAINT AUGUSTINE
is the first whole odd number and four the first whole even
(this subject was treated a while ago). Or because one and
two are the beginnings and seeds, as it were, of numbers,
three is made from; and this accounts for three numbers.
And when they are brought together by proportion, the
number four appears and comes to be, and is
joined to them
by rule, to become the final number of the measured progression
we seek.
D. I understand.
(26) M. Very well. But do you remember now what we
had begun to look for? I believe it had been proposed we
should find out, if we could, why, when definite articulations
for counting had been established in the infinity of numbers,
the first articulation should be at ten as the greatest. In
other words, why those we count, having gone from one to
ten, should return to one again.
jD. I remember clearly it was for this we made our long
digression, but I don't see what we have accomplished in
the way of solving the problem. Unless all our reasoning has
led to the conclusion the progression to ten is not a fixed and
measured one, but the progression to four is.
M. But don't you see? What is the sum of one, two, three,
and four?
D. 1 see now* I see and marvel at it all, and I admit the
question which arose has now been solved. For one, two,
three, and four together are ten.
M. And so it is
fitting these first four numbers and the
series of them and their relations be given more honor than
any other numbers.
ON MUSIC 203
Chapter 13
(27) M. But it is time to return to the treatment
and discussion of the movements properly attributed to this
discipline, for whose sake we have considered with regard
to numbers, plainly from another discipline, such things as
seemed sufficient for the business in hand. Now, as aids to
understanding, we took such movements in hour-intervals
as reason showed to be related by some numerical measure.
And so I ask you, supposing some one should run for an
hour, then another for two hours, could you tell, without
looking at a sun-dial or water-clock, or any time-piece of
this sort, that one of these movements was single, the other
double? And not being able to tell, would you nevertheless
be delighted by the harmony and pleasurably affected?
D. I certainly could not.
M. And suppose an instrument struck in rhythm, with one
sound a time's length and the next double repeatedly and
connectedly, to make what are called iambic feet,
11
and suppose
someone dancing to it moving his limbs in time. Then
could you not give the time's measure, explain the movement's
intervals alternating as one to two, either in the beats
heard or the dancing seen? Or if you could not tell the numbers
in its measure, wouldn't you at least delight in the rhythm
you sense?
D. It is as you say. For those who know these numbers
and discern them in the beats and dancing easily identify
them. And those who don't know them and can't identify
them admit, nevertheless, they get a certain pleasure from
them.
11 This is the rhythmical foot, and the times here spoken of could
well be, in the language of the school of Aristoxenus, chrdnot podtkoi.
This will be explained in greater detail in the next Book, which
formally deals with the metrical foot.
204 SAINT AUGUSTINE
(28) M. Now, although all well measured movements
admittedly belong to the rationale of this discipline, if indeed
it is the science of mensurating well, and especially those not
referred to any thing else but keeping within themselves
their end of ornament and delight, yet even in proper ratios
these movements, as you just rightly said under my questioning,
cannot be suited to our senses when accomplished in a
long space of time, an hour or more. And since music somehow
issuing forth from the most secret sanctuaries leaves
traces in our very senses or in things sensed by us, mustn't
we follow through those traces to reach without fail, if we
can, those very places I have called sanctuaries?
D. We certainly must, and I earnestly pray we do so now.
M. Then let us not speak of those bounds of time extending
beyond the capacity of our senses, and discuss, as far as
reason goes, the short interval lengths which delight us in
singing and dancing. Or do you, perhaps, think of some
other possible way of following these traces which have
penetrated, as we said, our senses and the things we sense with
this discipline?
D. I think it can be done no other way.
BOOK TWO
Syllables and metrical feet
1
are discussed.
Chapter 1
(
1
)
M. Then pay good attention and let's make something
like a second beginning to our argument. But first, say
whether you have learned well one of the things grammarians
teach, that is, the difference between long and short
syllables, or whether you prefer, knowing them or not, that
we explore these matters as if we were altogether ignorant
of them, in order to have reason bring us to all these conclu-
1 Augustine discusses now the metucal foot as distinguished from the
ihythmical foot. In Book One the appeal has been to the rhythmical
foot without an> explicit mention of it and without any technical examination
of it It is not until the last half of this piesent Book (2 18)
that mention is made of arsis and thesis, which are the distinctive parts
of the rhythmical foot Austides is moie explicit in distinguishing the
two kinds of foot 'Rhythm is a system [scale] of times collated in a
certain order, and their aftects we call arsis and thesis, and strong and
weak' (op. cit 1.20.) . . . 'Now foot is a pait of the whole rhythm
In means of which we comprehend the whole. And its parts are two
arsis and thesis' (op. cit. 1 3i) . So much for the rhythmical foot. As
for the metrical toot, it depends fundamentally on the rhythmical
foot, but emphasizes the rhythmizdnienon 01 thing rhythmed as it
appears within the rhythm or conditions it. 'Meters consist of feet.
Foi metei is a system [scale] composed of feet of unlike syllables commensuiable
in length . .
[Some say] the essence of rhythm is in arsis
and thesis, but the essence of meter is in syllables and then unhkeness'
(op cit. 149). Thus, the rhythmical foot with one time to the upward
beat and two to the downwaid beat could furnish two different metrical
feef a shoit syllable followed b\ two shoits or a shoit followed by
a long. The problem of the difference which might arise from changing
the upwaicl and downward beat and whethei it is rhythmical or
metiical will come up later.
205
206 SAINT AUGUSTINE
sions rather than having inveterate habit or the authority of
another's judgment force us.
D. Not only reason, but also an inexperience I might as
well admit it in matters of syllables certainly leads me to
prefer a radical beginning.
2
M.
Well, then, tell me whether you yourself, by your own
observation, have ever noticed that some syllables are enunciated
very rapidly and briefly, but others more slowly and in
a longer time.
D. It is certainly true I have not been insensible of such
things.
M. But first I want you to know that the whole of that
science called grammatica Greek-wise, but Latin-wise litteratura,
professes the conservation of historical precedent either
that alone, as reason in its subtler moments teaches, or for
the most part, as even stupid minds concede. And so, for
example, when you say cano, or put it in verse, in such a way
as to prolong its first syllable when you pronounce it or in
such a place as to make it
necessarily long, the grammarian
will censure you; he, of course, the guardian of history,
giving no other reason why this syllable should be contracted
than that those who lived before us and whose books survive
2 This passage is not just an attack on grammar and grammarians in
favor of the science of music, but it is also a recognition of a definite
state of affairs. At this time and before this, the distinction of long
and short syllables is no longer natural to the average person.
Augustine (in his Retractationes 1.20), describes his Psalm against the
Donatist Faction as written for the common people, non aliquo
carminis generc, that is, not in quantitative meter. Vroom, in his
analysis of the Psalm, describes it as rhythmical acatalectic trochaic
tetrameter where the word-accent fails to coincide with the ictus only
at the begining of the two hemistiches, but where quantity is not
observed. Vroom supposes this to be the first case of such vewes in
trochaic meter in Latin literature, since those of Commodianus which
are otherwise much luce them are hexameters. See Vroom, Le psaume
*,<* de St' A""* ** la P&" *<**'"*
rythmique (Nijmcgen
1955) .
ON MUSIC 207
and are discussed by grammarians used it as a short syllable,
not as a long one. And so, whatever prevails here, prevaik
as authority. On the contrary, the reason of music, whose
province is the rational and numerical measure of sounds,
takes care only the syllable in this or that place be contracted
or prolonged according to the rationale of its measures. For,
if you should put this word where two long syllables ought to
be, and should make the first syllable, which is short, long
by pronunciation, the science of music will not for that be
outraged in the least. For those sound-rhythms have been
heard which were necessary to that number. But the grammarian
orders its emendation and bids you put in a word
whose first syllable must be long according to the authority,
he says, of our ancestors of whose writings he is the watchdog.
Chapter 2
(2) M. Therefore, since we have undertaken to follow
the theory of music, even if you do not know which syllables
are to be shortened and which lengthened, we can
nevertheless overlook this ignorance of yours and consider
sufficient your saying you had noticed some syllables were
shorter and some longer. And so I now ask you whether the
sound of verses has ever moved you with pleasure.
D. In fact, so often I have almost never heard a verse without
pleasure.
M. If, then, someone, in a verse which delighted you in
hearing it, should lengthen or shorten the syllables contrary to
the rationale of the verse, you can't enjoy it in the same way,
can you?
D. On the contrary, hearing it is offensive.
M. So there is no doubt about it, you enjoy a certain
208 SAINT AUGUSTINE
measuring out of numbers in the sound you say pleases you
and which when disturbed cannot give you that pleasure.
Z). That's evident.
M. Then tell me, in so far as it concerns the verse's sound,
what differences does it make whether I say Arma virumque
cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris or qui primis ab oris.
D. Both sound the same to me as far as measure is
concerned.
M. And that's because of my pronunciation, with a fault,
of course, grammarians call a barbarism. For 'primus' is made
up of a long and a short syllable. And in 'primis' both ought
to be long, but I shortened the last one. So your ears were
right. Therefore, we must repeatedly test to see whether,
on my pronouncing, you sense what is long and not long in
syllables, in order to have the discussion continue, with me
questioning and you replying as we began it. So I shall repeat
the same verse I committed the barbarism in, and the syllable
I shortened, not to offend your ears, I shall lengthen, as the
grammarians order. You will tell me whether the rhythm
of the verse gives your senses the same pleasure. So let me
recite this way, Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primis ab
oris.
D. No, I can't deny I am disturbed by a sort of deformity
of sound.
M. You are quite right. For, although there was no barbarism,
yet there was a fault both grammar and music condemn:
grammar, because a word whose syllable is to be pronounced
long has been put where a syllable to be pronounced
short should be, but music only because some sound has been
lengthened where it
ought to have been shortened, and the
proper time demanded by the numerical measure has not been
rendered. And so, if you now discriminated between what
the sense of hearing demands and what authority demands,
ON MUSIC 209
it follows we should see why that sense sometimes enjoys
either long or short sounds and sometimes does not. For that
is what concerns
4
for a long time
5
and 'not for a long time.'
And I am sure you remember we undertook to explain just
that.
D. I made the discrimination, I remember, and I am waiting
very eagerly for what follows.
Chapter 3
(3) M. Don't you think we should begin by comparing
syllables with each other and seeing by what numbers
they are related to each other, just as we have already done
with movements in a very long discussion? For all that sounds
is in movement, and syllables are certainly sound. Do you
deny any of these premises?
D. Not at all.
M. Therefore, when syllables are compared with each
other, movements containing numbers found by measure of
the length of time are compared with each other.
Z). That's so.
M.
Then, one syllable cannot be compared with itself, can
it? For singleness escapes all comparison. Or have you something
else to say about this?
D. I haven't.
M. But that one syllable to one syllable, or one to two,
or two to three and so on, you don't deny they can be
compared with each other, do you?
D. Who would?
M. And then, consider this, any short syllable you will,
pronounced in the shortest time, dying as soon as it begins,
yet occupies some interval of time and has some brief stay
of its own.
210 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. What you say seems necessary.
M. Tell me, now, what number we begin with.
JD. One, of course.
M. Then the ancients were not absurd in calling one time
a sort of minimum interval,
3
proper to the short syllable. For
we go from the short to the long.
D. That's true.
M. It follows, then, you also perceive that, since as in
numbers the first progression is from one to two, so in syllables
where we clearly go from short to long, the long ought to be
double time. And therefore, if the interval the short syllable
occupies is rightly called one time, likewise the interval the
long one occupies is rightly called two times.
4
D. Very rightly, for I agree reason demands it.
Chapter 4
(4) M. Now, let us consider the ordered sets themselves.
For I want to know what ratio you think one short
syllable has to one short syllable or what these movements
3 This refers to the doctrine of the prdtos chrdnos, or primary time,
of Aristoxenus. The prdtos chrdnos is that time which can never be
divided
by
the rhythmizdmenon, the thing rhythmed, either lexis,
melos, or kinesis somatike
1
, that is, speech, melody, or bodily movement.
See fragments in Westphal, Aristoxenos von Tarent, II 79, 18-20.
Aristides gives the same doctrine: 'Primary time is then an indivisible
and least time which is called a point. And I call that least with
respect to us which is the first [time] capable of being grasped by
sense' (op.cit. 11.52) . It is not only relative to the thing rhythmed and
to us in general, but also from occasion to occasion, since it can be
varied by change or tempo or agoge. This quasi arbitrary and creative
act by which we make a divisible sensible thing stand for an indivisible
one has a deep significance for the theory of time. Thus the syllable is
no longer the measure of time but the thing measured, and Aristoxenus
(op. cit. II. 76) expressly respects the theory of Aristotle in Meta. 13.1,7.
The diesis plays the same role as the least interval in harmonics.
4 This is the doctrine of Aristoxenus (op.cit.
11.76) ,
although in the
fragment in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri attributed to him the long is
considered as capable also of representing three times. See H. Weil,
ON MUSIC 211
are called in relation to each other. For you remember, if
I am not mistaken, in the discussion a while back we imposed
names on all movements having certain numerical relations
to each other.
D. I remember they were named equal, for they were so
related with respect to time.
M. Now, you don't think this ordered set of syllables, furnishing
its constituents with numbers with respect to one
another, ought to be left without a name, do you?
D. I do not.
M.
Well, the ancients called such an ordered set of sounds
a foot.
5
But we must be careful to notice just how far reason
allows a syllable to go. And so next tell me in what ratio a
short and a long syllable are with respect to each other.
D. I believe this ordering comes from that genus of numbers
we called complicate. At least that is so if I am right
in thinking a unit is here ordered with a double, that is,
the short syllable's one time with the long syllable's two.
Etudes de htteiature et de rythmique grecques (Pans 1902), 200-201;
Laloy, Artstoxene de Tarente, et la musique de I'antiquite (Paris
1901), 329. Anstides also allows a long of thiee times. Mhis is, ot
touise, a metiitdl question and not a rhythmical one.
5 Augustine heie appioaches the foot more from its metiital side than
its ihythmical. We have already shown how Anstides Quiiitilianus
defines the foot rhythmically, and makes the metrical foot depend
on it. Likewise, Anstoxenus, having defined rhythm as a certain
oidei of primary times, adds: 'That by which we signify the rhythm
and make it known to sense, is one foot or more than one' (op.ctt.
II 81). The foot, then, he proceeds to show, is the ratio of arsis and
thesis which orders the primary times. An ordered set of syllables, as
Augustine says, rather than of primary times within the arsis and
thesis, introduces into the notion of foot the metrical consideiations of
the older of longs and shorts. Marius Victorinus defines a miMine.
Pes est certus modus syllabarum, quo cognoscimus totius metn speciem,
compositas ex sublatione et positione. The foot is a certain measure
of syllable collated from arsis and thesis, b> means of which we know
the species of meter' Ars Gramm., Keil, VI.43) . But lx>th he and
Diomedes tend to confuse what the Gieeks had stated tleaily and
with the conviction of a coherent system.
212 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. And what if the order should be first the long syllable
and then the short syllable? But the change in order doesn't
change the ratio of complicate numbers, does it? For just
as in the first foot it was one to two, so in this one it is two
to one.
D. That is so.
M. And in a foot of two long syllables, aren't two times
compared with two times?
D. Evidently.
M. Then from what ratio is such a set taken?
D. Why from those called equals.
(5) M. Now tell me, how many ordered sets of feet we
have treated starting from two short syllables and reaching
two long syllables.
D. Four. For, first there were two shorts; second, a short
and a long; third, a long and a short; and fourth, two longs.
M. There can't be more than four when the comparison
is of two syllables, can there?
Z). Certainly not. For, with syllables measured to give a
short syllable one time and a long one two, and every syllable
either short or long, how can two syllables be compared
with each other or combined to make a foot otherwise than
as short and short, short and long, long and short, or long
and long?
M. Tell me, now, the number of times in the shortest
two-syllable foot, and the number in the longest.
D. The first has two; the other, four.
M. Do you see there could be no other progression than
from one to four either in feet or times?
l
D. I see it
plainly, and I remember the ratio of progression
in numbers. And with great intellectual pleasure I find that
power residing here also.
ON MUSIC 213
M.
Then, since feet consist of syllables, that is, of distinct
and articulate movements of sound, and syllables are extensions
of times, don't you think the progression within the
foot should go to four syllables, just as the progression of
feet and times goes as we have seen to four?
D. I feel about it as you say and I know it is
perfectly
reasonable. And what should be I want very much to see done.
Chapter 5
(6) M. Proceed then. First, in good order, let's see how
many three-syllable feet there can be, just as we found out
there were four two-syllable feet.
D. All right.
M. You remember we laid the beginning of the ratio in
one short syllable, that is, in one time, and you understood
well enough why it should be so.
D. I remember we resolved one must not depart from that
law of counting which enjoins a start from one, the beginning
of numbers.
M. Since, then, in two-syllable feet the first consists of
two short syllables (for reason first demanded one time be
added to one time before two times), what do you think
ought to be first among three-syllable feet?
D. It could only be that composed of three short syllables.
Af. And how many times is it?
D. Three, certainly.
M. Then, how are its parts compared to one another? For,
according to number sets, every foot must have two parts to
be compared with each other by means of some ratio. And I
seem to remember we discussed this before. But can we divide
this foot of three short syllables into two equal parts?
D. Not at all.
M. How is it divided, then?
214 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. The only way seems to be for the first part to contain
one syllable and the second two, or for the first part to contain
two syllables and the second one.
M. Then tell me what number pattern this is from.
D. It seems to be from the genus of complicate numbers.
(7) M. Well now, consider this: How many permutations
are there of three syllables with one long, that is, how
many different feet can be gotten from them? Answer, if you
find out.
D. 1 find a foot consisting of one long and two shorts. I
don't find any other.
M. And so you think only the foot having the long syllable
in first place is a foot having one long in three?
D. No, I don't, since the two shorts can be first and the
long last.
M. Think whether there is a third.
D. There clearly is, for the long can be placed between
the two shorts.
M. See if there is any fourth possibility.
D. There certainly can't be.
M. Can you tell me now how many permutation there are of
three syllables with one long and two shorts, that is, how
many different feet they can produce?
D. I certainly can, for there were three permutations and
three different feet.
M. Now, can you see at one glance how these three feet
are to be ordered, or do you have to go through them one by
one?
D. Because you don't like the order I found them in? For
first I noticed a long and two shorts, then two shorts and a
long, and finally a short and a long and a short.
M. And so you wouldn't be disturbed at an order going
ON MUSIC 215
from the first to the third, and from the third to the second,
rather than from the first to the second and then to the third?
D. I don't like it at all. But where, I ask, have you seen that
in this case?
M. Because in this tripartite differentiation you have placed
that foot first
containing the long syllable in first place, feeling,
no doubt, the long syllable's unity gives it
preeminence
(if it
really is a unit) and on that account ought to bring
forth order by making that the first foot where it itself is first
And so you should also have seen at the same time the second
foot is where it is second, and third where it is third. Or do
you still think it ought to be in the order you first named
them?
D. I certainly do not. For who wouldn't agree this is the
better order, or rather, this is order?
M. Now, then, in what number pattern are these feet
divided and their parts related?
D. The first and last I see are divided according to the
equal pattern, because the first can be divided into a long
and two shorts, and the last into two shorts and a long, each
part, therefore, having two times and so being equal. But
in the case of the second, since it has a long syllable in the
middle, whether it be attributed to the first or to the second
part, there is a division either into three times and one time,
or into one and three. And so the ratio of complicate numbers
presides at its partition.
(8) M. Now I want you to tell me, unaided if you can,
what feet you think ought to be ordered next after those we
have just been discussing. For first we discussed the two-syllable
feet with an order fashioned after the order of numbers
so as to begin from the short syllables. Then we undertook
the longer three-syllable feet, and with an easy deduction
216 SAINT AUGUSTINE
from former reasoning we began with three shorts. And then
it was natural we should see how many forms a long syllable
and two shorts would produce. And we have seen. And accordingly
three feet found a necessary place after that first
one. And it's up to you to see what follows next if we are not
to get everything out of you by these short tedious arguments.
D. You are right. For any one would see the next feet
are those with one short and the rest long. And since by former
reasoning preeminence is given the shorter syllable because
there is only one, that will be the first foot where it is first,
second where it is second, and third where it is third, which
is also the last.
M. I suppose you also see into what ratios they are divided
for the comparison of their parts.
D. I certainly do. For the foot consisting of one short and
two longs can only be divided to give a first part containing
a short and a long and so three times, and a second part
containing the one long syllable's two times. And the third
foot is like the first in allowing only one division, but unlike
it in the one's being divided into two and three times while
the other is divided into three and two. For the long syllable
occupying the first
part embraces two times, and there remain
a long and short, a three-time interval. But the middle foot
with a middle short syllable allows a double division, because
the same short syllable can be attributed to either the first
or second part, and, therefore, it is divided into either two
and three times or three and two. Hence the ratio of sesquate
numbers dominates these three feet.
M. Have we now considered all the three-syllable feet, or
does any remain?
D. I find one left consisting of three longs.
M. Then discuss its division, too.
ON MUSIC 217
D. Its divisions are one syllable and two or two syllables
and one, that is, two times and four times or four and two.
And so this foot's parts are related in the ratio of complicate
numbers.
Chapter 6
(9) M. Now, let's consider the four-syllable feet properly
and in order, and tell me yourself which of these is to be
first, and give, too, the ratio of division.
D. Very evidently, there's the foot of four shorts divided
into two parts of two syllables, having each two times in the
ratio of equal numbers.
M. I see you understand. And so, now go on by yourself,
following through with the others. For I don't think you need
to be questioned through each one. For there is the method
[ratio] of removing short syllables one by one and substituting
long syllables for them until you come to all long syllables,
and so of considering what varieties result and how many
feet are produced as the shorts are removed and the longs
substituted. And clearly, the syllable, either long or short,
which is alone of its kind, holds precedence of order. And
you have already had practice in these things. But when there
are two shorts and two longs, a case we have not yet faced,
what syllables do you think are to have precedence?
D. Now this, too, is clear from what has been done before.
The short syllable with one time certainly has more unity
than the long with two. And it was for that we put the foot
consisting of shorts at the head and beginning of them all.
(10) M. There is nothing, then, to keep you from going
through with all these feet while I listen and judge without
questioning.
D. I shall, if I can. To begin with, one short must be sub-
218 SAINT AUGUSTINE
traded from the four shorts of the first foot and one long
substituted in the first place because of unity's precedence.
But this foot is divided in two ways: either into one long
and three shorts or into a long and short and two shorts, that
is, either into two times and three times or into three and two.
But when the long syllable is put second, it makes another
foot with one way division, that is, into three times and two,
with the first part containing a short and long and the second
part two shorts. Next, when the long is put third, it makes
a foot again divided one way, but in such a way the first
part has two times with two short syllables, the second part
three with a long and a short. A final long syllable produces
the fourth foot, divided in two ways as when the long was
first. For it can be split either into two shorts and into a
short and long, or into three shorts and into a long, that is,
into two and three times or into three and two times. And
all these four feet, where the long syllable is variously placed
among the three shorts, have their parts interrelated in the
ratio of sesquate numbers.
(11) Next, from the four shorts we take away two and
substitute two longs, and consider how many forms and feet
can be produced with two longs and two shorts. Then I find
two shorts and two longs are to be considered first, because
the beginning is more correctly made with the shorts. But
this foot has a twofold division. For it is
split either into two
times and four or into four times and two, so that either two
shorts comprise the first part and two longs the second; or
two shorts and a long comprise the first part while the remaining
long comprises the second. Another foot is produced
when the two shorts we placed at the beginning, according
to order's demands, have been put in the middle. And the
division of this foot is into three times and three. For a long
ON MUSIC 219
and a short syllable take up the first part, and a short and
a long the second. But when they are placed last, for this is
the next case, they produce a foot of two divisions, either
with the first part containing two times in one long syllable
and the second four times in one long syllable and two shorts,
or with the first part containing four in two longs and the
second two in two shorts. And the parts of these three feet
are interrelated, in the case of the first and third, by a ratio
of complicate numbers, and in the case of the middle, by
equality.
(12) Next, these two shorts which were placed together
must be split apart. It is the least separation of the two shorts
we must begin with, and it is such the two shorts have a long
syllable between them. And the greatest separation, such
they have two between. But when one long syllable separates
them, this is possible in two ways and two feet are produced.
And the first of these ways is with a short syllable at the
beginning followed by a long; then again a short and the
remaining long. The other way is with the short syllables
second and last, and the long syllables first and third; so it
will be a long and a short, and a long and short. But he
greatest separation occurs when the two longs are between,
and the shorts are first and last. And those three feet with
the short syllables separated are divided into three times
and three, that is, the first into a short and long, and a short
and long; the second into a long and short, and a long and
short; and the third into a short and long, and a long and
short. And so, six feet are produced from two short and two
long syllables placed in relation to each other in as many
different ways as possible.
(13) There remains the subtraction of three shorts from
the four and the substitution of three longs. So there will be
220 SAINT AUGUSTINE
one short. And a short syllable at the beginning followed by
three longs makes one foot; placed second, a second foot;
third, a third foot; and fourth, a fourth. And the first two of
these four feet are divided into three and four times, but the
last two into four and three. And they all have parts ordered
in the ratio of sesquate numbers. For the first part of the first
foot is a short and a long with three times, the second part
is two long with four times. The first part of the second foot is
a long and a short, and, therefore, three times; the second
part two longs or four times. The third foot has a first part
of two longs or four times; a short and long make up the
second part, that is three times. Likewise, two long or four
times make up the first part of the fourth foot; and a long
and short or three times, the second part. The remaining
foot is four syllables with all shorts removed, so that the foot
consists of four longs. And it is divided into two longs and two
longs according to equal numbers or into four times and four.
There you have what you wished me to explain by myself
and unaided. Now you go on questioning with the rest.
Chapter 7
(14) M. I shall. But have you sufficiently considered
to what extent that progression to four, demonstrated for
numbers, is also true for feet?
D. I certainly judge this ratio of progression to exist in the
ones as in the others.
M.
Well, just as feet are made by joining syllables, doesn't
it seem something can be made by joining feet, something
called neither a foot nor a syllable?
D. It seems so.
Af. And what do you think it is?
D. Verse, I suppose.
ON MUSIC 221
M. What if one should wish to keep adding feet together
so as to impose no measure on them or no end to them except
from a failing in voice, chance interruption, or the necessity
of doing something else? Would you also call it a verse
when it has twenty, thirty, a hundred feet or more, in any
length of uninterrupted succession the person putting them
together could or would wish?
D. No. For when I see feet of all sorts thrown together,
many and without end, I shall not call them a verse. But I
can learn from some discipline the genus and number of feet,
that is, what feet and how many go to make up a verse, and
judge accordingly whether I have heard verses or not.
M. Certainly, this discipline, whatever it be, has not established
a rule and measure for verses in any way at all, but
rather by some ratio.
D. For it should not and could not do otherwise, if it is a
discipline.
M. Then, if
you will, let us look for and follow out this
ratio. For if we regard only authority, a verse will be whatever
an Asclepiades or Archilochus, the ancient poets, or Sappho,
a poetess, and others wished to be so. And the kinds
of verses they first invented and sang are called by their
names. For there are verses called Asclepiadean, and Archilochian,
and Sapphic, and a thousand other names belonging
to Greek authors have been given to verses of various
Jdnds. And in view of this it would not be absurd to think
that, if someone, to suit himself, has ordered in a certain way
feet of whatever number and kind he wishes, then, just
because no one before him has established this order and
measure in feet, rightly and lawfully he will be called the
creator and propagator of this new kind of verse. But if this
sort of license is not given man, then one must ask complainingly
what merit has been theirs if, following no ratio, they
222 SAINT AUGUSTINE
had the sequence of feet it pleased them to throw together
considered and called a verse. Doesn't it seem so to you?
D. It is just as you say, and I certainly agree a verse is
generated by ratio rather than authority. And I pray we see
it right away.
Chapter 8
(15) M. Let us see first which feet are to be joined
together; next, what is done with what has been joined, for
a verse doesn't stand all by itself; finally we shall discuss
the whole rationale of verse. But you don't imagine we can
easily get through all this without names for the feet, do
you? It is true we have arranged them so they can be called
by their ordinal number; for we can say first, second, third,
and so on in this way. Yet, because the old names are not
to be despised and custom should not be lightly violated
unless it is opposed to reason, we should use the names of
feet the Greeks instituted, now in use among the Latins. And
we take them over without inquiring into the origins of the
names, for this matter has much talk about it and little usefulness.
For in speaking you don't name bread, wood, and
stone the less usefully because you don't know why they are
called so.
D. I think it is certainly as you say.
M. The first foot is called a pyrrhic, constructed of two
shorts, consisting of two times, as fuga.
The second an iamb, of a short and long, as parens, three
times.
The third a trochee, or choree of a long and a short, as
meta, three times.
The fourth a spondee, of two longs, as aestas, four times.
The fifth a tribrach, of three shorts, as macula, three times.
ON MUSIC 223
The sixth a dactyl, of a long and two shorts, as Maenalus,
four times.
The seventh an amphibrach, of a short and a long and
a short, as carina, four times.
The eight an anapest, of two shorts and a long, as Erato,
four times.
The ninth a bacchius, of a short and two longs, as Achetes,
five times.
The tenth a cretic or amphimacer, of a long and a short
and a long, as insulae, five times.
The eleventh an antibacchius, of two longs and a short, as
natura, five times.
The twelfth a molossus, of three longs, as Aeneas, six times.
The thirteenth a proceleusmatic, of four shorts, as avicula,
four times.
The fourteenth a first paeon, of a first long and three
shorts, as legitimus, five times.
The fifteenth, a second paeon, of a second long and three
shorts, as colonia, five times.
The sixteenth a third paeon, of a third long and three
shorts as Menedemus, five times.
The seventeenth a fourth paeon, of a fourth long and three
shorts, as celeritas, five times.
The eighteenth a lesser ionic, of two shorts and two longs,
as Diomedes, six times.
The nineteenth a choriamb, of a long and two shorts and
a long, as armipotens^ six times.
The twentieth a greater ionic, of two longs and two shorts,
as Junonius, six times.
The twenty-first a diiamb, of a short and long and a short
and long, as propinquitas,
six times.
The twenty-second a dichorcc or ditrochee, of a long and
short and a long and short, as cantilena, six times.
224 SAINT AUGUSTINE
The twenty-third an antispast, of a short and two longs
and a short, as Saloninus, six times.
The twenty-fourth a first epitrite, of a first short and three
longs, as sacerdotis, seven times.
The twenty-fifth a second epitrite, of a second short and
three longs, as conditores, seven times.
The twenty-sixth a third epitrite, of a third short and three
longs, as Demosthenes, seven times.
The twenty-seventh a fourth epitrite, of a fourth short and
three longs, as Fescenninus, seven times.
The twenty-eight a dispondee, of four longs, as oratores,
eight times.
Chapter 9
(16) D. I have them. Now discuss the question of which
feet are joined with which.
M. You will easily decide this for yourself, if only you
judge equality and similitude superior to inequality and
dissimilitude.
