The Harmonia of Bow and Lyre in Heraclitus Fr.

51 (DK)
Author(s): Jane McIntosh Snyder
Source: Phronesis, Vol. 29, No. 1 (1984), pp. 91-95
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182189
Accessed: 06-05-2017 20:01 UTC

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 DISCUSSION NOTES

The Harmonia of Bow and Lyre in

Heraclitus Fr. 51 (DK)

JANE MCINTOSH SNYDER

0V kVVL&OLV OX(S &acXqpO6LVOV 'wvr3'r O'IOXOy?EL * ITXlVTpOS &povia ox

Xai Xupris.

(People do not understand how what is borne in different directions comes to be in

agreement with itself; [for] a framework like that of the bow and the lyre turns back
[on itself].)

Heraclitus' statement about the bow and the lyre is one of the most vexed fragments
pertaining to his theory of the unity of opposites. Scholarly dispute has centered around
the exact sense of &JppovC-q, as well as around the adjective describing that &p"ovCi, with
some scholars favoring frraMvTposos, "back-turning" (found in Hippolytus and in two
separate passages in Plutarch), and others preferring 'axv'rovos, "back-stretched"
(found in Porphyry and in one passage in Plutarch).' This paper argues that the harmonia
of bow and lyre is not an abstract quality, but refers literally to the "fitting together" or
"framework" of the two objects, each of which, when viewed from the side, "turns back
on itself' in the sense that its curved structure describes an arc of a circle. Such an
interpretation raises the possibility that Heraclitus saw the bow and the lyre as analogous
in that their "opposite" ends, while apparently pointing away from each other, would, in
fact, if extended, join together to form a circle, the symbol of perfect unity.
Before we examine the possible meanings of harmonia in more detail, let us first
consider the chief textual difficulty of the fragment without dismissing waXkivrposos - as
several commentators do - on the grounds that it makes no sense. Although the discre-
pancy between the two ancient variants cannot be resolved beyond a doubt, it is
important to note that -naXivrpo-nos is found in what is generally considered to be the best
source and the only one which gives a complete citation, namely the work of the 3rd-c.
A.D. Hippolytus.2 Furthermore, as Wilamowitz noted, ,aMvrpo'nos is the lectio difficilior,
since the alternative reading is the familiar Homeric epithet routinely applied to the
bow.3 We may therefore perhaps side with Diels-Kranz, Kahn, and others in preferring
TraXv.Tpoamos, or at least we should accept the possibility that what Heraclitus intended is
accurately represented by the text as preserved for us by Hippolytus and as printed above.
However, the fact that Plato (Symp. 187A) has the pompous doctor Eryximachus
paraphrase and criticize Heraclitus' words without use of either epithet perhaps suggests
that the essential meaning of the fragment must be sought chiefly in the idea of the
harmonia of bow and lyre. The modern sense of "harmony" is best avoided here, since the
musical meaning of the English word implies certain types of chord progressions absent

