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"Swan song" is a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifespan, but may sing one heartbreakingly beautiful song just before it dies. For other uses, see Swan Song. ...
Binomial name (Gmelin, 1789) Synonyms Anas olor Gmelin, 1789 Cygnus olor immutabilis var. ...
It has been thought since antiquity that this belief is false. "Mute" swans are not actually mute during life – they produce snorts, shrill noises, grunts, and hisses – and they do not sing as they die. However, it is also contested by many that the swan in which this legend refers to is in fact, an extinct species that did exist in classical times. The "Mute" swan of today may only be a related ancestor bearing the same name.
The legend has remained so appealing that over the centuries it has appeared in various artistic works. Aesop's fable of "The Swan Mistaken for a Goose" alludes to it.[1] Ovid mentions it in "The Story of Picus and Canens."[2] Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel in 1493. ...
For other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation) Publius Ovidius Naso (March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD) was a Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid who wrote on topics of love, abandoned women and mythological transformations. ...
The well-known Orlando Gibbons madrigal (The Silver Swan) states the legend thus: Orlando Gibbons Orlando Gibbons (baptised December 25, 1583 – June 5, 1625) was an English composer and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. ...
A madrigal is a setting for two or more voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ...
The Silver Swan is probably the most famous madrigal by Orlando Gibbons, and is scored for 5 voices (SATBarB). ...
- The silver Swan, who living had no Note,
- when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
- Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
- thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
- "Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
- "More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."
Led Zeppelin's "Swan Song".
Chaucer wrote of "The Ialous swan, ayens his deth that singeth".[3] In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Portia declaims "Let music sound while he doth make his choice;/Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,/Fading in music."[4] Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Portia and Shylock (1835) by Thomas Sully The Merchant of Venice is one of William Shakespeares best-known plays, written sometime between 1596 and 1598. ...
Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan" is a poetic evocation of the beauty of the supposed song and so full of detail as to imply that he had actually heard it: Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and is one of the most popular English poets. ...
The Dying Swan is a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson. ...
- The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
- Of that waste place with joy
- Hidden in sorrow: at " Hello Everyone" first to the ear
- The warble was low, and full and clear; ...
- But anon her awful jubilant voice,
- With a music strange and manifold,
- Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
- As when a mighty people rejoice
- With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold...
By extension, swan song has become an idiom referring to a final theatrical or dramatic appearance, or any final work or accomplishment. For example, Franz Schubert's collection of songs, published in his year of death, 1828, is known as the Schwanengesang (German for "swan song"). It generally carries the connotation that the performer is aware of his or her imminent demise (or retirement) and is expending his or her last breath on one magnificent final effort. Anton Chekhov's one-act play, The Swan Song (1887), describes an ageing actor who, while sitting alone in a darkened theatre, ruminates on his past. The shawm was a Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family, made in Europe from the late 13th century until the 17th century. ...
Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. ...
Year 1828 (MDCCCXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...
Schwanengesang (Swan song) is the title of a posthumous collection of songs by Franz Schubert. ...
In the book And Then There Were None, a record accuses the houseguests and servants of murders that, for various reasons, they were not punished for. The record is labeled "Swan Song", as the killer intends to punish the wicked as a final act. For the video game, see Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None. ...
In sailing, and on the sea, many yachts carry the name of Swan Song. When used in this fashion it usually refers to the last of many of the owner's yachts.
References - ^ Aesop (1998). The Complete Fables. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044649-4. p. 127: "The swan, who had been caught by mistake instead of the goose, began to sing as a prelude to its own demise. His voice was recognized and the song saved his life." Annotation by Robert and Olivia Temple: "The premise of this fable is the odd tradition of 'the swan song.'" [1]
- ^ Ovid. Metamorphoses (Kline) 14, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center; Bk XIV:320-396: The transformation of Picus. University of Virginia. "There, she poured out her words of grief, tearfully, in faint tones, in harmony with sadness, just as the swan sings once, in dying, its own funeral song."
- ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1896). Chaucer: the Minor Poems. Clarendon Press. , p. 86[2]
- ^ The Merchant of Venice," Act 3 Scene 2[3]
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