On the Mystic Letters

[sdi]

Ring out ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears
 (If ye have power to touch our senses so)
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
 And let the bass of Heav'n's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th'angelic symphony.
 — John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Have been reflecting on this somewhat, though not in the musical sense (will likely broach that area soon enough, though I'm no musician). The hierarchy detailed here dovetails with Dante's schema, which makes sense, but, as I've noted elsewhere, also with certain Gentile interpretations of the Cabala (not including Pico della Mirandola, who uses different correspondences). The numerical correspondences (Jupiter=4, Sun=6, et al.) also very helpfully correspond with the number correspondences noted by Papus.

1,2,3
4,5,6
7,8,9
10, 11, 12...

With 4 (Jupiter), 7 (Venus), and 10 (Terra) being in line with 1 (the Primum Mobile, or the first manifestation of The One...)

[sdi]

Somewhere it is said that human life is the music of the Gods,—that its sobs and laughter, its songs and shrieks and orisons, its outcries of delight and of despair, rise never to the hearing of the Immortals but as a perfect harmony... Wherefore they could not desire to hush the tones of pain: it would spoil their music! The combination, without the agony-tones, would prove a discord unendurable to ears divine.

(Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan)