Harpoon

“ And all the Cave-men gathered around to see the new harpoon.
[Pg 156] When everybody had seen it, Fleetfoot placed the harpoon upon his throwing-stick and hurled it again and again. To the people who stood near, the barbs carried the harpoon through the air like the wings of a bird. The deep grooves which held the poison carried sure death with each wound. And the throwing-stick with which it was hurled helped in getting a firm hold and a sure aim.
Harpoons with several barbs. THINGS TO DO
Find a piece of soft wood and trace the outline of a harpoon upon it. ”

“ Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!” ”

“ The black men go for them in boats, with harpoons that they make themselves. They take a stout pole, of a hard, heavy wood that grows there, and cut it to about ten or twelve feet long and three or four inches thick. That's the shaft of the harpoon. The head is made of a tough piece of iron, thicker than my finger, and about a foot long. It has a barbed spear-head at the end, and when those barbs get under the tough hide of a hippopotamus, all the plunging and struggling he can do won't make them pull out. ”

“ Why was the harpoon a better weapon for hunting than the spear or javelin? What could hunters do to keep smooth shafts from slipping from their hands? What is the harpoon used for to-day?
Why do animals become more cunning after they are hunted?
[Pg 101]
How the Cave-men Hunted with Harpoons
Once again the Cave-men went out to hunt the wild horses. Once again they took new weapons. But instead of spears and javelins they carried barbed harpoons.
From a high hill they saw the horses on the edge of a grassy upland. They hurried over the wooded hills and crept through the tall grass. ”

“ The harpoons are fixed to poles of rough, heavy wood, every care being taken to make them as strong as possible. And their weight necessitates a harpooner being chosen from among the biggest and strongest men in the ship. ”

“ A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. ”

“ Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even through Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff. ”

“ As the instrument is new, so it is also easy to construct and very pleasant. It is the admiration of every one. It is made exactly to tit a window, in which it is placed ; and the harp, while the window remains shut, is silent : but as soon as it is opened, an harmonious sound, though somewhat melancholy, coming from the passing wind, astonishes the hearers; for they are not able to perceive from whence the sound proceeds, nor yet what kind of instrument it is, for it resembles neither the sound of a stringed nor yet of pneumatic instrument, but partakes of both. ”

“ The harp is our principal musical instrument. We have one that is portable and in form like a lyre; but our great harp is much larger than yours, differently constructed, and far more effective, combining, as it does, in its tones all the delicacy, expression, and oneness of a single executant, with the brilliancy and power of a combined body of performers. ”

“ As the ring-dove cooes from its nest aloft.
I am full of a song that mothers croon
When their wee ones tire of their play at noon.
Though a harp may feel ’tis a silent thing
Till the breeze arises and bids it sing. ”

“ You have heard of a little instrument called the æolian harp, which, when placed in an open window or anywhere where the wind will sweep across its strings, gives forth a very sweet and plaintive melody. Well, in Happy Valley every child who desires one—and who does not?—has an instrument very similar to that little harp, which they place where the soft breezes can sweep across it, thus evoking the most sweet and enchanting music, not sad like the melody of the æolian harps of earth, but cheerful, inspiring, and very tuneful. ”

“ The harp itself is beautiful as a work of sculptural art. Around its framework most elegant and tasteful ornaments are executed with the minutest perfection—small birds of variegated plumage perched on graceful foliage of green enamel, with flowers in their natural colours, so executed as closely to resemble nature. The birds, flowers, and foliage are connected with the chords of the harp, and conceal from view small vases or reservoirs set in the framework of the instrument. ”

“ The very nature of the harp is chordal, and the sculptures always depict the performer playing with both hands, the fingers being more or less outstretched. That the music must have been of a deep, sonorous character, we may gather from the great size of the harps and the thickness of their strings. ”

“ Gather together in one heap of useless rubbish (for they will never more be needed) , harp, lyre, flute, flageolet, violin and guitar, piano and organ. Even that harp of three thousand strings, which the divine hand has placed in the human ear, shall not again vibrate to the delicate touch of nature’s hand. ”

“ Boschsa how little the harp, can do to entrance the soul in musical delight.’ This is sensible criticism, in no far as it extends to the singing and playing of the individuals named: but the harp, when in the hands of those who best know how to use it—who seek not to astonish by what is called execution, which is only another name for murder, but study its pathetic and romantic character, and attempt nothing out of this—is an instrument that, in some shape or other, has charmed in all ages, and will continue to be admired wherever a taste for music is at all cultivated. ”

“ Harps We Love The harp we love hath a royal burst! Its strings are mighty forest trees; And branches, swaying to and fro, Are fingers sounding symphonies. The harp we love hath a solemn sound! And rocks amongst the shallow seas Are strings from which the rolling waves Draw forth their stirring harmonies. The harp we love hath a low sweet voice! Its strings are in the bosom deep, And Love will press those hidden chords When all the baser passions sleep. ”

“ According to the miniatures in manuscripts, the harp was of a size that the top of it{215} did not extend higher than the head of the performer, who played upon it in a sitting posture (Fig. 190) . There were, however, harps of a lighter character, which the musician bore suspended from his neck by a strap, and played upon while standing up. This portable harp was the one that may par excellence be called noble, and was the instrument on which the trouvères accompanied their voices when reciting ballads and metrical tales (Fig. 191) . ”

