Roger Waters - The Fall of the Bastille | Текст песни

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• Roger Waters
• The Fall of the Bastille

Scene 5:

The Fall of the Bastille

An ominous atmosphere prevails. The Ringmaster enters. We hear the sounds of birds flocking before migration. This, in its turn, suggests the accumulation and concentration of energy that occurs immediately prior to a profound event.

The forces and conditions that inspire mass action have come together. Revolutionary ardor and activity is everywhere at large. Priest, Ringmaster, and Chorus relate the sequence of events that is the taking of the Bastille, the most potent symbol of despotism and injustice. The mob, having raided the arsenal at Les Invalides, marches on the prison, kills the jailer, and sets its three prisoners free. The Ringmaster, surveying the carnage, muses on the responsibilities that out devolving to the revolutionaries now that they are beginning to seize power. How will they exercise them? Carrying an injured child in his arms, the Troublemaker, weary though elated after the event, answers the Ringmaster’s concerns by proclaiming that the demise of this hated emblem of state oppression will eventually initiate a new order and ethical system based on justice and fairness – the Rights of Man, no less – that future generations will inherit and live by.

RINGMASTER
Birds flock, when winter settles in
The Harlequin with dunce’s cap and silver horn
All mournful, mocking eye and painted tear
Has seen it all before
The sparrows hurl in face of glazed imperium
Then stunned, affronted, fall
Then, picking up perch braggart on the wire
And launch towards the south, towards the land of fire