The Cobra

Act III — The Goddess War Released Approx. 4:45

About this track

Hours after Octavian leaves the mausoleum. The final letter is sent, the basket of figs delivered, the asp inside it. Iras dies first; Charmion is still alive, adjusting the queen’s double crown, when the Roman soldiers break in. The album closes not as a death but as a return: Wadjet, the cobra-goddess, reclaiming her vessel — the incarnation cycle completing, the goddess going back to the serpent she has embodied her whole reign.

Template A drained to its barest at 108 BPM, matching the opening track’s tempo so the album ends where it began. A restrained mezzo over ney flute and temple harp, no driving guitars, no priestess chorus until a single entrance on the bridge. The hook is the cosmic-line claim — I sit the throne my line has sat for ten thousand years — and the chorus mutates from I have chosen the cobra to the cobra knows my name to the goddess returns to the serpent. The outro holds the album’s three final voices: Cleopatra’s whisper, the withheld bite, and Charmion’s last words. Then silence, no fade.

Track 10 of 10 Act III — The Goddess War Cadence Drained closing reprise · ney and harp, no driving guitars, ends in silence at 108 BPM

Intro

A temple-harp arpeggio, the ney flute entering, sistrum and low strings. Eight seconds before the voice.

Verse 1

Wadjet-returning low-chest declamation, ney drone, temple harp, no priestess.

The double crown is on my brow,
The basket of figs at my left side,
The throne my line has sat for ten thousand years,
And the cobra is coming home.

Verse 2

Heavier declamation but restrained, temple-harp arpeggio, still no priestess.

Iras at my feet has already gone,
Charmion adjusts the double crown,
The Hedjet and the Deshret joined at my brow,
And the goddess prepares the body.

Chorus 1

Mezzo solo, no priestess chorus, sparse temple harp. The cosmic-line claim lands.

I sit the throne my line has sat for ten thousand years,
I wear the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt,
I have refused the Roman triumph,
I have chosen the cobra.

Verse 3

Ney flute lead, low strings sustaining, mezzo declamation. The lamp gutters.

The lamp gutters at the cobra's basket,
The priestess of Isis has departed,
The mausoleum holds what the mausoleum holds,
And the goddess prepares to return.

Chorus 2

Mezzo solo still, no priestess. The closer mutates.

I sit the throne my line has sat for ten thousand years,
I wear the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt,
I have refused the Roman triumph,
And the cobra knows my name.

Bridge

The priestess chorus enters here, and only here, carrying the album’s final thesis — then withdraws.

The goddess does not die,
The body returns to the serpent,
The line ends — and Isis walks where she pleases,
And the river remembers.

Final Chorus

The priestess withdraws; mezzo solo again. The closer completes the return.

I sit the throne my line has sat for ten thousand years,
I wear the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt,
I have refused the Roman triumph,
And the goddess returns to the serpent.

Outro

Rei sings one last line; then Cleopatra whispers; then a withheld silence for the bite; then Charmion, spoken steady. Hard cut to silence — no fade. The album ends.

(Rei sings): The lamp gutters at the cobra's strike,
(Cleopatra, whispered): “The cobra knows my name.”
(Charmion, spoken steady): “Exceedingly well done, and fitting of so many kings.”

The history

August 30 BC · the mausoleum at Alexandria · Cleopatra’s death and Charmion’s last words — Wadjet reclaiming her vessel

Source: Plutarch, Life of Antony 84–86 (the asp, the figs, Charmion’s reply); Cassius Dio, Roman History 51; Horace, Odes 1.37 (the Augustan ode on her death)

Named figures

Cleopatra VII Philopator Choosing the cobra of Lower Egypt over Octavian’s triumph; the goddess completing her return to the serpent
Charmion Her handmaiden; alive and adjusting the queen’s crown as the soldiers enter; delivers the album’s closing line
Iras Her handmaiden; dies first at the queen’s feet

What this song renders

Plutarch’s account (chs. 84–86) gives the death its enduring shape: the asp smuggled in a basket of figs, the two faithful handmaidens dying with the queen, and the exchange when the Roman soldiers burst in. One demanded, “Is this well done, Charmion?” and the dying woman answered, “Exceedingly well done, and fitting of so many kings” — and herself collapsed. The album gives Charmion that line as its final voice; per its male-mouth discipline the soldier’s question is shown but never spoken.

The choice of the cobra is the album’s thematic seal. The uraeus, the rearing cobra of the goddess Wadjet, was the protective serpent of Lower Egypt worn at the brow of every pharaoh — and it had been on Cleopatra’s brow since the coronation track. To die by the cobra rather than walk in a Roman triumph is, in the album’s frame, Wadjet reclaiming her own: not a defeat but the completion of the incarnation.

Even Horace, Octavian’s court poet, could not deny the manner of it. Odes 1.37 celebrates the defeat but grants that she “chose to die nobly” rather than be led in chains — the propaganda tradition itself conceding the dignity of the end. The album closes on the river that outlasts her: the river remembers.

Verdict

The asp in the figs, the deaths of Iras and Charmion, and Charmion’s reply are all in Plutarch — though the exact means of death (asp, poison, or both) was uncertain even to ancient writers. The Wadjet-reclaims-her-vessel framing is the album’s theological reading of a documented choice: death over the triumph.

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