Hubris

Emperor Honororius, who presided over the first sack of Rome, Tyrannosaurus, king of the dinosaurs and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

Melita

In 1860 Englishman William Whiting wrote the words to the Seafarers' Hymn: "Eternal Father, Strong To Save". The great English hymn writer John Bacchus Dykes immediately wrote the tune "Melita" to go with Whiting's words and it was published in 1861. Their hymn remains one of the most popular in the Christian canon and is often used by various Christian navies and was sung at the funerals of Prince Phillip, Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy among many others.

In 1897 the great English colonial writer Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem "Recessional" for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. His poem warns the British Empire not to be too sure of its strength but to remember the fallen empires of the past and to place its faith in God, not in arms and soldiers. Since Kipling's poem has the same meter as the Seafarers' Hymn it can be sung to Dykes' tune and perhaps because of its use of the phrase "Lest we forget." it has become the de facto ANZAC hymn and is sung every ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand.

I first heard this hymn while singing it as part of the ANZAC Day choir in Portland and was immediately struck by its wonderful words, it's unusual tune, its complex harmony and its inventive SATB arrangement. Clearly the people behind it knew what they were doing and it stuck out to me from the beginning as one of the better hymns.

After my brother, the sailor, tragically died before his time, his yacht club in London put on a memorial service for him and 2 of their other lost shipmates and naturally they put the Seafarers Hymn on the program. It was beautifully sung by a mezzo-soprano and nicely accompanied by a pipe organ and it struck me again: What a wonderful piece of music it is!

I resolved to bring it into the canon of the Church of Infinite Dimensions. Naturally the words of the two common versions were unsuitable due to their obsession with God, so I cast around for a suitable theme. The seafaring theme was out as it is too narrow for the general populace. I felt that the tone of the music is saying: Yes, What you have done is great and you should be well praised for your efforts BUT just remember that no matter how great they are, ALL things come to an end eventually. Some sooner than others...

I felt that Kipling had hit the nail on the head with his line: "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh¹ and Tyre²!" He was, perhaps, foreshadowing the imminent demise of British Empire. It was not possible to make a satisfactory hymn out of his words, (despite gems such as the one above,) once you remove the God references, so I started with a clean slate and stuck to the theme of arrogant empires.

The Overweaning Pride Of The Great

If history is full of anything it is full of the rise and fall of empires, large and small. Most of us know of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, King Ramesses etc from the ancient canon and of people like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Charlemagne, Queen Victoria, Emperor Franz Joseph, Napoleon Bonaparte etc from more recent times. Naturally there are also numerous empires that Westerners know little about from Asian history, such as the Chinese and Khmer, as well as African empires such as the Malian and Zimbabwean and American empires such as those of the Inca, Maya, Aztec etc.

It is fascinating to read about the size of these civilisations and the wealth and power they commanded at their peak and to wonder at their fall. In many cases their fall was so great that they no longer exist at all. The leaders of these empires at the peak could not have imagined that one day their glorious edifice could simply cease to be but if they had read their history they would have realised that it was inevitable!

In most cases empires are built by a large group of people all working together more or less unselfishly under inspired leadership to build something to benefit all its citizens. The empire hits a golden age where it has great power and respect, quality invested management working to a common purpose, a high-functioning infrastructure and a competent, motivated and efficient workforce. The empire declines when its leadership becomes fractured and disinterested, its managers become corrupt and self-interested, its workers become inefficient and incompetent and its infrastructure decays and falls apart. Sic transit gloria mundi.

The Roman Empire is exceptional in that it lasted for 600 years while wielding tremendous influence and power. The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years but wielded less power. The Khmer Empire lasted 500 years, The Han Empire 400 and the Mongol Empire only 160. More recent examples are mostly far shorter: The British Empire was the greatest of all but lasted just 150 years. The Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted 50 years, the Soviet Union 70, Napoleon's empire just 10 and Hitler's 3rd Reich, expected to last 1,000 years lasted instead only made 12, (really 4 if you require nations other than Germany in it). It is breathtaking to think of the hubris of emperors like Khan, Stalin and Hitler, all of whom thought that their great state, built upon the bodies of millions of innocent citizens that they had murdered, should last 1,000 years. They should have known better!

When writing a hymn about human empires one cannot go past the Romans so of course I had to put them in. Since the arrogance and aggression of China under Xi Jin Ping at the time of writing was highly topical I put the Chinese Han Empire in. Finally I felt it appropriate to show how Johnny-come-lately we humans are as a species by comparing us to the reign of the dinosaurs which eclipses ours in terms of time 15,000 times.

Music: John Bacchus Dykes "Melita", 1861
Words: Warren Mars, 2021

Oh mighty nations, proud and great,
A word of caution in thine ear:
Though high in pomp and huge in weight,
For hubris shall ye yet pay dear.
All empires collapse at last,
And naked, face the critics' blast.

When Julius Caesar ruled in Rome,
It seemed their star would never fall,
Yet Visigoths despoiled their home³,
And left the haughty feeling small.
600 years of Roman might,
Came to an end without a fight.

The Chinese under Emperor Wu⁴,
Conquered and doubled their nation's size,
In time they beat off the Xiongnu⁵,
Reformed the law and held the prize.
But intrigue and a weakened crown,
Sent that great empire crashing down.

The kingdom of the dinosaurs,
Leaves all our hist'ry in the shade.
Ten thousand years since we kept scores⁶,
While all the Mesozoic⁷ they played.
It only took one asteroid⁸,
To leave their empire null and void.

Beware!

The vocal score with chords is provided here.
I have also provided an SATB arrangement for choirs here.

Finally, I have provided a recording of my computer synthesizer playing the SATB arrangement. There is no singing and the synthesizer is very ordinary. Nevertheless the parts are all there and one can sing along with it or use it get an idea of how it should sound with your choir.

Nineveh was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Tyre was one of the main cities of the Phoenician Empire which was wiped out by the Romans.
In 410 the Visigoth leader Alaric took Rome by starvation. The incompetent Emperor of the time: Honorius was not there and didn't appear to care.
Han Wudi, real name: Liu Che, was perhaps the most successful of the many Chinese Emperors and he was perhaps the one that did the most to weld the state of what is modern China together. He was also superstitious, narcissistic, brutal and a spendthrift.
The Xiongnu were a vast empire of Mongols living to the north of China.
Human recorded history goes back less than 10,000 years, writing was only invented 5,000 years ago. There are cave paintings from before then but no writing. Human tribes were around for about 300,000 years but there was no proper civilisation and no empires until the Sumerians invented irrigated agriculture and cuneiform at around 4,000 BC.
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth's land masses for roughly 150 million years, during the Mesozoic Era, the Era that comprises the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.
It is generally thought that the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that caused the demise of the dinosaurs was caused by the impact of a massive comet or asteroid, most likely the one that caused the Chicxulub crater in Mexico.