The Raven's Question
Copyright 2007 by Jeff Suzuki
A while back I several politically inspired contracts, but ran out of inspiration. This is also politically inspired, though I think it deals with a larger issue: Would those in power act differently if they themselves were at risk from the decisions they make?
The music is The Kentish Men with Long Tales (Thomas Delone). The scansion of the original seems odd to modern ears, since many of the vowels (as nearly as I can figure) must be drawn out. I've tried to preserve this; the first line of this should (as nearly as I can present in text) be sung roughly as:
Whe-en o-n the eeeeve o-f ba-a-tle great The king reviewed his me-e-e-en
This song took a long time to write; I started writing down verses in August 2006, and didn't finish it until May 17, 2007 (the twin's birthday, so I guess they can call this a birthday present...one they can't return). The scansion was part of it; the other part was that I couldn't figure out the ending. I'd originally planned on having the king call off the battle, but couldn't figure out how to put that into verse form. Finally I decided that ending the song with a question is entirely appropriate: I did it with The Coward Marshal. In fact, you can view this as a companion piece to The Coward Marshal, dealing with a very similar issue. What that says about my psyche I'll leave to you.
The difficulties I had writing this song show up in the subsequent history. See my notes after the song.
Update: In January 2008 I realized one of the problems with this song: the king offers to answer one question, while the raven actually asks three. I've changed the ending verses to reflect this. And as noted, it's not so much that those in charge aren't risking their lives; it's that they have the right to do so, and with that right comes the responsibility not to spend those lives frivolously.
When on the eve of battle fierce The king reviewed his band The men who swore to fight and die If he should give command. The king said “Ere you march away And to the foe war take, You may of me a question ask And answer will I make.” Whereat the Duke asked why should he Brave battle's many woes The king replied “Much gold will come From ransom of our foes.” The knight asked only if the cause Was one both good and right The king declared “I say it is One that the willing fight.” A raven black as black may be Flew down before the king And showed it would a question ask By raising of its wing. “The fields of valor you have made The castles, towns and farms Are sown with lifeless knights and squires And countless men at arms. “War's faithful brothers roam afar Each rides an awful steed For children, priests, and villagers To waiting ravens feed. “Our sated selves no questions have We care not what you do. We ask for those we'll feast upon Who've placed their trust in you. “The men who've died on bloody field The brave, the good, the kind, All gave you right to spend their lives For those they've left behind. “So tell them this, oh Ravens' friend As you send them to die Do they defend their home and kin Or just some empty lie?”
Notes
Since part of my hope is to provide a how to (or perhaps, in my case, how not to) of contrafaction, I've included the original version, with notes. I rewrote the ending once, then posted it to the SCA_Bards Yahoo group. After some very nice comments from several of the members (particularly Frederick of Holland/Flieg Hollander and Justin Tekton/Scott Courtney), I made a few changes.
Frederick and others helped a great deal by pointing out that the meter was off in many places. After scribbling songs for some years, I think I finally understand what this meter thing is all about. I learned a valuable lesson: If you want to understand meter, read the song without the music. In this case, the first line (with CAPS indicating the emphasized syllables) becomes:
when ON the EVE of BATtle GREAT the KING reVIEWED his MEN
and so on. Ideally, the written meter and the musical meter should coincide. You can force the two together (the musical meter wins), but the song will be off kilter in a hard-to-define way (at least, to my tin ear...).
When on the eve of battle great The king reviewed his men He offered each a question which He would give answer then.
Frederick pointed out very nicely that the last two lines scan very well...they just don't make any sense. He suggested an alternate version, which split this into two stanzas, elaborating each. The final version is a cross between his suggestion and my own take on the topic.
He also objected to the adjective “great”, which he called weak. It took me awhile before I understand this critique, then I realized that I've made a similar critique of other's writings, just in different words. The problem is that “great” is too vague: a battle might be great because it involves a very large number of people, or is very important, or has catastrophic losses on both sides. He suggested “joined,” which didn't seem to be the right word. I kept “great” out of an inability to think of something better, then while doing some grocery shopping, the word “fierce” popped into my head. Asimov called this the Eureka effect: to solve a problem, it is sometimes necessary to stop thinking about it for a while.
Whereat the Duke asked why should he Cause battle's many woes The king replied much gold would come From num'rous ransomed foes.
In the original version, “cause” was “brave”: the Duke was asking why he should go to war. But I was concerned that if I used the word “brave”, it would suggest the Duke was cowardly, which I didn't want to imply. However, “brave” makes more sense, and Frederick convinced me that it was the right word to use. He also suggested the current last line of the stanza.
The knight asked only that the cause Be one both good and right The king declared “I say it is One that the willing fight.”
