2024-03-03 21:29 The Pythagorean Acoustic: Geometry & Music of Sirens

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The Pythagorean Acoustic:

Geometry & Music of
Sirens
The music of Sirens, the harmony of spheres, Plato’s dodecahedron, and
not only. The important role accorded to sacred geometric music in the
Pythagorean school.

Siren Boeotian black-figure dish 570–560

BC
“In the beginning, you will come where the sirens are, who fascinate anyone who
touches with his bow their shores” (Homer. Odyssey XII, 52-54). The Odyssey
is a poem on the back home, very likely of a soul. Arturo Reghini’s “I
Numeri Sacri nella Tradizione Pitagorica Massonica” or “ Sacred Numbers
in Traditional Pythagorean Masonry” was posthumously and published in

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Roma in 1947. Fourth Chapter: “… the golden part, the division of the
circumference into ten and five equal parts, to pentalpha, to the
dodecahedron, and the harmonic median of the extreme segments of the
two Tetractys formed with the elements of these two figures. We have seen
that the catechism of Acousmatic places in the sanctuary of Delphi “the
Tetractys wherein is the harmony in which Sirens are… “
Sirens, from Greek Σειρήν Seirḗ n – pl.: Σειρῆνες Seirênes, were originally
birds from religious characters featured by a seductive lure. Homer
presents them as enchanting marine singers dwelling by Scylla and
Charybdis. Legend has it that the mariners who surrendered to their
charms and landed on the island then were dying.
Only Ulysses, warned by Circe, manages to escape having his companions
plugged ears and him tied to the mast of the ship. Homer doesn’t describe
them, perhaps thinking it had been made known by other myths, for
instance, in Jason’s adventures and Argonauts, in which the sirens had the
task of consoling the souls of the dead with their sweet songs and
accompanying them in Hades.

Ulysses and the Sirens 1891 John William Waterhouse

But already, during the reign of Demetrius III Eucaerus (Seleucid kingdom
first century b. C), we can find the first representation of fish-shaped
Atargatis. This religious character will be later confused with that of the
sirens. Only during the High Middle Ages did the ancient latin and Greek
bird siren become the English mermaid or watery virgin. In the late
Middle Ages, the myth of sirens mingled with that of Melusine and was
used to decorate churches and monasteries’ capitals.

