The conductor and librettist’s intention has not wavered, according to the opera’s director, Lindy Hume: ‘From the outset, Richard Mills and Peter Goldsworthy have been absolutely clear about their ambition for their second operatic collaboration: it is a story of the nature of evil.’ The creators are mindful of Solzhenitsyn’s remark: ‘The border between good and evil lies not between nations or between peoples, or even between individual human, but runs down the middle of every human heart.’

In these seven poems drawn from the three-act libretto, Commandeur Pelsaert and other survivors describe the journey, the aftermath of the shipwreck, and Jeronimus Cornelisz’s murderous intervention.

Three Poems from Act One

1. Pelsaert’s Monologue

Once more I stand at Holland’s rim,
On the very rind of all the Fruits
Of civil Life I hold most sweet,
Staring discontented at the Sea.

Ten years I dwelt in Eastern Lands,
Ten years from golden Amsterdam,
Driven less by merchant’s Duty,
Than by private, restless Odyssey.

Too soon my Holiday is passed,
Home’s sweet respite is done.
No true Penelope awaited me,
No Telemachus, faithful son,

Alone, despite ship’s Company,
I pass again beyond the Dike,
Suffering the cruellest of needs
The lust to know and find.

For Knowledge is an Opium,
And as the capstan-ratchet winds
In one direction only, ever up,
Unsated Curiosity seeks

An ever higher Comprehension
That permits no peace of Mind,
And tosses my uprooted Soul
Like seaweed in a wat’ry wind,

And shrinks the sum of all I know
To this: there is nothing
In the Seven Seas as turbulent
As the four small chambers of the heart.

2. Banquet Chorus

Bring hither bread and foaming ale,
Soft ciders and spiced wines
Bring bakemeats and pork-pies,
Bring oranges and greeny limes,

Round cheeses from the north,
Soft cheeses from the south,
Sweetmeats and pumpernickel,
Pastries that amaze the mouth,

And Rhenish wine that sets afloat
The mind as if that mind
Is just a boat inside a boat
Essay’d upon an easeful sea.

3. Changing of the Watch

Strikes eight the bell, pray all be well,
Please Lord preserve our frail nutshell,
Lend to us Thy strong right arm,
That through the gath’ring storm,
And o’er this turbulent Sea
We might walk once more with Thee.

Three Poems from Act Two

1. Marooned: Batavia’s Graveyard

We find false haven
On this barren spit:
Death not by water
But by lack of it.

The thirsting sun
Dries tears to salt,
Our tongues are parched,
Our eyeballs melt

Till we would trade
The Seven Seas
For six short feet
Of dry Dutch earth.

2. Jeronimus

Praise the God
Of lust and death,
Praise the God
Of rage and hate,
The God within
Each human heart,
The God of pleasure
God of pain,
The God within
Each human mind,
The dark, cold God
Made in our kind.

3. Thanksgiving Chorus: High Island

Lord, Thou hast planted here a Garden
East of Eden, a meadowed Lawn
Laden with the Foods of Heaven:
The eggs of birds and turtle-eggs,
Plump molluscs in their crusty keeps,
And meat that walks on two hind legs:

Small roes and hinds
With eyes of doves,
That innocent of men
Hop to our knives.

In this grove of flower and fruit,
Mid flocks of upright fawns that graze
Upon the Lawn compliant to pursuit,
Lord raise us from our common Fall,
Make us innocent ourselves,
And new, and thus redeem us all.

Poem from Act Three

Weibbe’s Lullaby

Sleep my darling sons
In the vessel of God’s Heart,
The whisper of His breath
Doth sing upon the sail
And play about the ropes
Like a bow upon a viol.

His Face is turned this way,
His Watch will never end.
Fear not sharp axe and knife
Fear not hot Sun, wild Sea
Love of God and love of Man
Nourish and Sustain thee.

Sleep my darling sons
In the vessel of my heart
Where Love is hull and sail
And steadfast rudder and keel,
Our one enduring Ark,
Stout oak in every heart.

Sleep my darling sons
God’s face is turned this way,
Sleep till passing time
Softly draws its blind,
And sweet forgetfulness
Gives peace from all that’s past.