Song to the Heliconian Muses

Listen to:

Song to the Heliconian Muses (1:59)

from Theogony

by Hesiod

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In ancient Greece, the other most popular poet to rhapsodize, after the divine Homer, was Hesiod, whose birthday we celebrate today. Here is the opening to Theogony, Hesiod’s account of the birth of the gods. It appropriately enough begins with an account of the Muses, who inspire poets as poets inspire rhapsodes:

Of the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing,

who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon,

and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring

and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos,

and, when they have washed their tender bodies,

they make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon

and move with vigorous feet.

From there, they arise and go abroad by night,

veiled in thick mist,

and utter their song with lovely voice,

praising Zeus the aegis-bearer

and queenly Hera of Argos

who walks on golden sandals

and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-bearer – bright-eyed Athene,

and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows,

and Poseidon the earth-bearer who shakes the earth,

and quick-glancing Aphrodite,

and the holy race of all the other deathless ones that are for ever. 

And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song

while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon,

and this word first the goddesses said to me –

the Muses of Olympus,

daughters of Zeus who bears the aegis:

“Shepherds of the wilderness,

wretched things of shame, mere bellies,

we know how to speak many false things

as though they were true;

but we know, when we will,

to utter true things.”

So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus,

and they plucked and gave me a rod,

a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing,

and breathed into me a divine voice

to celebrate things that shall be

and things there were in the past;

and they bade me sing

of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally,

but ever to sing of themselves both first and last.

I Love the Brooks

Listen to: 

I Love the Brooks (:41)

by William Wordsworth

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Excerpt from Ode: Intimations of Immortality

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,           

Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; 

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day       

            Is lovely yet;           

The clouds that gather round the setting sun     

Do take a sober colouring from an eye  

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;       

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.           

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,    

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,       

To me the meanest flower that blows can give  

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.      

Ode on Solitude

Listen to: 

Ode on Solitude (1:04)

by Alexander Pope

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

HAPPY the man, whose wish and care           

A few paternal acres bound,    

Content to breathe his native air          

            In his own ground.     

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,               

Whose flocks supply him with attire; 

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,       

            In winter fire.  

Blest, who can unconcern’dly find     

Hours, days, and years, slide soft away                  

In health of body, peace of mind,        

            Quiet by day.  

Sound sleep by night; study and ease 

Together mix’d, sweet recreation,       

And innocence, which most does please                 

            With meditation.         

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;    

Thus unlamented let me die;   

Steal from the world, and not a stone  

            Tell where I lie.                   

Requiem

Photo by Harry Finder

Listen to: 

Requiem (:23)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Under the wide and starry sky

  Dig the grave and let me lie: 

Glad did I live and gladly die, 

  And I laid me down with a will.        

 

This be the verse you 'grave for me:            

  Here he lies where he long'd to be;  

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,         

  And the hunter home from the hill.   

The Two Old Bachelors

Listen to: 

The Two Old Bachelors (2:55)

by Edward Lear

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Two old Bachelors were living in one house;
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,--
'This happens just in time! For we've nothing in the house,
'Save a tiny slice of lemon nd a teaspoonful of honey,
'And what to do for dinner -- since we haven't any money?
'And what can we expect if we haven't any dinner,
'But to lose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?'

Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,--
'We might cook this little Mouse, if we had only some Stuffin'!
'If we had but Sage andOnion we could do extremely well,
'But how to get that Stuffin' it is difficult to tell'--

Those two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops, or in the Market, or in all the Gardens round.

But some one said, -- 'A hill there is, a little to the north,
'And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;--
'And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,--
'An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
'Climb up, and seize him by the toes! -- all studious as he sits,--
'And pull him down, -- and chop him into endless little bits!
'Then mix him with your Onion, (cut up likewise into Scraps,)--
'When your Stuffin' will be ready -- and very good: perhaps.'

Those two old Bachelors without loss of time
The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top, among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage, a reading of a most enormous book.

'You earnest Sage!' aloud they cried, 'your book you've read enough in!--
'We wish to chop you into bits to mix you into Stuffin'!'--

But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book,
At those two Bachelors' bald heads a certain aim he took;--
and over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,--
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town,--
And when they reached their house, they found (besides their want of Stuffin',)
The Mouse had fled; -- and, previously, had eaten up the Muffin.

They left their home in silence by the once convivial door.
And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.