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| Dante and The Divine Comedy |
"Without his musical surroundings, Edward Elgar might have been a poet, might have emulated Dante or Milton. He was born to high enterprise. His turn of thought inclined to the serious, the heroic, the epic."
"Thou father of the children of my brain
By thee engendered in my willing heart,
How can I thank thee for this gift of art
Poured out so lavishly, and not in vain.
What thou created never more can die,
Thy fructifying power lives in me
And I conceive, knowing it is by thee,
Dear other parent of my poetry!
For I was but a shadow with a name,
Perhaps by now the very name's forgot;
So strange is Fate that it has been my lot
To learn through thee the presence of that aim
Which evermore must guide me. All unknown,
By me unguessed, by thee not even dreamed,
A tree has blossomed in a night that seemed
Of stubborn, barren wood. For thou hast sown
This seed of beauty in a ground of truth.
Humbly I dedicate myself, and yet
I tremble with a sudden fear to set
New music ringing through my fading youth."
The Promise of the Morning Star by Henry Wadsworth
I had the good fortune to be thrown among an unsorted collection of old books. There were books of all kinds, and all distinguished by the characteristic that they were for the most part incomplete. I busied myself for days and weeks arranging them. I picked out the theological books, of which there were a great many, and put them on one side. Then I made a place for the Elizabethan dramatists, the chronicles including Barker’s and Hollinshed’s, besides a tolerable collection of old poets and translations of Voltaire and all sorts of things up to the eighteenth century. Then I began to read. I used to get up at four or five o’clock in the summer and read – every available opportunity found me reading. I read till dark. I finished reading every one of those books – including the theology. The result of that reading has been that people tell me that I know more of the life up to the eighteenth century than I do of my own time, and it is probably true.
Edward Elgar from a 1904 interview for The Strand Magazine
In the original 1899 program note for the premiere of the Enigma Variations, Elgar’s couches the mystery of
his first extended symphonic work using some very unusual
terms:
The Enigma I will not explain – it’s ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the connexion between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played…So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some later dramas – e.g., Maeterlinck’s ‘L’Intruse’ and ‘Les sept Princesses’ – the chief character is never on the stage.[1]
Scholars struggle to account for Elgar’s use of such terms
as enigma, dark saying, and unguessed in connection with the Enigma
Variations. On
closer inspection, the atypical term unguessed alludes
to Elgar’s favorite poet, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, as the appearance of this unique word in the epigraph makes
plain. More tantalizingly, the words enigma and dark
saying point to Longfellow’s
popular translation of Dante’s Divine
Comedy, specifically Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio. There are an astonishing
number of parallels between Dante’s Divine
Comedy and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Before
exploring these in depth, it is helpful to first review Longfellow’s influence
on Elgar.
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| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) |
Longfellow and Elgar
Elgar’s mother venerated the poetry of Longfellow,
read it to her children often, and nurtured this devotion in her impressionable
son, Edward. This is made abundantly clear by Elgar’s decision to set
Longfellow’s verse in two extended choral works: The Black Knight Op. 25 (1889 – 92), and Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf Op. 30 (1895). He used
Longfellow’s translation of Froissart for his song Rondel Op. 16 No. 3 (1894). In his
oratio The Apostles Op 49 (1902-3), Elgar based the third
tableau of Part I “In the Tower of Magdala” on Longfellow’s description of Mary
Magdalene in the epic poem The
Divine Tragedy.[2] These
compositions demonstrate Longfellow’s influence over Elgar both before and
after the Enigma Variations were composed. Evidence for
Longfellow’s centrality to Elgar’s artistic vision, particularly his allegiance
to the German Romantic School, is shown by Elgar’s gift to
the German conductor Hans Richter in 1899 of Longfellow’s Hyperion (1839).[3] In a letter accompanying the book,
Elgar wrote, “I send you the little book about which we conversed & from
which I, as a child, received my first idea of the great German
nations.”[4] It is undeniable Longfellow and his poetry held a central
place in Elgar’s artistic universe, bending the very light of his muse and
music before and after the Enigma Variations sprang into existence.
Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Dante’s Divine Comedy
The parallels between the Enigma Variations and Dante’s Divine Comedy are multilayered, ranging from the
poetical, numerological, symbolic, theological and even musical. The Enigma Theme was composed in ternary form, more commonly known as ABA
Elgar first mentioned the Enigma
Variations to Jaeger in a
letter dated October 24, 1898. He wrote:
Since I've been back I have sketched a set of Variations (orkestra) on an original theme: the Variations have amused me because I've labeled 'em with the nicknames of my particular friends - you are Nimrod.[5]
With the now obvious connection between
the meaning of the variation’s name and the title of the missing Principal
Theme, Elgar’s use of the name Nimrod confirms he contemplated the melodic
enigma from the very beginning. Elgar began composing the Variations on October 21, 1898, just three days
before his letter to Jaeger mentioning the name Nimrod. The Roman numeral
assigned to this variation holds a powerful literary link to Elgar’s favorite
poet, Longfellow, and his famous translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Canto XXXI of the Inferno, Nimrod is described as
a babbling giant trapped in the ninth circle of hell. Variation IX is
appropriately named Nimrod. Dante links Nimrod to the construction of the Tower of Babel
On November 7, 1899, August Jaeger wrote to Edward Elgar:
How is the Gordon
symphony getting on? You Sphinx!!
Why Dontcher answer???
Are you lazying over your work?[6]
These words were written just over a year after Elgar began
work on the Enigma Variations, and five months after its premiere that
propelled him to international acclaim. The Sphinx is a mythological creature who
guards the entrance to the city of Thebes
Within which a Five-hundred, Ten and Five,
One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman
And that same giant who is sinning with her
And peradventure my dark utterance,
Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee,
Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect
But soon the facts shall be the Naiades,
Who shall this difficult enigma solve,
Without destruction of the flocks and harvests.
In the 1899 program note for the premiere of the Enigma
Variations, Elgar’s couches the mystery of his symphony using the terms Enigma, and ‘dark saying’ (the
equivalent of dark utterance). Maeterlinck’s ‘Les sept Princesses” (literally
“the seven princesses”) lends itself easily as an allusion to the seven ladies
in Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio symbolizing the three theological (Faith, Hope
and Love) and four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and
Temperance).[7] In measures three
and four of the Enigma Theme, the unusual drop in
the seventh in the melody occurs twice. This conveniently presents
numerological parallels with the three theological and four cardinal virtues.
The numbers three and four are used extensively as numerological symbols in the Divine Comedy. These seven ladies begin Canto XXXIII
with “melodious psalmody” – the harmonious chanting of Psalm 78. This is
remarkable because the lyrics for the unstated Principal Theme (Ein feste Burg)
are based on a psalm, specifically Psalm 46. Psalm 78 was written when Jerusalem was sacked and the Temple
At the end of the original score, Elgar wrote “Bramo assai,
poco spero, nulla chieggio” followed by ‘(sic, 1595)’ and the name Tasso in
brackets. The original source for this quote is Tarquato Tasso’s epic Christian
poem, La Gerusalemme Liberata – Jerusalem Liberated. A formative
influence over Tasso’s work was none other than Dante and his Divine Comedy. It is hardly
coincidental Elgar's choice of language for his literary quotation is in the
Italian vulgare, the same
language used by Dante for writing his greatest poetic work. The enigmatic
quote is slightly modified from the original with Elgar incorrectly translating
it as “I essay much, I hope little, I ask
nothing.” The correct translation is “I desire much, I hope little, I ask
nothing.” Tasso's original quote is in the third person, not the first as Elgar
renders it. Fortunately research by Geoffrey Hodgkins and Professor Brian
Trowell sheds light on this little enigma. They confirmed the modified quote
originates from the title page of The
Most Honorable Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinville, Knight by Gervase Markham published in 1595. Like General Gordon, Sir Richard Grinville was a war hero who fought and died
