Cold and heavy — a slow, hard frame-drum toll and a low palm-muted guitar drone.
They killed her on the road to stop a wedding — a regent's order, a brother sent to do it, my mother, Philip's daughter, in the dust. They thought the marriage died there with her body. The army looked at her in the dirt, and rose.
Pre-Chorus
The mutiny building, a hard war-cry gathering.
No queen had asked them. No general had led them. They saw Cynane cut down — and they mutinied.
Chorus 1
Hard, heavy full band — a rising war-cry, then cold.
They killed my mother to break me, they crowned me over her body. I did not weep. I did not break. They called it a wedding. I call it war. Eurydice — and the army is mine.
Verse 2
A driving low Phrygian riff, cold swagger.
They handed me Arrhidaeus, Alexander's brother, a king who cannot rule his own two hands. I did not marry for a bed or a boy — I married a throne I could stand behind, and I buried my mother without a tear.
Pre-Chorus 2
You sent a blade to keep me off the throne. The blade is the thing that set me on it.
Chorus 2
Full band, the war-cry wider.
They killed my mother to break me, they crowned me over her body. I did not weep. I did not break. They called it a wedding. I call it war. Eurydice — and the blade you sent is mine.
Bridge
A drop to a lone drum and a low ringing guitar, spoken-edged and cold, then a heavy build.
Grief is a thing you can set down like a shield. I laid mine on her grave and lifted the crown. Let them write that I did not cry — they will learn what a dry-eyed queen can do.
Final Chorus
The biggest, heaviest build, cold.
They killed my mother to break me, they crowned me over her body. I did not weep. I wore the iron. They called it a wedding. I made it war. Eurydice — on the ground where she fell.
Outro
Sudden hush — a lone ringing guitar over one drum, spoken-sung, dry. Hard cut.
Write it down: they made me here. Not in a marriage bed — on a road, in the dust, over my mother's body.
The history
c. 322–321 BC · the road east into Asia, then the army camp · Cynane killed, and her daughter crowned queen by a mutiny
Source: Arrian, Events after Alexander (Photius, Bibliotheca 92); Polyaenus, Stratagems 8.60
Named figures
Adea EurydiceCynane’s daughter, perhaps fifteen; married to Philip III and renamed Eurydice. Rei carries her voice
CynanePhilip II’s daughter, who led her own force to Asia to make the marriage and was killed on the road
Perdiccas and AlcetasThe regent of the empire and the brother he sent to stop her — a regent’s order, a brother sent to do it. Never named in the song
Philip III ArrhidaeusAlexander’s half-brother, king in name, unable to rule — a king who cannot rule his own two hands
What this song renders
The killing is documented. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, Cynane crossed to Asia with Adea to marry her to the new king, Philip III Arrhidaeus. The regent Perdiccas wanted no royal woman of Cynane’s kind at the king’s side and sent his brother Alcetas to intercept her. Cynane was killed, probably in 322 or 321 BC. Polyaenus has her facing Alcetas’s men and refusing to turn back; the exact circumstances are lost.
So is the mutiny. Arrian, in the summary that survives, says the Macedonian soldiers were enraged that a daughter of Philip had been murdered, and that Perdiccas had to give way. Adea was married to Philip III and took the royal name Eurydice, after Philip II’s own mother. The marriage the killing was meant to stop was made by it.
The rest is the song’s voice. Nothing records how she took her mother’s death, or that she buried her dry-eyed; the composure is borrowed forward from Diodorus’s account of how she met her own death at the end. Cynane was eventually buried as a queen at Aegae, beside her daughter, in 316 BC.
Verdict
Cynane’s killing on Perdiccas’s orders, the army’s fury, the forced marriage to Philip III and the name Eurydice are documented in Arrian. How Cynane died is unclear. Adea’s refusal to weep is the album’s, carried back from the death scene Diodorus records.