O! Earth,
Earth
O! you, now,
Be a parent for him
And you, earth dust,
Be a small sister for him, be light for him!
Young wandering, please stand up,
...
(For the whole text, see J.C., Mémoire des Carpathes,
pp. 350-351).
The officiating women have started the hymn in front of the grave at the
very moment when the priest finishes his office and throws the first spadeful
of earth, and the gravediggers begin to fill in the grave (v. 1-6). They
give to this act of burying a not very christian meaning, and call to
the earth, like in the preceding hymns they have called to the Albs, the
Sun, the Death, the Fir, not considered as elements, beings or states
of the nature, but, in the Empedocles way, as beings of the next world
able to act and therefore to be defined by their function. The chor of
old women enjoins the Earth to fulfill its own function for the deceased,
that of a hospitable mother (...). After this injunction to the mother
Earth, the three chorists make a pause in order to coordinate the song
with the action of the young people who cut down the fir in the forest,
carried it and are now planting it at the head of the grave. At the very
moment when they raise it and hold it upright in its force and beauty,
they enjoin the deceased to stand up. Thus, they consecrate with words
the metaphoric function of fir (...). But, above all, they stand apart
from the lamenting women of the family who depict the dead by his social
position compared with them, as father or mother, husband or wife, son
or daughter, brother or sister, a position unchanged in death. As for
the officiants of the "Albs" cult, they now designate the deceased,
man or women by a surprising expression of "young wandering".
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