| Juliet. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. |
| Romeo. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering-sweet to be substantial. ~ Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2 |
THE sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits;—on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch'd sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Above is the medieval statue of Our Lady at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was before this statue that Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, fell to her knees during the Te Deum which celebrated the restoration of the surviving members of the royal family to France in May of 1814. As described in the novel Madame Royale, the long-exiled princess found a few moments of peace and consolation at the feet of the Virgin Mother. What should have been an hour of triumph became mingled with agony, as the sight of Paris after twenty-two years reminded Marie-Thérèse of all the her family had endured during the Revolution, especially her little brother, driven out of his mind by his torturers. She did not even know at the time where her parents were buried. The acclaim of the crowd only brought to mind the insults of the mob which had filled her adolescent ears and henceforth frozen her mannerisms into a haughty stiffness. The people wondered why the princess in white did not smile. But in the house of God, there was peace.
Here is what the Notre Dame website says about the statue:
The 14th century statue of the Virgin and child is situated at the south-east pillar of the transept. This statue comes from the St Aignan chapel which is within the enclosure of the Canons (in the present Rue des Ursins).
Always surrounded with flowers, this elegant and life-like statue, known under the title of Our Lady of Paris, welcomes the faithful who pray in this atmosphere of peace and calm.
It was near to this statue that the poet Paul Claudel was converted during Vespers on Christmas day 1886.
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Tosca was the first Puccini opera with which I fell in love; as a junior in college I would listen to it everyday after classes. The score explores a vast array of human emotions although the story line is deceptively simple. It is about how two young lovers, Mario and Tosca, are destroyed by the lust and cunning of the ultramontane Baron Scarpia. The underlying theme of the opera can be summed up by the old sacristan, who mutters, while the artist Mario is singing about his love for Tosca in church, "Do not mix the sacred with the profane."
All the characters seem to mix the sacred with the profane in varying degrees. Act I unfolds entirely in a church where jealousy, passion, anger, vengeance and lust all come into play, culminating in the magnificent Te Deum scene. Then, while the praise of God is sung, the evil Scarpia fantasizes about Tosca, exclaiming, "Tosca, you make me forget God!" His profane musings border on blasphemy; he is an example of how lust and cruelty so often go hand-in-hand.
Scarpia is a villain among villains, for there is no villain worse than an ostentatiously pious one. In Act II he tortures Mario in order to get Tosca to sleep with him; Tosca, driven to the edge of reason by Mario's cries, agrees. But when Scarpia tries to embrace her, she stabs him, crying: "This is Tosca's kiss!" Yet she does not flee all at once, but pauses to place candles around the body with a crucifix, as if at a wake. The funereal aspect combined with the frantic, broken mind of the heroine makes it one of the most powerful scenes in any opera.
Act III occurs on the top of the Castel Sant'Angelo amid the rising dawn. But the gleam of hope quickly turns to tragedy, as Scarpia betrays the lovers from beyond the grave. Mario is killed and Tosca, chased by the Scarpia's minion's, leaps over the side of the tower, exclaiming; "Scarpia, we will meet before God!"
Tosca debuted in 1900 but the action is set in 1800, during the Napoleonic wars. Puccini wanted everything as historically accurate as possible. As one article says:
Puccini looked at even the smallest details in order to achieve a near perfect correspondence between stage action and historic reality. For Bohème he needed to set his subject in the past because he wanted realism. Tosca, with its escapes, tortures and executions, needed an exact definition of the historical time in order to concentrate attention on the personal dramas of the characters. The surrounding events have no degree of freedom.
We have seen that every reference to historic figures, places and events such as General Mélas and the Battle of Marengo is exact. That was not enough. Puccini researched the liturgical practices at Rome for the Te Deum of the first finale. The morning bells of Act 3 required a list of all the churches surrounding Castel Sant'Angelo and their bells, including the respective pitches.
The search for accuracy continued during the preparation of the premiere. Puccini insisted that the costume designs (particularly the sacred vestments) be based on research of historical documentation. The designs for the scenes were made by Adolfo Hohenstein, the leading artist at the publishing house of Ricordi (he designed the scenery for all important premieres of Ricordi's scores in the period from Falstaff to Madama Butterfly). The drawings (see pictures page) were made from photos of the actual settings provided by Puccini. The authors' attention to realistic detail requires a similar attitude in the staging of Tosca. Even minor license (like having the Cardinal conduct the service from the painter's scaffolding) is simply unacceptable.
