Another Fun Read - Info about Duel of the Fates

[Guest Lord Tirion]

I was skimming through some sites and I came upon this. I thought it was interesting enough to share you the SWGB Community like my Sith History post. Enjoy =)

 

 

DUEL OF THE FATES

 

 

Duel of the Fates is a song from the soundtrack of Star Wars Episode I : The Phantom Menace. It is played in the movie during the fight between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn / Obiwan Kenobi. This fight scene and the music made quite an impression on me. It is perhaps my favorite part of the movie. Naturally, I was interested in knowing more about this piece of music, so I searched on the net, and the results were even more intriguing than I had imagined.

 

John Williams is the composer of the music for the Star Wars movies. For this song, he took one line from the Robert Graves poem "The Battle of the Trees", aka "Cad Goddeau". This poem comes from an old Welsh tale, which Robert Graves used in order to come up with this version of the poem. The line used for Duel of the Fates is:

 

"Under the tongue root a fight most dread, and another raging, behind, in the head."

 

"A fight most dread" certainly goes along with the action during this scene of the movie, where the jedi and sith are fighting to the death. "Another raging, behind, in the head" also goes along with the movie, though not as literally. It could reflect the mental/emotional struggle between good and evil that each person, jedi or not, faces.

 

As for "under the tongue-root", this phrase did not make much sense to me, not even when looking within the context of the whole Graves poem. However, when I read another, probably older version of the story, it seems to have something to do with a fight going on with a large monster of some sort. Apparently, part of the fight was located at the monster's neck, at the root of its tongue. That is my interpretation at least; it still may not be what was originally meant.

 

John Williams had this line of the poem translated into several languages, and took the one that sounded the best. This was the version in Sanskrit or a similar language. He then used those words to form the lyrics for the song, which begin:

 

Korah Matah Korah Rahtahmah

Korah Rahtamah Yoodhah Korah...