The Bright Sun Rises lyrics and meaning

Užteka teka šviesi saulalė
Čiūtela čiutute čiūtela čiutute

Užtekėdama randa žvaigždelę
Ketino laimė midų daryti
Visas žvaigždeles susiprašyti
Tik vienos saulalės nepriprašyti
Palauk, laimele, kerštų darysiu
Devynis rytus neužtekėsiu
Devynis rytus rasos nekrėsiu
Devynis rytus rūkas rūkavo
Dešimtų rytų saulė pasirodė

◈ Žodžiai – iš Juškų dainyno.
◈ Sutartinės melodiją pritaikė Girjaukis.

The Bright Sun Rises: sutartinė interpretation

This sutartinė with the refrain "čiūtela čiutute" can be understood as a mythic song about a disagreement between the sun and Laimė. The bright sun rises and finds a little star; Laimė intended to make mead and invite all the stars, but did not invite the one sun. The image humanizes the heavenly bodies and centers the plot on an insult.

The offended sun then promises revenge: for nine mornings she will not rise, and for nine mornings she will not scatter dew. For nine mornings fog smoked over the world, and only on the tenth morning did the sun appear. This can be understood as a mythic story of the sun's anger and its consequences, when the world is left without light.

A second reading hears an echo of Baltic cosmogonic myth. In Lithuanian mythology, Saulė is a female heavenly deity and Laima is the goddess of fate. A heavenly feast to which the Sun is not invited, followed by her revenge, nine mornings without light or dew and with fog, recalls a disturbance of world order, almost an image of world-ending darkness or eclipse. The sacred number nine and the motif of the "weddings" of heavenly bodies point to one of the most archaic layers of Lithuanian song. Still, it is important to remember that this specific text comes from the Juška songbook and was later fitted to a sutartinė melody, so it testifies less to a direct rite than to a living tradition of retelling and adapting myth.

The Bright Sun Rises: symbols and phrases

The bright sun
The rising sun who quarrels with Laimė. In Lithuanian mythology, the sun is a female heavenly deity.
Laimė making mead
The goddess of fate inviting the stars to a feast. She is the organizer of the heavenly gathering.
The sun's revenge, nine mornings without sun
The sun's promise not to rise for nine mornings marks the anger of an offended heavenly force and a disruption of order.
Fog for nine mornings
The fog covering the world when the sun does not appear marks the loss of light and cosmic order.

The Bright Sun Rises: sutartinė history

The words of this sutartinė come from the Juška songbook, one of the most important nineteenth-century collections of Lithuanian folk songs, compiled by the brothers Antanas and Jonas Juška. Girjaukis adapted a sutartinė melody to these words, so this is not a direct field recording but a later combination of text and sutartinė melody. It is a good example of how nineteenth- and twentieth-century mythological song texts were adapted for sutartinės-style multipart singing.

The quarrel between the sun, the stars, and Laimė, the goddess of fate, is one of the best-known plots in Lithuanian mythological sung folklore. It is often connected with the "weddings" of heavenly bodies and with cosmic order. Sutartinės flourished in north-eastern Aukštaitija from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century; in 2010 they were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

sources

  • A. and J. Juška. Lietuviškos dainos (nineteenth century)
  • Z. Slaviūnas. Sutartinės, vols. 1-3 (1958-1959)
  • D. Račiūnaitė-Vyčinienė. Sutartinės: Lithuanian Polyphonic Songs (2002)

The Bright Sun Rises: sources