From Belshazzar, HWV 61, Act I
Composer |
George Frideric Handel |
|---|---|
Key |
e minor → B major |
Meter |
3/4 → 4/4 |
Tempo |
Larghetto |
English text |
|---|
Nitocris |
Vain, fluctuating state of human empire! |
First, small and weak, it scarcely rears its head, |
Scarce stretching out its helpless infant arms, |
Implores protection of its neighbour states, |
Who nurse it to their hurt. Anon, it strives |
For pow’r and wealth, and spurns at opposition. |
Arriv’d to full maturity, it grasps |
At all within its reach, o’erleaps all bounds, |
Robs, ravages and wastes the frighted world. |
At length, grown old and swell’d to bulk enormous, |
The monster in its proper bowels feeds |
Pride, luxury, corruption, perfidy, |
Contention, fell diseases of a state, |
That prey upon her vitals. Of her weakness |
Some other rising pow’r advantage takes, |
(Unequal match!) plies with repeated strokes |
Her infirm aged trunk: she nods, she totters, |
She falls, alas, never to rise again! |
The victor state, upon her ruins rais’d, |
Runs the same shadowy round of fancied greatness, |
Meets the same certain end. |
Opera Stanford |
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