Only a minor change here: from “asked only that” to “asked only if”, and “Be” to “was”, which made it more of a question.
Then a raven black as black may be Did land before the king And showed it would a question ask By raising of its wing.
Again, another sin I'm guilty of: I have a tendency to put things into the passive voice. In place of “Did land” Frederick suggested “Flew down”, which is much better. Incidentally, here's one place where my original meter was off. The emphasis would be:
then a RAven BLACK as BLACK may BE
which has too many unstressed syllables at the beginning. It wasn't obvious to me when I sang it, because I forced the stresses.
“On the fields of valor of your war In castles, towns and farms Lie the bodies slain of knights and squires And num'rous men at arms.
Minor changes in wording here, again mostly Frederick's suggestions. It took a long time before I substituted “countless” for various paranyms (a word I've just made up for “a word that means almost the same thing as another word”). As a mathematician, I object to the use of words like infinite, innumerable, etc., as paranyms for “a lot.”
After a while, I came up with the Great Rationalization: it's from the raven's speech, and they can't count higher than six. So “countless” is appropriate. Yes, it's lame...but I can live with it.
Frederick also indicated a desire to include a stanza about the others: peasants, children, priests, scholars, etc. That was in my original plan, but I wasn't able to come up with a suitable verse. After some thought, I came up with:
“War's faithful brothers roam afar Each rides an awful steed For children, priests, and villagers To waiting ravens feed.
I tried this out a few times, but didn't like it: while it's a valid point, it's a different point. But there may be a way to recycle the verse: I'm thinking of a new song. (Update for January 30, 2008: I added it, because it allowed me to collapse the three questions into one)
“My kin and I feast well upon This bount'ous offering But one and all we wonder this What taste has noble king?
One of the suggestions that I didn't take was to change “taste” to “flavor.”
The final two stanzas gave me the most trouble (and were the main reason it took nearly a year to complete this song. The first draft was:
“For if you must rule from castle safe And send men out to die Will it truly be for rightful cause Or for some royal lie? “For if you have right to spend men's lives On causes you deem just Will you share with them their mortal risk And thereby earn their trust?”
Why did I rewrite this? The original ending, as written, focused on the question of “Why don't kings go to war with their troops?” While this is a valid question, it's not really a fair one: in some sense, the point of having a king (or prime minister, or president, or what-have-you) is to manage a nation. So it's reasonable that they not go to war themselves, but delegate this responsibility to others. Unfortunately, the original version ended with the question of why kings don't fight alongside their troops, which is not (in my mind) the issue.
Frederick suggested they be collapsed into one stanza. I played with the idea, but couldn't bring myself to abandon the penultimate question, and kept the two stanza ending for a while, even though I felt that it was too lengthy.
After much thought, I realized why I didn't want to abandon the two stanza ending. The first line of the penultimate stanza emphasizes a crucial point (in my opinion): the king, by virtue of his position, does have the right to send men out to die for his causes. Meanwhile, the last part of the final stanza brings home the key point of the song: if the troops are sent out, it should be for home and kin, and not for the benefit of a few. When I realized this, I kept the first line of the penultimate stanza, and the last three lines of the last stanza.
“You may have right to spend men's lives And send them out to die. Do they defend their home and kin Or just your Royal Lie?”
This collapsed the last two stanzas into one. I tried this out a few times, and it didn't seem to work. There are a few problems. The first is that three is a magic number. With a two stanza ending, the raven asks three questions:
What do kings taste like?
How can men trust you?
Is this war justified?
With one stanza, there's just the first and last question. Moreover, it seems to me that there's too great a step, from the first to the third. So I kept the two stanza ending, even though it may be a bit overdone.
Finally, on January 30, 2008 I realized the problem: there were three questions being asked, while the king only offered to answer one. The prepenultimate (is that a word?) stanza was:
“My kin and I feast well upon Your bounteous offering But one and all we wonder this What taste has noble king?
Which is one question. The original finale of the penultimate stanza was:
When you refuse to share their risk Why should they give you trust?
which was question two. I've rewritten the ending to eliminate the supernumerary questions.
I also changed “royal lie” to “Mammon's empty lie.” This was because some people observed that “royal lie” would be inflammatory...for the wrong reasons. Mammon is the personification of the worship of money, so I think it's especially appropriate.
I performed this for a Bardic Championship. On the basis of this and The Ballad of El, I made it into the final rounds, completely unprepared with a third piece. I must admit that I viewed that competition as one of the high points in my bardic activities, and ever since then, my heart hasn't been in it: not because I haven't enjoyed myself immensely, but I feel that these two pieces are the strongest things I've written, so to compete with anything else is something of a cop-out.