One of the most impressing features of humankind is its ability to reinvent itself. The elegy, the lacrimae, the blues.
In early seventeen century, the British composer, singer and lute player John Dowland wrote his most famous piece. Lachrimæ Antiquae - old tears.
And it is really sad, isn't it.
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their last fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.
Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.
From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.
Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.
Here it is with the wonderful Argentinian soprano, Valeria Mignaco, who I just discovered. She has made a living from Renaissance Blues.
First time I heard this song was back in the early nineties where I reread the strange Philip K. Dick novel, Flow my Tears, the Policeman said. The title is, as you can see inspired by the opening lines. So I went to the library and brought home a very scruffy LP containing true beauty, my first real exposure to renaissance music.