3500 years ago, the words of Penelope, battling back tears as she fights to believe in the homecoming of her lost love. Performed and composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman on Luthieros chelys lyra, Wurlitzer 43-string pedal harp, sung in Ancient Greek (Homer, Odyssey 18.201-204).


Album notes:

I think of Penelope weaving, and I see her hands move deftly, rhythmically. That's really how the song began. I could not find an instance when she played the lyra in her moments of sorrow, like Achilles did in the Iliad. So I gave her that moment, in this song, using her words. I thought of her words in a simple rhythm, in Aeolian mode, and imagined her weeping her fury, her passion, in one sweeping moment.

It is 3,500 years ago, and the lands are torn by wars. Peneliope is resourceful and brave under brutal circumstances: she clings to the hope that her husband Odysseus, gone for almost twenty years since the Trojan War began, will come home and defend her home, her honor, and her son from the men who have invaded her home, threatened her son, and claimed her as a prize. Outwardly, she must be a queen, able to mollify and entertain her suitors. But alone in her chambers she is vastly shaken.

How does she express herself, alone? We are given glimpses of her sorrow, when all she wants to do is sleep, to escape. After waking, she laments:

“Ah in my utter wretchedness, soft slumber enfolded me.
Would that chaste Artemis give so soft a death,
At this very moment, that I might, with sorrow at heart,
no longer waste my life away…”

“ἦ με μάλ᾽ αἰνοπαθῆ μαλακὸν περὶ κῶμ᾽ ἐκάλυψεν.
αἴθε μοι ὣς μαλακὸν θάνατον πόροι Ἄρτεμις ἁγνὴ
uαὐτίκα νῦν, ἵνα μηκέτ᾽ ὀδυρομένη κατὰ θυμὸν
αἰῶνα φθινύθω…”
(Homer, Odyssey, 18.201-204)

Then she is quickly joined by her attendants.

She is not given an instrument to strum, and she is rarely alone to collect her thoughts, and even so she must be guarded.

She weaves plots, and she weaves a shroud. She is adept with her mind and her hands. What of her heart?

I hear her words, spoken in the silence of her chamber, near a rocky sea. I give her space to create a melody, and she fills it with her words. I offer her a harp, and she plucks out a familiar mode and calm rhythm. I give her a lyra to cradle, and her fingers work, and her passion pours out, until she is spent. The moment passes; it echoes. Her heart has been poured. She can compose herself together again.

Her attendants come, and she faces the future.

www.bettinajoydeguzman.com


Album Credits
Sound engineer: Benj Clarke, at The Temple in Long Beach
Photo, filmography and design: Claudia Kabisch

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