VI
Miscellaneous, including Pythagoreanism and Shakespeare's Account of the More Spiritual Side of Music.
A well-known passage in Twelfth Night gives us the Opinion of Pythagoras 'concerning wild-fowl.'
The Opinion of Pythagoras 'concerning Music' is at least equally interesting, and is appropriated and assimilated by Shakespeare. The particular branch of the Pythagorean system with which we are concerned, is that which treats of the Music of the Spheres. Besides the two passages here quoted, there are others dealing with this subject—e.g.,
Ant. 52, 84, 'the tuned spheres'; Twelf. 31, 115, 'music from the spheres'; Per. 51, 226, 'The music of the spheres.'
[1]'This, Pythagoras, first of all the Greeks [560 b.c.] conceived in his mind; and understood that
- ↑ Hist. of Philos., by Thomas Stanley, edit. 1701.
