So Beauty on the waters stood
When Love had severed earth from flood!
So when he parted air from fire,
He did with concord all inspire!
And then a motion he them taught
That elder than himself was thought,
Which thought was, yet, the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.
– Ben Jonson
Soprano: Julianne Baird
Lute: Ronn McFarlane
Music by Alfonso Ferrabosco II (1575 – 1628)
This music came to me via Richard Powers’s fictionalized autobiography, Galatea 2.2