Amorous Hope, A Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition (Volume 83) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [Bilingual ed.] 1649590261, 9781649590268

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Valeria Miani

Amorous Hope, A Pastoral Play A BILINGUAL EDITION

E DIT ED AND TRA NS L AT ED BY

Alexandra Coller

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 83

AMOROUS HOPE

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 83

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Recent Publications in the Series Vittoria Colonna Poems of Widowhood: A Bilingual Edition of the 1538 Rime Translation and Introduction by Ramie Targoff Edited by Ramie Targoff and Troy Tower Volume 82, 2021

Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa My Life’s Travels and Adventures: An Eighteenth-Century Oculist in the Ottoman Empire and the European Hinterland Edited and translated by Władysław Roczniak Volume 78, 2021

Anna Maria van Schurman Letters and Poems to and from Her Mentor and Other Members of Her Circle Edited and translated by Anne R. Larsen and Steve Maiullo Volume 81, 2021

Camilla Erculiani Letters on Natural Philosophy: The Scientific Correspondence of a SixteenthCentury Pharmacist, with Related Texts Edited by Eleonora Carinci Translated by Hannah Marcus Foreword by Paula Findlen Volume 77, 2021

Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, Marquise de Villars Letters from Spain: A Seventeenth-Century French Noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court Edited and translated by Nathalie Hester Volume 80, 2021 Christine de Pizan The God of Love’s Letter and The Tale of the Rose: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Thelma S. Fenster and Christine Reno With Jean Gerson, “A Poem on Man and Woman.” Translated from the Latin by Thomas O’Donnell Foreword by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne Volume 79, 2021

Anne Vaughan Lock Selected Poetry, Prose, and Translations, with Contextual Materials Edited by Susan M. Felch Volume 76, 2021 Flaminio Scala The Fake Husband, A Comedy Edited and translated by Rosalind Kerr Volume 75, 2020 Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve Beauty and the Beast: The Original Story Edited and translated by Aurora Wolfgang Volume 74, 2020

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Recent Publications in the Series Arcangela Tarabotti Convent Paradise Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 73, 2020 Lucrezia Marinella Love Enamored and Driven Mad Edited and translated by Janet E. Gomez and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 72, 2020 Mary Franklin and Hannah Burton She Being Dead Yet Speaketh: The Franklin Family Papers Edited by Vera J. Camden Volume 71, 2020 Arcangela Tarabotti Antisatire: In Defense of Women, against Francesco Buoninsegni Edited and translated by Elissa B. Weaver Volume 70, 2020 Anne Bradstreet Poems and Meditations Edited by Margaret Olofson Thickstun Volume 69, 2019

Charlotte Arbaleste DuplessisMornay, Anne de Chaufepié, and Anne Marguerite Petit Du Noyer The Huguenot Experience of Persecution and Exile: Three Women’s Stories Edited by Colette H. Winn Translated by Lauren King and Colette H. Winn Volume 68, 2019 Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel From Arcadia to Revolution: The Neapolitan Monitor and Other Writings Edited and translated by Verina R. Jones Volume 67, 2019 Mary Wroth, Jane Cavendish, and Elizabeth Brackley Women’s Household Drama: Loves Victorie, A Pastorall, and The concealed Fansyes Edited by Marta Straznicky and Sara Mueller Volume 66, 2018 Margaret Fell Women’s Speaking Justified and Other Pamphlets Edited by Jane Donawerth and Rebecca M. Lush Volume 65, 2018

A complete list of publications is available at http://othervoiceineme.com.

VALERIA MIANI

Amorous Hope, A Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition •

Edited and translated by ALEXANDRA COLLER

2020

© Iter Inc. 2020 New York and Toronto IterPress.org All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-64959-026-8 (paper) ISBN 978-1-64959-027-5 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-64959-034-3 (epub)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949691

Cover Illustration William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Nymphs and Satyr (1873). The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Cover Design Maureen Morin, Library Communications, University of Toronto Libraries.

I lovingly dedicate this book to my son, ~ Rafael Theodore ~ by far the greatest source of joy, love, and beauty in my life. May he and his sister, Alexandra, cultivate a most loving, trusting, and caring friendship throughout their lives. This is my heartfelt wish. con il più grande affetto, tua madre

Contents Acknowledgments Illustrations

xi xiii

Introduction The Other Voice Life, Works, and Afterlife of Valeria Miani The Ricovrati of Padua The Ricovrati on the Education of Women Miani among the “Illustrious and Famous Poets of Italy”: Contributions to Polinnia (1609) and the Gareggiamento poetico (1611) Miani’s Madrigal in Paolo Bozi’s Vita, attioni, miracoli (1614) Miani’s Amorosa speranza and Female-Authored Pastoral Drama Amorosa speranza: Structure and Themes Note on the Italian Text Note on the Transcription Note on the Translation

1 1 5 12 18 23 44 47 50 72 73 74

Amorosa speranza / Amorous Hope Notes to the Italian Text Notes to the English Translation

75 324 327

Appendix Selections from Polinnia Selections from Gareggiamento poetico, Le Lodi (Part Four)

347 347 353

Bibliography

355

Index

365

ix

Acknowledgments I wish to thank two librarians in particular at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Venice): Orfea Granzotto and Piero Falchetta, for their generous time and assistance when I first transcribed Valeria Miani’s Amorosa speranza (1604) in Summer 2012. I am indebted to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York whose funding over the years, including this final year, has proven indispensable. It is thanks to Albert Rabil that the project was welcomed with enthusiasm as part of the Other Voice in Early Modern Europe series; to him I extend my appreciation. I am thrilled to be able to finally share Miani’s achievement with the world—I believe this is a play well worth reading and rereading for its remarkable richness, insights, and its demonstration of the author’s unique skills in crafting women’s dramatic agency and championing their worth, while placing the bleak reality they often faced on display. In sum, Miani empowers her nymphs with the opportunity to assert their own dignity when it is blatantly overlooked or transgressed. With this play, the late-sixteenth century Paduan letterata earns her place among Europe’s most talented profeminist writers. Importantly, in her own subtle way, the author challenges the long-standing premodern notion that a woman’s eloquence is necessarily an indication of her sexual promiscuity. Miani’s profeminism is equally prominent in her verse compositions—reason for which a section of the Introduction is devoted precisely to that contribution. Together, Miani’s talents as poet and playwright, attest to her emergence as a cultural protagonist alongside female figures far better-known to modern scholars, such as Isabella Andreini. Intriguingly, the play’s salient episodes, the reader will note, reflect realities modern women still face today, in the twenty-first century. For this reason, my hope is that Miani’s pastoral drama will attract students who can envision a staged version; to that end, I have provided some stage directions along with ample endnotes. I would like to take this opportunity to extend a special thanks to Francesca Giardina, who graciously took over my courses in the Italian Program during my maternity leave, in 2018, and again, in 2020, during my sabbatical leave. In addition, I extend heartfelt thanks to colleagues in the greater community of the City University of New York, who have shown me much support and encouragement at various points over the past decade, while this project was in its gestation period: Sarah Covington and Anthony J. Tamburri (Queens), Monica Calabritto, Paolo Fasoli, and Cristina Alfar (Hunter), Tanya Pollard (Brooklyn), Valerie Allen (John Jay), Donna Chirico and Samuel Ghelli (York), Giancarlo Lombardi and Domna Stanton (the Graduate Center). xi

xii Acknowledgments Although I am fluent in a handful of languages, neither English nor Italian is my native tongue. And, while the advantages of being a linguist are indeed great, ambiguities and doubts can, at times, arise—I feel incredibly fortunate that most of those moments of uncertainty were either mitigated or completely dispelled by Janet L. Smarr’s careful and thoughtful reading of my manuscript. Her comments, suggestions, and insights have been invaluable. I owe enormous gratitude to Margaret L. King, whose patience and precision are unmatched, and whose stalwart presence and guidance, over the years, have helped me bring this project to fruition, and eventually to print. Finally, I would be amiss if I did not acknowledge the extremely thorough review of the manuscript performed by our copyeditor, Cheryl Lemmens, along with her very generous suggestions. I thus extend my gratitude and thanks to her and to Margaret English-Haskin, at Iter Press, for bringing my manuscript to the finish line.

Illustrations Cover.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Nymphs and Satyr (1873). The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Figure 1.

Frontispiece of Valeria Miani, Amorosa speranza: Favola pastorale (Venice: Francesco Bolzetta, 1604).

Figure 2.

Frontispiece of Polinnia (Padua: Francesco Bolzetta, 1609). Courtesy of the Museo Civico di Padova.

Figure 3.

Polinnia, verses by Valeria Miani, unnumbered page.

Figure 4.

Title page of Le Imagini, overo Madrigali Morali, Part Three of Gareggiamento poetico (Venice: Barezzo Barezzi, 1611).

Figure 5.

Le Lodi in Gareggiamento poetico, verses by Valeria Miani and Torquato Tasso, unnumbered page.

Figure 6.

Title page of Le Lodi, overo Madrigali Morali, Part Four of Gareggiamento poetico (Venice: Barezzo Barezzi, 1611).

xiii

Introduction The Other Voice Over the last two decades or so scholars have shown a fascination, indeed an obsession, for the recovery and publication of works penned by women from the early modern period, published or in manuscript. The present edition and trans­ lation attests to this ongoing fascination and hopes to provide further impetus for future such discoveries of this “other” voice, the voice of women past whose achievements need to be recognized and placed squarely within the (male) liter­ ary canon. In her seminal study Women’s Writing in Italy, Virginia Cox calls atten­ tion to the years 1580–1620 by referring to this pivotal period in Italian literary history as one marked by “affirmation” insofar as it condoned, produced, and celebrated women’s excellence of character and women’s writing, which had by then engaged in a variety of genres, including drama.1 That said, however, come­ dies authored by women are virtually non-existent. Comedy’s indecorous nature and its dubious Boccaccian ethics undoubtedly led respectable women writers to stay away from this particular genre. Nevertheless, there are some archival refer­ ences pointing to women as authors of comedy. In his chronicle on the Miani clan, for example, the contemporary historian Cesare Padoano cites two comic plays being composed by Valeria Miani herself.2 At present, we have only one surviving Italian secular comedy penned by a woman: Margherita Costa’s Li buffoni (The Buffoons; Florence, 1641).3 Given her social status as a cortegiana onesta, but also keeping in mind her wholehearted embrace of Baroque aesthetics with its transgressive, anti-classicizing penchant at which she excelled, Costa is oddly 1. See Virginia Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 131–65. 2. See Valeria Finucci’s introduction to the Other Voice edition of Celinda: A Tragedy, trans. Julia Kisacky and ed. Valeria Finucci (Toronto: Iter Inc. and Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010), 1–51. Finucci quotes Padoano as indicating that Miani “is composing a tragedy and two comedies”; see her introduction, 9 and 9n21. Biographical facts and details about Miani are very much indebted to Finucci’s archival findings. 3. See the first modern bilingual edition, The Buffoons, A Ridiculous Comedy, ed. and trans. Sara E. Díaz and Jessica Goethals (Toronto: Iter Press; Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018). Another female-authored seventeenth-century publication referred to as a “trat­ tenimento comico” is Serraglio aperto, ovvero, le Malattie politiche del Gran Sultano, by the Venetian Orsetta Pellegrini (Venice: Niccolini, 1687). Nicola Mangini cites Pellegrini’s text under the rubric “commedia letteraria”; see his essay “La tragedia e la commedia” in Dalla Controriforma alla fine della Repubblica: Il Seicento, vol. 4 of Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1984), 297–326, at 317.

1

2 Introduction configured among respectable cittadine or noblewomen writers of her time. For the most part, women writers were ostracized from the literary domain during the seventeenth century as a result of that period’s pronounced contrast with the decorous, measured aesthetics of the previous century, aesthetics that welcomed and encouraged women’s participation. Costa remains the single exception in a genre that is otherwise exclusively dominated by male authors.4 Although Miani has little in common with a figure as eccentric as Costa, she did, like her younger contemporary, dare to engage with a genre not easily accessible to women writ­ ers. Miani’s tragedy Celinda (Vicenza: Francesco Bolzetta, 1611) is the only (and perhaps the first) extant specimen in its genre authored by a woman.5 The case for pastoral drama is more noteworthy and more remarkable. It was this genre in particular that seems to have opened the door for the success of both published and unpublished examples penned by women specifically in the northern part of the peninsula. One of the main reasons for the genre’s suc­ cess with audiences as well as with female writers was the fact that it offered a tremendous amount of latitude in terms of structure and themes: it was at once its own brand and a hybrid of comedy and tragedy forming an intriguing new blend of genre, character, dramatic style, and space/s.6 In this way, the pastoral mode, sometimes dubbed a “tragicomedia pastorale,” flourished toward the end of the sixteenth century and literally took over the Italian stage—to paraphrase the play­ wright Angelo Ingegneri’s famous pronouncement in his theoretical discourse Della poesia rappresentativa (Ferrara, 1598). This flourishing allowed for the in­ clusion of some female writers, those already prominent on the literary landscape and those less well known. In the second part of his discourse, more precisely dedicated to the staging of plays, Ingegneri champions Barbara Torelli’s Partenia (ca. 1587)—alongside Torquato Tasso’s Aminta and Giovan Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor fido—as one of the genre’s most successful exemplars, and this in spite of the fact that her play never reached the printing press. Isabella Andreini’s Mirtilla (1588) is referenced in the Discorso’s opening pages alongside a handful of others that follow Tasso’s example.7 Although Miani’s Amorosa speranza is not 4. Finucci cites another comedy, now lost, that would have predated Costa’s by several decades: L’Interesse, by the commedia dell’arte actress Vittoria Piissimi; see her introduction to Celinda, 17. 5. For a discussion of Celinda, including the reasons for which tragedy was not easily accessible to women writers, see Finucci’s introduction (25–48) and the pages devoted to this play in Alexandra Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), 91–109. 6. Although Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (princeps 1580) heralds a new era of theatrical exploration on the Italian peninsula, the play above all celebrates its author’s originality and can be considered a unicum. 7. Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Modena: Edizioni Panini, 1989), 25 and 4. And, although “thousands” of pastorals took over the Italian stage, not many, in Ingegneri’s opinion, were properly conceived—hence the need for a discorso

Introduction 3 mentioned by Ingegneri, it is more than likely that the two knew one another; both frequented Padua’s Ricovrati academy in the years immediately prior to the publication of her pastoral in 1604 (Figure 1), and Miani’s tragedy Celinda first appeared in print in Vicenza, the city of Ingegneri’s birth and one with which he maintained very close ties. Moreover, as will be detailed below, both Ingegneri and Miani had contributed, along with others, to the important verse anthologies Polinnia and Gareggiamento poetico. “[G]eographical trends” and an attendant “regional pride” were among the determining factors behind the voluminous output of writing by women.8 Situated on the Venetian mainland, the city of Padua figures prominently as one such region. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, encom­ passing precisely the decades of Miani’s activity, Padua was arguably the most prestigious and culturally rich city in Italy, and home to a university that attracted acclaim from within and from abroad. As such, this city’s regional pride boasts a number of women writers of high caliber famous as well for their documented collaboration with letterati. Isabella Andreini, Giulia Bigolina, Camilla Erculiani, and Valeria Miani are among those often cited.9 Importantly, Miani wrote and published at a moment in history that was particularly ripe for women’s intervention. In neighboring Venice, no fewer than three women were taking up the pen with the intention of defending women’s equality vis-à-vis men in terms of intrinsic worth, intellect, and social prerogatives:

such as the one he penned. Most authors failed to do what they should have, namely, to accommodate their writing to fit the parameters and requirements of the stage by “imagining” how the play might be successfully performed (17). Interestingly, as Lisa Sampson and others have argued, the fact that a dra­ matic composition never reached the press or remained unperformed (inviting some critics to label it as “closet drama”) did not necessarily take away from the contemporary success it might have enjoyed among letterati at court or in the academies. See Lisa Sampson, “ ‘Dramatica secreta’: Barbara Torelli’s Partenia (c. 1587) and Women in Late Sixteenth-Century Theatre,” in Theatre, Opera and Performance in Italy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present: Essays in Honour of Richard Andrews, ed. Brian Richardson, Simon Gilson, and Catherine Keen (Leeds: Society for Italian Studies, 2004), 99–115. Torelli’s pastoral drama has been edited and translated by Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken (Toronto: Iter Inc. and Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2013). A new edition and translation of Andreini’s Mirtilla by Finucci and Kisacky is now available (Toronto: Iter Press; Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018); all of my references to Mirtilla will come from this latest edition of the text. 8. Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 144–45. 9. Camilla Erculiani Greghetti (ca. 1540–ca. 1590), possibly the first female apothecary, published Lettere di philosophia naturale (Kraków: Lazaro, 1584). On Erculiani, see Meredith K. Ray, Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 114–31; and the edition of her work, Letters on Natural Philosophy:  The Scientific Correspondence of a Sixteenth-Century Pharmacist, with Related Texts, ed. Eleonora Carinci, trans. Hannah Marcus, with a foreword by Paula Findlen (Toronto: Iter Press, 2020).

4 Introduction

Figure 1. Frontispiece of Valeria Miani, Amorosa speranza: Favola pastorale (Venice: Francesco Bolzetta, 1604). Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti. Prior to Fonte’s and Marinella’s publications in 1600, Italian defenses of women had been written only by men. With the recent rediscovery of the Paduan Giulia Bigolina’s Urania (1550s), a prose romance (possibly the first penned by a woman) which includes a

Introduction 5 feminist mini-treatise embedded into its narrative, Fonte and her female contem­ poraries can now be said to have had a forerunner.10 And just as Bigolina, Fonte, Marinella, and Tarabotti joined that formerly male-driven conversation, so too with women’s eventual intervention in other genres.11 As I have argued elsewhere, Miani’s Amorosa speranza rests against the backdrop of three female-authored contributions to the genre, those of Barbara Torelli, Maddalena Campiglia, and Isabella Andreini. These plays and Miani’s were in turn followed by Isabetta Coreglia’s two mid-seventeenth century pastorals. As a result, we can now speak of a female-authored tradition in the making.12 Miani is unique, however, since, as with her contemporary male writers, she engaged with all three dramatic gen­ res: comedy, tragedy, pastoral. Although the comedies have not yet resurfaced and may in fact be lost, her tragedy (Celinda) and pastoral (Amorosa speranza) have not only reached us but—with the current volume’s contribution—are now readily available in translation for the wider anglophone audience, for scholars and students interested in exploring female-authored drama on the continent and beyond as part of the history of theater and the ever growing fields of women’s and gender studies. Miani’s pastoral deserves recognition among the genre’s most fascinating compositions, above all, because of its pronounced protofeminist per­ spectives, as my analysis of the play will demonstrate.

Life, Works, and Afterlife of Valeria Miani Born into an intellectually vibrant family setting with close ties to the university in Padua, Valeria Miani (ca. 1560–after 1620?), although not of noble stock, did marry into the Venetian nobility and was exposed to a considerable amount of cultural wealth from a young age. Like her contemporary, the Venetian poet, phi­ losopher, and feminist Lucrezia Marinella (1571–1653), Miani married relatively late in life (both were in their thirties), which would have assured her a solid edu­ cational foundation prior to taking on the duties of wife and mother. Moreover, 10. See Patricia H. Labalme, “Venetian Women on Women: Three Early Modern Feminists,” in Saints, Women and Humanists in Renaissance Venice, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 2010), 81–109. For an introduction to Bigolina’s life and works see Urania, ed. Valeria Finucci (Rome: Bulzoni, 2002), and Urania: A Romance, ed. and trans. Valeria Finucci (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 1–35. The mini-treatise may be found in the section appropriately entitled “The Worth of Women” in Finucci’s translation, 106–19 (section titles have been added by the editor and are useful for guiding the reader). Bigolina’s prose romance is the literary precursor to the later Baroque psychological novel. 11. The original refers to “le Muse” (the Muses) translated here as “poetry.” On Fonte’s and Marinella’s contributions to the epic genre and how their feminist thought infused the writing of those works, see Francesca D’Alessandro Behr, Arms and the Woman: Classical Tradition and Women Writers in the Venetian Renaissance (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2018). 12. See especially chapters 4 and 5 of Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy.

6 Introduction once married to Domenico Negri in 1593, Miani’s intellectual stimulation did not diminish, as was often the case with women (whether of noble or more mod­ est stock) who entered the confines of this emphatically patriarchal institution; rather, her intellectual stimulation flourished and solidified.13 Although archival documentation points to as many as five children in the family, it is uncertain how many of them were products of the union between Valeria and Domenico. By 1614 Miani was left a widow, which would have given her more independ­ ence for governing the household and also more time to devote to her intellectual pursuits.14 Several family members possessed a literary background, and two of them—one in her own clan, the other in her husband’s clan—were playwrights.15 Miani’s father, Vidal (Vitale), made a living practicing and teaching law in addi­ tion to housing students, details which confirm the family’s ongoing stable con­ nections to the university.16 Famous for its university and also for its influential learned societies, Padua, positioned against the backdrop of the Euganean Hills, was characterized by its many transalpine visitors as an “earthly paradise.” It was the mecca of Europe’s students and its savants, who looked upon it as a progressive and religiously toler­ ant city.17 A province of Venice but also quite cosmopolitan on its own, Padua was home, at one time or another, to a number of literary and cultural icons: Angelo Ingegneri, Sforza degli Oddi, Sperone Speroni, Benedetto Varchi, Torquato Tasso, Alessandro Piccolomini, Giovanni Battista Guarini, Francesco Contarini, and Cesare Cremonini, all of whom belonged to its various academies (the Animosi, the Elevati, the Eterei, the Infiammati, the Ricovrati, the Serafici, etc.). All of these men—a point worth emphasizing—experimented with dramaturgy at one time or another. Indeed, the pastoral dramas of Tasso and Guarini, as is well known, would become models not just for writers on the peninsula but for those on the European continent. Padua’s university boasted no less a figure than Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who taught there (at the university as well as privately) dur­ ing the period in which Miani was actively experimenting with a variety of genres, 13. A well-known negative example of this custom is Isotta Nogarola’s younger sister, Ginevra, who gave up her studies upon marrying in 1438. A later example is that of the Paduan artist, Emilia Papafava Borromeo, whose activity ceased once she married; see Caterina Limentani Virdis, “ ‘Nimica implaca­ bile dell’ignoranza:’ I saperi delle donne accademiche,” in Tracciati del femminile a Padova: Immagini e storie di donne, ed. Caterina Limentani Virdis and Mirella Cisotto Nalon (Padua: Il Poligrafo, 1995), 79–83, at 79. 14. Finucci, Celinda, 11–12. 15. Finucci, Celinda, 10–11. 16. Finucci, Celinda, 9–10. 17. See the illuminating account by Aldo Stella, “Galileo, il circolo culturale di Gian Vincenzo Pinelli e la ‘Patavina Libertas,’ ” in Galileo e la cultura padovana: Convegno di studio promosso dall’accademia Patavina di scienze, lettere ed arti nell’ambito delle celebrazioni galileiane dell’Università di Padova, 13–15 febbraio 1992, ed. Giovanni Santinello (Padua: CEDAM, 1992), 307–25.

Introduction 7 and she even had the opportunity to publish some of her own work.18 Miani’s publisher, Francesco Bolzetta, was the most famous book seller in Padua at the time, with obvious connections to the university as well as to the local Accademia de’ Ricovrati (founded in 1599), to which Galileo belonged as one of its founding members.19 Bolzetta was in fact the academy’s publisher.20 In his dedicatory letter to her pastoral drama, Bolzetta champions Miani’s achievements while he also pointedly praises women’s “femminile ingegno” (feminine intelligence), not as a rarity but as a gift and source of inspiration among their sex in all periods of history, past and present. As Katie Rees remarks, “Miani does not seem to have written directly for print, and her plays were probably first directed towards a private audience, whose approval gave her the confidence and perhaps the means to publish them.”21 That “private audience” likely consisted, in large part, of vari­ ous Ricovrati members, including Francesco Contarini, whose pastoral drama La fida ninfa (1595) was arguably on Miani’s mind (among others) as she was crafting her own.22 Aside from the encouragement that this local entourage would have afforded our author, one should keep in mind that the Veneto itself was a particularly fertile environment for a woman interested in dabbling in literary pursuits, perhaps even thriving as a result of her ingegno, given the region’s pro­ nounced intellectual activity.23 Neighboring Venice was the center of all theatrical 18. Finucci, Celinda, 4, 10, and 10nn25–26. 19. For a brief historical synopsis of this academy see Michele Maylender, “Accademia dei Ricovrati— Padova,” in vol. 4 of Storia delle accademie d’Italia (Bologna: L. Cappelli, 1926–1930), 440–45. On the academy’s inauguration and details regarding its administration, see Ezio Riondato, “La fondazione dell’Accademia dei Ricovrati del 25 novembre 1599,” in Atti e memorie dell’Accademia Galileiana di scienze, lettere ed arti già dei Ricovrati e Patavina 112 (Padua: l’Accademia, 1999–2000), Parte 1, Atti, vol. 112, part 1, 73–85. For a revealing account of the Ricovrati during their first decades, see Gino Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” in Dall’Accademia dei Ricovrati all’Accademia Galileiana, ed. Ezio Riondato (Padua: Accademia Galileiana di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2001), 11–57. In 1997 the Ricovrati became known as the Accademia Galileiana (Galilean Academy). 20. His election to this post came about in 1600. See Antonio Gamba and Lucia Rossetti, ed., Giornale della gloriosissima Accademia Ricovrata A: Verbali delle adunanze accademiche dal 1599 al 1694, ed. Antonio Gamba and Lucia Rossetti (Vicenza: Edizioni LINT, 1999), 36. All references to this volume will henceforth appear as “Giornale A.” 21. “Female-Authored Drama in Early Modern Padua: Valeria Miani Negri,” Italian Studies 63:1 (2008): 41–61, at 43. 22. Rees discusses some of the parallels in her “Satyr Scenes in Early Modern Padua: Valeria Miani’s Amorosa Speranza and Francesco Contarini’s Fida Ninfa,” The Italianist, 34:1 (2014): 23–53. For a reading that includes women authors in the genre preceding Miani, see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 142–52. 23. The Veneto boasted 450 printers, publishers, booksellers, and print-dealers (Finucci, Celinda, 7). See also Marco Callegari, Dal torchio del tipografo al banco del libraio: Stampatori, editori e librai a Padova dal XV al XVIII secolo (Padua: Il Prato, 2002).

8 Introduction publication on the peninsula, claiming over ninety percent of its output.24 From a geographical perspective, then, Miani was certainly well positioned. Miani was also heir to her famous Paduan predecessor, who was mentioned earlier: the noblewoman Giulia Bigolina (ca. 1518–before 1569), the first woman to venture into prose with a novella and a prose romance—although, in the case of Bigolina, both works remained in manuscript and were only recently redis­ covered. We may deduce from details that mark their individual biographies that Bigolina and Miani were recognized as sources of civic pride. In 1581, at the age of eighteen, Miani had been chosen by the city of Padua to deliver a public oration in honor of a visitor of great prestige, the Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V.25 Bigolina—like Miani, celebrated for her facundia (eloquence)—was featured in an unpublished mid-sixteenth-century dialogue on love as an active interlocutor, and was known to have engaged in a literary correspondence with the eccentric poligrafo Pietro Aretino, who referred to her as a poet.26 We know from references made about Miani’s literary career that at least one volume of her poetry has gone missing. Even more relevant to our discussion here is the connection Bigolina may have had to members of academies. Her prose romance, Urania, is dedicated to Bartolomeo Salvatico or Selvatico, a Paduan nobleman, member of the Accademia degli Elevati and, eventually, of the Ricovrati.27 We may speculate based on the language used that Salvatico was a mentor or spiritual companion to the young and talented Bigolina. Whatever the exact relationship may have been between the two, one can imagine that by the time Miani entered the scene in the late sixteenth century, a favorable terrain for fellow letterate had already been established in Padua, and specifically within its academic societies. Contemporary critics, poets, and other prominent figures of the literary landscape such as Pietro Paolo Ribera, Pietro Petracci, Agostino della Chiesa, and Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, recognized and applauded Miani’s talents and her 24. See Tiziana Pesenti, “Stampatori e letterati nell’industria editoriale a Venezia e in terraferma,” in vol. 4 of Arnoldi and Stocchi, Storia della cultura veneta, 4:93–129. 25. Finucci, Celinda, 7. 26. On Bigolina’s presence in the dialogue “A ragionar d’amore,” see Finucci’s introduction to Urania: A Romance, 8 and 8n29; on the correspondence between Bigolina and Aretino see in the same work, 5 and 5n14. 27. On Salvatico and Bigolina see Finucci’s introduction to Urania: A Romance, 15–16. Salvatico ap­ pears among those present at the home of Federico Cornaro on November 25, 1599, on the occasion of one of the Ricovrati’s first meetings, and we also know that he was one among other members nominated to devise the academy’s impresa or motto; see Giornale A, 4 and 12. In 1601, he was elected general censor (censore ordinario) together with Angelo Ingegneri, who was elected censor of publica­ tions (p. 73); the latter’s job was to oversee the quality of the academy’s productions. I caution the reader that his last name is spelled with an “e” in the Index of the Ricovrati’s Giornale A (see Selvatico, B.). In I soci dell’Academia Patavina dalla sua fondazione (Padua: Accademia Patavina di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1983), Attilio Maggiolo also lists him as Bartolomeo Selvatico (305).

Introduction 9 achievements in their publications.28 In 1609, shortly after its publication, Ribera remarked that the Amorosa speranza was “well received and commended.”29 In 1620, Francesco Agostino della Chiesa mentioned Miani’s Celinda in his monu­ mental Theatro delle donne letterate.30 Thanks to Crescimbeni’s 1698 reference to a volume of poetry, we can deduce that Miani was in fact more prolific than it now appears by what has survived. In the early eighteenth century, the Venetian poet Luisa Bergalli (1703–1779) included Miani in her Componimenti poetici delle più illustri rimatrici d’ogni secolo (Venice: Antonio Mora, 1726), and, like Crescimbeni, she signaled a by then lost volume of poetic compositions. The first of its kind edited by a woman, Bergalli’s anthology was a two-part volume that drew its inspiration from the earliest collection of women’s poetry, edited by Lodovico Domenichi in 1559, and the much later one by Giambattista Recanati (1716), while it aimed to greatly amplify both.31 Miani’s verse compositions, as they appeared in Polinnia and the Gareggiamento poetico, two anthologies to be revis­ ited later, were republished in Bergalli’s collection, with the exception of her only extant sonnet composition, which was left out of this sample. Notwithstanding her choices regarding inclusion and selection, Bergalli’s overarching intention was to show evidence of women’s pronounced presence within the traditionally male-centered canon, but also, as one critic has recently argued, to underline the existence of a “linea veneta,” that is, of a group of women poets specifically from the Veneto region in which she included herself as a poet and playwright.32 28. Finucci, Celinda, 49. Crescimbeni held a key role in the Roman Academy of Arcadia, the first such institution to openly admit women as bona fide members; in fact, it was Crescimbeni himself who had “explicitly set out the requirements for the admission of women.” See Elisabetta Graziosi, “Revisiting Arcadia: Women and Academies in Eighteenth-Century Italy,” in Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, ed. Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 103–24, at 108. 29. See Le glorie immortali de’ trionfi, et heroiche imprese d’ottocento quarantacinque donne illustri antiche e moderne (Venice: Evangelista Deuchino, 1609), 355; Ribera’s comment is translated and cited in Finucci, Celinda, 24n71. 30. Francesco Agostino della Chiesa, Theatro delle donne letterate, con un breve discorso della preeminenza, e perfettione del sesso donnesco (Mondovi: Per Giovanni Gislandi and Giovanni Tommaso Rossi, 1620), 295. Also cited in Finucci, Celinda, 49. Alexandra Coller’s book project in progress, Women and Letterati in Italian Dialogues and Treatises of the Late Renaissance, includes della Chiesa’s treatise. 31. Bergalli’s collection includes a total of 250 women poets spanning the centuries from the ancients to the modern period, this compared to Domenichi’s 53 and Recanati’s 35; interestingly, she is quite selective and excludes more than half the poets in Domenichi’s volume. 32. See Gilberto Pizzamiglio, “Sull’‘antologia’ poetica al femminile di Luisa Bergalli,” Quaderni veneti 5:1 (June, 2016): 55–67. Gaspara Stampa (ca. 1525–1554), for instance, is represented in Bergalli’s collection with thirty-five poems, Isabella Andreini with eighteen compositions, and Chiara Matraini (1515–1604), with twelve; by comparison, Miani appears with four compositions—although we may deduce that Bergalli might have included more if they were available at the time of her compilation.

