Kipling, The Female of the Species

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. 

When Nag, the wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can,
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail -
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. 

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws -
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale -
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. 

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others tale -
The female of the species is more deadly than the male. 

Man, a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwise,
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise;
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. 

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger; Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of the Sex! 

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same,
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. 

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells -
She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else! 

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate;
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same. 

She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him, who denies!
He will meet no cool discussion, but the instant, white-hot wild
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child. 

Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights;
Speech that drips, corrodes and poisons - even so the cobra bites;
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw,
And the victim writhes with anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw! 

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of abstract justice - which no woman understands. 

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern; shall enthrall but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him and Her instincts never fail,
That the female of Her species is more deadly than the male!

- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Adam's exultation

The siren call of woman's songs
Gives man the peace for which he longs,
And calms his fear, and on this sphere
Confirms to him that he belongs.

For man is sometimes deaf; his ear,
Attuned to duty, may not hear
The sound of grace, life's warm embrace,
Without a woman singing near.

The world seems vulgar, harsh, and base,
A comfortless, confining space;
The ceaseless noise his sense annoys
Without a woman's voice or face.

But long can man maintain his poise
Despite deception, ruse, and ploys,
When he, rejoicing, makes the choice
To hear the song of woman's voice.

I wrote this at the end of January 2002. This is a slightly modified version.

Ben Jonson: On My First Sonne

Ben Jonson was an English poet and playwright contemporary with (and admirer of and rival to) William Shakespeare. His seven-year-old son Benjamin died in the plague; Jonson responded by writing the following heartbreaking poem. Reading it always makes me tear up.

On My First Sonne

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy;

Seven yeeres tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

O, could I loose all father, now. For why

Will man lament the state he should envie?

To have so soon scap'd worlds and fleshes rage,

And, if no other miserie, yet age?

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lye

Ben. Johnson his best piece of poetrie.

For whose sake, hence-forth, all his vowes be such,

As what he loves may never like too much.

For the the analytical type, here's a useful explanation of some elements of the poem.

Jonson also lost his first daughter, Mary, in infancy, and wrote her a beautiful elegy (here rendered in more modern spelling). This took place ten years before his son's death. Somehow it's more hopeful than, or at least not as devastatingly sad as, the tribute to his son. I think it reads more like a headstone engraving.

On My First Daughter

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth;

Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due,

It makes the father less to rue.

At six months' end, she parted hence,

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;

Where, while that severed doth remain,

This grave partakes the fleshly birth;

Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

Jonson wrote a lot of really beautiful poetry. Maybe I'll return to some of it at a later day. To end this blog entry, here's a poem most of us have heard at some time or another, probably in a mid-20th-century song, without being aware of its origin. (For the record, while Jonson's wife's name is not known with certainty -- the best guess is Ann Lewis -- it wasn't Celia.)

To Celia

Drink to me, only, with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,

Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent'st back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.

Music I love: Coloratura (La pastorella al prato, etc.)

I have always loved music. The earliest music I remember is Church hymns and my father's folk music -- The Brothers Four, The Kingston Trio, The Chad Mitchell Trio, like that. I grew up listening to 70s pop music on AM radio. I took up violin in fourth grade and was introduced to the genre of classical music ("classical" in the broad sense). It was only much later, in my 20s, after coming home from my LDS missionary service in Italy, that I developed a taste for operatic singing. Luciano Pavarotti's voice was my introduction to this genre, and he remains perhaps my favorite operatic artist.

Eventually, I also came to appreciate women's operatic voices. When I began to get a bit familiar with Italian opera, I was drawn to a particular style of singing called bel canto, Italian for "beautiful singing". One feature of bel canto that I enjoyed was coloratura, an Italian term meaning "coloration". Coloratura refers to a collection of acrobatic virtuoso singing techniques that the singer (usually a soprano) uses to decorate her song. Doing it well requires tremendous diaphragm control and singing power; the result is unmistakable, breathtaking, amazing.

Perhaps the best-known coloratura piece is the second aria sung by the wicked Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. This aria, Der Hölle Rache (Eng. Hell's vengeance), is often called simply "The Queen of the Night aria"; the link points to a particularly well-known coloratura part. (And if you don't think such singing is hard work, listen to Ms. Damrau panting at 4:15.)

A more extreme example of a soprano using coloratura is in Rossini's La Cenerentola (Eng. Cinderella). Rossini is rather notorious for writing highly ornate, difficult coloratura passages, particularly for his sopranos. Here is Cecilia Bartoli singing the final aria of the opera, Naqui al affano...Non piú mesta (actually two arias sung one after the other); the link points to the very end, where the singer traverses an almost unbelievable series of passages. Whether you love this kind of music or laugh at it, you have to stand in awe at the sheer fact that a human being can sing such a thing.

