Euryanthe

“ A scena for Eglantine, characterized by all the hatred and fury of jealousy, introduces the finale, which consists of a vigorous chorus ("Jubeltöne") accompanying Euryanthe's solo ("Fröhliche Klänge") .
The second act opens with a powerful recitative and aria for Lysiart ("Wo berg ich mich") , which is full of passion. A duet of a menacing and sombre character between Lysiart and Eglantine ("Komm denn unser Leid zu rächen") stands out in gloomy contrast with Adolar's aria ("Wehen mir Lüfte Ruh'") and the duet with Euryanthe ("Hin nimm die Seele mein") , so full of grace and tenderness. ”

“ In 1823, “Euryanthe” was produced in Berlin—a work on which Weber exhausted all the treasures of his musical genius. Without the elements of popular success which made his first great opera such an immediate favourite, it shows the most finished and scholarly work which Weber ever attained. Its symmetry and completeness, the elaboration of all the forms, the richness and variety of the orchestration, bear witness to the long and thoughtful labour expended on it. It gradually won its way to popular recognition, and has always remained one of the favourite works of the German stage. ”

“ Eglantine steals the ring from the sepulcher. She gives it to Lysiart, who shows it to the Court, swearing that he had received it from Euryanthe, false to Adolar. The music is also heard in part in Act III (No. 23) , where Eglantine, about to marry Lysiart, sees in the madness of sudden remorse the ghost of Emma, and soon after reveals the treachery.
In Euryanthe, as in the old story of Gérard de Nevers, in the tale told by Boccaccio, and in Cymbeline, a wager is made over a woman’s chastity. ”

“ Puck's invocation of the spirits and their response, the great scene for Rezia, "Ocean, thou mighty monster, that liest like a green serpent coiled around the world," and the charming mermaid's song; and, in the third act, the finale.
As is the case with "Euryanthe," the puerilities of the libretto to "Oberon" appear to have been too much even for Weber's beautiful music. Either that, or else Weber is suffering the fate of all obvious forerunners: which is that their genius finds its full and lasting fruition in those whose greater genius it has caused to germinate and ripen. ”

“ Orestes.
Thy mother thou slew'st not, as I—woe's me?
Pylades.
I shared thy deed, thy sufferings must I share.
Orestes.
Restore thee to thy sire; die not with me.⁠1075
Thou hast a city,—none to me is left,—
A father's home, a haven wide of wealth.
Thou canst not wed this maiden evil-starred
Whom I for friendship's sake betrothed to thee.
Yet take thee another bride and rear thee sons:⁠1080
The looked-for tie 'twixt thee and me is not.
Now, O dear name of my companionship,
Farewell!—not this for us, perchance for thee:
For us, the dead, is no glad faring-well! ”

“ Electra.
Dearest, who bear'st a name desirable⁠1045
And sweet on sister's lips!—one soul with mine!
Orestes.
Ah, thou wilt melt me! Fain would I reply
With arms of love! Wretch, wherefore shame I now?
Ah, sister-bosom, dear embrace to me!
In children's stead, instead of wedded arms,⁠1050
This farewell to the hapless is vouchsafed.
Electra (sighs) .
Oh might the selfsame sword, if this may be,
Slay us, one coffin cedar-wrought receive!
Orestes.
Most sweet were this: yet, how forlorn of friends
Thou seest are we, who cannot claim one tomb!⁠1055
Electra. ”

“ She, still not comprehending why he does not even cast a glance upon her, protests that without his love she prefers to die.
Orpheus, no longer able to resist the appeal of his beloved bride, forgets the warning of Amor. He turns and passionately clasps Eurydice in his arms. Immediately she dies.
It is then that Orpheus intones the lament, "Che farò senza Euridice" (I have lost my Eurydice) , that air in the score which has truly become immortal and by which Gluck, when the opera as a whole shall have disappeared from the stage, will still be remembered. ”

“ The blood-madness comes on Orestes. He gets possession of his sword and turns upon Helen and Hermione. To take one touch from many: to escape stoning, Electra and Orestes are resolved to die. She begs him to kill her. He turns from her: "My mother's blood is enough. I will not kill thee. Die as best thou mayest."
The Têlephus* was in these several respects the typical play of Euripides's early period, but it strikes one as a young play. The realism, for instance, was probably not of the subtle type we find in the Electra. ”