10 Introduction Not long thereafter, as Valeria Finucci points out, Miani was honored with an entry in Francesco Saverio Quadrio’s magisterial seven-volume history of Italian writers.33 The nineteenth century also showed appreciation for Miani, as both her tragedy and pastoral were included in Leopoldo Ferri’s Biblioteca femminile italiana and in Ginevra Canonici Facchini’s biographical dictionary of famous Italian women writers, wherein she was remembered as a “donna coltissima” (extremely learned woman) who was very well known in the republic of letters of her time.34 During the same period she was described by Giuseppe Vedova in his Biografia degli scrittori padovani as a “gentile poetessa” (elegant poet) and “garbata oratrice” (refined orator) as she took her place alongside other literary figures of her family. Miani was also remembered by Napoleone Pietrucci in his biographical volume Delle illustri donne padovane.35 Early twentieth-century critic and literary historian Emilio Bertana de­ serves to be mentioned in connection to Miani, for it was he who drew attention to Miani not only as a rarity in her time but also with respect to Celinda as the one tragedy “among others” he chose to review.36 Bertana offered a detailed synopsis of Celinda, and concluded that the author ingeniously wove together the dismal, the pathetic, and the tender—although, the critic remarked, the “excessive” and “soppy” tenderness achieved was a “characteristic of her age” and therefore less remarkable. Other twentieth-century Italian scholars, such as Delfina Forti, were dismissive of women’s writing tout court, including Miani’s, while Bruno Brunelli, in his I teatri di Padova, ignored Miani’s accomplishments altogether.37 In her overview of Italian women writers from the twelfth century to the nineteenth century, Jolanda de Blasi mentioned Miani and the misnamed “Isabella” Coreglia simply as contemporaries of Laura Guidiccioni Lucchesini, a poet and playwright from Lucca.38 Several decades later, in a segment on the Seicento in her own 33. Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Della storia e della ragione d’ogni poesia, 7 vols. (Milan: Agnelli, 1739–1752), 1:78 (Finucci, Celinda, 49). Quadrio was a Ricovrato; see Maggiolo, I soci dell’Accademia Patavina, 261. 34. See Pietro Leopoldo Ferri, Biblioteca femminile italiana: Raccolta, posseduta e descritta dal Conte Pietro Leopoldo Ferri, padovano (Padua: Crescini, 1842), 234–35, and Ginevra Canonici Facchini, Prospetto biografico delle donne italiane rinomate in letteratura (Venice: Alvisopoli, 1824), 158 (Finucci, Celinda, 18n51 and 50). 35. Giuseppe Vedova, “Miani (Valeria),” in vol. 1 of Biografia degli scrittori padovani, 2 vols. (Padua: Coi tipi della Minerva, 1832), 2:600–2; Napoleone Pietrucci, Delle illustri donne padovane: Cenni biografici (Padua: Bianchi, 1853), 45–46 (Finucci, Celinda, 10n25 and 50n 129). 36. Emilio Bertana, Storia dei generi letterari italiani: La tragedia (Milan: Francesco Vallardi, 1905), 132–35. 37. See Forti, “I drammi pastorali del 1600 e le rappresentazioni a Venezia prima del teatro,” Ateneo veneto 26 (1903): 25–40, at 31; Brunelli, I teatri di Padova dalle origini alla fine del secolo XIX (Padua: Draghi, 1921), 67 (Finucci, Celinda, 50n133). 38. See Le scrittrici italiane: Dalle origini al 1800 (Florence: Nemi, 1930), 178.

Introduction 11 publication on Italian women writers, Natalia Costa-Zalessow did not mention Miani at all.39 Even more surprising perhaps was the omission of Miani’s name from a 1991 anthology specific to women writers from the Veneto region, although even Isabella Andreini received short shrift in that publication.40 Another 1990s anthology promised to unearth “unknown” or “undervalued” Italian women writ­ ers from the origins to the modern period, yet even so, this anthology’s Seicento list once again ignored any of Miani’s contributions, although it included those of Margherita Costa, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti alongside less well known figures.41 Miani finally received mention, albeit in very brief format, in an article from the mid-1990s by Mariella Magliani, who pointed to Miani’s “rarity” alongside two other Paduan ladies (including the daughter of Sperone Speroni, Giulia). In the two paragraphs dedicated to her, Miani was described as a “celebrated poet.”42 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we come across another anthol­ ogy, this time specifically focused on Italian women writers from the Seicento and edited by Giuliana Morandini; unfortunately, there too Miani’s name is missing.43 Finally just one year after the publication of Morandini’s anthology appeared in Italy, however, critic Françoise Decroisette offered a reading of Miani’s pastoral alongside other plays. In 2008 and 2014, Katie Rees published two articles result­ ing from a University of Cambridge doctoral dissertation on Miani within the broader context of women’s writing for the theater. Finucci’s edition and transla­ tion of Celinda, in the Other Voice series, reached the American press in 2010. And in 2017, Alexandra Coller published a monograph awarding Miani pride of place in a comparative study engaging with both her pastoral and her tragedy alongside male and female authors of early modern Italian drama.44

39. See Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: Testi e critica (Ravenna: Longo, 1982). 40. See Antonia Arslan, Adriana Chemello, and Gilberto Pizzamiglio, ed., Le stanze ritrovate: Antologia di scrittrici venete dal Quattrocento al Novecento (Venice: Eidos, 1991). For a critique of Piermario Vescovo’s entry on Isabella Andreini in this volume, see Finucci’s review essay, “La scrittura fem­ minile: Considerazioni in margine alla lettura di Le stanze ritrovate: Antologia di scrittrici venete dal Quattrocento al Novecento,” Annali d’italianistica 9 (1991): 322–29. 41. See Angelo Gianni, ed., Anch’esse “quasi simili a Dio”: Le donne nella storia della letteratura italiana, in gran parte ignote o misconosciute dalle origini alla fine dell’Ottocento (Lucca: Mauro Baroni, 1997). 42. See “Giulia, Lucia e Valeria: Tre donne comuni poco ‘comuni,’ ” in Virdis and Nalon, Tracciati del femminile a Padova, 64–69, at 69 (“Valeria Miani, celebrata poetessa”). 43. See Sospiri e palpiti: Scrittrici italiane del Seicento (Genoa: Marietti, 2001). 44. See Decroisette, “Satyres au féminin dans la pastorale italienne de la fin du XVIe siècle,” in La campagna e la città: Letteratura e ideologia nel Rinascimento: Scritti in onore di Michel Plaisance, ed. Giuditta Isotti Rosowsky (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2002), 149–82; Rees, “Female-Authored Drama”; Rees, “Satyr Scenes in Early Modern Padua”; and Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama.

12 Introduction

The Ricovrati of Padua And now some details about the Accademia dei Ricovrati, in order to better un­ derstand the setting of Miani’s literary achievements and the academy’s tendency toward philogyny. The Ricovrati were numerous, mostly local noblemen with strong ties to the Palazzo Ducale, and, with some exceptions, the academy dem­ onstrated its utmost dedication to and praise of the Serenissima. Their meetings were both private and public, as attested to by the minutes dating from its found­ ing in 1599 to the year 1694.45 When compared to other Paduan academies, Gino Benzoni emphasizes, the Ricovrati were a stable and long-lasting entity precisely because they were backed by the Venetian patriciate; indeed, the two groups mir­ rored one another.46 Several of this academy’s members belonged to the famous patrician families—Contarini, Cornaro, Loredan, Mocenigo, Querini, and Venier. The Ricovrati’s intermingling of Venetian and Paduan patricians was unique in the Veneto.47 Rather than thinking of the Ricovrati as yet another private male social club, one should consider their meetings as having had a broader geograph­ ical reach than others while they maintained, in addition, strong ties to and sup­ port from the Venetian laguna. The Venetian playwright, performer, and theoreti­ cian Angelo Ingegneri, whose discourse was mentioned above, became a member of the Ricovrati in 1600. Antonio Negri, a relative of Miani’s husband, Domenico, was elected to the academy in the same year. Battista Guarini, Pomponio Torelli, and Muzio Manfredi, playwrights of notable acclaim, joined the following year. Giambattista Marino, the renowned Baroque poet, became a Ricovrato in 1602.48 The prestige of participation and inclusion in this academy’s gatherings was thus evident, as was one’s proximity to members of the ruling elite. The Ricovrati’s founder, Federico Cornaro, proposed Silvestro Aldobrandini, great-grandson of Pope Clement VIII and future cardinal, as the academy’s protector.49 In sum, if you had any influence and subsequent success—literary or political—you were likely to be a member of the Ricovrati clan.50 45. See Giornale A. 46. See Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 25–26, for a list of prominent Ricovrati members, and the Index of Giornale A for a complete list; across the several decades in which the academy was active there were 314 members in attendance with roughly 181 admitted in the seventeenth century (Benzoni, 42). 47. Benzoni, 42. 48. For Ingegneri, see Giornale A 32, 39, 73; for Negri, 70; for Guarini and Torelli, 77; for Marino, 93. Torelli had written a number of tragedies, as well as Galatea, a tragedy set in the pastoral mode, published in 1603. 49. Giornale A, 88. 50. Benzoni offers the example of one Angelo Portenari, who, because his publication was deemed injurious to Venetian sensibilities, was denied entry into the Ricovrati clan; see “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 32–37.

Introduction 13 In 1604, the same year as the publication of Miani’s pastoral, Giuseppe Passi, author of the infamous treatise I donneschi diffetti (Venice: Antonio Somaschi, 1599), was elected as a member.51 Passi’s publication sparked a polemic that argu­ ably served to reinforce women’s voices on the socio-literary platform rather than to extinguish them. Indeed, the antifeminism of such writers would add more fuel to the fire of the ongoing questione delle donne. Lucrezia Marinella’s incisive rebuttal of Passi’s disparaging views of her sex was penned and published shortly thereafter as La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti degli uomini (Venice: Giovan Battista Ciotti, 1600).52 Moderata Fonte’s Il merito delle donne appeared in print in the same year, a fact that some scholars have argued was not coincidental.53 “The Passi controversy is an important moment in the de­ velopment of feminism,” writes Stephen Kolsky, “for it puts on centre-stage wom­ en who argue for themselves, who have a notion of their worth, who intuit the foundations of the anti-woman tradition, and begin to question it vigorously.”54 Miani’s two surviving dramatic plays attest to our author’s embodiment of the attributes Kolsky describes. Although we have no protofeminist tracts written by her, Miani’s profile and her entry into the publication world resonates with those of Marinella. Like Miani, Marinella was closely connected to an academy that included one of her kin (her brother, Curzio). Ciotti, Marinella’s publisher, was the official publisher of the Accademia Veneziana, a role parallel to Bolzetta’s in Padua; moreover, Marinella’s paratext suggested that her treatise might have been commissioned by this academy, thereby making its link to late Renaissance academic culture all the more evident.55 In a number of ways Miani’s protofeminism, juxtaposed to the 51. On Passi’s entry into the academy see Giornale A, 122 and 132. On Passi’s treatise, see Suzanne Magnanini with David Lamari, “Giuseppe Passi’s Attacks on Women in The Defects of Women,” in In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing, ed. Julie D. Campbell and Maria Galli Stampino (Toronto: Iter Inc. and Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 143–94. 52. On this important seventeenth-century debate and the much amplified second edition of Marinella’s text, see Stephen Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, Giuseppe Passi: An Early Seventeenth-Century Feminist Controversy,” Modern Language Review 96 (2001): 973–89. See also Patrizia Bettella, “Women and the Academies in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia’s Role in Literary Academies,” Italian Culture 36 (2018): 100–19, at 104. 53. Both Marinella’s and Fonte’s defenses have appeared in English translation. See Marinella’s The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill, introd. Letizia Panizza (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), and Fonte’s The Worth of Women: Wherein is Clearly Revealed Their Nobility and Their Superiority to Men, ed. and trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). Fonte’s text now also appears in an abridged format, entitled The Merits of Women (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018). 54. Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte,” 989. 55. Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte,” 975.

14 Introduction anti-masculine perspectives present in her writing, illustrates yet another early seventeenth-century defense of women’s worth authored by a woman. How this plays out in the fiction of her drama will be demonstrated below.56 While one cannot assume that all Ricovrati members were avid admirers of the female sex, the evidence of certain members’ acknowledgement of and admiration for learned women flies in the face of detractors such as Passi.57 The evidence suggests not only that women were welcomed to attend gatherings but that the Ricovrati were progressively minded enough to entertain discussion of the possibility of women joining as members and the related topic of conceding a degree of power to the opposite sex. Tied to the issue of whether or not women should be admitted as veritable members of an academy was the problematic is­ sue of whether or not women should be allowed to govern; the topic was debated by the Ricovrati in a public meeting on June 16, 1691. The controversial subject of whether or not women should be permitted a university education followed soon thereafter.58 These gendered polemical topics were debated alongside the many and various literary subjects broached and discussed during the Ricovrati’s adunanze, such as those on ethics, the attributes of a successful poet, and which would be more useful: memory or artistic creativity. Literary discussions some­ times focused on the definition of the various genres and their utility, whether one should opt for prose or verse in the composition of comedy and tragedy, and so forth.59 Members therefore had the opportunity to engage in these tenzoni (de­ bates) and, as a result, to hone their rhetorical skills. In theory, if not always in fact (especially around the turn of the century with the increasing weight of the Counter-Reformation), these learned societies were places in which one could find a certain openness to unorthodox trains of thought, where one could experi­ ment with alternative theories on language, culture, and gender inclusivity that

56. For an analysis of Celinda with respect to its protofeminist and anti-masculine agenda, see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 91–109. 57. Although even Passi may be viewed as a somewhat ambiguous figure if we take into account his later treatise, Dello stato maritale (Venice: Iacomo Antonio Somascho, 1602), which reads more like a straightforward defense of women and can be construed as an attempt, on the author’s part, to make amends for his earlier flagrantly anti-feminist position; see Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte,” 984–87. In fact, Passi’s later publication, the Fucina monstruosa delle sordidezze degli uomini (1603), can be regarded as a means to tone down some of his criticism of the female sex; the text is referenced in Giornale A (134). On the impetus behind male-authored defenses of women see Androniki Dialeti, “Defending Women, Negotiating Masculinity in Early Modern Italy,” The Historical Journal 54 (2011): 1–23. 58. See Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 55–57, as well as the discussion that follows on this topic, based on a document published by the Accademia de’ Ricovrati in 1729. 59. See, for instance, the meeting that took place on May 10, 1601; see Giornale A, 80. Another such example is the public discourse of June 7, 1604, on the definition and utility of poetry, lyric, epic, tragedy, and comedy according to the precepts of Aristotle and Horace; see Giornale A, 130.

Introduction 15 were less eagerly entertained in the more conservative confines of the university.60 As some scholars have pointed out, in the early decades of the sixteenth century Padua was well known as a center for the diffusion of reformist ideas in which the writings of Erasmus, for instance, were welcomed.61 Bearing in mind this tradition of openness to the avant-garde, then, it is not so surprising that a learned woman such as Miani could have found a niche inside one of Padua’s most prestigious academies. In spite of occasional figures such as Passi, it would be useful perhaps to envision the early modern Italian academy as one patriarchal institution that was not necessarily retrogressive in its perception of the female sex. Although female membership was scarce, women did on occasion attend meetings at various accademie on the peninsula, and the Ricovrati was no excep­ tion.62 Membership itself did not guarantee participation for women, since, more often than not, membership was understood as an honorary gesture. Two wellknown and equally exceptional cases were those of Laura Battiferri (1523–1589), who joined the Intronati of Siena and the Accademia degli Assorditi of her native Urbino around 1560, becoming the first female member of an Italian academy, and Isabella Andreini, who gained entry into the Accademia degli Intenti of Pavia as a bona fide member in 1601, around the same time Miani was active in Padua, Andreini’s native city. Aside from cultivating her own fama as a poet, playwright, and prima donna of the early modern stage, Andreini is known to have had an active role in the academy’s meetings and discussions.63 Such letterate, however, would remain a minority for decades to come.64 And even though the invitation 60. Notwithstanding this apparent freedom from censorship, figures such as Paolo Beni, Galileo Galilei, and Cesare Cremonini were ousted from the Ricovrati soon after its founding in 1599 on account of their perceived heterodoxy; see Maurizio Sangalli, Università, accademie, Gesuiti: Cultura e religione a Padova tra Cinque e Seicento (Trieste: LINT, 2001), 37–55, especially 47–51. It was within this academic environment that Paolo Beni, for instance, enthusiastically proposed (and later pub­ lished) his thoughts on Tasso as superior to the ancients, and indeed as “prince” among the moderns; so too his perspectives on language, which would go against those of the more conservative Accademia della Crusca. Eventually, Beni’s L’Anticrusca (1612) was banned following the orders of Cosimo II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (Sangalli, 53). On Beni’s Comparazione di Omero, Virgilio e Torquato (1607) see Maria Luisa Doglio, “Tasso ‘Principe della moderna poesia’ nei discorsi accademici di Paolo Beni,” in Formazione e fortuna del Tasso nella cultura della Serenissima, ed. Luciana Borsetto and Bianca Maria Da Rif (Venice: Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1997), 79–95. 61. On this subject see Massimo Firpo, Riforma protestante ed eresie nell’Italia del Cinquecento: Un profile storico (Rome: Laterza, 1993), esp. 15–16. 62. Finucci, Celinda, 5–6. 63. Andreini has been the subject of scholarly investigation for some time now. For a detailed sum­ mary of her life and works, along with pertinent bibliography, see Finucci’s Introduction to Mirtilla, A Pastoral, 1–42. 64. More than elsewhere on the peninsula, Graziosi observes, it was in Tuscany and the city of Naples that the polemical topic of women’s education surfaced in the years prior to the more liberal ad­ mission of women into learned academies and before the actual welcoming of women as stable or

16 Introduction was a late one compared to other earlier cases, the Ricovrati did offer membership to one noblewoman of exceptional talents. On February 11, 1669, the Venetian noblewoman Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684) was admitted as a bona fide member of the Ricovrati.65 She belonged to the family of Federico Cornaro, who had spearheaded the academy in 1599.66 Notably, Cornaro Piscopia was the first woman to receive a doctoral degree—she received her laurea in philosophy from the University of Padua in 1678, and her mentor, Carlo Rinaldini, was a Ricovrato.67 Cornaro Piscopia’s intellectual collaboration with the Ricovrati not only led to her university degree but also encouraged other academies to follow suit. As a result, this learned lady was courted by no less than six other academies in five different cities on the peninsula between 1669 and 1672.68 An educated woman’s participation at such gatherings could only reap the benefits of what academies were known to foster: intimate collaboration with established literary figures, cultural and intercultural exchanges facilitated by its inclusion of soci stranieri (foreigners), and, as Mangini points out, a particular interest in and in­ frequent participants of the Roman Arcadia, the first institution to actively engage with a pronounced female entourage; see “Arcadia femminile: Presenze e modelli,” Filologia e critica 17 (1992): 321–58, at 329; see also Graziosi’s “Revisiting Arcadia.” However, the Seicento does furnish another example similar to that of Miani in Isabetta Coreglia and her engagement with the Incauti academy of Naples. For a discussion of the Incauti’s celebration of Coreglia’s achievements see chapter 4 of Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama. An edition and translation by Alexandra Coller of Coreglia’s pastoral drama, La Dori, is in preparation for the Other Voice series. 65. See Giornale A, 150 and 270–71. Cornaro Piscopia was preceded by the Neapolitan Margherita Sarrocchi (1560–1617), whose admission to multiple academies in the early Seicento is otherwise unique; see Bettella, “Women and the Academies,” 103–4, and Virginia Cox, “Members, Muses, Mascots: Women and Italian Academies,” in The Italian Academies, 1525–1700: Networks of Culture, Innovation and Dissent, ed. Jane E. Everson, Denis V. Reidy, and Lisa Sampson (Cambridge: Legenda, 2016), 132–69, at 143–45. 66. The Cornaro family gave Venice no less than four of its Doges, nine cardinals, and Caterina di Cipro (1454– 1510), queen of Cyprus. 67. See Giornale A, 148 and Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 51. Padua’s academies do not appear to have admitted women as members until the late seventeenth century; see Rees, “Female-Authored Drama,” 46. As a point for comparison, the Sienese Accademia degli Intronati can serve as example of an especially progressive academy that regularly allowed noblewomen to participate in their socalled “veglie” or salon-type gatherings and encouraged women’s literary talents. On the Intronati and their female entourage see Alexandra Coller, “The Sienese Accademia degli Intronati and its Female Interlocutors,” The Italianist 26 (2006): 223–46; Diana Robin, Publishing Women: Salons, the Presses, and the Counter-Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); and Konrad Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen: Women, Politics, and Poetry in Sixteenth-Century Siena (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). On Cornaro Piscopia, see Labalme, “Nobile e donna: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia,” in Kohl, Saints, Women and Humanists, 163–67; Cox, “Members, Muses, Mascots”; and Bettella, “Women and the Academies.” 68. For an investigation of what these memberships entailed for Cornaro Piscopia, see Bettella, “Women and the Academies.”

Introduction 17 volvement with dramatic compositions.69 In some instances, this participation had more than just an auxiliary or perfunctory function. Such seems to have been the case for Miani, and later, for Cornaro Piscopia. Both Miani and Cornaro Piscopia were celebrated for their talents, and both were included in poetic anthologies alongside their male counterparts. Although little is extant of the latter’s oeuvre, we are fortunate enough to still have a good sample (although by no means a com­ plete one) of Miani’s. A milieu such as that of the accademia seems to have been the perfect place wherein that “other” voice could find an appreciative audience, respite from the traditional unenlightened view of male detractors, and refuge from stereotypical judgments.70 As some scholars have observed, the Ricovrati would set a trend that would be widely adopted in the Settecento, when the doors finally opened to include female members.71 Unlike most other female partici­ pants, however, both Miani and Cornaro Piscopia “produced culture” alongside their letterati counterparts well before women in academic circles—even while admitted as members—would be encouraged and recognized for doing so.72 69. See Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” 298. As Mangini explains, dramaturges were often members of more than one academy, and most of them belonged to academies founded in the north­ ern part of the peninsula (Venice, Vicenza, Verona, Brescia). There were roughly 250 academies founded in Italy in the sixteenth century, and that number would increase to nearly 600 in the next century. Benzoni offers a panoramic view from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, with Rome and Naples in the forefront boasting the highest number of academies: 177 in the former and 146 in the latter; during the same 200-year period, Venice claimed 121, while Padua had only 37—the numeric differences based largely on the size of each city’s population; see Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 12. The Ricovrati’s soci stranieri included a Scotsman and a Frenchman; the latter, Charles Patin (1633–1693), a professor of medicine at the University of Padua whose wife and daughters partici­ pated in academic gatherings, promoted the attendance of other learned ladies; see Riondato, “La fon­ dazione dell’Accademia dei Ricovrati,” 76; Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 44. See also Simone Testa’s recent monograph, Italian Academies and Their Networks, 1525–1700: From Local to Global (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); on Patin and the Ricovrati, see chapter 4 of Testa’s volume. On the Patin women as well as those who followed, see Lino Lazzarini, “La vita accademica dei ‘Ricovrati’ di Padova dal 1668 al 1684 e Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia,” in Atti e memorie dell’Accademia Patavina di scienze, lettere ed arti già Accademia dei Ricovrati 94 (1981–1982): 51–109. Bettella, cur­ rently at work on the Ricovrati’s female membership during the Seicento, claims that thanks to the efforts of Patin there were more than twenty French learned women accepted by the academy in the last decades of the seventeenth century; see “Women and the Academies,” 117n34. 70. This “other” voice included, of course, the promotion and support of unorthodox thinkers such as Galileo, Paolo Beni, and others. 71. See Graziosi, “Revisiting Arcadia,” 103–24, and Bettella, “Women and the Academies,” 114–15. 72. As Graziosi remarks in “Arcadia femminile,” some noblewomen had a more or less decorative role (such as the Neapolitan Beatrice Spinelli Carafa, among the first to be admitted into the Arcadia academy of Rome in 1691) and functioned as dedicatees of male-authored literary works rather than as producers of culture, for which see pp. 328 and 331; see also Cox, “Members, Muses, Mascots,” 132–69. The Assicurate of Siena, an all-female academy founded in 1654 under the auspices of the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere, was of course an exception to the rule. On this academy, likely

18 Introduction Although we do not have any indication as to the frequency or length of her actual presence, Miani enjoyed a certain amount of prestige with the local accademia, just as Marinella did in Venice, even if neither was recognized as a member; in both Marinella’s and Miani’s cases this connection might have been facilitated by family members who had membership status and who might have functioned as sponsors.73 Miani’s decision to dedicate her pastoral drama to a par­ ticular woman, Marietta Uberti Descalzi, was likely not a haphazard choice given that this lady’s father, Ottonello Descalzi, was one of the Ricovrati co-founders.74 The gesture could be interpreted as not only an astute one on the part of a female author eager to gain acclaim and support for her writing, but also as a way to pay tribute to this group of letterati who clearly encouraged and celebrated Miani’s literary prowess, judging by the honorary compositions that prefaced both her pastoral play and her tragedy.75 Equally significant were Miani’s contributions to two anthologies of poetry which included members of the Ricovrati and other prominent literary figures: Polinnia (1609) and the Gareggiamento poetico (1611), to which I shall shortly return. For now, I would like to offer a brief overview of a debate held at the Accademia dei Ricovrati, some decades after Miani’s time, on the topic of women’s education.

The Ricovrati on the Education of Women Framed by the historical specificity of the Enlightenment, these early eighteenthcentury episodes, which took place within the parameters of the Paduan accademia, attest to a still contentious notion—one that is documented as having been the first of its kind in Europe, see George McClure, Parlour Games and the Public Life of Women in Renaissance Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 119–58. 73. The same may be said for three women whose names appear in the Index to the Ricovrati’s Giornale A; this does seem indicative of their membership, although to what degree they participated in academic meetings is difficult to ascertain. What is known is that on September 14, 1684, Madames Roussereau, Des Houlieres de Chate, and Anne Le Fèvre d’Acier, all French women, were registered as having taken part in that particular meeting under the supervision of Count Gronsfeldt, the academy’s elected Prince at that time. Maggiolo lists each one of these ladies as bona fide members and gives dates for their entry into the academy; see I soci dell’Accademia Patavina, 90, 102–3, 284. In 1690 the Ricovrati welcomed Maria Silvaggia Borghini into its ranks, as is testified by an entry on April 17 of that year mentioning a sonnet she penned as a token of thanks; see Giornale A, 151. In 1699 the Ricovrati admitted Sophie Elizabeth Chérion, a painter and miniaturist as well as translator of Horace’s Odes; Chérion became a ‘Ricovrata’ that same year; see Maggiolo, I soci dell’Accademia Patavina, 69. 74. See Giornale A, in which Descalzi’s name is cited alongside that of Galileo Galilei, Cesare Cremonini, and other founding members who gathered at the home of Federico Cornaro on November 25, 1599, to discuss the laws that would govern the academy (4). 75. There are only three honorary pieces prefacing Amorosa speranza, and the identity of their authors remains anonymous. For Celinda, see notes 5–19 of Finucci’s edition (pp. 370–72), in which the au­ thors of the honorary verses prefacing Miani’s tragedy are identified.

Introduction 19 openly discussed in 1675, then again in the 1690s, although it is likely that the topic was at least alluded to much earlier.76 The debate represents a watershed moment in the history of the Ricovrati’s academy. It is thus pertinent not only for our understanding of the Ricovrati’s relationship to women, but also for our perception of their legacy, insofar as it gives the reader an opportunity to witness first hand how a topic such as that of women’s education became as important as this publication proves it to have been. Indeed, the subject was apparently the focus of a heated discussion that involved, significantly, female as well as male interlocutors. As Rebecca Messbarger observes, “a new critical age demanded that old questions, customs, and beliefs be reevaluated and put to the test of reason and dis­ interested scientific analysis . . . the woman question was primary among these.”77 The publication itself possesses the contours of a chronicle, and as such provides the modern reader with a rare encounter of (quasi-) historical value even if it may have been embellished prior to print: it consists of an introduction authored by the academy’s Prince, Antonio Vallisneri (who also played the role of judge in this debate), followed by six speeches, one of which is authored by a woman, Aretafila Savini de’ Rossi. It concludes with an oration in Latin “pro studiis mulierum,” in favor of women’s education, authored by the nine-year-old female prodigy, Maria Gaetana Agnesi. The compositions are testimony of at least one meeting that took place in the early part of the eighteenth century and was then published under the title Discorsi accademici di vari autori viventi intorno agli studi delle donne (Padua: Giovanni Manfrè, 1729). The Discorsi are dedicated to Elisabetta Cornaro Foscarini, a descendant of the renowned Elena Cornaro, and focus on whether or not women should be allowed to engage in university studies. As was the tradition in academic circles, the topic was argued in utramque partem, that is, according to all sides of the debate.78 Giovanni Antonio Volpi, the Ricovrato arguing against the education of women, makes clear from the beginning that his discourse is directed at the “vulgo donnesco” and not at the women in his presence, those women who, like Cornaro, attended the academy’s gatherings and contributed to its discussions, perhaps even to its publications (29). Not surprisingly, then, Volpi pits the “vulgo donnesco” against the few so-called “donne virili” (virile women) and “erudite zittelle” (learned spinsters), adding that marriage is incom­ patible with the love of knowledge (“amor di sapere,” 36). Following scripture, this Ricovrato proposes that (most) women are created to be in charge of the 76. In 1675, Giovan Tommaso di Colloredo, a Ricovrato, expands on the social constraints placed on women’s education, on the one hand, and the positive role of their presence in society and in its academies in particular, on the other; see Giornale A, 333–34, and Graziosi, “Revisiting Arcadia,” 106. 77. I cite from Messbarger’s introduction to the Ricovrati’s debate in the text’s English translation, The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy, ed. and trans. Rebecca Messbarger and Paula Findlen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 76. 78. Benzoni, “I Ricovrati nel ’600,” 54.

