Name: Self, Susannah: King René's Book of Love (violin version)
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Self, Susannah: King René's Book of Love (violin version)

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Also available for voice, cello and piano.

There once was a King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou called King René. He lived in the 15th Century and was an exquisite maker and painter of manuscripts. His Book of Love charts the intrepid adventures of himself portrayed as the poet, Cueur, who seeks to find his true love. These sixteen illuminations are archived in the National Library of Vienna, Austria. For this short song cycle I have chosen the first three illuminations. For the text I interface a préçis of the scene delivered in English, with the addition of some fragments of the discernable French interwoven in the manuscript.

1. The Heart of my Desire

In this illumination, Cueur has his heart literally taken from his breast by the page, who gives it to Ardent Desire. From now on Cueur’s heart is displayed vulnerably in his armoured headdress in the following illuminations. He can only regain his heart when he has found Sweet Grace, his true and only love.

In the magical night I see Love
And he plucks my heart from my breast
And gives it to the ardent page of my desire.
And my heart will journey alone
Until it finds the Sweet Grace, the lover of my dreams.
My heart is at the mercy of love.
My life is aflame and full of tears.
His arrows pierce my heart so fiercely that I may never recover.
Ton cueur en la mercy d’amore que ma vie en flame et en plours.

2. Jealousy

Cueur rides into the exotic forest and meets a non-binary creature outside a small temple who is the manifestation of jealousy. ‘They' strip Cueur of all his hope of ever finding his true love and direct him through the forest in the wrong direction.

My arms are hairy, my hips malformed.
I am the enemy of love.
I spit on your desires and lift up my thighs!
So will you kill me? You won’t!
Why don’t you hate me?
I am the enemy of love and you will always despise me.

3. Sweet Grace

Cueur finds Sweet Grace, his one and only love, standing outside a beautiful tented pavilion. She is everything he has wished for but in order to win her love he must now embark on a journey full of challenges, which he must overcome to prove himself worthy of her.

Oh noble and engaging hearts
Longing to win sweet favours and joyful gratitude
From the God of Love.
My lady, do not waver in your resolution,
Never abandon your first love,
Be true to her, unchanging from day to day.
Seek out her favour from the God of Love.

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