Un pellegrin uccel gentil e bello
madrigal by Paolo da Firenze
Sources
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568, fol. 38v-39 (2/2).
Editions
1. Italian Secular Music: Bartolino da Padova, Egidius de Francia, Giulielmus de Francia, Don Paolo da Firenze, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1975. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century IX, p. 183.
2. The Music of Fourteenth-Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta and Ursula Günther, Rome: American Institute of Musicology. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/VI. [forthcoming]
Text Editions
CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 272.
Literature
NEWES, Virginia E. 'The relationship of text to imitative technique in 14th century polyphony', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by U. Günther and L. Finscher, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984, pp.
121-154.
Text
Un pellegrin uccel gentil e bello
seguie uno sparver di pugn'uscito
a una donna. Richiamando quello
la bella donna, che non sie rapito
da sì rapace uccel, qual'era quello
che seguie lo sparver da lei
partito,
forza d'amor, che in quell'uccel s'accolse,
lo sparver che tornava indietro volse
Translation
A noble and beautiful peregrine falcon
was following a sparrow-hawk lifting off the fist
of a woman. The beautiful woman
called it back, so that it would not be taken
by a larger bird of prey, such as the
one
following the bird which flew off her hand.
The strength of love which was within that bird
made the returning sparrow-hawk change its course.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga