SISTRUM, an Instrument of Musick, heretofore very common among the Egyptians.
Auson. Ep. 25Isiacos agitant mareotica Sistra tumultus.
They say Isis invented this Instrument, and her Priests generally us’d it in her Ceremonies.
Ovid. de Ponte.Jactantem Pharia tinnula Sistra manu.
The Sistrum was of an oval Figure, or a dilated Semicircle, in the Shape of a Shoulder -belt, with brass Wires a-cross, which play’d in Holes wherein they were stopp’d by their flat Heads. They play’d on it by shaking the Sistrum in Cadence, and thereby the brass Wires, which made a shrill and loud Noise. This is the Description1 that Apulius gives of it: Dextrá quidem Apul. Metamorph. l. xi.gerebat aureum crepitaculum, cujus per angustam laminam, in modum balthei recurvatam, trajectæ mediæ paucæ virgulæ, crispante brachio trigeminos jactus, reddebant argutum sonum.
The Word Sistrum is found in two Passages of Scripture, 1 Sam. xviii. 6. The Women of Israel came to meet Saul, in tympanis lætitiæ, & in Sistris. a And 2 Sam. vi. 5. They brought the Ark of the Lord with the Sound of all Sorts of musical Instruments: Tympanis & Sistris, b & Cymbalis. I do not observe that the Septuagint have made use of this Term. The modern Interpreters think, that Zalzelim signifies a Sistrum; but the Seventy generally translate it by Cymbalon, a Cymbal. Isaiah has evidently described the Sistrum, Chap. xviii. 1. Væ terræ Cymbalo alarum, quæ est trans flumina Æthiopiæ.2 The Hebrew reads,3 Zalzel cenapei, or the winged Zalzel; which agrees very well with our Description of the Sistrum, in which the Rods or Wires are as Wings. The first Instrument that St. Jerome has translated by Sistrum is call’d in Hebrew, Salisim, or Shalishim, which may signify an Instrument with three Strings, or a triangular Instrument. The second is Mananim, or Minnim, which many understand of a string’d Instrument.
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