I'm not sure I see a seamless connection to the action in the play, but
as you say, it is "on point": the business of raising the dead. The
lyric refers to a group, in the plural, and evokes a particular scene.
Many of the plays plugged in preexisting musical numbers, and then the
question becomes, is there some slightly forced text to allow the
plugin, or did the author(s) imagine it as an organic element in the
narrative. And here the line "Am I but half obeyed? infernal gods, Must
you have musick too?" seems a bit contrived, as if added in to plug in
the song. But we don't have the breadcrumb trail, like a sketch. I'm
not sure I see Alecto as the guardian of the underworld either, as the
Furies were known as avengers. But maybe I need to reread Ovid in
Dryden's translation. There are several more verses, and I suppose one
could try to fit the other words to the tune........I resisted the
impulse as the song seems so perfect the way it is. But you could also
reconstruct a chorus and make it a whole scene with all the verses.
__________________________________________________________________
From: howard posner <[email protected]>
To: lute List <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, December 14, 2011 8:59:32 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Music for a while
John Dryden (or perhaps Nathaniel Lee, since Oedipus was a
collaboration and it isn't clear who wrote which part) wrote:
> 3. Till Alecto free the dead
> From their eternal Bands;
> Till the Snakes drop from her Head,
> And whip from out her Hands.
On Dec 13, 2011, at 2:23 PM, David Tayler wrote:
>
> Alecto is one of the Furies--the Furies had snakes for hair, like
the
> Gorgons (think Medusa)--and here the meaning is difficult to
determine.
> In addition to the obvious context of the play Oedipus, in which the
> song appears, the Furies appear in many classical works. Reading the
> various references in Greek plays, Virgil, and so on, the best fit I
> can find is from Dante's Inferno, where Dante and Virgil try to pass
> the gates of Dis--which is guarded by the Furies and the fallen
> angels--wherein are held the heretics as well as the more serious
> criminals.
>
> I think the sense of Alecto freeing the dead is ironic. The Furies
were
> first and foremost known for being relentless avengers, therefore
the
> sense may be that "Music will always beguile our cares till beyond
the
> end of time," as it would be impossible for the Furies to change
their
> stripes and let their prisoners free, just as we use the expression
> "till Hell Freezes over."
Freeing the dead, literally if temporarily, is the business at hand in
Act III. Tiresias is trying to raise the ghost of Laius, who will tell
everyone that Oedipus--who killed him and married his queen-- is his
son. Tiresias' efforts at first get nothing more than some
subterranean groans, and he says:
Tir. Am I but half obeyed? infernal gods,
Must you have musick too? then tune your voices,
And let them have such sounds as hell ne'er heard,
Since Orpheus bribed the shades.
So he cues the musical numbers, meant to pacify (disarm, with snakes
and whips dropping) Alecto, the spirit guarding the dead, just as
Orpheus pacified Charon (or other underworld spirits, if you're a Gluck
fan).
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