METANOMOS – a mini oratorio

METANOMOS is a seance to summon secret brotherhoods: the Pythagorean Union, alternating with the Whaling Brotherhood, under the leadership of Ahab from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The link between these two communities is Ishmael – a woman attempting to understand the principles of male initiation.
Far away from women and living as hermits, young men face the tests the ideologues give them.
The barbarian crew of the whaling vessel receives unequivocal commands from the bridge. Pythagoreans obedient to their monastic rules imitate their master in his spiritual life. Ahab readies his harpoons to fight an imaginary foe – the White Whale. Pythagoras promises his adherents a union with a divine being in exchange for self-improvement.
The object of the hunters’ pursuit, the mythical Leviathan, omnipresent and immortal, is a particle of the Pythagorean Cosmos, emitting sounds that are joined with the harmony of the spheres.
Both of them, Ahab the Tyrant and Pythagoras the Prophet, lead people to their slaughter in the name of an idea. One group dies challenging the power of nature, the other at the hands of their political opponents.
Two authorities, two brotherhoods, holders of absolute truth, suffering the same tragic finale. Who was to blame? Ishmael does not know the answer. Alongside the other unaffiliated ones, she awaits the “one note from beyond” (the nomos), which will be the turning point (the meta) in man’s cosmic solitude.

Katarzyna Wińska
The Metanomos Rondo (A Small Oratorio)

Dialogues on the ship based on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Personae:
Captain Ahab (Conductor)
Pythagoras (Conductor)
Ishmael
Blacksmith
The Whaling Brotherhood
The Pythagorean Brotherhood (Lysis, Archippos, Philolaos)

The action takes place on a whaling vessel and in an astronomical observatory. The actors read the text from music stands. The conductor alternately takes the form of AHAB and PYTHAGORAS. As AHAB he speaks through a megaphone. THE WHALERS (young members of an organization) turn into PYTHAGOREANS, pulling white shirts over their dirty bloodstained ones, taking off their leather jackets. ISHMAEL is a female observer, off to one side with her music stand. In the background: the music of the spheres

On board a ship. The harsh sunlight illuminates the boards in streaks of blood and blubber. Sailors in black “togs” carry out the quartered whale with whaling grandissimo, pouring water from buckets, swabbing the deck. Suddenly a silence descends upon the white ship. They sit turned from one another and drift off into daydreams.

