Come selvagia fera fra le fronde

Two-voice madrigal by Niccolò da Perugia

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana XC 37, fol. 103 (text); Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnham 574, fol. 5v (text); Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 90v (2/2); Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Palatino 204, fol. 140v (text); Biblioteca Riccardiana 1118, fol. 105v (text);
Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigiano L.VIII.300, p. . 14 (text); Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigiano M.VII.142, fol. 72v (text), 130v (text); Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, latino 3213, fol. 318v (text).

Facsimiles

Il Codice Squarcialupi edited by F. Alberto GALLO, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. LI GOTTI, Ettore and Nino PIRROTTA. Il Sacchetti e la tecnica musicale del Trecento italiano, Florence: Sansoni, 1935, p. 77.
2. Der Squarcialupi-Codex Pal. 87 der Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana zu Florenz, edited by Johannes Wolf and H. Albrecht, Lippstadt: Kistner and Siegel, 1955, p. 141.
3. 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. 114.
4. KELLY, Stephen K. The Works of Niccolò da Perugia, 2 vols., Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1974.

Text Editions

1. Cantilene e ballate, strambotti e madrigale nei secoli XIII e XIV, edited by Giosuè Carducci, Pisa: Nistri, 1871, p. 254.
2. Sacchetti, Franco. Il libro delle rime, edited by A. Chiari, Bari: Laterza, 1936, p. 31.

Literature

GALLO, F. Alberto. 'The musical and literary tradition of 14th century poetry set to music', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by U. Günther and L. Finscher, Kassel: Bärenreiter: 1984, pp. 55-76.

Text

Come selvagia fera tra le fronde
nasconde sè per spaventevol grido
del cacciator quand'è presso al suo nido

così il piacer in cui mia mente guido
tostan ciascun mio senso fé gir, onde
donna senti' tra spine verdi e fonde,

Amor e me fugendo ov'i' vedea
tal prun che più di le' mie cor pungea

Translation

As a wild quarry hides among the bushes
hearing the hunter's frightful hue and cry
when he is near its den,

so the loving desire which rules my mind
heightened my senses all at once, whereby
I sensed a woman amongst deep green thorns.

She was fleeing from both myself and Love:
this thorn wounded my heart more than she did.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga