In the Iliad, the kithara is not a cithara: it is still a bow. And the musician is still Night, that is, nocturnal panic hearing. It is the opening, the first book, verse 43: “Apollo came down from the summits of Olympus. On his shoulder were the silver bow and his tightly closed quiver. Each step he took in his heart’s fury, the arrows resounded on his back. He strode, like the Night (Nukti eoikōs). Apollo positioned himself away from the ships. He shot an arrow. The silver bow emitted a terrifying bark (deinè klaggè ). First he hit the mules, then the dogs that run so fast. Finally he pierced the warriors. The funeral pyres burned without end. For nine days the arrows of the God rained down on the army.”

At the other end of the work, at the end of the Odyssey, Ulysses solemnly enters the palace hall. He draws his bow. He prepares to shoot his first arrow, signaling the massacre of the suitors, another sacrifice once more assisted by Apollo the Archer. Book XXII: “Just as a man knowledgeable in the art of the lyre and of singing, having attached to the ends of his instrument a string made of flexible and acoustic entrails, easily tightens it by turning a peg and tunes it, Ulysses, all of a sudden, effortlessly arched his formidable bow. To test the string he opens his right hand. When released, the string sang beautifully (kalon aeise), with a voice (audèn) like a swallow.”
Once again the lyre comes first. The bow comes second. Ulysses’ bow is like a kithara. The archer is like a citharede. The vibration of the bowstring sings a song of death. If Apollo is the quintessential archer, his bow is musical.

The bow is death from afar: inexplicable death. More precisely: death as invisible as voice. Vocal cords, lyre string, bowstring are a single string: entrails or nerves of a dead animal that emit the invisible sound that kills from afar. The bowstring is the first song: the song which Homer says is “like the voice of a swallow.” Strings of stringed instruments are strings-of-the-death-lyre.

Pascal Quignard, "The Hatred of Music" (1996)