The Flying Dutchman

The Flying Dutchman, nautical legend of a ghost ship, wandering the tip of Cape Hope, (or North Sea) destined to never reach dry land. The Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship. Ships that have seen the Flying Dutchman and survived, say its sails as having an eerie glow. Those that it passed close enough to see on board, tell of a lone sailor on deck, a tormented soul, with age of eternity on his face. Strained and tired as if holding up a great weight. holding out a letter to be taken back to their loved ones at home. A warning not to came to the same fate he has.

The Dutch mariner, cursed for uttering a blasphemous oath, is doomed to sail eternally, the condemned captain as sailing aimlessly while playing dice, for his soul, with the devil.

The Flying Dutchman, This phantom vessel fore tells of disaster for any sailors who sees it. In fact some seamen believe its appearance is a signal imminent disaster.

The Flying Dutchman myth or legend is usually one of two stories:

Maritime legend, says the spectre ship doomed to sail forever;
Captain, Vanderdecken, gambles his salvation on a rash pledge to round
the Cape of Good Hope during a storm and so is condemned to that
course for eternity.
In a less common story, Captain Falkenberg is sailing forever
through the North Sea, playing at dice with the devil for his soul,
(Also for committing a sin of pride).

The legend, adapted in the opera "Der fliegende Hollender" (The Flying Dutchman) , by the German composer Richard Wagner.
Story of the tormented soul of the captain of "The Flying Dutchman's" hope of divine grace and absolution. Regretting his pride and blasphemous rage, with his knife, killed all that I loved on God's earth, his wife. which caused his punishment, to sail forever, never touching land. Never to see his wife again, never to die. Praying to God, who gave him gift of life, for the gift of merciful death.

From "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" 1951

The Flying Dutchman

His own story told in the hope of divine grace and 
merciful absolution.

Shun blasphemous rage and pity him his punishment.

It was her face.  It was her face still though now 
white and cold as marble.

She would not smile at me anymore in the sweet way 
she had of smiling - but it was still her face.

The face I had seen in my mind's eye, carried in 
my heart of hearts through the days, weeks, months 
of my long voyage.

I had my own ship now and was vain of two things; 
my captaincy and - my beautiful young wife, whose 
face was as innocent as a flower and as 
transparent as a child's.

I could have sworn upon that innocence as one 
swears by the holy mother of God.

It was this face that I had before me when I 
withdrew from my ship's officers and their 
carousing.

It was to this face that I had yearned in the 
endless hours of the night watch.

It was to her that I had returned at last, my 
hands and pockets full of earrings and necklaces 
and circlets for her delicate arms, souvenirs of 
strange lands to beguile and delight her.

How I adored her pleasure in my gifts - and to 
have found her faithless! It was incredible and 
yet I could not doubt it.

My mind was a hive of swarming gadflies whose 
stings were my remorseless thoughts, visions of 
her unchastity - mad, shameful, bestial 
imaginings.

There was no cure for this but the knife! With one 
bloody blow I killed all that I loved on God's 
earth.

It was still her face - so pure, how could it be 
so pure?

It was not a man but a walking emptiness that they 
led away to dungeons and courtrooms.

And when my judgement was pronounced and the 
magistrate asked me whether I had anything to say 
I found words to speak so vain, so extravagant, so 
mad - such fateful words...  "The evil is done and 
cannot be undone.

This bloody death I still should do and do again 
ten thousand times before I hang tomorrow.

Send me then no priest to shroud me, I beseech no 
mercy nor plead any justice.

Eternal penance be my comfort.

Let mortal fools live in a wicked world - faith is 
a lie and God Himself is chaos! Faith is a lie and 
heaven a deception! A man might have immortal life 
and wander for all the generations of man over all 
the oceans of the world, let him sail to the edge 
of Doomsday - he will find no woman faithful and 
fair.

If this be folly then upon me proved let the 
Divinity that I reject make what sport He will of 
my immortal soul!"

The courtroom fell silent and the magistrate 
spoke, "I tremble for the soul that will depart 
your body tomorrow.

For the God you have blasphemed will judge your 
words as I have judged your deed.

You have taken a life and yours is forfeit.

Tomorrow you will die.  But the part of you that 
does not die, the immortal part, what of that? He 
who knows our thoughts will He not hear our words? 
I pity you not my doom - but God's!" I awoke in 
the dead of night from a deep sleep, a sleep it 
seemed of unearthly oblivion.

