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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The October Eclogue of The Shepheardes Calender is based largely upon Platonic ideas about music and poetry, especially ideas of the divine inspiration of poetry and the effect of music upon man's soul. Piers's verses praising Cuddie for his great gifts as a poet refer to this power:
Soone as thou gynst to sette thy notes in frame,
O how the rurall routes to thee doe cleaue:
Seemeth thou dost their soule of sence bereaue,
All as the shepheard, that did fetch his dame
From Plutos balefull bowre wi thou ten leaue:
His musicks might the hellish hound did tame.
1 Hoby (Castiglione) tells the story in his discussion of musical effects (Book i), without mentioning Timotheus by name: “Wherefore it is written that Alexander was sometime so fervently stirred with it, that (in a manner) against his will hee was forced to arise from bankets and runne to weapon, afterward the Musition chaunging the stroke, and his manner of tune, pacified him selfe again, and returned from weapon to banketing.” Several decades after Spenser's time, Burton, long resident in Christ Church, Oxford, refers to the story in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621 and later), with a note giving Cardano, De subtilitate, as his source: “Timotheus, the musician, compelled Alexander to skip up and down, and leave his dinner …” (Pt. ii, Sec. 2, Mem. 6, Subs. 4). Later in the century, Cowley, like Du Bartas, mentions Timotheus when describing David's great musical talents, saying that “Timotheus by Musick enflamed and appeased Alexander to what degrees he pleased” (Davideis, I, notes).
2 Migne, Patrologia graeca, xxxi, 580. See Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), p. 282, n. 3: “When on one occasion Timotheus played on the aulos in Phrygian to Alexander, it is said that he roused him to arms during the banqueting and, when he had relaxed the harmony, brought him back to the guests again.” Although Spenser's dependence upon Cooper's Thesaurus and Estienne's Dictionarium for many classical references in The Shepheardes Calender has been admirably demonstrated by Starnes, these books must be discounted as a source for Timotheus: Cooper's Thesaurus gives only the story that Timotheus charged doubly those students of music who had studied with other masters, since unlearning is harder than learning; and Estienne adds to this only the Suidas story that Timotheus aroused Alexander by music ad res bellicas.
3 Sig. a ii v (fac. ed., Rome; Gaetano Cesari, 1934): “Thimotheus cunctis musicis longe antecellens quoties libuisset animos hominum & uehementi accendebat harmonia rursusque molli ac placida placabat quippe cum in Alexandri conuiuio phrigium cantum modularetur usque adeo regem excitasse dicitur ut ad arma capienda prosiliret atque iterum ad com-mestationes epulasque reduxisse modulatione mutata.”
4 See copy in Yale Library, pp. 10, 83, 84–85. Vincenzo Galilei in his Dialogo delta musica antica e delta moderna (1581) elaborated upon Suidas' version of the story; for easy reference, see Strunk, Source Readings, p. 319.
5 Fol. fir of the Huntington Library copy: “Tymotheus autem musicus dumvoluit effer-atum reddidit alexandrum ad armaque furentem atque aliter cum libuit ab armis ad con-vivia retraxit emollitu.”
6 (Colonie, 1508; copy in the Munich Stadtbibliothek), Aij: “Timotheus vir phrygius Alexandrum musica modulatoe [sic] ab epul' ad arma corripienda subito inflammauit. et mox mutato modulatonis [sic] gñe. rursus ab armis ad epulas reduixt [sic].”
7 Trans. J. F. (London, 1651), p. 256: “So Timotheus stirred up king Alexander to a rage, and again repressed him.”
8 Fol. hr (London repr., 1904): “Nella tertia chorea tutti ad gli lochi sui regulati & distribute piu anco ragli musici strinxeron la mensura del tempo, cum il modo & tono del excitante Phrygio, Quale tonatiõ unq seppe ritrouare Marsyas di Phrygia. … Per questa tale ragione della potentio di Timotheo solertissimo musico, io caldamente pensai che egli cum el suo canto lo exercito del magno Macedonico ad reassumere larme uiolentasse, & poscia reflectendo la uoce & il tono, neglecte le arme tutti cessabondi prouocare.”
9 Libri xxi (Basiliae, 1611; copy in Yale Library), p. 692: “Inter multa antiquorum exempla, duo inuenio praeclara, uirtutis soni ad commouendos anima affectus. Alterum Timothei, qui modo mutato Alexandrum coëgit alacritate impulsum exilire è conuiuio. Reliquum, quod Agamemnon discessurus è patrio, profecturusq Troiam, de uxoris pudicitia dubitans Clytemnestrae (sic enim ea uocabatur) citharedum reliquit, qui sono illam citharae adeô ad pudicitiam, & continentiam incitabit, ut Aegystus novi rusi occiso citharedo, ea potiri potuerit.”