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in the Greek musical systems. We will do best to focus on the root sense of "fitting
together" or "framework", along with the derived musical sense of "attunement", which
is, after all, only a metaphorical extension of the root meaning of the term (in the sense of
pitches which "fit together" into the same musical pattern). Although "attunement"
could certainly be applied to a lyre, it is difficult to see how it could appropriately describe
a bow. We are left, then, with the idea of the "framework" of bow and lyre as being
somehow analogous in illustrating the principle that apparent opposites actually form a
unity.4. If Kirk is correct, Heraclitus' scientific theory centered not around the notion of
constant flux, as Plato and Aristotle would have us believe, but rather around his
discovery of the unity of opposites; hence it is important that we try to understand how
both the bow and the lyre might exemplify this fundamental principle.5
Many commentators on the fragment in question have observed the similarity in the
functioning of the two items, both of which operate on the basis of a string under tension
(one in the case of the bow, and usually seven in the case of the various types of Greek
lyres).6 But if we keep the reading of Hippolytus, the issue appears to be one of direction
("back-turning") rather than tension ("back-stretched"), so that it seems more to the
point to examine the shape of the objects rather than their modus operandi or the results of
using them (the hitting of a target or the production of sound). If we take a visual
approach to the two items, bow and lyre, we are greatly aided by their frequent depiction
in Attic vase painting during the approximate period in which Heraclitus lived, the end of
the 6th c. and beginning of the 5th.
The construction of Greek bows is readily understood because of analogies with similar
equipment in other cultures. Two basic shapes are shown by the painters, both in side
view, one of a wavy design resembling a curved "M" on its side, the other simply a smooth
arc, and both with a fixture at each end for attaching the bow-string.7 The construction of
Greek lyres, however, is not so widely understood, partly because the instrument is only
rarely found in western cultures and partly because the vase painters generally depict the
players in profile but the instruments in front view. Although commentators on the
fragment in question occasionally mention the curved arms of the lyre, they seem to be
thinking of the outward curvature of the arms as they are seen from the front side of the
instrument. Most people, in fact, in visualizing the shape of a lyre, would probably think
of something resembling the lyre-back chairs so popular in 18th-century furniture styles,
in which the lyre motif is represented in a flat plane with arms that curve outwards on
each side.
However, as the vase painters reveal in rare side views of the tortoise-shell lyre and
related instruments, Greek lyres in fact also curved from top to bottom, so that their
design as viewed from the side describes not a straight line (as in the case of a guitar, for
example), but rather an arc of a circle. This curved design is perhaps best illustrated on a
little-known white-ground lekythos, Brussels A 1020 (AR V2 743, 1668); here the painter
shows two women musicians, the one on the left playing the aulos, while the one on the
right stands facing the viewer with her tortoise-shell lyra held in the normal playing
position, so that the player is seen in front view but the instrument is seen in side view.
The curvature of the back of the tortoise-shell soundbox is extended by the curved arms
attached at its top in such a way that the whole design looks remarkably like that of the
second type of bow mentioned above: each describes the arc of a circle. At least four other
vase paintings which depict lyre-type instruments either in side view or three-quarter
view confirm this structural feature shared in common between bow and lyre.8
If it is true that the underlying connection Heraclitus sees here is that the opposite ends

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 Bow: type pe1 Bow: type2 2-'

British Museum B 424 British Museum E 278

(AB V 168, 169) (AR r2 226)

/\

Brussels of lySderie (Lyra as usually

A 1020 ~ ~ ~ o yashown, in front view)
(AR V2 743, 1668)

of each object, while apparently tending away from each other, nevertheless partake of
the unity of a circle, how would fr. 51 fit into what else we know of his thinking? His
apparent interest here in a kind of concealed visual harmonia fits in well with his
statement in fr. 54 (DK) that O'Xp[Olntov VnS ('CPW3 VWpnS XpELTTWV; what appeals to him. is
looking beyond the obvious to see a connection that, while not immediately apparent, is
still basically visual in nature. Furthermore, there is little doubt that Heraclitus had a
specific interest in the circle as. a geometric representation of unity, as fr. 103 (DK)
reveals: tvv6v -y&p OxpXN xuii CTpas ?TETi x~XVXov Tpu9p?p6as. In other words, every point in a
circle can be thought of either as the beginning or the end of the circle, which thus
becomes the perfect symbol of the unity of opposites.
The foregoing interpretation of the harmonia of bow and lyre suggests that Heraclitus'
doctrine of the unity of opposites may have been less overlaid with the notions of conflict

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and tension than is generally supposed. Marcovich, for example, presents several frag-
ments in a group which he regards as "a logical continuation of the idea of Tension"
contained in his version of fr. 51 (reading iraXvwrovos).9 Even those who prefer the reading
TcMvXrTpo'ros seem to introduce the notion of tension into their interpretation, as for
example Kahn does in stating "The concept of harmonie as a unity composed of con-
flicting parts is thus the model for an understanding of the world ordering as a unified
whole".10 To be sure, the idea of conflict is present in some of Heraclitus' pairs of
opposites, particularly those involving the term sor6Xcos (fr. 53 DK and fr. 80 DK); but
from these we need not conclude that he regarded all opposites as unified through a
universal principle of tension.'1 Unity through agreement, not tension, seems to be the
underlying thought behind fr. 50 (DK): o'vx 4ltov, &XXa TO) X6yov &xovaavras 0o'Xoyriv
o(o6v EOTLV 'Ev iT&vra eLVXL. Those who listen to the Logos, Heraclitus implies, will come to
share the same Logos (0p&ooyetv) as the philosopher himself in their mutual realization
that ""All is one". Similarly, in fr. 51, the arc of the bow and the lyre, while apparently a
manifestation of divergence, in fact represents an underlying tendency toward union into
the same Logos (o6[oXoyi.L). A reconsideration of this enigmatic fragment suggests that
we should view the bow and the lyre not as examples of conflict and tension, but of
"back-turning", through which divergence tends towards inevitable connection, and all
comes together in an essential unity.

