| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Might swell within the treacherous pods, and they
Make speed to boil at howso small a fire.
Yet, culled with caution, proved with patient toil,
These have I seen degenerate, did not man
Put forth his hand with power, and year by year
Choose out the largest. So, by fate impelled,
Speed all things to the worse, and backward borne
Glide from us; even as who with struggling oars
Up stream scarce pulls a shallop, if he chance
His arms to slacken, lo! with headlong force
The current sweeps him down the hurrying tide.
Georgics |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: flame of fire.
John Weightman could not endure it. It seemed to strip him naked
and wither him. He sank to the ground under a crushing weight of
shame,
covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward
upon the stones. Dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt
their
hardness and coldness.
"Tell me, then," he cried, brokenly, "since my life has been so
little worth, how came I here at all?"
"Through the mercy of the King"--the answer was like the soft
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: supplement the air sung by Kadijah in contrapuntal treatment. Omar,
the father of another maiden who is to be Mahomet's concubine, follows
Abubekir's example; he and his daughter join in to form a quintette.
The girl Ayesha is first soprano, Hafsa second soprano; Abubekir is a
bass, Omar a baritone.
"Mahomet returns, inspired. He sings his first /bravura/ air, the
beginning of the /finale/ (E major), promising the empire of the world
to those who believe in him. The Prophet seeing the two damsels, then,
by a gentle transition (from B major to G major), addresses them in
amorous tones. Ali, Mahomet's cousin, and Khaled, his greatest
general, both tenors, now arrive and announce the persecution; the
Gambara |
