tune sounds nice ...
but the libretto tells a story that contradicts
Catholic love and marriage.
http://www.karadar.com/Librettos/handel_SEMELE.html
45. Air
Jupiter
Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade.
Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise,
And all things flourish where'er you turn your eyes.
Where'er. . .
http://www.culturevulture.net/Opera/Semele.htm
Semele was a Theban princess and the only mortal to be
the parent of a god, that God none other than Dionysus/Bacchus,
offspring of Semele's union with Zeus/Jupiter. Of course, Zeus'
wife Hera/Juno was less than pleased with the goings on, so
she schemed Semele to a nasty end, consumed in flames
from the lightning that radiated from her lover. Dionysus,
a heaven-sent son, rescued his mother from Hades, made
her a goddess, and set her up in style on Mount Olympus,
a very good address indeed.
...
Handel begins with Semele abandoning her betrothed, Athamas,
in favor of her celestial lover and ends with her death. (Dionysus
has been left out, though in the Copley production he is given a
token appearance in the final tableau.) This Semele, initially
motivated by passionate love, later becomes dissatisfied, coveting
the immortality of the gods. Her presumption and vanity are in the
classic model of hubris, so that her fate - death resulting from
exposure to the full godliness of her lover - constitutes a fitting
and ironic resolution in the traditional classical mode.
