Delphic Origins

Music at the navel of the world

I have just returned from magnificent Delphi, a place to which for centuries people in ancient times headed to consult the Oracle of Apollo. Perhaps inspired by hallucinogenic vapours emanating from the ground, the priestess or Pythia would utter raving answers that were then presented in hexameter verse by the priests of Apollo. Around 600 oracular questions and answers survive.

Delphi was called the navel (omphalos) of the earth, and carved stones at the site demonstrate the notion of a sacred navel:

The origin-myth of Delphi tells how Apollo encountered a terrible serpent (‘Python’) guarding her cave at the site and killed her. An alternative name for Delphi was Pytho, whence the Pythia took her name, as did the Pythian Games that were celebrated every four years at the site. Apollo was the god of music, and the games included a musical competition for the aulos (double-pipes). An early musical competition piece, the Pythian Air, depicted the killing of the serpent; and a Victory Ode by Pindar (Pythian Ode 12) survives in honour of the winner of the competition in 490 BC, Midas of Acragas.

The story of Delphi’s origins is included in a piece of music composed for performance by an Athenian chorus who made a pilgrimage to the site in 127 BC: the Paian (song of praise) by Athenaeus. Amazingly, a substantial part of the song survives inscribed on a stone, now in the Delphi museum. It contains some 80 bars of music, notated in the notation devised by the Greeks around 450 BC, which can still be read and sung. Above the words in Greek below are smaller alphabetic letters indicating the musical notes. The rhythm is inscribed in the actual words, which are composed in long and short syllables that create rhythms such as dum di dum, dum di di-di, di-di di dum, as in “Muses all, come to sing, praise Apollo, Healer and King”.

You can hear a performance of the first verse of this Paean, accompanied by a double pipe, towards the end of the short Youtube video here.