20 Introduction household and are therefore not suited to handle anything other than “la conoc­ chia e l’ago” (the distaff and needle, ibid.), a stereotypical stance used by detrac­ tors to argue against women’s advancement. As a consequence, admitting women into the university and its world would be tantamount to promoting chaos and disorder in society (39). What is unusual about this publication is that the detractor’s argument is supplemented by footnotes at the bottom of each page authored by the learned noblewoman, Aretafila Savini de’ Rossi, a native of Siena residing in Florence, a member of the all-female Sienese Academy of the Assicurate and a member of the Roman Academy of Arcadia.79 She is the recipient of Volpi’s discorso and is asked to give her comments in the form of a defense on behalf of her sex. Her criti­ cism consists of amendments, outright rebuttals, confutations, sarcastic rhetori­ cal questions aimed at weakening Volpi’s argument, corrections, and exclamatory remarks meant to detract from or question the plausibility of Volpi’s statements— and, overall, the footnotes read like a veritable voiceover which has the effect of pulling the reader in different directions while Volpi strives to make his case.80 In addition, the publication offers us her own full-length response to Volpi’s discorso, followed immediately by Vallisneri’s confession that he cannot form a decisive opinion on account of lingering doubts on both sides of the issue.81 In the end, however, Vallisneri does make a distinction, as Volpi does, between those women naturally inclined to learning (and in whom learning should be honed rather than arrested) and those not so inclined. Volpi is forced to admit as much in his second and last intervention, once his argument is thoroughly debunked by those speakers in favor of women’s learning, Savini de’ Rossi among them. Two of Savini de’ Rossi’s most memorable and persuasive points are that there is no correlation between the pursuit of knowledge and the loss of honor on a woman’s part, just as there is no correlation between the promotion of “disorder” and “chaos” and the pursuit of learning. Both theories are at the core of Volpi’s argument against women’s education, although both remain unfounded. In her apologia Savini de’ 79. Savini de’ Rossi (b. 1687) was a poet, painter, and the author of comedies and novellas now no longer extant. She became a member of the Roman Academy of Arcadia in 1712, and was also a member of the Florentine Academy of Design (on the Assicurate, see note 72). On Savini de’ Rossi, see Messbarger, Contest for Knowledge, 102–7; Savini de’ Rossi’s intervention in this debate earned her wide and long-lasting acclaim (Messbarger, 103). That this learned lady was a native of Siena was not without significance; for Siena’s particularly liberal stance with regard to women’s learning see Coller, “The Sienese Accademia degli Intronati,” and Eisenbichler, The Sword and the Pen. 80. For instance, at 30n5, Volpi’s “usanza” (custom) is corrected and turned into “abuso” (abuse) by Savini de’ Rossi. 81. As Paula Findlen notes, Vallisneri’s choice to sponsor and moderate this particular debate was likely tied to the fact that during that same period he was engaged in a collaborative relationship with the learned Milanese noblewoman, Clelia Borromeo; see Messbarger and Findlen, Contest for Knowledge, 118–19.

Introduction 21 Rossi turns Volpi’s main argument on its head when she recounts the story of a young peasant woman (“una vergine contadina,” 63) whose capacity for learning proved to be unparalleled; the example invalidates Volpi’s notion that nobility of blood is necessarily connected to a mind suitable for learning. Of note is that the example Savini de’ Rossi provides is grounded in recent history (as compared to Volpi’s exclusive reliance on ancient custom): the talents of this young woman of modest stock were “discovered” by Princess Violante of Tuscany, then Governor of Siena (1717–31). Nature, the apologist maintains, distributes her talents with­ out prejudice to gender, irrespective of material wealth and birth (54). As a matter of fact, the author argues, learned women are attracted to learned men and bound by a love rooted in the affinity of spirits (56). In reading this section of Savini de’ Rossi’s apologia one is reminded of two other female-authored examples from the sixteenth century. The first may be found in Giulia Bigolina’s prose romance, Urania (1550s), in which a young man’s love for his beloved’s mind (the eponymous heroine’s) is considered far superior to a love based on carnal desire and physical beauty. The second is the example we find in Maddalena Campiglia’s pastoral drama, Flori (1588); both Bigolina and Campiglia depict forms of heterosexual love grounded in spiritual rather than physical attraction.82 It has been suggested, moreover, that in her “idealized stag­ ing” of her fictional characters’ union, Campiglia may have been pointing to her own real-life “intellectual relationships”—that is, to those relationships she forged with her male literary peers, among them Torquato Tasso, Muzio Manfredi, and the play’s dedicatee, Curzio Gonzaga.83 Writing more than a century apart, and framing Miani’s lifetime, these women share a similar purpose, namely, to dis­ credit the firmly lodged (albeit misguided) belief that a union of minds can only take place between men, and to champion, instead, the idea that this can just as easily occur between a male and a female, thereby inviting the possibility that 82. Campiglia’s example remains the more strikingly original, since it is clear that her heroine’s mar­ riage will lead to nothing other than progeny resulting from intellectual pursuits. Cultivating this kind of love between a man and a woman rests on a number of precedents depicted in dialogue form—as found, for instance, in Book 4 of Baldassar Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1528), in which the theory is voiced by the poet Pietro Bembo, whose own dialogue, the Asolani (1505), can be listed among other early sixteenth-century models. Sperone Speroni’s Dialogo d’amore, composed in the 1530s and pub­ lished in 1542, also comes to mind. There is, as well, a female-authored dialogue on the subject: Tullia d’Aragona’s Dialogo dell’infinità d’amore (1547); as mentioned earlier, Bigolina herself appears in the dialogue “A ragionar d’amore” (1554–1555), in which she speaks in favor of love as a result of spiritual beauty. In this context, and based on a real-life encounter, an article by Meredith K. Ray is illuminat­ ing: “Textual Collaboration and Spiritual Partnership in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The Case of Ortensio Lando and Lucrezia Gonzaga,” Renaissance Quarterly 62 (2009): 694–747. 83. See Flori, ed. and introd. Virginia Cox and Lisa Sampson, trans. Virginia Cox (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 22 and 22n58, 27 and 27n70. The play bears two dedicatory letters, the first of which is addressed to Isabella Pallavicino Lupi, the second to Curzio Gonzaga.

22 Introduction women can safely be admitted into the arena of higher learning and the intel­ lectual communities that too often excluded the (active) participation of women. Savini de’ Rossi adds a practical element in favor of women’s education by appeal­ ing to its civic value: a mother’s ability to instruct her own children is a virtue in and of itself that can have positive, long-lasting effects on the broader society and future generations (58).84 The focus on women’s education as a means out of their implicit and ex­ plicit marginalization was of course not new. It found its roots as early as the mid-Cinquecento in Padua, in the fictional story of Bigolina’s Urania; barring any future discovery of an even earlier prototype, Bigolina’s feminist mini-trea­ tise would need to be recognized as the first of its kind authored by a woman.85 Similarly, Bigolina’s contemporary, Chiara Matraini (1515–ca. 1604), a poet from Lucca, lamented the lack of early training in women which would—if applied— result in their achieving “cose maravigliose” (marvelous things) in their practice of arts and letters.86 In her dialogue Il merito delle donne, Moderata Fonte had an all-female cast of interlocutors voice the same conviction: education as a first crucial step toward women’s emancipation. Savini de’ Rossi’s apologia therefore partook of a long line of female defenders of women’s right to an education. Of course, what distinguished Savini de’ Rossi’s participation in this querelle was the fact that her intervention, like that of Matraini in her epistolary remarks, was not embedded in any kind of fiction; rather, we can assume that this was a transcrip­ tion of a historically verifiable meeting or set of conversations (discorsi), one of which took place within the confines of the Ricovrati academy in Padua on June

84. In a sense, Savini de’ Rossi echoes what Francesco Barbaro claims in his “revolutionary” early fifteenth-century treatise, De re uxoria, wherein the Venetian humanist champions the importance of the wife/mother and her contribution to the household, most especially in her rearing of offspring, her teachings, and consequently her profound influence on the formation of their character. See Margaret L. King’s valuable introduction to her edition and translation of Barbaro’s text, The Wealth of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual (Toronto: Iter Academic Press; Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2015), 1–63; the treatise’s last section “on the education of chil­ dren” begins at 119. Importantly, while Barbaro does not engage with women’s education per se, he is nevertheless a pioneer in inviting such discussion in the affirmative (King, 60). 85. Finucci, Urania: A Romance, 1 and 26–27. 86. For a more detailed discussion of women and education during the Renaissance as well as how this topic surfaced in dramatic compositions, specifically in the comic genre, see chapter 1 of Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 19–41. The letter penned by Matraini is cited in Giovanna Rabitti, “Le lettere di Chiara Matraini tra pubblico e privato,” in Per Lettera: La scrittura epistolare femminile tra archivio e tipografia, secoli XV–XVII, ed. Gabriella Zarri (Rome: Viella, 1999), 209–34, at 231. The entire letter may be read in Chiara Matraini, Le opere in prosa e poesie, ed. Anna Mario (Perugia: Aguaplano, 2017), 131–34.

Introduction 23 16, 1723—the precise date on which this topic was put forward for debate by the academy’s Prince.87 Therefore, whether couched in the context of a melodrama, a pastoral play, or a discorso, Bigolina, Miani, and Savini de’ Rossi share a key rhetorical strategy in their rebuttal of anti-feminist positions: they successfully expose men’s faulty reasoning and equally faulty conclusions when they subject their arguments to a careful reassessment of the facts (be they mythological, historical, biological, or theological), or indeed when it is evident that those “facts” cannot be sustained by the most elementary form of logic. As a careful reading of Miani’s Amorosa speranza demonstrates, there too a number of men’s stereotypical opinions with regard to the female sex are debunked and shown to more properly characterize men themselves. Together with Savini de’ Rossi, Bigolina, and others, Miani pin­ points “custom” and “law” (both enacted by men) as early modern society’s major culprits sustaining and perpetuating norms damaging to the female sex.88 Some of the strategies and the novelties that inform how Miani’s female protagonists set out to disabuse men of their misconceptions and redress the wrongful acts perpetrated against the pastoral world’s female population will be discussed below when we turn to a detailed analysis of this fascinating drama’s structure and themes.

Miani among the “Illustrious and Famous Poets of Italy”: Contributions to Polinnia (1609) and the Gareggiamento poetico (1611) It has been suggested that Miani’s verse output was in fact far greater than that which remains extant. Indeed, she may have produced at least one volume of po­ etry in the course of her literary career, along with one or two additional dramatic works. Regrettably, only a fraction of this output remains. Her verse contributions to Polinnia and the Gareggiamento poetico are, therefore, crucial in helping mod­ ern readers understand this Paduan letterata’s place within the republic of letters

87. See the Accademia de’ Ricovrati’s Discorsi accademici, Introduzione, “Se le Donne si debbano ammettere allo Studio delle Scienze e delle Arti nobili” (1). 88. This is one of the key arguments used by Fonte in Merito delle donne, published posthumously in 1600, just a few years prior to Amorosa speranza (see Book 1). Roughly five decades earlier, in his “defense of women,” Domenico Bruni da Pistoia tackles the cause of women’s exclusion and perceived inferiority by making this point a pivotal part of his thesis; his 1552 Difese delle donne is cited in Virginia Cox, “The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995): 513–81, at 519. Four centuries later, that same argument is unearthed and questioned by Virginia Woolf in her seminal essay, A Room of One’s Own (1929). See Martin Puchner, ed., The Norton Anthology of World Literature, shorter 3rd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 2:1085–1117, at 1108.

24 Introduction of her time.89 For this reason, the context and placement of her poetic composi­ tions in both of these published anthologies—alongside those of literary icons—is of special interest, perhaps even more significant than our appraisal of the poems themselves. Although Miani’s appearance there is limited to just one madrigal, it is with respect to the later of the two volumes, the Gareggiamento poetico, that the importance of the positioning of her poetry becomes especially apparent: her verses are set alongside those of Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, Isabella Andreini, and Giambattista Marino—to name just a few of the literary luminar­ ies who populated the landscape of this voluminous publication. It is within this coterie that Miani was allowed access and within which she was able to showcase her talents as poet. It is also likely that she might not have been allowed even this meager inclusion had she not already proven her worth by means of other venues, including but not limited to her dramatic texts. There is, notably, a third anthology of poetry which includes a madrigal authored by Miani. It is a collection of religious verse edited by the Veronese musician and dramaturge, Paolo Bozi, and compiled and commissioned by the Venetian patrician, Leonardo Sanudo. The Vita, attioni, miracoli, morte, resurrettione, et ascensione di Dio humanato (Venice: Santo Grillo e Fratelli, 1614) is noteworthy for its inclusion of verse compositions by twelve women poets, some of whom, as Virginia Cox remarks, are scarcely known.90 I will have a brief look at the poem penned by Miani for this collection shortly.

Polinnia (1609) Let us first examine Miani’s place in Polinnia, published in 1609 by Francesco Bolzetta, the Ricovrati’s official publisher and one of Padua’s most famous book­ sellers. We may recall that Bolzetta, who in his dedicatory letter boasts of having compiled Polinnia’s honorary verses himself, was also the one who ushered our letterata’s pastoral drama and tragedy into print. Polinnia is not reserved for Ricovrati members: few of them appear in this collection. Rather, as the frontispiece announces (Figure 2), the compositions are 89. Polinnia (Padua: Francesco Bolzetta, 1609); Carlo Fiamma, ed., Il Gareggiamento poetico del Confuso Accademico Ordito (Venice: Barezzo Barezzi, 1611). All references hereafter come from these editions. 90. Among these scarcely known women we find, for instance, Laura Grossi Sacchi (6v), Gieronima Castagna Malatesta (10v), Lisabetta dalla Valle Cosentina (16v), Ginevra Abiosa Maggi (34r), Ventura Cavalli (38r), Francesca Buffalina (51v), Margarita Malescotti (52v), and Ippolita Benigni Manfredi (59v), wife of Muzio Manfredi. I have consulted the copy held in the General Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and, although my space here is limited, I believe this collection of poetry is worthy of a separate study, one that focuses on the women writers included in it, alongside their male counterparts. See also Virginia Cox, Lyric Poetry by Women of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 257.

Introduction 25

Figure 2. Frontispiece of Polinnia (Padua: Francesco Bolzetta, 1609). Courtesy of the Museo Civico di Padova. the product of “autori diversi” (various authors). The collection’s title is worth a moment’s pause. The Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily states that Polyhymnia (Polinnia in its Italianized form) “brings distinction to writers whose works have

26 Introduction won for them immortal fame.”91 A fitting choice, perhaps, for drawing attention to an anthology that consists of compositions by some well-known and other far less well-known “autori diversi.” According to the note addressed to the reader, the authors appear in alphabetical order so as to preclude any “rivalry” which precedence might invite.92 Natives of Padua and other cities of the Veneto re­ gion are invited to participate, although not all are professional letterati; some appear with abbreviated first and last names, while others are unidentifiable, ap­ pearing only with their first and last name initials, signaling their status as autori incerti. Among the more notable letterati are the Venetian Angelo Ingegneri and the Vicentine dramatist Lodovico Aleardi, both members of the Accademia Olimpica.93 All are called upon to pay tribute to a member of one of Venice’s founding families: the Venetian nobleman Tommaso Contarini, Count of Zaffo (1562–1618).94 Tommaso had served as podestà of Padua from 1607 to 1609, and the various verse compositions, written in both the vernacular and in Latin, rec­ ognize his talents as a writer and as a warrior. Ingegneri sets the stage for what follows in the volume’s prefatory sonnet. A number of the collection’s sonnets focus on Padua as a “new” and “modern” Athens, one that regrets the departure of her protector. Aside from their now former governor’s prowess in letters and arms, the authors of these honorary verses also remember that Tommaso ruled with “fairness/justice” (giustizia) and “compassion” (pietà). These attributes are reiterated in Miani’s honorary verses, as is the epithet “l’Italica Atene,” which she employs to refer to her native city. The collection, as its title implies, boasts a large number of authorial voices and a variety of poetic forms: sonnets, madrigals, canzoni, a seventy-five stanza poem in sesta rima, and even one eclogue (with Tirsi and Dafne as interlocu­ tors). Several of the compositions, including an idyll, are penned by Francesco Contarini, a relative of Tommaso’s, and the author of the pastoral drama Miani had emulated. It is in this anthology that Miani’s inclusion is more prominent: she contributes one canzone, two madrigals, and a sonnet.95 Of interest is that while the lengthier canzone has Tommaso as her subject, Miani includes his wife, Maria 91. See Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History, vol. 2: Books II.35–IV.58, trans. C. H. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 365. 92. Alphabetical order meant according to the author’s first rather than last name. For instance, Francesco Contarini’s contributions are placed before those of Gasparo Bonifaccio. 93. Aleardi was the author of a handful of tragedies, favole boscherecce, and a precursor of the favola per musica or melodrama; see Alberto Asor Rosa’s entry on Aleardi in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (henceforth cited as “DBI”), vol. 2 (1960), . 94. See Gino Benzoni’s entry on Contarini in the DBI, vol. 28 (1983), . 95. All four compositions, including Ingegneri’s prefacing sonnet and Contarini’s canzone, are tran­ scribed in this volume’s Appendix.

Introduction 27 d’Andrea Bembo, as the addressee and subject of her two madrigals and sonnet. It is noteworthy that Miani is allowed to contribute a canzone—hers features as the last of five canzoni included in the volume, one of which is authored by Francesco Contarini, her rival in another genre. That said, the canzoni by Contarini and Miani reflect one another far more than they do the other three specimens in that form, which show distinctly different compositional styles. Taking into considera­ tion the placement of Contarini’s and Miani’s canzoni in the collection, Miani’s being the final one in that sequence, we can perhaps hypothesize that there may have been a certain amount of competitive energy at work here. Whatever the case, a number of elements signal a tenzone or competition between these two po­ ets of different genders, who frequented the same academic milieu and had other publications in common. Whether or not their compositions were circulated in manuscript prior to being published, or to what extent the authors collaborated with each other, we cannot know. The impression conveyed when Contarini’s and Miani’s contributions are read side by side is that the overlaps, differences, and echoes created must be taken into consideration, as all of these factors seem to imply that her verses are worthy of comparison with his, and vice versa. Let us take a moment to briefly parse these two canzoni. Contarini’s canzone consists of eight strophes of eleven lines each and a four-line congedo according to the following rhyme scheme: abCcbAaDdEE + DdEE96 with concatenatio;97 Miani’s canzone (Figure 3) is more compact, with only five strophes, each of eleven lines, the same length as Contarini’s—a charac­ teristic that distinguishes both from the other canzoni in the collection.98 All of their stanzas end with a rima baciata (two consecutively rhymed lines), one of the emblematic features of the Petrarchan canzone form. On the other hand, Miani’s farewell address consists of five lines, and her canzone is composed according to the following, very different, rhyme scheme: ABCABCDEeDD + DEeDD without concatenatio. There is also a notable difference in the number of long and short lines employed in each of their stanzas: Contarini’s settenari and hendecasyllabic 96. In the analyses of the poems that follow, upper-case letters are used to represent eleven-syllable lines (hendecasyllables) and lower-case letters to represent seven-syllable lines (settenari). 97. The term concatenatio refers to the use of the same rhyme in the last line of the strophe’s first part (piede) and the first line of its second part (sirma); see, for example, Contarini’s first stanza, ll. 6–7 (l’ale / quale). 98. Two other canzoni, one in sesta rima and the other in a longer fifteen-line stanza, are authored by “Bald. B. Giureconsulto,” that is, Baldassare Bonifacio (1585–1659), a jurist, originally from Crema, and the archdeacon of Treviso. Bonifacio was the founder of the Accademia dei Nobili Veneziani of Padua, and a member of several other academies, including the Incogniti (Venice), Filarmonici (Bologna), Olimpici (Vicenza), and Umoristi (Rome). See Lovanio Rossi’s entry on Bonifacio in the DBI, vol. 12 (1971), , and Gino Benzoni, “Tanto per introdurre,” Studi veneziani 60 (2010): 375–90. Another canzone in sesta rima is authored by Lodovico Aleardi.

28 Introduction lines are almost equally distributed, whereas Miani takes a more conservative stance with the majority of her lines drawing on the longer hendecasyllables, giv­ ing the whole a weightier, more reflective, elegiac tone. As we might expect, given their respective backgrounds as playwrights, both Contarini and Miani employ the imperative mode for dramatic effect,99 although, again, her use of this stylistic device is more reserved. In his canzone, Contarini capitalizes on the use of internal rhyme, creating, as Miani does using different means, an emphasis on the aural aspect of his poetry; nearly every stanza displays at least one such example. This self-consciously man­ nerist, virtuosic performance, relying heavily on artifice and wordplay, culminates with the term “fregi,” which appears seven times in his canzone’s final two stanzas (along with other internal rhymes), just before the farewell address.100 “Fregi” (etchings) are an allusion to the art of carving, thus pointing to the act of poetry in the making, the insistent anaphora having the effect of an artist’s chisel.101 The allusion to the plastic arts is, in turn, confirmed by the envoy’s conceit of the poet as a “rozzo Pittor” (coarse painter) whose poem accounts for little more than a “shadow” of its subject’s worth: “ciò ch’io disegno è un ombra” (l. 2). Another salient term, also targeted for the creation of internal rhyme, is “virtù.” That term appears three times in stanza 8. Subsequently, in Miani’s canzone, both fregi and virtù reappear using the fashionable device of rapportatio:102 “Rara virtù degna d’eterni fregi / Al bell’animo suo sola conforme” (stanza 2, ll. 6–7). In general, our letterata’s pen is far more tempered, relying more often on enjambment than on elaborate artifice or internal rhyme, of which she makes relatively scant use. Though rapportatio occurs rather frequently in Contarini’s canzone, reflecting his manneristic tendency, Miani is more restrained in her experimentation with this particular poetic device. And yet three such instances are present in her stanza 4; two are examples of extended rapportatio. In fact, that particular stanza showcases a number of stylistic maneuvers: internal rhyme (ll. 2, 3, 9; 9–10), polysyndeton (ll. 4–5), and rapportatio coupled with zeugma (ll. 9–11). In a sense, that strophe may be considered the canzone’s finale, given that the next strophe (stanza 5) as well as the congedo (stanza 6) bemoan the poet’s inability to say anything more on the subject. At this same juncture in his canzone’s sequence, Contarini skill­ fully deploys the ineffability topos (stanza 8), enlisting hyperbolic metaphors (e.g. “foss’io pur’ Argo,” l. 3), while Miani simply admits defeat. The two hypothetical 99. See, for instance, their respective opening stanzas (Appendix). 100. Another example is “Amor,” which appears six times from the fourth to the sixth stanza. 101. The term “fregi” occurs eight times in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, while its singular form, “fregio” (ornament), occurs nine times. 102. The poetic device rapportatio was made popular by post-Petrarchan poets (such as the Venetian Domenico Venier, whose salon included the poet courtesan, Veronica Franco), and refers to a reorder­ ing of two or more parallel segments within which cognate grammatical elements are juxtaposed.

Figure 3. Polinnia, verses by Valeria Miani, unnumbered page.

Introduction 29

30 Introduction “if ” clauses that frame the entire canzone, appearing in the first line of the first strophe and in the congedo (l. 4), prepare for this confession; indeed, her sugges­ tion that Tommaso’s praises are best sung by others (“varia vena,” stanza 5, l. 11) is emphasized in the envoy’s concluding two lines wherein Francesco’s emblematic “fregio” (ornament) makes a second cameo appearance: Ma se non hai le gemme, e gl’ori, e gl’ostri, Ti sian fregio non vil tuoi puri inchiostri. (Polinnia, canzone, congedo, ll. 4–5, unnumbered page, emphasis mine) Arguably, these concluding lines self-consciously distance Miani’s more reserved poetic pen from the excessive artifice employed by her rival, Francesco Contarini, in his canzone. As mentioned earlier, the one composition here by Miani that is not includ­ ed in Luisa Bergalli’s 1726 anthology is the sonnet she penned for Polinnia. That sonnet represents an interesting, multi-layered specimen. In her choice of metri­ cal scheme, Miani does not depart from the standard ABBA ABBA CDC DCD, which is also the scheme Contarini employs in all four of his sonnets. Miani’s poem holds pride of place, however, since her verses—rather than those of any of her male counterparts—mark the end of the sequence of poems in the vernacular, just as Ingegneri’s marked its beginning.103 In the sonnet’s first quatrain, the poet expresses her own fear of inadequacy as she points out that Apollo and the Muses have by now been invoked several times by “mille spirti canori,” an allusion to all those poets whose honorary verses precede her own;104 not least among these are Contarini’s contributions, whose canzone’s first stanza invocation to Apollo and the Muses is mimicked in this sonnet’s first stanza. 103. Intriguingly, in a very rare and surprisingly understudied example of verse compiled by a woman writer, the poems composed by the collection’s editor and single female contributor (Veronica Franco) appear last in a sequence of all-male contributions. Commemorating the death of the Venetian pa­ trician Estore Martinengo, the volume is entitled Rime di diversi eccellentissimi auttori nella morte dell’illustre sign. Estor Martinengo Conte di Malpaga. Raccolte, et mandate all’illustre, et valoroso colonnello il s. Francesco Martinengo, suo fratello, conte di Malpaga, dalla signora Veronica Franco ([Venice]: n.p. [1575?]). See Courtney Quaintance, Textual Masculinity and the Exchange of Women in Renaissance Venice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 209n23 and 157–58; for a more de­ tailed discussion of this collection, see Margaret F. Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 91–97. It should be noted that, unlike Polinnia, Franco’s volume is limited to one verse form, the sonnet, and the volume’s contributors do not appear according to alphabetical order; furthermore, since she was in charge of the compilation, organization, and distribution of the poems in the volume, Franco included nine of her own poems and assigned only two each to the remaining eleven contributors. 104. The use of many previous invocations is a detail reinforced by the presence and repetition of “hor che” (now that) three times, specifically, at the beginning of her sonnet’s quatrains.

Introduction 31 What is remarkable is that with her two madrigals and one sonnet the main subject of the collection’s panegyric (Tommaso Contarini) is elegantly, albeit de­ liberately, cast aside. By claiming that she does not have what it takes to write more on this “lofty subject” (“alto soggetto”),105 Miani shortcircuits the collection’s com­ mon goal and ends the entire sequence of vernacular verse with praise for another figure—Contarini’s consort.106 That “other” is the addressee of her madrigals, and continues to be the subject of Miani’s only extant sonnet. Especially pronounced is the volta in the sestet’s first line, as Miani’s pen literally turns to an “other” just as the words themselves declare, as if the entire composition begins anew: E a te mi volgo, a te che vai felice, O Donna, ad abbelir d’Adria le sponde. Anzi o Diva de l’acque habitatrice. (Polinnia, sonnet, ll. 9–11, unnumbered page) The poet thus beckons a new interlocutor, and so a new figure becomes the object of her encomium—the anaphora coupled with alliteration that are particularly striking here, along with the repetition of the stressed pronoun “a te,” all serve to underscore the sestet’s rather dramatic break with the preceding octave, and indeed with the entire collection, leaving behind one subject in order to focus on a worthier one—a stance already implicit in Miani’s two preceding compositions, and a new perspective from which the poet seems to take delight. In this final con­ tribution to the collection, Miani’s addressee, solemnly invoked with the vocative “O Donna” of the first tercet’s second line, then reconfigured onto a higher plane with “O Diva de l’acque habitatrice” of that tercet’s last line, gives the impres­ sion that the podestaressa’s identity has been synecdochically conflated with the Venetian laguna, the Contarini stronghold.107 In tune with this interpretation is, in fact, the main thrust of the preced­ ing two compositions, both in madrigal form, which convey the idea that the Contarini clan derives its power from her, the “Illustrissima Signora Podestaressa,” to whom all of these final poems in the vernacular are addressed; she is the “pianta chiara e feconda,” the source—as described in that first madrigal’s incipit line— from which Venice’s “illustri eroi” (illustrious heroes) derive their existence.108 Moreover, in the second madrigal dedicated to the podestaressa, that notion is 105. Polinnia, unnumbered page, Miani’s canzone, stanza 5, l. 2. 106. It is possible that as the volume’s only female contributor, Miani may have been chosen for this particular task by virtue of her sex, in keeping with decorum. 107. In that tercet, Adria is a synonym for Venice. 108. Miani’s metaphor, “pianta feconda,” recalls the one used by Bolzetta in his dedicatory letter to Tommaso Contarini, in which he refers to the source from which his dedicatee derives all of his virtù as a “feconda radice.” The virtù to which he refers, Bolzetta emphasizes, are those which make Tommaso worthy of the title of podestà (Polinnia, unnumbered page, dedicatory letter).

32 Introduction reinforced with the suggestion that Tommaso’s own “pregi illustri” (illustrious merits) are owed, in no small part, to his consort’s virtuti—assets which hyperbol­ ically embellish the entire world. I should also clarify that virtuti points beyond the generic virtues; rather, it is a term that may be used with its Latin etymology in mind, to mean “courage,” “manliness,” “power,” “fortitude.” Whereas the begin­ ning of the poem conveys a sense of equal greatness between husband and wife (“quanti . . . tante”), the concluding lines compare him to dusk, the shadowy part of the day when the sun’s rays plunge into the sea (along with his glories), while she is portrayed as the “brighter dawn” (“più luminosa Aurora”) from whence all the elements re-emerge. Miani’s use of the sun’s rays as a metaphor for Tommaso’s glories harks back to the same metaphor used by Contarini in his last honor­ ary sonnet; there, however, the subject’s virtues are equal to the sun’s bright rays which bear his fame (fama): “ove la fama / Spiegherà chiaro Sole i raggi suoi” (ll. 10–11).109 In Miani’s verses, by contrast, an undeniable tension is posited between the merits of the wife and those of her husband, as is corroborated by the rhyme scheme’s reliance on the possessive adjectives set in opposition to one another: “merti tuoi” (your merits) and “raggi suoi” (his rays). In order for others to fully appreciate her husband’s greatness, then, as Miani’s verses insist, the podestaressa’s presence—and by extension, her virtuti—is paramount. This notion is fur­ ther underlined by the second madrigal’s division into two subtly distinct parts, as reflected in its rhyme scheme: ABCBCDdeE. The second part, cited below, is syntactically composed of one uninterrupted full sentence which is, nevertheless, internally divided by a first zeugma relying on the verb “promette” (promise), and a second zeugma relying on the verb “trae” (derive, extract). The two verbs, promette and trae, function as signposts of the intrinsic division between the two par­ ties described: the former refers to the husband’s fading virtues with the fading light of day, while the latter refers to the effect the wife will have on the universe as her virtues are placed in alignment with the rising sun. Finally, the two settenari in sequence have the effect of preparing for the climactic closing, underscored by the poem’s strong rapportatio and its cascading nouns: E se nel tramontar di questo giorno Immergendo nel Mare i raggi suoi Promette, a noi più luminosa Aurora Da tue virtuti ancora Ne trae gloria e onore

109. In that context, the phrase “onori tuoi” (i.e. Tommaso’s) is in rhyme with “raggi suoi” (i.e. the sun’s); the latter phrase, in fact, matches Miani’s rhyme exactly, although to a different end. Contarini’s three sonnets praising Tommaso, the second and third of which are alluded to in what follows, are all transcribed in the Appendix.

Introduction 33 Il Mare, il Mondo, la Natura, e Amore.110 (Polinnia, madrigal #2, ll. 4–9, unnumbered page, emphasis mine) But the verses also convey important parallels between the poet and her new sub­ ject. For instance, the metaphor “pianta . . . feconda,” used to describe Maria in the first madrigal, is phonetically recalled in the last composition with the metaphor “aure seconde,” terms that allude to the poet’s verses, verses she hopes will keep her lady company in her voyage away from Padua on a ship that is metaphori­ cally linked to the poet’s heart; thus, the two feminine figures, Maria and Valeria, are aligned and intertwined as if by common purpose. Orchestrated by means of grammatical and aural similarities, this alignment outlines and establishes a dominant feminine aura. The disparity and distance felt at the beginning of Miani’s only extant son­ net, then, when the poet expresses her insecurity and her hesitation at the pros­ pect of being placed alongside her male counterparts (“Io che d’ir’ lor dispero a lato”),111 is completely reversed in the final part of the composition as the poet effectively redirects the desire that beckons her (“m’appelle”) toward the harmony, comfort, and pleasure she hopes to draw forth and to offer her addressee as a re­ sult of their “affectionate” proximity—an affection encapsulated in the term “teco” (with you), which falls precisely in the middle of the second line, at the very center of her final tercet. At the same time, the ease with which such a union (of souls?) is envisioned is expressed through the smooth, forward-flowing movement of the alliterative concorso di vocali, on the one hand, and the equally rich soundscape formed by the sibilant consonants, on the other, as featured in the final tercet’s opening line, bestowing gravity and grandeur on Miani’s last words: Deh sianti i miei sospir aure seconde, Nave il cor mio; teco solcar ben lice Dove argini ha l’onor d’affetto l’onde. (Polinnia, sonnet, ll. 12–14, unnumbered page, emphasis mine)112 The chiastic structure of the sonnet’s two tercets (CDC/DCD), along with the final line’s zeugma, reinforce a sense of harmony already present, suggesting a veritable “embrace” between the two female figures whose lives cross by virtue of Miani’s lyric virtuosity; thus, structure and content merge as the affinity between 110. A similar arrangement of nouns (“Scorgonsi uniti e Terra, e Mare, e Cielo,” l. 6) appears in Ercole Manzoni’s madrigal composition praising the Venetian Doge, Marin Grimani; see Gareggiamento poetico, IV, 60v. More will be said about Manzoni in the following pages. 111. Through the positioning of “io” (I) and “lor” (them) an implicit distance is conveyed, even a subtle opposition, between the presumably collaborating parties who make up Polinnia’s content. 112. This tercet’s opening line may be compared to Contarini’s “Fregi, deh siate voi fregi a voi stessi” (Polinnia, canzone, stanza 7, l. 10, unnumbered page).