Ohio State University

NOTES

1 'rxXiVTpoOS: Hippol. refut. 9.9.2 (p. 241, 18 Wendland); Plut. 473 F (except cod. D) an
1026 B; rrauivTovos: Porphyr. de antro 29; Plut. 369 B (and 473 F, cod. D only). For th
and other relevant citations, see M. Marcovich, Heraclitus (Merida, Venezuela 1967)
119-29, who argues in favor of 'nxXivTovos; so also B. Snell, "Heraklits Fragment 10".
Hermes 76 (1941) 86, who finds the idea of an "umgekehrte Vereinigung" without sense.
2 Marcovich (above, n. 1) 125 concedes that Hippolytus is the best source but still prefers
the alternative reading on various grounds, including the opinion in G. S. Kirk, Hera-
clitus: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge 1954) 214 that ffnxMvTpo'rot "'cannot well
describe a &ppovviq". Similarly, G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers
(Cambridge 1963) 193 prefer 'rTiXLVTOVOS on the basis of "fully intelligible sense". For an
example of arguments to the contrary, see C. H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus
(Cambridge 1979) 195-96 and n. 256. The controversy continues on this point in Mar-
covich's review of Kahn in Gnomon 54 (1982) 428.
3 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Griechisches Lesebuch (Berlin 1902) 2.2, p. 129.
4 G. Vlastos, "On Heraclitus", AJP 76 (1955) 351 proposes the translation "framework",
but argues that it must refer to the modus operandi, "for bow and lyre do their work, send
forth arrow or sound, at just that moment when the process of stretching the string is
reversed". If, however, harmonia is to be taken as "framework", a much more readily
apparent reference is to the shape of bow and lyre, not the manner of using them (see
below). On the meanings of harmonia see P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire btymologique
(Paris 1968) s.v. ap[La; P. Bonaventura Meyer,'Aptwpia, Bedeutungsgeschichtedes Wortes
von Homer bis A ristoteles (diss. Freiburg, Zurich, 1932); and Warren D. Anderson, Ethos
and Education in Greek Music (Cambridge, Mass. 1966) 36-38 et passim.
5 G. S. Kirk, "Natural Change in Heraclitus", Mind 60 (1951) 35.

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6 See Vlastos (above, n. 4) 351; P. Wheelwright, Heraclitus (Princeton, N.J. 1959) 108;
Kirk (above, n. 2) 214 and 217.
7 For the two types, see, for example, British Mus. B424 (ABV 168, 169) and E278 (AR V2
226). A convenient diagram of the former type (probably a "composite" bow) may be
found in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings, ed., A Companion to Homer (N.Y. rpt. 1969)
519. Cf. W. E. McLeod, "An Unpublished Egyptian Composite Bow in the Brooklyn
Museum", AJA 62 (1958) 397-401.
8 See Brussels A3091 (ARV2 1144); Athens Nat. Mus. 1241; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam
Mus. 99; and Florence 81947 (AR V2 1312). This aspect of the structure of Greek lyres is
treated in detail by M. Maas, "On the Shape of the Ancient Greek Lyre", Galpin Society
Journal 27 (1974) 113-17.
9 Marcovich (above, n. 1) 130. It is worth noting that PMG 951 compares a bow to a
(p6pLL-yE `xopbos; this suggests that the two objects were seen as analogous even when the
lyre was not subject to the tension of its strings.
10 Kahn (above, n. 2) 200. See also C. J. Emlyn-Jones, "Heraclitus and the Identity of
Opposites", Phronesis 21 (1976) 109-10, who reads oracXVTposTos but speaks of the "tension
of contraries". It is true, of course, that Heraclitus refers to 'EplS, fr. 80 (DK), but "strife"
should be distinguished from "tension".
11 Heraclitus' view of the reciprocal nature of opposites is hinted at by B. Snell, "Die
Sprache Heraklits", Hermes 61 (1926) 357, who points out, for example, that T& 4vuxp&
&purm in fr. 126 (DK) should be translated not as "Das Kalte wird warm" (Diels), but as
"Das Kalte erwarmt sich".

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