(Andante)
ISHMAEL: Oh Metempsychosis! Oh Pythagoras!
In bright Greece you perished
so good, wise, and quiet
I sailed with you along the coast of Peru
and though I may be foolish, I taught you
how to knot a rope…
The sun is setting. Above the deck is an astronomical observatory. The echosond monitors from the previous scene show pictures of outer space instead of the ocean depths. Pythagoras mans the telescope. Members of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, cloaked in white, are standing by the monitors.
ISHMAEL: What craft do you know best?
PYTHAGORAS: I know none. I am a philosopher.
ISHMAEL: What does that mean?
PYTHAGORAS: Human life is like the Olympic games
some are in it for the glory
other to profit from purchase and sales
and a third group – neither for the cheers nor for the gain
but to observe most carefully
and to seek the causes
ISHMAEL: Better than others?
They want the power to judge?
PYTHAGORAS: Your words, not mine. (he exits)
ISHMAEL: Pythagoras!
The PYTHAGOREANS speak in turn.
1: Quiet, there are no names here.
ISHMAEL: Why did he depart?
2: He is with us and above us.
ISHMAEL: To whom does he speak?
3: He’s listening.
ISHMAEL: To whom? To the voices from beyond?
1: Ask him.
ISHMAEL: I’m going after him.
2: Stay, novitiate.
ISHMAEL: How long?
3: Five years.
ISHMAEL: To ask a single question?
1: To understand the response and to don the white robes.
ISHMAEL: I’ll be waiting patiently at home.
2: He is not a preacher you can visit.
ISHMAEL: Am I to live in a monastery?
3: The human spirit does not flourish in an inn.
We gather the truth in silence, for others.
ISHMAEL: Connoisseurs of silence…
Am I to be for everyone yet have no one myself?
1: You’ve understood half of it.
No one here will betray you.
And soon you’ll find out; easier to maintain
poverty and cleanliness
than to be subject to the rules.
ISHMAEL: I listen to the captain.
TOGETHER: Here you must read the orders for yourself.
The sun rises. The brothers vanish. ISHMAEL on deck of the ship with the sailors turned away from her.
ISHMAEL: Lonesome men live on the mountain peaks
Some light the first star, which they named themselves,
Others polish the great surfaces of mirrors
for reading the most distant future
which has no bearing on anyone present
Still others rev up the time machines
the best of them will travel ten billion light
years in a single night
They all love to play at solving riddles
every right answer checked by the machines
is the key to a thousand new questions
and so on, in circles
In fact they ought not to catch our eye
or only for a few days
which for them, too, are numbered
every night they’ve a night less for their revelry
they must focus more and more
on down-to-earth activities
until the day comes when they’ll have to be carried
back down with the utmost care
out of fear that they’ll hurl curses:
outer space would cease to expand like a balloon
it would contract and shatter on itself
we’d have to start everything from the beginning
The clatter of a bony leg is audible. Captain AHAB approaches. His prosthesis is stuck in a hole in the deck.
(Presto)
AHAB: Gather everyone together.
What do you boys do at the sight of a whale?
CREW: We sound the alarm.
AHAB: Good. And what then?
CREW: We drop our boats and pursue him!
AHAB: What’s your motto?
CREW: Either the whale dies or the boat’s reduced to splinters!
AHAB flourishes a coin.
AHAB: Whosoever spies my white whale
its brow furrowed and its jaw crooked
whosoever of you should spy a white whale
with three holes near the tail
beware! Whosoever should spy that very whale,
to him goes an ounce of gold. Boys?!
CREW: Hurrah!
AHAB: The whale is white, I repeat,
a white whale,
be on the lookout for his eyes
and watch keenly where the water’s white.
ISHMAEL: Captain, was it that whale
who took your leg?
AHAB: Yes, he’s the damned one that crippled me
I really will pursue him
through the fires of perdition
before I abandon him
and that’s why you’re all here today
to chase him across both ends of the globe
through all the corners of the world
until his black blood flows,
what do you say to that, boys!
Are we on?
You seem plenty courageous!
CREW: Yes, yes! We’ll keep a sharp eye out for the white whale!
AHAB: I’ll strike the sun if the glare bothers me
Swear, you crew of a death-bearing ship
Death to the Leviathan!
Let God himself pursue us
if I do not find it.
ISHMAEL remains alone.
ISHMAEL: The white whale does not seek you
it is you who seeks it.
Night. The PYTHAGOREAN brothers recite their maxims in chorus. PYTHAGORAS is the silent conductor hidden in the shadows.
(Andante)
ALL: He said
LYSIS: Nature teaches you
it reveals the mystery of all things
edge just a step closer to it
and your body will conquer a healthy spirit
ALL: He said
ARCHIPPOS: You shall have your eyes open to everything
you shall see how man amasses earthly yearnings
within himself and suffers
though goodness is right nearby
only a chosen one can break free from
the vicious circle of sufferings
ALL: He said
PHILOLAOS: Judge everything through reason
let reason be your chariot
and when you leave your body
and you soar into the open firmament
you shall leave the earth for centuries
you shall trod upon death and become a God
ALL: He said
PYTHAGORAS: Of beauties more unexplored than that
which a lover gleaned in the eyes of a woman
may faith oust the facts
and may imagination oust memory
and so I cast my eye upward and I believe
ALL: He said
ISHMAEL: The cobbler and the tailor are real
They cut according to the latest fashions
Ready-made to wear right away.
the inauthentic painter and poet
think on command
– in a hundred years they’ll be given a salon
so they may change their address
and themselves beyond recognition.
There are galaxies at the bottom of falsity
their portrait from billions of years past
hanging over our heads, in order to move us
by the blaze of a supernova to a place where
the void has yawned for millennia.
LYSIS: Falsity is unable to count its breaths
Seven. The seven tuned strings of the zither.
That instrument is an image of the divine power ruling the world.
ISHMAEL: I fail to understand.
ARCHIPPOS: Seven is the only number which
by its nature neither gives birth
nor is born
it is an image of the Lord ruling everything
equal to Himself
unlike all others
ISHMAEL: I still fail to understand.
ARCHIPPOS: The planets are also tuned
the whole sky is harmony and numbers
ISHMAEL: You spoke of strings
PHILOLAOS: they are lodged in the transparent spheres
their rotation produces sounds
the lower they are, the more resonant
like the strings of a zither
octaves, fifths, fourths
they originate in the heavens
ISHMAEL: The music of the spheres? I can’t hear a thing.
LYSIS: It has always been ringing in your ears – you’re accustomed
to needing a pause to hear them
or the end of the world
It dawns. AHAB approaches, shouts at the blacksmith:
(Presto)
AHAB: I demand a harpoon!
One that can’t be broken by the thousand pairs of devils
that inhabit that whale
one like its own flipper
here’s your material –
the nails for the shoes of racehorses
melt them, like a glue made of a murderer’s bones
Quick! Forge me a harpoon, right away!
The blacksmith strikes with hammers of various sizes.
AHAB: Here are my razors
of the very best steel
take it for a spearhead
sharp as a needle of ice.
The blacksmith hesitates.
AHAB: Take it, man
I have no need of them
I no longer shave
I don’t eat I don’t pray
until… but now to work!
The blacksmith slides him a tub of water.
AHAB: No! No! It’s not water I need.
Ahoy! What ho, pagan!
Will you give me the blood to temper the spearhead?
CREW: Yes!
AHAB: Ego non babtizo te in nomine patris
sed in nomine diaboli!
AHAB selects a shaft, checks the tow rope, gives it a tug. He exits; the clop of his bone leg and of the shaft of the harpoon. Dusk falls.
PYTHAGOREANS: The universe is not only stranger
than it appears to us
it is also stranger
than it can appear
ISHMAEL: Are you in search of heaven?
LYSIS: No, no, it’s not there for us
amidst the storms of several centuries
of unceasing winds
and cosmic events
here on earth we seek to summon it
based on the model from up above
ALL: The universe is not only stranger
than it appears to us
it is also stranger
than it can appear
ISHMAEL: What was the beginning?
ARCHIPPOS: In the beginning there was music
it was hard to speak of it
we were missing the words
it was just pure – like everything at the time
later came form
modelled on music, harmonious,
moulded by hand
PHILOLAOS: entranced by the agility of the hand
people combined form and thought
gave names to whatever came along
everyone pitched in
many had tin ears
LYSIS: thus began a dark epoch
of specialist dictionaries
but the people sensed something
they are quite restless
they confuse words and shrug their shoulders
PYTHAGORAS: When we hear it – one note from beyond –
that will bring man’s cosmic solitude to an end
ISHMAEL: As well as our monopoly on rulemaking
in this corner of the universe
PYTHAGORAS: The chances are slim during our lifetime that
we shall find ourselves in the right place
at the right time to witness
an event of cosmic significance
ALL: The universe is not only stranger
than it appears to us
it is also stranger
than it can appear
Sunrise. The deck of the ship.
ISHMAEL: Thou shall know people by the numbers
they invent;
madmen count in their heads
they show the sums on their fingers
double them in octaves etc.
They number symphonies from 1 to 100
the unmusical build counting machines
smaller and smaller, because replacement parts are in demand
they use numbers from – to + infinity
to predict public opinion and harvests
and the universe can be counted
with stars shining in a trillion suns
and the heavy dust of a million elephants
producing various sounds all the while
joining in the famed harmony of the spheres
I know God for his unaccountability
I sense only certain digits bound to him
from 1 to 3, but they give me no illusion of certainty
to say nothing of His music
The clop of a bone leg is heard, AHAB is approaching. He pounds his prosthesis on the deck.
(Prestissimo)
AHAB: Do you see him?
CREW: Can’t see anything, captain!
AHAB: Spread the rigs of the sails!
Like a breath before you leap
have you the courage, boys?
CREW: Like a dauntless fire!
AHAB: What do you see?
CREW: There she leaps! There…!
AHAB: Yes, leap to the sun for the last time
Man the lifeboats! Make ready!
To your oars… Harpoon man! Iron! Iron!
Helmsman, steady as she goes, if you value your life!
I meet you face to face for the third time
brace sharp, plough straight for the eyes of the wind!
CREW: Thar she blows!
AHAB: My heart’s ship sets off for the third time.
CREW: By your will…
A whale! A whale!
It’s turning around for the encounter!
The whale strikes the ship.
AHAB: Here, take it! Take the spear!

