Friday, July 22, 2011

Proserpine



"...Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an overhanging rock, on the other a chesnut wood. Etna at a distance.

Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe.
Pros. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest
Under the shadow of that hanging cave
And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine
Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank,
And as I twine a wreathe tell once again
The combat of the Titans and the Gods;
Or how the Python fell beneath the dart
Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne’s change,—
That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves
Now shade her lover’s brow. And I the while
Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain
Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair.
But without thee, the plain I think is vacant,
Its blossoms fade,—its tall fresh grasses droop,
Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;—
Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine..."




-Mary Shelley, Proserpine




Not sure if Mary Shelley's Proserpine has been performed. (The work was "discovered" after her death) Below is the Ouverture of Jean Baptiste Lully's "Proserpine", from 1680.

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