D. I believe everyone does.
M. Then this is the principal rule to be followed in combining
feet, and there should be no deviation from it without
very just cause.
D. I agree.
M. You will not hesitate, then, to combine pyrrhic feet
with each other, nor iambic, nor trochaic also called choric,
nor spondaic. And so you will have no doubts about combining
any foot with others of the same kind. For you have
the greatest equality when feet are in sequence with those of
their own kind and name. Wouldn't you say so?
D. I don't see any other way of looking at it.
M. So, then, you accept the principle any foot is to be com-
ON MUSIC 225
bined with any other provided an equality is preserved. For
what can give the ear more pleasure than being both delighted
by variety and uncheated of equality?
D. 1 accept.
M. And only those feet having the same measure are to be
considered equal, aren't they?
D. I should say so.
M. And only those with the same stretch of time are to be
considered of the same measure?
D. That's true.
M. Then any feet found having the same number of times,
those you will put together without offending the ear.
D. I see that follows.
Chapter 10
(17) M. Quite rightly. But the subject has still matter
for debate. For although the amphibrach
6
is a foot of
four times, certain people deny it can be mixed either with
dactyls or anapests or spondees, or proceleusmatics. Yet these
are all four-time feet. And they not only deny it can be joined
with these feet,
7
but they think also the number does not
proceed correctly and legitimately, even when amphibrach
is combined with amphibrach in a repetition of itself alone.
6 This doctrine of Augustine on the amphibrach is that of Censorinui
also. See. F. Amerio, II "De Musica" di S. Agostino, Didaskaleton,
Nuova serie 8 (Turin 1939) 173. .
7 Both Aristoxenus and Anstides disallow the 1:3 ratio. Anstoxenus
indeed only allows the 1-1, 1:2, and 2:3 ratios, that is, what he calls
the dactylic, iambic, and paeonic. He refuses the epitntic or 3:4 ratio.
Aristides accepts all four but no others. There is a good Pythagorean
reason for this doctrine of Aristides and Augustine. These four ratios
are exactly the ratios of the string-lengths
of the intervals of coincidence,
of the octave, of the
perfect
fifth, and of the perfect fourth,
the only consonances admitted in Greek music. This establishes another
correspondence between Rhythmics and Harmonics. Schkfke is also
of thiV same opinion. See Westphal, Aristox. II 83-85. These ratios,
226 SAINT AUGUSTINE
And we must consider their opinion, not to overlook a reason
deserving our compliance and approval.
D. I want very much to hear what they say. For it seems
to me this is very interesting, that, of the thirty-two feet
given us by reason, this one alone should be excluded from
the succession of numbers, occupying as it does the same timestretch
as dactyls and others equal to them just enumerated,
combinations of which are not forbidden.
M. To understand this you must consider the interrelation
of the parts within the other feet. For this way you will find
a strange and peculiar accident in the amphibrach, well justifying
the judgment it is little fit to be much applied in
numbers.
(18) But in considering this we must first learn two
names, the arsis [upward beat] and thesis [downward beat].
In making a beat, since the hand is raised and lowered, the
arsis claims one part of the foot, the thesis the other. And I
call these the parts of a foot which we discussed thoroughly
a while ago in treating them in order.
8
If, then, you accept
this, begin briefly recounting the measures belonging to every
foot's parts, in order to find the peculiar accident of the one
we are discussing.
for Aristoxenus and Aristides, distinguish rhythmical feet according
to genus. This is the second differentia of feet for Aristoxenus of
which the first is
according to magnitude. There are five others of
which the last is
according to antithesis, mentioned in another note.
8 In this treatment of arsis and thesis, Augustine seems to recognize
onh the mechanical ictus, that is, upward and downward strokes
whose only puipose
is to break the rhythmical foot into parts in
certain ratios. There is not a trace here of psdphos hoi cremia of
Aristides' definition quoted in our first note in this Book which, according
to Nicolau's
interpretation,
marks the recognition of a vocal
Ictus accompanying the arsis.
Consequently, there is no recognition by
Augustine of Aristides' differentiations of feet katri antithesin, a
distinction which appears also in the fragments of Aristoxenus. Accord-
ON MUSIC 227
D. I see the first foot or pyrrhic has as much in the arsis
as in the thesis. The spondee, the dactyl, the anapest, proceleusmatic,
choriamb, diiamb, dichoree, antispast, and dispondee
are also divided in the same ratio. For the best takes
as much time going down as coming up. I see the second
foot or iamb has the ratio of one to two. And I find this
ratio also in the choree, tribrach, molossus, and in both ionics.
Now the arsis and thesis of the amphibrach (for it comes in
turn, and I look for others like it) are in the ratio of one to
three. But I certainly find no other in the sequel with parts in
the same relation. For when I look at those consisting of a
short and two longs, that is the bacchius, cretic, and antibacchius,
I find their arsis and thesis in the ratio of sesquialter
numbers. There is, again, the same ratio in those four consisting
of a long and three shorts, called the four paeons in order.
There remain the four epitrites, similarly named in order,
where the sesquitertian number dominates the arsis and
thesis.
(19) M. You don't think it's too little reason for excluding
this foot from the numerical series of sounds simply being
to Aristoxenus: 'Feet differ from each other by antithesis in
having the up-time and the down-time reversed in position. And this
difference will be in feet which are equal but have an unequal order
of up-times and down-times' (op.cit. 11.84). According to Aristides:
'Difference according to antithesis occurs whenever of two feet considered,
the one has the greater time first and the less time second, and
the other vice-versa' (op. cit. 1.54) .
Again Aristides says: '. . .
rhythm
is constructed from like syllables and antithetical feet. But meter is
never constructed from feet having all syllables like, and rarely from
antithetical feet' (op.cit. 1.49-50).
In line with the definition of arsis and thesis of Aristides, it is interesting
to consider the text of a later writer, contemporary of Augustine,
Marius Victorinus: Arsis igitur ac thesis quae Graeci dicunt, id c*t
sublatio et positio, significant pedis motum. Est enim arsis sublatio
pedis sine sono, thesis posito cum sono: item arsis elatio temporis,
soni, vocis, thesis depositio et quaedam contractio syllabarum. 'Therefore
the arsis and thesis the Greeks speak of, that is rise and fall.
228 SAINT AUGUSTINE
cause its
parts differ to the extent of one to three, do you?
For the nearer the similarity of parts is to equality, the more
worthy of consideration it is. And so, in the rule of numbers
going from one to four, there is nothing nearer each one than
itself. And, therefore, those feet take precedence whose parts
are in relation of equality to each other. Then the union of
single and double emerges in one and two; the sesquialter
union in two and three; and the sesquitertian in three and
four. But the single and triple, although dominated by the
law of complicate numbers, are not brought together by this
ordering. For we do not count three after one, but from
one three is reached by way of two. And this is the reason in
virtue of which the amphibrach is judged to be fittingly
excluded from the combinations of feet we are now discussing.
And if you agree to this, let us go on to the rest.
D. I do agree, for it is all very clear and certain.
signifies the motion of the foot. For arsis is the raising of the foot
without sound, thesis the putting down of the foot with sound: likewise
arsis is a lengthening out of the time and sound and a raising
of the voice, thesis the lowering and a contraction of the syllables'
(Marius Victorinus, Ars Grammatica, Keil, VI.40) .
Nicolau finds the same combination of mechanical and vocal ictus in
the text of Victorinus, and furthermore in the 'elatto vocis' and
'contractio syllabarum' he finds the confusion of vocal ictus and accent,
an accent which is no longer musical and which becomes more and
more the pivotal point
of rhythm, meter, and word in accordance
with the natural laws of accent of Latin. The accent becomes the
'soul of the word* and the totality of the word must be preserved
in scansion. See texts of
Pompeius, Capella, and Sacerdos quoted by
Nicolau, op.cit. 65-66. It is for this reason, according to Nicolau,
that the Latin metricists at times invert the use of arsis and thesis,
the arsis for the strong time and the thesis for the weak. The exact
meaning of the antithetical difference in Aristoxenus and Aristides
and whether it is exactly the same thing in both is hard to determine.
Bartels, in his Aristoxeni Elementorum Rhythmicorum Fragmentum
(Bonn 1854) 51-52, considers it
simply a difference in up-time and
down-time and chides Aristides for his clumsy rendition of these
terms by 'greater time' and 'less time/ Nicolau follows Desrousseaux
in considering the difference to be one of strong time, the simple fact
of the occurrence of a constantly repeated pattern of long times.
ON MUSIC 229
Chapter 11
(20) M. Since, then, you are willing all feet save
only the amphibrach can be combined one with another
regularly and without violation of the principle of equality,
no matter what their mutual relations in syllables if only
they are the same quantity in time, it is
perhaps well to inquire
whether those also are regularly combined which, although
equal in time, yet do not agree in the beat where arsis and
thesis throw the foot's one part against the other. For the
dactyl, anapest, and spondee are not only similarly timed,
but they are also beat to the same stroke. For in all of them
the arsis carries equal weight with the thesis.
9
And so these
are more properly put together than any of the ionics with
the other feet of six times. For each of the ionics is beat to
one-two time, that is, two times against four. The molossus,
too, is like them in this. But the other six-time feet have
equal divisions, for here three times go to the arsis and thesis
each. And so, although all of them have an acceptable beat
for the first three are beat in a one-two ratio and the other
four in equal parts yet, because such a combination gives
unequal strokes, I don't at all know if reason's judgment
would countenance it. Or have you something to the point?
Thus a spondee in a series of dactyls would be antithetical to a
spondee in a series of anapests. See Nicolau, op.cit. 47, n.2. Nicolau,
of course, denies the existence of a vocal ictus m Aristoxenus and at
any time much previous to Aristides. In any case, Augustine must have
been aware of these evolutions in doctrine and practice. His Psalm
against the Donattst Faction would seem to guarantee that. This flight
of his, therefore, into a purely musical rhythmics, into a sort of metarhythmics,
has more significance than has been supposed. Amerio, in
his study of Augustine's sources, considers it a return to an older
tradition of pure rhythmical doctrine. See F. Amerio, op.cit. 167-193.
9 Obviously arsis and thesis are not essentially different, except for
the numerical division of the foot.
230 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. 1 am readier to pass judgment here. For I do not see
how an unequal beat could avoid offending the sense of hearing.
And if it offends, it cannot occur without a flaw in the
combination.
(21 )
Af. But you know the ancients judged such feet to
be properly combined and they constructed verses composed
this way. But, not to oppress you with authority, take a verse
of that sort and see if it offends your ear. For if it should not,
but rather delight you, there will be no reason for rejecting
this combination. And here are the verses I wish you to
listen to:
At consona quae sunt, nisi vocalibus aptes,
Pars dimidium vocis opus proferet ex se:
Pars muta soni comprimet ora molientum:
Illis sonus obscurior impeditiorque,
Utrunique tamen promitur ore semicluso.
I believe that's enough for judging what I want. And so tell
me now if this number hasn't been pleasing to hear.
D. True, nothing seems to me to flow and sound more
agreeably.
Af. Now look to the feet. You will quickly find that, of the
five verses, the first two run in ionics only, and the last
three have a dichoree mixed in, although all of them are
equally pleasing.
D. I have already noticed this, and more readily while you
recited.
Af. Why, then, do we hesitate to agree with the ancients,
conquered not by their authority but by the very reason of
those who think feet of the same time-measure can with reason
be combined if only their beat is
proper although diverse?
10 Terentianus Maurus, DC Utteris, 11. 89-99 (Kei! VU28) .
ON MUSIC 231
D. I am ready now to give way. For their sound gives me
no ground for contradiction.
Chapter 12
(22) M. In the same way listen to these verses:
V,olo tandem tibi parcas, labor est in chartis,
Et apertum ire per auras animum permittas.
Placet hoc nam sapienter, remittere interdum
Aciem rebut agendis decenter intentam.
D. That is enough.
M. Too true, for these verses I was forced to compose on
the spur of the moment are pretty rude. And yet I want to
know the judgment your sense passes in the case of these
four, too.
Z). And here again what else is there to say except they
sounded correct and smooth?
M. Do you see here, also, the first two verses are composed
of second ionics, called lesser, but the last two have a diiarnb
thrown in?
D. I was very conscious of your putting it in when you
recited.
M. Well, aren't you interested in the fact that in the verses
of Terentianus a dichoree was thrown in with the ionic called
greater, but in these verses of ours a diiamb has been cast in
with the other ionic called lesser? Or do you think this is
trivial?
D. It is
quite important and I seem to see the reason. For,
since the greater ionic begins with two longs, it ought rather to
be joined with the dichoree where there is a first long. But
the diiamb because it begins with a short is more suitably
combined with the other ionic beginning with the two shorts.
232 SAINT AUGUSTINE
(23) M. Your understanding is good. And so it must be
held, given the equality of times, a symmetry of this kind
must have some weight in combining feet. For, though it is
not of the greatest importance, yet it is not negligible. For
your own sense of hearing can judge any six-time foot capable
of substitution for any other six-time foot. First let us have
an example of a molossus, virtutes; then a lesser ionic, moderatas;
then of a choriamb, percipies; a greater ionic, concedere;
a diiamb, benignitas; a dichoree, civitasque; an antispast,
volet justa.
D. I have them.
M. Then put them together and recite them, or better,
listen to me recite them so your sense of hearing may be
freer of its time for judging. For to introduce the equality of
a continued number without offending your ears, I shall give
the whole combination three times. And I am sure that will
be enough, Virtutes moderatas percipies, concedere benignitas
civitasque volet justa. Virtutes moderatas percipies, concedere
benignitas civitasque volet justa. Virtutes moderatas percipies,
concedere benignitas civitasque volet justa. You don't
find anything in this flow of feet, do you, to rob your ears of
equality and smoothness?
D. Not at all.
M. Were they pleased, then? Although, in this kind of
thing, it logically follows what does not offend delights.
D. I can't say I have been affected otherwise than you
expect.
M. Then your decision is, all these six-time feet can with
propriety be combined and mixed.
D. It is.
Chapter 13
(24) M. Aren't you afraid some one may think these
ON MUSIC 233
feet were capable of this equal balance in sound because
of this particular order, and another order would destroy it?
D. That is
certainly an objection, but it is not hard to find
out.
M. You will do that when there's time, and you'll only find
your hearing is delighted by a single equality and a multiform
difference.
D. I shall go through with it, although everyone foresees
what will happen here.
M. You are right. But what is more to the point I shall
run through them with the accompanying beats to enable you
to decide whether there is a flaw or not. But as soon as you
have made some trial of the possible permutations we have
Uready declared harmless, make the change and, as you will,
jive me for recitation and rhythmical delivery these same
'eet placed otherwise than I had them.
D. First I want the lesser ionic, next the greater ionic, third
he choriamb, fourth the diiamb, fifth the antispast, sixth the
iichoree, seventh the molossus.
M. Now, fix your ears on the sound and your eyes on the
>eats. For the hand beating time is not to be heard but seen,
ind note must be taken of the amount of time given to the
irsis and to the thesis.
D. I shall follow as well as I can.
M. All right, then, for the order of feet you have given me
ind their beats: Moderatas, concedere, percipies, benignitas,
>olet justa, civitasque, virtutes.
D. I see no flaw in the beat, and as much time is given to
he arsis as to the thesis. But I certainly wonder how those
eet with a division in a one-two ratio could have been beat
o this time, such, for example, as the ionics and the molossus.
M. Well, what do you think is done here with three measires
in each the arsis and thesis?
234 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. Only this, that the long syllable, second in the greater
ionic and molossus, but third in the lesser ionic, is divided by
the beat itself so that, of its two times, one is attributed to the
first part and one to the second, and so the arsis and thesis
are each allotted three times.
11
(25) M. There is nothing more to be said or understood
on this score. But why couldn't the amphibrach we so utterly
struck from the list also be combined with the spondee, dactyl,
and anapest, or itself produce a numerical or harmonious
line with a succession of amphibrachs? For the middle syllable
of this foot, being long, can also be divided by the beat into
a like ratio, so that, when each side has in this way been
given a time, the arsis and thesis no longer claim one and
three times respectively, but each two. Have you anything to
say to that?
D. Nothing except to say the amphibrach must also be
allowed.
M. Then let us beat the time to an ordered composition of
four-time feet with an amphibrach included, and find out if
there is any inequality to offend this sense of hearing. And
now listen to this number, given three times to facilitate a
judgment. Sumas optima, facias honesta. Sumas optima,
facias honesta. Sumas optima, facias honesta.
D. Please spare me. For, even without the accompaniment
of the beat, the very flow of the feet runs away in that
amphibrach.
11 This dissolution of the syllabic structure of the molossus to allow
it to be beat with any other six-time foot is another sign of the
character of this treatise. Everywhere we find the dissolution of the
inner structure or purely metrical structure of the foot in favor of
an all embracing and entirely rational arithmetic rhythmics. . Graf
has already remarked on this in his Rhythmus und Metrum (Marburg
1891) 66 and n.l. He points
out this might well lead to the
breaking up of an overlapping ionic and gives an example from
Marius Victorinus.
ON MUSIC 235
M. What, then, is the cause what could be done in the
case of the molossus and ionics cannot be done here? Is it
because in the first case the sides are equal to the middle? For,
six is the first even number where the sides are equal to the
middle. Then, since the six-time feet have two times in the
middle and two each on the sides, the middle falls in happily
with the sides fitting with complete equality. But it is not the
same in the amphibrach, where the sides are not equal to the
middle, for there is one time in each of the sides and two in the
middle. And so in the ionics and the molossus, when the
middle has been dissolved into the sides, the times are three
each. And in each of these sides again are found equal sides
with an equal middle. And this doesn't occur in the amphibrach
either.
D. It's as you say. And it's not without cause the amphibrach,
put in that sequence, offends my hearing, while the
others please it.
Chapter 14
(26) M. Come now, explain briefly on your own, as far
as you can, which feet are to be mixed with which, beginning
with the pyrrhic and in accordance with the ratios just
given.
D. None with the pyrrhic, for no other foot with the same
number of times is to be found. The choree can be combined
with the iamb. But this combination is to be avoided on account
of the unequal beat, for one begins with a single beat,
the other with a double. And so the tribrach can be fitted in
with either one. I find the spondee, dactyl, anapest, and
proceleusmatic are compatible and permit of combination.
For they agree not only in the number of times, but also in
the beat. But the amphibrach we excluded could not be reduced
by any ratio; equality of times was of no avail, for its
236 SAINT AUGUSTINE
division and beat are discordant. It is clear the cretic and
first, second, and fourth paeons agree in times and beat with
the bacchius. And this same cretic, and the first, third, and
fourth paeons with the antibacchius. Therefore, all the other
five-time feet can be combined, without any hitch, with the
cretic and the first and fourth paeons, since a division can be
made of them, beginning either with two or three times. It
has already been sufficiently argued there is a strange agreement
of all the six-time feet among themselves. For even those
where the status of the syllables results in a different division
do not clash in beat with the others, so great is the force of
the equality of the sides with the middle. To go on, of the
four seven-time feet called epitrites, I find the first and second
can be combined, for the division of both begins with three
times and, therefore, they disagree neither in time-interval nor
in beat. Again the third and fourth are readily combined,
because both have a first division of four times, and so have
an equal time and beat. There remains the eight-time called
dispondee, and just as with the pyrrhic there is no foot equal
to it. Now you have what you asked of me and as much as
I have been able to do. You go on with the rest.
M. I shall. But let's breathe a little after such a long discussion,
and let's recall those verses fatigue prompted me with on
the spur of the moment, a little while back.
Volo tandem tibi parcas, labor est in chartis,
Et apertum ire per auras animum permittas.
Placet hoc nam sapientert remittere interdum
Aciem rebus agendis decenter intentam.
12
D. I am very willing, and gladly obey.
12 'And now I want you to spare yourself (there is drudgery in letters) ,
and to let your mind run tree to the winds. For this is a judicious
pleasure, to relax at times your attention when it has been properly
strained to business.'
BOOK THREE
The difference between rhythm, meter, and verse; then
rhythm is discussed separately; and next the treatise on
meter begins.
Chapter 1
(
1 )
M.
Now, since enough has been said about the
harmony and agreement of feet among themselves, this third
discussion warrants our seeing what arises from their composition
and from the sequences of them. And so first I ask you
whether those feet which can properly be put together can
be combined to create a sort of continuing number without
definite end, as when chorus-boys beat castanets and cymbals
with their feet according to numbers whose combinations are
pleasing to the ear, but yet in an unending flow so that, unless
you should hear the flutes, you could in no way mark
how far the combination of feet runs forward and from where
it returns to begin again. It's as if you should want a hundred
pyrrhics or more, as many as you please, or any other feet
belonging together, to run on in continuous combination.
D. I now understand, and I agree a certain combination of
feet can be made in which it is fixed just how many feet the
progression is to be, before it starts over again.
M. Then you are not doubting the existence of this sort
of thing, since you don't deny there's a certain discipline for
making verses, you who have always confessed to hearing them
with pleasure?
237
238 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. It's evident there's such a thing, and that it's distinct
from the other kind we talked about before.
(2) M. Then, since it's proper for things distinct from
each other to be distinguished by names, it's well to learn the
first kind of combination is called rhythm by the Greeks; the
second, meter. In Latin they could be called, the first, number
[numerus]; the second, measure [mensio or mensura].
1
But,
since these names are very current with us, and since we must
be careful not to speak ambiguously, we find the use of the
Greek names more convenient. Yet you see, I believe, how
correctly each of these names is imposed. For, since there is a
rolling forward in fixed feet, and a hitch if dissonant feet are
mixed together, this sort of thing is rightly called rhythm or
number. But, because the rolling forward has no measure, and
there has been no decision as to what foot is to be used as a
definite end, this ought not to be called meter because there is
an absence of measure in the succession. But meter has both:
it runs in fixed feet and in fixed measure. And so it is not only
meter because of a distinct end, but it is also rhythm be-
1 The result of Augustine's theories is seen clearly in this definition of
meter, as Graf has pointed out. It is not a new definition, but other
writers usuall) give it, along with the other definitions stressing the
stuctly metrical qualities of the foot.
To say meter is
simply
the measuring oft of rhythm is to deny anything
specifically metrical. Quite different is the approach of Aristides
Qiuntilianus, for him, meter is the differentiation within the rhythmical
foot, its inner structure. But for Augustine, only two things are
demanded: that the feet be equal in length and that the ratio of
their parts be the same. There is no mention of rhythmical modulation
as in Aristides. The real differentiation between arsis and thesis
is ignored as something outside of the rhythm.
Many scholars consider this definition to l>e from Varro, but Aristides
also gives it among others and Diomedes reports Varro as giving quite
another 'inter rythinum, qui latine numerus vocatur, et wettum hoc
inhetete, quod inter materiam et regulam.' See Graf, op.cit. 64.
Amerio points out that Censorin us, one of the oldest of the metricists,
gixes also the same notion of homogeneity of meter. 'Numerus est
aequalium pedum legtttma ordinatio.' Sec Amerio, op. cit. 168-172.
ON MUSIC 239
cause of the rational composition of feet. And so all meter is
rhythm, but not all rhythm is meter. For the name rhythm
makes such an extensive appearance in music that the whole
part of it
having to do with longs and shorts has been called
rhythm. But it has seemed good to both the learned and the
wise that there need be little trouble about the name since
the thing itself is clear. Or do you perhaps have something
to oppose, or think there ought to be some doubt about what
I have said?
D. On the contrary, I agree with you.
Chapter 2
(3) M. Now then, consider this question with me:
Whether just as all verse is meter, so all meter is verse.
D. I am considering the question, but I find nothing to
reply.
M. Why do you think you have gotten into this difficulty?
Isn't it because it's a question of names? For we can't reply to
a question about names as to one about things belonging to
a discipline, because things are implanted in the minds of all
in common, but names arc imposed arbitrarily, and their
force depends for the most part on authority and usage.
And so there can be a diversity in tongues, but in the very
truth of constituted things there certainly cannot be. Take
from me, then, what you could nowise get for yourself: the
ancients spoke of meter, not verse only. And so, what you are
to do is to say and see (for it is not a matter of names)
whether there is a difference between the following two things:
the one case where a certain number of feet are so defined by
a fixed end there is nothing in the way of an articulation
before this end is reached; the other case where there is not
only a closure by a fixed end, but also before the end a divi-
240 SAINT AUGUSTINE
sion appears in a definite place to produce two members as
it were.
D. I don't understand.
Af. Listen to these examples:
lie igitur, Camoenae
Fonticolae puellae,
Quae canitis sub antris
Mellifluos sonores;
Quae lavitis capillum
Purpureum Hippocrene
Fonte, ubi fusus olim
Spumea lavit almus
Ora jubis aquosis
Pegasus, in nitentem
Pervolaturus aethram.
You certainly see the first five of these so-called versicles have
the break in discourse in the same place, that is, at the choriambic
foot, to which is added a bacchius to complete the
versicle (for these eleven versicles consist of choriambic and
bacchic feet, but the others, except one, namely, Ora jubis
aquosis, do not have the break in discourse in that same
place.
D. I see that, but I don't see what it's about.
M. Why so you may understand, this meter doesn't have
a place somehow laid down by law for a break in discourse
before the end of the verse. For if it did, all would have this
articulation in the same place or at least one which didn't
would be rarely found among them. But, here of these eleven,
six do, and five do not.
D. I see that and I am still waiting to see where reason is
going.
M. Well, listen then to the well-worn words, Arma virum-
ON MUSIC 241
que canOy Troiae qui primis ab 0m.2
And not to take up
time, since the poem is very well known, exploring each verse
as far as you wish, you will always find a part of the discourse
completed in the fifth half-foot, that is, two and a
half feet from the beginning. For these verses consist of feet
of four times, and so this completion of a part of the discourse
in the tenth time is laid down by law, you might say.
D. That's evident.
(4) M. Then you see there is a difference in the two
kinds I have just given examples of. For one meter before its
close has clearly no fixed and determined division, as we
saw in those eleven little verses, but the other has, as the fifth
half-foot in the heiroic meter sufficiently indicates.
D. What you say is now clear.
M. Now the first kind, you should know, is not called verse
by the learned men among the ancients in whom there is
great authority, but that is defined as verse and so called
which consists, you might say, of two members joined in a
fixed measure and ratio. But don't trouble yourself too much
about a name you couldn't possibly come out with on any
amount of questioning without its being thrown at you by
me or someone else. But what reason teaches, keep your mind
first and foremost on that, as we are now doing. For reason
teaches there is a difference between these two kinds, no matter
what names they are called by. And so, if questioned correctly,
you could put your finger on the difference, confident
in the truth itself, but the names you couldn't without following
authority.
D. I was already very clear about that. And what you so
constantly harp on I now consider as important as you do.
M. Then I want you to learn by heart these names we arc
2 Vergil, Aeneid 1.1.
242 SAINT AUGUSTINE
forced to use from the necessities of discourse itself: rhythm,
meter, and verse. And these are distinct in such a way that
all meter is also rhythm, but not all rhythm meter. And likewise
that all verse is also meter, but not all meter verse. Therefore,
all verse is rhythm and meter. For you see, I am sure,
this follows.
D. I certainly do, for it's clearer than light.
Chapter 3
(5) M. First, then, if you will, let's discuss as far as
we can the rhythm that's without meter, then the meter without
verse, and finally verse itself.
D. Very willingly.
M.
Now, take from your own head pyrrhic feet, and compose
a rhythm of them.
D. And now if I should be able to do this, what will be its
length?
M. It will be enough to extend it (for we are doing it as
an example) up to ten feet. For verse, which will be thoroughly
discussed in its proper place, does not go as far as
this number of feet.
JD. You do well not to ask me to put many feet together.
But just the same you don't seem to me to remember you
have already sufficiently distinguished the difference between
the grammarian and the musician when I told you I didn't
possess the knowledge of long and short syllables, a knowledge
passed down by grammarians. Unless, perhaps you let me
show the rhythm in beats and not in words. For I don't deny
I am capable of ear-judgments for regulating the values of
times. But as to what syllables are to be pronounced long or
short, since it's a matter of authority, I am altogther ignorant.
ON MUSIC 243
M. I admit we distinguished a grammarian from a musician
in the way you say, and you confessed your ignorance of this
sort of thing. And so take this by way of example from me:
Ago celeriter agile quod ago tibi quod anima velit.
D. 1 have it.
(6) M. Now, by repeating this as many times as you
will, you could make the length of this rhythm as great as
you wished, although these ten feet are enough for an example.
But I want to know this. If anyone should tell you
this rhythm is composed not of pyrrhic feet but of proceleusmatics,
what will you say?
D. I certainly don't know. For where there are ten pyrrhics
I can measure five proceleusmatics, and therefore there is a
greater doubt about the decision to be made in the .case of a
rhythm flowing on without stop. For eleven or thirteen or
any odd number of pyrrhics cannot contain a whole number
of proceleusmatics. And so, if there were a fixed end to the
rhythm in question, we could at least say it ran rather in pyrrhics
than in proceleusmatics in the case where all the feet
would not be whole proceleusmatics. But this infinity confounds
our judgment even when the feet are counted out for
us, but in an even number, as these ten are.
M. But the question isn't even clear as it seemed to you in
the case of the uneven number of pyrrhics. For what if, given
eleven pyrrhic feet, one should say they are five and a half
proceleusmatics? What's wrong with that since we find many
verses closing with a half-foot?
D. I have already said I don't see what to do about this
matter.
M. But you aren't at a loss about this, are you, that, if the
proceleusmatic is made of two pyrrhics, then the pyrrhic is
prior to the proceleusmatic? For, just as one is prior to two,
244 SAINT AUGUSTINE
and two to four, so the pyrrhic is prior to the proceleusmatic.
D. That's very true.
M. Then, since we fall into this ambiguity of both the
pyrrhic's and the proceleusmatic's being measured in the one
rhythm, to which are we to give preference? To the prior one
the other is composed of, or to the secondary one the other
is not composed of?
D. To the prior one certainly.
M. Why, then, on being consulted about this do you
hesitate to reply this rhythm is to be called pyrrhic rather
than proceleusmatic?
D. I don't hesitate at all now. I am ashamed at not having
immediately noticed such an evident reason.
Chapter 4
(7) M. Do you now see by this reasoning you are
forced to the conclusion there are certain feet not able to continue
the rhythm uninterruptedly? For, what was found to be
true of the proceleusmatic with its
priority usurped by the
pyrrhic can also be proved, I think, for the dichoree and the
diiamb. Or does it appear otherwise to you?
D. How can it, for, after the reason has been established,
I cannot disprove what follows from it.
M. Then consider all this too, and compare and judge.
For it seems when such an uncertainty occurs the distinction
ought to be made by the beat rather than by the foot it runs
in. And so if you wish to run in pyrrhics, you'll have one time
for the arsis, one for the thesis; if in proceleusmatics, two and
two. And in this way the foot will be unambiguous, and no
foot will be excluded from a purely rhythmical succession.
D. I am more inclined toward the opinion leaving no foot
free of this kind of succession.
ON MUSIC 245
(8) M. You are right, and for your greater approval
think what we could reply in the case of the tribrach, if someone
should further contend this rhythm runs not in pyrrhics
or proceleusmatics, but in tribrachs.
