Chapter 10

See S. Charléty,Histoire de Lyon(Lyon, 1903); J. Godart,L’Ouvrier en soie. Monographie du tisseur lyonnais(Lyon, 1899); A. Vachet,A travers les rues de Lyon(Lyon, 1902); A. Steyert,Nouvelle Histoire de Lyon et des provinces de Lyonnais Forez, Beaujolais(3 vols., Lyon, 1895-1899).

LYONS, COUNCILS OF.The first Council of Lyons (the thirteenth general council) met at the summons of Pope InnocentIV. in June and July of 1245, to deliberate on the conflict between Church and emperor, on the assistance to be granted to the Holy Land and the Eastern empire, on measures of protection against the Tatars, and on the suppression of heresy. Among the tasks of the council mentioned in the writs of convocation, the most important, in the eyes of the pope, was that it should lend him effectual aid in his labours to overthrow the emperor Frederick II.; and, with this object in view, he had described the synod as a general council. Since its numbers were not far in excess of 150 bishops and archbishops, and the great majority of these came from France, Italy and Spain; while the schismatic Greeks and the other countries—especially Germany, whose interests were so deeply involved—were but weakly represented; the ambassador of Frederick, Thaddaeus of Suessa, contested its oecumenicity in the assembly itself. The condemnation of the emperor was a foregone conclusion. The articles of indictment described him as the “prince of tyranny, the destroyer of ecclesiastical dogma, the annihilator of the faith, the master of cruelty,” and so forth; while the grossest calumnies were treated as approved facts. The objections of the ambassador, that the accused had not been regularly cited, that the pope was plaintiff and judge in one, and that therefore the whole process was anomalous, achieved as little success as his appeal to the future pontiff and to a truly oecumenical council. The representatives of the kings of England and France were equally unfortunate in their claim for a prorogation of the decision. On the 17th of July the verdict was pronounced by Innocent IV., excommunicating Frederick and dethroning him on the grounds of perjury, sacrilege, heresy and felony. All oaths of fealty sworn to him were pronounced null and void, and the German princes were commanded to proceed with the election of a new sovereign. In addition the council enacted decrees against the growing irregularities in the Church, and passed resolutions designed to support the Crusaders and revive the struggle for the Holy Land.

See Mansi,Collectio conciliorum, tom, xxiii.; Huillard-Bréholles,Historia diplomatica Frederici II., 6 tom. (Paris, 1852-1861); Hefele,Conciliengeschichte, ed. 2, vol. v. (1886), pp. 1105-1126; Fr. W. Schirrmacher,Kaiser Friederich der Zweite(4 vols., Göttingen, 1859-1865); H. Schulz, in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie, ed. 3, vol. ix. (1901), p. 122 sqq., s.v. “Innocenz IV.”; A. Folz,Kaiser Friedrich II. u. Papst Innocenz IV. (Strassburg, 1905).

The second Council of Lyons (the fourteenth general council) met from the 7th of May to the 17th of July 1274, under the presidency of Pope Gregory X., and was designed to resolve three problems: to terminate the Greek schism, to decree a new Crusade, and to counteract the moral corruption among clerics and laity. The council entered on its third task at a very late period, with the result that the requisite time for an adequate deliberation was not available. Nevertheless, on the 1st of November, Gregory was enabled to publish thirty-one constitutions, which may be taken to represent the fruits of the synod and its labours. The most important of the enactments passed is that regulating the papal election. It prescribed that the new election conducted by the college of cardinals should be held in conclave (q.v.), and its duration abridged by progressive simplification of the cardinal’s diet. The motive for this decision, which has maintained its ground in ecclesiastical law, was given by the circumstances which followed the death of Clement IV. (1268). The pope felt a peculiar interest in the Holy Land, from which he was recalled by his elevation to the pontifical throne. He succeeded in bringing influential interests to work in the cause; but his scheme of a great enterprise backed by the whole force of the West came to nothing, for the day of the Crusades was past. His projected Crusade was interwoven with his endeavours to end the schism; and the political straits of the emperor Michael Palaeologus in Constantinople came to the aid of these aspirations. To ensure his safety against the attacks of King Charles of Sicily, who had pledged himself to assist the ex-emperor Baldwin in his reconquest of the Latin empire, Michael was required to own the supremacy of the pope in the spiritual domain; while Gregory, in return, would restrain the Sicilian monarch from his bellicose policy with regard to the Eastern empire. The ambassadors of the emperor appeared at the council with letters acknowledging the Roman pontiff and the confession of faith previously dispatched from the eternal city, and submitted similarly-worded declarations from the heads of the Byzantine Church. One member of the embassy, the Logothete Georgius Acropolites, was authorized by the emperor to take an oath in his name, renouncing the schism. In short, the subjection of the East to the Roman see was completed in the most binding forms, and the long-desired union seemed at last assured. Gregory himself did not live to discover its illusory character. The Council of Lyons was, moreover, of importance for the German dynastic struggle: for Gregory took the first public step in favour of Count Rudolph of Habsburg, the king-elect, by receiving his deputy and denying an audience to the delegate of the rival claimant, King Alphonso of Castile.

