The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

From the latest post
The Nightingale

FWIW the picture glued onto the lyric sheet is showing a fragment of a 12th-century Last Judgement mozaic from the Torcello Cathedral.

TheNightingale wrote:FWIW the picture glued onto the lyric sheet is showing a fragment of a 12th-century Last Judgement mozaic from the Torcello Cathedral.

i've googled for a bit and found this: https://wwwbisanzioit.blogspot.com/2014 ... 0.html?m=1

I superbi

Sospinti da due angeli sono qui raffigurati i superbi, tra i quali si distinguono (cerchiati in rosso):
1. Costantino V Copronimo (741-775), in basso a sinistra, il maggiore responsabile delle persecuzioni iconoclaste.
2. Nestorio, calvo e con il loros intrecciato e le 2 crocette, l'eresiarca.
3. Eudossia (Aelia Eudossia), in alto e col diadema, la moglie dell'imperatore Arcadio (395-408) che perseguitò S.Giovanni Crisostomo.
Lucifero siede sul dorso del Leviatano (è re su tutte le fiere più superbe, Giobbe, 41,26) e tiene in grembo - su di una falda verde, simbolo della speranza nel male - l'Anticristo in blasfema contrapposizione alla Vergine Hodighitria nel catino absidale e ad Abramo nel riquadro raffigurante il Paradiso.

Translated by me:

The Prideful people

Here, pushed by two angels, are pictured the prideful people, among whom you can recognize ( in the red circles):
1. Coastantine V Kopronimos [which basically means the shit eater ], on the bottom left, who had the greatest responsibility for the iconoclast persecutions.
2.Nestorius, with a bald head and a twisted loros with two little crosses, the heresy maker.
3. Aeudoxia( Aelia Eudoxia), on the top and with the crown, wife of the emperor Arcadius (395-408) who persecuted Saint John Chrysostom.

Lucifer sits on the back of the Leviathan ( he's the king of themost prideful beasts, Book of Job 41,26) and on his lap- on a green tissue, symbol of the evil's hope- there's the Antichrist in a blasphemous contraposition with the Virgin Hodegetria [the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus] in the apsidal basin and Abraham on the Paradise panel.

That's cool and all, and honestly now i want to visit said Cathedral, but one really wonders what the heck this has to do with the song...unless...

In line 13 the protagonist says " everyone of us will go to Paradise"... quite a prideful thing to say, isn't it? Only God knows for sure who will be saved ( since He is the one who decides)!
yet i have to state that here in Italy i heard multiple times people saying ( my mother included) that WWI soldiers most likely went to Paradise... many of them were just kids after all...

what about the bird that gives the song its name, the nightingale? i've looked around a bit and apparently it could sybolize Spring, Love in general or Love for music... i found even a medieval meaning: a Perfect but unrealizable Love.

To wrap it up, as always, wondering about the actual meanings and aims of PJ's lyrics is impossible, and it all comes down to personal interpretation. Yet, i keep getting surprised by the depth of PJ's words,so utterly full of pathos and mistery.