(If you haven't gathered yet, I'm a Cecilia Bartoli fan. Some have criticized her Rossini singing as neurotic, like she's about to bite the head off a bat. Whatever. In my little world, no one tops Cecilia.)

One of my favorite coloratura pieces is La pastorella al prato (Eng. The shepherdess through the meadow), written, strangely enough, by Franz Schubert. It's a sweet little Italian poem set to a pretty tune. The words are as follows:

La pastorella al prato

Contenta se ne va,

Coll' agnellino a lato

Cantando in libertà.

Se l'innocente amore

Gradisce il suo pastore

La bella pastorella

Contenta ognor sarà.

(Literal translation:

The little shepherdess contentedly passes through the meadow,

With a little lamb beside her, singing in liberty.

If her shepherd appreciates innocent love,

The pretty little shepherdess will forever be happy.)

Here is my attempt at a more poetic, singable translation:

Passing through the meadow walks

The lovely shepherdess,

And with her little lamb she talks

And sings in love and bliss.

If her sweet shepherd boy

Returns her love and joy

As he said, the pretty maid

Will ever feel love's kiss.

I've tried to retain the original poem's rhyming scheme of ABABCC(dd)B, where the (dd) means a line with an internal rhyme: La bella pastorella. My translation's internal rhyme, As he said, the pretty maid, is the best I could come up with. I considered making the fourth line And sings in love like this, rhyming with a changed last line, Will ever feel such bliss, which I thought might sing a bit better.

Yeah, like anyone would actually ever sing this. :)

P.S. My last "Music I love" entry also featured an Italian poem about shepherds. What's up with that? Dunno. Just coincidence, I suppose.

Music I love: Se tu m'ami

Some find my taste in music laughable, or baffling, or strange, or pedestrian. It's probably all of those, depending on the person doing the critique. But it's mine, and I take delight in it. I want to share examples of the music I love, with the thought that maybe others will share some of the pleasure I have found, or at least get a good laugh.

Se tu m'ami, se sospiri (pronounced more or less "Say two Mommy, say so speedy", better translated as "If you love me, if you sigh") is a poem from the early 18th century by Paolo Antonio Rolli. It was set to music in the late 19th century by Alessandro Parisotti, who for some reason attributed the composition to Giovanni Pergolesi. Why? Perhaps because Pergolesi lived around the time that Rolli wrote the poem, and Parisotti thought a spurious attribution would give his melody more credibility; perhaps because the melody evoked a more Baroque feel that seemed out of place in Parisotti's late Romantic era; perhaps something else entirely. I have no clue.

Here is a live version by Cecilia Bartoli.

The text of the poem is as follows (the parenthetical "tu" is added in the sung version to make it scan correctly with the music):

Se tu m'ami, se (tu) sospiri

Sol per me, gentil pastor,

Ho dolor de' tuoi martiri,

Ho diletto del tuo amor,

Ma se pensi che soletto

Io ti debba riamar,

Pastorello, sei soggetto

Facilmente a t'ingannar.

Bella rosa porporina

Oggi Silvia sceglierà,

Con la scusa della spina

Doman poi la sprezzerà.

Ma degli uomini il consiglio

Io per me non seguirò.

Non perché mi piace il giglio

Gli altri fiori sprezzerò.

Here's my attempt at a poetic translation:

If you love me, sighing deep

For me alone, dear shepherd boy,

In your suff'rings I take pity;

In your love I take great joy.

But you think my love I'll give

To you alone? This you believe?

Foolish shepherd! See how quick

And easily you self-deceive!

Silvia may likely choose

The pretty purple rose today,

But, lamenting thorns, tomorrow

That same rose she'll cast away.

For myself, I see no reason

Men's vain counsel I must take;

Just because I love the lily,

Other flow'rs I'll not forsake.

Listen to how the music conforms to the words. A beautiful, longing, lyric melody accompanies her initial declaration of love for the shepherd boy. But then, when she asks if he then expects her to return his love only to him, the music changes; she laughs! Unmistakably, the music changes to a tone of scornful laughter at the naive shepherd who expects fidelity.

I think that's just plain amazing. I don't understand how people possess such ability to compose music that fits like a glove over a hand -- how a simple tune can first communicate love and longing, then switch so effortlessly to mocking laughter. Music is not a language I speak, but it is a language I understand to some extent. I am left in awe at such offhand displays of genius.

The song itself doesn't express a particularly Latter-day-Saintesque sentiment about love and commitment, of course. It seems to subscribe more to the "Woman is fickle" point of view. But it does make for a pretty aria.