In Virgil's Aeneid, Book IX, John Dryden (1631-1700)
uses "sound the flute" to announce the call to an epic battle. Dryden writes,
"Eunuchs in the Mother's rites / (Where with unequal sound the flute invites)."
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, second
edition, a flute is a musical wind instrument, consisting of a hollow cylinder
or pipe, with holes along its length, stopped by the fingers, or by keys
which are opened by the fingers. The flute of the ancients, whether single
or double, was blown through a mouthpiece at the end. About the middle
of the 18th century, this was entirely superseded by the transverse or
German flute, which is blown through an orifice at the side near the upper
end.
In architecture, a flute is a channel or furrow
in a pillar, resembling the half of a flute split longitudinally, with
the concave side outwards.
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