Please critique. This is a bit of an experimental piece...


How the Mighty Have Fallen!
(Lament of the Bow)

Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights.
How the mighty have fallen!
This news brings our enemies’ daughters delight.
How the mighty have fallen!

May blood-drenched peak be hid from rain,
And never again yield its gift of ripe grain--
For there lies the bow and the sword of our slain,
Those heroes who’ll not rise again.

Saul and Jonathan, beloved in life—
Nor in death were they parted.
Swifter than eagles that plunge from the sky--
So strong! So bold! Lion-hearted!

Come daughters of my people, cry!
With scarlet and gold Saul brightened your eye.
Come, wail the lament, tear your rich robes and sigh--
Dear Jonathan cannot arise.

The weapons of war lie defiled on your heights.
How the mighty have fallen!
The sun veils its face, lest bronze shields blaze bright.
How the mighty have fallen!
How the mighty have fallen!
How the mighty have fallen!

c2005 Skip Johnson
All rights reserved.


Note: Working on the "Never was as Beautiful" piece--which mourns a fallen soldier--these past few days made the following similarly themed passage stand out for me. I came upon it this morning during my usual Bible reading time.

The original version is about 3,000 years old, and in it David mourns the loss of his best friend (Jonathan) and his worst enemy (King Saul) when he hears of their deaths at the hands of the common enemy nation, the Philistines, in a battle on top of Mount Gilboah. It appears to have been in a wheat growing area. The Israelites generally kept to the heights to avoid the "heavy armor" of Philistine chariots on the coastal plains. Looks like this time, those high country warriors couldn't escape the superior might of their enemies. (The Philistines also controlled the metal works, so that only King Saul and the Crown Prince, Jonathan, had swords in all the Israelite army. Everyone else was reduced to sling shots, ox goads, bows and arrows, and sticks and stones, I guess.)

Jonathan is King Saul's son, and has been David's dearest friend since the day David killed the giant, Goliath--a monster Philistine warrior who towered between nine and ten feet tall. King Saul, angered on that occassion by the song of the Israelite women following the battle (which favored David's heroism above his own) has repeatedly attempted to kill David as a rival to his throne. Though David had already been annointed the nation's next king by the prophet Samuel, he refused to retaliate--sparing King Saul's life on at least two occassions when the mad king was pursuing him with deadly intent.

These people actually existed. For 150 years, some liberal critical scholars claimed David was nothing more than a fictional King Aurthur style legend. Then an archeology team from Andrews University in Michigan (the seminary where I recieved my ministerial training) unearthed an ancient seal that bore the inscription of an official of the House of David during a dig in the Holy Land. It was the first extra-Biblical verification of David's historical existence. The liberal scholars, who had made their fame and careers proving themselves wiser than the Bible in denying David's existence, simply refused to believe the evidence. They claimed it was all a hoax, in the face of the best evidence to the contrary. I noticed on the Discovery channel last night that a second archeological team has now unearthed another reference to David, who wrote this lament.

Here's how the original passage reads in the New International Version, by way of comparison with my paraphrased version...

II Samuel 1:17-27 NIV

"David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan, and ordered that the men of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is written in the Book of Jashar):

Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights.
How the mighty have fallen!

Tell it not in Gath,
proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.

O mountains of Gilboa,
may you have neither dew nor rain,
nor fields that yield offerings of grain.
For there the shields of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.
From the blood of the slain,
from the flesh of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan did not turn back,
The sword of Saul
did not return unsatisfied.

Saul and Jonathan—
in life they were loved and gracious,
and in death they were not parted.
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.

O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul,
who clothed you in scarlet and finery,
who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold.

How the mighty have fallen in battle!
Jonathan lies slain on your heights.
I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
you were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
more wonderful than that of women.

How the mighty have fallen!
The weapons of war have perished!”



Note: Two quick points concerning my paraphrase: 1) it roughly follows the original ancient "chiastic structure", in which the first and last, next to first and next to last portions mirror each other--with the high point of the piece being in the center 2) the title "Lament of the Bow", refers to a weapon of war mentioned in the piece that is also built in the form of a chiasm--a clever visual pun.

I've already started the music for this in the key of D minor. Due to the structure followed, stanzas 1 and 5 are to the same music. Stanzas 2 and 4 are to different music. The heart of the piece, stanza 3, is set to different music yet. Kind of a pyrmid arrangement, with the center as focal point.

In our way of speaking of a lyric today, stanzas 1 and 5 would be the chorus, stanzas 2 and 4 would be verses, and stanza 3 would be the bridge section.

This passage was read, as I recall, at the memorial service for Dr. Gerhard Hasel, who was head of the seminary when I was a student there. He was a world class conservative (Bible-believing) scholar, author of many books and hundreds of articles in theological journals. He died unexpectedly in a car wreck. An absolutely brilliant mind, who has been sorely missed. Though he used a pen instead of a sword, Dr. Hasel was also a warrior. Last time I saw him, he encouraged me to go back for my own doctorate in Biblical studies. Instead of doing that, I finished copying the Bible out by hand. (An equivalent time commitment to earning a doctoral, about 3 years of full-time effort.) In the process, I came across "The Lament of the Bow". I'm finally resetting it for music.

Specifically, this piece would work well in a collection of sacred vocal works based on passages of the Bible, or as a performance piece during a series of sermons on the life of David, or as a funeral piece for special occassions such as the one mentioned above.



[This message has been edited by Skip Johnson (edited 10-27-2005).]