34 Introduction poet and subject is conveyed through the meaning and the position of her verses, an affinity which is personalized through the presence of terms such as “cor mio” (my heart) and “affetto” (affection). It is perhaps not too audacious to claim what the poem itself seems to encourage, that is, the implication that the spirit of “sis­ terhood” introduced in the very first line of the poem, with the invocation of Apollo and his sisters, alludes not only to the Muses and women poets in general, but also to the women who form an integral part of the final sequence of this sonnet. This imagery places emphasis on the feminine presence that dominates all three of Miani’s last compositions. Indeed, the author and her subject are brought together as stars in a constellation, as the rhyme suggests: “sorelle / belle / stelle,” as two “beautiful stars” in the sky. Interestingly, Miani’s last rhyme word in this sequence, “stelle,” appears to be in dialogue with Contarini’s second sonnet, in which the same term is used metaphorically to refer to the collection’s verse com­ positions, “questi carmi” (these songs), which are in turn compared to an array of “stelle in un vago Ciel di lodi ardenti” (first quatrain, l. 4), “stars in a bright sky of ardent praises.” One may argue that the beauty of Miani’s verses relies on an often emphatic aural or musical element, but she actually makes an almost equally powerful ap­ peal to the reader’s eyes by means of her verses’ positioning, her carefully chosen words, and through the mental imagery this display encourages. The metapoetic segment of her sonnet’s octave, with its reference to her predecessors’ “stile can­ tando,” is emphasized in these final compositions—albeit in favor of an alternative “lofty subject.”113 Whatever the reader decides is the source of Miani’s lyric prow­ ess, which may vary depending on one’s individual response to her poetry, we are made to pause. If we do so, we can then recognize, for instance, that Miani’s “aure seconde” is modeled on Petrarch’s sonnet 180 (6), while her “sponde / sec­ onde / onde” create a flashback to Contarini’s use of this same rhyme in his first sonnet’s sestet (onde / s’asconde / sponde) and in his canzone’s internal rhyme extravaganza (sponde / altronde / onde / onde). In a similar fashion, our author’s choice of words invites the reader to cast a retrospective glance at her own canzo­ ne’s final stanza, written in honor of Tommaso, and the rhyme scheme presented there in ll. 3 and 6: corrisponde / confonde. By doing so, we can then appreciate how the narrative corroborates Miani’s deft reworking of the subject matter and the steps she takes to add a protofeminist spin to an exclusively male-centered text: the husband’s and the wife’s virtù may be said to “correspond” or “coincide” with one another; indeed, one may very well mistake one for the other, an idea implicit in the term “confonde.” On closer examination, however, that reading is problematized by the poet herself through her choice of rhyme; the idea of 113. In her first address to the podestaressa, Miani employs the same term (“cantando”), emphasizing the auditory qualities of her composition while also calling attention to the lyric skills needed to sing the praises of her new subject: “Chi fia che i pregi tuoi / Possa, cantando, celebrar in rime?” (Polinnia, madrigal #1, ll. 5–6, unnumbered page).

Introduction 35 equal worth based on her subjects’ individual virtù remains, therefore, more am­ biguous than it may at first sight appear. In the single composition reserved for Tommaso, the collection’s prized subject seems to suddenly fall into the realm of a “soggetto / imperfetto”; the implication of this precise pairing, a maneuver that confirms our poet’s finezza (subtlety), is difficult to ignore.114 The enjambment of lines 5 and 6 (“è imperfetto / Il suo lume”) have the effect of further elucidation even as the actual subject of this line is the poet’s own creative energy. Ultimately, the poet’s admission that “il poter al voler non corrisponde” (l. 3) drives the point home. It is such a reading that can then furnish a plausible pretext for, and might also illuminate, Miani’s impetus to continue her narrative of the Contarini clan by switching gears and delivering three additional compositions all focused on the Contarini matriarch, Maria d’Andrea Bembo. This remarkable step not only adds a protofeminist slant to the volume, it also notably gives our Paduan letterata the opportunity to display her skills as she engages with a variety of metrical forms rather than being limited to and represented by a single form.115 I have highlighted some of the ways in which Miani’s compositions are in dialogue with Francesco Contarini’s and vice versa. While Miani asserts her own distinct voice, she also insists on the confluence between a male and a female lyric pen, arguably in order to heighten her own prestige. On the other hand, Miani seems keen to create links between herself and past or contemporary female poets, especially those who had acquired a certain amount of celebrity by virtue of their pen. For instance, the rhyme scheme she employs for her canzone in this volume replicates almost exactly the one used by Vittoria Colonna (1490/92–1547) in her amorous verse canzone, “Mentre la nave mia, longe dal porto,” one of the latter’s rare contributions to this verse form, which could have served as an inspirational, albeit chronologically and thematically distant, model.116 By the same token, in her congedo, Miani creates an interesting echo that leads us to a contemporary female figure. While the juxtaposed consonant-rich inclusive rhyme ostri/inchiostri may have been modeled on Petrarch’s sonnet 309 (ll. 4, 5, 8), that same rhyme is present in the incipit of a late sixteenth-century canzone (ll. 1, 4) by the Lucchese poet, Leonora Bernardi (1559–1616).117 Bernardi’s chiostri/inchiostri is closer in meaning to Miani’s verses. Moreover, Miani’s farewell address echoes Bernardi’s in its use of the hypothetical “if ” clause as well as in its inclusion of the adjective “povera” 114. The phrase “finezza dell’artificio loro” is used by Bolzetta in his dedicatory letter to refer to the ingenuity on display in the collection’s various compositions. 115. Many of the volume’s contributors are limited to one metrical form; such is the case, for instance, of Angelo Ingegneri (two sonnets), Lodovico Aleardi (one canzone), and Michelangelo Angelico (one sonnet). Angelico, a Vicentine and a member of the Accademia Olimpica, was also a dramatist; his sonnet composition immediately precedes Miani’s contributions. Along with Ingegneri, Angelico contributes verse to the Gareggiamento poetico. 116. Colonna’s canzone is transcribed, translated, and analyzed by Cox in Lyric Poetry, 141–45. 117. For a transcription, translation, and analysis of Bernardi’s canzone see Cox, Lyric Poetry, 244–48.

36 Introduction (Bernardi’s “poverella”), which is used to describe their respective compositions as reflective of the poet’s humble efforts, a rhetorical gesture contradicted by the skill displayed.118 In Miani’s case, the congedo itself attests to that contradiction with its controlled but copious deployment of stylistic devices: the grammatical rhyme of “vede / chiede” (coupled with the internal near-rhyme of “intende”), followed by the assonance/consonance present in the rich rhyme pattern of the nouns “ori / os­ tri / inchiostri,” combined with the penultimate line’s polysyndeton. Another case in which gender and imitation seem to be at work may be found in Miani’s final contribution to Polinnia, in which the invocation “O Donna . . . o Diva,” together with the rhyming of belle / stelle, referenced earlier, are terms that echo the Petrarchan sonnets 157 (ll. 7; 10, 13) and 218 (ll. 1,4); notably, in Petrarch’s sonnet 218, the poem’s primary point of reference is, as in Miani’s, the presence of certain “leggiadre donne et belle.”119 But Miani’s “O Donna / o Diva” actually presents us with an even more enticing genealogy, namely, two female poets, a predecessor and a contemporary. Just as here, the pairing of donna / diva occurs in the vocative voice in the opening line of a sonnet praising Eleonora of Toledo, consort of Cosimo I, composed by one of the previous generation’s most well-known female poets, Tullia d’Aragona (ca. 1510–1556). After D’Aragona, and roughly around the same time that Miani would have been presumably at work on her poem, the same encomiastic terms appear in a published canzone by the poet Isabella Cervoni (ca. 1576–after 1600), addressed to Maria de’ Medici.120 Among the handful of women poets to acquire such status, Cervoni was a member of the Accademia degli Affidati of Pavia (Lombardy).121 The confluence of vener­ able male and female figures of the Italian lyric tradition, indisputably present in Miani’s final contribution, adds a final mark of luster and poetic pedigree to the volume’s vernacular verse collection, a collection that ends with our Paduan letterata’s very own signature. Whether Miani’s placement as last in the sequence of contributors was sim­ ply predicated by the letter with which her first name begins, or, rather, was the result of a deliberate choice on the part of the volume’s editor, Francesco Bolzetta, is difficult to ascertain. Be that as it may, we should not overlook the fact that Bolzetta had championed Miani’s talents in the context of other venues. The 118. Miani’s “povera e rozza” also echo Petrarch’s congedo of canzone 125. 119. “Stelle / belle” occurs in rhyme on a number of other occasions in Petrarch’s Rime sparse; for example, see canzone 70, stanza 4 (ll. 6,7); canzone 72, stanza 2 (ll. 2,4); canzone 127, final stanza (ll. 1,5); sonnet 158, sestet (ll. 11, 13); sonnet 312, octave (ll. 1,8), where the point of reference is “oneste donne et belle” (l. 8); and canzone 325, stanza 5 (ll. 1,6). 120. D’Aragona’s sonnet, published in her 1547 verse collection (Venice: Giolito), is referenced in Cox’s reading of Isabella Cervoni’s canzone in honor of Maria de’ Medici; this poem was published along with two other canzoni on the same subject (Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1600). See Lyric Poetry, 303. 121. Cox, Lyric Poetry, 393.

Introduction 37 impression that her particular placement in the volume produces on the reader is, I believe, undeniable: it is a detail that demonstrates a skillful feminization of a predominantly male text by virtue of this last contributor’s gender, and as a direct result of the poetic compositions she crafts. Miani thus contributed—likely much more than we can know—to the production of culture alongside her male coun­ terparts, sharing in the prestige and benefitting from the sponsorship of one of Italy’s oldest intellectual academies. Indeed, as Elisabetta Graziosi has remarked with respect to other letterate, exclusion from the world of the accademia would more often than not guarantee one’s virtual disappearance from history, regard­ less of actual worth.122 Two final remarks regarding Polinnia are in order. It is likely not at all hap­ hazard (as the note to the reader would have us believe) that the entire collection is framed by two sonnets, the quintessential form of lyric composition in the ver­ nacular, and that these sonnets are authored by two particular figures, one a bona fide male member (Angelo Ingegneri), the other a female affiliate (Valeria Miani), of the Ricovrati academy. Ingegneri and Miani provide the bookends to Polinnia, an anthology that deserves more careful scrutiny than it has hitherto received for the evidence it provides of a late sixteenth-century letterata’s talent as a poet among poets and as an outspoken champion of feminine worth, as demonstrated by her evocations of other female poets. The other detail worth noting is that Ingegneri’s opening sonnet foreshadows Miani’s appearance as the “dotta Musa” (learned Muse)—an epithet which can at once refer to the Muse whose name the title boasts (Polyhymnia) as well as to the rather prominent presence of the col­ lection’s single female contributor among the “schiera gentil” (noble flock) of an otherwise all-male cast.

Gareggiamento poetico (1611) With the Gareggiamento poetico we enter a very different kind of territory, not least on account of the sheer magnitude and breadth represented by its nine distinct parts, which include lyric compositions penned by the most prominent late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century poets: those who followed the lead of Torquato Tasso, at one end of the spectrum, and those who were influ­ enced by the father of Baroque aesthetics, Giambattista Marino, at the other end. All of the poems are madrigals, the most flexible and fashionable metrical form of the late sixteenth century. The Gareggiamento’s editor, Carlo Fiamma, a poet, playwright, and a member of the Paduan Accademia degli Orditi, ap­ pears under his academic pseudonym, ‘il Confuso,’ on the title page of every section (Figure 4), each one of which bears a new dedication and a new dedi­ catee. This unwieldy collection, composed of nearly two thousand “modern” 122. See “Revisiting Arcadia,” 113.

38 Introduction

Figure 4. Title page of Le Imagini, overo Madrigali Morali, Part Three of Gareggiamento poetico (Venice: Barezzo Barezzi, 1611).

Introduction 39 madrigals and more than one hundred contributors, curiously refers to our poet in its index as “Valeria Maria Padovana,” although it would be an exaggeration to place too much weight on this unfortunate misprinting, especially since her surname is spelled correctly on the page where her contribution appears (Figure 5).123 As I stressed earlier, the importance here lies in the setting and the entourage rather than in the quantity of poems included. As far as male poets are concerned, that entourage includes Angelo Ingegneri, Battista Guarini, Carlo Fiamma, Angelo Grillo, Pomponio Torelli, Francesco Contarini, Gabriele Chiabrera, Adriano Valerini, Stefano Guazzo, Girolamo Parabosco, Luigi Groto (Cieco d’Adria), Muzio Manfredi, and Cesare Simonetti, many of whom were authors of dramatic works, specifically pastorals. Of course this list represents only a frac­ tion of the many others whose names are less immediately recognizable. Among those whose profiles are less familiar to modern scholars are Arrigo Falconio, Ercole Manzoni, Gasparo Murtola, and Marc’Antonio Balcianelli.124 All four penned celebratory verses prefacing Miani’s tragedy, Celinda, which reached the press in 1611, the same year as the Gareggiamento. Another interesting factor is that, this time, Miani is not the only female contributor. Two other women poets are present: Isabella Andreini and Orsina Cavaletta. While Andreini does not need an introduction, Cavaletta was a talented poet and a gentildonna based at the Este court in Ferrara who had captured Tasso’s admiration to such a degree that he included her as one of the interlocutors (along with her husband, Ercole Cavaletto), and named his dialogue on Tuscan poetry after her, La Cavaletta overo de la poesia toscana, composed in the 1580s. She is represented in the Gareggiamento with a number of poems in Parts One, Two, and Five. Andreini’s 123. The “madrigale moderno” or modern madrigal, free of rhyme restrictions, allowed for almost unlimited experimentation; as such, it may be compared to the more conservative Petrarchan madri­ gal, composed of hendecasyllabic lines only; see Rime sparse 52, 54, 106, 121. See Alessandro Martini, “Ritratto del madrigale poetico fra Cinque e Seicento,” Lettere italiane 33 (1981): 529–48, at 536. Of note is that in the first volume’s index each contributor’s name is followed by his or her city of origin— a detail that is meant to showcase the collection’s geographical breadth. 124. Arrigo Falconio, a native of Naples, like Giambattista Marino, was one of his correspondents; he was also a member of the Roman Accademia degli Umoristi. Ercole Manzoni, a well known poet, philosopher, and doctor from Este, in the nearby province of Padua, was the author of a poem in ottava rima and two collections of madrigals, among other publications. Gasparo Murtola, a poet from Genoa, was secretary at the court of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy in Turin; he was famous for his rivalry with Marino, against whom he composed a collection of satirical sonnets, La Marineide; Murtola published his Rime in 1604, the same year as Miani’s pastoral drama. Marc’Antonio Balcianelli was a doctor and poet whose publications reflected the style of the so-called Marinisti poets, followers of Giambattista Marino; he also published a medical treatise on remedies for gastronomic disorders. Murtola contributed two honorary compositions to Celinda, while Manzoni, Falconio, and Balcianelli contributed one each. On these figures, see Finucci, Celinda, 371nn9, 11; 372nn17, 19. The only detail I would like to amend is that neither Balcianelli nor Murtola appear in Polinnia (372n19).

40 Introduction

Figure 5. Le Lodi in Gareggiamento poetico, verses by Valeria Miani and Torquato Tasso, unnumbered page.

Introduction 41 presence is ubiquitous, with poems appearing in every section of the volume (with the exception of the seventh), amounting to nearly two dozen madrigals. Each of the volume’s nine parts focuses on a distinct theme, motif, blazon, or, as the title page to Part Five indicates, on miscellaneous love-related topics. Part Four, in which Miani’s sole composition appears, is devoted to panegyrics and is entitled Le Lodi (Figure 6). The exact setting is as important, as is the ad­ dressee of Miani’s madrigal. The subtitle to Le Lodi is “madrigali morali,” that is, madrigals that are metrically more complex, solemn, and cast in a loftier, more weighty tone and language—as compared to those announced by their respec­ tive title pages as “madrigali amorosi” or “madrigali giocosi,” madrigals whose tone is generally lighter, more whimsical. In sum, honorary verses are, by defini­ tion, those that belong to the category of grave or serious subject matters. And the expectation is true to fact, as we see one statesman after another—Prince, Duke, Doge, Cardinal, the Emperor Charles V—become the subject of madrigals penned by the most illustrious poets of the period, including several by Ercole Manzoni, mentioned above. In addition to these figures, one of the original founders of the Ricovrati academy, Federico Cornaro, is celebrated with a mad­ rigal composed by Francesco Contarini. The section also includes panegyrics honoring “uomini letterati.” Among these, we find Miani’s verses in praise of Ercole Manzoni’s two collections of madrigals, Selva amorosa (Venice: Niccolò Moretti, 1600) and Amorosi spirti (Padua: Lorenzo Pasquati, 1609).125 Two cel­ ebratory poems are presented in Manzoni’s honor: the first by Vivian Viviani, a Venetian about whom little else is known, and, the second, by our letterata. Miani’s poem is immediately followed by a madrigal authored by Torquato Tasso. Tasso’s composition, however, celebrates another poet, as the preface “all’autore di alcuni madrigali” suggests.126 If we place Miani’s and Tasso’s madri­ gals side by side we note, from a stylistic perspective, that they are of roughly the same length, eight and nine lines, respectively; on the other hand, the proportion of long to short lines is different: Miani employs three settenari and six hendecasyl­ lables (AbCbcDDEE) as compared to Tasso’s lighter construction of five settenari and only three hendecasyllables (abCabCdD). Moreover, Tasso’s composition is more experimentally daring in its abundant use of wordplay and internal rhyme (Amore / amaro, ll. 2–3; Mirti / Meriti, ll. 4–5; mandra / mandriali / mandrian, ll. 2, 6, 8), together with the quintessentially Petrarchan antithetical play on “amaro” (bitter) and “dolce” (sweet) of line 3. As Anthony Newcomb notes, a common 125. See Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, 1:579–80. 126. Although the addressee is not named, Tasso’s two madrigals are in fact dedicated to D. Ferrando (Ferrante) Gonzaga, as confirmed in Angelo Solerti’s still indispensable four-volume edition of Tasso’s Rime (Bologna: Romagnoli-dall’Acqua, 1902), vol. 4, 107. In that collection, we find the two madrigals as they appear in the Gareggiamento, along with several other compositions on the same subject, including a handful celebrating Gonzaga’s unpublished favola pastorale, entitled L’Enone (108–12).

42 Introduction

Figure 6. Title page of Le Lodi, overo Madrigali Morali, Part Four of Gareggiamento poetico (Venice: Barezzo Barezzi, 1611). feature of Tasso’s madrigals is their syntactically self-contained tercets of two seven-syllable lines followed by an eleven-syllable line, as is evident in this case:127 127. Anthony Newcomb, “The Ballata and the ‘Free’ Madrigal in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 63 (2010): 427–97, at 433n16.

Introduction 43 Se più gentili spirti Sono mandra d’Amore, Che gli pasce d’amaro e dolce pianto Tra vaghi Lauri e Mirti Meriti novo onore De mandriali tuoi l’altero canto. Però che sono degni Del mandrian, de pelegrini ingegni. (Gareggiamento poetico, IV, 54v–55r) Although the differences are by no means an indication of lesser quality, we must remain mindful of the fact that our impressions of Miani’s style are necessarily based on the handful of poems that still survive; in these poems, Miani does tend to avoid excessive ornamentation, complexity, and extravagant rhyme schemes. Her madrigal is, nevertheless, self-consciously in dialogue with Tasso’s. It is similarly in dialogue with the composition of Vivian Viviani, with which this mini-sequence begins.128 Viviani’s madrigal of eleven lines (ABBCdeeCDfF) is distinct from the madrigals of Miani and Tasso in its length, the proportion of long to short lines, as well as its employment of the first person pronoun in its penultimate line. That said, Miani draws on the same conceit present in Viviani’s poem, claiming similarity between the mythological, larger-than-life figure of Hercules (Alcide) and her eponymous subject (Ercole). The incipit of Miani’s madrigal invokes the title of Manzoni’s 1609 collec­ tion, Amorosi spirti; in doing so, she ostensibly beckons the “gentili spirti” of the opening line of Tasso’s madrigal, although in her poem that line stands alone. Let us take a moment to examine Miani’s madrigal: O de tuoi cari ed amorosi spirti Almo padre fecondo Se resse Alcide le celesti spere, Oggi s’inchini il mondo A le tue glorie altere, Febo i lauri ti cede e la tua cetra Tanto fra noi vera virtute impetra E tanto puote il tuo divin furore Che ne ha fiamme il cor mio, la penna onore. (Gareggiamento poetico, IV, 54v, emphasis mine) While the first line is without rhyme, lines 2 to 9 consist of a single, syntactically self-contained segment, which rhymes throughout, with special emphasis on the 128. See the Appendix for my transcription of Viviani’s madrigal.

44 Introduction two metrically symmetrical final couplets (DDEE). The second line’s gravitas, notwithstanding its brevity, is especially striking: Manzoni is here invoked with the utmost reverence, as “almo padre fecondo,” that is, as a “blessed father” to her and to others (as the noi of line 7 implies)—a father who is, in addition, “fecund” (fecondo) in his lyric output. It is useful to recall, at this juncture, that in his encomiastic verses prefacing her tragedy Celinda, Manzoni refers to the author by her first name (l. 9) and uses the informal “tu” (l. 10), details that convey a certain intimacy and familiarity between the two writers. Moreover, the inclusion of the temporal signifier “oggi” (today) in his sonnet’s first tercet, “Tu regia scena e mesta oggi dimostra,” invites the reader to imagine that this is just one among a number of other such spectacles Miani had produced and, possibly, had also staged.129 Returning to Miani’s verses in praise of Manzoni, the accumulation of rich rhymes (fecondo/mondo; cetra/impetra; furore/onore) mimics the abundance sug­ gested by the term “fecondo,” the adjective used to describe a figure who may have held the role of literary mentor. Toward the same effect, the last four lines, all in hendecasyllables (DDEE), create an added aura of weightiness underscored by the two end-stopped lines 6 and 7 (cetra/impetra). Other embellishments are the strong anaphora (tanto/tanto), consonance, and alliteration (vera/virtute) of lines 7 and 8, with a concluding line that is chiastic in its structure and is distin­ guished by a zeugma. Although this rhetorically elaborate madrigal seems some­ what unusual for our letterata, the intricacies she employs may be reflective of a self-conscious effort to demonstrate precisely what the title of the collection an­ nounces: a certain “competition” (gareggiamento) with her fellow contributors.130 This, in any case, seems to be at work here given the number of parallels between the compositions of Miani, Tasso, and Viviani.

Miani’s Madrigal in Paolo Bozi’s Vita, attioni, miracoli (1614) I would like to conclude with a few words about the single poem authored by Miani included in the 1614 collection of rime spirituali edited by Paolo Bozi. That poetic composition speaks to the range of lyric subjects Miani was equipped to handle. Among those women writers selected to participate in this volume, women who had already staked out a well-defined profile on the literary scene, 129. In his contribution to Celinda’s celebratory verses, Murtola makes a similar claim: “Tu con stil che la vita in sè raccolse / Richiami quei sotto la luna errante, / E fra scene e teatri altrui davante / Gli trai da l’urna che già in sè li avvolse.” (Celinda, 68, ll. 5–8). 130. In Martini’s assessment of the Gareggiamento, this is one of two ways the collection may have been intended to be used by the reading public; the other way, Martini claims, could have been as a “dizionario, alla ricerca di concetti poetici,” that is, as a dictionary useful for finding poetic conceits. See Martini, “Ritratto del madrigale poetico,” 534.

Introduction 45 were Lucrezia Marinella, Tarquinia Molza (1542–1617), a poet and renowned virtuosa praised by Tasso in the Gareggiamento, and, conceivably, our Paduan letterata.131 In an effort to substantiate the choices made, Bozi boasts the collection’s inclusion of “the most famous authors of [his] century.”132 Unsurprisingly, we find Angelo Ingegneri, Francesco Contarini, Angelo Grillo, Giambattista Marino, Ercole Manzoni, Gasparo Murtola, Michelangelo Angelico, and Muzio Manfredi among the volume’s contributors.133 A coterie of male letterati who had appeared alongside Miani in the previous two anthologies, all three published just a few years apart. Miani’s madrigal is especially worthy of interest as it reflects, once more, her tendency to foreground female agency.134 Some observations will suffice to substantiate this point. The poem in question takes as its subject Mary Magdalene and her discovery of Christ’s resurrection. That particular episode, as Cox ob­ serves, is the most dramatic moment in the sequence of events that either precede or follow it in this narrative of Christ’s passion.135 Significantly, the episode is cast in dialogue form, possibly yet another reflection of the poet’s background as a dramatist. Miani’s madrigal consists of twelve lines with hendecasyllables domi­ nant, rhymed in couplets throughout (AaBBCCDdeeFF): Carca di quel languir di cui maggiore non può far il dolore stava la sconsolata peccatrice; quando ecco d’improviso chi le dice: —Maria?—e qui conobbe e le fu nota la voce della santa effigie ignota. Diss’ella allor—Maestro?—E pur volea più dir, ma non potea. O donna aventurata da Dio cotanto amata; poiché te sola elesse messaggiera de la Resurrezion sua santa e vera.

131. For Tasso’s encomiastic verse on Tarquinia Molza, see Gareggiamento, Part 1, 38r. For Molza’s and Marinella’s verses in Bozi’s volume, see 20v and 26r respectively. 132. Bozi, Vita, attioni, miracoli, frontispiece. For Miani’s madrigal, see 60v. The poem is transcribed, translated, and analyzed in Cox, Lyric Poetry, 259. 133. For the contributions of Grillo, Ingegneri, Contarini, Marino, Manzoni, Murtola, Angelico, and Manfredi, see 6v, 12v, 21r, 22r, 38r, 48v, 59r, and 59v respectively. 134. Even as we consider the possibility that in this collection of biblical verse, “the female poets were given gender-appropriate subjects, focused on female protagonists”: Cox, Lyric Poetry, 258. 135. Cox, Lyric Poetry, 259.

46 Introduction “Quando ecco d’improviso chi le dice” (l. 4) prepares the reader for the highly dramatic scene that follows as Christ approaches the penitent woman, precisely at the moment when she least expects to find solace for her “maggiore dolore” (great sorrow). Some of the stylistic tendencies we have observed thus far are also pre­ sent here: for instance, the preference for a more conventional, hendecasyllabicdominant construction, the rich rhyme created with nota / ignota (ll. 5–6), and the grammatical rhyme volea / potea (ll. 7–8). What is most effective in creating a stage-like exchange between Christ and Mary Magdalene, however, are the mini­ mally intrusive one-word interrogatives “Maria?” and “Maestro?” of lines 5 and 7, respectively. As readers, that is where all our attention is drawn, and that is how a poet with Miani’s skill is able to successfully harness and keep that attention. The narrator’s subsequent comment on the brevity of Mary Magdalene’s response, “E pur volea / più dir, ma non potea,” further reinforces the emotional charge that this scene elicits (in the protagonist and in our reading of her words). All of the poem’s five key verbs have the Magdalene as their subject: stava, conobbe, disse, volea, potea. In sum, Miani’s orchestration of Christ’s encounter with this female figure is entirely focused on her, as the penultimate line makes clear: “poiché te sola elesse” (emphasis mine). The last word in that line, “messaggiera,” is as sig­ nificant as the word with which it rhymes, namely, “vera.” Mary Magdalene is thus singled out as the gospel’s true prophet or messenger. As the single “fortu­ nate woman” (donna aventurata, l. 9) among the twelve male apostles, she figures here as the one “so much loved by God” (da Dio cotanto amata, l. 10),136 a fact underlined by the semantically strategic placement of the term that proclaims the Magdalene’s role as messaggiera. As I hope the preceding overview has demonstrated, Miani’s presence in three separately published volumes of poetry—all three of which have hitherto received scant scholarly attention—attests to the fact that this woman writer was quite successful in garnering the attention of some of the most celebrated letterati of her time, while also securing a voice of her own within a community that was often closed to or unappreciative of feminine intellectual worth. As a result of her ambition and subsequent literary achievements, Miani can now claim her place among the second generation of women writers forged in the last two decades of the sixteenth century in Italy, a generation populated by figures as diverse as Veronica Franco, Moderata Fonte, Maddalena Campiglia, Leonora Bernardi, and Lucrezia Marinella. Miani’s contributions are especially important given the fact that she was writing while the Counter-Reformation was in full swing, nearing a time when women’s visibility on the literary market would begin to wane sig­ nificantly. As far as we know, Miani did not engage in writing either dialogues or treatises in defense of women of the kind her fellow Venetian contemporaries, Fonte and Marinella, are well known to have done; however, this Paduan letterata 136. In my rendering of these key phrases, used to define Mary Magdalene’s status, I depart from Cox’s “happiest of women” (l. 9) and “so beloved of God” (l. 10).

Introduction 47 did engage with the querelle des femmes on a number of occasions and in signifi­ cant ways. In doing so, Miani traces a bold new way of understanding the female sex, a perspective which could serve as a model for future generations of women writers in Italy and on the European continent.

Miani’s Amorosa speranza and Female-Authored Pastoral Drama One of the reasons substantiating Francesco Bolzetta’s dedicatory letter to Amorosa speranza is to enlist its dedicatee, the noblewoman Marietta Uberti Descalzi, as a “defender” of women’s writing, one who may be able to ward off any potential detractors. He thus writes: “I like to believe . . . that if the excellence of this most delightful pastoral, and of a tragedy which the same Lady Valeria is presently composing, is not enough to disabuse these detractors, then it will suf­ fice that your most illustrious name is seen on its cover.” The “tragedia” alluded to here is Celinda, which Miani would bring to press just a few years later in 1611. The latter dramatic work bears only one dedicatory letter, penned by the author herself and addressed to a person of distinctly higher profile, namely Eleonora Medici Gonzaga, duchess of Mantua and of Monferrato. Her choice could have been predicated on other examples such as that of Andreini, who dedicated her pastoral drama Mirtilla to Lavinia della Rovere, a renowned patron of the arts and culture at the court of Urbino. In nearby Vicenza, another mainland city with strong ties to Venice, Maddalena Campiglia was crafting her own literary career in the same years as Miani (the 1580s);137 her pastoral drama, Flori, was published in the same year as Andreini’s (1588), and carries a first dedicatory letter addressed to Isabella Pallavicino Lupi, Marchioness of Soragna and an enthusiastic sponsor of pastoral performances.138 Like Miani, Campiglia not only had contacts with the local accademia, the Olimpici of Vicenza, but her pastoral play received critical feedback from Paolo Chiappino, a prominent member of that academy.139 It is likely, as Virginia Cox and Lisa Sampson have suggested, that “provincial cities” such as Padua and Vicenza “may have provided more supportive environments for fe­ male writers than larger and more prestigious cultural centers, precisely because 137. On Campiglia’s life and her literary career, see the introduction by Cox and Sampson to Flori, 2–12. 138. In 1583, Pallavicino Lupi commissioned Angelo Ingegneri to draft his pastoral drama, Danza di Venere, and then stage it; her daughter, Camilla, took part in that performance. For more details on Pallavicino Lupi’s support and this performance, see Roberto Puggioni’s introduction to his edition of Ingegneri’s play (Rome: Bulzoni, 2002), 20–23; see also Cox and Sampson, introduction to Flori, 6. 139. See Cox and Sampson, introduction to Flori, 7. Ingegneri and Battista Guarini (author of Il pastor fido, the most influential pastoral play after Tasso’s Aminta) were also members of the Accademia Olimpica of Vicenza and were likely also aquainted with Campiglia’s work. As mentioned above, both Ingegneri and Guarini were prominent members of the Ricovrati.

48 Introduction of the more intimate scale of their literary circles and the institutions that sus­ tained them.”140 Although Miani could have chosen a woman of higher social rank or more renown (as both Andreini and Campiglia did), the choice of Marietta Uberti Descalzi was a strategic one, not least because of her family’s connections to the local academy, as mentioned above. As far as tone, style, and themes are concerned, there are significant differ­ ences between Campiglia and Miani. For one thing, there are no “tragic” elements in Miani’s work; on the contrary, her pastoral is actually far closer to Andreini’s in its light and airy design, with some pronounced comic elements—such as the inclusion of a gluttonous goatherd (Bassano), whose jeering remarks toward the bewitched yet love-starved Alliseo and Isandro often yield laughter and ridicule from the audience/reader. And as Cox and Sampson rightly point out, in Campiglia we have a much more “serious” writer. That said, Miani does engage with serious matters, such as the victimization of women by men, as well as men’s inconstancy, lack of courage, moral weakness, philandering, etc.; she touches on these themes with a sobering and captivating forthrightness through the agency of two of her central female protagonists, Venelia and Tirenia, as will be demon­ strated in my analysis of the play. Campiglia’s originality, when compared to that of Andreini and Miani, can be seen as twofold. On the one hand, she includes a serious psychological dilemma that manifests itself in the form of “love-madness,” or, to use more modern termi­ nology, obsessive-compulsive disorder, which the eponymous heroine exhibits in her morbid attachment to her beloved’s ashes.141 On the other hand, given the fact that both lover (Flori) and deceased beloved (Amaranta) are female, there is more than a tacit implication of homosexual desire present.142 These are not elements one would expect to find in a typical pastoral play, whose main function is to delight and to entertain.143 A biographical element, however, may be at work here and may help explain, at least in part, the irregularity of Flori’s characterizations: Campiglia’s status as a dimessa or unmarried woman (in her case, a divorcée) who defied acceptable norms and societal constraints that usually forced such

140. Cox and Sampson, introduction to Flori, 7. 141. See especially Campiglia, Flori, 1.1, at 58–66. 142. Cox and Sampson even point to “traces of unease” present in the commendatory verses that accompany Flori that are tied to the problematic portrayal of same-sex female desire (23). This is an aspect unprecedented in pastoral drama (23). Bigolina explores same-sex female desire, although not as straightforwardly as Campiglia does, with the added element of cross-dressing; see Finucci, Urania, A Romance, 120–29. 143. And we should remember that, according to the great practitioner and theorist, Angelo Ingegneri, it was above all in the composition of pastoral—when compared to comedy and tragedy—that the author’s aim should be to “delight” the audience; see Della poesia rappresentativa, ed. Doglio, 7 and 20.

Introduction 49 women to take up the veil.144 That biographical element is taken to yet another level when Flori regains her sanity and falls for a shepherd who is, like her, an as­ piring poet. But their union is not altogether typical either: theirs is a marriage of minds based on spiritual affinity that deliberately excludes any sensual overtones. As mentioned earlier, the fictional narrative may in fact reflect Campiglia’s reallife circumstances given her correspondence and collaboration with a number of letterati—Tasso, Muzio Manfredi, and Curzio Gonzaga, to name just a few. All in all, if we consider the general tenor of Campiglia’s pastoral drama, it is far closer in spirit to the “tragic” melodramatic plot of Guarini’s Il Pastor fido and Tasso’s Aminta than can be claimed for either Andreini or Miani. The Marian elements present in Barbara Torelli’s unpublished Partenia (ca. 1587) and the more so­ ber, moralizing treatment of its plot, characters, and themes reflects an ambiance that is also more akin to Campiglia’s; it is markedly different from the composi­ tional style of either Andreini or Miani, and equally distant from that of Isabetta Coreglia, author of the last in this line of female-authored pastoral plays.145 The performance history of pastoral plays during the first half of the seven­ teenth century, specifically set in Padua, shows that this genre was by far the most solicited.146 Its mise en scène was usually exclusive and private, as Nicola Mangini explains, with the ultimate goal of showcasing both the on-stage and off-stage performance of the aristocratic sponsor and his or her guests. Given this predilec­ tion for pastoral drama in her own native city and elsewhere on the peninsula at this juncture in the history of Paduan theater, it is not difficult to imagine why Miani would have chosen this particular genre as her first token of entry into the arena of publication. Whether or not Amorosa speranza was ever staged remains a subject of speculation, although one may wonder whether, on the basis of its genre (much more likely as compared to her tragedy, Celinda), this may have been a fact.147 Yet even within the limits of pastoral, more somber and serious plays 144. The implications of Campiglia’s irregular social status are discussed in Cox and Sampson, in­ troduction to Flori, 22–23. For a more in-depth look at this issue see Lori J. Ultsch, “Epithalamium Interruptum: Maddalena Campiglia’s New Arcadia,” MLN 120 (2005): 70–92. 145. Cox and Sampson suggest that Torelli’s Partenia may have served as inspiration for Campiglia’s Flori (introduction, 6). Tellingly, the two women writers feature in Muzio Manfredi’s pastoral drama Il contrasto amoroso (1602) under the pseudonyms Flori and Talia (Flori, 34). For a discussion of Coreglia’s debt to an “incipient female-authored tradition” and Andreini in particular, see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 174–245. 146. See Nicola Mangini, “La situazione teatrale a Padova al tempo di Carlo de’ Dottori,” Quaderni veneti 8 (1988): 131–46, at 135. Archival documentation does attest to the private performances of several plays, including Francesco Contarini’s pastoral La finta Fiammetta; see Mangini, 134, and notes 8–11. 147. On account of their more somber, potentially sensitive subject matter, not to mention the extrava­ gant costs related to staging, tragedies were rarely solicited for performance. On the scarcity of staged tragedies as opposed to the more easily adaptable and appreciated pastoral dramas see Ingegneri, Della

50 Introduction such as Torelli’s Partenia and Campiglia’s Flori are more likely to belong to the category of “closet drama” than either Andreini’s Mirtilla, which we can surmise benefited from at least a handful of performances, or indeed Amorosa speranza.148 Based on its lively exchanges, humour, and fast-paced scenes (which both Partenia and Flori lack), there is good reason to believe that Miani’s Amorosa speranza may have been at least in preparation for performance. A few internal textual markers point in this direction. One of the first and most striking indi­ cations of this possibility is reflected in the prologue scene’s tone, content, and delivery; that scene, crafted as a virtual dialogue with the ladies in the audience by the personified figure of Lady Hope (la Speranza), is highly theatrical and goes to great lengths to endear the audience in light of the “performance” about to take place. One other marker is Miani’s inclusion of a chorus in the scene that stages the satyr’s punishment, a scene which will be discussed in more detail below.149 Yet another equally telling moment may be found at the play’s conclusion, when the young and feisty minor character, Iulo (Venelia’s brother), appears on stage alone and begins to flirt with the women in the “audience” in an open, tantaliz­ ing way, gesturing at sexual favors or even trysts; he then coyly bids the women farewell and tells them to “return home” by the same route they used to get there, namely, by boat. Whether or not this is evidence of a private performance at a Venetian palazzo or at a villa somewhere in the Euganean Hills remains a mystery still to be unraveled.

Amorosa speranza: Structure and Themes Amorosa speranza (Amorous Hope) is above all a play about betrayal and unre­ quited love, sentiments which, in time, get “resolved” with the intervention of “speranza,” the handmaiden of love. From a structural perspective the plot is a typically intricate one, but there are no loose ends and the various strands link up nicely, leading to the play’s denouement and its “lieto fine” or happy ending corroborated by the announcement of multiple wedding ceremonies. poesia rappresentativa, 7–8; although, as Finucci remarks, if a private performance of Miani’s tragedy did take place, it may have gone unrecorded; see Celinda, 34. 148. On the phenomenon of “closet drama” see Jonas Barish, “The Problem of Closet Drama in the Italian Renaissance,” Italica 71 (1994): 4–30. According to Cox and Sampson, the inclusion of “per­ formative features” suggests that Flori may have been at least prepared for the stage, although a num­ ber of other features suggests otherwise (29–30). Evidence that Andreini’s Mirtilla was staged is based on the various cuts and revisions the published text underwent; see Finucci, Mirtilla, 9 and 9n35. 149. See Sampson, “The Dramatic Text/Paratext: Barbara Torelli’s Partenia, Favola Boschereccia (MS, c.1587),” in Soglie testuali: Funzioni del paratesto nel secondo Cinquecento e oltre / Textual Thresholds: Functions of Paratexts in the Late Sixteenth Century and Beyond, ed. Philiep Bossier and Rolien Scheffer (Manziana [Rome]: Vecchiarelli, 2010), 103–37, at 112.

Introduction 51 In brief, Alliseo is betrothed to Fulgentia but is in love with Venelia, who was abandoned by Damone once they exchanged marriage vows. Prior to her marriage to Damone, Venelia had fallen in love with Lucrino, who, in search of an­ other identity, abandoned her and turned his sights away from love to priesthood in honor of the goddess Cynthia (Diana). At the same time, the nymph Tirenia is hopelessly in love with a completely unresponsive Alliseo, while Isandro, another shepherd, pines for an equally unresponsive Venelia. In a second strand of the plot, the satyr Elliodoro, married to Artemia, lusts after Tirenia, who becomes his victim on more than one occasion but is ultimately trapped, punished, and shamed by her. As announced in the prologue scene, the play that is about to be performed takes its inspiration from the role speranza has in love matters: “that faithful guide who leads the way / for the little boy Cupid.”150 Ambiguous in its nature, the prologue scene partakes of the play itself and stands outside of it at one and the same time; in this particular case, “La Speranza” (Lady Hope), who delivers the prologue, also gives the play its title. Given that the use of an allegorical figure to deliver the prologue was a relatively uncommon feature in Italian drama from the late Quattrocento to the early Seicento, as Eugenio Refini claims, it is worth speculating as to why Miani would have made this choice.151 It should be pointed out that, as opposed to other types of drama, authors of pastorals did tend to use personifications or allegorical figures in their prologue scenes. Whatever our author’s exact intentions, this rhetorical gesture creates an organic link between the play’s title, the prologue, the play’s female protagonists, and the ladies in the audience. The choice of using a personified figure may have also been prompted by the existing link between the image that this figure calls to mind, the figurative arts, and the art of memory—a combination of elements very much in vogue in the late Cinquecento, when Miani was drafting her text.152 Of significance here is the work of Giulio Camillo, an internationally acclaimed figure who had studied at the University of Padua, had specific connections to the Venetian and Paduan academies, and was well known for his treatise on the intimate connection be­ tween the amphitheater, the human mind, and the art of memory.153 Simply put, 150. “[Q]uella scorta fedel che fa la strada / al pargoletto Amore”; Amorosa speranza, Prologo, 41–42. 151. See Eugenio Refini, “Prologhi figurati: Appunti sull’uso della prosopopea nel prologo teatrale del Cinquecento,” Italianistica 35 (2006): 61–86. 152. The famous and prolific Neapolitan playwright, Giambattista Della Porta, published an Ars reminiscendi in 1566 and 1583 which, not surprisingly, includes many references to the theater; Refini, “Prologhi figurati,” 74n1. Giordano Bruno’s Ars memoriae (The Art of Memory) was published in 1582, among several other works on the same topic; in 1596, Matteo Ricci wrote A Treatise on Mnemonics. 153. Camillo (1480–1544) was a Venetian academician, polymath, orator, and poet. His groundbreak­ ing treatise, L’idea del theatro (Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550), had a long and influential follow­ ing. In the treatise, the relationship between stage and audience is reversed, with a single spectator standing on the stage and looking out into an imaginary Vitruvian amphitheater filled with mnemonic

52 Introduction Camillo’s L’idea del theatro (1550) showed how certain images capture the imagi­ nation, instigate one’s memory, and therefore train the mind. On the other hand, the use of a personified figure also ties the text to con­ temporary staging practices and related theoretical precepts which explore the relationship between word (parola) and image (immagine).154 Indeed, as mentioned earlier, the affective relationship established by the prologue’s speaker with her audi­ ence is a detail indicating that the play may have been at least in preparation for stage performance. In contemporary academic discussions on this topic, in fact, personification is singled out as the most effective mode of persuading and mov­ ing—in essence, “capturing the imagination” of—an audience or reader.155 The use of this particular rhetorical figure is an invitation to visualize, as Francesco Bonciani explained in his “lesson” to the Accademia Fiorentina in 1578: because of its en­ hanced representational quality, the image conjured up remains imprinted on the spectator’s/listener’s/reader’s mind.156 Creating these “casi maravigliosi” (marvelous circumstances), as Bonciani refers to them, may have been what our letterata sought to create, especially as we parse the details of her prologue scene. It is worth recall­ ing that in Andreini’s Mirtilla, the prologue scene is delivered in dialogue form by Venus and “Amore” (Love) in its personified version of the little boy, Cupid. As in Mirtilla’s example, so too in Amorosa speranza a concept—in both cases, a senti­ ment—is given lifelike, human qualities in order to captivate the audience/listener’s attention. Contemporary theoretical manuals on best practices for staging advised that there be an organic link between the play’s subject matter and the prologue scene, and that is precisely what Miani created.157 devices; all human knowledge can thus be retrieved through mental associations, symbols, and im­ ages. See Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 129–72; and Lina Bolzoni, Il teatro della memoria: Studi su Giulio Camillo (Padua: Liviana, 1984). For Camillo’s influence on the commedia dell’arte see Elena Tamburini, Culture ermetiche e Commedia dell’Arte: Tra Giulio Camillo e Flaminio Scala (Ariccia, Italy: Aracne, 2016). Tamburini notes that one of the first academies to put Camillo’s theories to the test was the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati in 1542 (69). 154. Refini, “Prologhi figurati,” 63 and 69. 155. A paraphrase of Refini’s citation from Francesco Bonciani’s “lesson” on the ways in which per­ sonification can be used in literary texts (65). 156. Thus Refini sums up Bonciani’s theory (65). 157. As a case in point, Refini cites a passage from Leone de’ Sommi’s Quattro dialoghi in materia di rappresentazioni sceniche (69). De’ Sommi’s four dialogues on the practicalities of staging dramatic works remain an extremely valuable resource; the date of composition is still uncertain, although Ferruccio Marotti argues for some time between the late 1560s and early 1570s, perhaps even as late as the late 1580s. Giraldi Cinzio’s Discorsi (Venice: Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari et fratelli, 1554) on composing romances, comedies, and tragedies is an important precedent, and De’ Sommi likely knew it and drew from it. The Quattro dialoghi remained in manuscript until Ferruccio Marotti published his edited volume (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1968).

Introduction 53 A few other pertinent examples, drafted or published in more or less the same years as Miani’s play, are worth mentioning. In his pastoral drama Diana pietosa (Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1587), Raffaello Borghini has the prologue scene delivered by “La Speranza, in abito di ninfa” (Lady Hope dressed as a nymph).158 Carlo Fiamma, the editor of the Gareggiamento poetico and a contribu­ tor (alongside Miani), would have been equally commended for his “invenzione” (ingenuity), to use Leone de’ Sommi’s term, when he has Gelosia (Jealousy) deliver the prologue to his eponymous play, Gelosa ninfa (Venice: Evangelista Deuchino, 1620).159 Finally, in Francesco Bracciolini’s Amoroso sdegno (Venice: Giovanni Battista Ciotti Senese, 1597), likely composed prior to but no later than 1590, the eponymous character delivers the prologue, just as in Miani’s similarly titled Amorosa speranza.160 Bracciolini became a member of the Accademia Fiorentina in 1586, and although he may not have been present for Bonciani’s lezione, the two letterati did overlap in their time there.161 Worthy of note is the fact that when compared to those of Borghini and Fiamma, the prologues prefacing Bracciolini’s and Miani’s pastorals offer us a personified figure that places emphasis on her corporeality. In doing so, if the text is read, the reader can visualize the speaker with the eyes of his imagination; if the text is performed, the figure becomes palpable. The immediacy that is thus 158. Tasso’s Aminta begins with a Prologue recited by “Amore, in abito pastorale.” Chronologically closer to Miani’s drafting of her pastoral and somewhat similar as far as the prologue is concerned, Carlo Noci’s La Cinthia (Naples: Giovanni Iacomo Carlino e Antonio Pace, 1594) has the personified figure of “La Pietade” (compassion/pity) deliver that initial scene, in which she refers to herself as “amorosa pietà” (2). In her Erindo il fido (Pistoia: Il Fortunati, 1650), a much later pastoral drama, Isabetta Coreglia has “La Libertà in abito di ninfa” deliver the prologue scene. 159. In his Quattro dialoghi, De’ Sommi recommends that the prologue scene be tied in some way to the favola: the more confluence between the two, the better (see 68, 69, 71); the term “invenzione” is used throughout (see esp. 64, 68, 69). With the exception of a few cursory remarks, Ingegneri’s Della poesia rappresentativa remains curiously silent on the topic of prologues, their composition, and their connection to spectacle. 160. Recalling, once again, Aminta and its prologue scene, wherein “lo sdegno” is contrasted to “Amore”; Bracciolini, as Laura Riccò has observed, recasts Tasso’s “sdegno” as a personified figure modeled on “Amore.” See Riccò, Ben mille pastorali: L’itinerario dell’Ingegneri da Tasso a Guarini e oltre (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 142. Bracciolini’s pastoral also appeared in Milan that same year, in an edition that included some of his verse compositions (Milan: Agostino Tradate, 1597); a second Venetian edition also published by Ciotti appeared in 1598. Bracciolini’s pastoral is alluded to at the very beginning of Ingegneri’s Della poesia rappresentativa, along with a handful of other plays that followed Tasso’s pioneering Aminta; see Doglio, “Tasso,” 4. 161. See Daniela Mauri, “ ‘L’Amoroso sdegno’ (1597) di Francesco Bracciolini e la sua prima tra­ duzione francese,” Franco-Italica 3 (1993): 27–39, at 27. Bonciani became consul of the academy in 1590. Bracciolini was among the founders of the Roman Accademia degli Umoristi; he may have met Guarini and Tasso and was certainly influenced by them, especially by the latter; see Mauri, “ ‘L’Amoroso sdegno,’ ” 28.

54 Introduction created is one factor among others which presumably made these texts advanta­ geous for performance. Miani’s personified figure, like Bracciolini’s, engages in lively conversation with the audience. What is assumed is the audience’s recog­ nition of contemporary iconography. Based on her own appearance, described in detail, Miani’s “La Speranza” warns the audience not to confuse her with “La Fama,” traditionally portrayed with wings on her shoulders just as she is here represented:162 This comely and unusual dress, / this crown and these beautiful and lovely / multicolored wings which, attached / to my shoulders, I bear with such grace, / make you, gracious ladies, full of wonder. / And in you such eager desire I note, / indeed I see how each one of you asks the other / in order to know who I am: / whether I am a man or a woman, / whether I am a heavenly goddess / or a terres­ trial being. / Now then, you think perhaps that / because I wear these wings / I may be an angel. / Or perhaps, even, you might think that I may be Fame, / for she (just like me) / has wings on her shoulders! / I am neither the one nor the other. / . . . Nor am I Fame, / for I would have a trumpet and my cheeks would be puffed out / and I would be wearing wingèd sandals / and I would not have waited until now to unveil my identity! / I am, however, divine, even though / I dwell always among terrestrial spirits. / . . . Do you not recall, o courteous and beautiful ladies, / having seen me sometimes? / Do you not re­ call sometimes having experienced / this golden prod which I hold in my right hand / while I spurred your thoughts / onto worthy things, / thereby fortifying your heart for lovely undertakings?163 162. For an understanding of Renaissance iconography, Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (Siena: Heredi di Matteo Florimi, 1613) remains an indispensable manual. The princeps appeared in 1593 and numerous other amplified editions followed. For Ripa’s description of “La Fama,” see 224; Ripa’s depiction and image of “Speranza d’Amore” appears at 249–50 (five other types of “hope” are analyzed under the same rubric). On this text see L’Iconologia di Cesare Ripa: Fonti letterarie e figurative dall’antichità al Rinascimento, ed. Mino Gabriele, Cristina Galassi, and Roberto Guerrini (Florence: Olschki, 2013). As the frontispiece to Ripa’s Iconologia indicates, the volume is meant to provide useful inspiration for “orators, preachers, poets, painters, sculptors,” and also, pointedly, “per rappresentar poemi dram­ matici” (to stage dramatic works). See also the recent volume of the Iconologia edited by Sonia Maffei (Turin: Einaudi, 2012). 163. “Questo abito leggiadro e disusato, / questa corona e queste belle e vaghe / ali di più color che fisse porto / negl’omeri con tanta leggiadria / maravigliar vi fan donne cortesi. / E cupido desio in voi conosco / anzi che l’una a l’altra / dimandar veggio per saper ch’io sia: / s’io son uomo o pur don­ na, / s’io son celeste dea / o pur cosa terrena. / Ora stimate forse / perché porto quest’ali / ch’un angelo mi sia. / O pur ch’io sia la Fama vi pensate / perch’ella (ancor com’io) / a gl’omeri ha le penne! / Né l’un né l’altra sono. [. . .] Né men la Fama sono / ch’avrei la tromba, avrei le guancie gonfie / e i ta­ lari piumati; né fin’ora / sarei stata a scoprirmi. / Sono però celeste bench’io soglio / abitar sempre fra

Introduction 55 The prologue scene, however, is where the confluence between Bracciolini and Miani ends. In fact, Bracciolini is known to have been a prolific writer but not an especially talented one.164 In following certain characteristics of Guarini’s Il pastor fido, as Daniela Mauri has remarked, Bracciolini’s plot becomes excessively complicated, his language prolix, and his characters’ exchanges long and tedi­ ous—characteristics that would make it a definitively weak candidate for staging, its entertainment value considerably diminished.165 Another example of closet drama? The conjecture seems probable. It is above all in his creative conception of the prologue scene—a scene that may have inspired our Paduan letterata—that Bracciolini can claim a certain measure of originality.166 By creating an indelible link between the figures delivering the prologues and the main themes of their dramatic plays, and by self-consciously aligning their personified figures to the visual arts, Bracciolini and Miani contribute in a unique way to the otherwise “generic” tendency of other authors.167 As Miani’s plot unfolds, hope is every lover’s “scorta fedel” (faithful guide), love’s consolation when love is not reciprocal; as such, hope becomes the leitmotif of every lover’s plight. One character in particular seems to have reaped the ben­ efits of Lady Hope’s “lesson”: the eccentric nymph, Venelia, who is determined not to give way to desperation even when deflowered and abandoned on her

terreni spiriti [. . .] Non vi sovvien, donne cortesi e belle, / talor avermi vista? / Non vi sovvien talor aver provato / questo dorato spron c’ho nella destra, / mentre i pensieri vostri / spronai a cose de­ gne, / fortificando il cor a belle imprese?” (Amorosa speranza, Prologo). Bracciolini proceeds in similar fashion, alerting the audience not to misinterpret the identity of the speaker and mistake him (sdegno) for cupid (amore): “Non son amore, no, giovani donne / e voi cortesi amanti or non v’inganni / che fanciful mi vedete ignudo e cieco / qual ei si mostra, e son divino anch’io / e han gl’omeri miei li color mille; / queste grand’ali, onde gli aperti campi / del aria sole; e ben ch’i sia disceso / in queste ombrose selve oggi da voi / con questa face a riscaldare ‘l core / d’una gelata ninfa, i’ pur non son / com’ho detto l’Amor, ma son io sdegno. [. . .]” (Amoroso sdegno, Prologo). 164. It is of note, nevertheless, that in his Filli di Sciro: Favola Pastorale (Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini, 1607), a pastoral nearly as popular as Aminta, Guidobaldo Bonarelli drew on some of the details already present in Bracciolini; see Mauri, “ ‘L’Amoroso sdegno,’ ” 34. In addition, there is a French trans­ lation of Bracciolini’s pastoral entitled Le dedain amoureux (1603), analyzed in Mauri’s essay (37–38). 165. Mauri, “ ‘L’Amoroso sdegno,’ ” 31. Ingegneri warns authors of dramatic works against such excess, which would inevitably lead to the audience’s “boredom”; see Della poesia rappresentativa, 15. 166. Mauri, “ ‘L’Amoroso sdegno,’ ” 34. 167. Refini maintains this position by singling out the “extraordinary” case of Giambattista Della Porta and his prologue scenes to La fantesca (1592) and La furiosa (1609); see “Prolughi figurati,” 79. Refini does not mention Carlo Fiamma, Francesco Bracciolini, or Valeria Miani in his study; there is in fact considerable similarity of technique and tone when we compare Della Porta’s personified prologue to his comedy, La fantesca, and Miani’s, although certain aspects also resonate with Bracciolini’s; for instance, Della Porta’s personified figure, “La Gelosia” [jealousy], has “Lo Sdegno” [disdain/anger] as her “companion” in the prologue scene.

56 Introduction wedding day. Miani’s choice in naming this central female protagonist deserves some pause. Venelia’s name draws attention to an intriguing set of coincidences: Venelia can easily be transformed into Venetia, as the Marciana copy of the play dem­ onstrates on the frequent occasions when the (mis)spelling of her name echoes Domenico Negri’s native city, Venice, a city also connected to the author’s genealo­ gy.168 Of course, one might also imagine Venelia as a variation on the author’s first name, Valeria. As such, Venelia (like Valeria) exhibits an array of feminine virtù: she is eloquent, resilient, bold, loyal, and wise. At the same time, Venelia seems to exhibit signs of the feminine stereotype: a wavering heart. According to her rival nymph Tirenia, Venelia’s feelings and actions are seemingly subject to a heart that is literally “divided” (“bipartito,” 3.6).169 Like Venere, or Venus, whose name is also evoked, Venelia has many suitors. Thus, as a nymph who is apparently conflicted with regard to her potential mates (Damone, Alliseo, Lucrino), Miani’s central fe­ male protagonist may be regarded as deviant, sexually transgressive—aspects that fly in the face of feminine decorum. That said, the love Venelia feels for each one of these contenders is of a different quality, which is what distinguishes her from other “controversial” heroines such as Guidobaldo Bonarelli’s Celia in Filli di Sciro, published just a few years later in 1607.170 But the characterization of Venelia is more nuanced than it may at first appear, and perceptions can sometimes prove de­ ceiving. For, while Venelia is never unfaithful, she does reserve her right to flirt, and she does have (unfulfilled) needs—needs that she wishes to fulfill regardless of the injustices she has suffered.171 By giving the impression of being “divided,” Miani’s controversial nymph is in fact given the opportunity to question the norm and to 168. It is likely that the play had been in progress for some years prior to its publication in 1604, by which time Miani had been married to Domenico Negri for roughly ten years. On the Miani clan’s connection to Venice see Finucci, Celinda, 8 and 8n19. In my translation I limited myself to pointing out just a few of these alternative spellings of Venelia’s name. There are ten in all; most of the instances are signaled and corrected in the errata printed at the end of the 1604 edition. 169. It has been suggested that the term Miani uses here, “bipartito,” recalls the Ricovrati’s motto: bipatens animis asylum (Rees, “Satyr Scenes,” 41); it is tempting to imagine that the choice on Miani’s part was not coincidental, especially when viewed from the perspective of one who was an eager participant at, but not a member of, the academy. On the motto, see Giornale A, 19 and 36. 170. Bonarelli felt compelled to pen a discussion on this controversial female character in his Discorsi in difesa del doppio amore della sua Celia. For the Discorsi, see Giovanni Gambarin, ed., Filli di Sciro: Discorsi e Appendice (Bari: Laterza, 1941), 136–248; the pastoral has since appeared in a new edition by Lorenzo Geri (Rome: Associazione degli Italianisti, 2016). As mentioned earlier, Bonarelli’s pastoral was spectacularly popular, with thirty-five successive editions, an editorial success rivaling Tasso’s Aminta. 171. Venelia’s monologue in 5.4 discloses the fact that her love for Lucrino precedes her marriage to Damone, a union that may or may not have been imposed on her. An important detail her mono­ logue clarifies is that she turned to Damone only after Lucrino “abandoned” her (when he depart­ ed for Argos). As note 52 to the translated text explains, Miani’s Venelia cannot be charged with

Introduction 57 speak out against the injustices that violated and scorned women face. Judging by her own experience, it is men who prove to be the most inconstant creatures (we need to keep in mind that Venelia was twice abandoned!); therefore, she reasons, why should women reward men’s transgressions with unwavering loyalty? As her characterization suggests, Venelia is a complicated character who straddles both sides of the gender divide. In this respect, Miani’s female protagonist occupies a role reserved for males in the late sixteenth century as she, like them, fully engages with “the amatory world of flirtation and freedom.”172 Part of Amorosa speranza’s originality lies in allowing a central female protagonist to freely display her ambivalence in love matters while concurrently entertaining the idea of turning her into a “moral arbiter” without necessarily placing her on a pedestal.173 What the Paduan letterata does, in effect, is to place Venelia on the same footing with those male counterparts of early modern society who made the laws but could not themselves be deemed as flawless; in many cir­ cumstances, in fact, men could act with sheer impunity even while transgressing the very legislation they had themselves enacted. In contrast to the stereotypically vulnerable, helpless nymph, Venelia is self-reliant, resilient, and eloquent.174 She is charged with exposing inconstancy as emblematic of the male character, rather than the female, when she discloses to her friend, Fulgentia, the reasons behind her despondency at the very beginning of the play: For I was abandoned on the day of my wedding by my disloyal husband. And I had no sooner become a wife than I was deprived of a husband. Aiee, of both faith and love he proved to be a bitter enemy! And in spite of all this, nymph, I do not want to die. Even if it is the case that he is unfaithful, and even if it is the case that he is indeed cruel, custom—in accordance with the law— dictates that I remain faithful to him. A strange and cruel justice double-dealing (as Bonarelli’s Celia can), since she claims precisely the opposite: her heart cannot belong to more than one man. 172. The words are those of George McClure, who in this passage describes the distinct worlds reserved for males (flirtation and freedom) and females (marriage and its restrictions). See Parlour Games, 149. 173. Rees unambiguously characterizes Venelia as the play’s “moral arbiter”; see “Female-Authored Drama,” 50. As I have argued elsewhere, there is quite a bit of ambiguity in Miani’s characterization of Venelia; see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 145–51. 174. We should keep in mind that Fulgentia explicitly enlists Venelia as her spokesperson in her strug­ gle to regain Alliseo’s affection.

58 Introduction this is for us, wretched women: that we are required to pay to men, for their infidelity and false love, a tribute of loyal faith and a pure heart. (Emphasis mine.)175 Although it is embedded in the fiction of Miani’s play, this is a highly polemical, striking passage. In short, Venelia claims in this impassioned declaration that men have greater license to commit wrongdoing and get away with it unscathed. In her inclusion of this topic, the Paduan letterata may be said to follow in the footsteps of two other contemporary women writers whose pastorals also touch on the issue of male inconstancy, namely Maddalena Campiglia’s Flori (Vicenza: Eredi di Perin Libraro & Tomaso Brunelli, 1588) and Leonora Bernardi’s Tragicomedia pastorale (MS. 1590s).176 Nevertheless, Miani’s sustained focus on the infidelity of males, by showcasing their examples and making them a pivotal part in the unfolding of the plot, is unprecedented.177 The two shepherds, Damone and Alliseo, embody the theme of faithlessness and inconstancy in matters of the heart: the first, as Venelia details in her lament, abandons the scene following the deflowering of his bride, while, similarly, Alliseo interrupts the ceremony of his own nuptials to Fulgentia when he flees the scene in pursuit of another nymph (Venelia). And, albeit mitigated by an unusual circumstance (his desire to become high priest of Diana), Lucrino is also guilty of abandoning Venelia prior to her marriage to Damone. The play ends with the imminent arrival of a (presumably) repentant Damone and an Alliseo who has been “transformed” as a result of Venelia’s useful lessons on love, fidelity, friendship, and marital obligations. More on Venelia’s intervention in a moment. An equally captivating strand of the plot tells the story of the satyr, Elliodoro, besotted by the young and free-spirited nymph Tirenia, whom he ambushes and tries to rape on more than one occasion. Of course this is nothing new. Many 175. “[C]h’abbandonata fui / ne le novelle nozze / da l’infido mio sposo. / E appena fatta donna, / fui priva di marito. / Ahi di fede e d’amor aspro nemico! / Né già per questo, ninfa, morir voglio. / Siassi pur infedele / e siassi pur crudele, / a me convien per legge / esser a lui fedele. / Strana e cruda giu­ stizia / per noi, misere donne: / essere sottoposta, / pagar d’infedeltà, di finto amore / a gl’uomini tributo / di fe leale e di candido core.” (1. 3). In her reading, Françoise Decroisette also points to the play’s emphasis on men’s broken vows; see “Satyres au féminin,”177. 176. Flori, ed. Cox and Sampson, 2.2; Tragicomedia pastorale, 2.5, 23v, 24r–24v and 26r (MS. It. IX.239 [6999]), Biblioteca Marciana, Venice. Bernardi’s pastoral is in preparation for the Other Voice series, edited by Virginia Cox and Lisa Sampson with Anna Wainwright, trans. Cox and Wainwright. For a more detailed discussion of both Campiglia’s and Bernardi’s pertinent passages on this topic see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 142–45. 177. Working within the parameters of a different genre, Bigolina also capitalizes on this theme in her prose romance, Urania.

Introduction 59 pastoral dramas of the period, beginning with some of those preceding Tasso’s Aminta, such as Agostino Beccari’s Sacrificio (1554), traditionally considered the earliest specimen in the genre, include a satyr figure often notorious for his mi­ sogyny and lascivious appetite. The novelty Miani infuses into this theatergram is that the satyr is also bound up by marriage vows he obviously ignores: Artemia is Elliodoro’s wife, and as such she appears on the scene to “rescue” him at the very moment of his disgraceful (initial) punishment at the hands of his victim, Tirenia.178 Rees speculates on the names given to the satyr and satyr-wife, but her conclusions are questionable given Miani’s characterizations and themes. While Artemia may be read as a derivative of Artemis (or Diana, chaste goddess of the hunt), the choice on our author’s part seems to suggest yet another tongue-incheek shaming of Elliodoro’s philandering (given his wife’s chastity) rather than a wholesale critique of amorous adventure and sexual pleasure. On the contrary, Miani celebrates sensual pleasure within the parameters of marital union, and this is underscored at the end of their only scene together when Elliodoro promises to fulfill Artemia’s every amorous desire; this stance is reiterated in Venelia’s own set of “instructions” on how the ideal husband should appreciate and satisfy his wife in the bedroom. By definition, then, a husband is also a lover, and has duties pertaining to this equally important role. On the other hand, in tune with Miani’s exposure of contemporary society’s double standard, Elliodoro, like Damone and Alliseo, illustrates flaws stereotypically attached to the female sex—faithlessness, inconstancy, lasciviousness—and is harshly condemned for them. The interventions that lead to a change in the overall ethos of this wood­ land community are orchestrated by the play’s female protagonists, Venelia and Tirenia. It is as a result of their presence that a good dose of sober reality is infused into the overall tenor of this pastoral’s otherwise typical romance-driven plot. Significantly, their teachings are couched in the form of a mise en abîme (story within a story), thereby creating an independent space of their own: the playwithin-the-play structure makes these female-authored “lessons” all the more poignant as it accentuates the power of performance, not to mention the sensa­ tional impact that such a performance would have had on an audience. In their staging of their respective suitors’ weaknesses of character, Venelia and Tirenia are indeed demonstrating women’s superiority with respect to men as well as “a dis­ tinct socio-political consciousness of the injustice of women’s lot,” as Rees rightly points out.179 It is Venelia’s and Tirenia’s—and by extension Miani’s—exposure 178. Louise George Clubb coined the term “theatergram” to describe any element or “unit” of plot, action, character, language, or a combination of these recycled by dramatists. See Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). On the rarity of a female satyr in pastoral drama see Rees, “Satyr Scenes,” 35, and 41–42 in the same essay on Rees’s interpretation of Miani’s choice of names for satyr and satyress. Contarini precedes Miani in his inclusion of a satyress. 179. Rees, “Satyr Scenes,” 40.

60 Introduction of masculine flaws and their gradual elimination that can ultimately lead to a changed dynamic between the sexes and the plot’s denouement. Let us have a brief look at how Venelia cures Alliseo of his wavering heart. The episode is strategically placed (5.2) and constitutes the longest scene in the play. Venelia chances upon a languishing Alliseo determined to take his own life as a result of his hopeless, unrequited love for the nymph. First, she debunks his decision by insisting that it is not love but fury that drives him to seek out his own demise. Venelia’s reasoning is informed by the words which Amore (Cupid) speaks in Andreini’s Prologue scene; thus, Miani enlists the authority of that om­ nipotent male divinity and bestows it upon her eloquent nymph. Venelia claims, moreover, as Amore does in Mirtilla, that true love can only be guided by rea­ son.180 Thereafter Venelia proposes to recount—in third person—the story of an anonymous virtuous nymph (herself) who is persuaded by an anonymous unvir­ tuous lover (Alliseo) to give up her most precious asset (her virginity). In asking for this he thoughtlessly asks of her what no man should dare ask of any woman. Doing so, Venelia further explains, would be tantamount to asking a woman to forsake her reputation and her honor in the eyes of the world forever. Reading this episode, in which Venelia is clearly granted the dominant role in the conversation, one might usefully recall Virginia Cox’s essay on the dialogue form and how gender issues intertwine with this supremely popular Renaissance genre.181 Significantly, those dialogues in which a female speaker is allowed to di­ rect and maneuver the conversation are few; in those instances, the passive weak­ er role is reserved for the male speaker.182 A case in point worthy of comparison, given its relatively near contemporary drafting and based on a similar gendered dynamic, is Chiara Matraini’s Dialoghi spirituali (Venice: Prati, 1602), composed around 1560–81. Matraini’s Dialoghi offer a poignant example of a dominant female interlocutor administering “lessons” to an adolescent male.183 Of course, 180. See Mirtilla, Prologue, l. 60: “non Amor, ma furor è che gli offende,” and ll. 97–98: “. . . un cieco error che la ragione / uccide e lascia al cieco senso il freno.” And so too in Chiara Matraini’s contem­ porary Dialoghi spirituali when Teofila explains to Filocalio, her young male interlocutor, that “l’uomo che erra è per uso del senso e non per la natura sua propria ragionevole” (“the man who errs does so when he follows his senses and not his own nature, which is guided by reason” [670]). I will return to the Dialoghi in what follows. 181. See Virginia Cox, “The Female Voice in Italian Renaissance Dialogue,” MLN 128 (2013): 53–78. 182. And, of course, a distinction is made between these relatively few occurrences and the more common circumstance wherein female speakers are featured but remain either silent, passive, or “reserved” for the most part, as is the case in Castiglione’s Cortegiano, a well-known early example. 183. Matraini’s Dialoghi spirituali are now easily accessible in Le opere in prosa e altre poesie (ed. Mario), 659–731; the four brief dialogues with the verse compositions accompanying them are prefaced by a dedicatory letter to Marfisa d’Este, well known for her patronage of the arts and her sponsorship of various theatrical performances in Ferrara (among them, Guarini’s Pastor fido). For a discussion of Matraini’s Dialoghi see Janet Levarie Smarr, Joining the Conversation: Dialogues by

Introduction 61 Matraini’s grave subject matter on the merits of the contemplative life contrasts rather sharply with Miani’s ostensibly lighter fare on love and the rapport between the sexes. Although the two texts may be said to diverge in genre, however, they both employ the dialogue form, which was generally conceived of as performa­ tive. Moreover, importantly for both Miani and Matraini, the dialogue also lends itself to an open forum wherein open-ended questions naturally lead to discus­ sion and debate.184 In Matraini’s Dialoghi it is the maternal figure, Teofila, who conveys her wisdom to her much younger listener; in a similar fashion, Miani’s play opens with a mother-son exchange between Corintia and Alliseo wherein a naïve, desperate son seeks out his mother’s advice and guidance.185 Later, close to the play’s end, Miani’s Venelia essentially plays the role of the “enlightened” maternal substitute. As has been argued, Matraini’s Dialoghi are exceptional as a case of gender reversal otherwise deemed inappropriate insofar as a female imparts lessons to a male.186 Miani’s construction of the same gender-bending scenario is equally significant. As Matraini’s Filocalio, so too Miani’s Alliseo: both take on the role of the young male “confused” by his circumstances and in need of guidance. Ultimately, in both of the pastoral’s scenarios (mother-son; female beloved-male lover), the male is portrayed as the helpless victim of his own fool­ ish, thoughtless, self-centered behavior. Alliseo’s wish to bring about his own undoing by means of a snake’s bite invites the reader to further speculate on the nature of the protagonist’s error as sin and the symbolism it entails; intriguingly, it is precisely at that moment in the Renaissance Women (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 81–97. Interestingly, Matraini might have been connected to an academy, the Accademia dei Curiosi; the Dialoghi are followed by a “lecture” and three “sermons,” followed in turn by verse compositions all addressed to this academy’s members. Smarr suggests that given the scarcity of information regarding the academy’s existence, the “academy” may have been used to represent the author’s “public readership” (86–87). 184. In his 1561 dialogue on the “perfection of women,” Girolamo Borro comments on the parallels of speech in dramatic texts (“commedie”) and the dialogue form; see his Ragionamento di Telifilo Filogenio della perfettione delle donne (Lucca: Vincenzo Busdragho, 1561), 697. On the overlap be­ tween the various dialogic genres, see Jon R. Snyder, Writing the Scene of Speaking: Theories of Dialogue in the Late Italian Renaissance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989). 185. Yet another unusual aspect of Miani’s pastoral is its inclusion of a mother figure; whereas tragedy casts this role with relative frequency, in comedy and pastoral the mother’s role is nearly non-existent, with few exceptions. 186. Cox, “The Female Voice,” 73. Notably, the three male-authored dialogues that did allow for a distinctly more active female participant had limited circulation, and remained unpublished until the twentieth century (61–62, 75). Miani’s and Matraini’s examples distinguish themselves from the much more pervasive model of the male speaker “educating” the female—as is seen, for instance, in Lodovico Dolce’s Dialogo della institution delle donne (1545), wherein Flaminio “instructs” Dorotea, a widow who plays the role of a naïve female pupil. See Helena Sanson’s first modern edition of Dolce’s dialogue and her excellent introduction to the volume (Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2015), 1–68.

62 Introduction plot’s unfolding that Venelia, his “savior,” intervenes.187 She interrupts Alliseo’s attempted suicide with a much-needed lesson on women, matters of the heart, and the proper behavior for a genteel shepherd.188 In this case, Venelia is not merely functioning as a passive emblem of civility—as women in male-authored dialogues and treatises often did—but as an authoritative spokesperson for civil­ ity. Once she takes on this role, Miani’s Venelia begins her lesson by adopting a technique formerly used by authors such as Boccaccio (in his Filocolo), by Bembo (in his Asolani), and by Giulia Bigolina (in her Urania):189 she uses “questioni d’amore” as her guiding principle. Thus, in her role as the dominant speaker, Venelia has the opportunity to test her interlocutor by weighing in on and judg­ ing his answers, gradually eliminating his misconceptions. The most pertinent question up for debate is the following: how can a woman be certain that once she gives up her most prized possession (her virginity), she will not be abandoned by her lover and in the process incur the world’s blame? This is in fact a close re­ formulation of one of the questions debated in Bigolina’s prose romance—that is, what kind of man should a woman select and trust given the seemingly inevitable outcome of her loss of reputation and abandonment once she surrenders to him? As we know, Venelia is herself a victim of precisely those pitfalls she describes (and so too Bigolina’s eponymous heroine). Both Bigolina’s prose romance and Miani’s pastoral drama offer a rather bleak picture of the male character: driven by sensual desire devoid of reason, faithlessness lies at its core.190 Although I would argue that Miani’s Venelia is a character more sophis­ ticated and in certain ways more “emancipated” than Bigolina’s Urania, both fictions offer advice to women on the importance of choosing a man worthy of being loved—placing that choice squarely within a woman’s reach, rather than excluding her from that conversation altogether, as was traditionally the case. In addition, both texts offer strategies on how to best handle the predicament of male inconstancy and, in a sense, how to “cure” men of their own unvirtuous in­ clinations. As such, Venelia teaches Alliseo—and those other men whom he rep­ resents, including her own faithless husband—that virtue is an acquired process, requiring learning, mindful practice, and selflessness; in men, these qualities are 187. While Artemia also intervenes to “save” the satyr (her husband) in 2.3, she does not come equipped with any lessons; her intervention merely reinforces the stereotypical passive feminine ideal ready to forgive and forget any lapse on the husband’s part, including his insatiable penchant for chaste young nymphs. 188. Traditionally, pastoral drama’s genteel shepherd stands in opposition to the ancient figure of the satyr and that of the boorish villano or peasant, often represented by the goatherd. 189. See Urania, A Romance, and the section aptly titled “Questions of Love,” 95–106. Incidentally, Venelia “saves” Alliseo from his death just as Urania “saves” Fabio from his; in both pastoral and prose romance men are portrayed as feeble creatures in need of guidance. 190. The same negative portrait of the male character is offered by Fonte in The Worth of Women, ed. Cox, 73–76.

Introduction 63 not innate. As mentioned earlier, one of the highlights of this lengthy exchange is Venelia’s recourse to a “lesson in disguise,” a stratagem that serves as exemplum. Just as in other genres, so too in Miani’s pastoral the lesson is delivered by a fe­ male character and is addressed to a wayward male who, as a result, repents and is brought back into line.191 Venelia cleverly sets up the stage so as to gradually allow an unwitting Alliseo to incriminate himself. Her covert pedagogical strategy— cast as a story within a story—reads as a passage that may have been extracted from either a prose romance or a comedy, a detail that attests to pastoral’s generic fluidity. Here is a sample of that exchange: Venelia These words I am about to speak / are few and brief—/ they will surely bring you / more delight than harm. / There once was, not long ago, / a charming shepherd, / well endowed with virtue and a beautiful mind / who became the lover of a nymph here in Arcadia. / And so, for many days, / this went on with reciprocal love and chaste pleasures / they offered one another as faith­ ful lovers, / when the brazen shepherd / (knowing she loved him greatly / and had much affection for him), / asked her an unexpected and indiscreet ques­ tion—/ damaging to her honor, / endangering her life greatly; / brazenly he asked the honorable nymph, / saying this to her: “I would like you to give me, / nymph, the most precious and dear thing / you value, treasure, and love in this world.” / And to such a request she happily replied: / “So long as that which you ask of me is in my power to give, / I will bestow it upon you as a free, courteous gift. / Ask happily then for what you want, / for I am ready to satisfy you.” / He then asked for something damaging, / arrogant and dishonest—/ such that the nymph / could not oblige him / without de­ priving herself / of the most praiseworthy, the most treasured part she pos­ sessed, / that which rendered her precious and beautiful to all.192 191. See, for instance, the nurse’s speech in the anonymous and fabulously popular Sienese comedy, Gl’ingannati (1532), as well as Bigolina’s prose romance, in which the lesson is delivered by the crossdressed eponymous heroine. 192. “Queste ch’or son per dirti / poche e brevi parole / diletto più che noia / t’apporteranno cer­ to. / Fu già, non è gran tempo, / un leggiadro pastore / dotato di virtù, di bello ingegno / ch’a ninfa qui d’Arcadia si fè amante. / Così, per molti giorni, / con reciproco amor favori onesti / si fer l’un l’altro come fidi amanti / quando il pastor ardito/ (perch’in lei grand’amore / conobbe e grand’affetto) / im­ provisa dimanda e indiscreta / (con danno del suo onore / con pericolo grave de la vita) / ardito chiese a l’onorata ninfa / dicendole: ‘Vorrei che mi donaste, / ninfa, la più pregiata e cara cosa / ch’in questo mondo prezzi, istimi e ami.’ / Ed ella a tal parlar lieta rispose: / ‘Pur che sia in mio poter quel che tu chiedi / libero a te farò cortese dono. / Dimanda adunque lieto ciò che vuoi / ch’io son per sod­ disfarti.’ / Egli allor dimandò cosa dannosa, / altera e inonesta, / e tal che non potea / la ninfa compia­ cerlo / senza rendersi priva / d’ogni lodata e più stimata parte / che grata la rendeva e bella a tutti.” (Amorosa speranza, 5.2).

64 Introduction Alliseo Certainly unworthy of the name / that Mother Nature bestowed upon him / could this fellow have considered himself / wanting something from his beloved lady / that would have rendered her / odious and despised by everyone.193 By offering her interlocutor access to a reality to which he is otherwise blind, Venelia opens up the storyline as an opportunity for debate, interpretation, and ultimate redress. For the time being, however, Alliseo remains oblivious to the effect his actions have had on others (Fulgentia, Venelia, Corintia). While still protected by the anonymity of her “lesson in disguise,” the astute nymph then goes even further—she elicits from the transgressor himself the form a just pun­ ishment should take for such a transgression: Venelia And what sort of penalty, what punishment / did this fellow deserve / for committing such a serious crime? For such audacity?194 In response to Venelia’s coy entreaty, Alliseo eagerly offers his opinion, a state­ ment she will later use to her advantage—a tactic the nymph employs at various stages in the conversation as she cleverly maneuvers its outcome: Alliseo This fellow would deserve  /  bitter punishment  /  for such transgres­ sion / and should remain silent / and wait for it to come from her at any time / without showing any resistance.195 The exchange between Venelia and Alliseo has more than one goal. At face value it has the purpose of bringing a wayward shepherd back into line while it also serves as a warning to many others like him. Ultimately and perhaps even more importantly, the longest episode in the play has the purpose of adding yet another dimension to an already complicated character, for the multifaceted Venelia is indeed unique when compared to the rather unidimensional, more generic pro­ files of Fulgentia and Artemia.196 In carrying out her various roles as abandoned 193. “Certo indegno del nome / del qual lo procreò l’alma natura / potea dirsi costui / volendo cosa da l’amata donna / che disprezzata in odio / la rendesse d’ogn’uno.” (Amorosa speranza, 5.2) 194. “E che sorte di pena, e qual castigo / si meritò costui / per sì gran fellonia? Per tant’ardire?” (Amorosa speranza, 5.2). 195. “Costui meriterebbe / un’acerbo castigo / e dovrebbe star queto / e attenderlo da lei constante­ mente / senza un minimo punto / a quel contravvenire.” (Amorosa speranza, 5.2). 196. Not to mention countless other stereotypical characterizations such as Tasso’s Silvia and Guarini’s Amarilli.

Introduction 65 bride, mournful lover, faithful friend and, finally, as teacher and spokesperson for women’s neglected voices, Venelia undergoes a number of reincarnations that at­ test to her resilience and intricate subjectivity. In her own words, and in sharp contrast to the forlorn Alliseo, she is not one “prepared to die” as a result of her misfortunes, even as she proves to be by far the most complicated victim of Love’s mischievous maneuverings. It is fitting, then, that Venelia’s solo intervention leads to a transformed, repentant Alliseo—a change that sets the stage for the announced return of Damone, her estranged husband, and the possibility of a happy ending. Arguably, Venelia and Tirenia together advance the protofeminist cause be­ hind Miani’s drama as agents of reason and civility that stand in opposition to the rustic realm of shepherds, satyrs, and goatherds largely governed by lawlessness, misogyny, and unbridled desire. As such, their intervention in the unfolding of the plot is crucial in that they each introduce an element of reality into a space that is at once “real and metaphorical,” as Jane Tylus has noted in her assessment of the Renaissance pastoral.197 To that same end, both Venelia and Tirenia function as active agents of disruption: their personal trauma forever destroys the pastoral’s ostensibly idyllic setting. As victims, their bodies expose the male use of violence for purely self-serving ends, while their example proves, once again, that pastoral is decidedly not a safe haven for female chastity.198 In short, Venelia and Tirenia introduce a kind of cynicism that is hard to shake off—at least not until we are made to witness the lessons each deals out in turn to her respective male inter­ locutor while essentially placing the latter on trial. It is perhaps not a simple matter of chance that the final encounter between Tirenia and the satyr Elliodoro is the second longest scene in Miani’s play (4.6). This constitutes a third example based on the same model—female in the authori­ tative role of teacher, male in the submissive role of pupil. This time the scene is infused with a pronounced dose of parody aimed at further exposing masculin­ ity’s unflattering aspects. In the aftermath of their first encounter the satyr de­ scribes his one-time helpless victim as a “sagace maestra” (2.3), a crafty woman, an “expert” who managed to turn him into “un uom pieno di paglia” (a straw man), transforming her predator into a passive object of ridicule, the amusement or “solazzo” of Arcadia’s goatherds. The two episodes, three scenes in total, are strategically distributed in the course of the play. In the second episode—which unfolds across two scenes—Tirenia, this time placed in the dominant role, car­ ries out her punitive lesson. Significantly, she does so with the help of the entire 197. See Jane Tylus, “Colonizing Peasants: The Rape of the Sabines and Renaissance Pastoral,” Renaissance Drama 23 (1992): 113–38, at 113. My interpretation of Miani’s pastoral suggests a gen­ dered power dynamic and a hierarchy that is actually opposite to the one suggested by Tylus in her reading of Grotolo, an early sixteenth-century pastoral and, as she argues, a “prototype” of those dra­ mas that followed later in the century. 198. This is ironic, given that pastoral turns out to be the one dramatic genre singled out by Ingegneri as “welcoming” and “conducive” to women on stage in their role as virgins; Della poesia rappresentativa, 7.

66 Introduction woodland community—a chorus representing that community of shepherds, and Isandro, the shepherd who instigates and directs their participation on her behalf. In pointed contrast to the satyr, Isandro exhibits a gallantry that will in the end be rewarded by marital union. But while Miani capitalizes on the satyr-nymph episode already present in a variety of male- and female-authored pastoral dramas and utilized for its enter­ tainment value, Amorosa speranza not only targets but also turns that scene’s ste­ reotypical misogynist leanings into a matter that deserves more focused, serious attention with an intent that explicitly challenges the ethos of the entire woodland community. The satyr’s punishment is thus staged as a criminal trial with a scene of its own, while the chorus arguably stands in as the jury and Tirenia herself as the judge presiding over the case.199 In effect, this last encounter rewrites from a protofeminist perspective what at first appears as typical fare of pastoral drama. Let us take a moment to examine that third scene between satyr and nymph, and note how this strand of the plot is intimately connected to some of the central themes showcased by Amorosa speranza, namely, male infidelity, women’s vic­ timization, and women’s redress and transformation of that victimization into empowerment. In addition to Tirenia’s search for personal retribution, I would argue that the dilemma of women’s sociopolitical disempowerment and subjuga­ tion mandated by “custom in accordance with the law”—as Venelia lucidly articu­ lates in Act 1—is recaptured, re-enacted, and in a sense redressed in the tripartite division of the encounter between satyr and nymph that extends from Act 2 to Act 4. By the same token, Venelia’s final encounter with Alliseo in Act 5 revis­ its and ultimately brings further closure to this polemic by reinstating women’s (lost) dignity. The thorny issues at the core of women’s loss of power, rehearsed by both Tirenia and Venelia in their separate personalized interventions, are those of women’s rape, their loss of virginity, and, as a result, their loss of reputation in the eyes of the world. In this last scene between victim and perpetrator Miani offers us a vivid, spitfire exchange that continues as if in a crescendo, although now with the roles having been reversed. Here is a sample of that exchange: Satyr For heaven’s sake, nymph, hurry up and do what / you intend to do to me, / for I will suffer anything in your hands / so long as you untie me and let me go afterwards!200 199. It is interesting to see how differently, in Miani’s hands, the chorus functions; as Julie Campbell observes in her discussion of Aminta, by “celebrat[ing] the triumph of Aminta’s constancy” the chorus in Tasso’s pastoral implicitly corroborates with “an ending that adheres strongly to Petrarchan conven­ tion.” See Campbell, Literary Circles and Gender in Early Modern Europe: A Cross-Cultural Approach (Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 68. 200. “Di grazia, ninfa, fammi presto quello / ch’hai pensato di farmi / che ‘l tutto soffrirò da le tue mani / pur che mi sleghi e mi lasci partire.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6).

Introduction 67 Tirenia Untie you? No, no, you can forget that! / For you know full well, foe, / what you were prepared to do / with my virginity!201 Satyr If I ever intended to do you any harm, / everything went up in smoke / and then dissolved as if in a light fog! / Now then, I ask for your forgive­ ness. / Let me then courteously go in peace!202 Tirenia If you want to leave here, I am content. / But first I want you to promise me two things, / and this so that you yourself / bear witness of your crime to all these woods. / Afterwards, I promise / to untie you without any further ado!203 Notably, Tirenia asks the satyr to “bear witness” to the crime he has commit­ ted. But bearing witness comes at no small price, for it is not limited to the satyr simply confessing his wrongdoing and making amends for it. Instead, Tirenia asks for the kind of testimony that is emphatically inscripted on the body—just as a woman’s virginity, once lost, becomes indelibly inscripted on her body. The nymph’s punitive action is therefore akin to an eye for an eye method of revenge. The two things she asks for will bear visible testimony of the satyr’s shaming: the shearing of his beard and the severing of one of his horns. Both losses provide testimony of the punishment incurred for his transgressive behavior, but will also bear witness to his castration dealt out by a “femminil mano,” a feminine hand whose strength the satyr stereotypically places into question.204 Once exacted, the satyr’s punishment has a twofold purpose: first, it “bears witness” to other such potential predators, and second, it functions as a signpost for women’s assertive stance against male violence. The preliminary back and forth prior to Tirenia carrying out her retaliatory measures is worth citing, as it once again demonstrates how intent our author is 201. “Ch’io ti sleghi? No, no, or pensa ad altro / che tu ben sai, nimico, / de la mia purità quello ch’avevi / preparato di farmi.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 202. “S’io t’avea preparato qualche male / ogni cosa è risolto / in lieve nebbia, e in fumo. / Ecco, per­ don ti chieggio, / lasciami dunque andar cortese in pace.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 203. “Se vuoi di quì partirti, io son contenta. / Ma pria voglio due cose mi prometti / e queste acciò tu stesso del tuo fallo / sii testimonio a tutte queste selve; / ch’io ti prometto poi / slegarti immantinente.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 204. The phrase harks back to Bolzetta’s dedicatory letter, in which he critiques male detractors of women’s intellectual worth, men who have no confidence in their “femminil ingegno” regardless of any evidence to the contrary. In both cases the evidence flies in the face of male stereotypical leanings.

68 Introduction on showcasing a woman’s rhetorical prowess in actively combating and eventually overwhelming an initially dumbstruck and finally mortified male interlocutor: Tirenia The first is this: that you allow me / to cut off your beard so that you re­ member / that you were late in falling in love. / What do you say? Are you willing? / You don’t respond and you are sighing? / You can send me away if you want, / but I will leave you tied to this trunk / as the laughingstock and amusement of all the goatherds / who live in Arcadia!205 Satyr Not so much cruelty, courteous nymph, / remember all the love that I bore for you!206 Tirenia What I intend to do / is surely a sign of love: / to want that beautiful and dear beard of yours / always near me as a dear token / of your cruel love.207 Satyr Ask for any other thing, o dear nymph, / but among all the other things you want, leave me this one!208 Tirenia This is what I want, and not something else. / And I want it all the more / as I hear how much it pains you! / And if you delay much longer in giving your consent, / I will take it from you by force. / Eh, I’m already dream­ ing / of touching it and holding it tightly!209 Satyr Let that suffice, and leave it alone, then!210 205. “La prima è questa: che tu sia contento/ che ti tagli la barba per memoria / de l’esser stato tardi a innamorarti. / Che dici? Ti contenti? / Tu non rispondi e attendi a sospirare? / Spediscimi se vuoi, se non legato / ti lascio a questo tronco: / scherno e solazzo di quanti biffolchi/ si trovano in Arcadia!” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 206. “Non tanta crudeltà ninfa cortese / sovengati l’amor ch’io ti portai.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6.). 207. “Questo che far intendo/ è ben segno d’amore: / volendo quella bella e cara barba / sempre ap­ presso di me per caro pegno / de l’amor tuo crudele.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 208. “Comanda ogn’altra cosa, o cara ninfa, / e tra ‘l altre che vuoi lasciami questa!” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 209. “Questa voglio e non altra. / E più la voglio quanto/ odo ch’ella t’incresce! / E se tarderai molto a consentirlo / a forza leverolla. / E mi par di sognare / che la tocchi e la stringa.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 210. “Bastiti questo e lasciamela stare.” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6).

Introduction 69 Tirenia I’m telling you that I want it now. Understand?211 Satyr Take it, disgraceful one—to your misfortune!212 Needless to say, the encounter culminates with the satyr thoroughly beaten at his own game. Significantly, that playful banter which permeates the parallel scene in Andreini’s Mirtilla is diminished and replaced with cynicism. Moreover, while in Andreini’s pastoral the satyr still reserves the right to refer to himself as a “semidio”213 (demigod), a title which recognizes his ancient semidivine lineage, in Miani that title is definitively removed and the satyr is reduced to a “bestia” (beast), emphasizing his rustic, uncouth lineage, a lineage he shares with the scorned villano. Elliodoro’s acquisition of a proper name and marital status only serve to bring him closer to the profile of the stereotypical philandering male. Masculinity portrayed in this light—albeit using a theatergram borrowed from her predecessors (especially from Agostino Beccari and Isabella Andreini)—ac­ quires an unprecedented level of notoriety.214 To a significant degree and with a similar end in view, Venelia’s and Tirenia’s lessons overlap and complement one another. Thanks to Tirenia’s intervention, Elliodoro sheds his primitive inclina­ tions and resumes his marital duties in his role as Artemia’s husband; thanks to Venelia’s intervention, Alliseo returns to his place as Fulgentia’s groom. Venelia’s last stage appearance serves to underscore the dominant role she has held throughout the play. During that last scene her loyalty to Fulgentia is reiterated, as are the benefits the latter is able to reap as a result of their friendship. At the same time, Venelia is brought face to face with the goatherd, Bassano, who had bartered information of his mistress’s whereabouts—much like a ruffiano or a pimp—in exchange for gastronomic fulfillment. Presumably, however, Venelia is even more offended by this villano’s prurient nature, especially evident when he takes the liberty of gazing at her lustfully while she sleeps (3.3)—mimicking the male voyeur in the audience. If initially Bassano wielded some power with respect to his role as intermediary, whether as Isandro’s “go-between” or as the satyr’s “savior,” in the play’s last scene his influence is reduced to naught, and his vulnerability is all the more evident when he appears nearly naked in front of his mistress, prepared to receive his due punishment and fully aware that his survival is entirely dependent on her good will. In sum, this final scene can be 211. “Ti dico che la voglio ora. M’intendi?” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 212. “Pigliala, discortese, in tua malora!” (Amorosa speranza, 4.6). 213. See Mirtilla 3.3, l. 1613. 214. For a more detailed discussion of this scene, with a comparative look at Miani’s predecessors, see Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, 152–57.

