Sources used for collation: AnGa-1594; AnGa-1603; Ma-Ga-1614
Other sources: Ka-1601; Ph-1609; Ph-heirs-1632
Lines | Sources – Voices | Variants |
---|---|---|
6 | cudel | |
13 | mort'il |
Udite, lagrimosi
Battista Guarini, Il pastor fido, III, 6, 814–826
Unrhymed eleven- and seven-syllable lines (endecasillabi e settenari sciolti)
Udite, lagrimosi | Hear, o tearful spirits of Avernus, | |
Spirti d’Averno, udite | hear of a new kind of pain and torment; | |
Nova sorte di pena e di tormento; | ||
Mirate crudo affetto | behold a ruthless sentiment | |
5 | In sembiante pietoso: | in compassionate guise: |
La mia donna, crudel più dell’inferno, | my lady, more cruel than Hell, | |
Perch’una sola morte | since one death alone | |
Non può far sazia la sua ingorda voglia | cannot satisfy her voracious lust | |
(E la mia vita è quasi | (and my life is almost | |
10 | Una perpetua morte), | a perpetual death) |
Mi comanda ch’io viva | commands me to live, | |
Perché la vita mia | so that my life should be | |
Di mille morti il dì ricetto sia. | the abode of a thousand deaths a day. |
English translations of madrigal texts based with permission on those by Kathryn Bosi, The complete five voice madrigals: for mixed voices / IV, The sixth and seventh books. New York: Gaudia Music and Arts, 1996.
Battista Guarini, Il pastor fido, tragicommedia pastorale, Venice: G.B. Ciotti, 1602, 192.
The 1602 edition of Il pastor fido has “fiera voglia” at line 8 (as well as other minor variants). On the problem of variants and adaptations in Marenzio’s settings from Il pastor fido, see Cecchi, “List of Secular and Devotional Compositions by Luca Marenzio,” 490, n. XLVI, and the literature quoted there.