D. I see judgment must be referred to the beat, so that,
if there is one time in the arsis and two in the thesis, that is
one and two syllables, or if two in the arsis and one in the
thesis, the rhythm is said to be tribrach.
M. That's right. Therefore, tell me now whether the spondaic
foot can be joined with the pyrrhic rhythm.
D. Not at all. For the same beat will not continue, since
the arsis and thesis in the pyrrhic have each one time, but
in the spondee each two times.
M. Then it can be joined with the proceleusmatic.
D. It can.
M. Then suppose it is, what will we say when we are asked
whether the rhythm is proceleusmatic or spondaic?
D. How can you decide, unless preference is to be given the
spondee? For since the beat does not here decide the case
in both rhythms the arsis and thesis take two times what else
is there to do except to prefer that which is prior in the order
of feet?
M. I quite approve the reasoning you have followed. And
you see, I am sure, what that entails.
D. Well, what?
M. Why that no other foot can be mixed with the proceleusmatic
rhythm. For whatever foot consisting of the same
times is mixed in and otherwise the mixing is not possible
the name of the rhythm would necessarily be transferred
to it. For all those feet consisting of the same number of
times are prior to the proceleusmatic.
And since reason forces
us, as we have seen, to prefer the prior, that is, to name the
rhythm by them, there will no longer be any proceleusmatic
246 SAINT AUGUSTINE
rhythm with some other four-time rhythm mixed in, but a
spondaic or dactylic or anapestic rhythm. For it is agreed
the amphibrach is rightly excluded from the composition of
such numbers.
D. I admit it's so.
(9) M. Now, next in order let's consider the iambic
rhythm, since we have now sufficiently discussed the pyrrhic
and proceleusmatic born of the double pyrrhic. And so tell
me what foot is to be mixed in, with the iambic rhythm's
still
keeping its name.
D. Why, the tribach, of course, agreeing as it does in beat
and times. And yet, being posterior, it cannot prevail over
the iambic. The choree is also posterior and of the same
number of times, but it hasn't the same beat.
M. Now examine the trochaic rhythm, and here again
give me a reply to the same purpose.
D. My reply is the same, for the tribach can fit in with it
not only in extent of time but also in beat. But it's clear the
iambic must under these conditions be avoided. For even if
it were of equal beat, yet in the mixing it would carry off
the palm.
M. And further, what foot shall we compound with the
spondaic rhythm?
D. In this case there is
evidently a very great number of
choices. For I see the dactyl, the anapest, and the proceleusmatic
can be mixed in with it without inequality of times,
without any hitch in the beat, and without claims of priority.
(10) M. I see now you can easily explain the others in
order. And so without my questioning, or rather as if
questioned
about them all, tell as briefly and clearly as you can
how each of the remaining feet, with others lawfully mixed
in, gets its name in the rhythm.
ON MUSIC 247
D. I shall. For it's no trouble with such a light of reasons
cast before. And none will be mixed with the tribach, for all
equal to it in time are prior to it. The anapest can be mixed
with the dactyl, for it is posterior and runs in equal time and
beat. But the proceleusmatic is
compounded with both for the
same reason. Now the cretic, and the first, second, and fourth
paeons can be mixed with the bacchius. Further, all the fivetime
feet after the cretic are by right mixed with the cretic
itself, but they are not all of the same division. For, some
are divided in the ratio of two to three, and others of three
to two. But the cretic can be divided both ways, because the
middle short is attributed to either part. But the antibacchius,
because its division begins with two times and ends with
three, is suited to, and composable with, all the paeons except
the second. Of the trisyllabic feet there remains only the
molossus, the beginning of the six-time feet, all of which can
be joined with it: partly on account of the one-two ratio,
and partly on account of that partition of the long syllable
giving up to each part one time, because in the numsix
the middle is
equal to the sides. And therefore the mollossus
and both ionics can be given not only a one-two beat,
but also a three-three beat in equal parts. And so all posterior
six-time feet can be compounded with any six-time foot.
And so there is only the antispast allowing no mixture. The
four epitrites follow: the first accepting the second; the
second, none; the third, the fourth; and the fourth none.
And finally there is the dispondee, it, too, beating out its
rhythm only alone, because it finds no foot posterior to it
or equal to it. And so of all the feet there are eight giving
rhythm of their own only if no other foot is mixed in: the
pyrrhic, tribrach, proceleusmatic, fourth paeon, antispast, second
and fourth epitrites, and dispondee. The others allow
those posterior to them to be compounded with them without
248 SAINT AUGUSTINE
dropping their name from the rhythm even if they are fewer.
And this, I believe, is what you wanted of me, sufficiently
digested and explained. It is up to you now to explain what
is left.
Chapter 5
(11) M. And up to you, too, along with me, for we
are both in the search. But what do you think there is left
to say about rhythm? Isn't it
pertinent to find out if there
isn't a foot more than four syllables in length although it
doesn't exceed the eight times of the dispondee?
D. Why, I ask?
M. And you, why do you ask me rather than yourself? Or
don't you think two short syllables can be substituted for one
long without deceiving or offending the ear either with respect
to the beat and division of feet or to the matters concerning
time?
-D. Who would deny they could?
M. And so in this way we substitute a tribrach for an iamb
or choree, and a dactyl or anapest or proceleusmatic for a
spondee, when we substitute two shorts for the second long or
for the first, or four shorts for both longs.
D. I agree.
M. Do this same thing in any ionic, or in any other foursyllable
foot of six times, and substitute two shorts for any
one long. There is no loss in the time or hitch in the beat,
is there?
D. Not at all.
M. Let's see, then, how many syllables there are.
D. 1 see there are five.
M. You see, then, the four syllables can certainly be
exceeded.
D. I certainly do.
ON MUSIC 249
M. And what if you should substitute four shorts for the
two longs there? Wouldn't six syllables have to be measured
in one foot?
D. So they would.
M. What if you dissolve all the longs of any epitrite into
shorts? It would certainly make seven syllables, wouldn't it?
D. Certainly.
M. And what about the dispondee? Doesn't it make eight
syllables when we substitute two shorts each for all the longs?
D. That's very true.
(12) M. What, then, is this ratio we are forced to measure
feet of so many syllables by, and do we admit in accordance
with ratios already discussed a foot used for numbers
does not exceed four syllables? Don't these seem to you
contradictory?
D. Very much so, and I don't see how it can be patched up.
M. This is easy enough, if you again ask yourself whether
a while back we rationally established the pyrrhic and proceleusmatic
ought to be determined and distinguished by beat
so there might be no foot lawfully divided not producing a
rhythm, that is, not having a rhythm named after it.
Z). I certainly remember this, and I don't see why I should
have misgivings about its having seemed right to me. But
where is this leading?
M. Well, clearly all the four-syllable feet, except the amphibrach,
produce a rhythm, that is, they hold priority in rhythm,
and bring it about in use and name. But many having more
than four syllables can be substituted for these, yet they cannot
themselves produce the rhythm nor impose their name
upon it. And so I shouldn't have thought they ought to be
called feet. And therefore those contradictions troubling us
are now, I believe, arranged and laid at rest when it is pos-
250 SAINT AUGUSTINE
siblc to substitute more syllables than four for any foot and
yet not to call foot anything not producing a rhythm. For
it was proper to establish for the foot some measure of syllable-progression.
But that measure could best be established,
transferred from the ratio of numbers and consisting in
fours. And so there could be a foot of four long syllables.
And when, instead, we construct one of eight shorts, occupying
the same interval of time, it can be substituted for the other.
But because the eight shorts exceed the lawful progression,
that is, the number four, not the sense of hearing but the law
of the discipline forbids their being substituted for it and
producing a rhythm. Perhaps you wish to oppose?
(13) D. I very much intend to, and I shall do so right
now. For what kept the foot from going on up to eight syllables,
since we see that number can be allowed as far as
rhythm is concerned? And your saying it can be substituted
for another doesn't move me, but on the contrary it puts me
in mind to ask about or, rather, to complain about a thing's
being substituted for another without also taking over its own
name.
M. It's not surprising you are deceived, but there's an easy
explanation of the truth. For, omitting the many things already
disputed in favor of the number four, and why the syllable-progression
should only go so far, suppose I have given in
to you and have agreed the length of a foot ought to be extended
to eight syllables. You can't object, then, to the possibility
of a foot of eight long syllables? For, certainly, the
maximum length of a foot in terms of syllables applies alike
to both longs and shorts. And so, when the law permitting
the substitution of two shorts for a long is again applied
and it can't be cut short we get to sixteen syllables. And at
that point if you should want again to decree the foot's in-
ON MUSIC 251
crease, we arrive at thirty-two shorts. Your reason compels
you to bring the foot that far, too, and the law again compels
you to substitute a double number of shorts for the longs.
And in this way no limit will be established.
D. Well I give in to your reason of taking the foot only as far
as four syllables. But I don't reject the fact it's proper for feet
of more syllables to be substituted for these legitimate feet,
with two shorts in the place of one long.
Chapter 6
(14) M. Then it is easy for you also to see and agree
there are certain feet put in place of those having priority
in rhythm, others which are placed with them. For, where
two shorts are substituted for each long, we put another foot
in place of the one holding the rhythm: for example, a tribrach
in place of an iamb or trochee, or a dactyl or anapest
or proceleusmatic in place of a spondee. But where that is
not the case, whatever lower foot is mixed in is placed with,
not in place of: for example, an anapest with a dactyl, and
a diiamb or a dichoree with either ionic, and similarly for
the others according to their peculiar laws. Or does this seem
false to you, or too obscure?
D. No, I understand now.
M. Then tell me whether the feet put in place of others can
also produce rhythms on their own.
D. They can.
M. All?
D. All.
M. Then even a five-syllable foot can produce a rhythm in
its own name, because it can be put in place of a bacchius or
cretic or any of the paeons.
D. But it cannot. For we no longer call this a foot, if I
252 SAINT AUGUSTINE
remember well enough the progression to four. But when I
replied all could, I replied only feet could.
M. And I praise your diligence and vigilance in retaining
a name. But it is true, you know, many have thought it proper
for even six-syllable groups to be called feet. Yet, as far as I
know, for more than that no one has thought it proper.
And even those favoring the six-syllable foot have denied its
applicability in producing a rhythm or meter of its own.
And so it wasn't even given a name. And so the four-syllable
measure of progression is the truest, since all those feet, at
whose division two cannot be made, have been able, joined
together, to make a foot. And so, those who have gone as far
as the sixth syllable have dared give only the name of foot to
those exceeding the fourth syllable; but they have not allowed
them to aspire to the domination of rhythms and meters.
But when the shorts are substituted by twos for the longs, even
the seventh and eight syllables are reached, as reason has already
shown. But no one has extended the foot this far. But
snce I see we have agreed any foot of more than four syllables,
when we have substituted two shorts for each long, can
be put in place of, but not with, the legitimate feet and cannot
create a rhythm of its own, lest in this way things determined
by reason go on to infinity, let us pass on to meter, if you will,
having, I belived, talked enough about rhythm.
D. I am willing, certainly.
Chapter 7
(15) M. Tell me, then, would you say meter is made
of feet or feet of meter?
D. I don't understand.
M. Do feet joined together produce meter, or meters joined
together produce feet?
ON MUSIC 253
D. I know now what you are saying, and I think meter is
produced by the joining together of feet.
M. But why do you think that?
D. Because you said there was this difference between rhythm
and meter: in rhythm the conjunction of feet has no determinate
end, but in meter it has. So this joining together of
feet is understood to belong to both rhythm and meter, but
in one case it is infinite, in the other finite.
M. Then one foot is not a meter.
D. Not at all.
M. What about a foot and a half?
D. That isn't, either.
A/. Why? Is it because meter is made of feet, and that can't
be called feet where there is less than two?
D. That's it.
M. Then let's look at those meters I recited a while back
and see what feet they consist of, for it's no longer right you
should be untrained in discerning this sort of thing. They
were:
Ite igitur Camoenae
Fonticolae puellae,
Quae canitis sub antris
Mellifluos sonores.
I think these are enough for what I intend. Measure them,
now, and tell me what feet they consist of.
D. I am altogether unable to do it. I believe those feet are
to be measured that can be legitimately put together, and I
can't see my way out of this. For if I should make the first
a choree, an iamb follows, equal in times, but not the same
in beat. And if I should make the first a dactyl, nothing follows
even equal in time. If a choriamb, there's the same difficulty,
for what's left over doesn't agree with it either in time
254 SAINT AUGUSTINE
or beat. Then, cither this is not meter or what we said about
the joining together of feet is false. For I don't see what else
I can say.
(16) M. And by the ear's judgment it is certainly proved
to be meter, both because it is more than one foot and because
it has a determinate ending. For it would not sound with
such sweet equality or be beaten with such a skillfully adjusted
motion, if there were not some numerical quality in it proper
only to this part of music. But I am surprised you think false
those things we decided on, for nothing is surer than numbers,
or more orderly than the recitation and placing of feet. For
we have seen whatever is expressed in the nowise deceptive
ratio of numbers is capable of delighting the ear and dominating
rhythm. But rather listen as I keep repeating Quae canitis
sub antrisy and charm your senses with its numerical quality.
What difference is there between this and what results from
the adding of a short syllable also repeated in this same way,
Quae canitis sub antrisve?
D. To my ears both seem to flow agreeably. Yet I am forced
to admit the second you added a short syllable to occupies
more space and time, if it has been made longer.
M. And when I repeat the first, Quae canitis sub antris, in
such a way I don't stop at all after the ending? Do you experience
the same pleasure?
D. I don't know what sort of hitch it is here offending me
unless perhaps you drew out that last syllable more than other
long ones.
Af. Then do you think either what is more extended or
what is given as a rest [siletur]* have both a time-value?
D. How can it be otherwise?
3 The doctrine of rests and their wide use are not just Augustinian
novelties as many have thought, but they are traditional rhythmical
ON MUSIC 255
Chapter 8
(17) M. You arc right. But tell me what interval you
think there is.
D. It's very hard to measure.
M. That's true. But doesn't that extra short syllabic seem
to measure it? And when we added it on, doesn't it seem your
senses didn't demand any unusual lengthening of the last long
or any rest [silentium] as the meter was repeated?
D. I entirely agree. For while you were just reciting and repeating
the first, I was repeating the second after you to
myself in the same way. And so, since my last short exactly
fitted your rest, I sensed the same time-interval occurs in both.
M. Then you must hold there are fixed rest-intervals in
meters. And so when you have found some defect in a regular
foot, you ought to consider whether there will be compensation
when the rest has been measured and accounted for.
D. I now understand that. Go on.
(18) M. It seems to me we ought now to examine the
measurement of rest itself. For in this meter where we found
the bacchius after the choriamb, the ear very easily sensed the
one time's lack to make it six like the choriamb, and forced
us, in repetition, to interpose a rest length of a short syllable.
But if a spondee should be placed after the choriamb, on repeating
it we have to cross a two-time rest, as in this case,
and musical elements. Thus in Aristides: 'An
empty
time is one without
sound for the filling out of the rhythm. A leimma in rhythm is
the least empty time; a prothesis is a long empty time, double the
least' (op.cit. 40-41). .
Amerio reports two other places. One is the Paris Fragment where
the word for rest is sidpcsi$. The other is in the scholiast of Hephaestion
and worth quoting: 'Heliodorus says that a foot-division in
paeons is perfectly regular practice,
so that the rest gives a time,
makes the rhythmical unit six-timed and in a 1 to 1 ratio like the
others/ See Amerio, op. cit. 177 n.l.
256 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Quae canitis fontem. For I believe you now feel there ought
to be a rest, for the beat not to hit amiss when we return to the
beginning. But in order for you to experience the time of this
rest, add a long syllable to have, for example, Quae canitis
fontem vos, and repeat this with the beat. You will see the
beat occupies as much time as it did before, although in the
first case two longs are placed after the choriamb, in the other
three. And so it appears a two-time rest is put in there. But if
an iamb is placed after the choriamb, as, for example, Quae
canitis locos, we are forced to a three-time rest. To experience
it, the times are added either by means of another iamb or by
a choree or by a tribrach, to have, for example, either Quae
canitis locos bonos or Quae canitis locos monte or Quae canitis
locos nemore. For since with these added an harmonious and
equable repetition moves on without a rest, and since with the
beat applied each of these three is found to occupy just such
a time-interval as with a rest, evidently there is a three-time
rest there. Again, one long syllable can be put after the choriamb
to give a four-time rest. For the choriamb can also be
divided so as to have an arsis and thesis in a one-two ratio.
An example of this meter is Quae canitis res. And if you add
to this either two longs, or a long and two shorts, or a short
and a long, and a short, or two shorts and a long, or four
shorts, you will fill out a six-time foot bearing repetition without
need of a rest. Such are Quae canitis res pulehras, Quae
canitis res in bona, Quae canitis res bonumve, Quae canitis
res teneras, and Quae canitis res modo bene. With these things
known and agreed to, I believe it is
already evident enough
to you there cannot be a rest less than one time or more than
four. For this is that very same measured progression so much
has already been said about. And in any foot no arsis or thesis
takes more than four times.
ON MUSIC 257
(19) And so when something is sung or recited having
a determinate ending, more than one foot, and a natural
motion pleasing the senses by a certain equableness even before
consideration of the numbers involved, then it is already
meter. For though it should have less than two feet, yet because
it exceeds one foot and forces a rest, it is not without
measure, but what is needed for filling out the times is owing
the second foot. Instead of two feet, the ear accepts what
occupies the times of two feet up to the return to the beginning
of the foot, with the fixed and measured silence of the interval
also counted out by sound. But I want you to tell me now
whether you understand and agree with what has been said.
D. I understand and agree.
M. Do you simply believe, or do you see for yourself they
are true?
D. For myself certainly, although it's from your talk I know
they are true.
Chapter 9
(20) M. Come, then, since we have now found out
where meter starts, let's also find out where it ends. For meter
begins with two feet, either filled by sound, or to be filled with
whatever the numericaly determined silence lacks. And therefore
you must now consider that fourfold progression, and tell
me to what number of feet we ought to extend meter.
D. That is certainly easy. For reason teaches eight feet are
enough.
M. Well, do you remember we said that is called a verse by
the learned consisting of two members joined and measured
in fixed ratio?
D. I remember it well.
M. Then, since it was not said a verse consists of two feet,
out of two members, and since it is clear a verse hasn't one
258 SAINT AUGUSTINE
foot but several, doesn't this very fact indicate a member is
longer than a foot?
D. So it does.
Af. But if the members of a verse arc equal, can't the order
be inverted so, without distinction, the first part becomes the
last, and the last first?
D.I see.
M. Then to keep this from happening and to have one thing
in the verse sufficiently apparent and discernible as the member
it begins with, and another as the member it ends with, we
must admit the members have to be unequal.
D. That's so.
M. Let's consider this first then in the case of the pyrrhic,
if you will, where I believe you have already seen there can't
be a number of less than three times, since that's the first
greater than a foot.
D. I agree.
M. Then how many times will the least verse possess?
D. I would say six, if the inversion you spoke of didn't belie
me. It will have seven then, because a member cannot have
less than three, but to have more is not yet gainsaid it.
M. Your understanding is
right. But tell me how many feet
seven times contain.
D. Three and a half.
M. Then a one-time rest is due before the return to the beginning,
to fill out the foot's interval.
D. It is
certainly due.
M. How many times will there be when this is counted in?
D. Eight.
M. Then as the least which is the first foot cannot have less
than two times, so the least which is the first verse cannot have
less than eight times.
D. So it is.
ON MUSIC 259
M. What is the largest verse than which there is no greater
and how many times must there be? Won't you see immediately
if we refer back to that progression so much has been said
about?
D. Now I see a verse can't be greater than thirty-two times.
(21 )
M. What about the length of meter? Do you think
it ought to be greater than verse, since the least meter is much
less than the least verse?
D. I do not.
Af. Since, then, meter begins with two feet, verse with four,
or the first with a two-foot interval, the second with four if
the rest is counted in, but since meter does not exceed eight
feet, doesn't verse, being also meter, necessarily not exceed too
that same number of feet?
D. That is so.
Af. Again, since verse can't be longer than thirty-two times,
and since meter is a length of verse if it does not have a conjunction
of two members such as is the rule in verse, but is
only closed with a determinate ending, and since it must not
be longer than verse, isn't it evident just as verse should not
exceed eight feet so meter should not exceed thirty-two times?
D. I agree.
M. There will be, then, a same time-interval and a same
number of feet both in verse and meter, and a certain common
limit beyond which neither should progress, although meter
is bounded by a fourfold number of times for its beginning,
and verse by a fourfold number of feet* for its beginning. And
so this quaternary ratio is kept, and meter evidently shares with
verse its manner of expansion in feet, verse with meter in times.
D. I understand and am satisfied, and I am delighted they
agree and are in harmony this way.
4 I have interchanged the terms 'times' and 'feet/
BOOK FOUR
The treatise on meter is continued.
Chapter 1
( 1 )
M. Let's return to the consideration of meter. It
was in connection with its length and expansion I was forced to
talk with you a little on verse which we decided was to be
treated afterwards. But first, tell me if you don't reject the
opinion of poets and their critics, the grammarians, thinking it
of no importance whether the last syllable ending the meter be
short or long.
D. I certainly do. For this doesn't seem rational.
M. Then tell me, please, what pyrrhic meter is shortest.
D. Three shorts.
M. What quantity must the rest be when it is repeated?
D. One time, the length of one short syllable.
M. Come now, carry this meter through, not by voice but
by beat.
D. I have.
M. Then beat out the anapest this way, too.
D. I have also done that.
M. What's the difference?
D. None at all.
M. Well, can you give the cause?
D. It seems clear enough. For what is ascribed to the rest
in one is ascribed to the lengthening of the last syllable in the
other. For the short syllable in the one case is given the same
beat as the long in the other, and after an equal interval there
260
ON MUSIC 261
is a return to the beginning. But, in the first case there is a stop
to fill the space of a pyrrhic foot; in the second, to fill that of a
long syllable. So in each there is an equal delay before we
return.
M. Then they haven't been so absurd in saying it makes no
difference whether the last syllable of the meter is long or
short. For the ending is followed by as great a rest as necessary
to finish out the meter. Or do you think in this matter of the
cause they ought to have considered some repetition or return
to the beginning, and not only the fact it ends as if nothing
were to be said after it?
D. I now agree the last syllable must be considered in-
differently.
M. Right. But if this is due to the rest, it being in this way
considered the end as if no sound were to follow it to give it an
ending, and if because of the very large time-span in the rest
it makes no difference what syllable is pronounced there,
doesn't it follow the very indifference of the last syllable, conceded
on account of the large interval, comes to this that
whether there be a long or short syllable there, the ear always
takes it as long?
D. I see that certainly follows.
Chapter 2
(2) M. And when we say the last pyrrhic meter is
three short syllables with a rest for the space of one short before
the return to the beginning, do you see, too, there is no difference
between repeating this meter and repeating anapests?
JD. I already saw this a while ago in the beat.
M. Don't you think the confusion here ought to be separated
out by some ratio?
D. I certainly do.
262 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. Tell me, do you find any ratio to distinguish them except
the pynrhic meter in three shorts is not a minimum as it
seemed, but in five? For the similarity of the anapest doesn't
allow us, after a foot and a half, to rest for the space of the
half necessary to fill out the foot and so to return to the begin*
ning, and to establish this as the minimum pyrrhic meter.
Therefore, if we wish to avoid confusion, that one time is to
be taken as a rest at the end of two and a half feet.
D. But why aren't two pyrrhics the minimum meter in pyrrhics,
and rather four short syllables without a rest than five
with a rest?
M. Quite on the lookout, but you aren't noticing the proceleusmatic
forbids this just as the anapest did the other.
D. You are right.
M. Do you agree, then, to this measure in five shorts and a
one-time rest?
D. I certainly do.
M. Well, it seems to me you have quite forgotten the method
we set up for discerning whether a rhythm was running in
pyrrhics or proceleumatics.
D. You are right in warning me, for we found these numbers
were to be distinguished from each other by beat. And so
in this case I am no longer afraid of the proceleusmatic, for I
can distinguish it from the pyrrhic when the beat is
applied.
M.
Why didn't you see this same beat is to be applied to
distinguish the anapest from those three shorts or pyrrhic and
a half, followed by a one-time rest?
D. Now I understand, and I go back and confirm the least
pyrrhic meter as three syllables occupying with an added rest
the time of two pyrrhics.
M. Then your ears approve this sort of number: Si aliqua,
Bene vis, Bene die, Bene fac, Animus, Si diquid, Male vis,
Male die, Male fac, Animus, Medium est.
ON MUSIC 263
D. They do, especially when I now remember how they are
to be beaten out so anapests aren't confused with pyrrhic
meter.
( 3 )
M. Consider these, too : Si aliquid es, Age bene, Male
qui agit, Nihil agit, Et idea, Miser erit.
D. These too run harmoniously, except in one place, where
the end of the third is joined with the beginning of the fourth.
M. That's just what I wanted of your ears. It's not for
nothing they are offended, since they expect one tinie each for
all syllables and no rests between. But the concourse of two
consonants, V and n,' immediately cheat this expectation,
forcing the preceding vowel to be long and extending it to two
times. And the grammarians call this kind a syllable long by
position. But because of that famous indifference of the last
syllable no one incriminates this meter, even though unspoiled
and exacting ears condemn it without benefit of an accuser.
For see, if you will, the difference there is, if for Male qui apt,
Nihil agit you should say Male qui agit, Homo pent.
D. This is
quite clear and right.
M. Then, for the sake of musical purity let us observe what
the poets do not observe for the facility of composing. So, for
example, as often as we must put in meters where nothing is
owing the foot to be compensated by a rest, so often do we
put those syllables
last the law of that number absolutely demands,
so as not to return from the end to the beginning with
offense to the car and falsity of measure. But we concede, of
course, there are meters ending as if nothing were to be said
following them, and in that case they may treat the last syllable
as either long or short with impunity. For in a succession of
meters they are clearly convicted of error by the ear's judgment
that no syllable is to be placed last except by the law and
264 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ratio of the meter itself. But this succession exists when nothing
is owing the foot to force a rest.
D. I understand, and am thankful you promise examples
of the kind giving the senses no offense.
Chapter 3
(4) M. Come, now report on the pyrrhics too, in order:
Quid erit homo
Qui amat hominem,
Si amat in eo
Fragile quod est?
Amet igitur
Animum hominis,
Et erit homo
Aliquid amans.
How do these seem to you?
D. Why, to flow very smoothly and vigorously.
M. What about these:
Bonus erit amor,
Anima bona sit:
Amor inhabitat,
Et anima domus.
Ita bene habitat,
Ubi bona domus;
Ubi mala, male.
D. I also find these follow along smoothly.
M. Now three and a half feet, see :
Animus hominis est
Mala bonave agitans.
Bona voluit, habet;
Mala voluit, habet.
ON MUSIC 265
D. These, too, are enjoyable with a one-time rest put in.
M. Four full pyrrhics follow; listen to them and judge:
Animus hominis agit
Ut habeat ea bona,
Quibus inhabitet homo,
Nihil ibi metuitur.
D. In these, too, there is a fixed and agreeable measure.
M. Listen now to nine short syllables, listen and judge:
Homo mains amat et eget;
Mains etenim ea bona amat,
Nihil ubi satiat eum.
D. Now try five pyrrhics.
M. Levicula fragilia bona,
Qui amat homo, similiter habet.
D. That's enough; they pass. Now add a half-foot.
M. I shall.
Vaga levia fragilia bona
Qui amat homo, similis erit eis.
D. Very well : now I am waiting for six pyrrhics.
M. Then listen to these :
Vaga levicula fragilia bona,
Qui adamat homo, similis erit eis.
D. That's enough; add another half-foot.
Fluida levicula fragilia bona
Quae adamat anima, similis erit eis.
D. That's enough, and very good; now give seven pyrrhics.
M. Levicula fragilia gracilia bona
Quae adamat animula, similis erit eis.
D. Add a half-foot to these, for this is all very fine.
266 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M.
Vaga fluida levicula fragilia bona,
Quae adamat animula, fit
ea similis eis.
D. Now I sec the eight-foot lines remain before we can get
beyond these trifles. For, although the car approves, by a
natural measuring, what you give out in sound, yet I shouldn't
wish you to look for so many short syllables. And, if I am not
mistaken, they are more difficult to find woven in a succession
of words than if some longs could be mixed in.
A/. You are quite right, and to show my gratitude at our
being allowed to get this far I shall compose the one remaining
meter of this kind with a more joyful sentence :
Solida bona bonus amat, et ea qui amat, habet.
Itaque nee eget amor, et ea bona Deus est.
D. I now have with abundance a complete set of pyrrhic
meters. The iambics come next; two examples of each meter
are enough. And it is pleasant to hear them without
interruption.
Chapter 4
(5) M. I'll
obey you. But how many kinds have we already
gone through?
D. Fourteen.
M. How many iambic meters do you think there arc too ?
D. Also fourteen.
M. What if I should wish in these meters to substitute a
tribrach for an iamb, wouldn't the variety of forms be greater?
D. That's very evident. But, not to be too long, I want to
hear these examples only in iambics. For it's easy art to substitute
two shorts for any long.
M. I shall do as you wish, and I'm thankful your keen intelligence
lessens my labor. But listen now to the iambics.
D. I am listening; begin.
ON MUSIC 267
M. Bonus vir
Beatus.
Malus miser,
Sibi est malum.
Bonus beatus,
Deus bonum eius.
Bonus beatus est,
Deus bonum eius est.
1
Bonus vir est beatus,
Videt Deum beate.
Bonus vir, et sapit bonum,
Videns Deum beatus est.
Deum videre qui cupiscit
Bonusque vivit, hie videbit.
Bonum videre, qui cupit diem,
Bonus sit hie, videbit et Deum.
Bonum videre qui cupit diem ilium,
Bonus sit hie, videbit et Deum ittic.
Beatus est bonus fruens enim est Deo,
Malus miser, sed ipse poena ft sua.
Beatus est videns Deum, nihil cupit plus,
Malus bonum foris requirit, hinc egestas.
Beatus est videns Deum, nihil boni amplius,
Malus bonum foris requirit, hinc eget miser.
Beatus est videns Deum, nihil boni amplius vult,
Malus ions bonum requirit, hinc egenus errat.
1 There i* a misprint in the Migne Edition which has been corrected
according to the Benedictine Edition.
268 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Beatus est videns Deum, nihil boni amplius volet,
Malus foris bonum requirit, hinc eget miser bono.
Chapter 5
(6) -D. The trochee is next; give the trochaic meters,
for these are the best.
M. I shall, and in the same way as the iambic :
Optimi
Non egent.
Veritate,
Non egetur.
Veritas sat est,
Semper haec manet.
Veritas vocatur
Ars Dei supremi.
Veritate factus est
Mundus iste quem vides.
Veritate facta cuncta
Quaeque gignier videmus.
Veritate facta cuncta sunt,
Omniumque forma veritas.
Veritate cuncta facta cerno,
Veritas manet, moventur ista.
