Musical notation, written-down notes and tunes, was developed even before parchment or paper. The world's oldest known musical score, Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, discovered in the 1950s on a clay tablet inscribed with Cuneiform text. You knew who he was without even knowing who he was. "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." Two in one play! Positively Shakespearian. Later in the same play he offered up another gem with enduring luster. You may never have heard of William Congreve, but he was no fluke. Acting as a soporific for a creature's dyspeptic excesses is only one of them and probably not even the most magical.Īnd second, he wasn't talking about animals.Ī writer of his pedigree deserves more punctilious treatment by posterity.
He wasn't just trying to say music is a good sedative, he was saying music has multifarious, almost magical charms.
What has come down to us today from that elegant phrasing, literally more often than not, is "Music has charms to soothe the savage beast." And this is a not just a casual disservice.įirst, truncating the line loses the full scope of its meaning, vastly constricting the broad arc of the author's intent.
In his play The Mourning Bride he makes a broad characterization of the power of music over the human condition: Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak. In 1697 the British poet and playwright William Congreve penned what would become the most misquoted famous line in the history of English literature.