Friday 17 April 2015

The Heroic Legend

Last night's dream was, again, on the subject of music and problem-solving.

The tune that pervades the dream is a 16th century song that all of my generation of Irish people learned as a poem at school, Seán Ó Duibhir an Ghleanna, ("John O'Dwyer of the Glen") a dirge that mourned the decimation of the Irish oak  forests by Queen Elizabeth of England to build ships for her great fleets and left O'Dwyer "without game" and the emigrant ship beckoning him. The song turned out to be a parody on a much older song, a Sun Salutation that dated from the pre-Christian past.

My dream resolves the issue between the dirge and the joyful song of salutation. It presents a drama which commences with the tune playing joyfully while an ancient hero, in the midst of nature's Dawn Chorus, salutes the rising sun. Then there is the adventure in which the hero is overthrown by his enemies and slain. One of his faithful followers, who survives the final battle, retrieves his body from the battle field, washes it, embalms it and dresses it in magnificent (blue, of course) clothes, and lays him out on a stone table on a famous fairy hill. The people of Ireland file by his resplendent dead body, while the tune plays in its mournful version. The end.

Interpretation:
Let's treat it, (shall we?) as being exactly what it appears to be, a creative result of juxta-positioning two polarities of one tune. Not to mention, at all, that the dressing of the hero in blue might refer back to my Blue and Yellow dream of a few night's ago, where it was I, myself, that was dressed resplendently in blue!

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