“Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o’er again,
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain!
In this excerpt, Timotheus’s laudatory performance succeeds in inflating the ego of Alexander the Great. Upon listening to the song, the king becomes so giddy with vainglory that he experiences an intense reminiscence of his own military victories—it is as if music takes Alexander into a kind of virtual reality simulation. The jubilant rhythm of “thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain” recalls the cadences of Greek epic poetry, and imitates the king’s heightened emotional state.
This hyperbole (that the king mentally “[f]ought his battles o’er again”) is a moment which underscores an important theme of the poem: the power of music is that it can inspire emotions, fantasies, and visions that words alone may not be able to evoke. Using music, the bard is able to manipulate the sovereign of a kingdom to commit the error of hubris.
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crown’d, but Music won the cause.
Here, the audience (“[t]he many”) at the feast react to the transition in Timotheus’s song from an elegy to Darius to the celebration of Alexander’s love with Thais. Moved by the bard’s vindication of love over war and power, the crowd responds with applause so loud that it “rend[s] the skies.”
This excerpt speaks to several important themes of the poem. First, it demonstrates once again the ability of music to psychologically influence its audience; with just a few lines of song, Timotheus is able to shift the atmosphere of the feast from melancholy and mourning back to festivity and excitement. As the speaker observes, love may have been the subject celebrated in Timotheus’s lyrics, but it is music that has truly “won the cause” in its power to impact the minds of its listeners. In addition, this excerpt illustrates the social nature of music and performance. The members of the audience seem emotionally united in their responses to the bard’s lyrics, and their applause somewhat reflects a group mentality. Music, as illustrated by this scene, is very often a shared experience. (Perhaps Alexander, too, is influenced not only by the music itself, but also by the way his people react to it?)
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down!
In these last few lines, the speaker closes his account of the performance by comparing the performer, Timotheus, to St. Cecilia, a Catholic saint celebrated as the patroness of music. The speaker argues that both Timotheus and St. Cecilia shall be remembered as extraordinary musicians, and that both used the power of music to straddle the gap between the earthly and the heavenly.
These closing lines illustrate the complex relationship that this poem constructs between the pagan and the Christian, as well as between the ancient and the contemporary. St. Cecilia, in the previous lines of this stanza, is presented as a musician more innovative than, and spiritually superior to, Timotheus, and is said to have perfected the powers of music through her divinely inspired invention of the organ. In the final lines, however, the speaker—perhaps as an afterthought— places both musicians on the same level of excellence (“Let […] both divide the crown”). The “old,” Macedonian, non-Christian Timotheus is thus put in conversation with the later, “divine,” and Catholic St. Cecilia. Is the poem embracing different beliefs and cultures, or constructing a dichotomy? Is this a poem for St. Cecilia, or one for Timotheus?