Veritate facta cernis omnia,
Veritas manet, moventur omnia.
Veritate facta cernis ista cuncta,
Veritas tamen manet, moventur ista.
Veritate facta cuncta cernis optime,
Veritas manet, moventur haec, sed ordine.
ON MUSIC 269
Veritate facta cuncta cernis ordinata,
Veritas manet, novans movet quod innovatur.
Veritate facta cuncta sunt, et ordinata sunt,
Veritas novat manens, moventur ut noventur haec.
Veritate facta cuncta sunt, et ordinata cuncta,
Veritas manens novat, moventur ut noventur ista.
Chapter 6
(7) D. The spondee clearly follows; I have had enough
of trochees.
M. Here are the spondaic meters:
Magnorum est,
Libertas.
Magnum est munus
Libertatis.
Solus liber fit,
Qui errorem vincit.
Solus liber vivit,
Qui errorem iam vicit.
Solus liber vere fit,
Qui erroris vinclum vicit.
Solus liber vere vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum iam vicit.
Solus liber non falso vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum iam devicit.
Solus liber iure ac vere vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum magnus devicit.
Solus liber iure ac non falso vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum funestum devicit.
270 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Solus liber iure ac vere magnus vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum funestum iam devicit.
Solus liber iure ac non false magnus vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum funestum prudens devicit.
Solus liber iure ac non falso securus vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum funestum prudens iam devicit.
Solus liber iure ac non falso securus iam vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum tetrum ac funestum prudens devicit.
Solus liber iure ac non fdso securam vitam vivit,
Qui erroris vinclum tetrum ac funestum prudens iam devicit.
Chapter 7
(8) D. I have all the spondees I need; let's go to the
tribrach.
M. All right. But since all four of the preceding feet have
each given birth to fourteen meters, making fifty-six all told,
more are to be expected from the tribrach. For when there is
a half-foot rest in those fifty-six, the rest is never more than a.
syllable. But in the case of the tribrach you certainly don't
think the rests are only for the space of a short syllable, or do
you think there are also rests for the space of two short syllables?
For there is a double division here, you know, since the
tribrach either begins with one short and ends with two, or
begins with two and ends with one. And so it must generate
twenty-one meters.
D. That's very true. For they begin with four times and,
therefore, a two-time rest; then five times with a one-time rest;
third, six times with no rest; fourth, seven with a two-time
rest; then eight with a one-time rest; sixth, nine with no rest.
And so, when they are added on one by one until you come to
ON MUSIC 271
twenty-four syllables or eight tribrachs, there are twenty-one
meters all told.
Af. You have certainly very readily followed reason here.
But do you think we ought to give examples of all of them, or
ought we to think those we have given for the first four feet
will furnish light enough for the rest?
D. In my opinion, they are sufficient.
Af. I only need yours, now. But, since you already know
very well how with a change of beat tribrachs can be forged
out of pyrrhic meters, tell me whether the first pyrrhic meter
can also have a tribrach meter.
D. It cannot, for the meter must be greater than the foot.
M. How about the second?
D. It can, for four shorts are two pyrrhics and a tribrach
and a half, so in the one case there is no rest and in the other a
two-time rest.
M. Then with a change of beat the pyrrhics give you examples
of tribrachs up to sixteen syllables or five and a half
tribrachs. And you will have to be content with that, for you
can compose the others yourself either by voice or beat, if you
still think these numbers ought to be explored by the sensible
ear.
D. In any case I shall do as seems best. Let's see about the
others.
Chapter 8
(9) M. The dactyl is next, and divisible only one way,
isn't it?
D. Certainly.
Af. What part of it, then, can be given as a rest?
D. Why, the half.
Af. Well, if someone should put a trochee after a dactyl and
want to have a one-time rest in the form of a short syllabic to
272 SAINT AUGUSTINE
fill out the dacytl, what shall we say? For we can't say it's
impossible to have a rest of less than a half-foot. For that
reason we've discussed convinced us there could be no rest, not
of less, but more than a half-foot. For there is certainly a rest
of less than a half-foot in the choriamb, when a bacchius
follows it, and an example of this is Fonticolae puellae. For,
you know, we have here a short-syllable rest, needed to fill out
the six times.
D. That's true.
M. Then, when a trochee follows a dactyl, isn't it also permissible
to have a one-time rest?
D. I am forced to admit it.
M. Yet who could have forced you, if you had only remembered
what has been said? You are in this plight because
you forgot the demonstration about the indifference of the last
syllable, and how the ear takes upon itself a final long syllable
even if it's short, when there's an interval to prolong it in.
D. Now I understand. For, if the ear takes the final short
syllable as long when there's a rest as we found out by that
reason discussed with examples, then it will make no difference
whether a trochee or spondee is
pronounced after the dactyl.
And so, when the repetition is to be punctuated by a rest, it is
proper to place a long syllable, to have a two-time rest.
M. What if a pyrrhic should be put after a dactyl? Do you
think it would be right to do so?
D. It would not. Whether a pyrrhic or an iamb, there is no
difference; although it must be taken for an iamb because
with the rest the ear makes the last syllable long. But every one
knows it's not proper for an iamb to be put after a dactyl because
of the difference in the arsis and thesis, neither of these
in the dactyl having three times.
ON MUSIC 273
Chapter 9
(10) M. Very good and to the point. But what do you
think about the anapest? Or does the same reason hold?
D. Exactly the same.
M.
Then, let's consider the bacchius, if you will, and tell
me what its first meter is.
D. I think it is four syllables, one short and three longs: two
longs belonging to the bacchius, but the last one to begin the
foot properly placed with the bacchius, with a rest to make
up for what is lacking. Yet I should like to explore this with
my ear in some example or other.
M. It is easy to give examples, and yet I don't think you
could be so delighted with these as with those just given. For
these five-time feet, and the seven-time ones, too, do not flow
so smoothly as those divided either into equal parts, or into
one and two or two and one, so great is the difference between
the sesquate movements and the equal or complicate movements
we talked about so much in our first discussion. And so,
just as the poets treat these five- and seven-time feet contemptuously,
so prose adopts them more happily than others. And
this can be easily seen in the examples you asked for. Such is
Laborat magister docens tardos. Repeat this with a three-time
rest in between. And for you to feel it more easily, I have put
a long syllable after the three feet because it is the beginning of
the cretic, which can be put with the bacchius. And I haven't
given you an example of the first meter, of four syllables,
lest one foot wouldn't be enough to impress on your senses how
much of a rest should follow the one foot and a long. Listen
now, I shall give it and repeat it myself so you may feel the
three times in the rest: Labor nullus, Amor magnus.
D. It is evident enough these feet are more suitable to prose,
and there is no need to go through the others with examples.
274 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. You arc right. But when there's to be a rest, you don't
think only a long syllable can be put after the bacchius?
D. Certainly not. Also a short and a long, the first half-foot
of the bacchius itself. For, if we were allowed to begin a cretic
on the grounds it can be put with a bacchius, how much more
will we be allowed to do it with the bacchius itself, and especially
since we did not even put all that part of the cretic
equal in times to the first part of the bacchius.
Chapter 10
(11) M. Now, then, if you will, go through the rest
yourself, while I listen and judge, and in all those feet, where
the left-over is filled in by a rest, describe what is placed after
the full foot.
D. What you ask is very short and easy now, I believe. For
what has been said of the bacchius can also be said of the
second paeon. But after the cretic it is permissible to put one
long syllable, and an iamb, and a spondee, so there is a rest
either of three times, or two, or one. And this applies also to
the first and last paeon. After the antibacchius may be placed
either one long syllable or a spondee, and so in this meter there
will be a three-time or a one-time rest. The same thing is true
of the third paeon. Certainly, wherever a spondee can properly
be put, there also an anapest. But after the molossus, because
of its division, we put one long syllable with a four-time rest,
or two longs with a two-time rest. But since, both by experience
and reason it has been ascertained all six-time feet can be
ordered with the molossus, there will be a place after it both
for the iamb with a three-time rest, for the cretic with a onetime
rest, and in the same way for the bacchius. But if we resolve
the cretic's first long and the bacchius' second long into
two shorts, there will be a place for the fourth paeon too. And
ON MUSIC 275
what I have said of the molossus, I could also say of the other
six-time feet. Now I think the proceleusmatic is to be referred
back to the other four-time feet, except when we place three
shorts after it. And this is the same as putting an anapest after
it, because of the final syllable habitually taken as long when
followed by a rest. And the iamb is
rightly subordinated to
the first epitrite and so also the bacchius, cretic, and fourth
paeon. And let the same be said of the second epitrite so there
is either a four-time or two-time rest. But the spondee and
molossus can properly follow the other two epitrites, on the
condition it is possible to resolve the spondee's first long and
the molossus' first or second into two shorts. Therefore, in
these meters there will be either a three-time or one-time rest.
The dispondee is left. If we should put a spondee after it,
there will be four times to rest; if a molossus, two, and there
remains the possibility of dissolving a long into two shorts
either in the spondee or molossus, with the exception of the
final long syllable. You have what you wanted me to run
through. Perhaps you have corrections.
Chapter 11
(12) M. Not I certainly, but you, when you put
your ear to judging the matter. Tell me, when I say or beat
this meter, Verus optimus, and this one, Verus optimorum,
and this one, Veritatis inops, whether your senses receive the
third as happily as the other two. And they will judge this
easily by your repeating them and beating them with the
necessary rests.
D. They clearly receive the first two with pleasure, but not
the last.
M. Then it's not right to put an iamb after a dichorce.
D. So it isn't.
276 SAINT AUGUSTINE ,
M. But when he has repeated the following meters with a
proper regard for the interposing of rests, everyone agrees it
can be put after the other six-time feet :
Fdlacem cave,
Male castum cave,
Multiloquum cave,
Fallaciam cave,
Et invidum cave,
Et infir mum cave.
D. I understand what you say, and I agree.
M.
See, too, if there isn't a hitch when this last meter, repeated
with a two-time rest interposed, continues on, unequal.
For it wouldn't sound like the following, would it?
Veraces regnant.
Sapientes regnant.
Veriloqui regnant.
Prudentia regnant.
Boni in bonis regnant.
Pura cuncta regnant.
D. These last have an even and agreeable sound, but that
other was quite awkward.
M. Then we shall hold, in meters of six-time feet the dichoree
is dissonant with the iamb, and the antispast with the
spondee.
D. We certainly shall.
(13) M. Well, can't you put your finger on the cause if
you notice a foot is so divided into two parts by the arsis and
thesis that, if it has any middle syllable, either one or two, they
are either attributed to the first part or second part or divided
between them both?
D. I certainly know this, and it's true. But what's the point?
ON MUSIC 277
M. Listen, then, to what I am going to say; then you will
see more easily what you are looking for. For I suppose it is
clear to you there are some feet without middle syllables, like
the pyrrhic and other two-syllable feet; others, where the middle
agrees in length with the first part or last part, or both,
or neither. With the first part as in the case of the anapest or
antibacchius or first paeon; with the last part as in the case
of the dactyl or bacchius or fourth paeon; with both as in the
case of the tribrach or molossus or choriamb or any ionic; with
neither as in the case of the cretic or second and third paeons,
or diiamb or dichoree or antispast. For in those feet capable
of division into three equal parts, the middle is in accord with
the first and last parts. But in those not capable of such division
the middle is in accord with the first part only, or with
the last, or with neither.
D. And I know this, too, and I am waiting to see where it
all leads.
M. Why to this point, of course: the iamb with a rest is
improperly placed after the dichoree because its middle part
is equal neither to the first part nor to the last, and so is not in
accord with the arsis and thesis. The same thing is true in the
case of the spondee, similarly ill at ease when placed with a
rest after the antispast. Have you anything to say to the
contrary?
D. Nothing, except the shock the ear feels when these feet
are so placed is in comparison with the sweetness diverting it
when these feet along with a rest are placed after the other sixtime
feet. For if without the others you were to give examples
and ask me how the iamb sounded after the dichoree or the
spondee after the antispast, accompanied by a rest in each
case to say what I feel, I should perhaps approve and praise
them.
A/. And I don't contradict you. It's enough for me, how-
278 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ever, these arrangements offend in comparison with numbers
of the same kind, but more consonant as you say. For they are
to be rejected from the fact that, since these feet we admit
run on more happily end in the same half-feet, and are of the
same kind, there should have been no discrepancy between
them. But don't you think in line with this reasoning an iamb
with a rest shouldn't be put after the second epitrite? For in
the case of this foot, too, the iamb occupies the middle in such
a way it is
equal neither to the times of the first part nor of
the second.
D. This reasoning compels my agreeing to that.
Chapter 12
(14) M. Come now, give me, if you will, an account
of all the meters we have discussed, that is, of those beginning
with full feet of their own with no rests interposed in
the cyclic return, or with feet not full, followed by a rest, but
such as reason has shown to be in harmony. And the number of
them begins with two incomplete feet and goes as far as eight
complete ones in such a way however, as not to exceed, thirtytwo
times.
D. What you impose is laborious, yet it is worth the work.
But I remember a little while ago we had already gotten to
seventy-seven meters in going from the pynrhic to the tribrach.
For the two-syllable feet each produced fourteen, making all
together fifty-six. But the tribrach, because of its two-way division,
produced twenty-one. Then to these seventy-seven we
add fourteen from the dactyl and as many from the anapest.
For the full feet, when arranged without rests, go from two to
eight feet and produce seven meters, but when the half-feet
are added with rests and the meters begin with one foot and
a half and go to seven and a half, there are seven more. And
ON MUSIC 279
now there are all together one hundred and five. But the
bacchius cannot stretch its meter to eight feet, lest it exceeed
the thirty-two times, nor can any of the five-time feet, but they
can go to six. The bacchius, then, and the second paeon, equal
to it not only in times but also in division, produce each fivr
meters going from two to six feet when the full feet are ordered
without rests; but with rests, beginning with a foot and a half
and going to five and a half feet, they produce five meters
each when followed by a long, and likewise five each when
followed by a short and a long. And so they produce each
fifteen meters, or thirty all told. And now all together there
are a hundred and thirty-five meters. But the cretic and the
first and fourth paeons, being divided in the same way, can
be followed by a long and an iamb and a spondee and an
anapest, and therefore come to seventy-five meters. For, since
there are three of them, they each produce five without rests,
but twenty with rests, making a total, as we said, of seventyfive.
And this, added to the former sum, makes two hundred
and ten. The antibacchius and the third paeon, alike in division,
each produce five meters in the case of full feet without
rests, but with rests they produce five meters each when followed
by a long, five each by a spondee, five each by an anapest.
We add these to the last sum, and we have in all two
hundred and fifty meters.
(15) The molossus and the other six-time feet, seven in
all, each produce four meters with full feet, but with rests,
since they can be followed each one by a long or an iamb or
spondee or anapest or bacchius or cretic or fourth paeon, they
each produce twenty-eight, or a total of a hundred $nd ninetysix
meters. And these, added to the four each, make two hundred
and twenty-four. But eight must be subtracted from this
sum, because the iamb doesn't properly follow the dichoree
280 SAINT AUGUSTINE
nor the spondee the antispast. That leaves two hundred and
sixteen, and this added to the whole sum makes all together
four hundred and sixty-six meters. The ratio of the proceleusmatic
cannot be considered along with those it agrees with,
on account of the greater number of half-feet placed after
it. For one long syllable with a rest can be put after it just as
after the dactyl and the feet like it to give a two-time rest, and
three shorts to give a one-time rest. And the final short can in
this way be taken for a final long. The epitrites each produce
three meters with full feet, beginning with a two-foot meter
and going as far as a four-foot meter. For if you should add
a fifth foot, you would exceed the allotted thirty-two times.
But with rests the first and second epitrites produce three
meters each when followed by an iamb, three each when
followed by a bacchius, three each by a cretic, and three each
by a fourth paeon. And with the full meters this makes all told
thirty. But the third and fourth epitrites each produce three
meters before the introduction of rests. With the spondee they
each produce three, with the anapest three, with the molossus
three, with the lesser ionic three, and with the choriamb three.
And together with the full meters this makes a total of thirtysix.
Therefore, all the epitrites together produce sixty-six meters,
and these, with the proceleusmatic's twenty-one, added
to the former sum makes five hundred and fifty-three. There
remains only the dispondee, producing three meters with full
feet; but when rests are used, with the spondee it produces
three, three with the anapest, three with the molossus, three
with the lesser ionic, and three with the choriamb. And this
makes a total of eighteen. So there will be five hundred and
seventy-one meters all told.
Chapter 13
(16) M. There certainly would be if three were not
ON MUSIC 281
to be substracted because of the iamb's difficulties with being
placed after the second epitrite. But this is all fine. And
so tell me, now, how this meter affects your ear, Triplici vides
ut ortu Triviae rotetur ignis.
D. Very agreeably.
M. Can you tell me the feet it consists of?
D. I can't; I can't find out how any I measure off go
together. For, if I should start with a pyrrhic or an anapest
or a third paeon, those following don't fit in. And I can find
a cretic after a third paeon, leaving a long syllable allowable
after a cretic. But this meter couldn't properly consist of
these with a three-time rest interposed. For there is no rest
when its repetition is pleasing to the ear.
M. See if it shouldn't begin with a pyrrhic followed by a
dichoree, and then a spondee filling out the times owing the
foot you started with. Likewise, you can begin with an anapest
followed by a diiamb, so the final long when placed
with the anapest's four times makes six times, to harmonize
with the diiamb. And so from that you understand it is
permissible for parts of a foot to be placed, not only at the
end, but also at the beginning of meters.
D. I now understand.
(17) Af. What if I should take away the final long to
have a meter like this, Segetes meus labor; you notice it's repeated
with a two-time rest? And so it is clear some part of
the foot can be put at the beginning of the meter, some at
the end, and some in a rest.
D. That's clear.
M. But this is clearly true if you measure off a full dichoree
in this meter. On the other hand, if you should measure off
a diiamb with an anapest at the start, you find a four-time
part of the foot at the beginning, and the two times left due
282 SAINT AUGUSTINE
in a rest at the end. And thus we learn a meter can begin
with a part of a foot ending with a full foot, but never without
a rest.
D. This is very clear.
(18) M. Further, can you measure off this meter, and
tell the feet it consists of?
lam satis terris nivis, atque dirae
Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente
Dextera sacras iaculatus arces.
2
D. I can establish a cretic at the beginning and measure off
the two remaining six-time feet, one a greater ionic, the other
a dichoree, and add a one-time rest to fill out six times with
the cretic.
M.
Something is amiss in your consideration. For when the
dichoree is at the end with a rest left over, its last syllable, a
short, is taken for a long. Or do you deny this?
D. I certainly admit it.
M. Then a dichoree must not be put at the end if it is to
be followed by a rest in repetition, lest it be perceived no
longer as a dichoree but as a second epitrite.
Z>. That's evident.
M.
How, then, shall we measure off this meter?
D. I don't know.
Chapter 14
M. Then see if it sounds well when I recite it with a onetime
rest after the first three syllables. For there will be npthing
due at the end to keep a dichoree from properly being
there.
2 Horace, Odes 15.1-3. The 'traditional' method of scanning this, that
of Marius Victorinus, is quite different. But Masqueray, Traiti de
mttriquc grecque (Paris 1899) scans as Augustine does.
ON MUSIC 283
-D. It sounds very pleasing.
(19) M. Then let's add this rule also to the art, that not
only at the end, but also before the end, there may be rests.
And it must be applied either when what is necessary for filling
out the times of a foot cannot properly be given as a final rest
because of a final short, or when two incomplete feet are established,
one at the beginning and the other at the end, such
as here, Gentiles nostros inter oberrat equos. For you saw, I
believe, I introduced a two-time rest after the five long syllables,
and one of the same length must be introduced at
the end, when a cyclic return is made to the beginning. For,
if you should measure off this meter by the six-time law, you
will have first a spondee, second a molossus, third a choriamb,
fourth an anapest. Therefore, two times are due the spondee
in order to complete a six-time foot. And so there is a twotime
rest after the molossus and before the end, and again
after the anapest, and at the end. But, if you measure it off
by the four-time law, there will be a long syllable at the beginning,
then we measure off two spondees, then two dactyls,
and it will finish with a long. And so we have a two-time rest
after the two spondees and before the end, and again at the
end in order to fill out both of those feet whose halves have
been placed at the beginning and the end.
(20) Yet sometimes, what is due two incomplete feet,
placed one at the beginning the other at the end, is rendered
by the final rest alone, if it be of such a quantity as not to
exceed the half-foot, as in the case of these two,
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto*
For the first of these begins with an antibacchius, from there
3 Horace, Odes 1.9.34.
284 SAINT AUGUSTINE
runs into a molossus, and ends in a bacchius. And so there
is a two-time rest, and when you have given one of these to
the bacchius and the other to the antibacchius, the six-time
intervals will everywhere be filled. But the second begins with
a dactyl, from there goes into a choriamb, and closes with a
bacchius. It will then be necessary to have a three-time rest.
Out of that we shall give one time to the bacchius and two
to the dactyl, so there will be six times in every foot.
(21 )
But what is due for filling out the last foot is given
before that due for the first foot. Our ears don't allow it to
be otherwise. And no wonder. For when we repeat, what
comes last is certainly joined with what comes first. And so
in the meter we gave, Flumina constiterint acuto, since three
times are due to fill out the six-time intervals, if you should
wish to give them, not with a rest but with words, they could
be rendered by an iamb, choree, or tribrach because each of
these contains three times. But the senses themselves would
not allow them to be rendered by the choree where the first
syllable is long; the second, short. For that first ought to sound,
due the last bacchius, that is, the short syllable; not the
long belonging to the first dactyl. This can be seen in these
examples:
Flumina constiterint acuto gelu.
Flumina constiterint acute gelida.
Flumina constiterint in alia node.
And it is evident to anyone the first two are proper when
repeated, but the last one not at all.
(22) Likewise, when a single time is due each incomplete
foot, if you want to render them by word, the senses don't
allow them to be compressed into one syllable. Quite justly,
of course. For it is not proper for what is to be rendered sep-
ON MUSIC 285
arately not to be constructed separately. And, therefore, in
the meter Silvae laborantes geluque, if you should add a long
syllable to the end in place of the rest, as in Silvae laborantes
gelu duro, your ears do not approve as when we say Silvae
laborantes gelu et frigore. And you perceive this well enough,
when you repeat each one.
(23) Likewise, when there are two incomplete feet, it
is not proper a greater be put at the beginning than at the
end. For the hearing condemns this, too, for example, if you
should say Optimum tempus adest tandem with the first foot
a cretic, the second a choriamb, and the third a spondee,
with the result that we have a three-time rest, two times
being due the last spondee for filling out the six, and one to
the first cretic. And so, if it should be said in this way,
Tandem tempus adest optimum, with the same three-time
rest, who would not find its repetition most enjoyable? And,
therefore, it is proper either the final incomplete foot be of
the same quantity as the first one, as in Silvae laborantes
geluque; or the first one be the smaller and the last one the
larger, as in Flumina constiterint acuto. And this is not arbitrary,
because on the one hand there is no discord where
there is
equality. But where the number is unequal, if we
should come from the less to the greater, as is usual in counting,
this very order again effects an accord.
(24) And so it also follows, when these incomplete feet
just mentioned are put in, if a rest is interposed in two places,
that is, before the end and at the end, then there is a rest
before the end of a quantity owing the last foot, but a rest at
the end of a quantity owing the first foot. For, the middle tends
toward the end, but a return is to be made from the end to
the beginning. But, if to each the same amount is owing, there
is no dispute, and in this case there must be a rest before the
286 SAINT AUGUSTINE
end of the same quantity as at the end. Moreover, there must
be no rest except where there is an end to a part of the discourse.
In the case of those numbers not made by words,
but by some beat or breath or even by the tongue, there is no
way to make the distinction after what sound or beat a rest
should come, so a legitimate rest may intervene according to
the preceding ratios. And, therefore, a meter also can begin
with two incomplete feet, on condition the combined quantities
of both should not be less than one foot and a half. For we
have already affirmed two incomplete feet are properly inserted
when what is due both does not exceed the length of a half
foot. An example is Monies acuti, so either we have a threetime
rest, or a one-time rest after the spondee with a two-time
rest at the end. For this meter cannot be properly measured
otherwise.
Chapter 15
(25) Let this [prescription], too, be part of the discipline:
when we have a rest before the end, that part of
the discourse may not end in a short syllable, to keep the
senses from taking it because of the rest following it, for a
long syllable in accordance with the continually repeated rule
to that effect. And so in the meter Montibus acutis we cannot
make a one-time pause after the dactyl as we could after
the spondee in the example before, for then no longer a
dactyl but a cretic would be perceived, with the result the
meter would not seemingly consist of two incomplete feet, the
object of our present explanation, but a full dichoree and
a final spondee with a two-time rest owing at the end.
(
26 )
And it must be noted, too, when an incomplete foot
is placed at the beginning, what is owing is repaid either in rest
right on the spot, as in lam satis terris nivis atque dirae; or at
ON MUSIC 26?
the end, as in Segetes meus labor. But to an incomplete foot at
the end, what is due is
repaid in rest either right on the spot, as
in lie tgitur Camoenae; or somewhere in the middle, as in Ver
blandum viget arvis, adest hospes hirundo. For the one time
owing the last bacchius can be a rest either after the whole
number, or after the number's first foot, the molossus, or after
its second, the lesser ionic. But what is
owing incomplete feet
in the middle can only be repaid on the spot, as in Tuba terribilem
sonitum dedit acre curvo. For, if we should so measure
out this meter as to make the first an anapest, the second either
of the ionics expressed as five syllables with either the first
or final long resolved into two shorts, the third a choriamb,
the last a bacchius, then there will be three times owing, one
to the final bacchius and two to the first anapest to fill out
the times each ought to have. But this whole three-time
interval can be rendered as a final rest. But, if you should
begin with a complete foot, meting out the first five syllables
for either ionic, then a choriamb follows. From there on you
will not find a complete foot, and so there will have to be
rest for the space of one long syllable; when this is added, the
choriamb will be completed. A bacchius whose last time will
be repaid by a final rest is left to close the meter.
(27) And so I now think it's clear, when there is a rest
in the middle places, it redeems either those times owing at the
end, or those owing where the pause is made. But sometimes
it is not necessary for the pause to be in the middle places,
since the meter can be measured off another way as in the
example we just gave. But sometimes it is necessary, as in
Vernat temperies, aurae tepent, sunt deliciae. For it is clear
this number runs in either four-time or six-time feet. If in four,
there must be a one time rest after the eighth syllable, and twotime
rest at the end. First, measure off a spondee; second, a
288 SAINT AUGUSTINE
dactyl; third, a spondee; fourth, a dactyl, adding a rest after
the Jong syllable because it is not proper to do so after the
short syllable; fifth, a spondee; sixth, a dactyl, with a final
long closing the line and its two missing times redeemed by
a rest at the end. But, if we measure off six-time feet, the
first will be a molossus, the second a lesser ionic, the third a
cretic becoming a dichoree when a one-time rest is added,
the fourth a greater ionic, and a final long followed by a fourtime
rest. It could be otherwise with one long placed at the
beginning, followed by a lesser ionic, then a molossus, then
a bacchius becoming an antispast when a one-time rest has
been added. A final choriamb would close the meter, with a
four-time rest being given the first long. But the ear rejects
such a measuring, because, unless the part of the foot placed
at the beginning is greater than a half foot, the lack cannot
be properly restored where it is owing by the final rest after the
complete foot. But with other feet inserted, we know how
much is wanting. But the sense does not take in there is such
a long rest, unless there is less owing in the rest than is put
in sound, because, when the voice has traversed the greater
part of the foot, the remaining lesser part easily presents
itself anywhere.
(28) And so, although in the case of the meter we have
just given as an example, Vernal temperies, aurae tepent, sunt
deliciae, there is one necessary measuring if there is a onetime
rest after the tenth syllable and a four-time rest at the
end, yet there is a voluntary measuring if one should wish
to have a two-time rest after the sixth syllable, a one-time
rest after the eleventh, and a two-time rest at the end, resulting
in a spondee at the beginning, a choriamb next, third
a spondee with a two-time rest added on to make a molossus
or lesser ionic, fourth a bacchius likewise becoming an antis-
ON MUSIC 289
past by the addition of a one-time rest, fifth a choriamb to
close the number as far as sound is concerned, with a two-time
rest at the end redeeming the first spondee. And likewise there
is another way. For if
you wish, you can have a one-time rest
after the sixth syllable, and again after the tenth and eleventh,
nd a two-time rest at the end. With the result the first foot
is a spondee, the second a choriamb, the third an antibacchius
becoming an antispast by the addition of the one-time rest,
the fourth a spondee becoming a dichoree by the insertion
and addition of one-time rests, finally a choriamb closing the
number to give at the end a two-time rest owing the first
spondee. And there is a third way of measuring it, if there
should be a one-time rest after the first spondee with the
other rests just as before except for there being a final onetime
rest because of the usually beginning spondee's becoming
an antibacchius with the addition of the one-time rest following
it, with the result only a one-time measure is owing it to
appear as a final rest. And so now you see how rests are
inserted in meters, some necessary, some voluntary: necessary
when something is owing for completing the feet, but voluntary
when the feet are whole and complete.
(29) But what has just been said about the rule of
avoiding rests of more than four times was said of necessary
rests where times due are filled out. For in those we have
called voluntary rests, it is also proper to sound a foot and
rest a foot. But, if we should do this at equal intervals, there
will not be a meter, but a rhythm with no fixed end appearing
as a means to a return to the beginning. And so, if you
should wish, for example, to punctuate a line with rests so
as to pause after the first foot for the length of a foot, this
must not be continued. But it is proper to prolong a meter
up to the legitimate number of times with rests inserted in
290 SAINT AUGUSTINE
any sort of arrangement, as in Nobis verum in promptu est,
tu si verum diets. It is proper here to have a four-time rest
after the first spondee, and another after the following two,
but no rest after the last three, because the thirty-two times
have already been completed. But it is much more apt, and
somehow more just, there be a rest either only at the end,
or at the end and in the middle, too, and this can be done
with one foot subtracted, to give Nobis verum in promptu est,
tu die verum. And this rule is to be maintained for meters of
other feet that, in the case of necessary rests the times due to
fill out the feet ought to be redeemed either by final or middle
rests. But the rest must not be greater than that part of the
foot occupied by either the arsis or thesis. But in the case of
rests by choice it is possible to rest either for the space of a
whole foot or of part of a foot, as we have shown in the
examples just given. But let this finish the treatment of the
ratio of rest-insertion.
Chapter 16
(30) Now let us say a few things about the mixing
of feet and the conjunction of their respective meters, since
many things were said when we were investigating what feet
ought to be mixed together, and since some things must be said
about the composition of meters when we begin to talk about
verse. For, feet are conjoined and mixed according to the
rules we disclosed in our second discourse. But here it is in
order to remember all the meters already celebrated by poets
have had each one its author and inventor to keep us from
transgressing certain fixed laws they laid down. For it is
not proper, when they have fixed them by reasoning, to make
any change in them, even if we could make the change according
to reasoning and without any offense to the ear.
ON MUSIC 291
And the knowledge of this sort of thing is handed down
not by art, but by history. And, therefore, it is believed rather
than known. For, if some Falerian or other has composed
meters to sound like these
Quando flagella ligas, ita liga,
Vitis et ulmus nti simul eant?
we can't know it, but only believe it by hearing and reading.
It belongs to the discipline we are treating, to see whether
it consists of three dactyls and a final pyrrhic, as most of
those unskilled in music affirm (for they do not see a pyrrhic
cannot follow a dactyl), or, as reason shows, the first foot
in this meter is a choriamb, the second an ionic with a long
syllable resolved into two shorts, the last an iamb followed
by a three-time rest. And half-taught men could see this, if
it were recited and beaten out by a learned man according
to both laws. For they would judge from natural and common
sense what the discipline's norm would prescribe.
(31) Yet the poet's wishing these numbers to be unchangeable
when we use this meter has to be respected. For
it satisfies the ear, although it would be equally well satisfied
if we should put a diiamb for the choriamb or the ionic,
without resolving the long syllable into shorts, and whatever
else might fit in. In this meter, then, nothing will be changed,
not for the reason by which we avoid inequality, but for that
by which we observe authority. For reason certainly teaches
some meters are established as immobile, that is, where nothing
should be changed, as in this one we have just talked
about; others as mobile, where one may substitute certain feet
4 'When you bind switches, bind so the elm and vine go together.'
Amerio points out this is the way Marius Victorious and Tcrentianus
treat this meter, op. cit. 184.
292 SAINT AUGUSTINE
for others, as in Trioae qui primus ab oris, arma virumque
cano. For here an anapest may be substituted for a spondee
in any place. Others are neither completely immobile nor
completely mobile, as
Pendeat ex humeris dulcis chelys
Et numeros edat varios, quibus
Assonet omne virens late nemus,
Et tortis errans qui flexibus.*
For you see here both spondees and dactyls can be placed
everywhere, except in the last foot which the author of the
meter always wished to be a dactyl. And you see, even in these
three kinds, authority has some weight.
(32) But as regards what in the composition of feet belongs
to reason alone to judge concerning these things perceived,
you know those parts of feet harmoniously placed
with a rest after certain feet, as the iamb after the dichoree
or second epitrite, and th spondee after the antispast, are
still
badly placed after other feet these have been mixed
with. For it is evident the iamb is well placed after the
molossus, as we see in this example with the final three-time
rest we are so often repeating. Ver blandum viret floribus.
But, if
you should put a dichoree first in place of the molossus,
as in Vere terra viret floribus, the ear rejects and condemns it.
It is
easy, too, to discover this in the other cases, if the ear
only search it out. For it is a most sure reasoning, when feet
are combined capable of such combination, only those parts
of a foot agreeing with all the feet in that sequence be added
5 TereiUianus Maurus quotes this fiom Pomponins. See his de Metris
11.2135 ff.
(Keil VI S89) .
'Let the sweet harp hang from the shoulders and bring forth varied
numbers ever) far-green wood resounds with, and wandering with
unions turns . . .
ON MUSIC 293
on at the end, to avoid any discord arising one way or another
among friends.
(33) This is more wonderful that, although a spondee
completes both the diiamb and the dichoree without dissonance,
yet when these two feet, either alone or in one way or
another mixed with others agreeable to them, have been put in
one sequence together, it is the sense's judgment a spondee
cannot be put at the end. For no one would doubt, would he,
the ear accepts willingly each of these repeated separately ;
Timenda
res non est and lam timere noli. But, if
you should join
them so, Timenda res, lam timere noli, I should not want to
hear it outside of prose. Nor is it less awkward if you put
another foot in anywhere, for instance, a molossus in this way,
Vir fortis, timenda res, iam timere noli, or in this way, Timenda
res, vir fortis, iam timere noli, or again in this way, Timenda
res, iam timere noli, or again in this way, Timenda
res, iam timere vir fortis noli. And the cause of the awkwardness
is this: the diiambic foot can also be beaten in the proportion
of two to one, just as the dichoree in the proportion
of one to two. But the spondee is
equal to their two-part.
But, since one pulls it to the first part, the other to the last
part, a certain disagreement arises. And so in this way reason
relieves us of our wonder.
(34) And the antispast produces something just as marvelous.
For if no other foot, or the diiamb alone of all of them,
should be mixed with it, it allows the meter to be closed by an
iamb, but not so when placed with others. In the case of the
dichoree, it is because of the dichoree itself; and I wonder
very little at that. But why with the other six-time feet it refuses
to allow that particular three-time foot at the end, I do not
know. The cause is
perhaps too secret for us to be able to find
294 SAINT AUGUSTINE
it out and show it. But I judge it is so by these examples. For
there is no doubt each of these two meters, Potestate placet and
Potestate potentium placet, is repeated harmoniously with a
three-time rest at the end; but each of these with the same rest,
inharmoniously : Potestate praeclara placet, Potestate tibi multurn
placet, Potestate iam tibi sic placet, Potestate multum
tibi placet, Potestatis magnitudo placet. Now, in so far as the
senses are concerned, they have done their duty in this question,
and have indicated what they would approve and what
they would not. But reason must be consulted as to why it is
so. And mine in all this obscurity only sees this : the antispast
has its first half in common with the diiamb, for each begins
with a short and a long, but its last half in common with the
dichoree, for both end with a long and short. And so the antispast
either when it is alone allows the iamb to close the meter
as its own first half, or again when it is with the diiamb it has
this half in common. And it would allow it with the dichoree,
if such an ending were harmonious with the dichoree, but not
in the case of others, and it is not joined with them in such
company.
Chapter 17
(35) But, with regard to the composition of meters, it
is
enough at present to see diverse meters can be joined
together so long as they agree with respect to beat, that
is, to their arsis and thesis. But they differ either in quantity,
as when greater are joined with less, for example,
Iam satis terris nivis atque dirae
Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente
Dextera sacras iaculatus arces,
Terruit urbem.
For this fourth line made up of a choriamb and final long, you
ON MUSIC 295
sec how small it is compared to the first three, all equal to each
other. Or in feet, as these,
Grato Pyrrha sub antro,
Cui flavam religas comam.*
You see, certainly, the first of the two consists of a spondee and
choriamb, and a final long due the spondee for completing the
six times; the second, of a spondee and choriamb, and two
final shorts likewise filling out the spondee to six times. They
are equal, then, in times, but somewhat different in feet.
(36) And there is another difference in combinations of
this kind: some are so combined they have no rests placed
between them as these last two; others require a rest of some
kind in between them, like these,
Vides ut alia stet nive candidum
Soracte, nee iam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto.
1
For, if each of these is repeated, the first two acquire a onetime
rest, the third a two-time, the fourth, a three-time. Considered
together, in going from the first to the second there is
necessarily a one-time pause, from the second to the third a
two-time, from the third to the fourth a three-time one. But,
if you should return from the fourth to the first, you will pause
for one time. And whatever ratio is used for the return to the
beginning is also used for passing to another such combination.
We rightly call this kind of combination a cycle [circuitum],
in Greek called periodos. So the cycle cannot be less than two.
numbers, nor have they wished it to be more than four. It is
6 Horace, Odw 1.5.3-4.
7 Hoi ace, Odes 1.9.1-4.
296 SAINT AUGUSTINE
proper, then, to call the least bi-membered, the middle one
tri-membered, the last quadri-membered; for the Greeks call
them dikolon, trikolon, tetrdkolon. And, since \ve shall treat
of this whole class more thoroughly, as I have said, in our
discussion of verses, let this be enough for the moment.
(37) I think you now certainly understand there are a
great many kinds of meter. In fact, we found there were five
hundred and sixty-eight, when no examples were given of
rests except final ones, and no mixture of feet made, and no
resolution of long syllables into two shorts stretching the foot
to more than four syllables. But, if you wish to get the number
of meters with every possible insertion of rests applied, and
every combination of feet, and every resolution of long syllables,
the number is so great its name perhaps is not at hand.
But, although these examples we have given and those we can
give, poets judged proper in making them, and common nature
in hearing them, yet, unless a learned and practised man's
recitation should commend them to our ears and the sense of
hearing should not be slower than humanity requires, the ones
we have treated cannot be judged true. But let's rest a little,
and then let's discuss verse.
D. Good.
BOOK FIVE
Verse is discussed.
Chapter 1
(
1 )
M. The controversy among ancient learned men
in their attempt to find out what verse is, has been great and
not without fruit. For the subject has been discovered and written
down for the knowledge of posterity, and has been confirmed,
not only by serious and certain authority, but also by
reason. Now, they noticed there is a difference between rhythm
and meter, so all meter is rhythm, but not all rhythm meter.
For every legitimate composition of feet is numerable, since
the composition containing meter cannot not be number, that
is, not be rhythm. But, since it is not the same thing to roll
forward, although in legitimate feet, yet without any definite
end, and to progress likewise in legitimate feet, but to be
bounded by a fixed end, these kinds, therefore, had to be distinguished
by names. So the first was called only by the name
proper to it, rhythm, but trie other by meter as well as rhythm.
Again, since of those numbers bounded by a definite end, that
is of meters, there are some where there is no ratio of division
within them and others where there certainly is, this difference
also had to be noted in names. And so the kind of rhythm
where this ratio is not has been properly called meter; where
it is, they have named it verse. And reason will perhaps show
us the origin of this name as we go on. And do not think this
so prescribed it is not permissible also to call verses meters.
But it's one thing to abuse a name with the license of a resemblance;
another to call a thing by its name. Anyhow, let's be
297
298 SAINT AUGUSTINE
done now with telling over names. For in their case, as we have
already learned, the willingness of those speaking and the
authority of age count for everything. Let's investigate these
other things, if you will, as we are wont, with sense announcing
and reason discovering, so you may know the ancient authors
did not institute these things as if not already existing whole
and finished in the nature of things, but found them by reasoning
and designated them by naming them.
Chapter 2
(2) And so I first ask you whether a foot only pleases
the ear if the two parts in it, one the arsis, the other the thesis,
answer to each other in a numerical and skillful joining?
D. I have already been persuaded and apprised of this.
Af. Now, meter, resulting as it docs from the conjunction of
feet, isn't to be thought to belong to the class of things incapable
of division, is it? For no indivisible thing can extend
through time, and it would be absurd, wouldn't it, to think
what consists of divisible feet is indivisible?
D. I certainly say it isn't indivisible.
M. But aren't all things capable of division more beautiful
if their parts agree in some equality than if they should be
discordant and dissonant?
D. There's no doubt about it.
M.
Well, what number, then, is the author of equal division?
The number two?
D. It is.
M.
Then, just as we found the foot is divided into two harmonious
parts and in this way delights the ear, if we also find
a meter of this kind, won't it be rightly preferred to such as
are not?
D, I agree.
ON MUSIC 299
Chapter 3
(3) M. Very well. Now, tell me this. Since in all things
we measure by a part of time, one thing precedes and
another follows, one begins and another ends, would you think
there ought to be no difference between the part preceding or
beginning and the part which follows or ends?
D. I think there must be.
M. Tell me, then, what the difference is between the two
parts of a verse where one is cornua velatarum, and the other
vertimus antennarum.1
For, if it should be recited, not as the
poet wrote it, with obvertimus, but in this way, Cornua velatarum
vertimus antennarum, doesn't it become uncertain by
more or less frequent repetition which part is first, which last?
For it is no less the same verse said this way : Vertimus antennarum
cornua velatarum.
D. I see it becomes very uncertain.
M. Do you think that ought to be avoided?
D. I do.
M. See, then, whether it has been properly avoided in this
case. One part of the verse, the first, is, Arma virumque cano,
and the other following it, Troiae qui primus ab oris. And they
differ from each other to the extent, if you change the order
and recite them this way, Troiae qui primus ab oris, arma
virumque cano, you would have to measure off other feet.
D. I understand.
M. But see whether this ratio is kept in the other lines. Now
whatever measure Arma virumque cano begins, you know
these do likewise: Italiam fato, Littora multum ille et, Vi superum
saevae, Multa quoque et bello, Inferretque deos, Albanique
patres. In short, you can go through as many of the
1
Vergil, Aeneid 1 1 1.549.
300 SAINT AUGUSTINE
other lines as you wish, you will find these first verse-parts
to be of the same measure, that is, five distinct half-feet. Very
rarely, indeed, if not in this way; so the end-parts are no less
equal to each other: Troiae qui primus ab oris, Profugus Lacinaque
venit, Memorem lunonis ob tram, Passus dum conderet
urbem, Latio genus unde Latinum, Atque altae moenia
Romae.
D. That's very evident.
(4) M. And so, five and seven half-feet divide into two
parts, the heroic verse consisting, as everyone knows, of six
four-time feet. And without the harmonious conjunction of
two members, either this one, or some other, there is no verse.
And in all these examples reason has shown this much must
be observed: the first part cannot be second, nor the second
first. And if it is otherwise, they will no longer be called verses
except through misuse of the name. But they will have rhythm
and meter, and it is not improper to stick in such things at long
intervals in long poems composed of verses. And just of such
a kind is the one I recited a while back: Cornua velatarum
vertimus antennarum. And so I don't believe a verse is so
called, as some think, because it returns from a fixed ending
to the beginning of the same member, so the name is taken
from those who turn around [se vertunt] when retracing their
steps. For verse seems to have this in common with those meters
which are not verses. But, on the contrary, perhaps the name
came about rather in the way the grammarians have called
a deponent verb one not deposing the letter V/ for example
'lucror* and 'conqueror'; just so whatever is made up of two
members, neither able to be put in the place of the other without
violating the law of the numbers, is called verse because it
cannot be reversed. But you can accept either of these derivations
or reject them both, and look for another, or with me
ON MUSIC 301
disapprove of any question of this kind. It has nothing to do
with the present affair. For, since the thing itself signified by
this name is sufficiently apparent, there's no need to labor the
word's derivation. Perhaps you have some objections?
D. I have none, certainly, but go on with the rest.
Chapter 4
(5) M. Next we must look to the ending of the verse.
For they wanted this also to be marked and distinguished
by some difference, or rather reason itself wanted it so. Don't
you think it better the ending confining the number's forward
roll, with the equality of times undisturbed, should stand
out, rather than be confused with the other parts not effecting
an ending?
D. Who doubts it? It's too evident.
M. See, then, whether those people were right in wanting
the spondaic foot to be the distinctive ending of the heroic
verse. For in the other five places it is permissible to put either
a spondee or a dactyl, but at the end only a spondee. For what
they reckon a trochee becomes a spondee on account of the last
syllable's indifference we spoke enough about in the treatment
of meter. But according to them the six-foot iambic either will
not be a verse or will be one without this distinction of ending.
But either is absurd. For no one, either among very learned
men or moderately or even slightly learned, has ever doubted
this was a verse: Phaselus ille quern videtis, hospites* and
whatever is formed of words in this number-form. And yet the
more serious authors, and so the most skillful, have judged
nothing to be a verse without a distinctive ending.
(6) D. You are right. And, therefore, I believe some other
2 Catullus, 4.1.
302 SAINT AUGUSTINE
mark of its ending must be looked for, and the spondee story
is not acceptable.
M. What is it? You don't doubt, do you, whatever it is, it is
either a difference in foot, time, or both?
D. What else can it be?
M. But which of these three do you think it is? For I, since
ending a verse to keep it within its proper bounds is proper
only to the time-measure, I don't think this mark can be taken
elsewhere than from time. Or do you find something else
better?
D. I certainly agree.
M. Do you see this, too. Since time in this case can only be
different in the one's being longer, the other shorter, the endmark
must consist in a shorter time, because, when the verse
is ended, it is done to prevent it's
proceeding farther?
D. I see that. But to what does the added 'in this case' refer?
M. To the fact we do not everywhere get the time-difference
only in brevity and length. You don't say, do you, the difference
of summer and winter is one of time or rather of a shorter
and longer interval, and don't you place it in the power of cold
and hot, or of dry and wet, and any other thing like that?
D. I now understand, and I agree this mark we are looking
for must be taken from shortness of time.
(7) M. Listen then to this verse, Roma, Roma, cerne
quanta sit deum benignitas, called trochaic, and measure it
and say what you find out about its members and the number
of its feet.
D. I should easily reply about the feet, for it is evident there
are seven and a half, but as to the members the matter is not
clear enough. For I see the ends of parts of discourse in many
places, yet I believe the partition is in the eighth half-foot with
ON MUSIC 303
the first member Roma, Roma, cerne quanta, and the second
sit deum benignitas.
M. And how many half-feet does it have?
D. Seven.
M. Reason has most certainly led you to this. For since
nothing is better than equality, it would be proper to approach
it in any division. If only less can be gotten, an approximation
to it must be sought, not to stray too far from it. And so, since
here the verse has in all fifteen half-feet, it could not be divided
more equally than into eight and seven. But there is the same
approximation in seven and eight. Yet in this way the distinctive
ending would not be preserved, as reason itself has taught
us it must be. For if there were such a verse as Roma, cerne
quanta sit tibi deum benignitas, beginning with a member of
seven half-feet, Roma, cerne quanta sit, and ending with one
consisting of these eight, tibi deum benignitas, then the verse
could not close with a half-foot, for eight half-feet make four
whole feet. At the same time there would result another deformity
in our not measuring the same feet in the last member
as in the first, and rather would the first member finish with
the mark of shorter time, that is, with a half-foot, than the second
this ending by rights belongs to. For in the one there are
three and a half trochees, Roma, cerne quanta sit; in the
other four iambs would be scanned tibi deum benignitas. But
in the case we have before us, we scan trochees in both members,
and the verse closes with a half-foot so the ending has
the mark of a short syllable. For there are four in the first,
Roma, Roma, cerne quanta, but three and a half in the second,
sit deum benignitas. Or are you prepared to say something
to the contrary?
D. Nothing at all; I willingly agree.
(8) Af. Let us keep these laws unchanged, then, if you
304 SAINT AUGUSTINE
will, that a verse should not be without a partition into two
members approaching equality, as this one is, Cornua velatarum
obvertimus antennarum. That this equality should not
make the members convertible, so to speak, as it does in Cornua
velatarum vertimus antennarum. And when this convertibility
is avoided, that the members should not have too great
a discrepancy between them, but nearly equal each other, as
much as possible by proximate numbers, not to say they can
be divided such a way, eight half-feet are in the first member,
Cornua velatarum vertimus, and four in the last, that is,
antennarum. That the second member should not have an
even number of half-feet, as tibi deum benignitas, lest the
verse, finishing with a full foot, should not have an ending
distinguished by a shorter time.
D. I now have them, and I shall commit them to memory
as far as I can.
Chapter 5
(9) M. Since, then, we now hold a verse ought not to
end with a full foot, how do you think we ought to measure
the heroic verse so as to preserve the law of members and the
end-marks?
D. Well, I see there are twelve half-feet, and the members
cannot each have six half-feet, because convertibility must be
avoided. Nor is it proper for there to be a great discrepancy
between them as in three and nine or nine and three. Nor
should an even number of half-feet be given the second member,
resulting in a division of eight and four or four and eight,
and a verse ending with a full foot. The division must be made
into five and seven or seven and five. For these numbers are
both odd and proximate, and the members certainly approach
each other more nearly than they would in the numbers four
and eight. To be very certain about it, I see the end-parts of
ON MUSIC 305
discourse always or nearly always in the fifth half-foot, as in
Vergil's first verse, Arma virumque cano\ and in the second,
Italian \ato\ and in the third, Littora multum tile et\ likewise
in the fourth, Vi superum saevae\ and so on, for nearly the
whole poem.
M. That's true. But you must look to what feet you are
measuring, to dare no violation of these laws just so firmly
established.
D. Although the reason is
sufficiently clear to me, yet I am
disturbed by the novelty. For, usually, in this kind of line we
scan nothing but spondees and dactyls, and almost no one is
so uneducated as not to have heard of that, even if he is less
able to do it. And so, if we should in this case wish to follow
that very common custom, the law of ending has to be
abrogated, for the first member would close with a half-foot,
but the second with a full foot, and it
ought to have been just
the contrary. But, since it seems very unsuitable to abolish this
law and I have now learned to know it is
permissible, in numbers,
for us to begin with an incomplete foot, we are left to
judge it is not a dactyl with a spondee here, but an anapest.
So the verse begins with one long syllable; then two feet, either
spondees or anapests or both, end the first member; then again
three feet for the other member, either anapests or spondees in
any place or in all; and finally one syllable to rightly end the
verse. Do you accept this?
(10) M. I, too, judge it
quite correct, but the public is not
easily persuaded of such things. For the force of custom, if it is
old and born of false opinion, is so great nothing is more hostile
to the truth. For you understand, as far as making the verse
goes, there is no difference whether in this kind of line the
anapest or the dactyl is
placed with the spondee. Yet, for
measuring it rationally, something not proper to the ear but
306 SAINT AUGUSTINE
to the mind, this fact is discerned by a true and fixed reason,
not by irrational opinion. And we are not the first to have
found it out, but it was noticed long before this custom grew
up. And so, if people should read those who have been most
learned in this discipline either in the Greek or Latin tongue,
they, chancing to hear this, will not be too surprised, although
one is ashamed of the stupidity of seeking an authority for
strengthening men's reason, since nothing is to be preferred
to the authority of truth and reason itself, certainly better than
any man. For we do not in this case look only to the authority
of the ancients as in the lengthening or shortening of a syllable,
to use our words as they also used them. Yet, because in a
matter of this kind it is the part of slothfulness to follow no
rule, and of license to establish a new one, so in the measuring
of verse the inveterate will of man and not the eternal ratio
of things is to be considered, since we first perceive its measured
length naturally by the ear, and then establish it
by the rational
consideration of numbers, and since anyone judging this meter
to be properly completed more surely than other meters judges
it must close with a distinctive ending, and since it is clear
such an ending must be marked by a shorter time. For this
confines the length of the time and somehow checks it.
Chapter 6
(11) And since all this is so, how can the second member
end if not with an incomplete foot? But the beginning
of the first member is either a complete foot, as in the trochaic
verse, Roma, Roma, cerne quanta sit deum benignitas, or part
of a foot, as in the heroic verse, Arma virumque cano, Troiae
qui primus ab oris. And so, with all hesitation now removed,
measure if you will the verse, Phaselus ille quern videtis, hospites,
and tell me about its members and feet.
ON MUSIC 307
D. I sec its members are certainly distributed into five and
seven half-feet, so the first is Phaselus ille and the second quern
videtis hospites. The feet, I see, are iambic.
M. But I ask, aren't you to take care at all the verse doesn't
end with a full foot?
D. You are right; I was off the track. For who wouldn't be
bright enough to see it must end in a half-foot like the heroic
verse. And considered in this genus, we measured the verse,
not with iambs, but with trochees, to have a half-foot close it.
(12) M. It's just as you say. But look, what do you think
is to be said about this one they call Asclepiadean, Maecenas
atavis edite regibus? For a part of the discourse ends in the
sixth syllable, and not inconsistently, but in nearly all verses
of this kind. Its first member is Maecenas atavis; the second,
edite regibus. And one can well hesitate as to what ratio it's
in. For if you should measure it off in four-time feet, there
will be five half-feet in the first member and four in the second.
But the law forbids the last member's consisting of an even
number of half-feet so ending the verse in a full foot. It remains
for us to consider six-time feet, with each member consisting
of three half-feet. And in order for the first member to
end with a full foot, we must begin with two longs; then a
whole choriamb divides the verse so the second member begins
with another choriamb following it, and the verse closes with
a half-foot of two short syllables. For this number of times
together with the spondee placed at the beginning fill out a
six-time foot. Do you have anything perhaps to add to this?
D. Nothing, certainly.
M. You are willing for both members to consist of the same
number of half-feet.
D. Why not? For conversion here is not to be feared, because
3 Horace, Odes 1.1.1.
308 SAINT AUGUSTINE
if the first member were put in place of the second with the
first becoming second, the same law of feet will no longer hold.
And so there is no cause why the same number of half-feet
should not be allowed the members in this case, since this
equality can be maintained without any fault of convertibility,
and since also the law of a distinctive ending is preserved when
the foot doesn't end in a full foot and this ought to be most
consistently preserved.
Chapter 7
(13) M. You have quite seen through the matter. And
so, since now reason has found there are two kinds of
verses, one where the number of half-feet in the members is
the same, another where it is not, let us diligently consider,
if you will, how this inequality of half-feet may be referred to
some equality by a somewhat more obscure but certainly very
subtle ratio of numbers. For look, when I say two and three,
how many numbers do I say?
D. Two, of course.
M. So two is one number, and three one, and any other you
might have said.
D. That's so.
M. Doesn't it seem to you from this, one can be joined not
absurdly with any number? For one can't say one is two, but
in a certain way two is one; likewise it can be truly said three
and four are one.
D. I agree.
M. Listen to this. Tell me what does three times two make
all together?
D. Six.
M, Six and three aren't the same number, are they?
D. Not at all.
ON MUSIC 309
M. Now, I want you to take four times three and tell me
the product.
D. Twelve.
M. You see, also, twelve is more than four.
D. And a great deal more certainly.
M. To dilly-dally no longer, this rule must be fixed: whatever
two numbers you choose from two on, the less multiplied
by the greater must exceed the greater.
D. Who could have any doubt about this? For, what is so
small in the plural number as two? And yet, if multiplied by a
thousand, it will so exceed a thousand as to be its double.
M. You are right. But take the number one and then any
other greater number and, just as we did with the others,
multiply the lesser by the greater. The greater will not be exceeded
in the same way, will it?
D. Clearly not, but the lesser will be equal to the greater.
For two times one is two, ten times one is ten, and a thousand
times one is a thousand, and by whatever number I multiply
one, the result must be equal.
M. So one has a certain right of equality with other numbers,
not only in any number's being one, but also in one's
giving, multiplied by any number, that same number as a
product.
D. That's very evident.
(14) M. Come now, look to the numbers of half-feet the
unequal memebrs in the verse are made of, and you will find a
wonderful equality by means of the ratio we have discussed.
For, I believe, that is the least verse in two members of an
unequal number of half-feet which has four half-feet and
three, as for instance Hospes ille quern vides. For the first
member, Hospes ille, can be cut equally into two parts of two
half- feet each, but the second, quern vides, is so divided one
310 SAINT AUGUSTINE
part has two half-feet, the other one half-foot. And so this last
member is as if it were two and two by that law, just discussed,
of the equality one has with all numbers. And so by this division
the first member is in some way the same length as the
second. And where there would be four and five half-feet, as
in the case of Roma, Roma, cerne quanta sit, it doesn't work
out this way, and so that will be a meter rather than a verse,
because the members are unequal in such a way they can be
referred to no law of equality by any division whatsoever. You
certainly see, I believe, the four half-feet, Roma, Roma, of the
first member can be separated into two each; and the five last
ones, cerne quanta sit, can be divided into two and three,
where, by no law whatsoever, does equality appear. For in no
way can the five half-feet, because of the two and three, be
accounted the same as the four, the way we found in the
shorter verse just given, the three half-feet because of the one
and two have the same value as four. Is there anything you
haven't followed or anything displeasing you?
D. Why, on the contrary, everything is evident and thought
out.
(15) M. Well, now, let's consider five and three half-feet,
like this little verse, Phaselus ille quern vides, and let's see how
such an inequality may fall under a law of equality. For all
agree this kind of line is not only a meter, but also a verse.
And so, when you have cut the first member into two and
three half-feet, and the second into two and one, join together
the subordinate parts you find alike in both, since
in the first section we have two's, and in the second there
are two parts left, one of three half-feet from the first member,
the other in one half-foot from the last member. And so we
also join the last two together because it is in community
with all members, and, added together, one and three make
ON MUSIC 311
four, the same as two and two. By this division, therefore,
fi\e and three half-feet are brought into agreement, too. But
tell me if you have understood.
D. I certainly have, and very much approve.
Chapter 8
(16) M. We should next discuss five and seven halffeet.
Of this kind are those two noblest verses, the heroic
and what is
popularly called the iambic, a six-foot verse, too.
For Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris is so divided
its first member is Arma virumque cano, or five half-feet,
and its second Troiae qui primus ab oris, or seven. And Phaselus
ille quern videtis, hospites has for its first member Phaselus
ille, in five half-feet, and for its second, in seven half-feet,
quern videtis, hospites. But this great nobleness labors within
this law of equality. For when we have divided the first five
half-feet into two and three, and the last seven into three
and four, the parts of three half-feet each will certainly go
together. And if the other two should combine so one of them
consisted in one half-foot and the other in five, they would
be joined together by the law permitting the union of one
with any number, and added together they would make
six, the sum also of three and three. But now, because two
and four are found in this case, together they will give six,
but by no law of equality is two as much as four, to produce,
you might say, a necessary joining. Unless you could say,
perhaps, it is sufficiently subsumed under a rule of equality
by having two and four make six just as three and three.
And I don't think this ratio is to be attacked, for this is an
equality, too. But I should not be willing for five and three
half-feet to enjoy a greater harmony than five and seven. For
the name of one is not so famous as that of the other, and in
312 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the case of the first you see not only the same sum is found
when one and three are added together as when two and two,
but also the parts are much more concordant when one and
three are joined together because of the harmony of one with
all numbers, than when two and four are joined as in the
second case. Do you find anything not clear?
D. Nothing at all. But somehow it offends me these sixfoot
verses, although more celebrated than other kinds and
said to have the first place among verses, should have less
harmony in their members than those of obscurer fame.
M. Don't be discouraged. For I shall show you so great
a harmony in the six-foot verses as they alone among all
others have merited, so you may see they have been justly
preferred. But, since its treatment is a little longer, although
more interesting, we ought to leave it to the end when we
have sufficiently discussed the others and are free of all care
for a closer scrutiny of the secrets of these verses.
D. Willingly. But I should wish to have explained what
we first started out to do so as to understand it now more
easily.
M. In comparison with those already discussed, those you
are waiting for become more agreeable.
Chapter 9
(17) And so now consider whether in two members,
one six half-feet and the other seven, is found the equality
necessary to a real verse. For you see this must be discussed
after five and seven half-feet. And an example of this is
Roma, cerne quanta sit deum benignitas.
D. 1 see the first member can be distributed into parts
having three half-feet each; the second into three and four.
And so when the equals are added they make six half-feet, but
ON MUSIC 313
three and four are seven and are not equal in number to the
first lot. But if we should consider two and two in the part
with four, and two and one in the part with three, then, when
the parts with two have been added, the sum is four, but when
those with two and one are added, if we take these also as four
because of one's agreeing with all other numbers, then they
become all together eight, and they exceed the sum of six by
more than when they were seven.
(18) M. It's as you say. Now, seeing this kind of combination
doesn't fall under the law of verses, let's consider now
next in order those members with the first having eight halffeet,
the second seven. Well, this combination has what we
want. For, joining the half part of the first member with
the part of the second member nearest that half, since they
are each four half-feet, I make a sum of eight. And so there
are left four half-feet from the first member and three from
the second. Two from the one and two from the other together
become four. Again two from the one and one from
the other, combined according to that law of agreement constituting
one equal to all the other numbers, are in a way
taken for four. So now this eight agrees with the other eight.
jD. But why don't I get an example of this?
