1 Metaphorically. The “many-toned instrumentation of the flutes,” as Pindar calls it, Ol. vii. 12, can vie with the most complex and many-stringed lyre of musical innovation.
2 Cf. 404 D, the only other occurrence of the word in Plato.
3 Cf. my note on Timaeus 47 C, in A.J.P. vol. x. p. 61.
4 Ancient critics noted this sentence as an adaptation of sound to sense. Cf. Demetr.Περὶ ἑρμ185. The sigmas and iotas may be fancied to suggest the whistling notes of the syrinx. So Lucretius v. 1385 “tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum.” Cf. on Catullus 61. 13 “voce carmina tinnula.”
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