against overwhelming odds. Prior to his death at the siege of Khartoum ,
General Gordon spent a year in Jerusalem Golgotha
and an adjacent site as the Garden Tomb. To this day it is known as Gordon's Calvary. The
purpose in covering these seemingly unrelated subjects is to show how on a much
deeper level, one palpable to Elgar's acute sensibilities, many meaningful
connections between these seemingly unrelated subjects may be established. The
Enigma Variations. Tasso quotation. Jerusalem Calvary . Dante's Divine Comedy. Enigma
forte. Dark saying. Variation XIII. The Hidden Friend. The Shroud
of Turin
The Five Hundred, Ten and Five
The prophecy concerning the Five Hundred, Ten and Five
(515) in Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio furnishes some intriguing numerological
parallels with the Enigma Variations. The Variations consist of fifteen (15)
sections or movements. Variation XIII is 51 measures in length. The final
variation is identified with the Roman numerals XIV, literally Ten, One and
Five. In music the most powerful tonal relationship exists between the tonic
(the first note in a scale) and the dominant (the fifth note in a scale). The perfect cadence describes this central relationship as
the resolution of the V chord to I. The number 515 is a palindrome, and Elgar’s
use of a palindrome rhythmic pattern in the Enigma Theme forms in Morse code a phonetic
anagram (IMMI) for the double “I AM”. This is one of
the titles Jesus claims for himself.[9]
Apart from Elgar’s affinity for Longfellow’s poetry, older
literature in general, and a
profound interest in theology, there are other compelling reasons why he would
be captivated by the enigma
forte of Dante’s Divine
Comedy. For one, forte is a musical term. Another reason
is that one prominent interpretation theorizes the number 515 symbolizes Jesus
(Dominus Xristus Victor). The Roman
numerals DXV form the slightly anagrammatized word in Latin for leader, dux.
It is interesting that this same spelling is present in the title for
Variation XIV including the initials E.D.U. Notice after removing the
letters DUX, the remaining letters are EIV. It should be noted that E is
the fifth letter in the alphabet, so EIV is
the cryptographic equivalent of VIV, or 515. The number five is closely associated with
Jesus as evidenced by popular devotional concepts focusing on the five points
of the Cross, the five holy wounds, and the
five letters in his name.
The number fifteen holds special significance because
it is associated with the stations of the cross with the last representing the
resurrection. In Hebrew the number fifteen is not written in the usual manner
because it spells one of the names for God (×™-×”, yodh and heh). Passover, the day on which
Jesus was crucified, begins on the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan. It was also shown the
hidden friend of Variation XIII is Jesus,
so Elgar’s numerological suggestion for his Lord and Savior is artistically
poignant and relevant, especially since Variation XIII is 51 measures in
length, a number forming the inversion of the stations of the cross. The Enigma
Variations consists of fifteen sections with the Enigma Theme
followed by fourteen Variations.
The number 515 is theologically significant for other
reasons. For instance, according to the Genesis account the length of Noah’s ark was 300 Egyptian cubits, a figure that
converts to 515 feet. The ark is a symbol of redemption, one marking the
destruction of humanity’s past and preservation of its future. In the New
Testament, Jesus is portrayed as the past and future Savior who fulfills the
Old Covenant and establishes a New Covenant. It is rather revealing that Elgar
identified Variation XIII with the letters LML. This palindrome may be
interpreted according to its Roman numeral values as follows:
L = 50
M = 1000
L = 50
Discounting the zeros produces 515, the mysterious "Five
Hundred, Ten and Five" of Dante's Divine
Comedy. The Second Temple was dedicated in 515 B.C. It was
renovated by Herod around 19 B.C., and it was in this same Temple Temple of Christ 's body was killed on the cross in 33 A.D., the
Second Temple
The sum of the fish and loaves is 2 + 5 = 7. Jesus is Lord
of the Sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested.[11] Seven is the biblical number of
completeness. Fish symbolize the sea, and bread the land. Both symbols, namely
the sea and land, are implied through the musical imagery of Variation XIII.
