Preface.

...of each age The page begins mid-sentence: "ius ætatis," likely completing "cuius ætatis," referring to musicians of every era to repeatedly emphasize, and almost more anxiously give instructions about them, than about the Diatonic the standard musical scale consisting of five whole steps and two half steps, which is the only one we use now. As far as possible, we have been careful of this in these books, and once the Elements of this art were simply delivered in one book, we attached the Modes themselves—for whose sake we undertook this troublesome labor—along with examples, in the two following volumes. But it is more pleasing to marvel at certain people who write professionally about Music, who, as often as they proclaim from Apuleius a 2nd-century Roman philosopher and rhetorician the simplicity of the Aeolian and the variety of the Iastian, or from Lucian a Hellenistic satirist and rhetorician the divine nature of the Phrygian, the Bacchic spirit of the Lydian, the solemnity of the Dorian, and the elegance of the Ionian original: "τῆς φρυγίη τὸ ἔνθεον: τῆς λυδίης, τὸ βακχικόν: τῆς Δωρίου, τὸ σεμνόν. τῆς ἰωνικῆς, τὸ γλαφυρόν"; yet when they are asked to distinguish the Aeolian from the Dorian, or the Ionian from the Lydian, and to show this with some example of Song, they respond with nothing more than if they were hard flint, or stood as a Marpessian crag original: "Quàm ſi dura ſilex, aut ſtet Marpeſia cautes"; a quote from Vergil's Aeneid, Book VI, comparing their silence to unmoving stone, but instead they refer the matter back to the singers. These people indeed seem to me very much like those who, having praised some healthy herb, but being asked to point it out, either answer nothing or send the asker to the Pharmacists—being themselves more unlearned than those who asked them. It pertains to the same point that, when I solicited even the Princes of Letters likely referring to the leading scholars and humanists of the time, such as Erasmus in our age concerning this matter—not so much obscure as nearly despaired of—they mostly replied that it was not of their profession.

But enough of these things now. I return to the business at hand. I have dared, I confess, Most August Father, a thing which when I first began (for I have been turning this stone for no less than twenty years original: "XX annis hoc ſaxum uorſo"; an allusion to the myth of Sisyphus, indicating a long and laborious task), I plainly laughed at my own attempt; and yet, as it happens, I was lured by the hope of obtaining my goal, moved especially by that saying of the Comic poet: Nothing is so difficult that it cannot be investigated by searching original: "Nihil tàm difficile, quin quærendo inueſtigari poſsiet"; a quote from the Roman playwright Terence. Having often called upon Christ, that He might prosper a work begun for His glory, I sought help from Him alone, hoping for a reward from Him alone: for from men one can almost expect nothing but slander, and that for any slight reason. For to some we shall not seem polished enough, as if indeed we were teaching Rhetoric here; by others I will undoubtedly be blamed for being too long; by some, on the contrary, too concise. But who can please everyone? I judge that man to speak brilliantly enough, in whatever art is to be delivered, who teaches the matter itself, as it is, naturally, candidly, and sincerely, abstaining from painted and deceptive speech, and who desires to teach more than to seem learned. Nor, however, would I wish to seem to have commended one who speaks in a filthy or barbaric manner, who stains the art with foul stammering. But we shall speak more copiously of these things elsewhere.

In the defense of this work, this seemed worthy of warning: for no small difficulty was thrust upon us by the fact that Ecclesiastical chants the traditional plainchant and liturgical music of the Church are today wonderfully varied across different nations, and moreover changed by dioceses and orders, and finally, badly corrupted by many. But unless I am mistaken, the Order of Preachers the Dominicans has a purer chant than some other orders—I speak of that which pertains to the essentials of the Mass; we have mostly followed that in the second book, although I do not follow it everywhere. There is a monastery of the Benedictine profession at the head of the Black Forest original: "Hercyniæ ſyluæ" (they call it St. George’s), where another source of the Danube rises nearby...