Today is a special day. Not in inherent importance, but in this post. The first half is an encyclopaedia article about one of the two lullabies I grew up under, and the second half is my own personal observations about the other. I've been told this information is of interest to the @meliazine, and I see no risk, so I shall disclose it.
Apparently, this website has banned <hr> elements since I last attempted one. So I have no choice but to use a poor approximation.
Antiqua's Lullaby is the traditional lullaby of the imperial family. It is a simple melody sixteen bars long, the second half primarily a repeat of the first, composed mostly of quarter notes.
The lullaby has existed since long before records began. Artefacts uncovered from Annularis Peninsula on the Bionis' left arm suggest that it has existed since at least several centuries before the Water War, deep within the territory of the Imperial Commonwealth of Antiqua. It is not known for certain whether it was also an imperial lullaby at the time, though this is the leading theory, given it came to be known as one less than a century after the ICA won the war and founded Alcamoth.
Unique among lullabies, the original version has no lyrics, and is instead expected to be hummed, whistled, or simply sung wordlessly. Records indicate that once the imperial family began to include Homs consorts, a set of lyrics in Common began to develop, and over time became considered as "official" for that language. It is believed that pureblood supremacists responded by calling the lyric-less variant "the original Hightounge version", though this was never taken seriously due to the lack of words of any language. There is a persistent rumour that there exists an official set of lyrics in Pon, which has always been untrue.
While the melody is public knowledge and public domain, it is widely considered impolite at best for the general public to sing it to their own children. Most see it as misappropriating what belongs to the imperial family alone, almost to the extent of "stealing" it from where it belongs. Those who do so anyway insist that they do it as a point of honour, to spread the music farther than it would naturally reach. Conversely, it is common and accepted for film and television to incorporate the melody into musical themes that represent the story's royal family, whether the fiction's world be realistic or fantastical. Usage of the theme as foreshadowing that a character has unknown royal lineage is considered by many critics to be an overdone trope.
There are two stanzas, though the second is somewhat unpopular, and often omitted or replaced with a repeat of the first.
Here I lay you down to bed,
Time to rest your sleepy head.
Busy day that you have led,
Living the life that you deserve.
It is time to go to sleep,
Think of stars and count your sheep.
Be it quiet, not a peep,
For all the people we serve.
Hope your dreams are free and clear,
Aim your mind, from nightmares steer.
If you fail, then I am here,
To help you wash the bad away.
Fear and sad are part of life,
Best to learn where help is rife.
Growing older's full of strife,
You'll understand it one day.
Mother called it the Ancient's Lullaby, though said most call it the Ancient Lullaby or the Ancients' Lullaby. It's the oldest surviving complete piece of music in all of Homs culture.
There is no agreement on whether "Ancient", "Ancients'", or "Ancient's" is the correct form of the title. Mother preferred the singular possessive because she likes the implication that an otherwise long-forgotten individual wrote it and popularised it. The plural possessive and singular non-possessive forms are more popular because others tend to prefer the view that it is a folk song with no specific point of origin.
Due to its age, essentially all knowledge on the tune is lost to history. For all practical intents and purposes, it is as old as the Homs race itself. It makes me wonder. Could this composition be so old that it was influenced by the High Entia forefathers, or perhaps even the Giants or Machina? Is this a surviving link to the co-operation of the past, or a more recent (relatively-speaking) creation of purely the one race? I somewhat hope it is the latter. As much as I like the idea that it is a relic of unity, I think it is better to be something that the Homs can call all their own.
Despite this heritage, most Homs do not choose to sing it for their children. Apparently the chromatics are somewhat unusual for a lullaby, so they instead prefer pieces with more conventional tone progressions. But I think that's why I like it - because it's unusual, because it's not what the average person has grown up hearing. The contrast between this and the traditional imperial lullaby, heard by literally every royal before me, is alluring.
It must be a special rarity, for one person to have been raised under both this lullaby and the traditional imperial one. Rare to be born royal, rarer to also be half-Homs, and rarer still to have said Homs parent to have chosen this piece for them. It is almost typical for me to be the nexus of coincidences such as this.
The keys are adjacent in the circle of fifths... A single composition could use them both and it would feel completely natural. I don't recall Mother ever singing both in one night, but I can hear the juxtaposition in my mind all the same. It would make a fine piece.
The traditional lyrics tell a story of grocery shopping. Mother did not use them much; she preferred to mix in personalisation based on the day's events. She also started to use only one stanza as I grew older and the need for a lullaby diminished. Its sudden absence was likely a large contributor to my poor sleep in the days after her death.
I was at this morning's market,
buying our bread, and I
found my purse of coin had
all but lost its thread.
Looking backward, dropped gold pieces,
trailed out of sight, I had
thought to claim them all would
draw into the night.
I had started picking coins up
when there was sound, as a
trio of three Nopon
had gathered around.
With them helping, things were put right,
quickly and fast, as I
paid for our fresh bread and
brought it home at last.
stormborns
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
janainaart
yousharknotpass
dededos
