SOUND:
8085. shama, shaw-mah´; a primitive root; to
hear intelligently (often with implication of attention,
obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, etc.):—x
attentively, call (gather) together
Sistrum,
a metallic
rattle which was used by the Egyptians in celebrating the rites of Isis, and in other lascivious festivals,.Ov. Am. 2, 13, 11 By
the Jews, Vulg. 1 Reg. [Samuel] 18, 6 .--Hence sarcastically, as if used for a war -
trumpet by the wanton Cleopatra Verg.
A.8.696 Luc.
10.63
--Verg.
A. 8.671
The Dirae souse from heav'n with swift descent;
And Discord, dyed in blood, with garments rent,
Divides the prease: her steps Bellona treads,
And shakes her iron rod above their heads.
This seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,
Pours down his arrows; at whose winged flight
The trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,
And soft Sabaeans quit the wat'ry field.
Sabaeus
adj., SabaiosSabaean,
of Saba in Arabia. God abandoned Israel to "worship
the starry host" (Acts 7 etal). However, this is
the PATTERNISM used by Rick Atchley to impose the
Jacob-cursed Levites and their instruments.
Strabo
Geography 10
[15] They invented names appropriate to the flute,
and to the noises made by castanets, cymbals, and drums, and to their
acclamations and shouts of "ev-ah," and stampings of the
feet; and they also invented some of the names by which to
designate the ministers, choral dancers, and attendants
upon the sacred rites, I mean "Cabeiri" and "Corybantes" and "Pans" and "Satyri" and "Tityri," and they called the
god "Bacchus," and Rhea "Cybele" or "Cybebe" or "Dindymene" according to the places where
she was worshipped. Sabazius also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of
the Mother, since he too transmitted the rites of
Dionysus. [66
Hom. Il. 8.173]
Despite the
differences between the Mosaic
and the Egyptian cults, it can hardly be denied that Egyptian
influence on Jewish
musical practices
were quite significant. They would stand to reason
because of the high quality of egyptian cultic
music.
The tambourine or timbrel, a hoop of bells
over which a white skin was stretched, came from Egypt. Miriam used this instrument to accompany the
singing and dancing on the shores of the Red Sea
(Ex. 15).
The trumpet
blown for decampment, at the gathering
of the people and on
different cultic occasions, especially during
sacrifices (2 Chron. 30:21; 35:15; Num 10:2), was
the signaling
instrument of the Egyptian army. The sistrum,
according to 2 Sam 6:5, was used by the Israelites
and bore the name mena'aneim. It was the same as the Egyptian kemkem
which was employed in the cult of Isis.
Therefore thou
hast forsaken
thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the
Philistines, and they please them
selves in the children of strangers
(adulterous women). Isaiah 2:6
Soothsayers:
Anan (h6049) aw-nan'; a
prim. root; to cover; used only as denom. from
6051, to cloud over; fig. to act
covertly, i. e. practise magic: - * bring, enchanter, Meonemin, observer of times,
soothsayer, sorcerer.
"In an inscription from
Cyprus, in one from Rhodes and in several from
around the district of Carthage, there are
references to important personages who bear the
title Mqm'lm which we can translate as AROUSERS of the god.'" (de Vaux,
Roland, The Bible and the Ancient Near East,
Doubleday, p. 247).
"We even have a mention at a
later date of a similar custom in connection with
the cult in
Jerusalem,
where certain Levites, called me'oreim, 'AROUSERS,' sang (every
morning?) this verse from "Ps 44:23: "Awake, O
Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do
not reject us forever." The Talmud tells us that
John Hyrcanus suppressed the practice because it
recalled too readily a pagan custom." (Roland de Vaux, p. 247).
This points
to RESPONSIVE SINGING and the worship of ANATH.
Nachash (h5172)
naw-khash'; a prim. root; prop. to hiss, i. e.
whisper a (magic) spell; gen. to prognosticate: - * certainly,
divine, enchanter, (use) * enchantment, learn by
experience, * indeed, diligently observe.
Nachash (h5175)
naw-khawsh'; from 5172; a snake (from its hiss): -
serpent.
The solemnity
celebrated on the occasion of the transferring of
the Ark to Sion, as well as the dances of the daughters of Israel at the annual feast of the
Lord of Shiloh (Judg 21:21), were similar in thier
musical embellishments to Egyptian customs in the liturgy and at parades.
As Herodotus
reports,women sang the praises of Osiris
while likenesses of the gods were born about and,
during the festival of Diana at Bubastis,
choirs of men and
women sang and danced to the beating of
drums and the playing
of flutes." (Quasten, Johannes,
Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian
Antiquity, p. 65)
The fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,..
The victor to the gods his thanks express'd,
And Rome,
triumphant, with his presence bless'd.
Three hundred temples in the town he plac'd;
With spoils and altars ev'ry temple grac'd.
Three shining nights, and three succeeding days,
The fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,
The domes with songs, the theaters with plays.
All altars flame: before each altar lies,
Drench'd in his gore, the destin'd sacrifice.
Great Caesar sits sublime upon his throne,
Before Apollo's porch of Parian stone;
Accepts the presents vow'd for victory,
And hangs the monumental crowns on high.
CY´MBALUM
The
cymbal was a very ancient instrument, and unquestionably
came from the East, where among other nations it was
familiar to the Jews (see Dict. of Bible, s. v.). It is
represented in a Phoenician bronze from
Cyprus, now in the Cesnola collection at New York
(D. and S. i. 1697 a). We find sacred trees depicted
with cymbals hung on them as votive offerings, so as
to be blown about by the wind (Guhl and Koner, p.
5, fig. 1). Among the Greeks and Romans they were
especially used in orgiastic rites of Eastern
origin, like those of Cybele (Pind. fragm. 48 =
79 Bergk4; Lucret. ii. 618; Catull. lxiii. 29; Verg. Georg. iv. 64; Propert. iv. 7, 61; Ov.
Fast. iv. 213) and Dionysus (Aesch. fragm. cit.;
Liv. xxxix 8 fin., 10), as well as in the Eleusinian
mysteries of Demeter and Cora (Pind. Isthm. vi. 3; Clem. Alex. Protrept.
2, § 15, p. 14; Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 708). It will
be noticed how constantly, in these passages, the cymbal and the tympanum are coupled together. Art
monuments tell the same tale as literature, both as to
the joint use of the two instruments and the deities
in whose worship they occur. A cymbal figured in
Daremberg and Saglio (i. 1697 b) is a votive offering to
Cora.
"Lucian tells us that spectres fled at the sound of bronze and iron, and
he contrasts
the repulsion which the clank of these metals exerted on spirits
with the attraction which the clink of silver money wielded over women of a certain class." (Sir
James George Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old
Testament, p. 41, Macmillian, 1923)
CYMBALS:
6750. = tsalal, tsaw-lal´; a primitive root
(identical with 6749 through the idea of vibration);
to tinkle, i.e. rattle together (as the ears in
reddening with shame, or the teeth in chattering with
fear):quiver, tingle.
6767. tslatsal, tsel-aw-tsal´; from 6750
reduplicated; a clatter, i.e. (abstractly) whirring (of wings);
(concretely) a cricket; also a harpoon (as rattling), a
cymbal (as clanging):--cymbal, locust, shadowing,
spear.
6751. tsalal, tsaw-lal´; a primitive root
(identical with 6749 through the idea of hovering over
(compare 6754)); to shade, as twilight or an opaque
object:--begin to be dark, shadowing.
CYMBALS AND THE TAMBOURINE WERE WOMEN'S INSTRUMENTS
-Tympanotriba , ae, m., = tumpanotribęs,
I. a taborer, a
timbrel-player, a term of reproach for a soft, effeminate
person (alluding to the priests of Cybele),
Plaut. Truc. 2, 7, 49; cf. tympanum.
-T. Maccius Plautus, Truculentus,
or The Churl
STRATOPHANES (to PHRONESIUM.)
What say you? Why have you dared to say that you love
another man?
PHRONESIUM I chose to.
STRATOPHANES Say you so,
indeed? I'll first make trial of that. Do you, for the
sake of such a shabby present, vegetables, and
comestibles, and vinegar-water, bestow your love upon
an effeminate, frizzle-pated, dark-haunt frequenting,
drum-drubbing
debauchee, a fellow not worth a nutshell:
6 Is he deranged:
"Hariolus." Literally, "a soothsayer," or
"diviner." In their prophetic frenzy, these persons
often had the appearance of being mad, and were so
considered.
