extracts prior to Chapter One

Book Extracts - prior to Chapter One.

Do you think they set the tone of the book?
Did you spend time thinking about why they were chosen?
Did you go back and re-read these once you finished the book?

I found it easier to relate to 'More Fruits of Solitude' than The Libation Bearers'. What are your thoughts?

More Fruits of Solitude
Death is, but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. (alluding to horcrux perhaps?).
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. (reference to Dumbledore perhaps?)
In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. (Chapter 35, Kings Cross perhaps?)
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because Immortal.

William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude

When I read the extract from the Libation Bearers my first reaction was that it was a reference to Sirius and Grimmauld Place of some kind. No reason in particular, just tone and subject, I guess.

Nothing really came to mind rereading it, though I agree More Fruits of Solitude seemed pretty reference-laden even the first time though before I had finished the book.

Oh, the torment bred in the race, the grinding scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear. (avada kedavra curse?)

But there is a cure in the house and not outside it, no, not from other but from them, (the Dursleys?) their bloody strife. We sign to you, dark gods beneath the earth. (the protection of death, of lily's blood living in her sister?)

Now hear, you blissful powers underground - answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them triumph now. (the echoes of the dead... during Book 4 "priori incantatem", and the dead walking with Harry in Chapter 34, Book 7?)

Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers

I'm actually glad I stuck with it. I wanted to work it out and find a relevance. Do you think JK had those extracts in mind at the beginning of the whole series?

Yeah, your ideas seem pretty reasonable.

I thought, for me, that the first stanza of Libation Bearers might have been a reference to one of the deaths, either Dumbledore's or one of the people who died in DH. Kind of a stretch, of Dumbledore's feelings when his family died?

Hard to say.

More Fruits of Solitude
Death is, but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because Immortal.

William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude

I think this refers to the books because it saying that even though friends are dead, they are still with and in us. This can especially refer to the part in HP when the Resurrection Stone brings back Harry's friends and mentors. It also can be referring to how Dumbledore kind of reached out to Harry from his grave by leaving clues and hints.

The Libation Bearers
Oh, the torment bred in the race (the fear and evil of Voldemort?), the grinding scream of death and the stroke that hits the vein, the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief, the curse no man can bear. (Harry's grief and guilt for the lives of his friends?)
But there is a cure in the house and not outside it, no, not from others but from them, their bloody strife. We sign to you, dark gods beneath the earth.
Now hear, you blissful powers underground - answer the call, send help. Bless the children, give them triumph now. (the courage James, Lily, Sirius, etc. gave Harry in his walk to death?, the clues Dumbledore left behind?)

Aeschylus