See Mansi,Collectio conciliorum, tom. xxiv.; Hefele,Conciliengeschichte, vol. vi. ed. 2 (1890), p. 119 sqq. Also C. Mirbt, in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklop. f. protestantische Theologie, vol. vii. (1899), p. 122,s.v.“Gregor X.”

(C. M.)

LYRA(“The Harp”), in astronomy, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th centuryB.C.) and Aratus (3rd centuryB.C.). Ptolemy catalogued 10 stars in this constellation; Tycho Brahe 11 and Hevelius 17. αLyraeor Vega, is the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere, and notable for the whiteness of its light, which is about 100 times that of the sun. The name “vega” is a remnant of an Arabic phrase meaning “falling eagle,” “Altair,” or αAquilae, is the similar remnant of “flying eagle.” εLyraeis a multiple star, separated by the naked eye or by a small telescope into two stars; these are each resolved into two stars by a 3″ telescope, while a more powerful instrument (4″) reveals three smaller stars between the two pairs, βLyraeandR. Lyraeare short period variables. There is the famous ring or annular nebula,M. 57 Lyrae, in the middle of which is a very faint star, which is readily revealed by photography; and also the meteoric swarm named theLyrids, which appear in April and have their radiant in this constellation (seeMeteor).

LYRE(Gr.λύρα), an ancient stringed musical instrument. The recitations of the Greeks were accompanied by it. Yet the lyre was not of Greek origin; no root in the language has been discovered forλύρα, although the special names bestowed upon varieties of the instrument are Hellenic. We have to seek in Asia the birthplace of the genus, and to infer its introduction into Greece through Thrace or Lydia. The historic heroes and improvers of the lyre were of the Aeolian or Ionian colonies, or the adjacent coast bordering on the Lydian empire, while the mythic masters, Orpheus, Musaeus and Thamyris, were Thracians. Notwithstanding the Hermes tradition of the invention of the lyre in Egypt, the Egyptians seem to have adopted it from Assyria or Babylonia.

To define the lyre, it is necessary clearly to separate it from the allied harp and guitar. In its primal form the lyre differs from the harp, of which the earliest, simplest notion is found in the bow and bowstring. While the guitar (and lute) can be traced back to the typical “nefer” of the fourth Egyptian dynasty, the fretted finger-board of which, permitting the production of different notes by the shortening of the string, is as different in conception from the lyre and harp as the flute with holes to shorten the column of air is from the syrinx or Pandean pipes. The frame of a lyre consists of a hollow body or sound-chest (ἠχεῖον). From this sound-chest are raised two arms (πήχεις), which are sometimes hollow, and are bent both outward and forward. They are connected near the top by a crossbar or yoke (ζυγόν, ζύγωμα, or, from its having once been a reed,κάλαμος). Another crossbar (μάλας, ὑπολύριον), fixed on the sound-chest, forms the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. The deepest note was the farthest from the player; but, as the strings did not differ much in length, more weight may have been gained for the deeper notes by thicker strings, as in the violin and similar modern instruments, or they were turned with slacker tension. The strings were of gut (χορδή,whence chord). They were stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge. There were two ways of tuning: one was to fasten the strings to pegs which might be turned (κόλλαβοι, κόλλοπες); the other was to change the place of the string upon the crossbar; probably both expedients were simultaneously employed. It is doubtful whetherἡ χορδοτόνοςmeant the tuning key or the part of the instrument where the pegs were inserted. The extensions of the arms above the yoke were known asκέρατα, horns.

The number of strings varied at different epochs, and possibly in different localities—four, seven and ten having been favourite numbers. They were used without a finger-board, no Greek description or representation having ever been met with that can be construed as referring to one. Nor was a bow possible, the flat sound-board being an insuperable impediment. The plectrum, however (πλῆκτρον), was in constant use. It was held in the right hand to set the upper strings in vibration (κρέκειν, κρούειν τῷ πλήκτρῳ); at other times it hung from the lyre by a ribbon. The fingers of the left hand touched the lower strings (ψάλλειν).

With Greek authors the lyre has several distinct names; but we are unable to connect these with anything like certainty to the varieties of the instrument. Chelys (χέλυς, “tortoise”) may mean the smallest lyre, which, borne by one arm or supported by the knees, offered in the sound-chest a decided resemblance to that familiar animal. That there was a difference between lyre and cithara (κιθάρα) is certain, Plato and other writers separating them. Hermes and Apollo had an altar at Olympia in common because the former had invented the lyre and the latter the cithara. The lyre and chelys on the one hand, and the cithara and phorminx on the other, were similar or nearly identical. Apollo is said to have carried a golden phorminx.

(A. J. H.)

There are three lines of evidence that establish the difference between the lyre and cithara: (1) There are certain vase paintings in which the nameλύραaccompanies the drawing of the instrument, as, for instance, in fig. 2 where the tortoise-shell lyre is obviously represented.1(2) In all legends accounting for the invention of the lyre, the shell or body of the tortoise is invariably mentioned as forming the back of the instrument, whereas the tortoise has never been connected with the cithara. (3) The lyre is emphatically distinguished as the most suitable instrument for the musical training of young men and maidens and as the instrument of the amateur, whereas the cithara was the instrument ofcitharoedusorcitharista, professional performers at the Pythian Games, at ceremonies and festivals, the former using his instrument to accompany epic recitations and odes, the latter for purely instrumental music. The costume worn by citharoedus and citharista was exceedingly rich and quite distinct from any other.2

We find the lyre represented among scenes of domestic life, in lessons, receptions, at banquets and in mythological scenes; it is found in the hands of women no less than men, and the costume of the performer is invariably that of an ordinary citizen. Lyres were of many sizes and varied in outline according to period and nationality.