“ You must conquer even Love, for her sake. Go back to earth, playing and singing as you came, and Eurydice shall follow behind you. But if, until you pass the gate of Hades, you turn your head to look at her; if you give even a single glance behind you to see if she is there, then you shall never see her again.”
You may think that Eurydice might have been given to him back without any conditions. But Hades was ruled by strict laws, which not even the king and queen could break; and nobody could be allowed to conquer death without showing that he could conquer temptation. Orpheus was overjoyed. ”

“ Howbeit this man, being full of loyalty to the mighty dead and reverence for blood royal, behaved himself to her as to a queen, so that she continued virgin in his house all the days of her adversity. Now when Orestes was grown to man, he journeyed with Pylades his friend to Argos, to seek out his sister, and to devise how he might avenge his father, since by the oracle of Apollo he was commanded so to do. ”

“ Must thou heap thy bed
With gold of murdered men, to buy to thee
Thy strange man's arms? Justice! Why is not he
Who cast Orestes out, cast out again?
Not slain for me whom doubly he hath slain,
In living death, more bitter than of old
My sister's? Nay, when all the tale is told
Of blood for blood, what murder shall we make,
I and Orestes, for our father's sake?
Clytemnestra.
Aye, child; I know thy heart, from long ago.
Thou hast alway loved him best. 'Tis oft-time so:
One is her father's daughter, and one hot
To bear her mother's part. I blame thee not . . . ”

“ The suppliant crying fell at Helen's knees,—
Hermione.
Who?—nought the more I know, except thou tell.
Electra.
Orestes, pleading for his life, and mine.
Hermione.
With reason then the dwelling rings with cries.⁠1335
Electra.
For what cause rather should one lift his voice?
But come thou, and in suppliance join thy friends,
Falling before thy mother, the all-blest,
That Menelaus may not see us die.
O thou that in my mother's arms wast nursed,⁠1340
Have pity on us, of our woes relieve!
Come hither, meet the peril: I will lead.
With thee alone our safety's issue lies. ”

“ She is fighting tremulously, with all her flagging strength, against the thing she longs for. The whole point of the scene requires that one ray of hope after another should be shown to Electra, and that she should passionately, blindly, reject them all. That is what Euripides wanted the signs for.
But why, it may be asked, did he adopt Aeschylus' signs, and even his peculiar word? Because, whether invented by Aeschylus or not, these signs were a canonical part of the story by the time Euripides wrote. Every one who knew the story of Orestes' return at all, knew of the hair and the footprint. ”

“ So for the second time did he lose Eurydice; and if his grief was great before, it was ten times greater now. For as the cup of joy had touched his lips it had slipped from his hand and broken, and he knew that the chance the gods had given him once they would give him never again, but that all his life long he must dwell in loneliness without Eurydice his wife. Blindly he went forward with his lyre beneath his arm. The strings hung broken and lifeless, for the rocks and thorns had torn them as he passed on his way up from Hades. ”

“ Nay, nay, this task is mine no less than thine.
Since we shall surely die, debate we now
How Menelaus too may share our woe.
Orestes.
Dear friend, would I could look on this, and die!⁠1100
Pylades.
Hearken to me, and that sword-stroke defer.
Orestes.
I wait, if so I avenge me on my foe.
Pylades (pointing to Chorus) .
Speak low!—I put in women little trust.
Orestes.
Fear not for these: all here be friends to us.
Pylades.
Slay Helen—Menelaus' bitter grief!⁠1105
Orestes. ”

“ The spring is from yon cot. I at the dawn
Will drive my team afield and sow the glebe.
None idle—though his lips aye prate of Gods— 80
Can gather without toil a livelihood.
[Exeunt Peasant and Electra.
Enter Orestes and Pylades.
Orestes.
Pylades, foremost thee of men I count
In loyalty, love, and friendship unto me.
Sole of Orestes' friends, thou honouredst me
In this my plight, wronged foully by Aegisthus, 85
Who, with my utter-baneful mother, slew
My sire. At Phœbus' oracle-hest [2] I come
To Argos' soil, none privy thereunto,
To pay my father's murderers murder-wage. ”

“ Love has led me here, Love, a god all powerful with us who dwell on the earth, and, if old traditions say true, not less so here. I implore you by these abodes full of terror, these realms of silence and uncreated things, unite again the thread of Eurydice's life. We all are destined to you and sooner or later must pass to your domain. ”

