An English plucked chordophone of the early 17th century. John Playford attributed its invention to Daniel Farrant and described it as ‘An Excellent Instrument … not much unlike a Lute, but strung with wire’, which might be thought to apply to the Orpharion more than to the poliphant. Talbot (c1690) mentioned its wire strings and scalloped shape. It seems to have been an attempt at a diatonically tuned hybrid of all the wire-strung instruments (including the harp), with short treble strings played across a lute- or bandora-shaped body, fingered strings over a fingerboard, and long bass diapasons like those of a theorbo. A 17th-century sketch by Randle Holme (Academy of Armory, GB-Lbl Harl.2034; see illustration) is accompanied by the following description:
A poliphant of some called poliphon, It is an hollow yet flat kind of instrument, containing three dozen & 5 wier strings to be played upon. On the right side the neck are 3 pins, on the left side above 9 pins, & at the bending or corner in the middle of the neck 9 pins, & below the neck on the top of the body are 8 pins fixed, as the figure it selfe will give yu the best description of it. There is on the body a crooked Bridge & 3 small round holes.
It will be noticed that the number of ‘pins’ or pegs does not match Holme’s ‘three dozen & 5’ strings, unless ‘above 9’ means ‘more than nine’ rather than showing their position. Talbot’s measurements indicate 37 strings, some of which were ‘touched with Thumb of left hand’ (see Gill, 1962). Sir Francis Prujeane wrote in 1655 of one with ‘above forty single strings’. John Evelyn’s description of the poliphant in his diary for 14 August 1661 shows that by then it was considered very rare: ‘the Polyphone, an instrument having something of the Harp, Lute, Theorbo &c; it was a sweete Instrument, by none known in England, or described by any Author’.
J. Playford: Musick’s Recreation (London, 1652, 4/1682)
M. Tilmouth: ‘Some Improvements in Music Noted by William Turner in 1697’, GSJ, x (1957), 57–9
D. Gill: ‘The Orpharion and Bandora’, GSJ, xiii (1960), 14–25
D. Gill: ‘James Talbot’s Manuscript, v: Plucked Strings – the Wire-Strung Fretted Instruments and the Guitar’, GSJ, xv (1962), 60–69
D. Gill: Wire-Strung Plucked Instruments Contemporary with the Lute, Lute Society Booklets, iii (London, 1977)
IAN HARWOOD