I first heard this piece in around 2003, on September 11, at a memorial service for that day.
Funeral Ikos (1981)
Why these bitter words of the dying,
O brethren, which they utter
as they go hence?
I am parted from my brethren.
All my friends do I abandon,
and go hence.
But whither I go, that understand I not,
neither what shall become of me yonder;
only God who hath summoned me knoweth.
But make commemoration of me with the song:
Alleluia.
But whither now go the souls?
How dwell they now together there?
This mystery have I desired to learn,
but none can impart aright.
Do they call to mind their own people,
as we do them?
Or have they forgotten all those
who mourn them and make the song:
Alleluia.
We go forth on the path eternal,
and as condemned, with downcast faces,
present ouselves before the only God eternal.
Where then is comeliness?
Where then is wealth?
Where then is the glory of this world?
There shall none of these things aid us,
but only to say oft the psalm:
Alleluia.
If thou hast shown mercy
unto man, o man,
that same mercy
shall be shown thee there;
and if on an orphan
thou hast shown compassion,
that same shall there
deliver thee from want.
If in this life
the naked thou hast clothed,
the same shall give thee
shelter there,
and sing the psalm:
Alleluia.
Youth and the beauty of the body
fade at the hour of death,
and the tongue then burneth fiercely,
and the parched throat is inflamed.
The beauty of the eyes is quenched then,
the comeliness of the face all altered,
the shapeliness of the neck destroyed;
And the other parts have become numb,
nor often say:
Alleluia.
With ecstasy are we inflamed
if we but hear
that there is light eternal yonder;
That there is Paradise, wherein
every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth.
Let us all, also, enter into Christ,
that all we may cry aloud thus unto God:
Alleluia.
11 comments:
bls,
Your musical preferences and mine are amazingly similar. I nodded almost to the point of neck pain when you described the Duruflé Requiem movements the most beautiful pieces of music. Discovering them at university was quite literally life-changing for me. I heard the choir rehearsing the Requiem and was stopped in my tracks in the corridor...pure beauty. The Funeral Ikos in this post is, yes, achingly beautiful.
I did't know this piece -- magnificent. Thank you.
It really is, isn't it?
Spellbinding.
Even though I spent some time as an Orthodox Christian, I never attended a funeral. Any idea what part the Ikos plays in the funeral liturgy? Is it an anthem, or is something happening while the choir sings it?
BillyD, I'm gathering that this is a hymn ("Troparion"?) sung at some point during the service - and that the text derives from St. John of Damascus, who apparently wrote the texts of many of the funeral troparia.
Here's an actual funeral liturgy at goarch.org, and some of St. John's hymns are indeed included.
And here's one more reference to "Funeral Ikos" in this context.
(I should add that I've never been to an Orthodox Divine Liturgy, so I can't really answer questions about it very well.
I've got to do that sometime, really....)
I looked into this in the library. The words of Tavener's anthem appear in the Order for the Burial of a Priest, in the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, compiled and translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood. I have the 1983 edition (the revised, sixth edition; starting at page 409) before me; but the first edition is available with full preview on Google Books (http://tinyurl.com/mnk94o; Tavener's passage starting at bottom of page 408).
As you will see, Tavener took the text verbatim from this liturgy, though selectively. He omitted (understandably) some of the verses on the torments of hell. Others that he omitted are just as beautiful and moving as the ones he included:
Naught is so easily forgot as mortal from his brother-mortal parted.
If for a brief space we call to mind, yet straightaway forget we Death,
as we had not ourselves to die.
Parents, also, utterly forget their children,
whom from their own bodies they have borne and reared;
and they have dropped tears with the song: Alleluia.
If journeying from a home-land we stand in need of guides,
what shall we do when forth we fare to a land to us still all unknown?
Many leaders wilt thou then require, many prayers to accompany thee, to save the wretched sinner's soul;
until thou come to Christ and say to him: Alleluia.
I have beheld a dying child, and I have mourned my life.
For he was all agitated, and trembled greatly when the hour was come, and cried, O father, help me! O mother, save me!
And no one then could succour him, but only stood helpless as they gazed on him, and wept for him in the grave: Alleluia.
As much as I love our liturgy, there is nothing in the BCP nearly as raw, honest, tragic yet utterly Christian as this. (And I find more on almost every page that I open of this book). I recall that CS Lewis once said that the Orthodox liturgy was far superior to either the Anglican or Roman -- perhaps he knew Hapgood's version? It is, if nothing else, a miracle of translation.
Thanks, Robert. I agree with you about (what I know of) the Orthodox liturgy; I think sometimes that that is where I will end up.
The Orthodox have an amazing tradition of hymnody, as Christopher once pointed out at Derek's on some thread or other. See this for another example of how splendid the interplay of faith and the liturgy can be and is.
The texts are always based in Scripture - but the hymn-writers are not afraid to venture and adventure beyond it, either.
(Actually, I think I linked the wrong thing there; that seems to be only a poem, and not a liturgical text. I have to looking for the thing I was trying to show.
Still, it's a good example of the way the faith of the East uses the Bible, and then goes beyond it in new ideas.)
BTW, I found an exact definition of "Ikos" here.
"Ikos: This is a short composition that follows the Kontakion, between the Sixth and Seventh Odes of the Canon."
And then, looking at "Kontakion":
"Kontakion: The hymn appointed to be sung after the sixth ode of the canons (sometimes also after the third ode); it is generally followed immediately by its ikos. Both the kontakion and the ikos are derived from the early kontakion, which was a long poem, intended to be sung in church. It consisted of a short preliminary stanza, followed by some 18-24 strophes, each known as an ikos; the preliminary stanza and every ikos. The word means pole, since the Kontakion was originally a long poetic composition rolled up on a pole. Now only the brief preliminary stanza remains and is sung before the Ikos after the Sixth Ode of the Canon, at the Liturgy, Hours, and various other services."
(Forgot the link to the definition.)
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