A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something that they regret or someone that they have lost, and they are usually accompanied by wailing, moaning and/or crying. [1] Laments constitute some of the oldest forms of writing, and examples exist across human cultures.
Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. [2] The Lament for Sumer and Ur dates back at least 4000 years to ancient Sumer, the world's first urban civilization. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey , and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by the aulos in classical and Hellenistic Greece. [3] Elements of laments appear in Beowulf , in the Hindu Vedas, and in ancient Near Eastern religious texts. They are included in the Mesopotamian City Laments such as the Lament for Ur and the Jewish Tanakh, or Christian Old Testament.
In many oral traditions, both early and modern, the lament has been a genre usually performed by women: [4] Batya Weinbaum made a case for the spontaneous lament of women chanters in the creation of the oral tradition that resulted in the Iliad [5] The material of lament, the "sound of trauma" is as much an element in the Book of Job as in the genre of pastoral elegy, such as Shelley's "Adonais" or Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis". [6]
The Book of Lamentations or Lamentations of Jeremiah figures in the Old Testament. The Lamentation of Christ (under many closely variant terms) is a common subject from the Life of Christ in art, showing Jesus' dead body being mourned after the Crucifixion. Jesus himself lamented over the prospective fall of Jerusalem as he and his disciples entered the city ahead of his passion. [7]
A lament in the Book of Lamentations or in the Psalms, in particular in the Lament/Complaint Psalms of the Tanakh, may be looked at as "a cry of need in a context of crisis when Israel lacks the resources to fend for itself". [8] Another way of looking at it is all the more basic: laments simply being "appeals for divine help in distress". [9] These laments, too, often have a set format: an address to God, description of the suffering/anguish from which one seeks relief, a petition for help and deliverance, a curse towards one's enemies, an expression of the belief of ones innocence or a confession of the lack thereof, a vow corresponding to an expected divine response, and lastly, a song of thanksgiving. [9] Examples of a general format of this, both in the individual and communal laments, can be seen in Psalm 3 and Psalm 44 respectively. [9]
The Lament of Edward II , if it is actually written by Edward II of England, is the sole surviving composition of his.
A heroine's lament is a conventional fixture of baroque opera seria, accompanied usually by strings alone, in descending tetrachords. [10] Because of their plangent cantabile melodic lines, evocatively free, non-strophic construction and adagio pace, operatic laments have remained vividly memorable soprano or mezzo-soprano arias even when separated from the emotional pathos of their operatic contexts. An early example is Ariadne's "Lasciatemi morire", which is the only survivor of Claudio Monteverdi's lost Arianna. Francesco Cavalli's operas extended the lamento formula, in numerous exemplars, of which Ciro's "Negatemi respiri" from Ciro is notable. [11]
Other examples include Dido's Lament ("When I am laid in earth") (Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas ), "Lascia ch'io pianga" (George Frideric Handel, Rinaldo ), "Caro mio ben" (Tomaso or Giuseppe Giordani). The lament continued to represent a musico-dramatic high point. In the context of opera buffa, the Countess's lament, "Dove sono", comes as a surprise to the audience of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro , and in Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville , Rosina's plaintive words at her apparent abandonment are followed, not by the expected lament aria, but by a vivid orchestral interlude of storm music. The heroine's lament remained a fixture in romantic opera, and the Marschallin's monologue in act 1 of Der Rosenkavalier can be understood as a penetrating psychological lament. [12]
In modernity, discourses about melancholia and trauma take the functional place ritual laments hold in premodern societies. This entails a shift from a focus on community and convention to individuality and authenticity. [13]
The purely instrumental lament is a common form in piobaireachd music for the Scottish bagpipes. "MacCrimmon's Lament" dates to the Jacobite uprising of 1745. The tune is held to have been written by Donald Ban MacCrimmon, piper to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, who supported the Hanoverians. It is said that Donald Ban, who was killed at Moy in 1746, had an intimation that he would not return.[ clarification needed ] [14]
A well-known Gaelic lullaby is "Griogal Cridhe" ("Beloved Gregor"). It was composed in 1570 after the execution of Gregor MacGregor by the Campbells. The grief-stricken widow, Marion Campbell, describes what happened as she sings to her child. [15]
"Cumhadh na Cloinne" ("Lament for the Children") is a pìobaireachd composed by Padruig Mór MacCrimmon in the early 1650s. It is generally held to be based on the loss of seven of MacCrimmon's eight sons within a year to smallpox, [16] [17] possibly brought to Skye by a Spanish trading vessel. Poet and writer Angus Peter Campbell, quoting poet Sorley MacLean, has called it "one of the great artistic glories of all Europe". [18] Author Bridget MacKenzie, in Piping Traditions of Argyll, suggests that it refers to the slaughter of the MacLeod's fighting Cromwell's forces at the Battle of Worcester. It may have been inspired by both. [19]
Other Scottish laments from outside of the piobaireachd tradition include "Lowlands Away"[ citation needed ], "MacPherson's Rant", and "Hector the Hero".
There is a short, free musical form appearing in the Baroque and then again in the Romantic periods, called lament. It is typically a set of harmonic variations in homophonic texture, wherein the bass (Lament bass) descends through a tetrachord, usually one suggesting a minor mode.[ citation needed ]
the Marschallin's act 1 lament
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The Book of Lamentations is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible, it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillot alongside the Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Esther. In the Christian Old Testament, it follows the Book of Jeremiah as the prophet Jeremiah is traditionally understood to have been its author.
The Book of Psalms, also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh called Ketuvim ("Writings"), and a book of the Old Testament.
In music theory, a tetrachord is a series of four notes separated by three intervals. In traditional music theory, a tetrachord always spanned the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion —but in modern use it means any four-note segment of a scale or tone row, not necessarily related to a particular tuning system.
