CATHEDRAL
SERVICE, ORGAN AND SINGING. GRETCHEN AMONG MANY PEOPLE.
EVIL SPIRIT BEHIND HER
EVIL SPIRIT
How otherwise, oh Gretchen,
It was with you when you,
Still full of innocence,
Came to the altar here,
And from the well-worn little book
You babbled prayers,
Half child-at-play
Half God within your heart!
Gretchen!
Where dwell your thoughts?
Within your heart
What misdeed’s harboured?
Are you now praying for your mother’s soul
That overslept to lasting, lasting pain?
And whose blood stains your threshold stones?
Already now beneath your heart
Does it not stir and swell
To frighten you and it
With its foreboding presence?
GRETCHEN
Oh, grief!
Were I but free of all the thoughts
Which sweep on back and forth in me,
Fighting me.
ORGAN TONE.
CHOIR
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla.
(Day of Wrath, millennial day,
Earth to ash will pass away.
- 13th
century hymn of Thomas of Celo)
EVIL SPIRIT
Wrath takes you!
The trumpet peals!
The graves are quaking!
And your heart
From ashen rest
To flame-fed torture
Rises up again
So quivering!
GRETCHEN
I wish I were
Far away from here! I feel as if
The organ’s robbing me
Of breath- song dissolves
My heart down to its deeps.
CHOIR
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet adparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.
(Before the judge all hidden-away
Things come into light of day-
Nothing unavenged will stay.)
GRETCHEN
I feel hemmed in!
The wall’s high pillars
Imprison me!
How the vault
Crushes me!- air!
EVIL SPIRIT
Conceal yourself! Sin, shame
Won’t stay concealed.
Air? Light?
Woe to you!
CHOIR
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?
Cum vix justus sit securus.
( I, the wretched, what shall I say,
Who implore upon that day,
When the just can hardly stay?)
EVIL SPIRIT
Transfigured ones
Avert their faces from you.
To stretch their hands towards you
Makes the pure shudder.
Woe!
CHOIR
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
(
I, the wretched, what shall I say?)
GRETCHEN
Neighbour! Smelling salts!
SHE PASSES OUT.
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