10 The story of Timotheus illuminates one of the earliest of these treatises, The Praise of Musiche by John Case (Oxford, 1586)—the whole treatise an exhortation for the study of music because of its antiquity, its “suavitie,” its recreative values, its ethical effects. In his discussion of the modes—classified only psychologically by British writers, never musically because never understood—Case gives an elaborate account of this musical marvel (pp. 59–60): “But a most manifest proof hereof is that, which is said of Alexander the great, who sitting at a banquet amongst his friends, was nevertheles by the excelent skil of Timotheus a famous musician so inflamed with the fury of Modus Orthius, or as some say of Dorius, that he called for his spear and target as if he would presently have addressed himself to war. Neither is this a more apparent proof for this part than that which folowed is for the next. The same Timotheus seeing Alexander thus incensed, only with the changing of a note, pacified this moode of his, and as it were with a more mild sound mollified and asswaged his former violence.” Reference to the Modus Orthius relates this passage to Suidas, who stated in his Lexicon (Strunk, Source Readings, p. 319, n. 23): “When on one occasion Timotheus the aulos-player played on the aulos the nome of Athena called Orthios, they say that Alexander was so moved that, as he listened, he sprang to arms and said that this should be the royal aulos-music.”
Timotheus also appears in John Dowland's translation (1609) of the Micrologus of Ornithoparchus (1517). The work includes Faber Stapulensis among “speciall Patrons” drawn upon and the Timotheus legend is similar to Lefèvre's simple statement (Liber 2, p. 38 of the Huntington Library copy): “By this did Timotheus the Phrygian so enflame Alexander Magnus, the Conquerour of the whole world, that he did rise from the table where he sat, and called for his armes; and afterwards changing his Moode on the Instrument, did cause him to put off his armour, and sit down againe to banquet.”
Finally, Charles Butler cites the Timotheus story—with a reference to Suidas—in his explanation of the Phrygian mode (again, a purely psychological explanation) in the scholarly annotations to his Principles of Musik (Oxford, 1636), Lib. i, Cap. I, p. 6, n. i: “The Phrygian Moode dooeth distract and ravish the minde, and dooeth as it were set it besides it self: having the same force among the Moodes, that the Pipe or Fife hath among Instruments: for bothe of them dooe rouz up mens mindes and drive them into passions. Which thing the skilfull Musician Timotheus prooved in the great Alexander: Whome, with his Phrygian Flute, hee did so incens, that the King ran presently to take up Arms: Which beeing doon, Such (qoth Timotheus) shoolde bee the Musik of Kings.” It is interesting to notice that an early instruction book in the lute, The Schoole of Mvsicke (London, 1603) by the Cantabrigian Thomas Robinson takes the form of a dialogue “betwixt a Knight, (who hath children to be taught) and Timotheus, that should teach them.” 11 Ed. Andrew Lang (London, 1890), pp. 147–148.
12 For an English trans, and easy reference, see Strunk, Source Readings, pp. 286–289.
13 Premier livre des amours de Ronsard in Monuments de la musique française au temps de la Renaissance, ed. Henry Expert, iv (Paris, 1926), Aij: “le sçay bien qu'ilz me diront que pour l'insuffisance des chantres ilz ne doibuent moins s'efforcer a remettre sus l'ancienne perfection d'vn si bel art, dont les effectz estoient telz que l'on dit ce grand Alexandre auoit esté tellement attaint, & come forcé des accors de Timothée musicien, qu'estant à table il se leua & courut à ses armes & tout soudain fut par le mesme en ceste bouillante fureur accoisé.”
14 See The Works, eds. Holmes, Lyons, Linker (Chapel Hill, 1935–40), iii, 346:
ainsi son Timothee
O fameux Pellean, tient de ton cœur le frein,
Arme quand il luy plaist et desarme ta main,
Main terreur de l'Asie, et d'un accent phrygique
Te fait un tigre fier, un agneau du dorique;
Ainsi, tant qu'en Argos d'un ton gravement saint
Le chaste violon à toute heure se plaint
Pour son monarque absent, Clitemnestre résiste
Aux enchanteurs discours de l'adultère Egiste.
15 Œuvres philosophiques (Paris, 1587), p. 102v: “Mesmes espreuue de ces deux chants Phrygiens & Sousphrygiens fit Timothée, irritant par vn chant Phrygien, Alexandre estant à Table, iusques à courir aux armes: & soudain par vn Sousphrygien, le réduisant calme & tranquille d'esprit.”
16 The story is told by Artus Thomas, Sieur d'Embry, Philostrate de la Vie d'Apollonius Thyaneen (Paris, 1611), who precedes it with an account of the Timotheus story exactly like that of Tyard: “It was with two songs in the Phrygian and Sub-Phrygian modes that Timotheus gave proof of his power on the person of Alexander, whom, with a Phrygian tune, he caused to rush to his arms when at table, immediately afterwards causing him to return to his former tranquillity with a Sub-Phrygian tune.” This is cited and translated by Frances A. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947), p. 59. For a detailed account of the musical events at this wedding, see Frances A. Yates, “Poesie et musique dans les ‘Magnificences’ au mariage du duc de Joyeuse, Paris, 1581,” Musique et Poésie au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1954), pp. 241–264.