70 Introduction viewed as a culmination of Miani’s profeminist agenda, while the play’s farewell address makes one final gesture in that direction. Articulated by Iulo, the little boy shepherd and Venelia’s brother,215 the farewell address does more than just provide tongue-in-cheek comic relief for the “leggiadre dame” (charming ladies) in the audience. Iulo’s joking aside, his soliloquy underscores what the pastoral seeks to redress in relation to the dynamic between the sexes: by that same token, women will continue to remain “on top” by exercising their power to either be­ stow or withhold modes of survival, including but not limited to sexual matters. Essentially, the traditional role of the defenseless nymph so often showcased in pastoral drama—most famously in Tasso’s paradigmatic Aminta—is turned on its head as women take control.216 In conclusion, all three female protagonists (Corintia, Venelia, Tirenia) po­ sitioned to teach and to guide the male woodland community (shepherd, satyr, goatherd) do so in unmediated form, given that the author of Amorosa speranza is, like them, a woman. By allowing Venelia and Tirenia to turn their personal trauma into public spectacle (as the playscript does, and as a staged performance would), Miani’s pastoral drama gives voice to an otherwise systematically silenced part of women’s lives, allowing the victims themselves to interrogate the norm but also, more importantly, the “custom” that served to underwrite and validate such norms for centuries. Thus, judging from the standpoint of a pervasively male literary canon, Miani as author revisits and rewrites what we can imagine to have been a passive acceptance, even an appreciation, of pastoral’s built-in aggression against its female population.217 Ironically, in Amorosa speranza, a good measure of that “diletto” (delight/pleasure)—which Ingegneri had championed as so in­ trinsic to pastoral drama—consists of lessons orchestrated against such acts of passive acceptance and against an enjoyment of women’s passive victimization on

215. A woman’s brother was often a stand-in for her father and, like him, wielded an enormous amount of power over any female sibling. In Amorosa speranza that authority is entirely shifted to Venelia, and this is evidenced in Iulo’s submissive, deferential behavior toward his sister, whom he seeks out specifically to secure Bassano’s pardon. Although a father figure is mentioned, he never appears on stage, much like the husband figure Damone; this lack of representation undercuts any kind of authority these two figures had in early modern society. A male-authored pastoral wherein the brother figure is shown to have considerable power over the nymph (Melidia), especially in terms of her sexuality, is Agostino Beccari’s Sacrificio. 216. As Campbell cogently puts it, in Tasso’s Aminta, “the innamorata, Silvia, is at first a cold, distant Petrarchan beloved, then a helpless but virtuous damsel in distress, and finally, an ardent but submis­ sive beloved, representing a series of traditionally good exempla for women in pastoral drama.” See Campbell, Literary Circles, 61. 217. If we concur with Tylus’s conclusions regarding the sociopolitical underpinnings of the genre, acts of aggression, perpetrated either against women or the villano, “characterized European pastoral drama for over a century”; see Tylus, “Colonizing Peasants,” 134.

Introduction 71 the part of the actively engaged male character and the voyeuristic and complicit male spectator.218 On final analysis, Amorosa speranza delivers an ambiguous form of “diletto.” Arguably, it is the kind that dispels any notion of bucolic innocence immune from civic concerns. Miani goes to great lengths to underline the confluence of city and countryside in her pastoral play by alluding to a code of conduct and an ethic that is more properly to be expected of comedy and tragedy.219 The ethical template Miani aspires to is articulated by the mother figure (Corintia) at the very beginning of Act 1, when she admonishes her son (Alliseo), one of the male leads in the play, to act as is fitting (“come conviensi”) for a wise and prudent man (“ad uom saggio e prudente”). Of course what follows is evidence that all male characters—whether central or peripheral to the plot—fall short of this masculine ideal. In fact, the kind of male Corintia proposes is entirely absent from the pastoral’s list of interlocutori. There can only be one plausible explanation for this: his absence is a premeditated one. The wise old shepherd, the “uom saggio e prudente” as he is described here, is likely a retrospective allusion to the character of Opico in Andreini’s Mirtilla—a model Miani emulates and from which, we may rightly assume, she intended to depart. Indeed, in her departure from that model, Miani creates room for those female characters in whom she invests the gift of eloquence, ingegno, the authority to influence male behavior according to an ethos that respects women as subjects, and, finally, the power to shift pastoral’s traditionally skewed gender dynamic and direct it toward a more authentic lieto fine.220 While it is true that Miani has the minor character Lucrino intervene at the very end as the deus ex machina who announces Damone’s return, which will in turn allow for a harmonious ending, that shepherd’s return is predicated on an already established new ethos that recognizes women’s worth. In each of their interventions and their questioning of the norm, Venelia and Tirenia are the two characters who can take credit for this new ethos and the resulting reformed dy­ namic between the sexes that it entails. Moreover, it may well be the case, as Julie 218. Pointedly, during her encounter with Alliseo in 5.2, Venelia promises that her words will deliver “diletto più che noia” (more delight than harm). 219. On the ambiguous theoretical underpinnings of pastoral and the debates it sparked, especially in its comparison to the other dramatic genres (comedy and tragedy), see Jane Tylus’s illuminating essay “Purloined Passages: Giraldi, Tasso, and the Pastoral Debates,” MLN 99 (1984): 101–24. 220. If in her creation of Tirenia our author could have drawn inspiration from a number of other feisty nymphs such as Andreini’s Filli and Campiglia’s Flori, Miani’s characterization of Venelia is considerably more complex. There are certainly some traces of Andreini’s venerable Opico here; Opico’s wisdom, eloquence, and power to influence (others and the play’s outcome) are all attributes Miani invests in her two central female protagonists, but especially in Venelia. Notably, the authorita­ tive role Venelia exhibits in 4.10 when faced with the rival shepherds, Alliseo and Isandro, whom she successfully reconciles, draws its inspiration from a similar role played by Opico in Mirtilla, 3.5; see esp. ll. 1784–90.

72 Introduction Campbell has astutely observed in her analysis of Andreini’s Mirtilla, that the traits exhibited by Miani’s Tirenia and Venelia were “informed by the traits valued in salon and academic society.”221 Maria Luisa Doglio goes so far as to say that Filli, Mirtilla’s star female character, exhibits an “autonomy” of mind akin to the one expressed by some of the women poets of the Cinquecento (Veronica Gambara, Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Franco).222 It is indeed the case that these female char­ acters’ intelligence, verve, eloquence, and self-reliance were undoubtedly among the features women would have had to demonstrate in order to partake in either a salon or an academic setting, such as those frequented by Andreini and Miani. To degrees which vary in intensity, as I have had the opportunity to show in my anal­ ysis, the end product is “what happens when a female playwright gives a strong voice and enhanced agency to the figures of the traditional Petrarchan beloved, the damsel in distress, and the cold, chaste follower of Cynthia.”223 If one is to reassess the debt she owes to her predecessors, Andreini as foremost among them, I maintain that Miani goes a step farther in “confound[ing] the stereotypes”224 in­ herent in what was a spectacularly popular genre in the latter part of the sixteenth and beyond into the seventeenth century. Together with her tragedy, Celinda, for reasons I have argued elsewhere, Amorosa speranza constitutes Miani’s significant contribution to the ongoing querelle des femmes.225

Note on the Italian Text Amorosa speranza consists of 84 recto and verso pages, just like Celinda, and bears the same cover except for the coat of arms present on the frontispiece of the lat­ ter. To my knowledge there is no extant manuscript of the play. As Finucci has pointed out, once a text was published, it is unlikely that a manuscript would have been preserved. The present transcription is based on the 1604 publication, to my knowledge the only extant publication of the text. Francesco Bolzetta’s dedica­ tory letter is followed by three poems (a canzone and two sonnets) of uncertain authorship in praise of Miani and the play. Miani’s own dedicatory letter follows and is slightly shorter than Bolzetta’s. Both letters are addressed to the Paduan no­ blewoman, Marietta Uberti Descalzi, whose family ties to the Ricovrati academy are significant; whether or not Descalzi herself attended meetings is not certain, although likely. For the sake of clarity, when necessary, I have provided in the 221. Campbell, Literary Circles, 57. 222. See Doglio’s Introduction to La Mirtilla (Lucca: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 1995), 9, cited in Campbell, Literary Circles, 63. 223. Campbell, Literary Circles, 59. 224. These are Campbell’s words, used to describe Andreini’s feat in her encounter with and reassess­ ment of her male predecessors’ female roles; see Literary Circles, 72. 225. See note 56.

Introduction 73 cast of characters more precise details about each character’s role in the play and their relationship to one another, especially Venelia, whose role is central and complicated.

Note on the Transcription The play was transcribed at the Marciana Library’s rare book collection (DRAMM 117) in Venice in the summer of 2012. The 1604 edition of Amorosa speranza has been made available in the public domain by the Folger digital image collec­ tion and by the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence. Several other Italian libraries have digitized copies of the 1604 edition. In the United States, Princeton University and Early European Books also have copies in their rare book collec­ tions. The original text published herein relies on the Marciana and the Florentine printed versions. Modern punctuation and capitalization have been added when­ ever necessary for easier understanding, to enhance reading of the original, and to correct any typographical errors in the printed text. As is often the case with Renaissance and early modern Italian dramatic compositions, the text consists of unrhymed seven- and eleven-syllable verses. Following modern usage, the follow­ ing changes have been made throughout: 1.

Some orthographic errors have been corrected or adjusted as needed; others, especially when easily understood by a modern reader, have been left “as is” in order to maintain the integrity of the original as much as possible.

2.

The letter h has been eliminated (as, for example in thesoro, honore, honestate, and hora).

3.

The letters v and u have been distinguished.

4.

Consonants have been doubled or elided in keeping with modern us­ age (for instance, imagine becomes immagine; caminar becomes camminar; obligò become obbligò; doppo becomes dopo; auttorità becomes autorità).

5.

Throughout the text, et has been changed to e.

6.

Adverbs and prepositions have been brought together as one word or two depending on most common modern usage (for example, tal’hora becomes talora; all’or becomes allor; ogni hor becomes ognor).

7.

Capitalization follows standard practice, except when referring to per­ sonifications and/or mythological figures, in which case capitalization is maintained; capitalization deemed unnecessary has been elided whether at the beginning, middle, or end of a phrase.

8.

Any abbreviations have been transcribed in full.

74 Introduction 9.

When the text uses a question mark to express both an interrogative and an exclamation, the two options have been appropriately differentiated according to context.

10. Apostrophes and accents have been modernized (for example, tù be­ comes tu; à becomes a; mà becomes ma; trà becomes tra). 11. The letter t followed by a vowel has been changed to z (giuditio is now giudizio; gratie is now grazie; servitio is now servizio; protettione is now protezione).

Note on the Translation The translation attempts to follow Miani’s text as closely as possible. Although the structure of the verses has been followed throughout, with few exceptions, no attempt is made to recreate English verse or to reproduce the original text’s oc­ casional rhyme. The translation does try to reproduce the original text’s anaphora and alliteration whenever possible; in the few instances where it was possible to mimic the original’s rhyme, this is signaled in the notes. In those instances, exact meaning is sacrificed in exchange for offering the reader a sense of the original’s rhyme. Some changes to word order, punctuation, and capitalization have been made whenever deemed necessary in order to render the text easier to read and understand. When the need to reproduce direct speech arises, angled quotation marks have been used in order to render the text clearer and more easily under­ stood. Also to this end, the “O/Oh” at the beginning or in the middle of a verse have been distinguished: the vocative (“O”) is distinguished from the emotional interjection (“Oh”) following context. So too parentheses have been added to the original text (and so too, accordingly, to the translated text) whenever such an intervention was deemed necessary for clarity of meaning; at times, that interven­ tion was reserved for the original text only, while at other times the intervention was limited to the translated text for ease of comprehension and reading while keeping intervention to the original text minimal. A number of notes have been written with the precise purpose of helping the reader see and understand con­ nections and parallels between Miani’s text and other pastoral dramas, especially that of her illustrious predecessor, Isabella Andreini. Finally, a number of stage directions have been added in square brackets and in italics, once again for the sake of enhanced readability (and, perhaps also to encourage students to envi­ sion a modern staged version of the play), although none appear in the original seventeenth-century printed edition.

AMOROSA SPERANZA • AMOROUS HOPE

76 Amorosa speranza Alla molto illustre Signora e Patrona Osservandissima la Signora MARIETTA UBERTI DESCALZI Non doveva questa favola pastorale della Signora Valeria Miani lassarsi vedere in pubblico raccomandata alla protezione d’altro nome, che di V.S. molto illustre non solamente perché essendolene stato già fatto dono dall’autore molto prima che io, consigliatone da persone di bellissime lettere e di delicatissimo gusto, mi risolvessi a stamparla; ella può tenterla in luogo di cosa propria, come tale averla cara, e stimarla; ma ancora, perché avendo all’altezza dell’intelletto accompagnata una esatissima cognizion degli studi di poesia si come averà potuto conoscere tutti gli ornamenti e i lumi dè quali il presente poema è fregiato e risplende così potrà parimente con la sola autorità del giudizio suo esserli saldo e sicuro scudo contra ciascuno che con invidiosa temerità presumesse di biasimarlo. Questi saranno peravventura molti, e mossi tutti dalla stessa cagione. Percioché falsamente persuadendosi che da femminile ingegno opera pur di mezzana bontà (nonché interamente perfetta) non possa nascere senza avere ad alcuna altra cosa riguardo, qualsivoglia o poetico o altro componimento di donna bene spesso senza averlo prima altrimenti né veduto né letto sono soliti di dannare indifferentemente e sprezzare dando chiaro segno di non sapere che in tutte le età passate si sian sempre moltissime donne in ogni maniera di laudevole studio andate avanzando in guisa che abbian potuto contender del primo luogo con gli uomini più famosi del tempo loro. Né a me sarebbe impresa o grave o difficile il registrare i nomi se non di tutte almeno di una buon parte di esse; s’io non fossi più che sicuro che per V.S. molto illustre, laquale ottimamente li sa non è punto necessaria simil fatica & che per rimuover questi altri dal loro errore non sarebbe di giovamento veruno il pigliarla; poscia che vana cosa è sperare che efficaci debbian essere gli esempi antichi appresso coloro, che non si lassan persuader da’ moderni, e da quelli, che stanno loro continuamente dinanzi gli occhi. Mi giova però di credere che se l’eccellenza di questa leggiadrissima pastorale e di una tragedia che la medesima Signora Valeria va tuttavia componendo non sarà bastante a sgannarli si sarà almeno il vederle segnato in fronte il nome di V.S.M. illustre la quale oltre all’esser figlia del molto illustre Sig. Ottonello Descalzo, nobilisimo cavaliere, e giureconsulto di chiarissimo grido in Italia e fuore, e moglie di gentiluomo ragguardevole non meno per la nobiltà del sangue che per le graziose & cortesi maniere sue; ha ancora da Dio ricevuto tutti quei doni & di corpo e di animo, che in gran gentildonna si posson desiderare. Supplico il Signor Iddio per ogni sua bramata felicità e le faccio umilissima riverenza. Di Padova adì 4 Aprile 1604. Di V. S. Molto Illustre Servitore affettionatiss. Francesco Bolzetta.

Amorous Hope 77 To the most illustrious Lady and Patron most worthy of respect, the Lady MARIETTA UBERTI DESCALZI This pastoral tale of the Lady Valeria Miani could not have been introduced to the public without the protection of any name other than your excellency’s own most illustrious name. Not only because the author herself had given this poem to you as a gift; she had done so long before I, having been advised by persons of the finest education and most delicate taste, had decided to bring it to press. For this reason, you may keep it as your own and as such cherish it and value it; but also, because your lofty intellect is accompanied by a most precise knowledge of the study of poetry, just so you will be able to appreciate all the ornaments and the lights with which the present poem is embellished and illuminated, and so, by virtue of your judgment’s authority alone, will you be able to be for it a sound and secure shield against anyone who might venture to denigrate it with envious temerity. These [detractors] may, peradventure, be many, and all may be moved by the same reason. For, being falsely persuaded that a work of art born of a female intellect cannot even be of average quality (let alone entirely perfect!), without being mindful of anything else—whether it is a poem or any other type of composition written by a woman—and often even without having first seen it or read it, they are wont to denigrate it regardless and cast scorn upon it. They thus provide clear proof of their not knowing that in every past age a great many women have advanced themselves so far in every type of praiseworthy pursuit that they have been able to compete for first place with the most famous men of their time. Nor would it be an arduous or difficult task for me to make a list of their names—if not of all, at least of a good portion of them—if I were not certain of the fact that your most illustrious excellency is well aware of who they are, and therefore, such an effort is unnecessary; and it would be no help in removing these men from their error, since it is futile to hope that ancient examples would effectively persuade those who do not let themselves be persuaded by modern ones, even ones which are continually before their eyes. I like to believe, however, that if the excellence of this most delightful pastoral, and of a tragedy which the same Lady Valeria is presently composing, is not enough to disabuse these detractors, then it will suffice that your most illustrious name is seen on its cover; for, besides being the daughter of the very illustrious Sir Ottonello Descalzo, most noble knight and a jurist of most famous renown in Italy and abroad, and also being the wife of a gentleman known not only for the nobility of his blood but so too for his gracious and courteous manners, you have received from God all those gifts of body and of soul that one can desire in a great gentlewoman. I beg that the Lord God grant your every wished-for happiness, and I most humbly bow to you. From Padua, on the 4th day of April 1604. Your very illustrious Lady’s Most affectionate servant, Francesco Bolzetta.

78 Amorosa speranza CANZONE D’Incerto Amorosa SPERANZA,   che già tra muti orrori   del spiritoso petto unica stanza   de’ purissimi amori   legasti l’alma in gloriose paci,   e pronta e ardita spiritosi baci. Tu conversa in te stessa   la tua rara beltade   amasti lieta, ove non era impresa   la tua vera onestate   e vibrando i tuoi sguardi intorno al loco   casto, e pudico in lui spirasti il foco. Confondesti talora   (quasi amoroso dio)   la gioia col timore e il riso ancora;   e nel saggio desio   affetti spiritosi e puri ardori   infondesti ministri a puri cori. Quello che ancora splende   in te lucida e vera   luce, desio di gloria, ecco s’accende;   ma perché sempre spera   e t’adita, l’onore in te s’aggira   e il volto tuo avidamente mira. Dunque, tu che l’aurata   cetra al tuo bel pastore   donasti, a cui fu caramente grata,   canta il gradito Amore   e il dono insieme e sian le belle note   concorde al moto dell’eterne rote. FINE

Amorous Hope 79 SONG by an Unknown Amorous HOPE,   who once among silent horrors,   in the brave heart’s only chamber   of purest loves,   bound the soul in glorious peace   ready and brazen to receive those heartfelt kisses; You, turned upon yourself,   happily loved   your rare beauty, there where your true honesty   was not engraved.   And, your glances fluttering around that place   innocent and chaste, you breathed into it your fire. You confounded at times   (like an amorous god)   joy with fear and laughter too;   and within a wise desire   spirited emotions and pure passions   you introduced as ministers inside pure hearts. That which still shines   in you, a luminous and true   light, desire for glory, here is now ignited;   but because it always hopes   and points to you, honor surrounds you   and looks upon your countenance avidly. Therefore, you who gave the golden lyre   to your handsome shepherd1   who cherished it dearly,   sing the welcomed Love   and the gift at once—may the beautiful notes   be in harmony with the eternal wheels. THE END

80 Amorosa speranza SONETTO D’Incerto Tal fiameggia in costei vivo e ardente   raggio divin, che mille cori accende   d’amor, di gloria, e fuor riluce e splende   beltà che n’arde ogni più fredda mente. Primavera ha nel sen vaga e ridente,   due stelle in fronte e dal bel raggio apprende   natura e Amor ogni vaghezza, rende   il crin l’oro men puro e men lucente. Coprono poi sì rare illustri spoglie   alma real che di virtute è nido,   e di santa onestà tempio sicuro. Onde mentre ch’io lei con umil grido   simulacro del ciel lodo e figuro,   il volo eterno eterna fama voglie. D’Incerto Vola sovra Parnaso lo splendore   del cielo, e là tra le più belle forme   Urania sciegli, al mio desir conforme   i più bei raggi, ond’io VALERIA onore. E s’io cetra non ho ch’a tanto onore   giunga, tu lei, che di te segua l’orme,   veloce scorgi, onde se stessa forme   col chiaro stil, con voci sue canore. Ma se del ciel tra luminosi giri   forme non trovi al suo sembiante uguali,   tra gl’angeli puoi girne in Paradiso. O se spiegar non vuoi tant’alto l’ali,   mostrale tu, perché se stessa miri,   nel fonte d’Elicona il suo bel viso.

Amorous Hope 81 SONNET by an Unknown Such a divine ray flames in this one,   alive and burning, that it ignites a thousand hearts   with love, with glory, and externally it shines   with splendid beauty, so that it inflames the coldest mind. In her breast she carries Spring, charming and laughing,   two stars on her forehead, and, from the beautiful ray   nature and Love gather every charm   making gold appear less pure and less shiny than her hair. Such rare and illustrious garments cover   a noble spirit, a nest of virtue,   and a secure temple of sacred chastity. And so, while I praise her with my humble acclaim   and picture her as an image of heaven,   the eternal flight calls for eternal fame. By an Unknown Above Parnassus2 flies the splendor   of heaven, and there among the most beautiful forms,   Urania3 (in conformity with my desire), choose the most beautiful rays   with which I can bestow honor on VALERIA! And though I do not have a lyre that can aspire   to such honor, may you swiftly find her   so that she may follow in your footsteps   with her radiant style and her melodious sounds. But if among heaven’s luminous circles   you do not find forms equal to her own,   you can then go to Paradise among the angels. Or, if you do not want to spread your wings so high,   then, so that she may gaze at herself, show   her own beautiful face in the spring of Helicon.4

82 Amorosa speranza Alla Molto Illustre Signora et Patrona Osser. ma La Signora Marietta Uberti Descalzi Chi non sa che quel buon Re di Napoli stimò via più quella rapa che gli fu presentata da quel villano per la pura & sincera candidezza dell’animo di quello (molto ben conosciuta dal savio principe) che dopo non fece lo scelto & apprezzato Ginettoi donatogli dall’artificioso Barone? Dunque non sarà meravigilia s’io, donna inesperta, mi movo da quella abbondanza del puro affetto che (sino da’ miei primi anni obbligomi a V.S. molto illustre) con indissolubil nodo d’osservanza a fare libero dono a lei d’un’umil frutto colto dal mio sterile intelletto;ii essendo ella oggi di specchio & esempio di tutte le virtù & onorate qualità che possono ritrovarsi in ben nata gentildonna, voglio sperare che mirando alla purità dell’animo della donatrice debba aggradirlo quanto sarebbe qualsivoglia maggior dono. Accetti dunque, V.S. Molto illustre, per testimonio e caparra del molto che vorrei poter darle & che se le converria, questi miei discorsi pastorali composti mentre alle volte nella contraddizione de’ miei travagliati pensieri cercai di dar bando alle moleste cure dell’animo; & so ben io, Signora, quanto nobile e degno esser dovrebbe il dono perché fusse convenevole a chi è donato; ma scusimi l’accorta prudenza del maturo suo giudizio & resti servita d’aggradire & proteggere questo qual egli si sia. Contentandomi io che comparisca alla sua reale presenza più tosto umile & rozzo mio parto che adorno e scielto supposito altrui.iii Restami dirle che non sarò mai sazia né stanca d’osservarla e riverirla & che perciò mi degni della sua grazia da cui ne trarrò il maggiore & più pregiato capitale di qualsivoglia altro acquisto in questo mondo. Con che fine pregandole dal cielo tanto bene che a suoi fedeli non resti più che desiderarle, con ogni riverenza le bacio affettuosamente l’onorata mano. Di Padova adì 4 Aprile 1604 Di V.S. Molto Illustre Ser. Divotiss. Valeria Miani

Amorous Hope 83 To the Very Illustrious Lady and Most Devout Patroness, Lady Marietta Uberti Descalzi Who does not know the story of that good King of Naples, who placed more value on a turnip,5 presented to him by a peasant, on account of the pure and sincere innocence of his soul (well known by the wise prince), than on the fine and prized jennet given to him by the artful Baron? Therefore, it should not come as a surprise if I, an inexperienced woman, am moved by that abundance of pure affection (which since my childhood has obliged me to your very illustrious self) with an unbreakable bond of devotion to make a voluntary gift to You of one of the humble fruits gathered from my sterile intellect. Given that today you are the mirror and example of all the virtues and all the honorable qualities that one can find in a well-born gentlewoman, I want to hope that by gazing upon the purity of soul of the giver, you may appreciate it as much as any greater gift. May your very illustrious Ladyship accept, therefore, as testimony and as a guarantee of how much more I would like to give you and how much more would be fitting for you, these pastoral discourses of mine composed while, from time to time, absorbed by the contradictions of my tormented thoughts, I endeavored to cast away the burdensome worries of my soul. And I know full well, Lady, how noble and worthy such a gift should be in order that it be fitting to the one to whom it is given; but may the astute prudence of your mature judgment excuse me, and may you accept and protect this gift whatever its worth may be. I am pleased that my offspring appear before your royal presence humble and uncultivated, rather than as a refined and adorned child supposed to be someone else’s. The only thing that remains for me to say is that I shall never be satisfied nor tired of showing my respect and reverence toward you, and, for this reason, may you honor me with your grace, from which I will draw forth the greatest and most prized benefit possible, greater than any other this world has to offer. With this in mind I pray to heaven for your welfare such that your loyal admirers will have nothing more to desire for you, and with every respect I affectionately kiss your honorable hand. From Padua on the 4th day of April 1604 Your most illustrious Lady’s Most devoted servant Valeria Miani

84 Amorosa speranza Interlocutori La Speranza fa il Prologo Alliseo pastore innamorato di Venelia, promesso sposo di Fulgentia Isandro pastore innamorato di Venelia Lucrino pastore in esilio, sacerdote di Cinzia in Argo Venelia ninfa sposa abbandonata di Damone, che non si vede; innamorata di Lucrino Fulgentia ninfa innamorata di Alliseo, promessa sposa di Alliseo Tirenia ninfa innamorata di Alliseo Elliodoro satiro sposo di Artemia, innamorato di Tirenia Artemia satira sposa di Elliodoro Corintia madre di Alliseo Iulo pastorello fanciullo fratello di Venelia Bassano bifolco servo di Venelia Coro di pastori cacciatori

Amorous Hope 85 Cast of Characters Lady Hope Alliseo, a shepherd Isandro, a shepherd Lucrino, a shepherd Venelia, a nymph Fulgentia, a nymph Tirenia, a nymph Elliodoro, a satyr Artemia, a satyress Corintia, an older nymph Iulo, a young shepherd Bassano, a goatherd Chorus of shepherds

delivers the Prologue in love with Venelia, betrothed to Fulgentia in love with Venelia in exile, high priest of Cynthia in Argos abandoned wife of Damone, who does not appear on stage; in love with Lucrino in love with Alliseo, betrothed to Alliseo in love with Alliseo husband of Artemia, in love with Tirenia wife of Elliodoro mother of Alliseo brother of Venelia servant of Venelia hunters

86 Amorosa speranza Prologo La Speranza fa il Prologo Questo abito leggiadro e disusato, questa corona e queste belle e vaghe ali di più color che fisse porto negl’omeri con tanta leggiadria maravigliar vi fan donne cortesi. 5 E cupido desio in voi conosco anzi che l’una a l’altra dimandar veggio per saper ch’io sia: s’io son uomo o pur donna, s’io son celeste dea 10 o pur cosa terrena. Ora stimate forse perché porto quest’ali ch’un angelo mi sia. O pur ch’io sia la Fama vi pensate 15 perch’ella (ancor com’io) a gl’omeri ha le penne! Né l’un né l’altra sono. Angel non son perché s’io fussi tale avrei fermato il volo 20 fra voi leggiadre dame che tanti angeli siete per beltà, per virtù, per onestade. Né men la Fama sono ch’avrei la tromba, avrei le guancie gonfie 25 e i talariiv piumati; né fin’ora sarei stata a scoprirmi. Sono però celeste bench’io soglio abitar sempre fra terreni spiriti. Anzi ch’ognora in mille petti a un tempo 30 lieta riposo e albergo. E perché ben m’accorgo che mentre ognor mirate ogni moto, ogni cenno ch’io faccio in questo loco ognor v’accresce 35 più l’acceso desio saper ch’io sia trar vi voglio di dubbio: La Speranza son’io,

Amorous Hope 87 Prologue Lady Hope delivers the Prologue6 This comely and unusual dress, this crown and these beautiful and lovely multicolored wings which, attached to my shoulders, I bear with such grace, make you, gracious ladies, full of wonder. And in you such eager desire I note, indeed I see how each one of you asks the other in order to know who I am: whether I am a man or a woman, whether I am a heavenly goddess or a terrestrial being. Now then, you think perhaps that because I wear these wings I may be an angel. Or perhaps, even, you might think that I may be Fame, for she (just like me) has wings on her shoulders! I am neither the one nor the other. Angel I am not, for if I were, I would have ended my flight among you, lovely ladies, who appear to be angels on account of your beauty, your virtues,7 and your chastity. Nor am I Fame, for I would have a trumpet and my cheeks would be puffed out and I would be wearing wingèd sandals and I would not have waited until now to unveil my identity! I am, however, divine, even though I dwell always among terrestrial spirits. In fact, I constantly repose and lodge myself happily in a thousand breasts at once. And because I realize all too well that while you constantly gaze at every move, every sign I make in this place, your ardent desire to know who I am constantly increases, I want to rescue you from doubt: I am Hope,8

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88 Amorosa speranza quella famosa dea, quella vergine illustre, 40 quella scorta fedel che fa la strada al pargoletto Amore,v e gl’additò i sentieri che per esser bendato ei non discerne. Non vi sovvien, donne cortesi e belle,vi 45 talor avermi vista? Non vi sovvien talor aver provato questo dorato spron c’ho nella destra, mentre i pensieri vostri spronai a cose degne, 50 fortificando il cor a belle imprese? Son quella appunto, care e amate donne, che tante volte vi notrisco il core di quel dolce sperar: che vi consola, 55 che vi scema i martiri, che vi toglie l’angoscie, che vi fa certe e non di dubbio core, che vi mantiene in fede, che vi rapisce al pianto, 60 che vi ritorna al riso. E infin se non foss’io, quante di voi dariansi in preda a la nemica mia, a la disperazione? Né faccio men con voi 65 l’ufficio mio pietoso, prudenti spettatori, non v’abbandono già, ben lo sapete! Quando nel maggior colmo de’ gran meriti vostri 70 talor la cieca dea volge la ruota cercandovi deprimer quegli onori del vostro gran valor premio condegno; non entr’io forse allor al maggior uopo? E meco conducendo la sirocchia, 75 contro il voler de l’instabil Fortuna, vi riempio il seno di costanza e speme; sì che, costantemente ognor sperando fate cader gl’avari empi disegni

Amorous Hope 89 that famous goddess, that illustrious virgin, 40 that faithful guide who clears the way for the little boy Cupid and shows him the paths which, because he is blindfolded, he cannot discern. Do you not recall, o courteous and beautiful ladies, 45 having seen me sometimes? Do you not recall sometimes having experienced this golden prod which I hold in my right hand while I spurred your thoughts onto worthy things, 50 thereby fortifying your heart for lovely undertakings? I am that very one, dear and beloved ladies, the one who so many times nourishes your heart with that sweet hope: the one who consoles you, 55 who makes your sorrows lighter, who takes away your grief, who makes you certain and not of doubtful heart, who maintains your faith, who whisks you away from crying, 60 who restores you to laughter. And in the end, if it were not for me, how many of you would give yourselves over to my enemy, to despair? Nor do I ever fall short with you 65 in fulfilling my compassionate duty, o prudent spectators, indeed I never abandon you, this you know well! When at the height of your great achievements, 70 sometimes the blind goddess9 turns the wheel seeking to deprive you of your glory, of your lofty merits, and your deservèd prize. Do I not appear on the scene then, when the need is greatest? And by bringing my sister with me, 75 against the will of unstable Fortune, I fill your breast with steadfastness and hope so that, steadfastly, always hoping, you make those greedy and evil designs of your enemy