“ Then the harpman became so sad that he could not live in the midst of other men, but was off to the forest, and sate upon the hills both day and night, weeping, and playing on his harp so that the woods trembled and the rivers stood still, and hart shunned not lion, nor hare hound, nor did any beast feel rage or fear towards any other for gladness of the music. ”

“ Any one who has seen an Æolian harp, and listened to the wild notes of its music, will be aware that the wires of the harp are swept by accidental currents of air; that when those currents have been strong, the notes of the harp have been raised to the highest pitch, and as the intensity of the currents has fallen, the musical sounds have deepened and softened, until, with melodious sighing, they have died away. No finger has touched the strings; no musical genius has presided at the harp to wake its inspiring sounds ”

“ Cultured races and primitive peoples alike played the harp. The Greeks had three-cornered harps and the Romans had harps with a curved frame, pegs, and sound-box. The famous lyre was a kind of harp. The ancient Irish harp, called cruit, and also crwth, which in time became a sort of fiddle-harp and was played with a bow, seems to have been an ancestor of the violin. As early as 200 B.C. the Irish children were taught that “the spirit of song dwelt among the trembling strings of the cruit.” ”

“ And the harp itself (yes, even so extensive is the occult power they wield) makes its own special appeal to you, [Pg 24] and with its taste for delicacy seems suddenly like a dull tormented thing, swaying and trembling under the stiff sullen fingers of its master, there on the garish pavement—an instrument which, but for the uncertainty of life (ah, the uncertainty of life!) ”

“ I WILL WAKE MY HARP WHEN THE SHADES OF EVEN. [23]
I will wake my harp when the shades of even
Are closing around the dying day,
When thoughts that wear the hues of Heaven
Are weaning my heart from the world away;
And my strain will tell of a land and home
Which my wand'ring steps have left behind,
Where the hearts that throb and the feet that roam
Are free as the breath of their mountain wind.
I will wake my harp when the star of Vesper
Hath open'd its eye on the peaceful earth,
When not a leaf is heard to whisper
That a dew-drop falls, or a breeze hath birth. ”

“ The harp presents a triangular form of singular beauty, the graceful curve of the neck adding to the elegance of its appearance Although the outline has varied at different epochs and in different countries, the relation of its proportions to the musical scale—a condition of symmetry in musical instruments—is in the harp very close ”

“ And when the young man lifted the robe, behold there was nothing under it but the harp, across which there swept such a wild and piteous chord that all the strings burst as if with unutterable grief.
Then the young man lifted the body of his sweetheart in his arms, and carried her home, and she was buried with many tears.
And in due time he put fresh strings to the harp, which, though it was not as when it was in the hands of the Neck, yet it made most exquisite music. And the young man became a famous musician. For out of suffering comes song. ”

“ A harp might conceivably be so framed by its maker that every string, tho rightly tuned and rightly struck, according to the theory and design of the instrument, should emit when touched a separate discord. Or it may be so framed, as we know by experience, that from it shall flow, when fitly swept by an educated hand, the concerted numbers of noble music; inspiring the thoughts with their spiritual force, or suffusing the very air around us with an audible glory, and making it drop benedictions upon us. ”

“ The harp is a very ancient instrument. It was played thousands of years ago in Egypt and Assyria. In fact it was the favorite instrument of the Egyptians and it was often magnificently ornamented. The Egyptian harp had no front pillar, and sometimes it looks in the hands of the player like a boat with a sail of strings. ”

“ These effects are of the same nature as those produced by the harp of Orpheus, and it is to be observed that in the ballad of 'Harpans Kraft' the harper is a bridegroom seeking (successfully) to recover his bride, who has been carried down to the depths of the water by a merman. We have had something like these effects in the 'Twa Brothers,' No 49, B 10, I, 439, where Lady Margaret harps the small birds off the briers and her true love out of the grave. [97] There is a fisherman in the Gesta Romanorum who has a harp so sweet that all the fish in the water come to his hand: Oesterley, No 85, p. ”

“ The difference between the musical instruments of our time and those of a former age, is another interesting subject of inquiry. The Bible mentions the timbrel, the ram’s horn, the reed, the harp, silver trumpets, and other equally rude inventions. From later classical writers we learn the existence of the pipe and tabor, the lyre, the lute, and others. In the records of a much more advanced period, we find mention of the harpsichord, whence we have obtained our present tolerably perfect piano forte. ”

“ We may apprehend the Difference of perfect and imperfect Instruments, by listening to a Harpsichord, when any Music, where the Key changes often, is played, and to a fine Band, such as the Playhouse or the Opera. We shall find, in the latter, that the Composer has taken Care to make every Transition quite smooth and harmonious; and that tho' the Music be ever so cromatic, yet it never departs from it's melodious Effect. Whereas in an Organ or Harpsichord, even the greatest Performers cannot avoid a disagreeable Roughness in complicated Harmony. ”

“ The Anglo-saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a harp, more or less triangular in shape,—an instrument which may be considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the harp. The representation of king David playing the harp is from an Anglo-saxon manuscript of the beginning of the eleventh century, in the British museum. The harp was especially popular in central and northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. ”

“ An endless monotone of single notes
That ne’er began and nevermore shall end
Across the seas in dim metallics floats
The years to blend.
And they that bear the harp revere their lords,
The blind uncertain gods that smite the chords. ”