<\/b>When reversion turns into revolution – and blowing a reigning monarch, who\u00a0is habitually unfaithfull to his queen, to kingdom come with the message<\/p>\n
\u2018Only the virtuous soul shall live, and<\/em> might easily be interpreted like that – artistic innocence turns into high\u00a0treason. And so, even without any information whether the partsongs have\u00a0ever been performed in the presence of King Edward, logic reasoning has\u00a0led step by step into absurdity. To prepare music to such an objective would\u00a0have been criminal in itself, but Ralph Vaughan Williams to plot against his\u00a0sovereign is as ridiculous a thought as, for instance, George Herbert to write\u00a0pornography.<\/p>\n The contents of\u00a0Sweet Day<\/i>\u00a0made me therefore soon decide I was dealing\u00a0with an Edwardian mystification. But when I revealed my findings to\u00a0an Englishman, he responded instantaniously by quoting the first lines by\u00a0heart. This sample from\u00a0\u2018Shakespeare\u2019s Bawdy\u2019<\/em>\u00a0happens to be a much used\u00a0textbook example of Herbert\u2019s style. It was the Department of English from\u00a0Amsterdam Free University that informed me subsequently that: \u201cthe poem is not titled \u2018Sweet Day\u2019 but \u2018Vertue\u2019 (virtue), as all religious poetry of GH it\u00a0was first published in 1633.\u201d It should be impossible, but this perfect\u00a0Shakespeare imitation indeed is a genuine Herbert.<\/p>\n RVW not only renamed the poem, he also removed the second quatrain. Because this has no negative effect on the remainder,\u00a0Virtue<\/i>\u00a0is reduced to\u00a0Sweet<\/i>\u00a0Day<\/i>\u00a0by the removal of four superfluous lines. With this quatrain in its proper\u00a0place, it is virtually impossible to deny that the Herbert’s rose belongs to the botanic genus Rosa.\u00a0Which apparently rules out the liberty to consider the word to represent a\u00a0pretty girl, as the English language would have allowed otherwise. And so\u00a0all ambiguity collapses to nought; the rose is used here as a metaphor,\u00a0showing that in the midst of life we are in death:<\/p>\n Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave<\/i>,<\/em> Which leaves us with sixteen lines of first rate religious poetry with a timber\u00a0like structure and another nasty problem: it is impossible for these\u00a0Elizabethan partsongs to exist when Herbert did not enable the reduction\u00a0Virtue<\/i>\u00a0for the very purpose of enabling Ralph Vaughan Williams to confront Edward VII with his\u00a0opinion on the king\u2019s private affairs. Had I been aware of this conflicting\u00a0piece of evidence from the beginning, I had very likely failed to recognize\u00a0what the poem is telling\u00a0sub rosa<\/i>. And would have lacked a vital link in the\u00a0chain of reasoning.<\/p>\n As things stand now, it is as if the composer has personally asked Herbert\u00a0to write exactly the words he needed to his music. Words from a class neither\u00a0Ralph Vaughan Williams nor George Herbert have ever been associated with\u00a0in their entire lifes, and including a reference to a modern constitutional\u00a0monarchy, with the king acting as his government\u2019s \u2018bridle\u2019 to lead society.\u00a0In short: \u2018Three Elizabethan Part Songs\u2019\u00a0<\/i>exists against all reason. And that is the optimistic assessment.<\/p>\n When taken into account that rulers by ancient tradition are entitled to sow\u00a0their seed as wide as humanly possible, – once they had in a certain\u00a0primitive culture even the right to stand in for their male subjects in their\u00a0first wedded night – it is absolutely not done to threaten a king with removal\u00a0for having plenty of mistresses. Their (rumoured, but never officially\u00a0confirmed) numbers rather served between colleagues for status symbols.<\/p>\n And as if things are not complicated enough allready, the threat is\u00a0camouflaged far too well to achieve anything. King Edward lived out his life\u00a0untroubled by guilt or revolution, while Ralph Vaughan Williams in his turn\u00a0was left in peace by the public prosecutor. So stating this cycle to exist\u00a0against all reason is by no means strong enough:<\/p>\n The three-part song\u00a0i<\/strong>s<\/b>\u00a0against all reason.<\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n —<\/span><\/p>\n go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When reversion turns into revolution – and blowing a reigning monarch, who\u00a0is habitually unfaithfull to his queen, to kingdom come with the message \u2018Only the virtuous soul shall live, and the soul which is not virtuous shall die\u2019 might easily … Continue reading
\nthe soul which is not virtuous shall die\u2019
\n<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n
\nBids the rash gazer wipe his eye:<\/i><\/em>
\nThy root is ever in its grave,<\/i><\/em>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And thou must die<\/i>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Lack of knowledge was for once to my advantage, I started my research with\u00a0nothing but the half forgotten outlines of English history in mind, and an old\u00a0schoolbook on the country\u2019s literature on my desk. When I faced all double dealings in\u00a0their almost perfect symmetry -12, 9 and 12 lines = 73, 65 and 74 words – with\u00a0identical twin poems flanking the centre piece my conclusion was an obvious one. The\u00a0more because I could not find the title \u2018Sweet Day\u2019 in the index of Herbert\u2019s poetry. Obvious\u00a0because the second line seems to be a poetic view on the constitutional monarchy. A feature that cannot be found in a genuinly\u00a0seventeenth century document. The next paragraphs will show that it\u00a0would almost certainly have stopped me in my tracks if I had known the complete poem from\u00a0the beginning.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n