In this chapter I will analyse the musical symbolism applied to the state in seventeenth-century Spanish politics. The intellectual scene in Spain was heavily influenced by the ideology of the Counter-Reformation; the order of society could be found in the whole of the Creation and was given by God Himself, but the active role of the monarch, his characterization as a ‘maker of harmony’ or perfect musician resided in the means for achieving and maintaining such order, despite the instability of the times and the mutability of earthly affairs. This explains why royal iconography in Spain had recourse to Greek and Roman gods associated with the birth of music to symbolically portray the harmonious rule of the Peninsular Habsburgs. The study of the musical metaphors of the polity in that country gives a valuable insight into the contemporary debate over the relative merits of absolutist and contractual or ‘reason of state’ monarchy in the face of new historical challenges like the administration of America, or changes in the power relations with some territories, such as Portugal or the Low Countries. In this discourse, the strings of the zither or lyre are associated with the kingdom's institutions or social groups, and the actual melody, caused by many different sounds, becomes an allegory of the play of power among them. In addition, in the political approach that defends a contractual view of the monarchy, the strings of these instruments come to signify the laws of the realm, their musical proportions divinely ordered to conform to those of the universe, which the ruler is not entitled to change unless they ‘split’ or become dissonant with use.