When does the sun die in Arizona?
January 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I can’t get “Lament for Pasiphaë” out of my head, mostly because the sun won’t stop shining here. I fell in love with Lauridsen’s composition of Graves’ Midwinter Songs circa 2006 with my college choir, and usually get a hankering for them around this time of year (how hard the year dies…). Living in this movement in particular, I can’t help but feel like this is the most lovin’ Pasiphaë’s ever gotten, what with her condemning womanly lust. The tender line tempted her pity is matched by the most caring of musical dedications. After accidentally reading about some random, traveling a-hole’s slutscapade, I feel really happy about there being beautiful men in the world who can create such body-shaking sadness/sympathy for Pasiphaë… Then she who shone for all resigned her being– kersplat, my heart.
Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!
My eye, dazzled with tears, shall dazzle yours,
Conjuring you to shine and not to move.
You, sun, and I all afternoon have laboured
Beneath a dewless and oppressive cloud–
a fleece now gilded with our common grief
That this must be a night without a moon.
Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!Faithless she was not: she was very woman,
Smiling with dire impartiality,
Sovereign, with heart unmatched, adored of men,
Until Spring’s cuckoo with bedraggled plumes
Tempted her pity and her truth betrayed.
Then she who shone for all resigned her being,
And this must be a night without a moon.
Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!–”Lament for Pasiphaë,” Robert Graves
Also, weird: a high school does an excellent rendition (worth staring at the accompanying photos of high school yearbookdom).
