Libretto for a drammaturgia for soprano, bass, viola, and cello by composer Lucia Ronchetti.
Inspired by 1969 essay by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend that reconstructs the mythic Norse predecessor of Shakespeare's Hamlet by comparing the version by Saxo Grammaticus, fl. 1200, with analogous myths in other cultures, the resultant Ur-Hamlet interpreted as an encoded lesson in tellucentric astronomy, in particular as an explanation of the precession of equinoxes.
Part 1. Vortices, Voices.
AMLETHUS, AMLODHI, AMBALES, AMLAGHE, AMLAIDHE
Here the sea is called Amlodhi's mill
There has been a whirlpool in the sea where the water falls through the hole in the millstone
All distinction between air and water is lost, everything seems enveloped in a thick smoke
Sea lung, my top dropped to the bottom of it
Taurus in Aries, Aries in Aries, Pisces in Aries, Aquarius in Aries
The orb of heaven grinds like a millstone
Then we went down to the ship
My top dropped to the bottom of it
Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb
Who entered into the springs of the sea
Who walked in the search of the depth
Then shut up
My top dropped to the bottom of it
AMLETHUS, AMLODHI, AMBALES, AMLAGHE, AMLAIDHE
He feigned to be obtuse of heart
Bidden to mount his horse, he set himself in such a fashion that he turned his back to the neck and faced about, fronting the tail
He could not tell the parts apart
The hero meets a maiden in the woods, gathering berries. They lie together and realize later in conversing that they are brother and sister. The maiden drowns herself, but the hero throws himself upon his word
It was then that the sea became hiss
AMLETHUS, AMLODHI, AMBALES, AMLAGHE, AMLAIDHE
Get your "Bark Like A Dog" complimentary ringtone right now
That's crazy
Isn't nature itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature
That's crazy, shut up
Dog owners must be on guard for cataracts, congenital heart disease, distichiasis, entropion, epilepsy, glaucoma, intervertebral disc degeneration, lacrimal duct atresia, Legg-Perthes, progressive retinal atrophy, patellar luxation, trichiasis, and urolithiasis
That's stir-crazy
AMLETHUS, AMLODHI, AMBALES, AMLAGHE, AMLAIDHE
There is a mill that grinds by itself, swings of itself, and scatters the grist a hundred miles away
The inside is hollowly hollow; the outside is narrowly narrow
The monotonous rattling of this monster, driven by the current of chance, and itself drifting on this current, a mill per se, without builder or miller, in truth a genuine perpetuum mobile, a mill that grinds itself
Maketh such a terrible noise that it shaketh the doors of the inhabitants' houses of the islands ten miles off
Then Saturn enters the first house
Part Two. Amar-Amlodhi, An Eclogue.
A:
It was not sensations or not anything really
That I remember; or whether it was me at all.
It was me, however, I have a photograph to prove it,
Where I am standing next to my brother.
He is looking at the camera, I am not.
It's certainly me, as I never shall be again.
Is that me gone? Or is it still inside me,
On the other side of the border of language,
In the animality of the soul? All is dark there,
So it does not matter if I do not look at the camera.
¬A:
Don't be so negative. Let us go for a walk,
Let us examine the trees in the park—
Pines, palms, aspen, and junipers—
Let us identify the statues among them
Without heads.
A:
Wait. I must first understand
Who I am and who you are. Are we
Pronouns? What else holds us together?
Outside language we know practically nothing,
Since whatever we reel in thence
Collapses upon itself and deforms
Under the pressure of exactitude.
Then goodbye, me. I leave you in the dark
In the indistinct company of animals,
In incomprehension so inarticulate
It does not know itself to be incomprehension.
Goodbye. I miss you already.
¬A:
You said your goodbyes. Let's go. I'm afraid
Your mood presages a change in weather.
There are some whose arthritis starts acting up before a storm
And others to whom migraine auras appear;
It might be you are just another one such
Meteorological sufferer. Perhaps
There's a low pressure system moving this way,
Bringing forty km/hr winds and precipitation.
If we were outside, the swallows might be skimming the ground,
But we are very much inside. Look at these walls.
Many centimeters might fall, followed even by flooding
And we would not be able to go to the park then, would we?
Let us go now, while there is still time.
A:
Is the border of language
In the order of language?
My nurse said to me, This is yours,
A recorder. My father said to me, This is yours
Inasmuch as I order it to be yours.
And then there was something like high school,
Where in zoo-like stench we stood on all fours
Braying braying braying,
Or so I tell myself. Was that so? How can I play it?
Are eyes words, are ears words,
Is nose a word, is mouth a word, are breasts words,
Is vagina a word? I don't understand.
¬A:
What's there to understand? When do we ever understand
Anything? And will you stop with the afflatus—
You talk like some stoned Niobid
In the Gardens of Leto.
A:
I am alone here. It is beginning to rain.
Let me go paste words upon the furniture.
¬A:
You're not alone here. I'm here with you.
Why must you always speak of loneliness
To me, Amar?
A:
You named me: What
Does that mean? What am I
To do with it? I did not give it
Myself.
¬A:
Enough. Please.
Let us go picnic by the shores of the Never River,
Feel the brief warmth of sunlight on our faces,
Watch clouds pass over monuments on the embankment:
They're funny, they're the fruits of empire and pain
And human stupidity. Come on, say you're coming.
A:
I cannot go with you.
