Se le n'ara pietà, Amor, ti prego
ballata by Paolo da Firenze
Sources
Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds italien 568, fol. 129v-130 (3/2).
Editions
1. Italian Secular Music, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1978. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century XI, p. 128.
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. 287.
Literature
1. SABBADINI, Remiglio. 'Frammenti di poesie volgari musicate', Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, XL (1902), p. 270.
2. HALLMARK, Anne. 'Some evidence for French influence in northern Italy, c.1400', Studies in the Performance of
Late Mediaeval Music, edited by Stanley Boorman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 193-226.
Text
Se le n'arà pietà, Amor, ti prego
di suo felice stato,
se non si fer' il suo cor sì 'ndurato.
Tu sai, Amor, con quanta libertà
seguita l'ho, serrato in tuo catena,
ed ella pur rifuge aver
pietà,
né cura te, ma di dureza è piena.
S'ella porgesse una sol picciol lena
al mi' cor sì 'nfiammato
più ch'altri mi terre' viver beato
Translation
If she takes pity on me, or if her obdurate
heart, Love, is touched,
I pray you for her happiness.
You know, Love, that, shackled in your chains,
I followed her so freely;
and she yet refuses to take pity,
nor
does she heed you, but is full of callousness.
Were she to offer only a small solace
to my passionate heart, mor than any other
I would believe myself to live in bliss.Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga