"Rhapsodies is an ensemble cast webcomic that has been updating weekdays since 2004. At the core of the ensemble are neighbors Paul, Kate, and Brian. They and their friends live in Homestead, Columbia (a large city on the shores of Puget Sound, in a United States with a slightly different history).
Rhapsodies has a little bit of everything: romance, friendships, working musicians, politics, progressive booksellers, financial consultants, Goth pixies, and heavenly bureaucrats – but ultimately Rhapsodies is about people dealing with other people."
One of my favorite things that can happen is someone says something like, "Oh, I love that song, it has a bunch of different sections, like Bohemain Rhapsody."
And I get to say, "So it's a... rhapsody."
Like... that's what a rhapsody is, my guy.
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin? Actually also a rhapsody. He didn't lie in the title.
Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day? I'd say... a rhapsody. Even Wikipedia calls it "a punk rock version of Bohemian Rhapsody." You don't have to do this. It's just a rhapsody that is punk rock.
Not to downplay how cool it was that Queen made a modern rhapsody so sick that it's the benchmark. I'm just saying. We can have more rhapsodies.
“So then, [Zeus] by engulfing Erikepaios the Firstborn [Phanes], he had the body of all things in his belly, and he mixed into his own limbs the god’s power and strength. Because of this, together with him, everything came to be again inside Zeus, the broad air and the lofty splendour of heaven, the undraining sea and earth’s glorious seat, great Okeanos and the lowest Tartara of the earth, rivers and boundless sea and everything else, and all the immortal blessed gods and goddesses, all that had existed and all that was to exist afterwards became one and grew together in the belly of Zeus. After he had hidden them all away, again into the glad light from his holy heart he brought them up, performing mighty acts.”
Apparently we’re talking about Rhapsodies with the HoR read now?? Here, let me post up the poems for the other people who’ve appeared in it so far:D
This one was for Gerard de Nerval (all the poems are not just dedicated to, but directly written for, one or the other of the crew). It’s long (brevity is never one of Borel’s strong points...) so mostly under the cut, along with some commentary:
Les grand’s forêts renouvelées
La solitude des vallées
Clôses d’effroy tout à l’entour !
Ronsard
Sous le soleil torride au beau pays créole,
Où l’Africain se courbe au bambou de l’Anglais,
Encontre l’ouragan, le palmier qui s’étiole
Aux bras d’une liane unit son bois épais.
En nos antiques bois, le gui, saint parasite,
Au giron d’une yeuse et s’assied et s’endort ;
Mêlant sa fragile herbe, et subissant le sort
Du tronc religieux qui des autans l’abrite.
Gui ! liane ! palmier ! mon âme vous envie !
Mon cœur voudrait un lierre et s’enlacer à lui.
Pour passer mollement le gué de cette vie,
Je demande une femme, une amie, un appui !
— Un ange d’ici-bas ?… une fleur, une femme ?…
Barde, viens, et choisis dans ce folâtre essaim
Tournoyant au rondeau d’un preste clavecin. —
Non ; mon cœur veut un cœur qui comprenne son âme.
Ce n’est point au théâtre, aux fêtes, qu’est la fille
Qui pourrait sur ma vie épancher le bonheur :
C’est aux champs, vers le soir, groupée en sa mantille,
Un Werther à la main sous le saule pleureur.
Ce n’est point une brune aux cils noirs, l’air moresque ;
C’est un cygne indolent ; une Ondine aux yeux bleus
Aussi grands qu’une amande, et mourants, soucieux ;
Ainsi qu’en réfléchit le rivage tudesque.
Quand viendra cette fée ? — En vain ma voix l’appelle ! —
Apporter ses printemps à mon cœur isolé.
Pourtant jusqu’aux cyprès je lui serais fidèle !
Sur la plage toujours resterai-je esseulé ?
Sur mon toit le moineau dort avec sa compagne ;
Ma cavale au coursier a donné ses amours.
Seul, moi, dans cet esquif, que nul être accompagne,
Sur le torrent fougueux je vois passer mes jours.
I’m not going to translate this whole thing, not because it’s super tricky--for Petrus, this is exceptionally clear and straightforward French!-- but because it is long and I’m pretty sure everyone interested is at least as competent with French as me!
But I do want to point out that unusually (for Petrus) straightforward and direct language, and the repeated motifs of nature spirits and German myth; this is all very much Gerard’s focus , of course! So is the mood, which is even more noticeable if you read more of Rapsodies; this is a very gentle, melancholy kind of poem, and most of Borel’s stuff is a lot (a LOT) more gleefully Goth/Frenetic. There’s...there’s usually a lot more dead bodies than this XD . So yeah, this is on every level very much a Gérard Poem!
And interestingly, around this time, Gérard was writing some exceptionally (for him) morbid gore-crow Goth stuff, with shambling undead and angry political commentary (...which Petrus still couldn’t keep out of this entirely, see : “where the African bends over the English bamboo” ) . Petrus quoted some of it later in Champavert, which I’ve seen a couple people comment on, generally with a kind of bafflement over the sudden departure from style on Gerard’s part. To me it looks like maybe they were having fun sort of trying each others’ glasses on , poetic-style wise--it’s the kind of collaborative game that was very typical for this group.
