Leonardo is in fact a virtuoso of the lyre, a sort of early viola.

In fact, Nero often played a type of lyre called a cithara.

Stories and works of art tell us that the African god Àyàn was a drummer; the Greek god Apollo played the lyre, a string instrument.

But Orpheus, traveling with a group of Argonauts, helped them safely sail past the sirens by loudly playing his lyre and singing.

The hills of Olympus have never been more than a few strums of the lyre away from the stages of the theater, but lately the mist of mythology has seemed particularly thick.