CHELYS (Gr. x Xvs,

See also:

• TORTOISE

tortoise;

See also:

• LAT

Lat. testudo)  , the common lyre of the ancient Greeks, which had a convex back of tortoise-shell or of wood shaped like the shell . The word chelys was used in allusion to the oldest lyre of the Greeks which was said to have been invented by Hermes . According to tradition he was attracted by sounds of music while walking on the banks of the Nile, and found they proceeded from the shell of a tortoise across which were stretched tendons which the wind had set in vibration (Homeric Hymn to Hermes, 47-51) . The word has been applied arbitrarily since dassic times to various stringed instruments, some bowed and some twanged, probably owing to the back being much vaulted . Kircher (Musurgia, 486) applied the name of chelys to a kind of viol with eight strings . Numerous representations of the chelys lyre or testudo occur on the Greek vases, in which the actual tortoiseshell is depicted; a good illustration is given in Le Antichitd di Ercolano (vol. i. pl . 43) . Propertius (iv . 6) calls the instrument the lyra testudinea . Scaliger (on Manilius, Astronomicon, Proleg . 420) was probably the first writer to draw attention to the difference. between chelys and cithara (q.v.) . (K .