7 Drum-drubbing
debauchee: "Typanotriba." Literally, "drum," or
"tambourine beater." He alludes to the eunuch-priests of Cybele, who used to beat
tambourines in her procession-probably in allusion
to debauchees, emasculated by riot and dissipation
-Commentary on Vergil, Aeneid. book
6, line 645.
Verg.
A. 6.637
These holy rites perform'd, they took their way
Where long extended plains of pleasure lay:
The verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie,
With ether vested, and a purple sky;
[firmament]
The blissful seats of happy souls below.
Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know;
Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
And on the green contend the wrestler's prize.
Some in heroic verse divinely sing;
Others in artful measures led the ring.
The Thracian [Threskia worship] bard, surrounded by
the rest,
There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest;
His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
[Outlawed by the Psallo word]
Strikes sev'n distinguish'd notes, and sev'n at
once they fill.
[645] 645] Orpheus was
one of the mythical fathers of song, and his name was
associated with revelations about the lower world,
supposed to be preserved by secret societies (Dict.
M. Orpheus), so that he is naturally made the harper
who plays while the blessed spirits dance and sing.
He is called ‘sacerdos,’
as in Hor. A. P. 391 he is called “sacer
interpresque
deorum.”
The long robe was characteristic of musicians, as
Cerda shows, comp. Prop. 3. 23. 16, “Pythius
in
longa
carmina
veste
sonat”
(of the statue of Apollo in the Palatine temple),
and also Hor. A. P. 215, Ov. F. 6. 654, 688, where the
long robes of the ‘tibicines’
are mentioned and accounted for. ‘Cum
veste’
above v. 359. Elsewhere we have ‘in veste,’ as 12. 169, “puraque
in
veste
sacerdos.”
vestis
: “mulierem
cum
auro
et
veste
abducere,”
Plaut. Curc. 2, 3, 69
“lugubris,”
id. Heaut. 2, 3, 45;
id. Eun. 3, 5, 24:
“ad
vestem
muliebrem
conficiendam,
- mŭlĭĕbris , e,
adj. mulier, I.of or belonging to a
woman, womanly, female, feminine. “venustas,
“impotentia,
B. In a reproachful sense, womanish,
effeminate, unmanly: parce muliebri
supellectili. Mi. Quae ea est supellex? Ha.
Clarus clamor sine modo, Plaut. Poen. 5, 3,
26 sq.: to enervate, weaken,
render effeminate
tībīcĭno
,
II. To
prop up,
support any thing,
Tert. Anim. 38; Schol.
Juv. 3, 193.
"The trained
musicians which eventually appear around the time of
David and Solomon mark a distinctive change in the history of Jewish music. Before this time much
of the music was made by women." (Zondervan Pict.,
Music p. 313).
"Before the
establishment of the kingdom under Saul, it was the women who, as in every young
civilization, played a major part in the performance
of music. Such figures as Miriam, Deborah, Jephtha's daughter, and
the women hailing the young hero David have become
almost archetypes of female musicians. Characteristic of all
these cases is the familiar picture of a female chorus, dancing and singing, accompanied by frenzied
drum-beating. This is the scene known
to the entire Near East, and not even the severe rule of
Islam could wholly suppress this
age-old practice." (Int Dict of the
Bible, Music, p. 457).
"Women and girls from the different ranks
of society were proud to enter the service of the gods as singers and musicians. The understanding of this
service was universal: these singers constituted the 'harem of the gods'." "The Catholic Johannes
Quasten in Pagan and Christian Music tells it like it is)
The Pope's Eunuchs [beginning of
text]
One of the vices
which the Spaniards had brought to Italy in the 16
century along with the Borgia family and the Spanish Roman
Emperors was the falsetto singer. There were artists who
could sing falsetto with distinction, but as
the opera gained in popularity in Italy the practice
began of
emasculating boys with good voices and retaining them as male soprani or,
as the Italians,
with their usual lack of Christian reticence about
sex called them, the castrati. They were in every opera in the 18th
century, but foreign visitors were never reconciled
to them. The famous English weekly, The Spectator, wrote
about "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs," and by the end of
the 18th century they began to fade out of the
opera-house.
