So to music impassioned,
Sung high, sung low,
With tears I have fashioned
Untuneable woe.
Alack! ’tis like mourner’s grieving.
So sadly my quick spirit graces
With groanings of death griefs that live,
And I cry unto Apia’s high places
My broken speech to forgive,
And falling down on my linen veil
I mar with rents its fabric frail,
Tissue of Sidon’s weaving.
With amplest oblation
To high heaven we come,
For hope’s consummation,
When death’s wind is dumb;
But alack! for the woes dark-heaving,
The billow whose path none traces,
Nor what strand on its crest I shall reach!
I cry unto Apia’s high places
To forgive my broken speech,
And falling oft on my linen veil
I rend and mar its fabric frail,
Tissue of Sidon’s weaving.
(490 B.C.E.)
from “The Suppliant Maidens”
Lyrics: Aeschylus
Music: Wicasta Lovelace
Arrangement: Wicasta Lovelace
(October 19, 1993)
