Tetrachord

“ As the four strings led to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this representation, the vase painters being little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum which he held in the right hand. ”

“ The voice has a tendency to ascend by leaps and to descend by steps. Music recognizes the following consonant intervals : the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the octave. In making a leap to the next consonant note, the choice really lies between the third and the fourth, as the fifth is too far away. The fourth is the more audible and many nations have chosen this in preference to the third. The fourth then becomes the upward limit of the tetrachord. When it comes to creeping up or down by what may be called 'next-door' notes, the chosen interval may be one of many or quite undefined. ”

“ One was Diatonic, of the 'colour' or variety which Ptolemy recognises as the prevailing one, viz. the 'Middle Soft' or 'Tonic' (diatonon toniaion) [34] . The other was a 'mixture' of this Diatonic with the standard Chromatic (chrôma suntonon) : that is to say, the octave consisted of a tetrachord of each genus. [Pg 84] These octaves apparently might be of any species, according to the key chosen [35] . On the cithara,—which was a more elaborate form of lyre, confined in practice to professional musicians,—six different octave scales were employed, each of a particular species and key. ”

“ A more serious difficulty is raised by the high antiquity which M. Gevaert assigns to the Perfect System. He supposes that the inventor of the notation made use of an instrument (the magadis) which 'magadised' or repeated the notes an octave higher. But this would give us a repetition of the primitive octave e-e, rather than an enlargement by the addition of tetrachords at both ends. ”

“ Among later writers who confirm this account we may notice Nicomachus, p. 7 Meib. mesê dia tessarôn pros amphotera en tê heptachordô kata to palaion diestôsa: and p. 20 tê toinyn archaiotropô lyra toutesti tê heptachordô, kata synaphên ek duo tetrachordôn synestôsê k.t.l.
It appears then that two kinds of seven-stringed [Pg 35] scales were known, at least by tradition: viz. (1) a scale composed of two conjunct tetrachords, and therefore of a compass less than an octave by one tone; and (2) a scale of the compass of an octave, but wanting a note, viz. the note above Mesê. ”

“ Koler’s voice rustled, “perhaps Jerry—your brother—can be put to work in the compartment instead of the mines.”
Mona turned her breath-taking beauty on Rod. Her eyes glowed with passionate conviction. “Don’t you see,” she said softly, “we only make things worse by resisting? The tetrarchs want more slaves. Let them get them—from other planets—other galaxies. If we help them perhaps they will send us back to Earth. You’ve got to understand.” ”

“ They’re all pretty much the same, except for the masks. The ones they use on Earth are built in. Here in Tetrarch they’re removable. They fashioned them to conceal their real structure after they investigated Earth. ”

“ As he ran across rocky ground he wondered how Koler was taking to a silica diet.
His course was hazily sketched in his mind. The smuggled note that had started him from Earth had not been too specific. It couldn’t have been. There was too much chance of its being intercepted. But he had a good working knowledge of Tetrarch’s surface. The problem was to get to the Survivors—those who had somehow escaped the gryxon mines and escaped the hunting tetrarchians—and in getting to them he had to throw his pursuers off the trail. ”

“ Rod was now alert. “Why don’t the tetrarchs account for every human that escaped?”
“Well, boss,” the barrel-chested Bunny spoke, “they figure, how can they lose? All of us are due for the torch parade once we hit twenty-five.”
“Further,” Williamson added, “from the info I’ve gotten from Mona, the tetrarchs use the Hunt to test themselves. For each quarry caught without aid of any kind a tetrarchian guard gets promoted. If the guard himself is overcome—on his home field—so to speak—the idea is they’re well rid of him. That means a constant process of self selection.... ”

“ The Tetramorph, i.e. the union of the four attributes of the Evangelists, in one figure, is in Greek Art always angelic or winged—a mysterious thing. The Tetramorph in Western Art has in some instances become monstrous, instead of mystic and poetical. In a miniature of the Hortus Deliciarum, we find the new Law, or Christianity, represented as a woman crowned and seated on an animal which, with the body of a horse, has the four heads of the mystic creatures; and of the four feet, one is human; one hoofed, for the ox; one clawed like an eagle’s ”

“ They never let us know what powered the gadgets—we never knew about gryxon power until the tetrarchs took over.
“We found out about gryxon then—in the mines. Once it’s sheathed by radium and the radium sheathed with lead—it’s harmless. But—when human life is used to handle the raw ore—!”
The vibrant timbre of Rod’s voice seemed to die away to death’s whisper, “Well, we all expect to die when we’re twenty-five ... and time’s passing. Try weighing what you might loosely call the human race against one brother! ”

“ Koler grasped a handful of the sand swirling about them. “That’s the climax of the Hunt. We—uh—they allow about an hour’s head start and then stalk the quarry. The idea is to catch him just as he rips his suit. And to get him to the operating chamber just before he dies.
“The tetrarchs are brilliant technicians, even if they are weak on theory. So I’ve helped them. We are anxious to find out why humans exposed to gryxon die on their twenty-fifth birthday. They think research on still-living humans will give them the answer.” ”

“ A more exact and more lofty name is to be found in the form known as the Tetragrammaton. This is a proper noun, which can only be indicated by attributes, but has no location, and was formerly unknown. If He was commonly styled 'Elōhim,' the Tetragrammaton was used as special name. This is as if one asked: Which God is to be worshipped, the sun, the moon, the heaven, the signs of the zodiac, any star, fire, a spirit, or celestial angels, etc.; each of these, taken singly, has an activity and force, and causes growth and decay? ”

