Description
Published by G. Schirmer, Inc.
This beautiful text from Ovid’s Metamorphoses speaks of the creatures named for the time they first appear: vespertilians (bats). Not scary or to be feared, rather, here they “slip into shadows” with “translucent wings that sustain their flight” with “diminished bodies” and “the tiniest of voices.” Hagen has crafted a soundscape that paints this most beautiful of images of the much maligned nocturnal flyer.
Text
Poetic Translation
The day was ended and that time had come which you could say was neither light nor dark, uncertain night, when yet some day remains. It seemed as though the house suddenly shuddered, and unaccountably the oil lamps flared and blazing torches lit up every room, and howling all around them everywhere were the false images of savage beasts.
Meanwhile, the sisters have been seeking refuge in various places from the glaring flames, and as they try to slip into the shadows, a slender membrane glides over their limbs and meager wings enclose their withered arms; darkness conceals from them the true extent of the great changes now come over them; not downy feathers, but translucent wings sustain their flight, and when they try to speak, their much diminished bodies now emit only the very tiniest of voices, telling their woes in little high-pitched squeaks.
Shunning the woods, they congregate in houses, nocturnal fliers fearful of the day, creatures named for the time they first appear: vespertilians. [Or, as we say, bats.]
Latin Text
Quod tu nec tenebras nec possis dicere lucem,
sed cum luce tamen dubiae confinia noctis:
tecta repente quati pinguesque ardere videntur
lampades et rutilis conlucere ignibus aedes
falsaque saevarum simulacra ululare ferarum.
Fumida iamdudum latitant per tecta sorores,
diversaeque locis ignes ac lumina vitant;
dumque petunt tenebras, parvos membrana per artus
porrigitur tenuique includit bracchia pinna.
Nec qua perdiderint veterem ratione figuram
scire sinunt tenebrae. Non illas pluma levavit,
sustinuere tamen se perlucentibus alis;
conataeque loqui minimam et pro corpore vocem
emittunt, peraguntque leves stridore querellas.
Tectaque, non silvas celebrant lucemque perosae
nocte volant, seroque tenent a vespere nomen.
Composer Notes
The music of Vespertilians is based on an invented mode, or scale: d natural minor with the raised fourth scale degree. Singers may find it useful to sing this mode in warm-ups prior to working on the music. The text is taken from a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC to 17/18 AD) called Metamorphoses (“Book of Transformations”), and is one of the most important texts of Western imagination.