Book XI, 352

Some one questioned the musician Androtion, skilled in what concerns the lyre, on a curious piece of instrumental lore. “When you set the highest string on the right in motion with the plectron, the lowest on the left quivers of its own accord with a slight twang, and is made to whisper reciprocally when its own highest string is struck; so that I marvel how nature made sympathetic to each other lifeless strings in a state of tension.” But he swore that Aristoxenus, with his admirable knowledge of plectra, did not know the theoretical explanation of this. “The solution,” he said, “is as follows. The strings are all made of sheep’s gut dried all together. So they are sisters and sound together as if related, sharing each other’s family voice. For they are all legitimate children, being the issue of one belly, and they inherit those reciprocal noises. Just so does the right eye, when injured, often convey its own pain to the left eye.”