“ Koler paused. He peered with bloodshot eyes to see if his remarks were taking effect. “The tetrarchs are anxious to expand their conquests. They need those that are spending their time guarding the humans now. ”

“ Rod strode forward despite Williamson’s restraining hand.
The whimpering slave gathered himself together and spoke as if he had memorized his piece.
“The tetrarchs say if you’ll surrender yourself they’ll spare the rest of the humans.”
“Bluff! A miserable bluff!” Williamson had come forward blazing with indignation. His contempt at the servile gestures of the slave was mounting. “We’ll kill every tetrarch on the planet—and you with them, if you’re not careful. You can sniffle on back there and tell them that their position is hopeless.” ”

“ SALOMÉ
[Going up to the young Syrian.]
Thou wilt do this thing for me, wilt thou not, Narraboth? Thou wilt do this thing for me. I have ever been kind towards thee. Thou wilt do it for me. I would but look at him, this strange prophet. Men have talked so much of him. Often I have heard the Tetrarch talk of him. I think he is afraid of him, the Tetrarch. Art thou, even thou, also afraid of him, Narraboth?
THE YOUNG SYRIAN
I fear him not. Princess; there is no man I fear. But the Tetrarch has formally forbidden that any man should raise the cover of this well. ”

“ When we win this fight I’m going to get me a tetrarch, freeze it, and use it for a light in my fishing lodge.”
“Oh no, you’re not,” a barrel-chested earthman, incongruously named Bunny, informed him, “you’re going to contribute it to help spell Mona Darlanan’s name in lights on Broadway.” ”

“ It must follow, then, [19] that as earth consisted of earth, so also depth consisted of depth, and darkness of darkness, and the wind and waters of wind and waters. And, as we said above, [20] Matter could not have been without form, since it had specific parts, which were formed out of it—although as separate things [21] —unless, indeed, they were not separate, but were the very same with those out of which they came. For it is really impossible that those specific things, which are set forth under the same names, should have been diverse ”

“ For Him, accordingly, Hermogenes has reserved nothing which he had not equally conferred on Matter, so that it is not Matter which is compared with God, but rather God who is compared with Matter. Now, inasmuch as those qualities which we claim as peculiar to God—to have always existed, without a beginning, without an end, and to have been the First, and Alone, and the Author of all things—are also compatible to Matter, I want to know what property Matter possesses different and alien from God, and hereby special to itself, by reason of which it is incapable of being compared with God? ”

“ Every so often one of the hot-heads decides to escape. The tetrarchs love it. Sometimes, they deliberately give them the chance.”
He pointed to the oxygen cannisters attached to the back of Rod’s space suit. “The cylinders in our human space suits supply enough air to last for eight hours. When the air is exhausted it seems to be a natural reaction to rip the suit open. ”

“ For if the resurrection of the flesh be denied, that prime article of the faith is shaken; if it be asserted, that is established. There is no need, I suppose, to treat of the soul’s safety; for nearly all the heretics, in whatever way they conceive of it, certainly refrain from denying that. We may ignore a certain Lucan, [12] who does not spare even this part of our nature, which he follows Aristotle in reducing to dissolution, and substitutes some other thing in lieu of it. Some third nature it is which, according to him, is to rise again, neither soul nor flesh ”

“ The immensity of the scale does not interfere with the vision of spirits, nor with such communications as Abraham holds with his lost son in the history of Dives and Lazarus. Here indeed Science comes to our aid, for if the telephone permits such conversations while we are in the flesh, we may at least imagine that the subtile spirit can act in like manner, apart from such contrivances. Now, so far as Tertullian is consistent with himself, I think these explanations may clarify his words and references. The Eastern Theology is less inconsistent and bears the marks alike of Plato and of Origen. ”

“ Now, although they have allotted to the whole of these respectively certain parts of the body as their special domiciles, it does not from that circumstance follow that a like distribution will be suitable to the sections of the soul; for even the body itself would not admit of such a partition as they would have the soul undergo. But of the whole number of the limbs one body is made up, so that the arrangement is rather a concretion than a division. ”

“ In fact, [8] incorporeal things could not have any locality of their own except in a body, when they have access to a body. [9] But when Matter inclined not to good and evil, it was as corporeal or local essences that it did not incline to them. You err, therefore, when you will have it that good and evil are substances. For you make substances of the things to which you assign locality; [10] but you assign locality when you keep motion in Matter poised equally distant from both sides. [11] ”

“ Nobody, however, will deny that the elements have body, since we both touch them and are touched by them, and we see certain bodies fall down from them. If, therefore, they are animated, laying aside the principle [19] of a soul, as befits their condition as bodies, they are mortal—of course not immortal. And yet whence is it that the elements appear to Varro to be animated? Because, forsooth, the elements have motion. ”

“ Therefore after it was made, and while awaiting its perfect state, [8] it was “without form, and void:” “void” indeed, from the very fact that it was without form (as being not yet perfect to the sight, and at the same time unfurnished as yet with its other qualities) ; [9] and “without form,” because it was still covered with waters, as if with the rampart of its fecundating moisture, [10] by which is produced our flesh, in a form allied with its own. ”

“ Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male-female Chokmah-Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the very essence of number seven, in its terrestrial significance. Seven stands between four and nine—the basis and foundation, astrally, of our physical world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth.
For Christians and believers, this reference to Zechariah and especially to the Epistle of Peter,1517 ought to be conclusive. In the old symbolism, “man,” chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a “stone.” ”

“ Other quibblers maintained that the Redeemer had had no body at all and that this expression of the holy books must be taken figuratively, while Tertullian put forth his famous, semi-materialistic axiom: "Only that which is not, has no body; everything which is, has a body fitting it." ”