The Sirin

I've always loved the Aria of the Indian Guest from Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko. However, I've never been able to figure out what the heck he is singing, because at such a slow tempo where every syllable is drawn out and melts into the next, it is really almost impossible without knowing what the context is. After the first couple of lines, I was lost. And for the life of me I could not find a libretto either on line or in print.

I pretty much gave up on this quest until last week when I stumbled across a a famous tenor RECITING the words carefully on YouTube:

Here they are (in my translation)

You cannot count the diamonds in the rocky caves,
You cannot count the pearls in the midday sea,
in faraway India of wonders.

There is in the warm sea a wonderous ruby rock.
Upon this rock sits the Phoenix, a bird with the face of a maiden.
Sweetly singing songs of paradise,
Spreading out its plumage,
Blotting out the sea.
He who hears its song
WIll forget everything.

You cannot count the diamonds in the rocky caves,
You cannot count the pearls in the midday sea,
in faraway India of wonders.

I have no clue what the midday sea is, and will probably never find out, but the rest of the words are fascinating. Despite the name, the song is not talking about the Phoenix, but another bird of Slavic mythology, the Sirin. The Sirin, whose name probably came from the Greek Sirens, is a very interesting bird. Its song is both a blessing and a curse - forgetting your life is a terrible, yet in some ways tempting, proposition. The notion of escaping the world being true happiness - a concept usually associated with Eastern religions, but in some ways also the driving force of the Christian monastic movements.

Anyway, I certainly get this Zen-like feeling watching this scene from the movie version of Sadko, or "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad" as it was called when released in the West.