Eloq uence
AMOROUS DIALOGUES
Thomas Morley
Henry Lawes
Sigismondo d’India
Benedetto Ferrari
Claudio Monteverdi
Emma Kirkby
Martyn Hill
The Consort of Musicke
Anthony Rooley
‘Amorous Dialogues’ perfectly describes this unusual repertoire – although the variations on the theme
of erotic love familiar to all of us tells the basic story of amatory exploits, desires and dreams in fresh
ways. For example, can we be expected to believe that ‘He’ doesn’t know what a kiss is and asks ‘She’
to teach him step by step (see ‘A dialogue on a kisse’)? None of us is fooled by his pretended
ignorance, yet every one of us is delighted with the humour of the unfolding ‘game’.
Since I first began my exploration of the ‘dialogue’ repertoire of the seventeenth century in the mid1970s, we have had occasion to use this material on innumerable occasions for teaching purposes
(singing and performing teaching, not amatory!). Its vitality and freshness, its humanity, humour – and
dignity, too – has fired so many young performers, focused their enthusiasm and honed their
performing skills.
We might be unfamiliar with some of the social graces of the seventeenth century nobility as they
played their games of Arcadian Shepherds and Nymphs, but we can still be mightily entertained by the
music and poetry created for them.
Anthony Rooley
2010
AMOROUS DIALOGUES
1
JOHN BARTLET
Whither runneth my sweetheart?
2’04
2
3
ALFONSO FERRABOSCO II (c. 1575-1628)
Fayre cruell Nimph
Tell me, O love
2’15
2’58
4
THOMAS MORLEY (1557 or 1558-1602)
Who is it that this dark night?
7’53
5
THOMAS FORD (1580-1648)
Shut not sweet breast
2’54
6
7
HENRY LAWES (1595-1662)
A dialogue on a kisse: Among thy fancies
A dialogue betwixt time and a pilgrime: Aged man that moves these fields
3’28
2’18
8
MARCO DA GAGLIANO (1582-1643)
Bel Pastor
3’11
9
SIGISMONDO D’INDIA (c.1582-1629)
Da l’onde del mio pianto
4’38
0
!
BENEDETTO FERRARI (c. 1603-1681)
Dialogo a due, Fileno e Lidia: Amar io to consiglio
Amanti, io vi so dire
9’52
4’35
@
NICOLÒ FONTEI (c.1600-c.1647)
Dio ti salvi, pastor
2’53
£
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)
Bel Pastor
Total timing: 53’54
Emma Kirkby, soprano
Martyn Hill, tenor
Trevor Jones, bass viol 1
Alison Crum, bass viol 2
Anthony Rooley, lute
4’48
At the beginning of the seventeenth century in
England and Italy a new dramatic freedom burst the
bonds of the Renaissance polyphony (the essentially
contemplative tradition of the previous 150 years), at
a time when dramatic realism and the colourful
expression of the words was the foremost thought in
the composers’ minds. The eager reception of the
new genres created by this change ensured a fairly
rapid decay of the old order of harmony and balance
which epitomised the earlier values. The erosion of
the concept of a divinely-ordained power in music has
left the western tradition richer in the expression of
human foibles, trials, joys and tribulations, but
infinitely poorer in the ability to raise the souls of the
hearers to a rapturous and divine contemplation.
The first point of this shift of emphasis can be
conveniently placed at 1600. The emergence of vocal
duets and dialogues occurs at the same time. As each
voice adopts a character, and plays that part, so a small
drama is created. This posturing was new in western
chamber music, and its effects were far-reaching. Opera
was born of these dramatic possibilities, and virtuoso
music for instruments, especially the violin, imitated the
dramatic use of the voice.
The earliest duets and dialogues take classical themes
and characters and are most frequently amorous in
nature. The Arcadian world of shepherds and nymphs
provides the stock characters who unfold stock
situations. All the songs on this recording are amorous
and most related to the pastoral convention.
Oddly enough, the most Renaissance poet, Sir Philip
Sidney, whose values and insights did so much to
generate the Renaissance in England, was also
posthumously responsible for the early Baroque
emphasis on the amorous pastoral themes. Again and
again his work was an inspiration for later poets and
musicians, although an equally forceful influence
stemmed from Italy, where experiments in the
dramatic use of music were first encouraged.
The feature which marks the fifty years of English
music represented here is an ever-increasing realism.
The earlier pieces (‘Who is it that this dark night?’ – a
poem by Sidney – and the two Ferrabosco dialogues)
tend to a rather discursive platonic-style dialogue. The
later works (especially Lawes’s ‘Among thy fancies’)
create a fuller, more three-dimensional world. We
hear the actual kiss as the lovers discover its nature.
The Italian pieces contrast with the relatively
conservative English by vaunting their realism more
readily, but even so a similar development from early
to late can be seen.
Anthony Rooley
In 1602 Giulio Caccini, a professional singer at the
Medici court, published a collection of solo songs
boldly entitled Le Nouve Musiche (The New Music).
Unlike English lute ayres, with their fully written out
and often intricate accompaniments, Caccini’s
madrigals and strophic arias employed a more
restrained accompaniment improvised by the lutenist
from a bass line provided with figures to indicate the
harmonies (basso continuo). The aim, at least in the
more serious songs, was to allow the singer to
cultivate a rhetorical style of declamation, unhindered
by complex counterpoint, a style which would move
the ‘affections of the soul’ in the manner of Ancient
Greek monody.
unexpected changes of harmony to paint not only the
more obvious images of the text, but also the sense of
inner desolation that lies behind the lover’s words.
The fashion for continuo song grew slowly at first,
with Florence as its main centre. After the second
decade of the century, however, when Venice and
Rome also became important centres of composition
in the new style, volumes of musiche began to pour
from the Italian presses. And, unlike Caccini’s
collection, most later volumes included not only solo
songs, but also dialogue settings, duets and trios with
continuo accompaniment.
The dialogue ‘Bel pastor, dal cui bel guardo’, set first
by Marco da Gagliano, choirmaster at the Medici
court from 1609, and later by Monteverdi, is
altogether lighter in mood. The text itself can be seen
as a gentle satire of the conventions of amorous verse,
with a shepherd who teases his shepherdess by
refusing to declare his love in the usual high-flown
phrases of madrigalian poetry. Gagliano follows the
form of the text closely in his musical setting,
providing substantially the same tuneful music for
each stanza but reserving a more impassioned style
for the few moments in the later stanzas when its use
is appropriate. Monteverdi, on the other hand, was
no respecter of the formal structure of a text if, by
changing it, he could explore interesting musical or
dramatic possibilities of his own. In his setting, then,
phrases are repeated and lines taken out of order:
simple changes which nevertheless add freshness and
spontaneity to the dialogue and turn the characters
from poetic fictions into credible human beings.
Sigismondo d’India was among the first composers to
publish songs in the new style. A Sicilian by birth, he
spent most of his working life at the courts of
northern Italy, visiting Florence at some time before
1609. His ‘Da l’ond del mio pianto’, the lament of the
forsaken lover, is an outstanding example of the most
serious kind of Florentine madrigal. The powerful
musical setting exploits the full range of the voice and
uses devices such as florid vocal writing and
In contrast to the leisurely declamation of early
Florentine song, the songs and dialogues written by
Venetian composers in the 1630s and 1640s are
characterised by paragraphs of suave aria-like writing,
often used as a foil for passages set in recitative. This
juxtaposition of styles can be heard quite clearly in
Nicolò Fontei’s light-hearted ‘Dio ti salvi, pastor’. Here
the opening exchanges of the dialogue are linked by
the use of an arioso style and a sequential ‘walking’
bass to form a distinct paragraph before the
shepherdess breaks into recitative at the words ‘Io
crudel?’. And to round off the setting the two
characters join in a long arioso duet. Similarly, in
‘Amar io ti consiglio’, Benedetto Ferrari sets the first
four stanzas in a mixture or recitative and arioso,
inventing a new idea for almost every line of the text
to form a series of histrionic gestures. The following
four stanzas are set as variations over a ground bass
leading to an unusual, inconclusive stanza of dialogue
which ends the piece.
