Amor in te spera' già lungo tempo

Three-voice ballata by Francesco Landini

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Panciatichiano 26, fol. 29v (3/2).

Facsimiles

Il codice musicale Panciatichi 26 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, facsimile edition by F. Alberto Gallo, Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1981, no. 56.

Editions

1. The Works of Francesco Landini, edited by Leonard Ellinwood, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1939, p. 176.
2. The Works of Francesco Landini, edited by Leo Schrade, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1958. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century IV, p. 141.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 140.

Literature

1. COVINGTON, K. 'A theory of dissonance in the fourteenth-century', Indiana Theory Review, II/1 (1978): 29-40.
2. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.
3. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Text underlay in Landini's ballate for three voices', Current Musicology, 45-47 (1990): 179-197

Text

Amor, in te spera' già lungo tempo
e, se mi degni, assa' mi par per tempo.

Tu sai, Amor, che ne la prim'etade
mi facesti suggetto di costei
e sempre lei segui' per dritte strade,
né ancor trova' piatà per dire omei.
Amor, tu solo sa' quel ch'io vorrei,
né la stagione a te manca né 'l tempo

Translation

Love, I have put my hope in you for a long time,
and, grant me, the time has been long enough.

You know, Love, that you made me her liege since my youth,
and I always followed her over the straight path;
but I did not find in her enough compassion
even to say "O my!"
Love, you only know what I would like,
and you do not lack the opportunity or the time.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga