Gentle Morpheus
Posted in Classical, Going to Sleep on Oct 18th, 2008 No Comments »
This marvelous aria is from some incidental music Handel composed for a play, Alceste, that never saw the light of day. There’s nothing sinister in this song. A lover celebrates the end of a joyful day, and looks forward to the morrow when her lover, after the ‘balmy dew of sleep’, then ‘may retaste the healthful day.’
‘Gentle Morpheus, son of night, hither speed thy airy flight! and his weary senses steep in the balmy dew of sleep. That when bright Aurora’s beams glad the world with golden streams, he, like Phoebus, blithe and gay, may retaste the healthful day.’
It is perfectly sung by Emma Kirkby.