As both librettist and composer Ferrari was one of the
pioneers of commercial opera at Venice. Something
of his experience in writing libretti can be detected in
the text of his aria ‘Amanti, io vi so dire’. For the
modern listener the tone of worldly wisdom and the
colloquial manner of the text are reminiscent of the
words given to the comic nurses in Monteverdi’s
L’incoronazione di Poppea, but it is worth
remembering that it was Ferrari himself who created
the prototype of such characters – Scarabea – in his
libretto for La maga fulminata, an opera given at
Venice in 1638.
John Whenham
1 Whither runneth my sweet heart?
Whither runneth my sweetheart?
Stay and take me with thee;
Merily I’le play my part,
Stay and thou shalt see me.
O have I ketcht thee, hay ding a ding!
This ketching is a prety thing!
Tarry, are you gone againe?
What no longer liking?
I will ketch you once againe;
Stay while I am rising.
Do you tarry then, pretty little one?
I thought I should please thee ere we did part.
2 Fayre cruell Nymph
Shepherd: Fayre cruell Nymph, why thus in griefe and anguish,
Mak’st thou him that adores thee pine and languish?
Nymph: Why Shepherd dost thou mee condemne as cruell,
Since thine owne fancies are thy passions fuell?
Shepherd: O but these fancies from thy beautie slow,
Nymph: Then shall reliefe to thee from bountie grow.
Both:
O how I joy in thee/this my happy choise,
As thou in me, so I in thee rejoyce;
Then let us still together live and love,
And sing the joyes that happy lovers prove.
3 Tell me, O love
Shepherd: Tell me, O love, when shall it be
That thy faire eyes shall shine on me
Whom nothing now reviveth?
Nymph: I pray thee Shepherd, leave thy feares,
Drowne not thy heart and eyes with teares,
Such sighes my sence depriveth.
Shepherd: Alas, sweet Nymph, I cannot chuse
Since thou estrangèd lives from me.
Nymph: O doe not me for that accuse,
My love, my life doth live in thee.
Both:
Alas, what joy is in such love
Shepherd: That ever lives apart,
Nymph: And never other comforts prove.
But cares that kill the hart?
Shepherd: O let me die!
Nymph: And so will I!
Both:
Yet stay sweet love and sing this song with me;
Time brings to passe what love thinkes could not be.
4 Who is it that this dark night?
Who is it that this dark night
Under my window playneth?
It is one that from thy sighte
Beeing, ah, exilde disdaineth
Everie other vulgar light.
Why, alas, and are you he?
Be not those fond fancies channged,
Deare when you find change in me,
Though from me you be estranged
Let my change to ruine be.
But time will these thoughts remove,
Time doth worke what no man knoweth:
Time doth as the subject prove.
With time still the affection groweth
In the faithfull turtle Dove.
But the wrongs love beares will make,
Love at length leave undertaking
No the more fooles it doe shake,
In a ground of so firme making,
Deeper still they drive the stake.
Peace I thinke that some give eare,
Come no more least I get anger,
Blisse I will my blisse forbeare.
Fearing sweete you to endannger,
But my soule shall harber there.
5 Shut not sweet breast
Tenor:
Shut not, shut not sweet breast to see me all of fire,
Soprano: Flie not deer hart to find me all of snow,
Tenor:
Thy snow inflames these flames of my desire.
Soprano: And I desire Desire’s sweet flames to know.
Tenor:
Thy snow will hurt me.
Soprano:
Tenor:
Soprano:
Tenor:
Soprano:
Tenor:
Soprano:
Both:
Nor thy fire will harm me.