We therefore possess irrefutable evidence of identification in both cases, all of which tallies exactly. Examination of the construction of the instruments thusidentifiedreveals the fact that both possessed characteristics which have persisted throughout the middle ages to the present day in various instruments evolved from these two archetypes. The principal feature of both lyre and cithara was the peculiar method of construction adopted in the sound-chest, which may be said to have been almost independent of the outline. In the lyre the sound-chest consisted of a vaulted back, in imitation of the tortoise, over which was directly glued a flat sound-board of wood or parchment. In the cithara (q.v.) the sound-chest was shallower, and the back and front were invariably connected by sides or ribs. These two methods of constructing the sound-chests of stringed instruments were typical, and to one or the other may be referred every stringed instrument with a neck which can be traced during the middle ages in miniatures, early printed books, on monuments and other works of art.

(K. S.)

Passing by the story of the discovery of the lyre from a vibrating tortoise-shell by Hermes, we will glance at the real lyres of Egypt and Semitic Asia. The Egyptian lyre is unmistakably Semitic. The oldest representation that has been discovered is in one of the tombs of Beni Hassan, the date of the painting being in the XIIth Dynasty, that is, shortly before the invasion of “the shepherd kings” (the Hyksos). In this painting, which both Rosellini and Lepsius have reproduced, an undoubted Semite carries a seven or eight-stringed lyre, or rather cithara in transition, similar to therottaof the middle ages. The instrument has a four-cornered body and an irregular four-cornered frame above it, and the player carries it horizontally from his breast, just as a modern Nubian would his kissar. He plays as he walks, using both hands, a plectrum being in the right. Practical knowledge of these ancient instruments may be gained through two remarkable specimens preserved in the museums of Berlin (fig. 3) and Leiden (seeCithara). During the rule of the Hyksos the lyre became naturalized in Egypt, and in the 18th dynasty it is frequently depicted, and with finer grace of form. In the 19th and 20th dynasties the lyre is sometimes still more slender, or is quite unsymmetrical and very strong, the horns surmounted by heads of animals as in the Berlin one, which has horses’ heads at those extremities. Prokesch copied one in the ruins of Wadi Halfa, splendid in blue and gold, with a serpent wound round it. The Egyptians always strung their lyres fan-shaped, like the modern Nubian kissar. Their paintings show three to eight or nine strings, but the painters’ accuracy may not be unimpeachable; the Berlin instrument had fifteen. The three-stringed lyre typified the three seasons of the Egyptian year—the water, the green and the harvest; the seven, the planetary system from the moon to Saturn. The Greeks had the same notion of the harmony of the spheres.There is no evidence as to what the stringing of the Greek lyre was in the heroic age. Plutarch says that Olympus and Terpander used but three strings to accompany their recitation. As the four strings led to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this representation, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum which he held in the right hand. Before the Greek civilization had assumed its historic form, there was likely to be great freedom and independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing, which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone) and enharmonic (quarter-tone) tunings, pointing to an early exuberance, and perhaps also to an Asiatic bias towards refinements of intonation, from which came theχρόαι, the hues of tuning, old Greek modifications of tetrachords entirely disused in the classic period. The common scale of Olympusremained, a double trichord which had served as the scaffolding for the enharmonic varieties.We may regard the Olympus scale, however, as consisting of two tetrachords, eliding one interval in each, for the tetrachord, or series of four notes, was very early adopted as the fundamental principle of Greek music, and its origin in the lyre itself appears sure. The basis of the tetrachord is the employment of the thumb and first three fingers of the left hand to twang as many strings, the little finger not being used on account of natural weakness. As a succession of three whole tones would form the disagreeable and untunable interval of a tritonus, two whole tones and a half-tone were tuned, fixing the tetrachord in the consonant interval of the perfect fourth. This succession of four notes being in the grasp of the hand was calledσυλλαβή, just as in language a group of letters incapable of further reduction is called syllable. In the combination of two syllables or tetrachords the modern diatonic scales resemble the Greek so-called disjunct scale, but the Greeks knew nothing of our categorical distinctions of major and minor. We might call the octave Greek scale minor, according to our descending minor form, were not the keynote in the middle the thumb note of the deeper tetrachord. The upper tetrachord, whether starting from the keynote (conjunct) or from the note above (disjunct), was of exactly the same form as the lower, the position of the semitones being identical. The semitone was a limma (λεῖμμα), rather less than the semitone of our modern equal temperament, the Greeks tuning both the whole tones in the tetrachord by the same ratio of 8:9, which made the major third a dissonance, or rather would have done so had they combined them in what we call harmony. In melodious sequence the Greek tetrachord is decidedly more agreeable to the ear than the corresponding series of our equal temperament. And although our scales are derived from combined tetrachords, in any system of tuning that we employ, be it just, mean-tone, or equal, they are less logical than the conjunct or disjunct systems accepted by the Greeks. But modern harmony is not compatible with them, and could not have arisen on the Greek melodic lines.The conjunct scale of seven notesattributed to Terpander, was long the norm for stringing and tuning the lyre. When the disjunct scalethe octave scale attributed to Pythagoras, was admitted, to preserve the time-honoured seven strings one note had to be omitted; it was therefore customary to omit the C, which in Greek practice was a dissonance. The Greek names for the strings of seven and eight stringed lyres, the first note being highest in pitch and nearest the player, were as follows:Nete,Paranete,Paramese;Mese,Lichanos,Parhypate,Hypate; orNete,Paranete,Trite,Paramese;Mese,Lichanos,Parhypate,Hypate—the last four from Mese to Hypate being the finger tetrachord, the others touched with the plectrum. The highest string in pitch was called the last,νεάτη; the lowest in pitch was called the highest,ὑπάτη, because it was, in theory at least, the longest string. The keynote and thumb string wasμέση, middle; the next lower wasλίχανος, the first finger or lick-finger string;τρίτη, the third, being in the plectrum division, was also known asὀξεῖα, sharp, perhaps from the dissonant quality to which we have referred as the cause of its omission. The plectrum and finger tetrachords together wereδιαπασῶν, through all; in the disjunct scale, an octave.In transcribing the Greek notes into our notation, the absolute pitch cannot be represented; the relative positions of the semitones are alone determined. We have already quoted the scale of Pythagoras, the Dorian or true Greek succession:—Shifting the semitone one degree upwards in each tetrachord, we have the PhrygianAnother degree gives the Lydianwhich would be our major scale of E were not the keynote A. The names imply an Asiatic origin. We need not here pursue further the much-debated question of Greek scales and their derivation; it will suffice to remark that the outside notes of the tetrachords were fixed in their tuning as perfect fourths—the inner strings being, as stated, in diatonic sequence, or when chromatic two half-tones were tuned, when enharmonic two quarter-tones, leaving respectively the wide intervals of a minor and major third, and both impure, to complete the tetrachord.(A. J. H.)See the article by Théodore Reinach in Daremberg and Saglio,Antiguités grecques et romaines; Wilhelm Johnsen,Die Lyra, ein Beitrag zur griechischen Kunstgeschichte(Berlin, 1876); Hortense Panum, “Harfe und Lyra in Nord Europa,”Intern. Mus. Ges., Sbd. vii. 1, pp. 1-40 (Leipzig, 1905); A. J. Hipkins, “Dorian and Phrygian, reconsidered from a non-harmonic point of view,” inIntern. Mus. Ges.(Leipzig, 1903), iv. 3.

