Merry Company on a Terrace, by Jan Steen, c. 1670. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1958.

Music

Volume X, Number 4 | fall 2017

Miscellany

Beware a comet “if it resembles a flute,” Pliny the Elder warned; “it portends something unfavorable related to music.” The Roman author did not offer further particulars.

I would delight in music, but the music is discordant.

—Xie Lingyun, c. 425