Anima Mundi

O Soul who animates these earthly shapes,

bestow their form, rejoice in harmony-

who are indeed yourself, true harmony

behold your contours, known to you alone

radiant though as yet you dwell in sleep,

oppressed, imprisoned in miry clay;

if with frail toungue you can utter your first origin,

speak out, that I may declare on paper

the value, out of musical modes.

Since I compose

reveal your inspiration,

your rich inebriation.

Should my song fail

to free you from your dungeon,

yet shall you still return

to beauty,

your first habitation,

where each true melody is freely born,

compared to which

our earth is but a shadow.

If truth was uttered by Pythagoras

in the sovereign intellect, Number was the prime idea,

when He fused his first idea with ice,

thus tempering his heat,

Number was foremost in his thought,

Desirous to form man content and just,

He grounded him in number,

from which He had created this great mass,

of stars, moon, and sun -

Number was to be his first example

granting the spirit wings to rise to the divine temple.

Since thus the soul is touched by Number's concord

as a well-tempered harp

utters divine and ardent ecstasy,

what were the soul to hear

the various sounds concert among themselves,

as spheres , now slow, now fast, which travel the heavens?...

(Giovanni Marenzi)