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And this is what I have got to say to you about the hydraulic organ, O Ulpian. For the Phoenicians used a kind of flute called the gingras, according to the account of Xenophon, about a span in length, and of a very shrill and mournful tone. And the same instrument is used also by the Carians in their wailings, unless, indeed, when he says Phœnicia he means Caria; and indeed you may find the name used so in Corinna and in Bacchylides. And these flutes are called gingri by the Phœnicians from the lamentations for Adonis; for you Phoenicians called Adonis Gingres, as Democlides tells us. And Antiphanes mentions the gingri flutes, in his Physician; and Menander does so too, in his Carina; and Amphis, in his Dithyrambus, saying—
A. And I have got that admirable gingras.
B. What is the gingras.
A. 'Tis a new invention
Of our countryman, which never yet
Has been exhibited in any theatre,
But is a luxury of Athenian banquets.
B. Why then not introduce it to this people?
A. Because I think that I shall draw by lot
Some most ambitious tribe; for well I know
They would disturb all things with their applause.
[p. 280] And Axionicus says, in his Phileuripides—
For they are both so sick with love
Of the melodious strains of soft Euripides,
That every other music seems to them
Shrill as the gingras, and a mere misfortune.

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