There is no evidence as to what the stringing of the Greek lyre was in the heroic age. Plutarch says that Olympus and Terpander used but three strings to accompany their recitation. As the four strings led to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this representation, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum which he held in the right hand. Before the Greek civilization had assumed its historic form, there was likely to be great freedom and independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing, which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone) and enharmonic (quarter-tone) tunings, pointing to an early exuberance, and perhaps also to an Asiatic bias towards refinements of intonation, from which came theχρόαι, the hues of tuning, old Greek modifications of tetrachords entirely disused in the classic period. The common scale of Olympus

remained, a double trichord which had served as the scaffolding for the enharmonic varieties.

We may regard the Olympus scale, however, as consisting of two tetrachords, eliding one interval in each, for the tetrachord, or series of four notes, was very early adopted as the fundamental principle of Greek music, and its origin in the lyre itself appears sure. The basis of the tetrachord is the employment of the thumb and first three fingers of the left hand to twang as many strings, the little finger not being used on account of natural weakness. As a succession of three whole tones would form the disagreeable and untunable interval of a tritonus, two whole tones and a half-tone were tuned, fixing the tetrachord in the consonant interval of the perfect fourth. This succession of four notes being in the grasp of the hand was calledσυλλαβή, just as in language a group of letters incapable of further reduction is called syllable. In the combination of two syllables or tetrachords the modern diatonic scales resemble the Greek so-called disjunct scale, but the Greeks knew nothing of our categorical distinctions of major and minor. We might call the octave Greek scale minor, according to our descending minor form, were not the keynote in the middle the thumb note of the deeper tetrachord. The upper tetrachord, whether starting from the keynote (conjunct) or from the note above (disjunct), was of exactly the same form as the lower, the position of the semitones being identical. The semitone was a limma (λεῖμμα), rather less than the semitone of our modern equal temperament, the Greeks tuning both the whole tones in the tetrachord by the same ratio of 8:9, which made the major third a dissonance, or rather would have done so had they combined them in what we call harmony. In melodious sequence the Greek tetrachord is decidedly more agreeable to the ear than the corresponding series of our equal temperament. And although our scales are derived from combined tetrachords, in any system of tuning that we employ, be it just, mean-tone, or equal, they are less logical than the conjunct or disjunct systems accepted by the Greeks. But modern harmony is not compatible with them, and could not have arisen on the Greek melodic lines.

