| I’ve heard that they call me the woman
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| Who has fallen into many sins
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| They made me bear myrrh to the burial
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| And at the graveside, I began to sing
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| Woe to me, all of you sinners
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| I’m the lady of a moonless night
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| The darkness to me is my ecstasy
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| But for my sins I am far from contrite
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| They dragged me away from the library
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| I was cast to the bride show’s harsh light
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| Where I told the king I was better than him
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| And thus earned Theophilus' spite
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| And Theo, he thinks I still love him
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| But I know him, and he knows not a thing
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| They call me Kassiani
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| The woman who rejected the king
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| Now the emperor, he tore down the icons
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| The images and words thought divine
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| But in the quiet of my cell, I redrew them all
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| And the name that I signed with was mine
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| I was scourged with the lash for my impudence
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| My tears were a fountain of brine
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| But I conceded no defeat, my groaning heart beats
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| With defiant blue blood Byzantine
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| And Theo, he thinks I still love him
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| But I know him, and he knows not a thing
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| Don’t disregard me as a servant, know me
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| As the woman who rejected the king
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| Yes I hid from his eyes when he visited
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| But don’t dare think me frightened or meek
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| I was sick of his ineffable condescension
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| And I will not kiss those sacred feet
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| I will make his footsteps into music
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| To be heard by both heathen and Greek
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| They will mock his meanderings in paradise at twilight
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| And they’ll remember me: Kassiani
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| She who hates silence when it’s time to speak
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| And Theo, he thinks I still love him
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| He knows not the multitude of my sins
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| They will sing my song after Byzantium is gone
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| The woman who rejected the king
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| I’ve heard all the things that they’ve called me
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| It’s just so many arrows and slings
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| Leave the glory to the stepmother, and to the son
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| I’m the woman who rejected the king |