Jesus blessed and multiplied the fish and the loaves.
2 multiplied by 5 = 10.
Jesus directed his disciples to divide the food among the 5000.
5000 divided by 10 = 500.
Jesus instructed the crowd to divide itself into groups of
50 so his disciples could distribute the food among these smaller groups (Luke
9:14).
50 divided by 10 = 5.
Based on this analysis, it is feasible to obtain the
mysterious number 515 from the biblical account of Jesus feeding the five
thousand, for 515 is the sum of 500, 10 and 5. The composer's rendering as
'LML' on his sketch of Variation XIII is far less circuitous, and interpreting
these initials based on their Roman numeral values is all but implied by
Elgar's assignment of Roman numerals to each of the Variations.
Conclusion: The Spirit of Humour and Seriousness
There is ample evidence to conclude Elgar drew inspiration
from Dante's Divine Comedy when he composed the Enigma
Variations. Dante was one
of Longfellow's most revered and respected poetic heroes, and Longfellow was an
artistic cornerstone for more than one of Elgar's major works. The unusual
language from the original 1899 program note employing terms like
'Enigma' and 'dark saying' to describe the work are virtually identical to
those found in Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio that describe Dante's enigma forte. Dante's
pervasive using the numbers three are four to symbolize the theological and
cardinal virtues is mirrored by Elgar's unusual drop in the seventh found in
measures 3, 4, 13 and 14 of the Enigma Theme. In the case of Canto XXXIII of
Purgatorio, these virtues are represented by seven ladies. It is an intriguing
coincidence that Elgar mentions the play 'Les sept princesses' (The Seven
Princesses) in the original program note. The Enigma Theme
is in ABA
The Roman numeral and subtitle Nimrod for the ninth variation are a
match with the giant Dante describes in the ninth circle of hell, and even the
orchestration at rehearsal 37 bears a striking resemblance to the poet's
description of Nimrod making a loud blast on his brass horn. Numerological
references to the number 515 may be found in the Enigma Variations, including
the interesting fact the final movement may reasonably be performed in 5
minutes 15 seconds. The "Five Hundred, Ten and Five" is a number
Dante gives for a future Savior prophesied in Canto XXXIII of Purgatorio. It is
noteworthy that the Roman numerals XXXIIII represent the number 33, the reverse
of Edward Elgar's initials (E.E.). In light of my discovery of the hidden
friend for Variation
XIII, it appears Elgar chose to answer Dante's poetic enigma forte with a musical Enigma of his own, one championing the
theory that the hidden Savior is Jesus Christ. Elgar collected old books and
rare editions,
and his literary tastes were inclined towards the old rather than the
contemporary. Elgar remarked the Enigma Variations were "commenced
in a spirit of humour & continued in deep seriousness." What
could be more humorous and serious as a source of inspiration
than The Divine Comedy? In
humor there burns the flickering flame of truth.
[1] Original 1899 program note by C. A. Barry citing a letter by Elgar
[2] Adams, B. (Editor). Edward Elgar and His World. Princeton: Princeton University
[3] Ibid, p. 64.
[4] Moore
[5] Elgar, E. (1965). Letters to Nimrod: Edward Elgar to August Jaeger, 1897 - 1908. London
[6] Moore, J. N. (1999). Edward Elgar: A Creative Life (Clarendon Paperbacks) (New Ed.). New York : Oxford University Press , USA
[7] http://www.unc.edu/~cervgn/Syllabi%20and%20Docs/Purgatorio%2033.Final.pdf accessed on 12/25/2010
[8] Cook, Eleanor. (2009). Enigmas and Riddles in Literature. New York : Cambridge University
[10] Matthew 14:13-21
[11] Matthew 12:8
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