The conjunct scale of seven notes

attributed to Terpander, was long the norm for stringing and tuning the lyre. When the disjunct scale

the octave scale attributed to Pythagoras, was admitted, to preserve the time-honoured seven strings one note had to be omitted; it was therefore customary to omit the C, which in Greek practice was a dissonance. The Greek names for the strings of seven and eight stringed lyres, the first note being highest in pitch and nearest the player, were as follows:Nete,Paranete,Paramese;Mese,Lichanos,Parhypate,Hypate; orNete,Paranete,Trite,Paramese;Mese,Lichanos,Parhypate,Hypate—the last four from Mese to Hypate being the finger tetrachord, the others touched with the plectrum. The highest string in pitch was called the last,νεάτη; the lowest in pitch was called the highest,ὑπάτη, because it was, in theory at least, the longest string. The keynote and thumb string wasμέση, middle; the next lower wasλίχανος, the first finger or lick-finger string;τρίτη, the third, being in the plectrum division, was also known asὀξεῖα, sharp, perhaps from the dissonant quality to which we have referred as the cause of its omission. The plectrum and finger tetrachords together wereδιαπασῶν, through all; in the disjunct scale, an octave.

In transcribing the Greek notes into our notation, the absolute pitch cannot be represented; the relative positions of the semitones are alone determined. We have already quoted the scale of Pythagoras, the Dorian or true Greek succession:—

Shifting the semitone one degree upwards in each tetrachord, we have the Phrygian

Another degree gives the Lydian

which would be our major scale of E were not the keynote A. The names imply an Asiatic origin. We need not here pursue further the much-debated question of Greek scales and their derivation; it will suffice to remark that the outside notes of the tetrachords were fixed in their tuning as perfect fourths—the inner strings being, as stated, in diatonic sequence, or when chromatic two half-tones were tuned, when enharmonic two quarter-tones, leaving respectively the wide intervals of a minor and major third, and both impure, to complete the tetrachord.

(A. J. H.)

See the article by Théodore Reinach in Daremberg and Saglio,Antiguités grecques et romaines; Wilhelm Johnsen,Die Lyra, ein Beitrag zur griechischen Kunstgeschichte(Berlin, 1876); Hortense Panum, “Harfe und Lyra in Nord Europa,”Intern. Mus. Ges., Sbd. vii. 1, pp. 1-40 (Leipzig, 1905); A. J. Hipkins, “Dorian and Phrygian, reconsidered from a non-harmonic point of view,” inIntern. Mus. Ges.(Leipzig, 1903), iv. 3.

1See Ed. Gerhard,Auserlesene griech. Vasenbilder, part iii. (Berlin, 1847), pl. 236 and p. 157.2See Aristotle,Polit. v. 6. 5.

1See Ed. Gerhard,Auserlesene griech. Vasenbilder, part iii. (Berlin, 1847), pl. 236 and p. 157.

2See Aristotle,Polit. v. 6. 5.

LYRE-BIRD,the name by which one of the most remarkable birds Of Australia is commonly known, theMenura superbaorM. novae-hollandiaeof ornithologists. It was first observed in 1798 in New South Wales, and though called by its finders a “pheasant”—from its long tail—the more learned of the colony seem to have regarded it as a bird-of-Paradise.1A specimen having reached England in 1799, it was described by General Davies as forming a new genus of birds, in the Linnean Society’sTransactions(vi. p. 207, pl. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made to fix its systematic place. In 1802 L. P. Vieillot figured and described it in a supplement to hisOiseaux Dorésas a bird-of-Paradise (ii. pp. 30 seq., pls. 14-16), from drawings by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the manager of the Leverian Museum. The first to describe any portion of its anatomy was T. C. Eyton, who in 1841 (Ann. Nat. History, vii. pp. 49-53) perceived that it was a Passerine bird and that it presented some points of affinity to the South American genusPteroptochus. In 1867 Huxley stated that he was disposed to divide his very natural assemblage theCoracomorphae(essentially identical with Eyton’sInsessores) into two groups, “one containingMenura, and the other all the other genera which have yet been examined” (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, p. 472)—a still further step in advance.2In 1875 A. Newton put forth the opinion in his article on birds, in the 9th edition of thisEncyclopaedia, thatMenurahad an ally in another Australian form,Atrichia(seeScrub-Bird), which he had found to present peculiarities hitherto unsuspected, and he regarded them as standing by themselves, though each constituting a distinct family. This opinion was partially adopted in the following year by A. H. Garrod, who (Proc. Zool. Society, 1876, p. 518) formally placed these two genera together in his group of Abnormal AcromyodianOscinesunder the name ofMenurinae; ornithologists now generally recognize at once the alliance and distinctness of the families Menuridae and Atrichiidae, and place them together to form the groupSuboscinesof the DiacromyodianPasseres.

Since the appearance in 1865 of J. Gould’sHandbook to the Birds of Australia, little important information has been published concerning the habits of this form, and the account therein given must be drawn upon for what here follows. Of all birds, says that author, theMenurais the most shy and hard to procure. He has been among the rocky and thick “brushes”—its usual haunts—hearing its loud and liquid call-notes for days together without getting sight of one. Those who wish to see it must advance only while it is singing or scratching up the earth and leaves; and to watch its actions they must keep perfectly still. The best way of procuring an example seems to be by hunting it with dogs, when it will spring upon a branch to the height of 10 ft. and afford an easy shot ere it has time to ascend farther or escape as it does by leaps. Natives are said to hunt it by fixing on their heads the erected tail of a cock-bird, which alone is allowed to be seen above the brushwood. The greater part of its time is said to be passed upon the ground, and seldom are more than a pair to be found in company. One of the habits of the cock is to form small round hillocks, which he constantly visits during the day, mounting upon them and displaying his tail by erecting it over his head, drooping his wings, scratching and pecking at the soil, and uttering various cries—some his own natural notes, others an imitation of those of other animals. The tail, his most characteristic feature, only attains perfection in the bird’s third or fourth year, and then not until the month of June, remaining until October, when the feathers are shed to be renewed the following season. The food consists of insects, especially beetles and myriapods, as well as snails. The nest isplaced near to or on the ground, at the base of a rock or foot of a tree, and is closely woven of fine but strong roots or other fibres, and lined with feathers, around all which is heaped a mass, in shape of an oven, of sticks, grass, moss and leaves, so as to project over and shelter the interior structure, while an opening in the side affords entrance and exit. Only one egg is laid, and this of rather large size in proportion to the bird, of a purplish-grey colour, suffused and blotched with dark purplish-brown.

Incubation is believed to begin in July or August, and the young is hatched about a month later. It is at first covered with dark down, and appears to remain for some weeks in the nest. It is greatly to be hoped that so remarkable a form as the lyre-bird, the nearly sole survivor apparently of a very ancient race of beings, will not be allowed to become extinct—its almost certain fate so far as can be judged—without many more observations of its manners being made. Several examples ofMenurahave been brought alive to Europe, and some have long survived in captivity.

Three species ofMenurahave been indicated—the oldM. superba, the lyre-bird proper, which inhabits New South Wales, the southern part of Queensland, and perhaps some parts of Victoria;M. victoriae, separated from the former by Gould (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1862, p. 23), and said to take its place near Melbourne; andM. alberti, first described by C. L. Bonaparte (Consp. Avium, i. 215) on Gould’s authority, and, though discovered on the Richmond river in New South Wales, having apparently a more northern range than the other two. All those have the apparent bulk of a hen pheasant, but are really much smaller, and their general plumage is of a sooty brown, relieved by rufous on the chin, throat, some of the wing-feathers and the tail-coverts. The wings, consisting of twenty-one remiges, are rather short and rounded; the legs3and feet very strong, with long, nearly straight claws. In the immature and female the tail is somewhat long, though affording no very remarkable character, except the possession of sixteen rectrices; but in the fully-plumaged male ofM. superbaandM. victoriaeit is developed in the extraordinary fashion that gives the bird its common English name. The two exterior feathers (fig. 1,a,b) have the outer web very narrow, the inner very broad, and they curve at first outwards, then somewhat inwards, and near the tip outwards again, bending round forwards so as to present a lyre-like form. But this is not all; their broad inner web, which is of a lively chestnut colour, is apparently notched at regular intervals by spaces that, according to the angle at which they are viewed, seem either black or transparent; and this effect is, on examination, found to be due to the barbs at those spaces being destitute of barbules. The middle pair of feathers (fig. 2,a,b) is nearly as abnormal. These have no outer web, and the inner web very narrow; near their base they cross each other, and then diverge, bending round forwards near their tip. The remaining twelve feathers (fig. 3) except near the base are very thinly furnished with barbs, about ¼ in. apart, and those they possess, on their greater part, though long and flowing, bear no barbules, and hence have a hair-like appearance. The shafts of all are exceedingly strong. In the male ofM. albertithe tail is not only not lyriform, but the exterior rectrices are shorter than the rest.

(A. N.)

1Collins,Account of New South Wales, ii. 87-92 (London, 1802).2Owing to the imperfection of the specimen at his disposal, Huxley’s brief description of the bones of the head inMenurais not absolutely correct. A full description of them, with elaborate figures, is given by Parker in the same Society’sTransactions(ix. 306-309, pl. lvi. figs. 1-5).3The metatarsals are very remarkable in form, as already noticed by Eyton (loc. cit.), and their tendons strongly ossified.

1Collins,Account of New South Wales, ii. 87-92 (London, 1802).

2Owing to the imperfection of the specimen at his disposal, Huxley’s brief description of the bones of the head inMenurais not absolutely correct. A full description of them, with elaborate figures, is given by Parker in the same Society’sTransactions(ix. 306-309, pl. lvi. figs. 1-5).

3The metatarsals are very remarkable in form, as already noticed by Eyton (loc. cit.), and their tendons strongly ossified.

