Love Divine

I was recently watching a programme on the BBC called Rococo: Travel, Pleasure, Madness.  In the second episode (Pleasure) the presenter, Waldemar Januszczak, drew our attention to the painting, "Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera" (1717) by Jean-Antoine Watteau.  


In classical mythology, Cythera was the birthplace of Venus.  Cronos the Titan castrated his father Uranus and threw his testicles into the sea.  The sperm from them gave birth to Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of love.  She rose, fully formed from the waves and floated to the Mediterranean island of Cythera (Kythira).  In legend, this island was the only place where perfect love could be found, so the pilgrims in the painting would be very sad to leave.

This reminded me of the aria Fairest Isle, All Isles Excelling from Henry Purcell's semi-opera King Arthur (1691).  It is part of the final, celebratory masque to mark Arthur's victory against the Saxons and his love union with a Cornish princess.  Merlin conjures up a vision of the isle of Britain, and in this song, Venus appears and sings of how Britain will become the new island of love, replacing Cythera:
Fairest isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasure and of love;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
And forsake her Cyprian grove.
Cupid from his fav'rite nation,
Care and envy will remove;
Jealousy that poisons passion,
And despair that dies for love.
Gentle murmurs, sweet complaining,
Sighs that blow the fire of love;
Soft repulses, kind disdaining,
Shall be all the pains you prove.
Ev'ry swain shall pay his duty,
Grateful ev'ry nymph shall prove;
And as these excel in beauty,
Those shall be renown'd for love.
(Lyrics by John Dryden)
http://youtu.be/EsLYKK3xzhg
This became a very popular song in the 18th century.  In 1747, Charles Wesley published a hymn to the same tune which became a standard of the English-speaking church:
Love Divine, all loves excelling, 
Joy of heaven, to earth come down, 
Fix in us thy humble dwelling, 
All thy faithful mercies crown. 
Jesu, thou art all compassion, 
Pure unbounded love thou art; 
Visit us with thy salvation, 
Enter every trembling heart.
It's easy to see how the first verse mirrors the first verse of Dryden and Purcell's song.  In Wesley's hymn, perfect love cannot be found with Venus, but in the love of God and the Lord Jesus for the human soul.  This love comes down to earth and the human heart from heaven, in the same way as Venus comes from Cythera to live in Britain in the original song.  
This hymn remains extremely popular, although it's not usually sung to Purcell's tune any more.  (In Britain, it's usually sung to a tune called Blaenwern).  It was number 14 in the BBC Songs Of Praise most popular hymn poll, 2013.  Ironically, one of the reasons it is so popular is because it is used so much at weddings.  It is listed on the Church of England's yourchurchwedding.org as one of the most popular wedding hymns.  It seems that couples are hoping the "love divine" will bring them their own version of Cythera.


Location: Clayton Clayton

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Praise of Hairy Women

Image
Who doesn't love Lettie Lutz, the Bearded Lady character in The Greatest Showman, who sings   the iconic anthem, This is Me ? Yesterday, my daughter took me to a singalong version of the film for a Mother's Day treat, and we both belted out This is Me at the tops of our voices. Both Lettie and the song have become symbols for anyone who feels marginalised or different. It so happens that last week I watched another film about a hairy woman, the very beautiful Norwegian coming-of-age film,   Løvekvinnen , or The Lion Woman, based on a book by   Erik Fosnes Hanson.   It tells the story of Eva Arctander, who is born in a small town in the early 20th century and struggles to find her place in the world. Especially, it concerns her relationship with her stationmaster father, widowed at her birth. I loved this film - which I watched on Netflix - and I definitely want to see it again. One of my best reads of last year was Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Bi...
Read more

Beauty and the Beast: King of the Wood

Image
She asked for a rose.  Her father reaches out to pluck one.  Suddenly, a Beast appears, furious, accusing him of theft.  The penalty is death.  Or the surrender of his daughter. But why such a harsh penalty for plucking a rose?  Much has been said - or invented - on the possible meaning of the rose.  When the last petal falls, the Beast's fate is sealed eternally.  It is the first thing he has learned to love.  It symbolises virginity; the plucking of the rose mirrors the deflowering of the daughter; the aristocratic Beast is excercising his  droit du seigneur  over Beauty, the merchant's child. But why should the plucking of a flower carry such a heavy penalty?  And why does the same motif occur in other fairy tales?  For example, Rapunzel , in which the father must sacrifice his child as payment for picking herbs from the Witch's garden. One answer may lie in ancient mythology.  Most ancient polytheistic religions have s...
Read more

Amputation in Fairy Tales

Image
                            The Red Shoes: The Archers/J Arthur Rank, 1948 The other night, I was watching the classic 1948 film, The Red Shoes.  When the film was over, I decided to read up on the original tale by Hans Christian Anderson, which brought me back to the subject of amputation in fairy tales. When I was writing my novel, Silver Hands (based on Grimm's fairy tale, The Handless Maiden) I had to think carefully about how I was going to approach amputation in my re-telling.  I decided early on that, in my version, the hands were not going to grow back as they do in my source tale.  The 2012 Paralympics made everyone in my country much more aware of the achievements of amputees.  In real life, limbs do not grow back; what can grow, however, is confidence and new abilities.  This was what I wanted to portray in Silver Hands.  Margaret learns new skills in painting and calligraphy, ...
Read more