Af. Because it's been so often repeated. Yet, so you may
not think it's been left out at its proper place, here it is,
Roma, Roma, cerne quanta sit deum benignitas, or this, too,
Optimus beatus ille qui procul negotio.*
(19) And so now examine the combination of nine and
seven half-feet. An example of this is Vir optimus beatus ille
qui procul negotio.
D. It is easy to recognize these harmonies. For the first
4 A variation on Horace, Epodes 1.2.
314 SAINT AUGUSTINE
member is divided into four and five half-feet and the second
into three and four. The lesser part of the first member, then,
joined with the greater part of the second, makes eight, and
the greater part of the first member with the lesser part of
the second likewise makes eight. For the first combination is
four and four half-feet, and the second five and three. Further,
if you should divide five into two and three half-feet, and
three into two and one, there appears another harmony of
two with two and of one with three, because one is joined
with all other numbers by that law of ours. But, unless reason
fails me, there remains nothing more for us to seek on the
combination of members. For we have already come to eight
feet, and we recognized some time ago a verse can't lawfully
exceed eight feet. And so, come now, open up these secrets
of the six-foot verses, the heroic and iambic or trochaic, you
have excited and disturbed my attention for.
Chapter 10
(20) M. I shall; at least, that reason common to us
both will. But say, don't you remember when we were talking
about meters, we said and wholly exhibited by our very
senses, those feet whose parts are in the superparticular ratio,
either in two and three, as the cretic or paeons, or in three
and four, as the epitrites, are thrown out by the poets because
of their less pleasing sound and harmoniously embellish the
severity of prose when a period's close is bound by them?
D. I remember. But where does this get us?
M. It's because I want us first to understand, once feet of
this kind have been denied use in poetry, there only remain
those whose parts are in a one-to-one ratio as the spondee,
or two-to-one as the iamb, or in both as the choriamb.
D. That's so.
ON MUSIC 315
M. But if this is the matter of the poets and prose is at
variance with verse, no verse can be made except of this
kind of feet.
D. I agree, for I see poems in verse are on a grander scale
than those other meters proper to lyric poems. But so far,
where this reasoning leads tis I can't see.
(21) M. Be patient. Now let's talk about the excellence
of six-foot verse. And first I want to show you, if I can, the
most proper six-foot verses can only be of two kinds, also the
most famous of all : one the heroic like Arma virumque cano,
Troiae qui primus ab oris, measured according to custom with
the spondee and dactyl, but according to a more subtle
reasoning with spondee and anapest; the other called iambic,
and by the same reasoning found to be trochaic. Now, I believe
you see clearly somehow the sound-intervals are dull,
unless the long syllables are interspersed with short ones;
likewise they become too cut up and too tremulous, you
might say, unless the shorts are interspersed with longs; and
in neither case is there a proper compounding even though
they burden the ear with an equality of times. And so, neither
those verses with six pyrrhics nor those with six proceleusmatics
aspire to the dignity of heroic verse, nor those with
six tribrachs to the dignity of trochaic verse. Further, in those
verses reason itself prefers to all others, if you should convert
the members, the whole will be so changed we will be forced
to measure off other feet. And so you might say these are more
inconvertible than those consisting either all of shorts or all
of longs. And, therefore, it makes no difference whether the
members in these more properly organized verses arc ordered
with five and seven half-feet or with seven and five. For in
neither of these orders can the verse be converted without so
much change it turns out to run in other feet. Yet, in the
316 SAINT AUGUSTINE
case of these verses, if the poem is begun with verses having
the first members of five half-feet, those with first members
of seven half-feet should not be mixed in, lest it then be possible
to convert them all. For no substitution of feet cancels
conversion. Yet the rare interspersion in heroic verses of an
all spondaic verse is allowed, although this latter age of ours
has very little approved it. But in the case of trochaic or
iambic verses, although it is permissible to put in a tribrach
anywhere, yet it has been judged very bad in poems of this
sort to resolve a verse entirely into shorts.
(22) And so when the epitrites have been excluded from
the six-foot mode of verse, not only because they are more
fitted to prose, but also because with six of them, like the dispondee,
they would exceed thirty-two times, and when the
five-time feet have also been excluded because prose claims
them more eagerly for closing periods, and when likewise the
molossi and all other six-time feet, although they do well in
poems, have been excluded from this present affair because
of the number of times, there remain the verses composed
all of short syllables having either pyrrhics or proceleusmatics
or tribrachs, and all of longs having spondees. And though
they are admitted to the six-foot mode, yet they must give
way to the dignity and harmony of those varied with shons
and longs and on this account much less convertible.
Chapter 11
(23) But it can be asked why the six-foot verses are
judged better measured by that subtle ratio in terms of
anapests or trochees, than when they are measured in terms
of dactyls or iambs. For without reference to meaning, since
we are now discussing numbers, if the verse were in the one
case Troiae qui primus ab oris arma virumque cano, or in the
ON MUSIC 317
other Qui procul malo pius beatus ille, each of these would
certainly be a six-foot verse, and not less tempered with a
good disposition of longs and shorts, nor any more convertible.
And the members in each case are so ordered a part of discourse
ends in the fifth and seventh half-feet. Why, then,
should they be thought better if they are rather so: Arma
virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris and Beatus ille
qui procul pius malo? And to this question I could too
easily and rapidly reply, it happened by chance these were
first noticed and repeated. Or if not fortuitous, I believe it
seemed better the heroic verse should close with two longs
rather than with two shorts and a long, because the ear finds
its rest more easily in the longs. And the other verse would
better have a long syllable than a short in the final half-foot.
Or perhaps it's this way. Whichever of the two pairs are
chosen first necessarily rob of their supremacy those they
could become by a conversion of members. And so that kind
is judged best Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
is an example of, and immediately the other, its converse,
would be improper, for instance, Troiae qui primus ab oris,
arma virumque cano. And this must also hold for the trochaic
kind. For if Beatus ille qui procul negotio is better, then the
kind it would become on conversion, Qui procul negotio beatus
ille, certainly should not be. Yet, if anyone should dare make
such verses, it is evident he will make other kinds of six-foot
verse not so good as these.
(24) And so these, the most beautiful of all six-foot
verses, have not been able, the two of them, to maintain their
integrity against the license of men. For in the case of the
trochaic kind, the poets think all four-time feet applying to
numbers should be mixed in, not only with the six-foot verse,
but with the least up to the greatest magnitude of eight feet.
318 SAINT AUGUSTINE
And the Greeks, in fact, put them alternately, beginning with
the first and third places, if the verse began with a half-foot;
if with a full trochee, these longer feet are put alternately
beginning with the second and fourth places. And in order
for this corruption to be tolerable, they haven't divided each
foot into two parts by beat, one to the arsis, the other to the
thesis, but, putting the arsis on one foot and the thesis on the
next (and so they call the six-foot verse trimeter), they bring
the beat back to the division of the epitrites. At all events,
if this should be constantly held to, although the epitrites are
feet belonging to prose rather than to poetry and it would
turn out to be, no longer six-foot, but three-foot verse, yet
in any case that equality of numbers would not be wholly
destroyed. But now it is allowed, provided only they are also
put in the places already mentioned, to put the four-time
feet not only in every place, but wherever one pleases and
as many times as one pleases. And even the ancients of our
race could not keep these places at intervals free of feet of
this kind. And so with respect to this kind of verse the poets
have gone all the way in this corruption and license, because,
we are to think, they wished dramatic poetry to be very much
like prose. But now that enough has been said as to why
these among six-foot verses are of greater nobleness, let's sec
why the six-foot verses themselves are better than any others
constructed of any number of feet whatsoever. Perhaps you
have something to say against this?
D. No, I agree. And now I am eagerly waiting to know
about that equality of members you so much interested me in
a while ago if it is now proper to turn to it.
5
5 The curious argument on the six-foot verse which follows is referred
to very definitely by Aulus Gellius, XVIII. 15.2, who refers it back to
Varro. See Weil, op.cit. 142.
ON MUSIC 319
Chapter 12
(25) Af. Then let me have your entire attention and
tell me if
you think any length can be cut into any number
of parts.
D. I have been sufficiently persuaded of that, and I don't
think I can doubt every length called a line has its half and
in this way can be cut into two lines. And, since the lines
made by this cut are certainly lines, it is clear the same thing
can be done with them. And so, any length can be cut into
any number of parts.
M. Very readily and truly explained. And can't it be rightly
affirmed every length, on being extended its length in width,
is equal to the square of its width? For, if the line move sideways
any more or less than the length of the line itself, it
isn't the square; if
just that, it is the square.
D. I understand and agree. Nothing could be truer.
M. I am sure you see this follows : if counters, laid out one
after another at equal distances, are substituted for the line,
their length will only take on the form of a square when the
stones have been multiplied by an equal number. For example,
if you put down two stones, you will not get a square
unless two others are added in width. And if three, six must
be added, apportioned in width in two rows of three each.
For, if
they should be added in length, no figure results. For
length without width is not a figure. And it is possible to consider
the other numbers in proportion. For, as two times two
and three times three make square figures in numbers, so also
do four times four, five times five, six times six, and so on for
the rest.
Z>. This, too, is reasoned and evident.
M.
See, now, if time has length.
320 SAINT AUGUSTINE
D. Who would doubt there's no time without length?
M. And further, can a verse be without time-length?
D. It certainly cannot.
M. What in this length is to be substituted for the counters:
the feet necessarily divided into two parts, that is, into an
arsis and thesis, or the half-feet, each containing only an arsis
or thesis?
D. I judge it more proper to substitute the half-feet for
the counters.
(26) M. Come, then, repeat how many half-feet the
heroic verse's shorter member contains.
D. Five.
M. Give an example.
D. Arma virumque cano.
M. You only wanted the other seven feet to be in harmony
by an equality with these five didn't you?
Z). That's all, certainly.
M. Further, is there any verse seven half-feet can complete
by themselves?
D. There certainly is. For the first and smallest verse has
just this number of half-feet with a rest added at the end.
M. You are right. But for it to be a verse, into what two
members is it divided?
D. Into four and three half-feet.
M. Then bring each part under the law of squares, and see
what four times four makes.
D. Sixteen.
M. What three times three?
D. Nine.
M. What's the whole?
D. Twenty-five.
M. Since, then, seven half-feet can have two members,
ON MUSIC 321
when each of its members has been referred to the ratio of
squares they add up to the number twenty-five. And this is
one part of the heroic verse.
). So it is.
M. Then the other part of five half-feet, since it cannot be
divided into two members and must harmonize by means of
some equality, isn't the whole of it to be squared?
D. I judge so. And yet I already see a marvelous equality.
For five times five gives twenty-five. And so, not without
cause have the six-foot verses become more famous and more
noble than the others. For it is hard to say how great the
difference is between the equality of these unequal members
and that of all others.
Chapter 13
(27) M. Then my promise didn't fail you, or, rather,
reason itself both of us follow. And so, to finish this talk
soon enough, you see certainly, although the meters are almost
innumerable, yet a meter can only be a verse if it has
two members harmoniously joined together, either with an
equal number of half-feet with their endings inconvertible,
as in Maecenas atavis edite regibus, or again with an unequal
number of half-feet yet combined according to some equality
as four and three, or five and three, or five and seven, or
six and seven, or eight and seven, or seven and nine. For the
trochaic can begin with a full foot, as in Optimus beatus tile
qui procul negotio, and with an incomplete foot, as in Vir
optimus beatus ille qui procul negotio, but it can certainly
only end with an incomplete foot. Whether these incomplete
feet contain whole half-feet, as in the case of the example
just cited, or less than a half-foot, as the two last shorts in
this choriamb, Maecenas atavis edite regibus, or more than
322 SAINT AUGUSTINE
a half, as the first two longs at the beginning or the bacchius
at another choriambic verse's end, as for example, Te domus
Evandri, te sedes celsa Latini* still all these incomplete feet
are called half-feet.
(28) Now, not only are there such poems as those of the
epic or even of the comic poets, made in verses so as to be
of one kind, but also the lyric poets composed the circular
kind called by the Greek periodoi, not only on those meters
not governed by the law of verse, but also in verses. For that
famous one of Flaccus,
Nox erat, caelo fulgebat luna sereno
Inter minora sidera.
1
is a circular two-membered poem consisting of verses. And
the two verses cannot harmonize unless they are both reckoned
in six-time feet. For the heroic mode does not harmonize
with the iambic or trochaic mode, because one set of feet is
divided in a one-one ratio, the other in a double ratio. And
so, the circular poems are made either of any meter without
verse, like those in the discussion before this one when we
were talking just about meters, or are made only of verses
like those we have just been talking about, or are measured
both in verses and other meters, as in this case:
Diffugere nives, redeunt tarn gramina carnpis,
Arboribusque comae*
But in what order you place either the verses with the other
meters, or the greater members with the lesser, makes no
difference in the ear's pleasure, provided the circular meter
6 Teicmiumis quotes thi.s, attending to Mamisi ctl.
7 Hoi arc. HUHICS 13.1-2.
8 Huiiuc, Od IY.7.1-2.
ON MUSIC 323
is not shorter than a two-membered verse nor longer than a
four-membered one. But, if you have nothing to the contrary,
let this be the end of the discussion, so we may next come
with as much wisdom as we can from these sensible traces of
music, all dealing with that part of it in the numbers of the
times to the real places where it is free of all body.
BOOK SIX
The mind is raised front the consideration of changeable
numbers in inferior things to unchangeable numbers in unchangeable
truth itself.
Chapter 1
(1) M. We have delayed long enough and very childishly,
too, through five books, in those number-traces belonging
to time-intervals. And let's hope a dutiful labor will
readily excuse our triviality in the eyes of benevolent men.
For we only thought it ought to be undertaken so adolescents,
or men of any age God has endowed with a good natural
capacity, might with reason guiding be torn away, not quickly
but gradually, from the fleshly senses and letters it is difficult
for them not to stick to, and adhere with the love of unchangeable
truth to one God and Master of all things who with no
mean term whatsoever directs human minds. And so, whoever
reads those first books will find us dwelling with grammatical
and poetical minds, not through choice of permanent
company, but through necessity of wayfaring. But when he
comes to this book, if, as I hope and pray, one God and Lord
has governed my purpose and will and led it to what it was
intent upon, he will understand this trifling way is not of
trifling value, this way we, too, not very strong ourselves,
have preferred to walk, in company with lighter persons,
rather than to rush with weaker wings through the freer air.
So, as far as I can see, he will judge either we haven't sinned
at all or very little, if only he is of the number of spiritual
men. For if by chance the other crowd from the schools,
with tumultous tongues taking vulgar delight in the noise
324
ON MUSIC 325
of rhythm-dancers, should chance upon these writings, they
will either despise all or consider those first five books sufficient.
But this one the vcr\ fruit of those is found in, they
will either throw aside as not necessary, or put off as over
and above the necessary. But, brother-fashion, I warn those
others not educated to understand these things, if, steeped in
the sacraments of Christian purity and glowing with the
highest charity for the one and true God, they have passed
over all these childish things, for fear they descend to them and,
having begun to labor here, bewail their backwardness, not
knowing they can pass over difficult roads and obstacles in
their path, even if unknown, by flying. But, if those read
who because of infirm or untrained steps cannot walk here,
having no wings of piety to disregard and fly by these things
with, let them not mix themselves up with an improper business,
but nourish their wings with the precepts of the most
salutary religion and in the nest of the Christian faith, and
carried over by these let them leave behind the labor and dust
of this road, more intent on the fatherland itself than on these
tortuous paths. For these books are written for those who,
given up to secular letters, are involved in great errors and
waste their natural good qualities
in vanities, not knowing
what their charm is. And if they would notice it, they would
see how to escape those snares, and what is the place of happiest
freedom.
1
Chapter 2
(2) And so you, my friend, sharing reason with me,
fffZ
l
&'Ji ft; ss
326 SAINT AUGUSTINE
that we may pass from corporeal to incorporeal things, tell me
if you will, when we recite this verse, Deus creator omnium,
where you think the four iambs and twelve times are it consists
of. Is it to be said these numbers are only in the sound
heard or also in the hearer's sense belonging to the ears, or
also in the act of the reciter, or, because the verse is known,
in our memory too?
ZX In all of thjcm, I think.
M. Nowhere else?
D. 1 don't see what else there is, unless, perhaps, there is
some interior and superior power these proceed from.
M. I am not asking for what is to be merely suspected. And
so if these four kinds are so apparent to you, you see no others
equally evident, then let us look at them, if you will, separately
one by one and see whether any one of them can be without
any other. For I am sure you won't deny the possibility
of a
sound's beating the air by the drop of liquid or the shock of
bodies, with pauses and limits of this sort, and existing where
no hearer is present. And when this takes place, of the four
there is only this first kind where the sound has the numbers.
JD. I don't see any other.
(3) M. What about this other kind in the sense of the
hearer? Can it be if nothing sounds? For I am not asking
whether the ears have, if something sounds, a power [vis] of
perceiving they don't lack even if the sound is wanting. For,
even when there is a silence, they differ somewhat from deaf
ears. But I am asking whether they have the numbers themselves,
even if nothing is sounding. For it is one thing to have
the number, another to be able to sense the harmonious
sound. For if you should touch with your fingers a sentient
place in the body, the number of times it's touched is sensed
by the sense of touch. And when it is sensed, the sensor pos-
ON MUSIC 327
sesses it. But it is likewise a question whether, not the sensing,
but the number is in the sensor, when nothing is touching.
D. I couldn't easily say the sense is
lacking in such numbers
determined in themselves, even before anything sounds; otherwise
it would neither be charmed by their harmony nor offended
by their absurdity. And so, whatever it is we either
approve or disapprove by when something sounds, when we
do so not by reason but by nature, that I call the number of
the sense. For this power of approval and disapproval is not
created in my ears, when I hear the sound. The ears are certainly
not otherwise accessible to good sounds than to bad ones.
M. Watch out you don't confuse the following two things.
For, if any verse is sometimes pronounced shorter, sometimes
longer, it cannot occupy the same interval of time, although
the same ratio of feet may be preserved. And so, pleasing the
ears by its peculiar kind of harmony is the doing of that power
we accept harmonious things and reject disagreeable ones by.
-But its being perceived in a shorter time when it is spoken
more quickly than when it is
spoken more slowly makes no
difference except how long the ears are touched by sound. So
this affection of the ears when they are touched with sound is
in no way such as if they should not be so touched. For as hearing
differs from not hearing, so hearing this tone differs from
hearing another. Therefore, this affection is neither prolonged
beyond nor restrained to less, since it is the measure of the
sound producing it. So it is one thing in the iamb, another in
the tribrach, longer in the longer iamb, shorter in the shorter,
nothing in a rest. And if it is produced by an harmonious
sound, it must be harmonious. Nor can it be except when its
author, the sound, is present; for it is like a trace imprinted
in water, not found before your pressing a body into it, and
not remaining when you have taken it away. But that natural
power, belonging to the judiciary, you might say, present in
328 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the cars, is still there during the rest, and the sound does not
bring it into us, but is rather received by it to be approved of
or disapproved of. And so, if I am not mistaken, these two
must be distinguished, and it must be admitted the numbers in
the passion of the ears when something is heard are brought in
by the sound and taken away by the rest. And it is inferred
the numbers in the sound itself can be without those in the
hearing, although these last cannot be without the first.
Chapter 3
(4) D.I agree.
M.
Notice, then, this third kind, being in the practice and
operation of the person pronouncing, and see whether these
numbers can be without those in the memory. For silent within
ourselves we can also by thinking go through certain numbers
in the amount of time they would be gone through by the
voice. It is evident these are in a certain operation of the
mind which, since it
produces no sound and visits no passion
on the ear, shows this kind of number can be without the other
two, namely, the one in the sound, the other in the hearer
when he hears. But we ask if it would be without memory's
accompanying it. Yet, if the soul produces the numbers we
find in the beat of the veins, the question is solved. For it is
clear they are in the operation and we are no whit helped
with them by the memory. And if it is not sure in the case of
these whether they belong to the soul operating, certainly
about those we produce in recurrent breathing, there is no
doubt there are numbers in its time-intervals, and the soul so
operates them they can also be changed in many ways when
the will is
applied. Nor is there need of any memory for their
production.
D. It seems to me this kind of number can be without the
ON MUSIC 329
other three. For, although I don't doubt the various veinbeats
and respiration-intervals are created for the equilibrium
[temperatio] of bodies, yet who would so much as deny they
are created by the soul in operation? And if the flow, according
to the diversity of bodies, is faster for some, slower for
others, yet, unless there is a soul to produce it, there is none.
M.
Consider, too, the fourth class, that is, the class of those
numbers in the memory. For, if we draw them out by recollection,
and, when we are carried away to other thoughts, we
again leave them as if hidden in their own hiding places, I
don't think it is difficult to see they can be without the others.
D. I don't doubt they can be without the others. But just
the same, unless they were heard or thought, they could not
be sent on to the memory. And so, although they remain at
the death of those that are heard or thought, yet they are
imprinted by them.
Chapter 4
(5) M. I don't contradict you, and I should like now
to ask which of these four kinds you judge the principal
one. Except, I believe, while we were discussing these things,
a fifth kind appeared from somewhere, a kind in the natural
judgment of perceiving when we are delighted by the equality
of numbers or offended at a flaw in them. For I am mindful of
your opinion our sense could have in no way done this without
certain numbers latent in it. Or do you, perhaps, think a
great power like this belongs to some one of those four?
D. On the contrary. I think this kind is to be distinguished
from all of them. For it is one thing to sound and this is attributed
to a body; another to hear, and in the body the soul is
passive to this from sounds; another to produce numbers either
more slow or less so; another to remember them; and another,
330 SAINT AUGUSTINE
by accepting or rejecting, to give sentence on them all as if
by some natural right.
(6) M. Come, now, tell me which of these five is the most
excellent.
D. The fifth, I think.
M. You are right, for, unless it excelled, it could not bring
judgment on them. But again, I want to know of the other four
which you judge the greatest.
D. The kind in the memory, certainly. For I see those numbers
are of greater duration than when they sound or are heard
or are produced.
M. Then you prefer things made to things making. For you
said a while ago those in the memory are imprinted by the
others.
D. I should rather not prefer them. But still, how can I not
prefer those of greater duration to those of less, I don't see.
M. Don't let this disturb you. For not as eternal things to
temporal are those decaying through a longer time to be preferred
to those passing away in a shorter time. Because one
day's sanity is to be preferred to many days' folly. And if we
compare desirable things, one day's reading is better than many
days' writing, if the same thing is read in one day, written in
many. So numbers in the memory, although they remain
longer than those they are imprinted by, yet it is not proper
to prefer them to those we cause, not in the body, but in the
soul. For they both pass away, one by cessation, others by forgetting.
But those we operate seem to be snatched from us,
even though we have not yet stopped, by the succession of
those immediately following, when the first by disappearing
give place to the second, the second to the third, and continuously
those before to those after, until a complete stop destroys
the last. But in the case of forgetting, several numbers are
ON MUSIC 331
wiped away together, even though by degrees. For they do
not remain entire for any time. For what is not found in the
memory after a year, for instance, is also already less after a
day's time. But this decrease is not sensed, yet it is not therefore
falsely conjectured. Because the whole does not disappear
suddenly the day before the year is finished, and so the understanding
grants it begins to lapse from the time it comes into
the memory. That is why we often say, *I vaguely remember/
whenever we repeat something, recalling it after a time before
its complete destruction. And, therefore, both these kinds of
numbers are mortal. But things making are by right preferred
to those made.
D. I accept and approve,
(7) M. Now, then, consider the other three, and explain
which of them is the best, and so to be preferred to the others.
D. That's not easy. For, according to the rule things making
are to be preferred to those made, I am forced to give the
prize to the sounding numbers. For, when we hear we sense
them, and when we sense them we are passive to them. And
so, these last make those others existing in the ear's affection
when we hear, but, again, these we have by sensing produce in
the memory othei* they are rightly preferred to, since they are
produced by them. But here, because sensing and remembering
both belong to the soul, I am not disturbed if I should
prefer something produced in the soul to something else likewise
produced in it. But I am disturbed how the sounding numbers
certainly corporeal or somehow in a body, are to be considered
of more worth than those found in the soul when we
aense. And yet, again, it is disturbing how these last are not
rather to be more highly considered since they make, and the
others are made by them.
M. Be rather amazed at the body's being able to make any-
332 SAINT AUGUSTINE
thing in the soul. For it could not, perhaps, if the body the
soul used to animate and govern without trouble and with the
greatest ease, changed for the worse by the first sin, were not
subject to death and corruption. And yet, it has a beauty of its
own, and in this way it sets its dignity off to fair advantage
in the eyes of the soul. And neither its wound nor its disease
has deserved to be without the honor of some ornament. And
the highest Wisdom of God designed to assume this wound,
by means of a wonderful and ineffable sacrament, when He
took upon Himself man without sin, but not without the condition
of sin. For He was willing to be humanly born, to suffer,
and to die. None of these things was accomplished by our
merit, but by this most excellent goodness, in order we might
rather look to the pride we most deservingly fell into those
things by, than to the humiliations He undeservingly suffered,
and so with calm mind we might pay the death owed, if He,
too, was able to bear it unowed on our account, and anything
else more secret and more atoned for in such a sacrament to be
understood by saintly and more holy people. And so it is not
surprising a soul operating in mortal flesh feels the passion of
bodies. And not because it is better than the body ought all
taking place in it be considered better than all
taking place in
the body. I suppose you think the true is to be preferred to the
false.
D. Who wouldn't.
M. But what we see in our sleep isn't a tree?
D. Not at all.
M. But its form is in the soul. And the form of what we now
see has been made in the body. And so, since the true is better
than the false, and although the soul is better than the body,
the true in the body is better than the false in the soul. But as
the latter is better in so far as it is true, not in so far as it is
made in the body, so the former is worse in so far as it is false,
ON MUSIC 333
not in so far as it is made in the soul. Have you anything to say
about this?
D. Nothing, certainly.
M. Listen, then, to this other thing, nearer to the mark, I
believe, than 'better.' For you won't deny what is
proper is
better than what is not proper.
D. I certainly admit that.
M. But no one doubts a man would be improper in the same
clothers a woman would be proper in.
D. That's evident.
M. Well, then, it isn't to be greatly wondered at, is it, if this
form of numbers is proper in the sounds falling on the ears,
and improper in the soul when it has them by sensing and
being passive?
D. I don't think so.
M.
Why, then, do we hesitate to prefer sounding and corporeal
numbers to those made by them, even though they are
made in the soul which is better than the body? Because we
are preferring numbers to numbers, producers to produced,
not the body to the soul. For bodies are the better the more
harmonious [numerosiora] they are by means of these numbers.
But the soul is made better through lack of those numbers
it receives through the body, when it turns away from the
carnal senses and is reformed by the divine numbers of wisdom.
So it is truly said in the Holy Scriptures, 'I have gone the
rounds, to know and consider and seek wisdom and number.'
2
And you are in no way to think this was said about those
numbers shameful theaters resound with, but about those, I
believe, the soul does not receive from the body, but receiving
from God on high it rather impresses on the body. And what
kind of thing this is, is not to be considered in this place.
2 Eccle. 7.26.
334 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 5
(8) But, lest it turn out the life of a tree is better than
our own, because it doesn't receive numbers from the body by
sensing (for it has no sense), it must be carefully considered if
there is really nothing called hearing unless something is produced
in the soul by the body. But it is very absurd to subordinate
the soul like a matter to the body as an artisan. For
the soul is never inferior to the body, and all matter is inferior
to the artisan. The soul, then, is in no way a matter subordinated
to the body as an artisan. But it would be, if the body
worked numbers in it. Therefore, when we hear, numbers are
not made in the soul by those we know in sounds. Or do you
think otherwise?
D. What happens, then, when a person hears?
M. Whatever it is and perhaps we cannot find or explain
it it won't result, will it, in our denying the soul's being
better than the body? And when we admit this, can we subordinate
it to the body working and imposing numbers, so the
body is an artisan but the soul a matter something harmonious
is made from and in? And, if we believe this, we must believe
the soul is inferior to the body. And what more miserable and
detestable thing than this can be believed? And since things are
thus, I shall try as much as God will help me to conjecture
at and discuss whatever lies there. But if, because of the infirmity
of either or both of us, the result should be less that we
wish, either we ourselves shall investigate it at another time
when we are less agitated, or we shall leave it to more intelligent
people to examine, or, unworried, we shall leave it
unsolved. But we must not for that reason let these other more
certain things slip from our hands.
-D. I shall hold that as unshaken if I can, and yet I shouldn't
wish that secret place to remain impenetrable to us.
ON MUSIC 335
(9) M.I shall say right away what I think. But you must
cither follow or go ahead of me, if you can, when you see me
stop and hesitate. For I think the body is animated by the
soul only to the purpose of the doer. Nor do I think it is affected
in any way by the body, but it acts through it and in it as
something divinely subjected to its dominion. But at times it
acts with ease, at times with difficulty, according as, proportionately
to its merits, the corporeal nature yields more or less
to it. And so, whatever corporeal things are taken into this
body or come into contact with it from without, have in the
body itself, not in the soul, some effect either opposed to its
operation or agreeing with it. And so, when it fights the body's
opposition and with difficulty throws the matter subjected to
it into the ways of its operation, it becomes more attentive to
the actions because of the difficulty. And this difficulty on account
of the attention, when not unobserved, is called feeling,
and this is named pain or trouble. But when what is taken in
or touches it easily agrees, all that or as much as is necessary
is projected into the course of its operation. And this action
of the soul by which it joins its body to an outside body harmonizing
with it, since it is accomplished more attentively
because of an unusualness, is not unobserved, but because of
the harmony is felt with pleasure. But when those things the
soul uses to mend the wear and tear in the body are lacking,
need follows. And when the soul becomes more attentive on
account of the difficulty of the action and this operation does
not pass unobserved, then this is called hunger or thirst or
some such thing. But when there is a superfluity of things taken
in, from the burden of these is born a difficulty of operation
and an awareness accompanies the issue. And since this action
does not pass unobserved, indigestion is felt. It also operates
with attention when it gets rid of the superfluity: if smoothly,
with pleasure; if roughly, with pain. The soul also occupies
336 SAINT AUGUSTINE
itself attentively with any sickly disturbance of the body, desiring
to succor it as it declines and disintegrates. And when
this action does not pass unobserved, it is said to feel sickness
and illness.
(10) In short, it seems to me the soul, when it has sensations
in the body, is not affected in any way by it, but it pays
more attention to the passions of the body. But this sense,
even while we do not sense, being nevertheless in the body, is
an instrument of the body directed by the soul for its ordering
so the soul may be more prepared to act on the passions of the
body with attention to the end of joining like things to like
and of repelling what is harmful. Further, I think, it
operates
something luminous in the eyes, a most clear and mobile air
in ears, something misty in the nose, something damp in the
mouth, something earthy and muddy you might say in the
touch. But whether these are put together in this way or by
some other distribution, the soul acts quietly if the things
within are in unity of health as if
they agreed to some domestic
pact. But when things affecting the body, you might say with
otherness, are applied, it exerts more attentive actions accomodated
to certain places and instruments. Then it is said
to see or hear or smell or taste or touch. And by such actions it
willingly associates proper things and resists
improper ones. I
think the soul, then, when it senses, produces these actions on
the passions of the body, but does not receive these passions.
