La Trobe University - Library: Medieval Music Database - Annual cycle of feasts of liturgical chant, liturgical polyphony and secular music of the late middle ages.

Nel mio bel orto una vechieta sagia

anonymous madrigal

Sources

Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossi 215, fol. 18 (1/1).

Facsimiles

1. Il canzoniere musicale del codice vaticano Rossi 215 con uno studio sulla melica italiana del Trecento, facsimile edition by Giuseppe Vecchi, Bologna: Università degli studi di Bologna, 1966. Monumenta lyrica medii aevi italica, III/2.
2. Il Codice Rossi, edited by Nino PIRROTTA, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1960. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/II, p. 35.
2. Italian Secular Music: Anonymous Madrigals and Cacce and the Works of Niccolò da Perugia, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1972. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century VIII, p. 60.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 337.

Literature

1. SESINI, Ugo. 'Il canzoniero musicale trecentesco del cod. Vat. Rossiano 215', Studi medievali (N.S.), XVI (1943-1950), p. 227.
2. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Drei unbekannte Werke von Jacopo da Bologna und Bartolino da Padua?', Miscel nea en Homenaje a Monsenor Higinio Anglès, Barcelona: 1958-1961, vol. 1, pp. 265-281.
3. GALLO, F.A. 'Bilinguismo poetico e bilinguismo musicale nel madrigale trecentesco', L'Ars nova italiana del Trecento IV: Certaldo 1975, 1978, pp. 239-240., pp. 239-240.

Recordings

Every Delight and Fair Pleasure, Margo Adelson (soprano), Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century, directed by John Griffiths and John Stinson (1991): Move MD 3092.

Text

Nel mio bel orto una vechieta sagia
ad una pasturella facea scorta,
ch'era d'amor sì cruda e salvagia,

che quando vide che in vèr lei andava,
dicendo: - Mala vechia, tu m'hai morta! -
gitolla in terra e tuta la strazava.

E disse a mi, perchè la vechia aidava,
- Lassiame vendegare e po' me tòi
e fa' de mi signor, zò che tu vòi. -

E perch'un poco far così lassai,
lor trassi a pace et io me contentai

Translation

In my beautiful orchard a prudish old woman
was chaperoning a young shepherdess
who was so raw and wild in love matters

that when she saw me going towards her,
threw the old woman to the ground, crying:
"Wretched woman, you have killed me!"
and knocked her about all over.

And, as the old woman cried for help,
"Let me revenge myself," she said to me,
"and then, Sir, take me and do with me what you will."

I let them carry on for a little while,
then I made peace between them, and enjoyed myself.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga