When hope dies
I didn't go to the Goddess Exhibition on the weekend but I did go to Opera in the Domain on Saturday evening to see Puccini's Turandot. It was wonderful. The story is not so beautiful (the Opera was forbidden in China for many years for betraying the Chinese unfavourably), except perhaps for the story of Liu, but the music, the costumes and the settings were all done so well. I don't know quite what I was expecting from a free opera performed out-of-doors but they were not at all parsimonious in the production.
It wasn't like the Jazz or the Symphony in the domain, during which people chatted and picnicked. For the Opera all eyes were glued to the stage and the screens and a general silence prevailed, which was quite dream-like.
The basic plot of this Opera is that there lives a beautiful princess, Turandot, whose hand in marriage is coveted by many a fine fellow, but Turandot has a burning vengeance against all men going back thousands of years to a grievance against an ancestor, so she requires all potential suitors to correctly answer three riddles. If they get any of the three riddles wrong it's off with their head, and the heads lost have been numerous up until this point. A stranger, Calaf, arrives on the scene, falls madly in love with the princess (why nobody knows, because she's beautiful but awful) and can't be dissuaded from an attempt to answer the three riddles.
We all sat waiting for these three riddles to be given. When they finally were I was intrigued, especially by the first and its answer:
What is born each night and dies each dawn?
Calaf correctly replies, "Hope".
The idea that hope dies with the dawn just doesn't quite align with my notions. In the bible hope seems to be metaphorically linked to the morning, with the coming of Christ likened to the light of dawn. And how often do we hear the phrase "the dawn of hope" or "hope is dawning" in general language ...
I amused myself at lunch time searching the ESV online and below are just a few of the many bible references I found that link dawn and hope:
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love
of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."
Lamentations 3: 21-24
Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none,
nor see the eyelids of the morning ...
Job 3:9
... the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.
Matthew 4:16
... because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1:78-79
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts ...
2 Peter 1:19
It would have been off with my head had I been presented with Turandot's riddles I fear.