(11) And so, when we now examine the numbers of
sounds and the sense of hearing is called into doubt, it isn't
necessary to digress any longer. Let's return, then, to the question,
and see if sound causes anything in the ear. Or do you
deny that it does?
D. Not at all.
ON MUSIC 337
M. Well, you agree ears are an animated member?
D. I do.
M.
Since, then, what in this member is like air is moved
when the air is moved, we don't believe, do we, the soul, with
a vital motion quickening in silence the body of the ears before
this sound, can either stop from the work of moving what it
animates, or can move the air of the ear now moved extrinsically
in the same way it moved before the sound slipped in?
D. It seems it must be in another way.
M. Then, to move it in another way, mustn't it be said to
act, not to be acted on?
D. That's true.
M. So we are not absurd in believing the movements of the
soul, or its actions or operations find any easier name you
can do not escape the soul's notice when it senses.
(12) But these operations are applied to these passions of
the body either as when figures interrupt the light of our eyes,
or sound enters the ears, or odors move into the nostrils, or
savors to the palate, and to the rest of the body solid and
bodily things; or as when something runs and crosses from
place to place in the body itself; or as when the whole body is
moved by its own weight or that of another. These are operations
the soul applies to these passions of the body, delighting
the soul when it agrees with them, offending it when it opposes
them. But when it is affected by its own operations, it is
affected by itself, not by the body. But clearly when it adapts
itself to the body, it is less with itself, because the body is
always less than it is.
(13) And so, when the soul is turned from its God to its
servant, it is necessarily deficient; but, when it is turned from
its servant to its God, it necessarily progresses and furnishes its
servant a very easy life, and, therefore, the least laborious and
338 SAINT AUGUSTINE
full of business, no attention being given it in its surpassing
peace. Just so is the bodily affection called health. Indeed, it
needs none of our attention, not because the soul then does
nothing in the body, but because it does nothing more easily.
For in all our operations the greater the difficulty we operate
with, the more attentively we do it. But this health will be the
most firm and certain when this body will have been restored
to its former stability, in its own time and order. And this its
resurrection is properly believed before it is fully understood.
For the soul must be ruled by the superior, and rule the inferior.
But God alone is superior to it, and only body is inferior
to it, if you mean the soul whole and entire. And so as it cannot
be entire without the Lord, so it cannot excel without a servant.
But as its Lord is greater than it, so its servant is less. And
so, intent on its Lord, it understands His eternal things and is
greater, and its servant, too, is greater in its kind through the
soul itself. But when the Lord is neglected, intent on its servant
with the carnal concupiscence it is seduced by, the soul feels the
movements it gives its servant, and is less; yet not so inferior
as its servant, even when it is at the lowest in its own nature.
But the body by this offense of its mistress is much less than
it was, since she was much greater before it.
(14) And so, for one now mortal and fragile, it is dominated
with great difficulty and attention. And from there does
this error fall upon the soul that it esteems the body's pleasure
because the matter yields to its attention, more than it esteems
its health needing no attention. No wonder it is involved in
troubles, preferring unquiet to security. But a greater unquiet
arises for one turning back to God for fear he be turned away.
And it is so until the push of carnal business, excited by daily
habit and inserting itself into the heart of the conversion by
disorderly memories, comes to rest. When a man's movements
ON MUSIC 339
that carry him away into outside things have been in this way
quieted, then he enjoys an interior freedom of peace signified
by the sabbath. So he knows God alone is his Lord, and He is
served with the greatest freedom. But, although he starts those
carnal movements as he wishes, he does not stop them as he
wishes. For, again, the reward of sin is not in his power as sin
itself is. For, indeed, this soul is a thing of great worth, and
yet it doesn't remain apt for suppressing its own lascivious
movements. For it sins in its strength, and by divine law made
weaker after sin it is less able to undo what it has done. 'Unhappy
man I am, who will deliver me from the body of this
death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord/*
Then a movement of the soul, conserving its force and not yet
extinct, is said to be in the memory. And, when the mind is
intent on something else, it is as if that previous movement
were not in the mind and were lost, except, before it dies away,
it be renewed by some affinity of similar things.
( 15 )
But have you anything to say to the contrary?
Z>. You seem to me to say what is probable, and I shouldn't
dare oppose.
M. Since, then, feeling itself is a moving the body against the
movement made in it, don't you think then we do not feel
when bones and nails and hair are cut, not because these are
not at all alive in us, for otherwise they would neither be held
together nor be fed nor grow, nor show their strength in begetting
their kind. But because they are penetrated with an air
less free or mobile than is necessary for the soul's causing a
movement there so rapid as that movement it is against when
it's said to feel. Although some such life is understood in trees
and other vegetation, it is nowise proper to prefer it, not only
to our own life exceeding it in reason, but also to that of brutes.
5 Rom. 7.24-25.
340 SAINT AUGUSTINE
For it is one thing not to sense because of very great solidity,
and another not to sense because of very great health of body.
For in the one case the instruments moving relatively to the
passions of the body are lacking, and in the other these passions
themselves are lacking.
D. I approve and agree.
Chapter 6
(16) M. Let's get back to the problem proposed, and
tell me, of the three kinds of numbers, one in the memory,
the other in sensing, and another in sound, which of these
seems to you the most excellent.
D. I put sound after these other two, both in the soul and
in some sense living. But of these last two I am uncertain which
I consider superior. But, perhaps, since we said those in action
are to be preferred to those in the memory only because the
ones are active and the others are caused by them, so for the
same reason it is
proper to prefer also those in the soul while
we are listening to those in the memory caused by them. That's
the way it seemed to me before.
M. I don't think your reply absurd. But since it has been
argued those numbers in sensing are also operations of the
soul, how do you distinguish them from those we see to be
in act even when the soul in silence and not remembering performs
something harmonious through intervals of time? Or do
the ones belong to the soul moving itself with respect to its
body, while those others inhering belong to the soul moving
itself with respect to the body's passions?
D. I accept this distinction
M .Well, do you think it
acceptable those relative to the
body be judged superior to those relative to the body's
passions?
ON MUSIC 341
D. Those existing in silence seem to me to be freer than those
exerted not only on the body but also on the body's passions.
M. It seems we have distinguished five kinds of numbers and
ordered them in some sort of scale of merits. And if you will,
we shall impose names proper to them, to avoid in the rest of
our discourse using more words than things.
D. Very willingly.
M. Then let the first be named judicial, the second advancing
[progressores], the third reacting [occursores]* the fourth
memorial, the fifth sounding.
D. I understand and I am glad to use these names.
Chapter 7
(17) M. Come now, tell me, which of these seems to
you undying, or do you think they all fall in their time and
die?
D. I think the judicial alone are undying. For the others, I
see, either pass away when they are made or are striken out
of the memory by forgetfulness.
M. You are just as certain, then, of the immortality of the
first as you are of the destruction of the others? Or is it proper
to inquire more diligently whether they are undying?
D. Let's look into the matter thoroughly.
M.
Say, then, when I pronounce a verse sometimes longer,
sometimes shorter, provided I comply with the law of times
putting feet in a one-two ratio, I don't offend the judgment of
your senses with any kind of hitch or fraud, do I?
D. Not at all.
M. Well, but that sound, given out in shorter and, you
4 Occursores is here translated as 'reacting,' but with the understanding,
of course, that the sounding numbers cause the reacting numbers
only as something like occasional causes.
342 SAINT AUGUSTINE
might say, faster syllables, it can't occupy more time than it
sounds, can it?
D. How can it?
M.
Then, if those judicial numbers are time-bound in just
the interval the sounding numbers were disposed in, can they
hope to judge those other sounds based on the same iambic
law, but slower?
D. In no way.
A/. Then it
appears those judicial numbers are not confined
to a span of time.
D. It certainly appears so.
(18) M. You are right in agreeing. But if they are confined
to no interval, then no matter how slowly I should emit
iambic sounds in regular intervals, they could still be used for
judging. But now, if I should say a syllable of such a stretch
as three steps in walking (to make it small), and another syllable
double that, and if I should order the succeeding iambs
at such a pace, then the law of one to two would nevertheless
be preserved. And yet we couldn't apply that natural judgment
to confirming these measurements, could we?
JD. I can't deny you seem right, for my opinion of the matter
is very simple.
M. Then the judicial numbers are also confined to certain
limits of time-spans they cannot exceed in their judgments.
And whatever exceeds these intervals, they find no way to
judge. And if they should be confined in this way, I do not sec
how they are immortal.
D. And I don't see what I can say to that. Although now
I shall be less forward in presuming on their immortality, yet
I do not understand how they are in this way proved mortal.
For it is
possible whatever intervals they can judge they can always
judge, since I cannot say they are destroyed as the others
ON MUSIC 343
by forgctfulncss, or their length of time is so long as a sound's
movement, or of such a stretch as reacting numbers, or as the
numbers we have called advancing, impelled in time and prolonged
in length. For each of these passes away with the time
of its operation. But the judicial remain certainly in the nature
of man, whether also in the soul I do not know, to pass judgment
on things given even if varied within certain lengths, by
approving harmonies in them and rejecting discords.
(19) M. At least you concede some men are more quickly
offended by discordant numbers, some more slowly, and most
judge them defective only by the comparison with sound ones
on hearing them agree and disagree.
D. I agree to that.
M.
Well, what do you think this difference arises from, if
not from nature or practice or both?
D. That's true.
M. Then, I want to know if someone at sometime could
pass judgment on and approve longer intervals than another
could.
D. I believe that's possible.
M. Well, anyone who can't, if he should practice properly
and should not be really dull, could, couldn't he?
D. Certainly he could.
M. But he couldn't go so far as to judge even longer intervals,
comprehending in that judicial sense intervals in the
ratio of one to two hours or days or months or years (for they'd
at least be hindered by sleep) and approving them as iambs of
motion.
D. They can't.
M.
Why can't they do so? Unless it's because to each living
thing in its proper kind and in its proportion with the universe
is given a sense of places and times, so that even as its body
344 SAINT AUGUSTINE
is so much in proportion to the body of the universe whose part
it is, and its age so much in proportion to the age of the universe
whose part it is, so its sensing complies with the action it
pursues in proportion to the movement of the universe whose
part it is? So this world, often called in Sacred Scriptures by
the name of heaven and earth, is great by containing all things
whose parts being all diminished in proportion it remains just
as large, or increased in proportion it still remains just as large.
For nothing is large of itself in space and time-stretches, but
with respect to something shorter; and again nothing is small
of itself, but with respect to something larger.
6
And so, if
there is attributed to human nature for the actions of carnal
life a sense such that it cannot pass judgment on greater
stretches of times than the intervals pertaining to the use of
such a life demand, then, since this nature of man is mortal,
so I think also this sense is mortal. For it is not for nothing
custom is called a sort of second and fitted-on nature. But
we see new senses in the judging of this kind of corporeal
things, built up by custom, by another custom disappear.
Chapter 8
(20) But whatever kind of thing these judicial numbers
may be, they are certainly superior to any other in this,
that we doubt and with difficulty find out if they are mortal.
But of the other four kinds there is no question they are
mortal. And although they do not embrace some members
5 Just as the thing rhythmed
was considered only as a matrix for ratios,
so here the extended world is such a matrix, and so is the sensible life
of man. Being then belongs more to the relations that to the relata
and this doctrine will find its keystone in the
Trinity
where the
distinction of Persons involves a certain primacy of relations. It is
interesting to note in this connection that Boethius, who mentions
Augustine, carefully pointed this out in his discussion of the categories
of Aristotle in his Be Trinitate.
ON MUSIC 345
of these four classes because they have been extended beyond
their laws, yet they appropriate the kinds themselves for their
very consideration. For even the advancing numbers, when
they seek a certain harmonious operation in the body, are
modified by the secret will of the judicial numbers. For whatever
restrains and keeps us from walking with unequal steps,
or from beating out in unequal intervals, or from eating or
drinking with uneven motions of the jaw, and from scratching
with unequal motions of the nails, or to be brief, from unequal
movements in any application of ourselves to doing something
with our bodily members, and tacitly demands a certain
equality, that very thing is something judicial, I don't know
what, introducing God the builder of the animal, properly
believed to be the author of all fittingness and agreement.
(21 )
And these reacting numbers, brought forth certainly
not according to their own will, but in virtue of the body's passions,
in so far as the memory can keep their intervals, just so
far they given over to the judgment of the judicial are numbers
and are judged. For the number consisting in time-intervals
can in no way be judged by us unless we are aided in the judging
by memory. For any syllable, no matter how short, since
it begins and stops, has its beginning at one time and its ending
at another. Then it is stretched over some little interval
of time and stretches from its beginning through its middle to
an end. So reason finds spatial as well as temporal intervals
have an infinite division and so no syllable's end is heard with
its beginning. And so, even in hearing the shortest syllable, unless
memory help us have in the soul that motion made when
the beginning sounded, at the very moment when no longer
the beginning but the end of the syllable is sounding, then we
cannot say we have heard anything. And from this it often
comes about, being occupied with another thought, we do not
346 SAINT AUGUSTINE
in conversation seem to have heard even ourselves. This is not
because the soul does not at that time put in motion those reacting
numbers, since certainly the sound reaches the ears, and
the soul cannot be idle at its body's passion and since it cannot
move differently than if that passion of the body should occur,
but because the impetus of the motion is immediately blotted
out by the attention [intentio] on something else, an impetus
which, if it remained, would remain in the memory so we
would also know and feel we had heard. But if a rather slow
mind follows not too easily what reason discovers in the case
of a short syllable, in the case of two syllables there's certainly
no doubt no soul can hear both at the same time. For the
second does not sound unless the first stops. For how can what
cannot sound together be heard together? Then, as the diffusion
of rays shining out into the open from tiny pupils of the
eye, and belonging therefore to our body, in such a way that,
although the things we see are placed at a distance, they are
yet quickened by the soul, so, just as we are helped by their
effusion in comprehending place-spans, the memory too, because
it is somehow the light of time-spans, so far comprehends
these time-spans as in its own way it too can be projected. But
when a sound beats a longer time on the ears, in no way articulated
and again another, double it, or equal it, is added on
from some stopping place or another, then that motion of the
mind, created by its attention on the past and finished sound
in its transition, is
repressed by its attention on the continuously
succeeding sound, and so it does not remain in the
memory. And so mustn't these judicial numbers be thought of
as extended in a certain interval of time? For they can't judge
the numbers situated in the time-spans unless the memory
should come to their assistance, with the exception of the advancing
numbers whose very advance they regulate. But there
intervene the time-spans where we forget or remember what
ON MUSIC 347
they judge. And so we cannot judge round or square or any
other solid definite things in those bodily forms which are
properly objects of the eyes, unless we turn them around to the
eyes. But when one part is seen, if for that reason it should
blot out what is seen in another, then the attention of the person
judging would be in vain, because it, too, is
accomplished
in a certain time-span. And it is
up to memory to see to this
diversity.
(22) But it is much more evident we judge memorial
numbers by judicial when the memory itself presents them.
For, if
reacting numbers are judged in so far as they are presented
by it, much more are those found to live in the memory
itself which are brought back by memory itself as if they had
been stored up by other applications of our attention. For what
else do we do when we recall to memory except examine somehow
what we've stored up? But a motion of the mind, not
destroyed, runs back into our cogitation on the occasion of
similar ones, and it's this that's called remembering. And so,
either in thought alone or also in the movement of our members,
we enact numbers we have already enacted sometime or
other. But for that reason we know they haven't just come, but
come back into our cogitation, because whenever they were being
committed to memory, they were repeated with difficulty,
and we needed prior practice in order to follow through. And
with this difficulty overcome, when the numbers offer themselves
without trouble and at will, comformably to the times
and in their proper order, so easily, indeed, those inhering
more forcibly come forth as if of their own will even while we
are thinking of something else, we then feel they are not new.
There is also another thing, I think, giving us to feel the present
motion of the mind has already existed at some time: that
is, to recognize when we compare by an interior light of some
348 SAINT AUGUSTINE
sort the recent, and certainly more lively, movements of the
action we are in the midst of when we remember, with the now
more composed memorial numbers. And such knowledge is
recognition and remembering. Then the memorial numbers
are also judged by these judicial numbers, never alone, but
along with active or reacting numbers or with both, bringing
them from their hiding-places to the light, and recalling these
numbers, lost before and now brought to life again. So, since
the reacting numbers are judged in so far as the memory
presents them to those judging, in turn the memorial numbers
can be judged as the reacting numbers exhibit them. So this is
the difference: for the reacting numbers to be judged, the
memory presents what might be called recent traces of their
flight, but when we hear and judge the memorial numbers,
the same traces relive with the passage of the reacting numbers.
Now, why do we need to say anything further about the sounding
numbers, since, if they are heard, they are judged in the
reacting numbers? But if they sound where they can't be heard,
who doubts they can't be judged by us? And just as in sounds
with the ears as instruments, so in dancing and other visible
motions, we judge, by means of these same judicial numbers
with the help of the memory, whatever pertains to temporal
numbers.
Chapter 9
(23) Since things are so, let us try if we can and transcend
those judicial numbers and see if there are any superior
to them. Although in the case of these judicial numbers
we now see a minimum of time-spans, yet they are only applied
for judging those things in a time-span, and not even all such,
but only those articulated memory-wise. Do you object to this?
D. The force and power of these judicial numbers moves
me to the utmost. For it seems to me it's to them the functions
ON MUSIC 349
of all the senses are referred. And so, I don't know whether
among numbers any thing more excellent than these can be
found.
M. There is nothing lost in our looking more carefully. For,
either we shall find in the human soul superior ones, or, if it
should be clear there are none in it higher, we shall confirm
these to be the highest in it. For it is one thing not to be, and
another not to be capable of being found either by us or any
man. But I think when that verse Deus creator omnium we
quoted is sung, we hear it through reacting numbers, recognize
it
through memorial numbers, pronounce it through advancing
numbers, are delighted through judicial numbers, and
appraise it by still others, and in accordance with these more
hidden numbers we bring another judgment on this delight, a
kind of judgment on the judicial numbers. Do you think it's
the same thing to be delighted by sense and to appraise by
reason?
D. I admit they are different. But I am disturbed first by the
name. Why aren't those called judicial numbers where reason
rather than where delight resides? Second, I fear this appraisal
of reason is only a more diligent judgment of judicial numbers
concerning themselves. Not one kind of number in delight and
another in reason, but one and the same kind of number
judges at one time those produced in the body when memory
presents them as we just proved, and at the other times of
themselves, in a purer manner and more remote from the body.
(24) M. Don't worry about names; the thing is in the
meaning [potestas]. Names are imposed by convention, not by
nature. But your thinking them the same and not wishing to
accept them as two kinds of number the same soul's doing
both, I guess, wrings that out of you. But you must notice in
350 SAINT AUGUSTINE
advancing numbers the same soul
6
moves the body or moves
to the body, and in reacting numbers the same soul goes to
meet its passions, and in memorial numbers it fluctuates in
motions, you might say, until they somehow subside. And so
we see the motions and affections of one nature, that is, the
soul, in these kinds which are necessarily enumerated and distinguished.
And, therefore, if, as it is one thing to be moved
to those things the body is
passive to, and this is done in
sensing; another, to move oneself to the body, and this is
done in operating; another, to hold in the soul what is gotten
from these motions, and that is to remember; so it is
one thing to accept or reject these motions either when they
are first produced or when revived by the memory, and this
is done in the delight at the fitness or in the distaste at the
absurdity of such movements or affections; and another thing
to appraise whether they delight rightly or not, and this
is done by reasoning if all this is true, then we must admit
these last are of two kinds just as the first are of three kinds.
And, if we have been right in our judgment, the very sense
of delight could not have been favorable to equal intervals
and rejected perturbed ones, unless it itself were imbued with
numbers; then, too, the reason laid upon this delight cannot
at all judge of the numbers it has under it, without more powerful
numbers. And, if these things are true, it
appears five
kinds of numbers have been found in the soul, and, when you
add to these those corporeal numbers we have called sounding,
you will see six kinds of numbers in rank and order. And now,
if you will, let those that tried to take first place be called
sensuous, and those found to be more excellent receive the
name of judicial numbers, since that is more honorable. And
again I think the name of sounding numbers ought to be
6 I read eamdem animam for eadem animam in Migne, an obvious misprint
not in Benedictine Edition.
ON MUSIC 351
changed, since, if they should be called corporeal, they will
also evidently signify those involved in dancing and in any
other visible motion. Do you approve, then, of what's been
said?
D. I do. For it seems to me both true and evident. And I am
willing to accept your corrections in vocabulary.
Chapter 10
(25) M. Well, now examine the force and power of
reason in so far as we can examine it in its works. For reason
itself, to mention the most extraordinary thing it attains in its
operation, first has considered what is good mensuration, and
seen it to be in a free movement, and directed it to the end
of its own beauty. Then it saw there was something in the
movements of bodies varying in the brevity and length of time,
in so far as it was greater or less in time, and something else
varying in the beat of spatial intervals in certain degrees of
swiftness and slowness. After this division, it articulated into
different numbers whatever was in a time-stretch by means of
moderate intervals convenient to the human senses, and followed
through their kinds and order to the measurements of
verses. Lastly, it turned its attention to what the soul it's the
head of would do in the measuring, operating, sensing, and
retaining of these things. And it
separated all these numbers
of the soul from bodies. And it saw itself could not notice,
distinguish or rightly enumerate all these things without certain
numbers of its own, and it set them above the others as of
an inferior order, by means of a kind of judicial appraisal.
(26) And now of its own delight, that looks so closely
into the balancings of times and shows its decisions in measuring
these numbers, it asks this question: 'What is it we love
in sensible harmony?' Nothing but a sort of equality and
352 SAINT AUGUSTINE
equally measured intervals, isn't it so? Does the pyrrhic foot
or spondaic or anapestic or dactylic or proceleusmatic or dispondaic
delight us for any other reason than its comparing
the one of its parts to the other by an equal division of itself?
And what beauty does the iamb, trochee, or tribrach have if
not the division of their greater part into two such as their
lesser? And, too, do the six-time feet sound more smooth and
gay except through their division according to either law:
that is, either into two equal parts with three times each, or
into one part single and the other double; that is, so the
greater part is twice the less and is in this way divided equally
by it, since the four times are measured off and cut in two
by the two times? What about the five and seven-time feet?
How is it they seem more adapted to prose than to verse, if
not because their smaller part does not divide their larger
in two? And yet, whence are they themselves admitted in the
order of their own kind to the numberliness of times, if not
because the smaller part also in the five-time foot has two
such sub-parts as the greater has three, and in seven-time
feet the smaller three such as the greater four? So in all feet,
no measuring net marks off any least part others as many as
possible are not equal to.
(
27 )
Consider in the case of feet joined together, whether
this conjoining be continued on as far as one wishes as in
rhythms, or whether it be restrained by some definite end as
in meters, or whether it be divided into two members symmetrical
to one another by some law as in verses by what
now other than equality is one foot in accord with another?
And how is it the molossus' and ionic's middle syllable, a
long one, can be divided, not by division, but by the will of
the person reciting and beating time, into two equal moments,
so even the whole foot is in harmony with each three-time
ON MUSIC 353
part when it is added to others divided in the same way?
Isn't it only because the law of equality dominates, that is,
because it's equal to its sides, each of two times, and it itself
is of two times? Why can't the same thing be done in the case
of the amphibrach when it is added to other four-time feet,
if it isn't because an equality of this sort isn't found there,
the middle syllable being double and the sides single? Why
in rests isn't our sense offended by a deficiency, if not because
what is due that same law of equality, although not in sound,
is yet made up in spread of time?7
Why, too, is a short syllable
taken for a long one when followed by a rest and not by
convention, but by natural consideration directing the ears if
not because by the same law of equality we are prevented,
in a longer time-span, from forcing the sound into a shorter
7 There is more in this sentence than meets the eye. In the first place
we have here the appearance in rhythm of the being of non-being. The
rest, the absence ot a sensible motion, is itself the object of the timecount
and plays its role on the same level as. a sensible sound. Its
absence is counted by the 'spread of time' (spattum tempons) . This
is the forerunner of the distentio ammt of the Confessions, all of
which is certainly tied in with Plotmus' doctrine of id parakoloiithema
in his treatise On Time and Eternity: 'What it means then to say
[time] is the accompaniment of movement . . . .'
(III. 7.10.1-2), For
the essential point of Plotmus' attack on Aristotle's 'Time-is-thenumber-of-movement'
theory is that there is something like the
synthesis of the constantly recurring motions which necessitates an
intellectual accompaniment of the motion. For, without this there
would be no unity of the past and present, no one magnitude to be
numbered. Nor can the movement itself establish its own homogeneity
so that it can be said for instance that the daily motion of the
heavens is always equal to itself. It is the intellectual
accompaniment
which in view of equality considers one or another cyclic movement
in the sensible world as
equal
one cycle to another and so
perceives an order there. Tor on the one hand one will refer a body
moving for such and such a time to the [uniform] movement of such
and such magnitude (for it is the principle) and to its time. But the
time of this movement, on the other hand, one will refer to the
movement of the soul which divides out the
ecjual
intervals' (Enn.
III. 7.13.58-62). So in mechanical theories the choice of equal motions
is made with a view to the convenient ordering of all the others.
One should hasten to add this does not reduce time to a purely
354 SAINT AUGUSTINE
time? And so the nature of hearing and passing over in silence
allows the lengthening of a syllable beyond two times: so
what is also filled with rest can be filled with sound. But
for a syllable to occupy less than two times, with a span left
and rests at will, is a sort of deception of equality, because
there can be no equality in less than two. And finally in the
case of that equality of members, the circuits the Greeks call
periodoi are varied by and verses are formed by, how is a
return made somehow to the same equality unless the members
joined together as unequals be found to have a force of
equality so that in the circuit the shorter member harmonize
in beat with the greater by equal feet, and in the verse by a
more subtle consideration of numbers?
(
28 )
And so reason wonders and asks the sensuous delight
of the soul which reserves to itself the judicial role whether,
when an equality in the number of time-spans pleases it, any
two short syllables one hears are really equal, or could it be one
of them is
pronounced longer, not to the long syllable's measure,
but a little under, yet enough to exceed its like. You can't
deny this is
possible, can you, when the soul's delight does not
sense these differences, but delights in unequals as equals?
psychological being. Any thing perceived by an act of the intellect is
an object in its own right.
It is not too far-fetched, perhaps, to considei along with these
texts of Plotinus and Augustine a text of Aristoxenus: *It is clear that
the comprehending of melod\ is the accompanying with hearing and
understanding of the notes gone b\ in then every difference (Foi
melody like the other paits of music is in becoming) . . . For the
comprehension of music consists of these two, sensing and inemoiy.
For we must sense what is
Incoming and iememl>ei the become. There
is no other way to follow the things of music' (Harmonica II 3,
29-39.3) .
The doctrine of Augustine certainly starts with these same terms
and insights. Obuoush, the doctrine of creation ex nthilo and of the
Incarnation tvill force him to moie imellettualist conclusions. See
Guitton. Le temps et I'eterntte chez Plotin et St.
Angustin (Paris 1933) ,
which, hcmevei, does not treat the pioblem piofoundly enough.
ON MUSIC 355
And what is worse than this error and inequality? And so we
are advised to turn away from the enjoyment of things imitating
equality. For we cannot perceive whether they perfectly
fill out their time, although we can perhaps perceive they
do not perfectly do so. And yet in so far as they imitate we
cannot deny they are beautiful in their kind and order.
Chapter 11
(29) Let's not, then, be envious of things inferior to
ourselves, and let us, our Lord and God helping, order ourselves
between those below us and those above us, so we are
not troubled by lower, and take delight only in higher things.
For delight is a kind of weight in the soul Therefore, delight
orders the soul. Tor where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.'
8
Where delight, there the treasure; where the
heart, there happiness or misery. But what are the higher
things, if not those where the highest unchangeable undisturbed
and eternal equality resides? Where there is no time,
because there is no change, and from where times are made
and ordered and changed, imitating eternity as they do when
the turn of the heavens comes back to the same state, and
the heavenly bodies to the same place, and in days and months
and years and centuries and other revolutions of the stars
obey the laws of equality, unity, and order. So terrestrial
things are subject to celestial, and their time circuits join
together in harmonious succession for a poem of the universe.
(30) And so many of these things seem to us disordered
and perturbed, because we have been sewn into their order
according to our merits, not knowing what beautiful thing
Divine Providence purposes for us. For, if someone should be
8 Matt. 6.21.
356 SAINT AUGUSTINE
put as a statue in an angle of the most spacious and beautiful
building, he could not perceive the beauty of the building
he himself is a part of. Nor can the soldier in the front line
of battle get the order of the whole army. And in a poem,
if syllables should live and perceive only so long as they
sound, the harmony and beauty of the connected work would
in no way please them. For they could not see or approve
the whole, since it would be fashioned and perfected by the
very passing away of these singulars. So God has ordered the
man who sins as vicious, but not viciously. For he has been
made vicious by will, thus losing the whole he who obeyed
God's precepts possessed, and has been ordered in part so
who did not will to fulfill the law has been fulfilled by the
law. But whatever is fulfilled by the law is also fulfilled
justly; and whatever justly is not fulfilled viciously, because
God's precepts possessed, and has been ordered in part so he
far as he is man is
something good. But whatever is unchaste
in so far as it is unchaste is a bad work. But man for the
most part is born of unchastity, that is to say, from man's
bad work, God's good work.
(31) And so, to return to the subject all this was said
for, these numbers are pre-eminent by virtue of the beauty of
ratio. And if we were absolutely separated from them, then
whenever we should be disposed to the body, the advancing
numbers would not alter the sensuous numbers. But by moving
bodies they produce the sensible beauties of times. And so
reacting numbers are also made opposed to sounding numbers.
And the same soul receiving all its own motions multiplies,
you might say, in itself, and makes them subject to
recall. And this force it has is called memory, a great help in
the everyday business of this life.
(32) Then whatever this memory contains from the
ON MUSIC 357
motions of the mind brought to bear on the passions of the
body are called phantasiai in Greek. And I don't find in Latin
anything I should rather call them. And the life of opinion
consists in having them instead of things known and things
perceived, and such a life is at the very entrance of error. But
when these motions react with each other, and boil up, you
might say, with various and conflicting winds of purpose,
they generate one motion from another; not indeed those
impressed from the senses and gotten from the reactions to the
body's passions, but like images of images, to which we give
the name phantasms. For my father I have often seen I know,
in one way, and my grandfather I have never seen, another
way. The first of these is a phantasia, the other phantasm.
