Benché partito da te 'l corpo sia
Three-voice ballata by Paolo da Firenze
Sources
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568, fol. 84 (3/1).
Facsimiles
APEL, Willi. The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1942, p. 399.
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. 110.
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. 286.
Literature
1. APEL, Willi. The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1942, pp. 398-400, & example 54.
2. PIRROTTA, Nino. 'Paolo da Firenze in un nuovo frammento dell' Ars nova', Musica
Disciplina, X (1956), p. 64.
3. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.
Text
Benché partito da te 'l corpo sia,
sospir' e piange lo cor nott'e dia.
Io non rimiro colla mente alcuna
che nata sie con sì nobil aspetto.
.....
Translation
My body is separated from yours,
and yet my heart sighs and weeps night and day.
I do not see with my mind's eye any woman
who was born with such a noble aspect.
......Text revision and
translation © Giovanni Carsaniga