Puccini's melodies are woven to create an intense psychological tapestry, in which the characters struggle with their consciences and with each other. The harsh manipulations of Scarpia, the agent of a supposedly conservative and Christian government, make people such as Mario turn to revolutionary dictators like Napoleon, who promise liberty and freedom. How history repeats itself over and over again. Share
The Pentecost novena begins today, even for those who did not get to celebrate the Ascension yesterday. Scott Richert provides the prayers here. The Golden Sequence makes a superb novena prayer as well.
Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit,Share
et emitte caelitus send forth the heavenly
lucis tuae radium. radiance of your light.
Veni, pater pauperum, Come, father of the poor,
veni, dator munerum come giver of gifts,
veni, lumen cordium. come, light of the heart.
Consolator optime, Greatest comforter,
dulcis hospes animae, sweet guest of the soul,
dulce refrigerium. sweet consolation.
In labore requies, In labor, rest,
in aestu temperies in heat, temperance,
in fletu solatium. in tears, solace.
O lux beatissima, O most blessed light,
reple cordis intima fill the inmost heart
tuorum fidelium. of your faithful.
Sine tuo numine, Without your divine will,
nihil est in homine, there is nothing in man,
nihil est innoxium. nothing is harmless.
Lava quod est sordidum, Wash that which is unclean,
riga quod est aridum, water that which is dry,
sana quod est saucium. heal that which is wounded.
Flecte quod est rigidum, Bend that which is inflexible,
fove quod est frigidum, warm that which is chilled,
rege quod est devium. make right that which is wrong.
Da tuis fidelibus, Give to your faithful,
in te confidentibus, who rely on you,
sacrum septenarium. the sevenfold gifts.
Da virtutis meritum, Give reward to virtue,
da salutis exitum, give salvation at our passing on,
da perenne gaudium, give eternal joy.
Amen, Alleluia. Amen, Alleluia.
The haunting poem by John Keats about "the beautiful lady without pity" figured prominently in J.R. Salamanca's Lilith, a novel about a man obsessed with a mentally-ill woman. It hearkens back to the old Celtic fairy lore which gave rise to many medieval myths, especially in Arthurian legend. It can also be seen as an allegory of seduction and the fall from virtue. The seducer, be it man or woman, has no regard for the soul or the ultimate well-being of the other person.
I. O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, | |
| Alone and palely loitering? | |
| The sedge has wither’d from the lake, | |
| And no birds sing. | |
II. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! | 5 |
| So haggard and so woe-begone? | |
| The squirrel’s granary is full, | |
| And the harvest’s done. | |
III. I see a lily on thy brow | |
| With anguish moist and fever dew, | 10 |
| And on thy cheeks a fading rose | |
| Fast withereth too. | |
IV. I met a lady in the meads, | |
| Full beautiful—a faery’s child, | |
| Her hair was long, her foot was light, | 15 |
| And her eyes were wild. | |
V. I made a garland for her head, | |
| And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; | |
| She look’d at me as she did love, | |
| And made sweet moan. | 20 |
VI. I set her on my pacing steed, | |
| And nothing else saw all day long, | |
| For sidelong would she bend, and sing | |
| A faery’s song. | |
VII. She found me roots of relish sweet, | 25 |
| And honey wild, and manna dew, | |
| And sure in language strange she said— | |
| “I love thee true.” | |
VIII. She took me to her elfin grot, | |
| And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, | 30 |
| And there I shut her wild wild eyes | |
| With kisses four. | |
IX. And there she lulled me asleep, | |
| And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide! | |
| The latest dream I ever dream’d | 35 |
| On the cold hill’s side. | |
X. I saw pale kings and princes too, | |
| Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; | |
| They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci | |
| Hath thee in thrall!” | 40 |
XI. I saw their starved lips in the gloam, | |
| With horrid warning gaped wide, | |
| And I awoke and found me here, | |
| On the cold hill’s side. | |
XII. And this is why I sojourn here, | 45 |
| Alone and palely loitering, | |
| Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, | |
| And no birds sing. | |
It is a great comfort on our spiritual way, which is often fatiguing and bristling with difficulties, to meet the gentle presence of a mother. One is so at ease near one's mother. With her, everything becomes easier; the weary, the discouraged heart, disturbed by storms, finds new hope and strength, and continues the journey with fresh courage.
