Note 96 — ODES, SONGS,
Reading edition
The diapason, with musicians, is a chord including all notes. Perhaps Dryden remembered Spenser's allegorical description of the human figure and faculties:
"The frame thereof seemed partly circular, And part triangular; O, work divine! These two, the first and last, propitious are; The one imperfect, mortal feminine, The other immortal, perfect, masculine; And 'twixt them both a quadrate was the base, Proportioned equally by seven and nine; Nine was the circle set in heaven's place; All which compacted made a goodly diapase." Fairy Queen, Book II. canto ix. stanza 22.