|
|
|
Scene
Twenty-Seven:
Horus is Born!
|
|
|
|
| It is still
the moonlit evening after the consecration
ceremony. To the He
is Born melody, ISIS
enters and goes up the steps into the BOAT, where THOTH whispers to her. She takes
a very deep breath, starts dancing again, then suddenly dissolves
in a whoop of laughter. She goes within. THOTH and ANUBIS
place gold screens in front of the BOAT door, then leave the
BOAT and
move to the edges of the Space.
|
| Within the BOAT and the Space, red, orange, yellow and
green lights flash in sequence, and as the music builds, green
blends into blue, blue into indigo, indigo into purple. The
purple light grows in intensity, becoming flashes of purple,
white and gold light. The BOAT cracks in the center, and the
sides fall away, showing OSIRIS on a
lion couch. ISIS FALCON KHU arises from
behind the couch, and flies over OSIRIS.
|
|
|
FALCON KHU circles
OSIRIS, flies over him in
figure 8s, then begins to
fly slowly up his body from
feet to head. On the 3d
pass, she hovers as a shaft
of light shoots up from
OSIRIS' genital area, into
FALCON KHU. Reprise
of He
is Born (Scene
21), ENSEMBLE and CELEBRANTS
sing, led by THOTH and ANUBIS:
|
|
|
|
He is Born!
|
CHORUS:
|
He is planted, he is born (Repeat.)
|
|
ANUBIS:
|
He is planted, he is born.
I see him now with the loins of a lion in spring,
And with wings that can race through the earth.
|
|
CHORUS:
|
He is born. (Now after each 2 lines:)
|
|
THOTH:
|
He is born with the gaze of a falcon
And the voice of a bullock at birth.
|
|
ALL:
|
He is born with an eye for justice
And a heart for mercy's rain.
He is born in tune with the Sun and Moon
And planets peaceful in their train.
|
|
CHORUS:
|
He is born. (Same
rhythm, new harmonies.)
|
|
ISIS:
|
He is born in love's geometry,
He is tracing the lines that lead to the free.
|
|
CHORUS:
|
He is born! (Repeat.)
|
|
|
| FALCON
KHU remains above OSIRIS. As music climaxes,
there is a brilliant flash of blue-white
light, then HORUS KHU appears above
the FALCON, so the three NETERW are
aligned. OSIRIS now changes color, his
face from flesh tone to green, his bandages
from white to green, as hoots and stalks
of new plants shoot upward out of his body. OSIRIS KHU appears
around his body in white and green, lapis lazuli and gold. All
three KHUs rise and dissolve. LIGHTS
out.
|
|
|
| LIGHTS up. OSIRIS,
minus all the plant growth, is at center stage,
now inside the small PAPYRUS BOAT. ISIS enters and
steps into the PAPYRUS
BOAT. It moves, as though powered by ISIS' own energy.
HORUS and NEPHTHYS KHUs appear above the small boat and move with it.
|
| MA'AT:
Osiris is in the Earth, sending
his energy upward, greening the world from below. You'll see him again
later, when other royal decisions have to be made. He is hardly
dead. The main news now is much happier. The Queen and the King
have finally done
it. Isis has the manchild, the sunchild of Osiris growing in
her now.
|
|
|
ANUBIS enters, walking in relation to the BOAT
as though scouting the river bank to protect the BOAT. PAPYRUS REEDS appear to one
side of the Space, and the BOAT heads
into them. Traces of He is Born music continue
under. LIGHTS fade to night.
|
|
|
THOTH:
|
| Finally, after Isis had found all the parts of
Osiris and founded the new temples that were sacred to him, where the ritual play
of the Passion of Osiris would be performed again and again,
as it still is for you right now, the time came for Horus to
be born. Isis and Nephthys sailed in a boat made of papyrus,
because everyone knows this plant is sacred, and even a crocodile
won't attack a papyrus boat, and the fugitives found cover in the densest papyrus swamps along the river. Anubis scouted
the land near the river and I watched from up here for any sign
of trouble, because Set knew the divine
Sun child who could grow up to defeat him was about to be born.
He sent patrols of men from the Red Land (SFX: horses' hooves, shouts from male voices;
LIGHT: torches flickering) to
|
|
|
|
|
| find the boy and destroy him.
Isis gathered her allies (KHU appear): Sobek the crocodile; Selket the Scorpion, protector of
children at birth; Renenutet, the serpent who wards off illness
and brings good fortune. Soon, when the men from the Red Land
began to find their
|
|
|
| comrades floating down the River (SFX:
male screams,
|
|
|
splashes in the river), their bodies
bloated, their faces
and fingers twisted. Or some- one found an arm drifting here
or there, still wearing the copper bracelet or arm- band of the
Red Land, as if Sobek the Crocodile had devoured everything
else but had left this one piece uneaten and easy to find as
a warning. Soon the Reds began to think more about self-preserva-
tion.
They told Set they'd found the baby, cut him in 14
pieces, and fed him to the River fish. Set smiled. So did
the Neters who welcomed the Son of Isis. Horus was born.
|
|
|
He is Born music continues as LIGHTS fade
on birth tableau.
|
|
NOTE on Intermission
after Act Three: ENSEMBLE clear the stage
as this relatively long interval begins, and bring
the TEMPLE PYLON into the center of the Space. The
inside of the pylon portal is a working holistic
healing chamber, with color filters and aromas.
The PYLON is placed directly over transducer speakers
in the floor of the Space, so that those who stand
or walk inside the pylon can receive sound frequencies
through their feet. Herbal teas are also served
during this interval.
|
|