The door of my cell was open...  my guards were 
sleeping as if they were under a spell.

I thought some unknown friend pitying my 
misfortune had drugged them so that I might flee 
the death the morning sun would bring me.

My ship was still anchored in the bay - my loyal 
crew received me.

A small wind carried us soundlessly to the safety 
of the open sea.

In the last darkness before the dawn while I was 
sleeping in my familiar cabin a dream came to me.

A voice spoke to me in words that passed like 
flames through my tortured ears to take possession 
of my burning brain.

I knew without any doubt that what the voice told 
me was true, with an awful truth.

My wife had not been faithless! What I had thought 
unchastity had been kindness merely, the warmth 
and sweet friendship and joy with which her gentle 
soul sought to encompass all creatures.

I had killed sweet innocence and with it my hopes 
of earth and heaven.

I wanted to die - I wanted to plunge the knife 
into my own heart as I had in hers, but a power 
greater than my own held my arm.

The voice spoke again.

In my madness in the courtroom I had pronounced my 
own doom.

I would have immortal life and wander for all the 
generations of men over all the oceans of the 
world.

It might be that I should sail till Doomsday - I 
would long for death, but death would be denied 
me.

Yet I might be redeemed.

After seven years and never again after seven 
years I might live as a mortal man among mortal 
men.

For half a year I might seek the woman faithful 
and fair, who could restore to me the grace of God 
and the gift of peace but she - must be willing to 
die for me.

The words echoed in my mind.

Willing to die? The answer came, "so that I might 
know the meaning of love".

The voice faded away.  This was my dream.

Was it a dream? I could hear the noise of the sea 
and the straining of the ship's timbers.

It was a dream - a dreadful dream and nothing 
more.

But if a man should have a dream and in that dream 
should take a knife to destroy himself and the 
knife were to fall from his hand, and if waking he 
saw that knife where it had fallen - what then?

But this was absurd - the knife had fallen to the 
floor in some other way not in a dream.

Or perhaps in the manner of sleepwalkers I had 
left my bed and taken the knife and let it fall.

My imagination was overwrought with the events of 
the past days.

I would rest and the dream would be forgotten in 
the morning as vapors vanish in the rising sun.

But in the morning the memory of my dream was 
disturbingly vivid.

There was no-one to be seen, no watch on deck, no 
helmsman at the wheel, no-one aloft in the yards.

No sailor to answer my call, it was very strange.

Only a few hours ago I'd seen them.

Could they have abandoned ship while I slept? But 
the longboat was secure!

I had seen my crew the night before - was it my 
crew I'd seen, or demons sent to deceive me? This 
was not a dream - I was alone, unspeakably alone.

Was I alone? The helm was firm and the ship held 
to its course.

I looked aloft with an unspoken command for now we 
were carrying too much canvas.

Unseen hands obeyed my thought - I was captain of 
a ghostly crew.

Was it true then - the doom that I had dreamed? 
The words of the vision rang in my mind like a 
funeral bell.

Would I sail alone till Doomsday longing for 
death, with death denied me? Above the main mast I 
saw a white gull circling - its wings were stained 
with blood.

Seven years and seven times seven years I have 
sailed, my ship without anchor my heart without 
hope.

The mountains of ice that guard the southern pole 
cracked before me with the noise of thunder.

I sailed though canyons of ice whose walls rise up 
and up into a measureless mist.

Unharmed I sail through fields of ice where the 
frozen crags crash and mount each other, howling 
like souls in hell fire.

Beyond the ice I sail into tropical calms where 
the ship's timbers become trees again with roots 
in the bottom of the sea.

The sun breeds maggots as if water were carrion 
and vermin swarm upon us in sheets of horrid 
movement.

I long for death - but death has been denied me.

Once in a storm the main tegallant, cleft by 
lightning, fell upon me.

In that moment of dying, for in that moment I 
died, a great joy filled me.

I was at last to be free of the burden of my doom, 
but life flowed back into my unwilling brain.

After seven years and again after seven years I 
found harbour to see again with longing the lives 
of those who grow old and die, of those who suffer 
and die, of those who die.

Morning and night I pray.

Up by star and star my futile prayers go into the 
outer frozen blackness, down into the unfathomable 
deeps where black water covers the abyss of the 
sea.

My vain words seek the ear of God.

You who have the gift of life, the gift of love 
pity the Flying Dutchman his punishment and pray 
that God's grace may grant him the best of all 
gifts, the gift of merciful death.

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