1 of 17 Lachrimae Reading: Ovid, Catacoustic Consort, Live Performance, Jeremy Dubin, Actor
1. John Dowland's Lachrimae dramatic reading
From a live concert of the Catacoustic Consort, Annalisa Pappano, Artistic Director
The entire musical performance of John Dowland's Lachrimae is online, interspersed with dramatic readings by Jeremy Dubin from Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (17 tracks)
Credit to Trish Thomas Henley for the text
Text:
Lachrimæ Antiquae (Old Tears)
Book III Elegy III: She’s Faithless Ovid (1 century BCE)
Gods exist, go on, believe it – she broke the promise
she made and is still as lovely as she was before!
The long hair she had when she wasn’t a liar,
is just as long after she’s offended the gods.
Her radiance was whiteness tinged with a rosy blush
before – the blush shines on amongst the snow.
Her feet were slender – her feet are delicately formed.
She was tall and graceful – tall and graceful she remains.
Bright-eyes she had – they are radiant as stars,
with which she so often deceived me with her lies.
No doubt the eternal gods allow girls to swear
falsely too, and beauty has divinity.
I remember she swore by her eyes the other day,
and by mine: look, it is mine that felt the pain!
Tell me, gods, if she cheated you with impunity
why did I deserve punishment instead?
But didn’t innocent virgin Andromeda die by your order,
for her mother’s crime of boastful beauty?
Not enough for you, that I find you worthless witnesses,
but she laughs at me, and you, playful gods, unpunished?
By my punishment do I redeem her lying:
shall I be victim, deceived by the deceiver?
Either a god’s a thing of no account, an idle fear,
stirring the crowd through their foolish credulity:
or if there’s a true god, he loves tender girls,
and allows them all excessive liberties.
For us Mars straps on his deadly sword:
for us the hand of Pallas lifts the unfailing spear.
For us the pliant bow of Apollo’s bent:
for us Jove’s lofty right hand holds the fire.
The gods, offended, are scared to offend these beauties
and, besides, they fear those who don’t fear them.
And who should bother to burn incense on their altars?
We men it’s true need to show more spirit!
Jupiter blasts his own groves and hills with fire,
and neglects to hurl his bolts at perjured girls.
So many deserved it – but poor Semele was burned!
Her punishment was of her own making:
but if she’d withdrawn from her lover’s coming,
no father would have played mother to Bacchus.
Why complain and abuse all of heaven?
The gods too have eyes: the gods have hearts!
If I were a god, I’d let girls with lying lips
deceive my divinity without punishment:
I’d swear, myself, the girls were swearing truly
and I’d not be a god who spoke sourly.
Still, girl, you should use their gift in moderation –
or at least spare these eyes of mine!