World
pp. 63-64 · Read in the full issue
Music In A Mad
The Prophetic Words of Plato
THE reader of a learned essay may dis cover words of prophetic import in the following paragraphs:— “Every Greek boy was carefully trained in the theory and practice of musical art.
Music was not only the gymnastic of the ear and voice but also of the spirit, and the foundation of all the higher life. In union with poetry, it led the soul to vir tue and inspired it with courage.
“Nothing shows the importance which the Greeks attached to music more than their strong condemnation of the flute as compared with the seven-stringed lyre.
The one was the basis of true wisdom and morality, and the other, the instru ment of general laxity and corruption.
“Plato writes: ‘The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as im perilling the whole state . . . since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political in stitutions . . . for it is here that lawless ness creeps in unawares in the guise of amusement and professing to do no mis chief ... It goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the utmost im pudence until it ends by overturning everything both in public and private’.”
Alas, the perverse Athenians passed on to posterity the words of Plato, without themselves giving heed thereto.
The Athens of Pericles swarmed with jitterbugs (if the decorations on the vases of the period bear true witness) who danced madly to the sound of in struments closely akin to the horrid pipes, which have corrupted the taste and manners of our modern world.
History records the dolorous fate of Athens at the hands of Sparta, where only the seven-stringed lyre was heard as accompaniment to the war-inspiring poems of Homer; and jitterbugs with their flutes were cast to destruction from the cliffs of Mount Taygetus.
Those who have lived in the South Seas since the early years of the century can trace the transformation of the Polynesian—mentally and ethically—with the deterioration of native music.
The extent of that transformation is a matter of opinion; but it dates from the introduction into the Islands of the first saxophone phonograph record. How ever, it is not for the Islands alone that Plato’s words carry prophetic portent.
By whatever standards mankind ap praise him, it is generally recognised that Hitler is a sound musician.
Is it not possible that one day—with the
writings of Plato and the history of Athens before him. and his ear to a radio tuned to the Western Hemisphere —the idea of the possibility of world conquest dawned on his mind?
It behoves, then, that the democracies of that hemisphere beware and, in addi tion to beating plowshares into swords and anti-aircraft guns. to melt saxo phones into haros on which their bards may strike martial chords that will rouse in them the indomitable spirit of their unconquerable ancestors. —A.C.R.
Dr. Robert Fruchtmann, medical officer at Salamo, Eastern Papua, for the Methodist Mission, arrived in Australia in August by air from Port Moresby, to obtain medical attention for injuries sus tained in a car accident at the end of July. He had gone to Port Moresby to re lieve Dr. A. J. May as Government Medical Officer while the latter was on three months’ furlough and had been in the town only a few days when his car, cut of control and racing downhill, crushed him against a mango tree.
Mr. Alex. Scott, who has been manager for Burns, Philo and Co.. Ltd., at Kieta, New Guinea, for some time, arrived in Australia recently to enlist. He has been relieved by Mr. S. G. Lawrence.
Mr. J. Merry lees, of the N.G. District Services Department, returned to the Territory in mid-August from leave spent in Australia and is now stationed at Kavieng, New Ireland.