LYRICAL POETRY,a general term for all poetry which is, or can be supposed to be, susceptible of being sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. In the earliest times it may be said that all poetry was of its essence lyrical. The primeval oracles were chanted in verse, and the Orphic and Bacchic Mysteries, which were celebrated at Eleusis and elsewhere, combined, it is certain, metre with music. Homer and Hesiod are each of them represented with a lyre, yet if any poetry can be described as non-lyrical, it is surely the archaic hexameter of theIliadand theErga. These poems were styled epic, in direct contradistinction to the lyric of Pindar and Bacchylides. But inexactly, since it is plain that they were recited, with a plain accompaniment on a stringed instrument. However, the distinction between epical and lyrical, betweenτὰ ἔπη, what was said, andτὰ μέλη, what was sung, is accepted, and neither Homer nor Hesiod is among the lyrists. This distinction, however, is often without a difference, as for example, in the case of the so-calledHymnsof Homer, epical in form but wholly lyrical in character. Hegel, who has gone minutely into this question in hisEsthetik, contends that when poetry is objective it is epical, and when it is subjective it is lyrical. This is to ignore the metrical form of the poem, and to deal with its character only. It would constrain us to regard Wordsworth’sExcursionas a lyric, and Tennyson’sRevenge(where the subject is treated exactly as one of the Homeridae would have treated an Ionian myth) as an epic. This is impossible, and recalls us to the importance of taking the form into consideration. But, with this warning, the definition of Hegel is valuable. It is, as he insists, the personal thought, or passion, or inspiration, which gives its character to lyrical poetry.

The lyric has the function of revealing, in terms of pure art, the secrets of the inner life, its hopes, its fantastic joys, its sorrows, its delirium. It is easier to exclude the dramatic species from lyric than to banish the epic. There are large sections of drama which it is inconceivable should be set to music, or sung, or even given in recitative. The tragedies of Racine, for example, are composed of the purest poetry, but they are essentially non-lyrical, although lyrical portions are here and there attached to them. The intensity of feeling and the melody of verse inOthellodoes not make that work an example of lyrical poetry, and this is even more acutely true ofLe Misanthrope, which is, nevertheless, a poem. The tendency of modern drama is to divide itself further and further from lyric, but in early ages the two kinds were indissoluble. Tragedy was goat-song, and the earliest specimens of it were mainly composed of choruses. As Prof. G. G. Murray says, in theSuppliantsof Aeschylus, the characters “are singing for two-thirds of the play,” accompanied by tumultuous music. This primitive feature has gradually been worn away; the chorus grew less and less prominent, and disappeared; the very verse-ornament of drama tends to vanish, and we have plays essentially so poetical as those of Ibsen and Maeterlinck written from end to end in bare prose.

To return again to Greece, there was an early distinction, soon accentuated, between the poetry chanted by a choir of singers, and the song which expressed the sentiments of a single poet. The latter, theμέλοςor song proper, had reached a height of technical perfection in “the Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,” as early as the 7th centuryB.C.That poetess, and her contemporary Alcaeus, divide the laurels of the pure Greek song of Dorian inspiration. By their side, and later, flourished the great poets who set words to music for choirs, Alcman, Arion, Stesichorus, Simonides and Ibycus, who lead usat the close of the 5th century to Bacchylides and Pindar, in whom the magnificent tradition of the dithyrambic odes reached its highest splendour of development. The practice of Pindar and Sappho, we may say, has directed the course of lyrical poetry ever since, and will, unquestionably, continue to do so. They discovered how, with the maximum of art, to pour forth strains of personal magic and music, whether in a public or a private way. The ecstasy, the uplifted magnificence, of lyrical poetry could go no higher than it did in the unmatched harmonies of these old Greek poets, but it could fill a much wider field and be expressed with vastly greater variety. It did so in their own age. The gnomic verses of Theognis were certainly sung; so were the satires of Archilochus and the romantic reveries of Mimnermus.

At the Renaissance, when the traditions of ancient life were taken up eagerly, and hastily comprehended, it was thought proper to divide poetry into a diversity of classes. The earliest English critic who enters into a discussion of the laws of prosody, William Webbe, lays it down, in 1586, that in verse “the most usual kinds are four, the heroic, elegiac, iambic and lyric.” Similar confusion of terms was common among the critics of the 15th and 16th centuries, and led to considerable error. It is plain that a border ballad is heroic, and may yet be lyrical; here the word “heroic” stands for “epic.” It is plain that whether a poem is lyrical or not had nothing to do with the question whether it is composed in an iambic measure. Finally, it is undoubted that the early Greek “elegies” were sung to an accompaniment on the flute, whether they were warlike, like those of Tyrtaeus, or philosophical and amatory like those of Theognis. But (seeElegy) the present significance of “elegy,” and this has been the case ever since late classical times, is funereal; in modern parlance an elegy is a dirge. Whether the great Alexandrian dirges, like those of Bion and of Moschus, on which our elegiacal tradition is founded, were actually sung to an accompaniment or not may be doubted; they seem too long, too elaborate, and too ornate for that. But, at any rate, they were composed on the convention that they would be sung, and it is conceivable that music might have been wedded to the most complex of these Alexandrian elegies. Accordingly, althoughLycidasandAdonaisare not habitually “set to music,” there is no reason why they should not be so set, and their rounded and limited although extensive form links them with the song, not with the epic. There are many odes of Swinburne’s for which it would be more difficult to write music than for hisAve atque Vale. In fact, in spite of its solemn and lugubrious regularity, the formal elegy or dirge is no more nor less than an ode, and is therefore entirely lyrical.

More difficulty is met with in the case of the sonnet, for although no piece of verse, when it is inspired by subjective passion, fits more closely with Hegel’s definition of what lyrical poetry should be, yet the rhythmical complication of the sonnet, and its rigorous uniformity, seem particularly ill-fitted to interpretation on a lyre. When F. M. degli Azzi put the book of Genesis (1700) into sonnets, and Isaac de Benserade theMetamorphosesof Ovid (1676) into rondeaux, these eccentric and laborious versifiers produced what was epical rather than lyrical poetry, if poetry it was at all. But the sonnet as Shakespeare, Wordsworth and even Petrarch used it was a cry from the heart, a subjective confession, and although there is perhaps no evidence that a sonnet was ever set to music with success, yet there is no reason why that might not be done without destroying its sonnet-character.

Jouffroy was perhaps the first aesthetician to see quite clearly that lyrical poetry is, really, nothing more than another name for poetry itself, that it includes all the personal and enthusiastic part of what lives and breathes in the art of verse, so that the divisions of pedantic criticism are of no real avail to us in its consideration. We recognize a narrative or epical poetry; we recognize drama; in both of these, when the individual inspiration is strong, there is much that trembles on the verge of the lyrical. But outside what is pure epic and pure drama, all, or almost all, is lyrical. We say almost all, because the difficulty arises of knowing where to place descriptive and didactic poetry. TheSeasonsof Thomson, for instance, a poem of high merit and lasting importance in the history of literature—where is that to be placed? What is to be said of theEssay on Man? In primitive times, the former would have been classed under epic, the second would have been composed in the supple iambic trimeter which so closely resembled daily speech, and would not have been sharply distinguished from prose. Perhaps this classification would still serve, were it not for the element of versification, which makes a sharp line of demarcation between poetic art and prose. This complexity of form, rhythmical and stanzaic, takes much of the place which was taken in antiquity by such music as Terpander is supposed to have supplied. In a perfect lyric by a modern writer the instrument is the metrical form, to which the words have to adapt themselves. There is perhaps no writer who has ever lived in whose work this phenomenon may be more fruitfully studied than it may be in the songs and lyrics of Shelley. The temper of such pieces as “Arethusa” and “The Cloud” is indicated by a form hardly more ambitious than a guitar; Hellas is full of passages which suggest the harp; in his songs Shelley touches the lute or viol de gamba, while in the great odes to the “West Wind” and to “Liberty” we listen to a verse-form which reminds us by its volume of the organ itself. On the whole subject of the nature of lyric poetry no commentary can be more useful to the student than an examination of the lyrics of Shelley in relation to those of the songwriters of ancient Greece.

See Hegel,Die Phänomenologie des Geistes(1807); T. S. Jouffroy,Cours d’esthétique(1843); W. Christ,Metrik der Griechen und Römer, 2te. Aufl. (1879).

(E. G.)

LYSANDER(Gr.Λύσανδρος), son of Aristocritus, Spartan admiral and diplomatist. Aelian (Var. Hist.xii. 43) and Phylarchus (ap.Athen. vi. 271 e) say that he was amothax,i.e.the son of a helot mother (seeHelots), but this tradition is at least doubtful; according to Plutarch he was a Heraclid, though not of either royal family. We do not know how he rose to eminence: he first appears as admiral of the Spartan navy in 407B.C.The story of his influence with Cyrus the Younger, his naval victory off Notium, his quarrel with his successor Callicratidas in 406, his appointment asἐπιστολεύςin 405, his decisive victory at Aegospotami, and his share in the siege and capitulation of Athens belong to the history of the Peloponnesian War (q.v.). By 404 he was the most powerful man in the Greek world and set about completing the task of building up a Spartan empire in which he should be supreme in fact if not in name. Everywhere democracies were replaced by oligarchies directed by bodies of ten men (decarchies,δεκαρχίαι) under the control of Spartan governors (harmosts,ἁρμοσταί). But Lysander’s boundless influence and ambition, and the superhuman honours paid him, roused the jealousy of the kings and the ephors, and, on being accused by the Persian satrap Pharnabazus, he was recalled to Sparta. Soon afterwards he was sent to Athens with an army to aid the oligarchs, but Pausanias, one of the kings, followed him and brought about a restoration of democracy. On the death of Agis II., Lysander secured the succession of Agesilaus (q.v.), whom he hoped to find amenable to his influence. But in this he was disappointed. Though chosen to accompany the king to Asia as one of his thirty advisers (σύμβουλοι), he was kept inactive and his influence was broken by studied affronts, and finally he was sent at his own request as envoy to the Hellespont. He soon returned to Sparta to mature plans for overthrowing the hereditary kingship and substituting an elective monarchy open to all Heraclids, or even, according to another version, to all Spartiates. But his alleged attempts to bribe the oracles were fruitless, and his schemes were cut short by the outbreak of war with Thebes in 395. Lysander invaded Boeotia from the west, receiving the submission of Orchomenus and sacking Lebadea, but the enemy intercepted his despatch to Pausanias, who had meanwhile entered Boeotia from the south, containing plans for a joint attack upon Haliartus. The town was at once strongly garrisoned, and when Lysander marched against it he was defeated and slain. He was buried in the territory of Panopeus, thenearest Phocian city. An able commander and an adroit diplomatist, Lysander was fired by the ambition to make Sparta supreme in Greece and himself in Sparta. To this end he shrank from no treachery or cruelty; yet, like Agesilaus, he was totally free from the characteristic Spartan vice of avarice, and died, as he had lived, a poor man.

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