The god forsakes Antony
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.
- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
(Also visit the Cavafy site )
Mat’s Commentary on “Alexandra Leaving”:
( Cruz’ “Dark Night of the Soul” and “Spiritual Canticle” are helpful tools here)
For the purpose of a mystical interpretation in the song below I will interpret “Alexandra” as a name Leonard gives to his own soul.
Perhaps he personalizes his soul by naming her Alexandra. In Abraham-ic mystic poetic tradition (from Songs of Solomon onward to the Sufis, as I can see) the individual's soul is feminine and God is masculine. So it follows that Leonard's soul is feminine and perhaps has been given this feminine name, Alexandra.
My suggestion is that the imagery in Cavafy’s poem (Plutarch's story of Marc Antony) led Leonard to saunter off from “this kind of city” to the Sacred City; the Kingdom of God (My Kingdom is not of this world) and only one's soul has the keys to that City.
So it wasn’t Leonard’s mind who/which sauntered off; it was his soul!(his "Alexandra") as it is the job of the soul to communicate with divinity; (not the job of one’s “mind” ).
As always, my commentaries are a bit of a long shot; but they work for me
You, perhaps, have your own interpretation of the song. Please add it below
.
Alexandra Leaving.
Suddenly the night has grown colder. (The effect of a ghost/spirit hovering around)
The god of love preparing to depart.
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder, (“Alexandra” = Leonard’s self/god-realized Soul)
They slip between the sentries of the heart. (through the gates of love/Love they unify)
Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine; (Unity of soul and god/spirit; beyond )
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine. ( Divine knowing/understanding)
It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving, (senses don’t speak this divine language)
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust -
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving. (/Leonard’s soul deserts him for her Lover; God)
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost. (His soul, “Alexandra”; is “lost” in divinity )
Even though she sleeps upon your satin; (While Leonard sleeps, his soul consorts with God)
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.
As someone long prepared for this to happen, (Leonard knew the process, before )
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in. (accept the Spirit of god when it is offered)
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing. (and the soul will know mystic joy)
Your firm commitments tangible again. ( you/he is once again a believer/knower)
And you who had the honor of her evening, (you whose soul has slept with god)
And by the honor had your own restored - (by their intercourse, you have been re-borne)
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving; (recognize that your soul has moved on, now, to god)
Alexandra leaving with her lord. (the Quest is complete)
Even though she sleeps upon your satin; (soul sleeps with you and makes love to god!
)
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined; (union was not faked)
Do not stoop to strategies like this.
As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked -
Do not choose a coward's explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect. (don’t stoop to “reason” in these moments)
And you who were bewildered by a meaning; (bewildering one’s mind, but not one’s soul.)
Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed - (You who have been apostates; working through your own "dark night")
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving. (Let your soul go)
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost. (and it will lose itself in God)
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost. (lost in God; a union which is its destiny)
Before I leave this song, I would first like to reflect on some lines of previous song(s).
“…And O my love, I still recall
The pleasures that we knew;
The rivers and the waterfall,
Wherein I bathed with you.
Bewildered by your beauty there,
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
A man for Boogie Street….”
“I’d kneel to dry your feet.”
Humility assists one in their passage through life.
Christ taught this through Mary of Magda.
“Wherein I bathed with you.”
I interpret this as a reference to esoteric baptism; the bathing of the individual’s soul in the Great Soul of some Holy Spirit.
I have noticed a bit of a pattern emerging from the collection. It is not simply 10 songs. It appears to me that Leonard has arranged and written each song for a recognizable holistic (mystic) theme. I'll write more on that later.
Of course, that is my take. There are other takes, as always.
With regard to "Alexandra Leaving", let me say that as I see it, Leonard has used Cavafy's poem/starting-point as a metaphor for something Universal/mystic.
Leonard has not "copied" the idea from Cavafy/Plutarch; rather he has moved off on a tangent from that Cavafy poem; as we all often do when inspired by a piece of work, to think further and let the mind reflect and saunter off; “let the pony have its head”, as they say.
This “bathing” (mentioned above) leads me back to our song, Alexandra Leaving; but leaving where and to where?
After one has bathed in the depths of Shilo (the still deep waters of god): where else is there to go?
Cavafy wrote of leaving old Alexandria, when his Greek community was dispossessed of their homes in Egypt, as I remember it.
I suggest that Leonard is using this leaving from Alexandria as a metaphor; of the individual’s soul leaving (one's temporal body) for the timeless mystical union with the One; our beginning and end (destination).
And again, where does one go from/after that union?
Perhaps, Back to boogie Street. (The lyrics of "Back on Boogie Street" point to this interpretation, in my opinion.)
In the earlier song “You have loved enough”, Leonard says:
“…You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:
That I am not the one who loves –
It’s love that chooses me…”
So he knows/suggests that there is not much he can do now, except return to his old world/life; the life of an artist and man, "back on Boogie Street".
He realizes that it is not him/Leonard who is in control of things/life; “I am not the one who loves – It’s love that chooses me”;
But when he moves back to Boogie Street, Alexandra (his feminine soul) leaves (expands) hand in hand with her Lord; in a sense absent yet ever-present like eternity itself. Therefore Leonard and his feminine soul are leaving with “her” (their) Lord.
Remembering that an individual does not directly communicate with god, he/she must do it through his/her soul (always feminine) and so it is the soul who leaves for the mystic-land (New Jerusalem) with her Lord and it seems to me that Leonard names this soul of his, “Alexandra”.
”Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.”
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.
Alexandra is lost to this world for she has left with her Lord. (and yet, mystically, the Lord is eternally present)
She is not lost, as in needs to be found. She is lost as in moved from this dimension into communion with the Mystic Lord (“god by participation” as Cruz defines this Undifferentiated Union (Holy Communion) experience).
"Love went on and on, until it reached an open door; and love itself was gone." (as Leonard puts it in "Love Itself" from this album/C.D.)
Or as St. John of the Cross/Cruz puts it, in his poem, Dark Night of the Soul; "...lost among the lilies"
"...I dropped unaware.
Lost to myself and yet remaining,
Inclined so only the Beloved I spy.
All has ceased, all rests,
Even my cares,
even I;
Lost among the lilies, there I die."
Perhaps then, like Cruz, Leonard's "Alexandra" is also "lost among the lilies"?
...And perhaps, just maybe; this song sings that Leonard has sought, and, his soul has (been) found.
Mat James. (MatbbgJ)
"Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart." San Juan de la Cruz.