Note 255 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
Plato never pretends that the "music of the spheres" can be heard. He adopts the theory to some extent from the Pythagoreans. Aristotle (de Coelo, ii. 9), that the noise caused by the movements of the heavenly bodies is so prodigious and continuous, that, being accustomed to it from our birth, we do not notice it. The only notice in Plato that can be construed into a statement about audible music of the spheres is in Rep. x., where he speaks of a siren standing upon each of the circles of the planetary system uttering one note in one tone; and from all the eight notes there results a single harmony (F. W. S.).