ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the significance of Arion to the Renaissance London’s Lord Mayor’s Shows. Along with Apollo and Orpheus, the figure of Arion supported the tradition linking England to its fictional predecessor of classical Rome, and served to remind the incoming Lord Mayor of the powerful effects of sociopolitical ‘harmony’. Arion appeared – holding a harp and riding a dolphin – along with four other harpers in the 1561 Lord Mayor’s Show, in Anthony Munday’s 1616 Chrysanaleia: The Golden Fishing, and as the featured performer in Thomas Heywood’s 1632 Londini Artium & Scientiarum Scaturigo. Performances of ‘Arion’ relied on the harp as a Renaissance approximation of the kithara played by the mythical Arion. While Apollo was more frequently depicted playing the lute, as in Thomas Dekker’s 1629Londons Tempe, the lute eventually becomes the instrument of choice for Arion as well. The harp, which sounded a tonality and signified a Greco-Roman past, was replaced by the lute as an instrument that was popular in recent English culture. Although perhaps subtle, especially to modern ears, this shift in instrumentation reflects an awareness of London civic identity as constructed through sound, especially when Londoners heard these performances on a recognisably English instrument in civic celebration.
