Ye Are Many—They Are Few

In 2012, I wanted to write a piece of music that would address what I saw as political apathy regarding some of the appalling things happening in the United States—increasing racism, inequality, divisions between various groups, and our country’s frightening militarization abroad and at home. I used as my starting point Percy Bysshe Shelley’s long poem The Mask of Anarchy  (ending with Ye Are Many—They Are Few), which is thought to be the greatest piece of political poetry ever written. The poem may well have been the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance.

Shelley was living in Italy when he learned of the Peterloo massacre, which occurred on August 16, 1819. In St. Peter’s Square in Manchester, England. An estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people assembled for a peaceful demonstration against a corrupt government. The major demand of the demonstrators was universal suffrage. The protestors believed that giving working men the vote would promote more equitable spending of the public purse, bring about fairer tax policies, and rein in trade restrictions, which were damaging industries and causing widespread unemployment. Only a minority were pressing for the vote for women, though many women supported the march.

The term “Peterloo” was derived from a elision of the words St. Peter’s and Waterloo, where Napoleon was defeated. Though the march was peaceful, the magistrates ordered the Manchester Yeomanry to disperse the demonstrators. Their cavalry charged into the crowd on horseback, killing many, including some women and children, and slashing particularly at those carrying banners. Shelley was so incensed when he heard the news that he wrote The Mask of Anarchy to inspire the masses to rise up against their oppressors, though the poem was not published until after his death. The businessman, John Taylor, witnessed the massacre and in response began publishing the Manchester Guardian. Unfortunately, the government reacted by passing the Six Acts, which mandated that any assembly of more than 50 people required government permission.

Shelley was particularly disgusted that principles, such as law and democracy were completely subverted by being bought and sold among the ruling powers. In his poem, Shelley argued that the only route to liberty was through reason, science, and the intellect, not through the made up powers of religion and monarchy. The mythical figure of Anarchy in the poem rides a white horse splashed with blood, “like Death in the Apocalypse,” declaring “I am God and King and Law.” Does this remind you of anyone today? I took my title from Shelley’s final line: Ye Are Many—They Are Few, which so synthesized the feeling generated by the Occupy Wall Street movement at the time.

I knew I could not use the whole poem because so much of it related specifically to English history, and I wanted my piece to be more relevant to our times. Thus I selected only the stanzas that I felt applied to our current dilemma and added quotes from Howard Zinn, William Jennings Bryan, Frederick Douglass, Dorothy Parker, William Butler Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw. I wove these together with my own political commentary. The result was a grant from the Puffin Foundation and the composition of Ye Are Many—They are Few, Cantata for a Just World, for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass-Baritone/Orator, and Piano. The piece had its premiere at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2014.

I reprint the text here because I believe it is even more relevant to the current political turmoil than it was in 2014. Yes, many have awaken from their lethargy. Protests are more numerous and louder, but the resistance is completely insufficient to the threats we now face. Click here for a link to a recording of that live performance.

TEXT

In a world of unspeakable injustice,
good people turn a blind eye.
Mired in material pursuits,
transfixed by trivial diversions,
they are oblivious.
No questions are asked.
No answers demanded,
No resistance exerted.
And the system smiles menacingly—
it will prevail.
The silence resounds ever more insistently
throughout the world.
A soundless shudder passes like a current
from one to all—
the death of hope is upon us.
We are the collaborators in our own demise.
—Norman Mathews

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
—William Butler Yeats

Where are the poets who will raise the cry?
Where are the artists?
Who will compose the music
to rouse us from our torpor?
—Norman Mathews

Which is worse—the perpetrators of injustice
or those who are blind to it?
—Dorothy Parker

The best, the good, the decent—
have they lost their voices?
—Norman Mathews

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did. . .
it never will.
Find out just what any people
will quietly submit to and
you will have the exact measure of the
injustice and wrong that will be imposed on them.
—Frederick Douglass

Civil disobedience is not our problem. . .
Our problem is that people are
obedient all over the world. . .
Millions have been killed
because of this obedience. . .
Obedience?—in the face of
starvation. . .stupidity. . .war. . .
Our problem is that people are obedient
while the jails are full of petty thieves. . .
(yet) the grand thieves are running the country.
That’s our problem.
—Howard Zinn

“Ye who suffer woes untold
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country’s bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold.

“Let a vast assembly be.
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God made ye, free—

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you–
Ye are many–they are few.’
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Injustice is the monstrous progeny of greed,
evil the powerful trumpet as good.
—Norman Mathews

If those in charge of our society. . .
can dominate our ideas,
they will be secure in their power.
They will not need soldiers
patrolling the streets.
We will control ourselves.
—Howard Zinn

Even silence speaks.
Listen closely.
What does it tell us?
It whispers foreboding warnings:
We’re tearing our moral fabric.
We’re losing our humanity.
Dooming democracy—and liberty.
Enduring eternal war.
Ravaging the earth.
—Norman Mathews

Liberty means responsibility.
That’s why most men dread it.
—George Bernard Shaw

What is our responsibility?
Merely to denounce those who oppress us?
And what—when those we support
speak consoling words of
fairness and equality,
yet adopt the devices of our oppressors
to violate justice?
Then more than ever
must we raise our voices—
assert our integrity.
Otherwise we descend to atavistic tribalism,
condone evil, annihilate our morals,
and cede our freedom.
—Norman Mathews

‘What is Freedom?–ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well–
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.’

”Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

”Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,
They are dying whilst I speak.

”Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

”Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

‘This is Slavery–savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do–
But such ills they never knew.

‘What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand–tyrants would flee
Like a dream’s dim imagery:

‘Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of fame.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

No, not with pistol or bomb
will we triumph,
for those are the means of the odious
who peddle injustice as justice.
We will prevail because truth and
integrity are our weapons.
—Norman Mathews

We do not come as aggressors.
Our war is not a war of conquest.
We are fighting in the defense of
our homes, our families, and posterity.
We have petitioned, and our
petitions have been scorned.
We have entreated, and our
entreaties have been disregarded.
We have begged, and they have mocked
when our calamity came.
We beg no longer;
we entreat no more;
we petition no more.
We defy them!
—William Jennings Bryan

‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

‘Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand–
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

‘And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again–again–again–

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number–
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you–
Ye are many–they are few.’
—Percy Bysshe Shelley