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| Giacometti: The Palace at 4am, 1932 |
ROUND (Misterioso)
I’d like you to read this first part of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, especially as we’ve talked about it in class. (The translation is by Horace Gregory. I’ve compared a lot of versions, over the years, and this is the one that gets at both Ovid’s subtle irony (or sense of displacement--a story is never entirely the story) but also at his sweetness. That’s a funny word, but I think you’ll see what I mean. That the world (this "rounded body of all things in one") is a place of beauty and delight… As we make it so…
_____
BOOK I
INVOCATION
Now I shall tell of things that change, new
being
Out of old since you, O Gods, created
Mutable arts and gifts, give me the voice
To tell the shifting story of the world
From its beginning to the present hour.
Out of old since you, O Gods, created
Mutable arts and gifts, give me the voice
To tell the shifting story of the world
From its beginning to the present hour.
CHAOS AND CREATION
Before land was and sea — before air and sky
Arched over all, all Nature was all Chaos,
The rounded body of all things in one,
The living elements at war with lifelessness;
No God, no Titan shone from sky or sea,
No Moon, no Phoebe outgrew slanted horns
And walked the night, nor was Earth poised in air.
No wife of Ocean reached her glittering arms
Into the farthest shores of reef and sand.
Earth, Air, Water heaved and turned in darkness,
No living creatures knew that land, that sea
Where heat fell against cold, cold against heat —
Roughness at war with smooth and wet with drought.
Tilings that gave way entered unyielding masses,
Heaviness fell into things that had no weight.
Then God or Nature calmed the elements:
Land fell away from sky and sea from land,
And aether drew away from cloud and rain.
As God unlocked all elemental things,
Fire climbed celestial vaults, air followed it
To float in heavens below; and earth which carried
All heavier things with it dropped under air;
Water fell farthest, embracing shores and islands.
Before land was and sea — before air and sky
Arched over all, all Nature was all Chaos,
The rounded body of all things in one,
The living elements at war with lifelessness;
No God, no Titan shone from sky or sea,
No Moon, no Phoebe outgrew slanted horns
And walked the night, nor was Earth poised in air.
No wife of Ocean reached her glittering arms
Into the farthest shores of reef and sand.
Earth, Air, Water heaved and turned in darkness,
No living creatures knew that land, that sea
Where heat fell against cold, cold against heat —
Roughness at war with smooth and wet with drought.
Tilings that gave way entered unyielding masses,
Heaviness fell into things that had no weight.
Then God or Nature calmed the elements:
Land fell away from sky and sea from land,
And aether drew away from cloud and rain.
As God unlocked all elemental things,
Fire climbed celestial vaults, air followed it
To float in heavens below; and earth which carried
All heavier things with it dropped under air;
Water fell farthest, embracing shores and islands.
When God, whichever God he was, created
The universe we know, he made of earth
A turning sphere so delicately poised
That water flowed in waves beneath the wind
And Ocean's arms encircled the rough globe:
At God's touch, lakes, springs, dancing waterfalls
Streamed downhill into valleys, waters glancing
Through rocks, grass and wild-flowered meadows;
Some ran their silver courses underground,
Others raced into seas and broader Ocean —
All poured from distant hills to farthest shores.
Then God willed plain, plateau, and fallen sides
Of hills in deep-leaved forests: over them
He willed rock-bodied mountains against sky.
As highest heaven has two zones on the right,
Two on the left, and a fifth zone in flames,
With celestial fires between the four, so
God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked
With heat where none may live, at each extreme
A land of snow, and, at their sides, two zones
Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold.
And air arched over all, air heavier than
Fire in the same measure as water carries
Less weight than the entire weight of earth.
Through gathering air God sent storm clouds and rain,
Thunder that shakes the heart, ice in the wind
That pierces all with cold — yet the world's master
Did not give all air's space to fighting ground
Of the Four Winds: each had his home and yet
So wildly the Brothers quarrel, even now
The world is almost torn in a war of winds.
Eurus whose winged breath stirs Araby
Went where the hills of Persia glow with dawn;
And where the western shores are lit with fires
There Zephyrus with the setting sun came home;
While ice-tongued Boreas roared in farthest north,
Auster, the South Wind, gathered summer storms —
Shining above them floated heavenly aether.
____
The second connection (of course, given my current obsessions) is Thelonious Monk. "Round Midnight. I’ll tell you more of the back story in class, but Monk has been a kind of guide to me since I first listened to one of his records, Misterioso, when I was 13. Returning to him now brings many things full circle—and I am (as always, as always) amazed at the way he so clearly became himself. Was not an easy path (peoples so often want you to be who they think you are…)
One of Monk's favorite compositions was “Round Midnight. There’s a version from 1947 (which may sound a bit dated, because of the sidemen) and another with Monk’s quartet performing in Norway, on tour in1966 (for some reason the Europeans tended to get what he was doing)—and one more, not sure from when, with video Monk solo on the piano. Plus a 22 minute take from when he was first recording with Columbia in the 1957…it's "in progress"--and thereby additionally fascinating. And then there's the one at the Blackhawk (a jazz club in SF in the 50s) which I always love—in part because I can almost imagine having been there…
It’s very Monk-like that this song, 'Round Midnight (one of his favorite compositions) is hard to find in the “right” version. But what is a right version? Life being a quest, after all…
We can talk about this, too...
The Columbia Thelonious Himself, In-Progress version,1957:
* Thelonious Monk - 'Round Midnight (In Progress) - YouTube
The universe we know, he made of earth
A turning sphere so delicately poised
That water flowed in waves beneath the wind
And Ocean's arms encircled the rough globe:
At God's touch, lakes, springs, dancing waterfalls
Streamed downhill into valleys, waters glancing
Through rocks, grass and wild-flowered meadows;
Some ran their silver courses underground,
Others raced into seas and broader Ocean —
All poured from distant hills to farthest shores.
Then God willed plain, plateau, and fallen sides
Of hills in deep-leaved forests: over them
He willed rock-bodied mountains against sky.
As highest heaven has two zones on the right,
Two on the left, and a fifth zone in flames,
With celestial fires between the four, so
God made zones on earth, the fifth zone naked
With heat where none may live, at each extreme
A land of snow, and, at their sides, two zones
Of temperate winds and sun and shifting cold.
And air arched over all, air heavier than
Fire in the same measure as water carries
Less weight than the entire weight of earth.
Through gathering air God sent storm clouds and rain,
Thunder that shakes the heart, ice in the wind
That pierces all with cold — yet the world's master
Did not give all air's space to fighting ground
Of the Four Winds: each had his home and yet
So wildly the Brothers quarrel, even now
The world is almost torn in a war of winds.
Eurus whose winged breath stirs Araby
Went where the hills of Persia glow with dawn;
And where the western shores are lit with fires
There Zephyrus with the setting sun came home;
While ice-tongued Boreas roared in farthest north,
Auster, the South Wind, gathered summer storms —
Shining above them floated heavenly aether.
____
The second connection (of course, given my current obsessions) is Thelonious Monk. "Round Midnight. I’ll tell you more of the back story in class, but Monk has been a kind of guide to me since I first listened to one of his records, Misterioso, when I was 13. Returning to him now brings many things full circle—and I am (as always, as always) amazed at the way he so clearly became himself. Was not an easy path (peoples so often want you to be who they think you are…)
One of Monk's favorite compositions was “Round Midnight. There’s a version from 1947 (which may sound a bit dated, because of the sidemen) and another with Monk’s quartet performing in Norway, on tour in1966 (for some reason the Europeans tended to get what he was doing)—and one more, not sure from when, with video Monk solo on the piano. Plus a 22 minute take from when he was first recording with Columbia in the 1957…it's "in progress"--and thereby additionally fascinating. And then there's the one at the Blackhawk (a jazz club in SF in the 50s) which I always love—in part because I can almost imagine having been there…
It’s very Monk-like that this song, 'Round Midnight (one of his favorite compositions) is hard to find in the “right” version. But what is a right version? Life being a quest, after all…
We can talk about this, too...
Thelonious Monk, 'Round Midnight , San Francisco, 1960:
* 'Round Midnight (Live At The Blackhawk) - YouTube
* 'Round Midnight (Live At The Blackhawk) - YouTube
In Norway, 1966:
The Columbia Thelonious Himself, In-Progress version,1957:
* Thelonious Monk - 'Round Midnight (In Progress) - YouTube
(Other versions I've described easily available online...)
Here's Misterioso at the It Club in LA in 1964 (ask about how to find these):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG3sitUeczM
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