AHAB stabs the air with the harpoon, bends over to free the snagged line, the flying coil wraps around his neck. The sailing ship begins sinking in the sea. ISHMAEL on top of the mast:
(Animato)
ISHMAEL: The hunters of the white whale
in the lap of a wanton vessel
the stalkers of the immortal Ahab
submitting to the swelling fury
before the conclusion of hell

castaways on the shore – the bastards
plant their footsteps extravagantly
as if they already knew
that their feet would punch through the deck
they would drop their arms helplessly
their hands would be for fighting

the women entranced by the silence
emerge from the depths of the land
in exchange they get
the burden of the mystery of shadows

they eat the syllables of prayers
till their throats go dry
the last word is – Amen

Night. The PYTHAGOREANS surround a radio telescope that emits the music of the spheres. Suddenly, AHAB’s voice rings out from a megaphone.
VOICE: You are surrounded
tomorrow’s your trial
you’re accused of participating
in the secret rule of the world
ISHMAEL: Should I inform them?
(Sostenuto)
PYTHAGORAS: No one will believe you
without an advertising campaign
they’ll boo the symphony off stage
VOICE: Surrender!
ISHMAEL: Shall we destroy the papers?
PYTHAGORAS: The truth is in us.

ISHMAEL exits. Smoke appears in the four corners of the observatory. The PYTHAGOREANS perish in its wisps. The smoke falls. The scene resembles the beginning – all blood and oil. The sailors swab the deck.

ISHMAEL: Big bang! Cry the faded explorers
on the moon and adjust their glasses
Bingo! Replies the cosmic echo:
voices from here are transformed when they arrive
because of the distance and the dark matter
which here, too, gives a sign
e.g. in communicating the truth
the distance from it grows
with every transmitter
And yet:
Big bang! maintain the stellar inventors
to deride the last philosophers
but the naked eye of the dim majority
is pointed upward anyway with folded hands
it repeats the spells that came from over there
before the discovery of dark matter
a few thousand years ago

End[:]