Lutyens elaborated the libretto for her lyric drama \"Isis and Osiris\" from Plutarch and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The opera was not a success on its only staging by Morley College in 1976, but the unaccompanied Lament she extracted especially for Jane Manning distills the symbolic character of the text and the hieratic quality of the music. Osiris, good of corn, wine and the waters of the Nile has been murdered by Seth representing the desert, sea salt, evil;. Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, Goddess of fertility and vegetation, mourns. The gentle Etesian winds she refers to brought rain from the North. The music, a finely balanced interplay of searing melismata and chant-like rhythms, gradually sinks in a ptch0-range as it ebbs in intensity, from to C at the beginning to low A flat at the end.
Lines taken and adapted from the Egyptian Book of the Dead:
Ah,
Nile has been overcome by Sea; The Etesian winds are stilled,
no rain does fall.
Osiris, Lord of the Rivers, now is dead.
The murderous heat of Seth does scorch my land.
The nights grow dark; the Moon has died.
Mourn, O mourn, the loss of my sweet Nile;
Morn, O mourn, the death of Northern winds;
Mourn, O mourn, the lengthening of the night.
And mourn, above all else, this sad Earth's denudation:
the grass no longer green,
the withering of all the trees,
the flowers that flower no more,
the shrubs that shet their leaves.
Then mourn, O mourn, the dying of the Nile.
Osiris, Lord and King, I weep for you.
