Limited release of Burnt Offerings in physical form.
"Burnt Offerings" is a collection of original songs written in Latin and Ancient Greek (5th c. Attic). Partly inspired by "Heroides" of Ovid, each song is sung from the perspective of a woman or goddess from Classical mythology. The themes are centered on women's voices expressing their pain, anger, and desire for justice or wrathful retribution. The careful balance between vengeance and justice is a theme explored heavily in the Oresteia of Aeschylus which serves as another influence to "Burnt Offerings".
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Flores Lecti (Picked Flowers)
This song is essentially the Persephone myth as told from the exact moment from when she is taken by Hades himself. The concern in this interpretation is twofold: on one hand, it sees Persephone as the ultimate Kore by which she is to forever remain virginal and in maidenhood, a “bride of death”, as one who was taken before the apex of youth, beauty, and innocence was itself marred from entering the sphere of marriage, adulthood, and inevitably old age. On the other hand, I have always felt that the Persephone/Hades dynamic or “the Rape of Prosperina” functions also as a kind of caution against vanity. Time ravishes beauty, and death being an instrument of time ultimately causes wither and decay. The metaphor of picking flowers occurs throughout the song, which is indebted to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, in which she is doing just that when she is abducted. She is picking flowers, including a mentioned Narcissus, as she herself is a flower being picked. I used the verb legere meaning to read but can also mean to gather (or pick in the context of flowers) deliberately for its multiplicity. There is a meta-reference to the story as a literary work. I also wanted to keep a certain level of sexual, reproductive, and even violent language with the obvious being rapere. I think it is important to note that sex and sexuality are absent from the entire incident. If the gods are anthropomorphic personifications of what they represent in nature, Hades/Death and Persephone/Life, youth, innocence is the metaphor of that forever-maiden who dies too young and therefore there is no sexual awakening, no childbirth, which is absent too from the Persephone/Hades relationship. She is without children of her own and there is arguably no sexual relationship between the two deities. We call it the "Rape of Persephone" but if it is to be seen as a metaphor then the rape itself is a metaphor for the violation of youth being taken before its time and/or perhaps time ravishing beauty/innocence. Therefore I refer to Hades as a "son of Time"; I am using a possibly mistaken conflation of Time/Saturn the Titan, one of whose children is Hades/Pluto. I drew this from Chaucer’s characterization in the Knight’s Tale where old grandfather Time Saturn uses Hades as a tool to slay the young Arcite in the climactic tourney scene of the poem. For the purposes of the song, I think the Chaucerian "mistake" works.
Main sources: Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Metamorphoses of Ovid. “The Knight’s Tale” from Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.
lyrics
(Latin):
I
Filiola fui, in forma
Decorissima, et
Saltatione innocens,
Et ita, legens flores
Narcissumque aetatula,
Unde ego observata
Tacitorum domino
Recepte multum
Rege pallido
Qui accipit multum
Ego legebar
CHORUS
Nuptula mortis fiebam
Quae aeturnum virgo
II
Tutela arborium,
Sub protegente umbra,
Sedi et, ludi et, latui me,
Procul sole durante
Rapiebar ut tenebra
Subterra recluserat
Sine caesura
Super candidato
Venit Rex Pallidus
Saturnio
Filius temporis
CHORUS
Nuptula mortis fiebam
Quae aeturnum virgo
III
Floribus lectis
Dona Veneria
Sum ultra ego iuventate
Remansura
Gens non possit fecundare ex me
Mortales non foedent me
Moribunda
Filiola fui
Decorissima
CHORUS
Nuptula mortis fiebam
Quae aeturnum virgo
(English):
I
I was the little daughter, in form
Most graceful and
Innocent in dancing,
And in this way, picking flowers
And a Narcissus. In the tender age,
Whence I, having been spied
By the Lord of the Silent,
The Receiver of the Many,
The Pale King,
He Who Receives Many,
I was plucked.
CHORUS
I became a bride of death,
Who is forever a maiden
II
Under the guard of trees,
Beneath the shielding shade,
I sat and I played, and I hid myself
Away from the weathering sun.
I was snatched as the dark
Under-earth had opened.
Without a pause,
Upon a bright horse,
Came the Pale King,
Son of Saturn,
Son of Time.
CHORUS
I became a bride of death
Who is forever a maiden
III
With the flowers having been picked,
Venerial gifts
I am beyond. In youth
I am going to remain.
Blood may not fruit from me
Mortal men may not mar me.
Dying
I was the little daughter
Most graceful
CHORUS
I became a bride of death
Who is forever a maiden
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