17 See the passage of letters between Harvey and Spenser, 1579–80, in Spenser's Poetical Works (Oxford, 1912), pp. 609 ff. See also the discussion of Sidney's references to music and ancient metres in Bruce Pattison, Music and Poetry of the English Renaissance (London, 1948), pp. 61 ff.
18 For two reasons: first, a language strongly accentual does not readily lend itself to quantitative measures; and secondly, the movement was highly academic in a literal sense and Centred at Cambridge rather than at the royal court, whereas Baïf's Académie was located in Paris and authorized by the king. I deal with these and other such matters in detail in a work now in preparation, “Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Universities.” The best works dealing with musique mesurée à l'antique are those by D. P. Walker: “MusicalHumanism in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries,” Mus. Rev., ii (1941), in (1942); “The Influence of Musique mesurée à l'antique particularly on the Airs de Cour of the Early Seventeenth Century,” Musica Disciplina, n (1948); with François Lesure, “Claude Le Jeune and Musique Mesurée,” ibid., ni (1949); “Some Aspects and Problems of Musique Mesurée à l'Antique,” ibid., iv (1950).
19 The Timotheus story, as we have seen, has many variations and somewhere along the way at least two musicians called Timotheus have been confused: one, a flute (aulos)player at Alexander's wedding (mentioned by Athenaeus in the Deiphosophistae, xii, 538 f.) and the other, a famous dithyrambic poet and citharode (mentioned by Athenaeus and others). The latter poet (ca. 450-ca. 360) left a lyric nome, Persae, in which the speech of a Phrygian is said to have influenced that of a Phrygian in one of Euripides' plays (Oxford Class. Did.). My idea is that this association of Timotheus with Phrygian matters caused the confusion with regard to the Phrygian poet-lyre-player and the aulos-player at Alexander's court; that in rather vague discussions of the Phrygian mode, Timotheus, a tremendously moving poet-musician, came readily to mind. In any case, the confusion seems already implicit in St. Basil's reference to Timotheus playing “on the aulos in Phrygian.” Suidas elaborated by adding the name of the nome from Dion (“the nome of Athena called Orthios”) and a comment by Alexander that it should be the music of kings; and Renaissance writers followed both Suidas and Quintilian (who spoke in his Inst. orat. n.ii of Timotheus' practice of charging doubly those students who had studied with other masters). By the time of Dryden the two men are completely fused, for “old Timotheus,” now translated to the skies, seems to be equally effective with his “breathing flute” and his “sounding lyre.”
50 Œuvres philosophiques, p. 98r. Later in the treatise (p. 106v) the name is printed correctly—Iästienne.
21 Aristotle, however, would retain the Lydian mode under certain circumstances (Politics viii.7), as Tyard points out (pp. 102v-103r). To this day the modes are a confusing subject. At Spenser's time they were altogether misunderstood. British humanists who mentioned them at all—Sir Thomas Elyot, for instance—confessed frankly to not understanding them; and with the musical theorists already discussed there was no attempt to clarify the modes, only to state their psychological effects. With the French and Italian theorists it was different: Tyard recognized the fact that what was Dorian for one musician might be Phrygian for another, and that it was the general character of the music together with the meaning of the words that produced the desired effect rather than any particular mode.
22 Certainly they were influenced by the French writers from whom Spenser drew inspiration. Butler, in his Principles of Musik, for example, refers constantly to Du Bartas and quotes him at great length: see my articles, “Charles Butler and Du Bartas,” N&Q, I (n.s., 1954), 2–7, and “Charles Butler and the Bees' Madrigal,” ibid., ii (1955), 103–106. The influence of Du Bartas on Abraham Cowley is openly evident.
After the original version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the MLA in Chicago, 30 Dec. 1953, my attention was called to an exchange of letters on Spenser and Timotheus in the TLS, 1951 (pp. 197, 293, 565), between Professors S. F. Johnson and James Hutton. Viewing the Timotheus story as one item in the encomium musicae tradition, Professor Hutton gives a number of early references which I have not included, and emphasizes the similarity between Gafori's account and E.K.'s The last letter cites Tyard as the most likely source for Spenser, after Miss Yates had personally suggested this connection, and underlines Tyard's dependence upon Gafori. Tyard does indeed acknowledge his debt to the Italian theorist, but he also followed Glareanus in systematizing the modes (see p. 106v of his Œuvres philosophiques); and his specific reference to the Sousphrygienne as the mode which calmed the emperor derives from Glarean's system. (Incidentally, the great Swiss theorist begins his Dodecachordon —the prefatory letter—with a discussion of some of the activities of Timotheus of Miletus.)
My own purpose was to place the Timotheus episode in the larger perspective of musical ethos, one important aspect of Renaissance humanism fostered in the universities and academies, especially in France—related to but far transcending the laudes musicae tradition in literature; and I have added Italian, French, and English writers and musicians (not mentioned in the TLS letters) with bearing upon Spenser. A most interesting article on Timotheus (with no relation, however, to Spenser) is that of Erwin Panofsky, “Who is Jan Van Eyck's ‘Tymotheos‘?” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Inst., xii (1949), 80–90.