(Gk.).
One of the terms for the Greek harp (see Trigōnon). This most elusive term appears early, in the 6th century bce, in circumstances that point quite definitely to its identification with the harp. Later, however, its original meaning became obscured, so much so that Athenaeus could write in the Sophists at Dinner: ‘Look now, Masurius, my friend, I as a lover of music have often considered whether what is called the magadis is a kind of aulos or kithara’. The derivation of the term gives further cause for puzzlement; it appears to come from the word magas meaning ‘bridge’, a feature that is obviously not proper to the harp. More interesting is the verb that derives from the term magadis itself – magadizein, meaning to sing in octaves. Perhaps there is a reference here to the capacity of the harp to play in octaves because of its wide tonal compass and the fact that the instrument was played simultaneously with two hands.
See also Anacreon; Alcman; and Greece, §I, 5(iii)(b).
A. Barker: ‘Che cos’era la “mágadis”?’, La musica in Grecia: Urbino 1985, 96–107
G. Comotti: ‘Un antica arpa, la magadis, in un frammento di Teleste (fr.808 P)’, Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica, new ser., xv (1989), 57–71
M. Maas and J.M. Synder: Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece (New Haven, CT, 1989), 149–51
M.L. West: Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 72–3
T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 272–5
JAMES W. McKINNON