This cold will coole me
and this heat will warm me.
Take this chast fire to that pure virgin snow.
Being now thus warmed i’le never seeke other fire.
Thou giv’st more blisse than mortall harts may know,
More blisse I take than Angles can desire.
Let one griefe harm us
And one joy fill us
Let one love warm us
And one death kill us.
6 A dialogue on a kisse
Tenor:
Among thy Fancies tell me this,
What is the thing we call a Kisse?
Soprano: I shall resolve you what it is
It is a creature born and bred
Betwixt the lips all cherry-red,
By love and warm desires fed.
Both:
And make more sweet the Bridal bed.
Soprano: It is an active flame that flyes
To the babies of the Eyes.
Both:
And charms it there with lullabyes.
And stills the Bride too when she cryes.
Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear
It frisks, it flyes, now here, now there,
’Tis now far off, and now ’tis neer:
’Tis here and there, and everywhere.
Tenor:
Has it a voycing virtue?
Soprano: Yes.
Tenor:
How speaks it then?
Soprano: Do you but this,
Part your joy’nd lips then speaks the kiss
And this love’s sweetest language is.
Tenor:
Has it a Body?
Soprano: I, and wings,
With thousand various colourings,
Both:
And as it flyes it sweetly sings,
Love hony yields, but never stings!
7 A dialogue betwixt time and a pilgrime
Pilgrime: Aged man that moves these fields.
Time:
Pilgrime speak, what is thy will?
Pilgrime: Whose soile is this that such sweet Pasture yields?
Or who art thou whose Foot stands never still?
Or where am I?
Time:
In love!
Pilgrime: His lordship lies above.
Time:
Yes and below, and round about
Wherin all sorts of flow’rs are growing
Which as the early spring puts out,
Time fals as fast a-mowing.
Pilgrime: If thou art Time, these Flow’rs have lives,
and then I fear,
Under some Lilly she I love may now be growing there.
Time:
And in some Thistle or some spyre of grasse,
My syth thy stalk before hers come may passe.
Pilgrime: Wilt thou provide it may?
Time:
No.
Pilgrime: Alleage the cause.
Time:
Because Time cannot alter but obey Fates Laws.
Both:
Then happy those whom Fate that is the stronger,
Together twist their threds, and yet draws her the longer.
8 & £ Bel pastor
Insertions in brackets show variants in the text
as set by Monteverdi
Nymph:
Bel pastor, dal cui bel guardo
Spira foco ond’io tutt’ardo,
M’ami tu (Shepherd: Sì, cor mio) com’io desio?
Shepherd: Sì, cor mio.
Nymph: Dimmi quanto
Shepherd: Tanto, tanto!
Nymph: Come che?
Shepherd: Come te,
Pastorella
Tutta bella.
Handsome Shepherd, from whose fine eyes
Bursts forth flame in which I burn,
Do you love me (Yes, my beloved) as I desire?
Shepherd: Yes, my beloved.
Nymph: Tell me how much.
Shepherd: So much, so much!
Nymph: How do you love me?
Shepherd: As yourself,
My shepherd girl
So beautiful.
Nymph:
Questi vezzi e questo dire
Non fan pago il mio desire.
Se tu m’ami, o mio bel foco,
Dimmi ancor, ma fuor di gioco,
Come che?
Shepherd: Come te,
Pastorella
Tutta bella.
Nymph:
Nymph:
Vie più lieto udito havrei,
’T’amo al par de gl’occhi miei’.
Shepherd: Come rei del mio cordoglio
Questi lumi amar non voglio,
Di mirar non sazi ancora
La beltà che sì m’accora.
Nymph: Come che?
Shepherd: Come te,
Pastorella
Tutta bella.
Nymph:
Nymph:
Nymph:
Fa’ sentirmi altre parole,
Se pur vuoi ch’io mi console.
M’ami tu (Shepherd: Sì, cor mio) come la vita?
Shepherd: No, ch’afflitta e sbigottita,
D’odio è degna e non d’amore,
Fatta albergo di dolore
Per mirar due vaghe (Per due luci, anzi due) stelle,
Nymph:
These wiles and these words
Do not satisfy my desire.
If you love me, oh my fine fire,
Tell me again, but without mockery,
How do you love me?
Shepherd: As yourself,
My shepherd girl
So beautiful.
Much more happily would I have heard
‘I love you as much as I do my own eyes.’
Shepherd: Since they are the cause of my suffering,
I cannot love these eyes of mine,
Which are still not satisfied with gazing
On that beauty which so wounds my heart.
Nymph: How do you love me?
Shepherd: As yourself,
My shepherd girl
So beautiful.
Let me hear other words,
If you really want me to be consoled.
Do you love me (Yes, my beloved) as you do your life?
Shepherd: No, for stricken and bewildered,
It merits hatred and not love.
It has become the haunt of sorrow
Through gazing at two lovely (Because of two
bright eyes, or rather two) stars.
Troppo crude e troppo belle.
Nymph: Come che?
Shepherd: Come te,
Pastorella
Tutta bella.
Too cruel and too beautiful.
Nymph: How do you love me?
Shepherd: As yourself,
My shepherd girl
So beautiful.
Nymph:
Nymph:
Non mi dir più, ‘Come te’.
Dimmi, ‘Io t’amo (Shepherd: Io t’amo) come me’.
Shepherd: No, ch’io stesso odio me stesso.
Nymph: Deh, se m’ami, dimmi espresso
(Shepherd: Sì, cor mio.
Nymph: Com’io desio?
Shepherd: Sì, cor mio.
Nymph: Dimmi quanto.
Shepherd: Tanto, tanto!
Nymph: Quanto, quanto!
Shepherd: O, tanto, tanto!)
Come che?
Shepherd: Come te,
Pastorella
Tutta bella.
Say no more to me, ‘As yourself’.
Say, ‘I love you (I love you) as much as I love myself’.
Shepherd: No, for I myself do hate myself.
Nymph: Come, if you love me, tell me clearly
(Yes, my beloved.
As I desire?
Yes, my beloved.
Tell me how much.
So much, so much!
How much, how much?
Oh, so much, so much!)
How do you love me?
Shepherd: As yourself,
My shepherd girl
So beautiful.
9 Da l’onde del mio pianto
Da l’onde del mio pianto a dietro volti
Corrano i fiumi e i fonti,
Cadano svelti a’ miei sospir i monti,
Freni suo corso a’ miei lamenti il cielo
E di notturno velo
Pietoso al mio dolor s’ammanti il giorno.
Nè mai faccia ritorno
Più dall’occaso in oriente il sole.
Mutissi il fato a queste mie parole;
La costanza è incostante,
La fede è morta, Amor non è più amante.
Turned by the flood of my tears
May the rivers and streams flow backward,
Shaken from their seat may the mountains fall at my sighs,
May the heavens halt their circling at my plaints,
And in nocturnal veil
May the day, taking pity on my sorrow, clothe itself,
And never more may the sun return
From west to east.
May fate’s decree be altered by these words of mine;
Constancy is inconstant,
Faith is dead, Love is loving no more.
0 Dialogo a due, Fileno e Lidia
Fileno:
Amar io ti consiglio
Bellezza senz’affectto è inutil luce,
Che sol tormenti adduce.
Pompa d’un volto è un infiammato core.
Lidia, bella no sei se fuggi amore.
Fileno:
I advise you to fall in love.
Beauty without love is a light that shines in vain
Bringing nothing but torment.
True radiance of countenance comes from a heart on fire.
Lidia, you are not beautiful if you eschew love.
Lidia:
Fileno interessato,
Il dar altrui consiglio è un torto aiuto.
Consiglio saputo!
S’io amassi un dì, tu gioresti inante,
Che perche amante sei, mi cerchi amante.
