Watching the Hadestown Proshot, I'm reminded of the brilliance of How Long? and how Hades and Persephone's argument in this song is born from Persephone being so deeply moved by Orpheus singing If It's True that she finally sobers up and asks Hades: "My light and dark, let these lovers go. How long must you let this poor boy burn like a bird on a spit atop his own sorrows?"
to which Hades responds: "As long as I am king, as long as I am Hades, I will not show even the smallest bit of pity for this dreamer as it will infect my citizens with senseless wishes and topple everything I've built."
to which Persephone responds: "Who gives a shit about your king's logic? The boy doesn't care, can't you see how much he yearns for his lover? Can't you see how beautifully simple that is?"
to which Hades responds: "How dare you pity this mere boy! What about me? How long must I burn in bed every night like a bird on a spit atop your pity for these humans that causes you to abandon me every year?"
to which Persephone responds: "As long as I am your wife, as long as I am Persephone and you are Hades, yes the people on earth must face the hardships of winter as it is my duty to love you, but it is just as much my duty to bring them life, for the sun never stops rising and time just goes on."
to which Hades and Persephone marvel: "How long must you and I, and Orpheus and Eurydice, and the whole of the earth itself burn like a bird on a spit atop the ever turning wheel of time that is the sun? How long must we stay trapped in the same cycles that tear us apart and produce nothing but suffering, and there's nothing we gods can do about it because our quarrel always ends in a stalemate?"
all of which is conveyed within a four minute song built on a fit/pit/spit rhyme scheme that came to songwriter Anais Mitchell in a dream (source: Mitchell's book Working On a Song) which is just straight up magical and I feel like a bird on a spit burning atop how underrated this song is.
And ofc the closest thing to a solution the show presents to Hades and Persephone's final dilemma is simply to keep trying, to keep attempting to change the way things are even when the end seems so certain.
