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In the first edition, "dei codici chigiano e Riccardiano," the next scene introduces Orpheus, who sings a song with Latin text beginning thus: "O meos longum modulata lusus Quos amor primam docuit juventam, Flecte nunc mecum numeros novumque Dic, lyra, carmen."
Beginning with this it seems to me that we may content ourselves with inquiring into the musical character of those parts which were without doubt lyrically treated in the performance. In the early version of the poem we have a stage direction which shows that the Latin text beginning "O meos longum modulata" was sung by Orpheus.
We may now reconstruct for ourselves the classic scene with Orpheus "singing on the hill to his lyre" the verses "O meos longum modulata lusus." The music was the half melancholy, half passionate melody of some wandering Italian frottola which readily fitted itself to the sonorous Sapphics.
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