The first I find in my memory, the last in that motion of my
mind born of those the memory has. But it is difficult both
to find out and to explain how they are born. Yet, I think,
if I had never seen human bodies, I could nowise imagine
them by thinking with a visible form. But what I make from
what I've seen, I make by memory. Yet it's one thing to find
a phantasia in the memory and another to make a phantasm
out of the memory. And a power of the soul can do all
these things. But it is the greatest error to hold even true
phantasms for things known, although in both kinds there
is that we say, not absurdly, we know, that is, we have sensed
such and such things, or imagined them. After all, I am not
afraid to say I had a father and a grandfather. But I should
be mad to say it is they themselves my mind holds in the
phantasia or phantasm. But some follow their phantasms
so headlong the only ground for all false opinions is to hold
phantasias or phantasms for things known, known by the
senses. And so let us resist them as much as we can, nor so
fit our mind to them that, while our thinking is on them, we
believe we see them with the understanding.
358 SAINT AUGUSTINE
(33) And this is why, if numbers of this kind, coming
to be in a soul given over to temporal things, have a beauty
of their own, yet, even though they continually effect it by
passing away, this beauty is grudged by a Divine Providence
born of our punishable mortality merited by God's most just
law, where yet He has not so forsaken us we may not turn
back and be fetched again from the delight of the carnal
senses, under the spread of His merciful hands. For such a
delight strongly fixes in the memory what it brings from the
slippery senses. And this habit of the soul made with flesh,
through carnal affection, in the Holy Scriptures is called the
flesh. And it is struggling with such a mind in that apostolic
sentence: 'In mind* I serve the law of God, but in flesh the
law of sin.'
9
But when the mind is raised to spiritual things
and remains fixed there, the push of this habit is broken,
too, and, being little by little repressed, is destroyed. For it
was greater when we followed along with it; not altogether
nothing, but certainly less when we check it. And so with a
determined retreat from every wanton movement where lies
the fault of the soul's essence, and with a restored delight
in reason's numbers, our whole life is turned to God, giving
numbers of health to the body, not taking pleasure from it;
which happens when the exterior man is corrupt, even when
there is a change for the better.
Chapter 12
(34) But the memory not only takes in the carnal
motions of the mind, and we have already spoken of these
numbers, but also the spiritual motions I shall now speak of
briefly. For in so far as they are simpler, they demand fewer
words, and the greatest possible serenity of mind. That equal*
9 Rom. 7.25.
ON MUSIC 359
ity we could not find sure and fixed in sensible numbers, but
yet we knew shadowed and fleeting, the mind could never
indeed desire unless it were known somewhere. But this could
be nowhere in the spans of places and times; for those swell
up and these pass away. Where, then, do you think, tell me,
if possible. For you don't think it's in the forms of bodies,
and you'll never dare say they are equal by pure experiment;
nor in intervals of times where we do not know whether
they are insensibly longer or shorter than they should be. I
want to know where you think that equality is on seeing
which we desire certain bodies or motions of bodies to be
equal, and on more careful consideration we dare not trust
them.
D. There, I think, where it is more excellent than bodies,
but whether it is in the soul itself or above the soul I do
not know.
(35) M. If, then, we look for that rhythmical or metrical
art we use for making verses, do you think it possesses the
numbers verses are made by?
D. I can't suppose anything else.
M. Whatever these numbers are, do they seem to you to
pass away with the verses or to remain?
D. To remain, certainly.
M.
Therefore, it must be agreed some things that pass away
are made from some numbers that remain?
D. Reason forces me to agree.
M. Well, you don't think this art is other than some affection
of the artisan's minds, do you?
D. So I believe.
M. Do you believe this affection also to be in one unskilled
in this art?
D. Nowise.
360 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. And in the one having forgotten it?
D. Not even in the one himself unskilled even though he
has been skilled at some time or other.
M. Well, if anyone reminds him by questioning, do you
think those numbers return to him from the persons questioning,
or he moves himself to something within his own mind
whence returns to him what he had lost?
D. I think he does it within himself.
M. You don't think, by questioning, he could also be forcibly
reminded which syllable is short or which is long if
he has forgotten completely, do you? Since by an old agreement
and custom of man, to some syllables a lesser, to others
a greater stretch is given. For indeed if it were by nature
or by discipline fixed and stable, then the learned men of
our time would not have lengthened some syllables the ancients
shortened, nor shortened some they lengthened.
D. I believe this can be so, since however much is forgotten
can again be brought to memory by a remindful questioning.
M. I can't believe you think anyone by questioning could
get you to remember what you ate a year ago.
D. I confess I couldn't, and I don't think now I could be
reminded about syllables whose spans were completely for-
gotten.
M.
Why so, except because, in the noun Italia, the first
syllable by the will of certain men is shortened, and now by
the will of others lengthened? But that one and two should
not be three and that two should not be the double of one,
none of the dead or living or of those to be can bring it about.
D. Evidently not.
M. What, then, if we asked very clearly all the other
things pertaining to numbers the way we have with one and
two, and if one were questioned, unskilled, not by forgetting,
ON MUSIC 361
but because he had never learned? Don't you think then he
could likewise know this art except for the syllables?
D. How doubt it?
M. How, then, do you think he would move himself so
these numbers may be impressed on his mind, and make that
affection called art? Or will the questioner give them to him?
D. I think he does it within himself this way that he under*
stands the things asked to be true and replies.
( 36 )
M. Come, tell me now whether these numbers under
discussion seem to you to be changeable?
D. Nowise.
M. Then you don't deny they're eternal.
D. I admit it.
M. Well, is there no lingering fear some inequality won't
spoil them?
D. Nothing at all is surer for me than their equality.
M. From where, then, must we believe what is eternal and
unchangeable to be given the soul if not from the eternal
and unchangeable God?
D. I don't see what else to believe.
M. Well, then, isn't it evident he, who under another's
questioning moves himself within to God to know the unchangeable
truth, cannot be reminded by any outside warning
to see that truth, unless his memory hold his own same
movement?
D. It's evident.
Chapter 13
(37) M. I wonder, then, how he falls away from the
contemplation of these things to need another's recalling it
to his memory. Or must the mind even when intent on it
be thought to require such a return?
D. I think so.
362 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. Let us see, if you will, what this could be could so incite
to turn away from the contemplation of the highest and unchangeable
equality. For I only see three kinds. For the mind
is either intent upon something equal when it is turned away
or something higher or lower.
D. There is need only to discuss two of them, for I see
nothing superior to eternal equality.
M. Then, do you see anything could be equal to it and
yet other?
D. I don't.
M. It only remains, then, to inquire what the lower is.
But don't you think first of the soul avowing that equality
to be certainly unchangeable, but knowing it itself changes
from its intuiting at one time this equality and at another
time something else and so following the variety of time, not
found in eternal and unchangeable things, works this and that?
D. I agree.
M. Then this affection or motion of the soul by which
it understands eternal things and counts temporal things
below them even within itself and knows these higher things
are rather to be desired than those lower, don't you think
that's prudence?
D. I certainly do.
(38) Af. Well, then, don't you think it worth pondering,
at once there's not in the soul the inhering in eternal things,
there's yet in it the knowing they should be inhered in?
D. I want us very much to ponder this, and I want to know
how it comes about.
M. You will easily see, if you notice the things we direct
the mind to most, and have the greatest care for. For I
think they're those we very much love, isn't that so?
D. No others.
ON MUSIC 363
Af.
Say, then, we can only love beautiful things, can't we?
For, although some people seem to love ugly things, those the
Greeks commonly call saprophiloi, it is yet a matter of how
much less beautiful they are than those things pleasing most
people. For, clearly, no one loves those things whose foulness
his sense is offended by.
D. It's as you say.
M. These beautiful things, then, please by number, where
we have shown equality is sought. For this is found not only
in that beauty belonging to the ears or in the motion of bodies,
but also in the very visible forms where beauty is more usually
said to be. Don't you think it's only equality when equal numbers
reply to equal numbers in twos, but in ones, when they
have a mean place so equal intervals are kept for them on
each side?
D. I certainly do.
M. What is it in light itself holding the origin of all colors
(for color also delights us in the forms of bodies), what is
it in light and colors we seek if not what suits the eye? For
we turn away from too great a flare, and we are unwilling
to face things too dark, just as also in sounds we shrink from
things too loud, and do not like whispering things. And this
is not in the time-intervals, but in the sound itself, the light,
you might say, of such numbers, whose contrary is silence,
as darkness to colors. When, then, we seek things suitable
for the way of our nature and reject things unsuitable we yet
know are suitable to other living things, aren't we here, too,
rejoicing in some law of equality when we recognize equals
allotted in more subtle ways? This can be seen in smells and
tastes and in the sense of touch and for this a long time
to follow out more clearly but very easy to explore. For
there's not one of these sensibles doesn't please us from equality
or likeness. But where equality
and likeness, there number-
364 SAINT AUGUSTINE
liness [numerositas]. In fact, nothing is so equal or like as
one and one, isn't that so?
Z). I agree completely.
(39) M. Well, didn't we persuade ourselves a while ago
the soul effects these things in bodies, and doesn't suffer
from bodies?
D. We did.
M. Then the love of acting on the stream of its bodily passions
turns the soul away from the contemplation of eternal
things, diverting its attention with the care of sensible pleasure ;
it does this with reacting numbers. But the love of operating
on bodies also turns it away, and makes it restless; this it does
with advancing numbers. The phantasias and phantasms
turn it away; these it does with memorial numbers. Finally,
the love of the vainest knowledge of such things turns it away ;
this it does with sensible numbers where lie rules of an art,
as if glad in their imitation. And from these is born curiosity
by its very care an enemy of peace, and in its vanity impotent
over truth.
(40) But the general love of action turning away from
the true arises from pride by which vice the soul has preferred
imitating God to serving God. And so it is
rightly written
in Holy Scripture: 'The beginning of man's pride is to fall
from God/
10
and The beginning of all sin is pride.' What
pride is could not have been better shown than where it is
said: 'What does earth and ashes take pride in, since in
its own life it
gives up its inmost things?' For since the
soul is nothing through itself for it would not otherwise
be changeable and sufler a flight from essence since then
through itself it is nothing, but whatever it is is from God,
10 Eccli. 10. 14, 15, 9, 10.
ON MUSIC 365
staying in its order, it is
quickened in mind and conscience by
the presence of God Himself. And so it has this good inmost.
And so to puff with pride is to go forth to the outermost and,
we might say, to become empty, that is to be less and less.
But to go forth into the outermost what is that but giving up
the inmost things, that is, putting yourself away from God,
not in the span of places, but in affect of mind?
(41) But that appetite of the soul is to have under it
other souls; not of beasts as conceded by divine law, but
rational ones, that is, your neighbors, fellows and companions
under the same law. But the proud soul desires to operate on
them, and as much as every soul is better than every body,
just so much does the action on them seem more excellent
than on bodies. But God alone can operate on rational souls,
not through a body, but through Himself. But such is the
state of sin that souls are allowed to act upon souls moving
them by signifying by one or the other body, or by natural
signs as look or nod, or by conventional signs as words. For
they act with signs by commanding or persuading, and if there
is any other way besides command and persuasion, souls act
with or upon souls. But by rights it has come about those
souls wishing to be over others command their own parts
and bodies with difficulty and pain, in part being foolish in
themselves, in part, oppressed by mortal members. And so
with these numbers and motions souls set upon souls by, with
the desire of honor and praise they are turned away from
the sight of that pure and entire truth. For God alone honors
the soul making it blessed in secret when it lives justly and
piously before Him.
(42) The motions the soul thrusts upon those cleaving
to it and servant to it, then, are like the advancing ones, for
it acts as if on its own body. But those motions it thrusts
366 SAINT AUGUSTINE
out, wishing to attach some to itself or to enslave, are counted
as reacting motions. For it acts as if in the senses forcing a
thing moving up outside to become one with it, and a thing
not able to do so to be kept out. And the memory takes in
both these motions, and makes them memorial, likewise boiling
up in tumultuous fashion with the phantasias and phantasms
of these acts. Nor are there lacking the corresponding judicial
numbers seeing what moves suitably and unsuitably in these
acts, not wrongly to be called sensible, for it is by sensible signs
souls act toward souls. What wonder if the soul wound up in
so many and great concerns is turned away from the contemplation
of the truth? And it sees it in so far as it breathes
free oi them. But, because it has not yet turned them out, it
cannot remain there. And so it is the soul has not at once the
knowledge of where it
ought to be and the power to be there.
Do you agree?
D. Nothing, I daresay, to the contrary.
Chapter 14
(43) M. What's left, then? Since we have considered
as far as possible the stain and oppression of the soul, isn't it
to see what action is divinely commanded it for its return,
after purgation and forgiveness, to peace, and for its
entry into
the joy of its Master?
D.Yes.
M. And what more do you think there's for me to say when
Holy Scripture, in so many volumes endowed with such authority
and holiness, exhorts us only to love our God and Lord
with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind,
and to love our neighbor as ourself ? If, then, we refer all those
motions and numbers of human action to this end, we shall
certainly be cleansed. Isn't it so?
ON MUSIC 367
D. It certainly is, but how short this is to hear, and how hard
and arduous to do.
(44) Af. What, then, is easy? To love colors and voices
and sweets and roses and soft bodies? Is it then easy for the
soul to love these things where it
only desires equality and likeness,
yet, considering a little more carefully, knows hardly the
last shadow and trace of them? And is it difficult for the soul
to love God thinking upon whom, as thoughts till then upon
mean and sickly things allow, it finds these nothing unequal,
nothing unlike, nothing divided in places, nothing changed in
time? Or is there rather delight in throwing up a vast extent
of building and passing the time in works of this kind where
if the numbers please there's nothing else what can there
be called equal and like, the discipline's reason would not
laugh to scorn? And if this is so, why then does it sink from the
truest height of equality to these things, and build up earthly
machines in its own ruins? Was this not promised by Him who
knows not to deceive? 'For my yoke/ He says, 'is light.'
11
The
love of this world is more wearisome. For, what the soul
seeks in it, constancy and eternity, it does not find, since the
lowest beauty is finished out with the passage of things, and
what there imitates constancy is thrown through the soul by
the highest God. For the form [species] changeable only in
time is prior to that changeable both in time and place. And
just as souls have been told by the Lord what to love, so they
are told through the Apostle John what not to love. 'Do not
love this world,' he says; 'because all things in the world are
concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and
secular ambition.'
12
(45) But what manner of man do you think this is, re-
11 Matt. 11.30.
IJ> 1
John 2.15,16.
368 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ferring all those numbers from the body and over against the
body's passions and held from them by memory, not to carnal
pleasure, but only to the body's health? A man referring all
those numbers operating on souls bound to him or those numbers
put out to bind them, and therefore sticking within the
memory, not to his own proud excelling, but to the usefulness
of those souls themselves? A man also using those numbers in
either kind as directing, in the role of moderators and examiners
of things passing in the senses, not for an idle or harmful
curiosity but for a necessary approval or disapproval? Doesn't
such a man work all these numbers and yet not get caught in
them? For he only chooses the body's health not to be hindered,
and refers all those actions to the good of that neighbor he has
been bidden to love as himself in the natural tie of common
right.
D. You talk of a great and very manlike man.
(46) M. It's not those numbers below reason and beautiful
in their kind do soil the soul, then, but the love of lower
beauty. And whenever the soul finds to love in it not only
equality, concerning which we have said enough for this
work, but also order, it has lost its own order. Nor yet does
it depart from the order of things even at this point, and so
it is whenever and however a thing is, it is highly ordered. For
it is one thing to keep order and another to be kept by order.
That soul keeps order that, with itjs whole self, loves Him
above itself, that is, God and fellow souls as itself. In virtue
of this love it orders lower things and suffers no disorder from
them. And what degrades it is not evil, for the body also is a
creature of God and is adorned in its own beauty, although of
the lowest kind, but in view of the soul's dignity is lightly esteemed,
just as the value of gold is degraded by a mixture with
the finest silver. And so whatever numbers result from our
ON MUSIC 369
criminal mortality, we shall not except them from the making
of Divine Providence, since they are beautiful in their own
kind, but let us not love them to become happy in their enjoyment.
For we shall keep free of them since they are temporal,
by using them well, as with a board in a flood by not throwing
them aside as burdensome and not grasping them as stable.
But the love of our neighbor commanded us is our most certain
ascent to inhere in God and not so much to be kept by
His ordering as to keep our own order firm and sure.
(47) Or perhaps the soul does not love order as even
those sensible numbers attest? But how, then, is the first foot
a pyrrhic, the second an iamb, the third a trochee, and so on?
But in this law you will have rather told the following of
reason, not of sense. Well, isn't this so of sensible numbers that
when say eight long syllables take up as much time as sixteen
short ones, yet the shorts look rather to be mixed with the
longs? And when reason judges of sense and for it
proceleusmatic
feet are declared equal to the spondaic, it finds here
only the power of ordering, because long syllables are only long
in comparison with short syllables,
and again short syllables
are only short in comparison with long. And so the iambic
verse, no matter how long it's pronounced, if it does not lose
the rule of one and two, does not lose its name. But that verse
consisting of pyrrhic feet with the gradual lengthening of its
enunciation becomes suddenly spondaic, if you consult not
grammar with music. But if it is dactylic or anapestic, since
longs are perceived by comparison with shorts mixed in, no
matter how long its enunciation, it keeps its name. Why are
additions of half feet not to be kept with the same law, in the
beginning as at the end; nor all used, although fitting the
same beat? Why the sometime placing of two shorts rather
than one long at the end? Aren't they measured off by sense
370 SAINT AUGUSTINE
itself? Nor in these is there found an equality-number, suffering
no change, but only a bond of order. It would take too
long to go over all the other things like this having to do with
the numbers of times. But even the senses reject visible forms,
either leaning the wrong way or upside down, and like things,
where it's not the inequality for the equality of the parts
remains but the perverseness that's condemned. And finally
in all our senses and works when we familiarize many unusual
and therefore unpleasing things by gradual steps to our taste,
we first accept them with a kind of toleration and then gladly,
haven't we kept our pleasure with order, and don't we turn
from them unless the first are harmoniously bound with the
middle, and the middle with the last?
(48) And so, let us put our joy neither in carnal pleasure,
nor in the honors and praises of men, nor in the exploring of
things touching the body from without, having God within
where all we love is sure and unchangeable. And in this way
it comes to be, when temporal things are present, yet are we
not involved in them, and those things outside the body can be
absent without sense of pain, and the body itself taken away
with little or no sense of pain and brought back transformed
by the death of its nature. For the soul's attention in the direction
of the body contracts endless business, and the love of
some special work to the neglect of universal law, a work yet
inseparable from the universe of God's rule. And so who
loves not the law is
subject to the law.
Chapter 15
(49) For if, for the most part, thinking intently on
things incorporeal and being always what they are, we meanwhile
effect temporal numbers in some bodily movement, easy
and useful, by walking or singing, then they pass straight
ON MUSIC 371
through us unnoticed, although they would not be were we
not acting. And then, if, when we are occupied in our empty
phantasms, likewise these, too, pass by as we act without feeling,
how much more and more constantly 'when this corruptible
has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on
immortality,
913
that is, to speak plainly, when God has vivified
our mortal bodies, as the Apostle says, 'for the spirit remaining
in us.'
14
How much more, then, intent on one God and manifest
truth, face to face, as it's said, shall we feel with no
unquietness and rejoice in the numbers we move bodies by.
Unless perhaps one is to believe the soul, although it can
rejoice in things good through it, cannot rejoice in the things
its good from.
(50) But this action the soul, its God and Master willing,
extracts itself from the love of an inferior beauty by fighting
and downing its own habit that wars against it; on that point
of victory within itself over the powers of this alloy from whose
envious desire to entangle it, it soars to God its support
and station isn't such an action for you called the virtue
temperance?
D. I see and understand.
M. Well, when it advances along this way, now divining
eternal joys nor quite grasping them, no loss of temporal things
nor any death can deter it from saying to weaker fellows, can
it: 'It is good I be dissolved and be with Christ; but for your
sakes it is necessary to remain in the flesh'?
16
D. So I think.
At. And this disposition where it fears neither adversity nor
death, that can only be called fortitude, can't it?
D. I see that.
IS I Cor. 15.r>3.
14 Rom. 8.1 J.
15 Phil. 3.23,24.
372 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M.
Now, this ordering itself, according to which it serves
only one God, desires to be co-equal to only the purest souls
and to have dominion only over animal and corporeal nature,
what virtue do you think that is?
D. Who doesn't know that's justice?
M.
Right.
Chapter 16
(51) But now I want to know, when we decided a
while ago among ourselves prudence to be the virtue the
soul knows its proper station by, its ascent to it being through
temperance, that is, conversion of love to God called charity,
and aversion from this world attended by fortitude and justice,
I want to know whether you think when it will have come to
the fruit of its delight and zeal by perfect sanctification, by
that perfect vivification, too, of its body, and, the swarm of
phantasms wiped from its memory, will have begun to live with
God Himself for God alone, when will have been fulfilled that
divinely promised us in these words: 'Beloved, now we are
sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be.
We know when He will have appeared we shall be like Him,
since we shall see Him as He is,
16
I want to know then
whether you think these virtues we've recalled will then be
there too.
D. I don't see, when those things the fight's about have
passed by, how either prudence can be there, only choosing
what to follow in opposition, or temperance, only turning
love from things opposed, or fortitude, only bearing up under
things opposed, or justice, only desiring to be equal to the most
blessed souls and to master its lower nature in opposition,
that is, not yet in possession of that it desires.
16 I
John 3.2.
ON MUSIC 373
(52 )
M. Your reply is not absurd so far. And I don't deny
it has seemed this way to certain learned men. But I, on consulting
the books whose authority none surpasses, found this
said, 'Taste and see, since the Lord is sweet/17
The Apostle
Peter also puts it this way: 'If yet you have tasted, since the
Lord is sweet.'
18
I think this is what is effected in those virtues
purging the soul by conversion. For the love of temporal things
could only be dislodged by some sweetness of eternal things.
But when it has come to what is sung, 'But the sons of men
will hope under the cover of your wings; they will be drunk
of the abundance of your house, and you will give them to
drink in a torrent of pleasure; for in you is the fountain of
life/ it does not say the Lord will be sweet to taste, but you
see what a flood and flow is said of the eternal fountain; even
a drunkenness follows on it. And by this name is wonderfully
signified, it seems to me, that forgetfulness of secular vanities
and phantasms. Then the rest follows, and it says, 'In your
light we shall see light. Stretch forth your mercy to those knowing
you.' 'In light' is to be taken as in Christ, who is the
Wisdom of God, and is often called light. When therefore it is
said 'We see,' and 'knowing you,' it can't be denied there'll be
prudence there. Or do you think the true good of the soul
can be known where there's no prudence?
D. I now understand.
(53) M. Well, can there be those right in heart without
justice?
D. I know justice is very often signified by this name.
M. Then isn't it that the same prophet later says when he
sings, 'And your justice to those who are of right heart'?
D. Evidently.
17 Ps. S3.9.
18 1 Petei 2.3.
374 SAINT AUGUSTINE
M. Come, then, recall if you will we have already sufficiently
expounded the soul lapses by pride into certain actions of its
own power, and neglecting universal law has fallen into doing
certain things private to itself, and this is called turning away
from God.
D. I remember, certainly.
M.
When, therefore, it acts, so this never again delights it,
doesn't it seem to you to fix its love in God and to live most
temperately and chastely and securely away from all filth?
D. It seems to be.
M,
See, then, too, how the prophet goes on saying, 'Let not
the foot of pride come upon me.' For, saying *foot' he signifies
the distraction or fall, and in freedom from this the soul
inheres in God and lives eternally.
D. I agree and follow.
(54) M. Then fortitude remains. But as temperance
against the lapse in the free will, so fortitude avails against the
force anyone can be broken by if less strong in the face of
attackers or if wretchedly lying down. And this force is usually
well signified in the Scriptures by the name of hand. Then
who besides sinners try to apply this force? Well, in so far as
the soul is barricaded through this very thing and secured by
God's support so nothing befalls it from anywhere, it sustains
an enduring and you might say impassible power called fortitude;
and I think this is said when it is added, 'Nor let the
hand of sinners disturb me.'
19
(55) But whether this or something else is to be understood
by these words, will you deny the soul fixed in that perfection
and blessedness sees the truth, remains unspotted,
suffers no harm, is subject to the one God, and rises above
other natures?
19 Ps. 35.8-12.
ON MUSIC 375
D. I don't see how it can otherwise be absolutely perfect and
blessed.
M. Then, either this contemplation, sanctification, impassibleness,
and ordering of it are those four virtues perfected
and consummated, or, not to split hairs over names when the
things fit, instead of these virtues the soul in labor uses, some
such powers are to be hoped for it in eternal life.
Chapter 17
(56) We have only recalled what belongs most to this
present discussion, that all this is done by God's Providence
He has created and rules all things through, so even the sinful
and miserable soul may be moved by numbers and set numbers
moving even to the lowest corruption of the flesh. And
these numbers can be less and less beautiful, but they can't
lack beauty entirely. But God, most good and most just,
grudges no beauty whether fashioned by the soul's damnation,
retreat, or perseverance. But number also begins from one, and
is beautiful in equality and likeness, and bound by order. And
so, whoever confesses there's no nature of any kind, but desires
unity, and tries as much as it can to be like itself, and holds
its salvation as a proper order in place or time or weight of
body, must confess all things whatever and of any size are
made from one beginning through a form equal to it and like
to the riches of His goodness, by which they are joined together
in charity as one and one gift from one.
(57) And so that verse proposed by us, 'Deus creator om-
21 For Aiiffustinc the doctrine of creation from nothing is not only an
21
Eddi TfaUh bui*a dialectical truth which follows from . >unc
SK
376 SAINT AUGUSTINE
nftim/ sounds with the harmony of number not only to the
ears, but even more is most pleasing in truth and wholeness
to the soul's sentiment. Unless, perhaps, you are moved by the
stupidity, to speak mildly, of those denying anything can be
made from nothing, even though God Almighty be said to have
made it. Or is it rather the artisan can operate the sensible
numbers of his habit by the reasonable numbers of his art, and
by sensible numbers those advancing numbers, his numbers in
their operation move by, and time-spans belong to; and from
these again he can fashion visible forms in wood numbered
with place-spans; and the nature of things serving God's will
cannot make this wood from earth and other elements; and
could not even make these final things from nothing? In fact
the time-numbers of a tree must precede its place-numbers.
For there's no stem does not in fixed time-measures spring up
to replace its seed, germinate, break out into the air, unfold
its leaves, become strong, and bring back either fruit or, by
very subtle numbers of the wood itself, the force of the seed.
And how much more the bodies of animals where the placing
of the members presents a much more numbered equalness to
by all the others. This is oneness in itself, the ground of all recognition
and knowledge. For Plato and Augustine, as soon as one understands
what it means to know, one is forced to admit oneness in
itself. Any proof which proceeds only
from premises to conclusion
by the methods of discursive knowledge is insufficient. For one can
always deny premises. To find that without which one cannot even
deny premises is the task of the upward dialectic.
Since for Augustine time is a kind of unity and order contemplated
by the human intellect by which the sensible things existing seemingly
only
at this moment and hardly existing then take on significance
ana have a history, it therefore is more than the sensible things
themselves, and the acuity of such a Question as that of the eternity
of motion is
greatly diminished and perhaps has little meaning.
The appearance here of the phrase 'Creator of all things' and its
constant appearance throughout the book is indicative that the great
problem of time is to give the sensible world meaning and being
rather than to save us from the intellectual horror of self-perpetuating
"eternal* moving things of which time is
only an abstraction.
ON MUSIC 377
sight. Can these be made of the elements and these elements
not have been made of nothing? For which among them is
more ordinary and lowly than earth. Yet first it has the general
form of body where a unity and numbers and order are clearly
shown to be. For any part of it, no matter how small, must be
extended from an indivisible point in length, third takes on
breadth, and fourth height, to fill the body. From where, then,
is the measure of this progression of one to four? And from
where, too, the equality of the parts found in length, breadth,
and height? From where a corrationality (for so I have chosen
to call proportion), so the ratio length has to the indivisible
point, breadth has to length, and height to breadth? Where,
I ask, do these things come from, if not from the highest and
eternal rule of numbers, likeness, equality, and order? And
if you abstract these things from earth, it will be nothing. And
therefore God Almighty has made earth, and earth is made
from nothing.
(58) Then, too, this form earth is differentiated from the
other elements by, doesn't it present something one in so far as
it has received it, and no part of it is unlike the whole? And
doesn't it have the soundest final ground in its kind by the
connection and agreement of the same parts? And the nature
of water extends above it, itself abounding in unity, more
beautiful and more pellucid because of the greater likeness of
its parts, keeping the place of order and its own soundness. And
what shall I say of the nature of air, sweeping to unity with a
greater reach and as much more beautiful than water is than
earth, and so much higher in worth. And what about the
supreme circuit of the heavens where the whole umveree of
visible bodies ends, the highest beauty in its kind, and the
soundest excellence of place?
Now all these things we ve enumerated
with the help of the carnal senses, and all things in
378 SAINT AUGUSTINE
them, can only receive and hold local numbers seemingly in a
kind of rest, if temporal numbers, in motion, precede within
and in silence. Likewise, a vital movement measures off and
precedes these as they move in time-spans, a vital movement
serving the Master of all things, having in its numbers no
temporal spans divided out, but with a power providing
times.
22
And above this power, the rational and intellectual
numbers of the blessed and saintly souls
23
transmit the very
law of God no leaf-fall breaks and our hairs are numbered by,
to the judgments of earth and hell, without toll from any
nature between.
(59) I in my littleness have gathered with you what I
could and as I could on such great matters. But, if any read
this talk of ours committed to writing, they must know these
things have been written by persons much weaker than those
who, having followed the authority of the two Testaments, by
believing, hoping, and loving, venerate and worship the consubstantial
and unchangeable Trinity of the one highest God
from whom, through whom, and in whom are all things. For
they are purified, not by flashing human reasoning, but by
the effective and burning fire of charity. And while we do
22 Augustine seems to be laying that the root of all dispersion is the
temporal and that the
spatial dispersion depends upon it. He then
proceeds to enumerate the hierarchy of numbers. As Svoboda has
pointed out, we can consider this as a hierarchy of rhythms since
numerus is an ambiguous word. Conceptually it makes litttle difference,
but rhetorically this systematic ambiguity may have gieat effect.
Time has much the same position in the system of Kant as in that
of Augustine: it is the mediating principle between the intelligibles
and the sensible world. So it is, too, for Plotinus.
23 'The rational and intellectual numbers of the blessed and saintly
souls' refer, as Augustine points out in Retractat tones 1.11.5, to the
angels. He finds the word souls' inappropriately used.
This whole book is a bold development of the traditional Platonic
phrase stemming from Xenocrates: psycht arithmds autdn kindn^The
soul is a self-moving number.'
ON MUSIC 379
not think those the heretics deceive with the promises of
reason and false science ought to be neglected, yet, in the consideration
of the ways themselves, we go more slowly than holy
men who deign not to wait in their flying ascent. And yet we
should dare not do this if we did not see that many pious sons
of that best of mothers, the Catholic Church, who in their
youthful studies have sufficiently developed the faculty of
speaking and arguing, have, for the confuting of heretics, done
this same thing.