Sie Ein Traum
by Ongaku no Usagi
Warning: This one is heavy. Don't say I didn't warn you.
The violin is laid aside, as at dusk Apollo sets down his sun-strung lyre. His answer to the Orbs' choir, that jocound whisper with "melodious noise", Leopold's command replied with youthful vigor.
Pearl-strung tears as from the Phonician sailor's stare—now shut, under the light of gleaming Hesperus and Artemis' cool glare: Orpheus seeking the dream dungeon of Pluto's realm, a wish to be granted by l'allegro or il pensieroso, he knows not yet.
And winging from Erebos, the velvet Oneiroi, pitying, granted the wish ephemerally, until the sun would flame forth "with new-spangled ore", as always, a condition bound to time.
Es traumte mir, ich sei dir teur;
Ah, Euridice! Smile of heart's delight, laughter of sunlight. Yes; and yet so innocent, so unsullied, those cherry-sweet lips that whetted more the appetite of Tantalus: as though guarded by jealous Artemis, chaste lips...
The Lepus with his bow makes strong arcs, not for war, but for beauty, upon those strings; and yet the moist sound reflects in the heart of that brown-browed beauty, sitting in a daze with intent gaze and crystal sparkles in those glass-paned openings to the...
"And singing in [his] glory move/ and wipe the tears forever from [her] eyes."
Thus, tenderly, he gently puts away his pine-sided song, and joined her on the love-seat, as lovers ought. This child, once so young, once so naive, now entering the mahogany doors of manhood, and places his hand upon her face, leaning...
Her gaze flies to meet his: a question, and an answer. Those childish days of sunburnt hand-in-hand...but, quoth the Raven...
No words exchanged; none intended nor needed. His Voice has reached her heart, the inner part, like the Hesperian fruit offered by the hand of Paris. Comme a Petrarch apparasait Laura, his eyes wander down to find the bow of her mouth, parting in wonder and...
With full consent, he bows his head, as Aries from Hephaestus Venus stole.
Doch zu erwachen dedurft ich kaum;
But robb'd by Mab, and trick'd by Puck, memory shifted and grazed his sight.
And, Akito, who on them looked as the serpent in the garden upon the naked pair; alas, Dido! Only now you realize your pride.
Tears that fell and glimmered, shimmered, caught in the cold night's light, and the Kami's, also: Hesperus, most honoured among the shining night hosts, glinted heavy gleam in those pleading eyes. He understood Tennyson's grim resolution, born of the frigid glaze of the stars.
"Momiji...don't leave...don't...
...go...
don't...leave me behind..."
Oh, Gotterdammerung, Akito, your evening has come! The sun has stretched out all the hills. The punishment of the antiquated Mariner that the Cormorant slew, awaits you, a torment worse than Prometheus'.
Ma quanto a gli occhi giung a trovar loco/Tutte la notti a me suol far piovose.
Blinding tears; and his answer to Bartimus' plea for light: He pistis sou se soche se!
A desire for Akito's freedom; his own was secured in loneliness.
Denn schon im Traume bereits empfand ich,
Her questioning eyes follow his, so downcast. "Momiji?"
Though the wetness fell to his cheeks as his eyelids lift, he meets Tohru's...
"How sweet are looks that ladies bend
on whom their favours fall!
...
I never felt the kiss of love,
nor maiden's hand in mine."
So spake the Tell-tale organ in his chest, but...
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought.
Lips, willing, soft, and warm, Endymion in bliss with his Diana, yet "he had no joy of her, for ere that Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness of Dionysus"...
And like Cupid's sleep aroused by Psyche's hot wax, and like Orpheus' desire slips from him also, by eager glances back, down that dark tunnel where all sleep soundly,
Frisch weft der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Hector's victory, so short lived, as Adam from Eden barred by flame-eyed Cherubim: the dream has ended, little Lepus. Amateseru is now adamant; having once left her cave, she is reluctant to return.
Es sei ein Traum, es sei ein Traum,
Hesperus will burn out; that star-named ship, with the doomed daughter "on the billows fall and rise", the ship of dreams by day, now will drop into the Western bay.
Ich finde, ich finde sie nimmer, und nimmermehr.
The glass panes you will look through now with furrowed brow will indeed show you your heart's desire, yet,
As Tristan's Isolde did revere,
And Lancelot his Guinevere,
So wanted he her for his own;
But destined to be Kyou's Bedivere.
Ach, im Traum bereits empfand ich,
The Great Buddha of Kamakura may tranquilly hide in peace, but not for you; you will weep, you will mourn, and at the end of it, in gut-wrenching agony tear, arm embracing naught but air, you will face him, and tell him of the hope.
Although the curse is removed, you still can't have the one you love.
Sei ein Traum,
es sei ein Traum.
Author's Notes: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what you get if you read too much Milton in one day.
The poem in italics is the third of a set by Brahms called "Songs to texts by Daumer, op. 57"
Translation:
"I dreamt I was dear to you; but I scarcely need to awaken, for while still dreaming I already felt that it was a dream, it was a dream, alas, while still dreaming I already felt that it was a dream, it was a dream."
The quotes and references to John Milton are too numerous to annotate, so I will mention the poems:
-On a Solemn Musick
-Lycidas
-L' Allegro and Il Pensieroso
-Paradise Lost
Also, the Italian poem is his, translated:
"But that part of it that reaches my eyes makes all night tearful for me alone."
"Ich finde..." etc. Is from Schubert's "Gretchen am Spinnrabe" and is translated, "I will find it never and never more."
"Comme a Petrarch..." is from Liszt's "O Quand Je Dors" and is translated, "So Petrarch approached Laura".
The Phonician sailor is an allusion to T.S. Ellliot's "Wasteland", also the German poem:
"Fresh blows the wind from my homeland"
Obvious allusion to Edgar Allan Poe.
Allusion to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge.
Bedivere is the last knight of King Arthur, from "Morte d'Arthur" by Tennyson. Also, the "How sweet are looks" poem is his.
The Endymion/Diana poem, Bartimus and the allusion to the coldness of stars is Longfellow, also the poem about the Hesperus shipwreck.
While I'm on the topic of Hesperus:
-Hesperus is another name for the planet Venus
-It is also the name of the garden where the golden apples of Greek myth were located
-Which were given by Paris to Venus (see the wraparound?) in exchange for Helen
-and is alluded to frequently in Milton's Paradise Lost.
Gotterdammerung is the name of a part of the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner and means "Twilight of the Gods" and has to do with death and destruction of the gods, primarily.
Also, Triste und Isolde also is Wagner's.
I shouldn't have to explain Lancelot and Guinevere. That little poem, by the way, is MINE. Mine, I say! Please ask if you want to quote it.
I apologize for the long notes! (and I haven't even explained the Greek gods and goddesses references, look them up if you don't know them, they're quite interesting.) Like I said, this is what happens when you read Milton before writing a story. It's a little like the Labyrinth of Minos, huh? (oh dear, there I go again).
Lepus is Latin for rabbit. Amateseru is the Japanese goddess of the sun.
Well, congrats if you got through it! You are deserving of my praise (bows in hommage).