“ Eurydice, whose name comes from a Sanskrit word denoting the broad-spreading blush of dawn across the sky, is a personification of that light slain by the serpent of darkness at twilight.
Orpheus is sometimes considered as the sun, and the dawn (Eurydice) reappears opposite the place where he disappeared; as the dawn is no longer seen after the sun has fairly risen, the ancients said, “Orpheus has turned round too soon to look at Eurydice, and so is parted from the wife he loves.” ”

“ Orestes! Life, not death, had been thy due.⁠1030
Orestes.
Ah, by the Gods, I pray, unman me not,
Nor bring to tears by mention of our woes.
Electra.
We die! I cannot but bemoan our fate.
All mortals grieve for precious life foregone.
Orestes.
This is our day of doom: the noose must coil⁠1035
About our necks, or our hands grasp the sword.
Electra.
Brother, thou slay me, that no Argive slay,
With outrage foul to Agamemnon's child.
Orestes.
Suffice the mother's blood: I will not slay thee.
Die in what wise thou wilt by thine own hand.⁠1040
Electra. ”

“ Then, if Menelaus, lest his daughter die,⁠1195
Will save thee, seeing Helen fallen in blood,
Yield to her sire's embrace the maiden's form.
But if, controlling not his furious mood,
He seek to slay thee, pierce the maid's neck through.
I ween, though swelling be his port at first,⁠1200
His wrath at last shall cool. Nor brave nor stout
By nature is he. This I find for us
The bulwark of deliverance. I have said.
Orestes.
O thou who hast the spirit of a man,
Albeit in body woman manifest, [36] ⁠1205
How worthier far art thou to live than die!
Such woman, Pylades, shalt thou, alas! ”

“ Now Eurynome bathed Ulysses himself, and anointed him with oil, and clad him in new raiment, so that he looked like himself again, full of strength and beauty. He sat down on his own high seat beside the fire, and said: 'Lady, you are the fairest and most cruel Queen alive. No other woman would harden her heart against her husband, come home through many dangers after so many years. 'Nurse,' he cried to Eurycleia, 'strew me a bed to lie alone, for her heart is hard as iron.'
Now Penelope put him to a trial. ”

“ It must not be that Menelaus thrive,
The while thy sire, thou, and thy sister die,
Thy mother—that I pass, unmeet to say,—⁠1145
And that he hold thine halls who won his bride
By Agamemnon's spear!—may I not live
If we shall not against her draw the sword! [33]
If haply we achieve not Helen's death,
Yon palace will we fire, and so will die.⁠1150
For, of two glories, one we will not miss,
To die with honour, or with honour 'scape.
Chorus.
This child of Tyndareus, who hath brought shame
On womankind, deserves all women's hate.
Orestes. ”

“ The door bursts open, and Orestes and Electra come forth in disorder. Attendants bring out the bodies of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Leader.
Lo, yonder, in their mother's new-spilt gore
Red-garmented and ghastly, from the door
They reel. . . . O horrible! Was it agony
Like this, she boded in her last wild cry?
There lives no seed of man calamitous,
Nor hath lived, like this seed of Tantalus.
Orestes.
O Dark of the Earth, O God,
⁠Thou to whom all is plain;
Look on my sin, my blood,
⁠This horror of dead things twain:
Gathered as one they lie
Slain ”

“ The bard and prophet, Orpheus, went down to the dead to win back his wife, Eurydice. Hades and Persephonê, spell-bound by his music, granted his prayer that Eurydicê should return to the light, on condition that he should go before her, harping, and should never look back to see if she was following. Just at the end of the journey he looked back, and she vanished. The story is told with overpowering beauty in Vergil's fourth Georgic.
P. 21, l. 367, Oh, not in death from thee Divided. ”

“ How?—hath ruth seized thee, seeing thy mother's form?
Orestes.
Woe!
How can I slay her—her that nursed, that bare me?
Electra.
Even as she thy father slew and mine. 970
Orestes.
O Phœbus, folly exceeding was thine hest—
Electra.
Nay, where Apollo erreth, who is wise?
Orestes.
Who against nature bad'st me slay my mother!
Electra.
How art thou harmed, avenging thine own sire?
Orestes.
Arraigned for a mother's murder—pure ere this! 975
Electra.
Yet impious, if thou succour not thy sire.
Orestes.
My mother for her blood must I requite. [32]
Electra. ”