In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector, daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled. The name means 'man battler' or 'fighter of men' or 'man fighter' or 'man's battle', from the Greek stem ἀνδρ- 'man' and μάχη 'battle'.
The ancient Hebrews identified poetical portions in their sacred texts, as shown by their entitling as "psalms" or as "chants" passages such as Exodus 15:1-19 and Numbers 21:17-20; a song or chant is, according to the primary meaning of the term, poetry. The question as to whether the poetical passages of the Old Testament show signs of regular rhythm or meter remains unsolved. Many of the features of Biblical poetry are lost when the poems are translated to English.
Tisha B'Av is an annual fast day in Judaism. A commemoration of a number of disasters in Jewish history, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem.
The Book of Baruch is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, used in many Christian traditions, such as Catholic and Orthodox churches. In Judaism and Protestant Christianity, it is considered not to be part of the canon, with the Protestant Bibles categorizing it as part of the Biblical apocrypha. The book is named after Baruch ben Neriah, the prophet Jeremiah's scribe who is mentioned at Baruch 1:1, and has been presumed to be the author of the whole work. The book is a reflection of a late Jewish writer on the circumstances of Jewish exiles from Babylon, with meditations on the theology and history of Israel, discussions of wisdom, and a direct address to residents of Jerusalem and the Diaspora. Some scholars propose that it was written during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees.
Electra, also Elektra or The Electra, is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career. Jebb dates it between 420 BC and 414 BC.
"The Wife's Lament" or "The Wife's Complaint" is an Old English poem of 53 lines found on folio 115 of the Exeter Book and generally treated as an elegy in the manner of the German frauenlied, or "women's song". The poem has been relatively well preserved and requires few if any emendations to enable an initial reading. Thematically, the poem is primarily concerned with the evocation of the grief of the female speaker and with the representation of her state of despair. The tribulations she suffers leading to her state of lamentation, however, are cryptically described and have been subject to many interpretations. Indeed, Professor Stephen Ramsay has said, "the 'correct' interpretation of "The Wife's Lament" is one of the more hotly debated subjects in medieval studies."
The Lament for Ur, or Lamentation over the city of Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city's third dynasty.
Pibroch, piobaireachd or ceòl mòr is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations. Strictly meaning 'piping' in Scottish Gaelic, piobaireachd has for some four centuries been music of the great Highland bagpipe.
Keening is a traditional form of vocal lament for the dead in the Gaelic Celtic tradition, known to have taken place in Ireland and Scotland. Keening, which can be seen as a form of sean-nós singing, is performed in the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages.
Clan Lamont is a Highland Scottish clan. The clan is said to descend from Ánrothán Ua Néill, an Irish prince of the O'Neill dynasty, and through him Niall Noigíallach, High King of Ireland. Clan Ewen of Otter, Clan MacNeil of Barra, Clan Lachlan, and Clan Sweeney are also descendants of Ánrothán. Traditional genealogy would therefore include Clan Lamont among the descendants of Conn Cétchathach.
Giasone (Jason) is an opera in three acts and a prologue with music by Francesco Cavalli and a libretto by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini. It was premiered at the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice on 5 January 1649, during carnival. The plot is loosely based on the story of Jason and the golden fleece, but the opera contains many comic elements too.
The MacCrimmons is a Scottish family that served as pipers to the chiefs of Clan MacLeod for several generations. The MacCrimmon kindred was centred at Borreraig near the Clan MacLeod seat at Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. At Borreraig the MacCrimmons conducted one of the best known "piping colleges" in the Highlands of Scotland.
Vajtim or Gjëmë is the dirge or lamentation of the dead in the Albanian custom by a group of men or a woman or a group of women. Traditional lamentations have now almost become extinct both in the Islamic and Christian Albanian population, except in some parts of Northern Albania and Kosovo as well as in parts of North Macedonia such as Zajas and Upper Reka, where they exist in a very diminished form. The earliest figurative representations of this practice in traditional Albanian-inhabited regions appear on Dardanian funerary stelae of classical antiquity.
John Grant was an amateur aficionado of the Great Highland bagpipe who, for over fifty years, composed piobaireachd and Ceòl Beag for members of the British Royal Family, important noblemen and women, and contemporary statesmen; wrote and published books on the Great Highland Bagpipe and its music; and taught students under the auspices of the [Royal] Scottish Piper's Society.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Bible:
A City Lament is a poetic elegy for a lost or fallen city. This literary genre, from around 2000 BCE onwards, was particularly prevalent in the Mesopotamian region of the Ancient Near East. The Bible's Book of Lamentations concerning Jerusalem around 586 BCE, contains some elements of a city lament.
In the Byzantine Empire, death was generally not mentioned directly, preferring to use various euphemisms such as separation, leaving-by, paying off debts-paying. Byzantine thanatological conceptions go back to ancient philosophy, which presented death as the separation of the soul from the body. According to Christian eschatology, it was assumed that this separation was temporary and that the soul would be reunited with the body at the end of time. The Byzantines believed that death occurred at the command of God, who sent an angel to carry out his will. There were differing opinions as to whether the hour of death was predetermined, but it was believed that only the saints could know it in advance. The afterlife began with the naked and helpless soul coming out of the body through the mouth to be accompanied by an angel to begin a forty-day wandering, passing through publicans, during which the demons weigh its sins. At the end of the journey, the soul sees Hell and Heaven as a possible waiting place for the Last Judgment. The doctrine of the souls transmigration was completely denied in Byzantium. As in the philosophy of Neoplatonism, Eastern Christianity views death as a release for new life, and the Church Fathers Basil the Great and John Chrysostom disapproved of excessive mourning for the dead.
