Surge et aperi mihi: Four Songs
from Song of Songs

Description

Duration: 16 min.

Text:
Latin
compiled by the composer from Song of Songs

Premiere:
May 28th, 2008
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Boston, MA
Jeanne Lucas, soprano & James Busby, piano

Songs:
1. Qualis est dilectus meus?
2. Pone me ut signaculum super cor
3. Surge aquillo
4. Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat

Translations:
1. Qualis est dilectus meus?
Unto what is my beloved likened from among the others?
My beloved is wholly beautiful!
What is my beloved?
He is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

2. Pone me ut signaculum super cor
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if any man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

3. Surge aquilo
Arise! Arise O north wind, and come thou south wind;
Blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow.
Arise and come!

4. Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat
I slept and my heart kept watch. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. The voice of my beloved knocketh: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled!”

I sought him, but I could not find him;
I called him, but he gave me no answer.

I rose up to open to my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh; my fingers with the sweetest myrrh. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone.

I sought him, but I could not find him;
I called him, but he gave me no answer.

The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I asked, “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls stripped my veil from me.

I sought him, but I could not find him;
I called him, but he gave me no answer.