Lidia:
Fileno, you are not unbiased,
And giving advice to another does you a disfavour.
See how wise your counsel is!
If I were to fall in love one day, you would indeed rejoice,
For since you are a lover, you want me a lover too.
Fileno:
Chiedilo a chi tu vuoi,
Ch’un bel volto è men bel senza chi l’ama
Beltà s’adora e brama;
A desolato altar senza devoti
Non s’offre incenso e non s’appendon voti.
Fileno:
Ask whoever you like,
A beautiful face is less beautiful without someone to love it.
Beauty is to be adored and desired;
At a desolate shrine without initiates
No incense is burnt and no votive offerings are made.
Lidia:
Son bugiardi, son vani
D’un cor divoto interessati i pianti.
Piangon per sè gli amanti.
Sono bugie l’idolatrie, gli affetti.
Chi si pasce di fumo, incenso aspetti.
Lidia:
Deceitful and futile
Are the self-interested laments of a heart in love.
Lovers weep for themselves.
Words of flattery and feelings of love are lies.
Let him who feeds on smoke, satisfy himself with incense.
Fileno:
Beltà, pompa divina,
Vuol serve l’alme e si seggetta i cori;
Son sue prede gl’amori.
Ma se ’l raggio del bel non v’è chi adesca,
Diedi natura vana, inutil esca.
Fileno:
Beauty, divine splendour,
Wants souls to serve it and dominates hearts;
Affections are its prey.
But if no one is lured by the ray of beauty,
Then nature has provided futile, aimless bait.
Stravaganti chimere,
Fiamme d’opinion, lacci di nome,
Sono gli occhi e le chiome.
Le prede in noi sono perdite e ruine;
Toccan a voi le rose e a noi le spine.
Lidia:
Ha rose il tuo bel volto.
Rosa, beltà caduca, è fragil fiore,
Ch’anco non colto more.
Così, crudel, mentre t’induri ai preghi,
Doni a l’età ciò ch’all’amante neghi.
Fileno:
Se rosa è la bellezza,
L’età che me la dieda anco la tolga;
La piantò, la colga.
Vince il tempo sovran cose più belle:
Tramonta il sole e cadono le stelle.
Lidia:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Creatures of wild dreams,
Which only burn in your mind, which only bind in name,
Are eyes and hair.
Our only prey is disaster and ruin;
Your portion the roses, ours the thorns.
There are roses in your beautiful face.
The rose, fleeting beauty, is a delicate flower,
Which even when unplucked still dies.
So, cruel one, while you harden your heart to my prayers,
You grant to advancing years what you deny your lover.
If beauty is a rose,
Then let the years which gave it to me take it from me too;
Age planted it, let age pluck it.
Time, lord of all, conquers far more beautiful things:
The sun sets and the stars fall.
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Amar dunque non vuoi?
No, ch’io non voglio.
Crudel, crudel, rimanti,
Ch’io riprendo i miei pianti.
Lidia, amor è un gran nume.
Amor è un nome.
Ci farà –
Che farà?
– vendetta.
E come?
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
Fileno:
Lidia:
So, you will not love?
No, I will not.
Cruel, cruel one, hold fast,
For I begin my weeping again.
Lidia, love is a mighty lord.
Love is a word.
He will have –
What will he have?
– his revenge
Tell me how?
! Amanti, io vi so dire
Amanti, io vi so dire
Ch’è meglio assai fuggire
Bella donna vezzosa,
Ossia cruda o pietosa.
Ad ogni modo e via,
Il morir per amore è una pazzia.
Lovers, I can tell you
That it’s a great deal better to flee
From a charming and beautiful lady,
Whether she is cruel or merciful.
Any and every way,
Dying for love is folly.
Non accade pensare
Di gioir in amare.
Amoroso contento.
Dedicato è al momento,
E bella donna la fine
Rose non dona mai senza le spine.
You must not think
That you’ll enjoy yourself in loving.
Loving contentment
Is dedicated to the present,
And when you come down to it, a beautiful lady
Never gives roses without their thorns.
La speme del gioire
Fondata è su ‘l martire.
Bellezza e cortesia
Non stanno in compagnia.
So ben dir con mio danno
Che la morte ed amor insieme vanno.
Hope of pleasure
Is based on the notion of suffering.
Beauty and kindness
Do not go hand in hand.
I know full well to my cost
That death and love go together.
Vi vuol pianto a diluvi
Per spegner i vesuvi
D’un cor innamorato,
D’un spirito infiammato.
Pria che si giunga in porto.
Quante volte si dice, ‘Oimè, son morto’.
You would need floods of tears
To quench the Vesuvian fires
Of a heart in love,
Of a spirit inflamed.
Before reaching port
How often do we say, ‘Alas, I am slain’.
Credetel a costui,
Che per prova può dir, ‘Io vidi, io fui’.
Take heed of him,
Who in evidence can say, ‘I saw, I was’.
Se creder no ’l volete, lasciate star,
Che poco importa a me, seguitate ad amar.
Ad ogni modo chi de’ rompersi il collo
Non accade che schivi od erta o fondo,
Che per proverbio, sentii sempre dire,
Dal destinato no si può fuggire.
If you don’t want to believe, then let it pass,
For it matters little to me, go on loving.
Anyway, he who is destined to break his neck
Need not avoid steep slope or chasm,
For, proverbially, I have always heard tell
That from fate in store there is no escape.
Donna, so chi tu sei,
Amor, so i fatti miei,
Non tresco più con voi,
Alla larga ambi doi.
S’ognun fosse com’io,
Saria un balordo amor e non un dio.
Woman, I know who you are,
Love, I know my own business,
I will have no more dealings with you,
Away with the pair of you.
If everyone were like me,
Love would be a fool and not a god.
@ Dio ti salvi, pastor
Nymph: Dio ti salvi, pastor.
Shepherd: Ninfa, buon dì.
Nymph: Come stai?
Shepherd: Come sto…
Nymph: Che mal hai?
Shepherd: Che mal ho tu ‘l sai, crudel,
Ma non si fa così.
Nymph: Io crudel?
Shepherd: Crudelissima.
Nymph: Di’, che stranezze ti fo?
Shepherd: Non m’ami.
Shepherd: Ah, ben il so,
Che tu vorresti, o Dio, troppo in un dì.
Dianci la destra,
Il primo che l’altro abbandonerà
Un pegno perderà.
Nymph: Ma vedi ch’il vorrò.
Shepherd: Ma credi ch’io l’avrò.
Nymph: Non giocar, Tirsi, no.
Shepherd: Non giocar, Filli, no.
Both:
Perchè, a mancar di fè
(La prima)
tu sarai.
(Il primo)
Credilo a me.
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Nymph:
Shepherd:
Both:
God save you, Shepherd.
Nymph, good day.
How are you?
How I am…
What ails you?
What ails me you know full well, cruel one.
You should not treat me so.
I cruel?
Grievously cruel.
Come now, what pains do I inflict upon you?
You do not love me.
Ah, I know full well
That you would like, oh heavens, too much in a day.
Let us join our right hands.
The first to abandon the other
Will have to pay a forfeit.
You may be sure I shall demand it.
Believe me, I shall have it.
Do not speak lightly, Thyrsis, no.
Do not speak lightly, Phyllis, no.
For to fall short of the promise given
The first will be you.
Mark my words.
Italian texts edited and translated into English by G.W. Slowey.
Recording producer: Peter Wadland
Recording engineer: Martin Haskell
Recording location: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London, UK, June 1979
Remastering: Audio Archiving Company, London, UK.
Cover image: Simon Vouet (1590-1649): ‘Venus and Adonis’
Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji
Art direction: Chilu Tong · www.chilu.com
Booklet editors: Bruce Raggatt, Laura Bell
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