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Demetrius III Eucaerus coin veiled fish Atargatis with barley and
flowers.
According to the Alchemic symbolism, the physical water and air belong
to the element water, or that which flows. So it is very easy to take music,
as we are used to knowing it, as the element water too. Now let’s read from
Arturo Reghini:
To fully understand how important and meaningful should be for the
Pythagoreans what we found about the dodecahedron, one should
remember that for them and Plato, the dodecahedron was the symbol of
the universe and that the five regular polyhedra, namely the cosmic
figures, were the symbol of the four elements and universe. If we want to
see why, there is only to read Plato’s Timaeus, the Pythagorean dialogue
par excellence.
The regular tetrahedron, with its four triangular faces, four vertexes, and
six edges, was the symbol of fire: and it may be that this correspondence
has been determined by the shape of the solid whose vertex recalls the tip
of the flame and has been confirmed by the erroneous etymology of the
word “pyramid” used by the Greeks, instead of the tetrahedron, from the
greek κυρ Fire (the right translation is Sun). Each face is divided by the
three diameters of the circumscribed circumference leads to the vertexes
of the face into six triangles rectangles equal to each other, and,
considering the tetrahedron, which has for vertex the common center of
the regular tetrahedron. For the basis of the 24 equal triangles in which the
surface is divided, the tetrahedron consists of 24 equivalent tetrahedra. In
this way, the octahedron has eight faces that are equilateral triangles, six
vertexes, and 12 edges, so the surface of the octahedron is divided into 48
equal triangles, and correspondingly the polyhedron consists of 48
equivalent tetrahedra. Similarly, the icosahedron comprises twenty faces
that are equilateral triangles, twelve vertexes, and thirty edges; its surface
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is divided into 120 equal right triangles. The icosahedron consists of 120
tetrahedra which, as a basis, has as a common vertex the center of the
polyhedron. Each regular polyhedron has a polar polyhedron for which
the numbers of faces and vertexes are exchanged while the number of
edges remains unchanged.
The tetrahedron is self-polar; the octahedron’s polar polyhedron is a cube
with six square faces, eight vertexes, and 12 edges. Philolaus saw the
image of harmony in the cube because the number of its vertexes is the
harmonic median of the numbers of the faces and edges, which of course,
is also true of the octahedron. Each face of the cube is divided by the
diameter of the circumscribed circumference passing through the
vertexes in four equal isosceles triangles, so the surface of the cube is
divided into 24 equal triangles, and the cube, or hexahedron, consists of 24
tetrahedra whose vertex is equivalent to the center of the cube. After
having attributed to each of these four polyhedra the correspondence with
the element fire, air, water, and earth, Plato silences Timaeus, who only
says: “So it remains to us still a form of composition which is the fifth of
what it has helped God for the design of the universe”. We observe that
Plato and the Pythagoreans knew that the regular polyhedra are five and
five only, as it is demonstrated simply, and we see that also through this
way of the cosmic figures, one comes to the number five.
As for the sudden and unexpected silence of Plato that truncates the
exposure of the subject, it also gives the eye to Robin (5), which simply
says: “Au sujet du cinquième Polyedre Regulier, the dodécaedre … Platon est très
mysterieux, when arrived to the fifth regular polyhedron, the
dodecahedron… Plato is very mysterious”. But he does not investigate the
reasons for Plato’s sudden silence.
Now the dodecahedron is the polar polyhedron of
the icosahedron and thus has twelve faces that are
regular pentagons, twenty vertexes, and thirty
edges. Applying to it the previous subdivision
procedure is that the diameters of the
circumference circumscribed to a face, passing
through the vertexes, divide it into ten equal right
triangles.
Still, if in the face is inscribed the pentalpha, the pentagon is divided by
the sides of pentalpha and by the diameters passing through the vertex of
the pentalpha in thirty right triangles, which this time are neither
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isosceles, nor the beautiful right triangles dear to Timaeus (that’s to say
with the double hypotenuse of minor cathetus ), nor are they all the same
or equivalents. On the other hand, the surface of the dodecahedron is
divided into 360 triangles. Correspondingly, the dodecahedron
decomposes into 360 tetrahedra which have then as a basis and have as
vertex the polyhedron’s center. Now 360 is the number of divisions of the
twelve zodiac signs and the number of days of the Egyptian year.
This thing is fully confirmed by what two ancient writers say. Alcinous (1)
after explaining the nature of the first four polyhedra, says that the fifth
has twelve faces as the zodiac has twelve signs. And adds that each face is
composed of five triangles (with the center of the face for the common
vertex) each of which is composed of the other six (determined by the
diameter and by two sides of pentalpha). A total of 360 triangles. Plutarch,
in turn (2), has found that each of the twelve pentagonal faces of the
dodecahedron consists of thirty right scalene triangles, adds that this
shows that the dodecahedron represents both the zodiac and year because
it is divided in the same number of shares of them. Plutarch alludes
manifestly to the Egyptian year, composed of 12 months, each of thirty
days, in which the five epagomenal days are not part of the Egyptian year.
To well understand the importance of Pythagoreans and Plato of these
mathematical observations, it should be noted: 1 – that for them, the
triangle is the atom (that’s to say, the last indivisible part) superficial
because it is the polygon with the number of sides necessary and enough
to delimit a plane portion, and that correspondingly the tetrahedron, or
pyramid, is the solid atom because it is the polyhedron having the
necessary number of faces and sufficient to delimit a portion of space. 2 ° -
That, because of the exact definition of polygonal number, each polygonal
number is always the sum of triangular, and for the definition of
pyramidal number each pyramidal number is the sum of tetrahedral
numbers. So we came to see that even the five cosmic figures, and in
particular the symbol of the universe, were composed of tetrahedra; the
entire universe was reduced to a sum of tetrahedral atoms.
The number twelve is the number of the faces of the dodecahedron and,
consequently, is the number of the vertexes of the polar polyhedron, that’s
to say, the icosahedron. Twelve is also the number of the cube’s edges and
the polar polyhedron, the octahedron. Let’s consider the number twelve as
consisting of the twelve vertexes of a dodecahedron. We develop this
dodecahedral number within one of the angles by taking the vertex as the
center of “omotetia” is obtained in the usual Pythagorean way the
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following dodecahedral numbers. The formulas of the regular polyhedral

numbers (except for the tetrahedral number) were determined for the first
time by Descartes, and are found in a manuscript of his that remained
unpublished for over a century; in particular, the n ° dodecahedral
number is given by the formula

but the dodecahedral n° can even be obtained through a relationship

between the n ° pentagonal number and its gnomon. The pentagonal
gnomons are the numbers of arithmetic series 1, 4, 7. 10 … so we have:
pentagonal gnomons

pentagonal numbers

and it happens that adding to a pentagonal is a gnomon, you get the

pentagonal following, and multiplying a pentagonal for the following
gnomon one gets the corresponding dodecahedron number. Thus the
sequence of dodecahedral numbers is :
dodecahedral
1 20 84 220 816… ;
relationship between pentagons and dodecahedra which arithmetically
corresponds to the relationship between the number of sides of the
pentagonal faces and the number of the faces of the dodecahedron. Even
in the extension of the tetrachord to the eighth, we have seen a connection
between five and twelve. Likewise, the Egyptian triangle of hypotenuse 5
has a perimeter given by 12. The number twelve on his own has
traditionally already been sacred and universal. In addition to being the
number of the months and signs of the zodiac, twelve was in Greece,
Etruria, and Rome the number of the allowed gods, twelve was the
number of members of some priestly colleges in archaic Rome, twelve was
the number of Etruscan and Roman rods beam, and many surviving Celtic
dodecahedra attest the importance that the ancient gave to this number
and the dodecahedron. Facts and reasons confirm the dodecahedron’s
choice as a symbol of the universe.
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Pages: 1 2

Posted in Alchemy & Acoustic-Musicology

by Iulia Millesima

Tags:
Ars Musicae, Pythagorean Acoustics, Pythagorean Tetraktys, Reghini Arturo,
Sound

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