90 Amorosa speranza de la nemica vostra! E mal suo grado, 80 chiaro e illustre spettacol vi rendete al mondo onusti di corone e scettri. Insomma, io m’offro a ogn’uno, io giovo a tutti, e oggi son discesa in queste selve ove bisogno sia 85 ben de l’aiuto mio: per mantenere in vita un amante pastore, il più saggio e gentile, il più leggiadro e bello 90 che sia in tutta Arcadia; né men avrà bisogno del mio aiuto la più casta e onesta, la più costante e fida, e la più riguardevole e più vaga 95 ninfa ch’abbia l’Arcadia e tutto il mondo; i quali, s’io non fossi, l’uno al sicuro chiuderebbe il giorno oggi al suo vital corso né l’altra tarderebbe 100 (forse) molto a seguirlo. Voglio dunque ripormi infino al tempo di far la bella e onorata impresa in loco ove nessun veder mi possa. Voi spettator’ intanto e spettatrici, 105 ripieni di speranza sperate di vedere riuscir l’effetto pari a quel ch’io dissi. Ecco appunto il pastore! Non voglio che mi vegga. Addio, me’n vado. 110

Amorous Hope 91 fall to the ground! And in spite of her, 80 a brilliant and spectacular performance you, laden with crowns and scepters, present to the world. In sum, I offer myself to every one of you, I am of benefit to all, and today I have come down to these woods where there is clearly 85 a need for my help: to keep alive a shepherd-lover, the most wise and gentle, the most charming and handsome 90 that there is in all of Arcadia; nor will my help be needed any less by the most chaste and honest, the most constant and loyal, the most prized and the most lovely 95 nymph that Arcadia and all the world possesses. If I were not here, of these two one would surely end the course of his life today while the other would not be slow 100 (perhaps) to follow him. I want thus to withdraw until it is time to carry out this honorable, lovely venture in a place where no one can see me. Meanwhile, you ladies and gentlemen 105 full of hope, hope to see the plot unfold according to what I said. Behold, here is that shepherd! I do not want him to see me. Farewell, now I will go. 110

92 Amorosa speranza Atto Primo SCENA PRIMA Corintia, Alliseo Corintia Caro diletto figlio, ormai disponi il core a raccontar a questa afflitta madre la cagion che ti fa viver dolente. Tu cara mia pupilla 115 amato al par della mia vita stessa te’n stai languente ove dovresti i lumi lieti girar nella materna faccia rugosa e onusta ormai di crin canuti e con sembianti allegri 120 d’allegrezza e di gioia alla cadente etade esser sostegno. Io che nel vago april de’ tuoi verdi anni sperai viver tranquilla col vederti legato in matrimonio 125 fruir santi Imenei con quella (e pur lo sai) ch’al cielo piacque destinarti per sposa. Hai trovato conforme il suo desio poi che d’onesto foco arde e si strugge 130 per brama sol di divenirti sposa. D’ogn’arcado pastor tu porti il vanto nel canto, nella lotta, e nelle Muse; tu stimato e pregiato da ciascuno tanto sprezzi te stesso 135 che sol per monti e balze per dirupati calli, t’annonci mille mali e quasi a te di te par che non caglia. Fai patir il tuo gregge che smarrito 140 senza guida se’n va per questi monti. Sorgi, sorgi Alliseo, e togli te dal letargoso sonno in che sepolto stai che tiene il core oppresso 145 e porgi orecchio a questo vivo affetto

Amorous Hope 93 Act One SCENE ONE Corintia, Alliseo Corintia Dear beloved son, prepare your heart at last to tell this sorrowful mother the reason that makes you live grieving. You, the apple of my eye— 115 loved as much as my life itself— you languish when you should turn your eyes joyfully to your mother’s face now rugged, old, and covered with grey hair. And with a joyful demeanor 120 of happiness and of joy you should support my old age. I—while you are still in your youth— had hoped to live in tranquility by seeing you joined in matrimony 125 and enjoying blessed Hymen10 with the one (and you know this too) whom heaven willed and destined to make your wife. You have found that to this her wish conforms, and that she burns and melts with the flames of virtuous love— 130 her only desire is to become your wife. Among all shepherds in Arcadia, you take pride of place, in song, in sport, and in poetry!11 Do you, respected and praised by everyone, despise yourself so much 135 that, alone on cliffs and mountains, among untrodden paths, you wish yourself a thousand woes, almost as if you no longer care about yourself? You make your flock suffer, which, lost 140 without a guide, roams around in these mountains. Rise up, Alliseo, rise up, and remove yourself from this lethargic sleep in which you lie buried, which keeps your heart oppressed— 145 lend your ear to my lively affection,

94 Amorosa speranza al materno desio ch’ho del tuo bene. Ecco, madre ti sono e come madre ancor te, figlio, prego. Potrai dunque alla madre che ti prega 150 negar sì giusta grazia? Narrami la cagion de’ tuoi martiri! Né far ch’il vento de’ sospiri tuoi se’n porti le parole perché s’unqua pietosa madre oprossi 155 per ’l figlio in ogni ufficio spera pur ritrovarmi mai sempre pronta a tuoi servigi intorno. Cessa di sospirare, cessa di lacrimare 160 che ferite mi sono i tuoi sospiri e le lacrime tue sono il mio sangue. Alliseo Madre cara e pietosa dolce e diletta madre, se ben proposto avea dentro al mio petto soffrir mille martiri e mille pene pria che narrar la causa del mio male tutt’or perché non posso; anzi, non deggio non voler se non quel ch’anco a te piace; anzi, poscia ch’el mal fatt’è si grave e il foco a guisa di fornace ardente è cresciuto tant’oltre che più non lo potendo sofferire son sforzato a sfogar teco il mio duolo, sodisfarti e narrarti il mio tormento.

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Corintia Non è si grave male, caro figlio diletto, al qual non possi l’uom trovar rimedio quando di palesarlo ei si risolve. Alliseo Ahi ch’egl’è Amor crudel empio tiranno, quest’ (ahi lasso) è cagion del mio languire.

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Amorous Hope 95 to the maternal desire I have for your own good. Here I am, I am your mother, and as your mother, I beg you, my son. Could you possibly deny a mother who begs of you 150 such a just request? Tell me the reason for your suffering! And do not let the wind of your sighs carry away your words, because if any compassionate mother would work on behalf 155 of her son—in whatever way— you should hope to find me ready as ever to serve you in your time of need. Cease your sighing, cease your weeping, 160 for your sighs are my own wounds and your tears are my own blood. Alliseo Mother, dear and compassionate, sweet and beloved mother,12 even though inside my own bosom I was determined to suffer a thousand sorrows and a thousand woes before revealing the cause of my pain because I cannot—rather, I must not— want anything that would not also please you; on the other hand, since the pain has become so great and the fire I suffer resembles burning furnaces, having grown so much that I can no longer bear it, I am forced to vent my suffering with you— to satisfy you and to tell you about my torment.

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Corintia There is no harm so great, dear beloved son, for which man cannot find a remedy once he decides to reveal it. Alliseo Aiee, for Love is a cruel and wicked tyrant, he (alas!) is the reason for my languishing!

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96 Amorosa speranza Egli è per cui mi vivo scevro da canti, da piaceri, e giochi; nimico del mio gregge e di me stesso. E poi che’l tuo voler oggi m’envia a narrar le mie fiamme, dirolle, se’l dolor tanto di tregua mi darà che volend’io possa farlo.

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Corintia E per sì lieve cosa tanto, figlio, t’affliggi? 190 Or quale esser può mai donna sì cruda e altera e di pietà ribella ch’a tua beltà ch’a tue virtù nemica d’esserti cara e amante contradica? 195 Alliseo Troppo, ahi lasso, nemica, troppo fiera e crudele! Or nota i miei martiri e le mie pene: in quel dì appunto che donai la fede di matrimonio e che Fulgentia mia 200 si dimostrò cortese alle mie voglie e che già in segno della fede data cercai con allegrezza esteriore far l’interna palese con giuochi e varii balli 205 con suoni e dolci canti. Mi ritrovai in un bel prato a l’ombra di verdeggianti quercievii da diversi pastori accompagnato e da ninfe leggiadre in bella schiera 210 che con lor dolce e amorosa vista ogni libero cor facean prigione; e chi fattosi eletta d’un compagno cercava novi giochi, e con diverse lor festose danze 215 ogn’un del suo gioir si rendea vago chi alla lotta, chi al corso chi con veloci veltri

Amorous Hope 97 He is the reason for which I live deprived of songs, pleasures, and games. I live as an enemy of my flock and of myself! But then, since your own wish invites me to narrate my flames of love, I will tell you about them if my pain will give me enough respite that I am able to do this.

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Corintia And for such a light matter so much torment, my son? 190 Now, what woman can ever be so cruel, so proud, and so averse to pity that, as an enemy of your beauty and your virtues, she is opposed to being your beloved and your lover? 195 Alliseo Alas, she is indeed an enemy, too harsh and too cruel! Now take note of my sufferings and my pain: it was on that very day, the day when I gave my pledge of marriage and when my Fulgentia showed herself ready to fulfill my desires, and as testimony of the pledge given, I strove with outward joyfulness to make my innermost feelings apparent, with games and various dances, with music and sweet songs. I found myself on a beautiful meadow in the shade of flourishing oak trees, accompanied by other shepherds and by lovely nymphs gathered in a beautiful array, who by means of their sweet and amorous gaze bound and imprisoned every carefree heart. Some, having been chosen by a male companion, were looking for new games, and with various festive dances, each one was pursuing his or her pleasure: some with wrestling, others with racing, still others with swift hounds

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98 Amorosa speranza cercava trapassar l’ore moleste del nocivo calor del mezzo giorno, quand’ecco: mentre in così dolci giochi stanno allegri i pastor, le ninfe liete, nascosto Amor in mezzo a questo petto scoccò (lasso) il crudel, e mortal strale che fitto porto e porterò in eterno; ed altri meco cominciò [a] ferire sì come dai progressi intesi poi. Sola, libera, e sciolta da suoi lacci fuggitiva sen’va Venelia mia, la qual sola è cagion della mia morte che con tanto rigor s’oppose armata, non dirò d’armi ma d’un duro scoglio inanzi a così fiero e invitto duce;viii e mirate la forma del ferire m’invitò il falso con lusinghe e frodi ch’un gioco con Venelia cominciassi, come (lasso) poi feci: al dolce invito s’offers’ella, porgendo ambe le mani, disse: “Prendi pastor quì queste palle e giochiam’ chi più giunge appresso al destinato segno.ix E se tu vinci, in premio questa bella ghirlanda pur or di vaghi fior da me contesta ornerà le tue chiome di mia mano.” In questo mentre Amor riposto al varco scoccò ver me lo strale che a la meta giungendo ove drizzollo fece la piaga—ora cagion ch’io pianga. Onde alla bella ninfa volto, dissi: “Cessa di più mirare la destinata meta del tuo gioco che vincitrice sei del mio misero core.” Ella altrove volgendo i vaghi rai, disse, con bassa voce: “Odi Fulgentia la casta fede del tuo novo sposo!” E così mi lasciò nel cor ferito in angosciose pene

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Amorous Hope 99 were spending the unpleasant hours of harmful midday heat 220 when, all of a sudden, in the midst of such delightful games, as happy shepherds and joyful nymphs stood by, Love, hidden in the center of my breast, shot (alas!) the cruel and mortal arrow which I carry deeply lodged, and will carry forever. 225 And others, along with me, he began to wound, as I understood from what then followed. Alone, free and unbound by any of Love’s knots, my Venelia like a fugitive departs. She alone is the reason for my death; 230 with such rigor did she oppose herself, fully armed, not with any sort of armor, but as hard as a rock, faced with such a harsh and invincible lord. And see how I was wounded, how that false lord with flattery and fraudulent words 235 invited me to start a game with Venelia, as (alas) I then did: at my sweet invitation she offered herself, and holding out both hands, she said: “Shepherd, take these balls here, and let us play the game of who gets nearer 240 the set target. And if you win, as a reward this beautiful garland just now assembled by me with lovely flowers, will decorate your locks with my own hands.” 245 All this while Love, stealthily in that passageway, shot his arrow toward me, which, having reached the place where he had aimed it, created this wound—the reason for which I now weep. I then turned to the beautiful nymph and said: 250 “Stop aiming your gaze at the destined target of your game for you are the victor, you have won my wretched heart!” And so, turning her lovely eyes elsewhere, 255 she said in a low voice: “Hear this, Fulgentia, this is the faithful pledge of your new husband!”13 And that is how she left me, with my heart wounded, in anguishing pain,

100 Amorosa speranza dandosi tutta intenta a nuovi giochi quasi trionfando di sì fatta preda. Corintia Io mi pensai che il mal fusse più grave ma veggo che sia facile il rimedio. E se ben non conviene alla tua data fede, alla bontade della tua cara sposa ch’il tuo core d’altra sia che di lei, pur non poss’io tenere il freno alla pietate c’ho dell’incendio tuo, de’ tuoi martiri, non sia per me che ti si neghi aita. Allegro vivi e consolato in tanto perché la bella ninfa oggix vedrai porger cortesi orecchie a tue parole e mostrerassi forse più pietosa di quel che per tua aita potresti unqua sperar col lungo pianto. Alliseo Non perch’io speri nel marmoreo petto de l’aspra ninfa mia trovar mercede ma per dar refrigerioxi al grave incendio ch’entro m’arde, mi strugge, e mi consuma; e per quetare in parte il tuo dolore narrerò parte de gl’affanni miei alla stessa cagion ch’oggi mi sforza desiar la morte e abborrir la vita. Staromi adunque intorno al vicin colle pensando alla cagion del mio languire sin che da te condotta io la rimiri vicina al fonte ove sovente suole lavar le belle e vaghe membra ignude. Mi farai cenno poi ch’ella sia sola e disposta d’udire gl’ardenti preghi miei, l’aspre mie pene. E voglia il ciel che da lei sien graditi poscia ch’in man di lei fora la morte e la mia vita ancora.

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Amorous Hope 101 while giving her attention to new games, as if triumphing over her new prey! Corintia I thought your sorrow had more serious reasons but now I see that the remedy is a simple one! Though it is not right, given your pledge to your dear spouse (on account of her goodness), that your heart be given to another rather than to her alone, still I cannot refrain from the compassion I feel for your blazing passion and your sufferings, and so I cannot deny you my help. Be joyful and rest assured meanwhile, for today you will see your beautiful nymph ready to listen courteously to your words and show herself perhaps more compassionate than you, for your relief, could have ever hoped for with your long weeping.

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Alliseo Not because I hope to find any mercy in that marble-like breast of my harsh nymph, but only to give some respite to my profound flame, 280 which burns me, destroys me, and consumes me from within! And in order to allay some of your own suffering, I will narrate a part of my sorrows to that same cause who today compels me to desire death and despise life. 285 I will stay, then, in the vicinity of this hill, pondering the cause of my languishing, until she is brought here by you and I can look upon her again near that spring where she is often said to wash her beautiful and lovely naked limbs.14 290 You will then signal to me that she is alone and willing to listen to my ardent prayers, my bitter pain. And may heaven will that she welcome my prayers since in her hands 295 lie death and also my life.

102 Amorosa speranza Corintia Tanto figlio farò quanto mi detta la pietà del tuo male e quanto volle il mio cor che te brama in vita e lieto. Ma perché a me non si convien più inanzi tu reggi le tue voglie e ‘l tuo desio come conviensi ad uom saggio e prudente. Ch’oltra a quanto si deve al mio poter onesto io non son mai per trapassar delle mie forze il segno. Attendi figlio alla allegrezza intanto ed a tornar alle tue guancie il vago color di rose e a belli occhi tuoi di lampeggianti stelle un ciel sereno per più onorar questo celeste nume che tempio del tuo core oggi vedrai. Alliseo Madre, dicesti bene, perché questo mio petto sarà ‘l tempio crudel del sacrificio e la vittima sua sarà il mio cuore. Corintia Meglio forse otterrai di quel che tu non credi! M’envio di passo frettoloso e presto verso le case de l’amata ninfa per condurla a quel loco terminato [dove] tu l’attendi. E ardito scopriti amante e con lusinghe e preghi cerca destar pietà che spesso avviene ch’un modesto amator in cor di donna quando scopra a se stessa l’onesto foco rompa e svella quel ghiaccio di crudeltà di ch’era il cor armato. E ottenuto ch’avrai di te pietade quella per or ti basti per far strada ad Amore. Me’n vado. I cieli siano propizi alla bramata impresa!

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Amorous Hope 103 Corintia Son, I will do as much as compassion dictates to me for your misery and as much as my own heart wants, for it wishes to see you alive and happy. But because it is not fitting for me to go farther, you must take control of your own wishes and your own desire as is fitting for a wise and prudent man. For beyond what is due to my honest ability I cannot venture, nor can I ever cross the actual limit of my strength. Meanwhile, my son, await your happiness and let your cheeks regain the lovely hue of roses and your eyes sparkle like stars in a serene sky, so as to honor, all the more, this heavenly deity, for the temple of your heart today you will behold. Alliseo Mother, what you say is indeed true, for this breast of mine will be her cruel temple of sacrifice and her victim will be my heart. Corintia Better (perhaps) will you obtain than that which you believe, my son! I will hasten and quickly make my way to the abode of the beloved nymph, in order to bring her to the indicated place where you will await her. And, courageous, reveal yourself as lover and with flattery and prayers try to awaken pity, for it often happens that a humble suitor, in the heart of a woman (when she discovers for herself his honest flame), shatters and melts away that icy cruelty with which the heart was once armed. And, having obtained compassion for yourself, let that suffice for now to pave the way to Love. I will go. May the heavens be propitious to this desired undertaking!

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104 Amorosa speranza Alliseo Vanne e ti sia propizia Citerea e guida Amor, ch’al loco dianzi detto v’attendo desioso. 335 Corintia Io vado, vivi lieto, amato figlio e spera in questa affettuosa madre che non passerà molto ch’otterrai quel desio che tanto brami.

SCENA SECONDA Isandro, Bassano biffolco Isandro Quanto contraria e dura mi si mostra 340 Venetia,xii tua patrona, ben lo sai che non curando il mio fedel servire sprezza ogni detto mio, ogni mio dono e d’ogni sguardo mio si rende schiva; e se talor con versi 345 cerco levar al ciel la sua beltade altera se ne va con tal disprezzo delle lacrime mie, de’ miei sospiri de’ miei sofferti mali ch’io mi temo un giorno (ahi lasso) innanzi a suoi belli occhi 350 vinto dal grave duolo per tanta crudeltade farle l’ultimo don della mia vita; allor conoscerà qual fu ‘l mio Amore e se per tanta fede 355 mi si dovea sì ingrata ricompensa. Ma dimmi un poco che risposta diede al salute, a l’offerte che pur dianzi mi promettesti riportare a lei. Bassano Pastor, io ti dirò quel ch’ella disse: 360 al fin, non vuol gradir i doni tuoi, sprezza l’offerte e mi commise insomma

Amorous Hope 105 Alliseo Go then, and may Cytherean Aphrodite15 be propitious to you and Love guide you, for at that aforementioned place I will wait for you full of desire.

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Corintia I’m going. Live happily, my beloved son, and place your hope in your devoted mother, for it will not be long before you obtain that wish you so much long for.

SCENE TWO Isandro, Bassano the goatherd Isandro How contrary to my wishes, how hard she shows herself to me, your mistress, Venetia16, you well know, for she does not care about my faithful service, she despises every word I utter, every one of my gifts, and she averts every one of my glances. And if sometimes with rhymes I attempt to raise her beauty to the skies, prideful she takes leave with such disdain for my tears, for my sighs, for my suffered injuries that I fear that one day (alas!) in front of her beautiful eyes I—overcome by heavy grief on account of so much cruelty— will bestow upon her my life as a last gift. Only then will she know my Love’s worth and whether—for so much loyalty— I deserved such ungrateful recompense! But tell me, in brief, what response did she give for my greetings, for my offerings, those which just now you promised to deliver to her? Bassano Shepherd, I will tell you what she said: in sum, she does not want to accept your gifts, she disdains any of your offerings,

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106 Amorosa speranza che s’io fussi mai più cotanto ardito ond’osassi di te mai più parlarle in qual si voglia minimo soggetto 365 che di guardian ch’io sono or di lanoso armento mi faria scoditor di bastonate. Però, fratel, volgi il sperarxiii altrove ch’ella amanti non vuol di sorte alcuna. 370 Or farai da te stesso il fatto tuo i’ voglio ire al mio gregge. Resta in pace pastor! Me ‘n vado a far colazione! Intona pur questi antri e questi boschi con tuoi gridi e lamenti 375 ch’a me non cal né vo’ qui star a bada! Isandro Ferma Bassano! Ascolta almen, ti prego, quattro parole, e poi vattene in pace. Bassano Dico che il gregge mio se ne va errando per gl’altrui campi e dubito che in breve o biffolco o pastor debba dolersi; però se tu vuoi nulla vedi quest è la via, seguimi, io vado. Isandro Infin questo villan mostrasi ingrato alli pietosi miei aspri lamenti poi ch’altro far non posso mi converrà seguirlo.

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Bassano Seguimi pur fratello; sarebbe molto meglio ch’a questi antri silvestri 390 tu ragionassi del tuo folle amore che meco ragionar che sono in tutto ne la fame converso! Poi che solo sei turbator di sì felice giorno guastando una sì bella collazione 395

Amorous Hope 107 and she has warned me, in short, that if I should ever dare so much as speak of you to her again— for whatever reason— 365 she would reduce me from the guardian of a flock that I am now to a receiver of cane beatings! Therefore, brother, turn your hopes elsewhere since she wants nothing to do with suitors of any kind! 370 Now, you go and take care of your own business; I want to go tend my flock. Rest in peace, shepherd! I am going to have breakfast! Go ahead and voice your laments and cries to these caves and these woods, 375 for I don’t care, nor want to waste more time here! Isandro Wait, Bassano! Listen, I beg you, just a few words, and then you can go in peace. Bassano I tell you that my flock is wandering off to another’s fields, and I doubt it would be a brief thing for either a goatherd or a shepherd to lament his woes. Therefore, if you want nothing else, here’s the road, so you follow me, I’m going. Isandro Alas, this villain shows little concern for my sorrowful, bitter laments. So, since I have no other choice, I will have to follow him. Bassano Go ahead, follow me, brother. But it would be much better that you talk about your foolish love to these woodland caves than to me, since I am overwhelmed by hunger!17 For you alone disturb such a happy day, ruining such a lovely breakfast

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108 Amorosa speranza di cascio, di ricotta, e di buon vino che dovea con miei soci celebrare, impeditor di così bei disegni. Isandro Che parli tu? Che dici tu? Racconti forse che la mia ninfa 400 gradirà un giorno il mio fedel servire? Bassano Così diceva appunto! Che facil cosa fia che tu la rendi cortese un giorno a li disegni tuoi. Isandro O me beato se ciò fusse vero! E te ben fortunato il mio Bassano.

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Bassano Fortunato sarei s’ora potessi esser privo di te che privar cerchi me d’una così cara contentezza! Isandro Altro non posso far che pur seguirti malgrado di mia fera, iniqua stella, tutto ch’ognor contrario a mie preghiere trovi infino le piante, l’aria, e i sassi! Bassano Vanne pur in mal ora se fai conto voler mangiar un de’ miei capri grassi!

SCENA TERZA Fulgentia, Venelia Fulgentia Venelia, quello amor, quell’osservanza per lung’uso fra noi di tanta fede mi fan oggi pregarti,

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Amorous Hope 109 of cheese, ricotta, and good wine that I was about to enjoy with my companions, spoiler of such lovely plans! Isandro What are you talking about? What are you saying? Are you saying perhaps that my nymph 400 will one day welcome my faithful service? Bassano That is exactly what I was saying! That it would be an easy thing to make her favorable to your plans one day. Isandro Oh, blessed me, if only this were true! And you too indeed, my Bassano, would be fortunate!

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Bassano I would be fortunate if I could get rid of you now since you are trying to deprive me of such precious satisfaction! Isandro I can do nothing else in fact than follow you in spite of my unjust, cruel star, for I find everything always contrary to my prayers, even the plants, the air, and the stones! Bassano You can go to hell if you dare plan on wanting to eat one of my succulent goats!

SCENE THREE Fulgentia, Venelia Fulgentia Venelia, that love, that loyal devotion which have existed for so long between us, persuade me to ask something of you today

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110 Amorosa speranza con un vivace affetto, che tu voglia, conforme al creder mio, di pari amor mostrarmi segno vero in ascoltando ciò ch’io ti vo’ dire. Venelia De l’amor ch’io ti porto, esser sicura ne puoi ch’io t’amo al pari di me stessa. Della mia fede poi fanne la prova, che simile a l’amor la troverai. Scopri pur quale cura t’opprime e ti molesta ch’una fede reale e un vero amore un vigile pensiero di giovarti in me ritroverai mai sempre pronto. Fulgentia Poiché seconda a miei desir ti mostri, Venelia, ecco ch’ormai rotto il silenzio darò principio al mio crudel dolore. Tu sai come promessa in matrimonio io fui da miei parenti ad Alliseo, pastor d’Arcadia, già così famoso, ricco d’armenti e di virtù dotato e ne le sacre Muse e ne la cetra quasi l’onor d’Arcadia è in lui raccolto. Né pastor più di lui d’alta creanza oggi tra noi se ‘n vive che di doti celesti (se mi lice di dir) dotollo il cielo.

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Venelia Sua virtù è nota fino a queste piante. 445 Sua gentilezza poi ognun l’intende; che pastor o biffolco oggi fra noi non è che lui amar non vadi altero. O quante volte dissi, ben lieta viver puoi, 450 Fulgentia, di sì ricco e bel marito. Ma che sospir son questi? Temi tu forse, o cara mia compagna,

Amorous Hope 111 with a lively affection: I ask that you be willing, as I believe you are, to show me a true sign of reciprocal love18 by listening to what I want to tell you. Venelia Of the love I bear for you, you can be certain, for I love you as much as I love myself.19 As for my loyalty, go ahead and test it, for you will find it equal to my love. Tell me, please, what concern oppresses and torments you, for a genuine faith and a true love, a vigilant concern for how I can be of service to you, you will always find ready in me.

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Fulgentia Since you show yourself favorable to my wishes, Venelia, now that I have broken my silence, I will begin to unveil my cruel suffering. You know that I was promised in marriage 435 by my parents to Alliseo, an Arcadian shepherd. He, already so famous, with an abundant flock, and well-endowed with virtues20 and talent for the sacred Muses and the lyre— as if the honor of Arcadia is all gathered up in him. 440 Nor is there a shepherd more worthy than him that lives among us today, endowed with such heavenly gifts that it seems heaven itself (if I may be permitted to say so) endowed him! Venelia His virtue is known even to these trees! 445 His nobility no one can deny, and there is no shepherd or goatherd among us today who is not proud to love him. Oh, how many times did I not say that you can live happily, 450 Fulgentia, with such a rich and handsome husband! But what are these sighs? Do you perhaps fear, oh my dear companion,

112 Amorosa speranza ch’eguale al fier Damone sia il tuo leggiadro sposo? 455 Rallegrati, sorella, non temer di sua fede, perché se bene il fiero Damon, poi ch’ebbe colto il virginal mio fiore, 460 se’n fuggì ratto dalla bella Arcadia; non fia però Alliseo pari al fiero Damon, ne fia giamai di così rozza fè villano sposo! Ei pubblica ridente 465 gli dovuti Imenei delle bramate nozze con sua letizia e fasto. Egli non d’altra amante si cura, e solo attende 470 far della cara sposa il pensier pago. E tu dimostri una dolente faccia in giorno di sì dolci, alti contenti? Deh lascia a me, sorella, la cagion de dolori, de pianti, e di sospiri 475 che sai ben se cagion dura e infelice ho di sempre dolermi e querelarmi ch’abbandonata fui ne le novelle nozze da l’infido mio sposo. 480 E appena fatta donna, fui priva di marito. Ahi di fede e d’amor aspro nemico! Né già per questo, ninfa, morir voglio. Siassi pur infedele 485 e siassi pur crudele, a me convien per legge esser a lui fedele. Strana e cruda giustizia per noi, misere donne: 490 essere sottoposta, pagar d’infedeltà, di finto amore, agl’ uomini tributo di fè leale e di candido core.

Amorous Hope 113 that your charming husband can be the equal of fierce Damone? 455 Cheer up, sister, do not doubt his loyalty, for if it is true that fierce Damone, once he snatched the flower of my virginity, quickly fled beautiful Arcadia, 460 Alliseo does not bear any resemblance to fierce Damone, nor has anyone ever witnessed such lack of faith from such a villainous husband! Instead, he [Alliseo] delightfully announces 465 the imminent nuptials of your longed-for marriage with his joy and with pomp. He does not care about any other lover, and only awaits 470 to satisfy the wishes of his dear wife.21 And you show such sorrow in your face on a day of such sweet and lofty joys? Ah, leave to me, sister, reason for pain, for tears, and for sighs, 475 for you well know if I have a harsh and unhappy reason to grieve and to complain forever. For I was abandoned on the day of my wedding by my disloyal husband. 480 And I had no sooner become a wife than I was deprived of a husband. Aiee, of both faith and love he proved to be a bitter enemy! And in spite of all this, nymph, I do not want to die.22 Even if it is the case that he is unfaithful, 485 and even if it is the case that he is indeed cruel, custom—in accordance with the law— dictates that I remain faithful to him. A strange and cruel justice this is for us, wretched women: 490 that we are required to pay to men, for their infidelity and false love, a tribute of loyal faith and a pure heart.23

114 Amorosa speranza Ma scopri ormai ti prego, 495 cara Fulgentia amata, l’interrotte parole e i tuoi sospiri, messaggieri del core ch’a mille schiere e a mille conosco esser guidati 500 dal’aspro tuo martire. Fulgentia Quel acerbo dolor, Venetia mia, che sì m’opprime l’alma è sol di vedere il mio dolce Alliseo 505 rendersi di me schivo. Onde, da te desio c’oggi invitata alle festose danze sii contenta adoprar la tua eloquenza acciò noto a te faccia quel dolore 510 che di tanta mestizia il fa gir carco. E perché sì crudele, anzi, sì fiero si mostra a l’amor mio. Che temo (ahi lassa) un giorno vedermelo mancare inanzi a gli’occhi. 515 E tanto più crudel provo il dolore quanto mi rende certa ch’el suo dolor sia solo l’esser a me congiunto d’indissolubil nodo. 520 Venelia Non temer ciò Fulgentia ch’a questo alcun nol spinse la vergine leggiadra da lui seguita e amata, com’ogn’un sa gran tempo. 525 Vuoi che pentito sia già d’esserti marito? Ciò non è vero, e certo vedrai che teco lieta, dopo le vaghe danze, 530 cosa ti scoprirò molto diversa

Amorous Hope 115 But reveal to me now, I beg of you, 495 my dear, beloved Fulgentia, the interrupted words and your sighs, messengers of the heart which, pouring out by the thousands, I recognize as the result 500 of your bitter sorrow. Fulgentia That bitter pain, my Venetia,24 that so oppresses my soul comes only from seeing my sweet Alliseo 505 reject me. And so, I ask that you, who are invited to the festive dances, be willing to use your eloquence25 so that he would make known to you that sadness 510 that so much sorrow weighs him down. And why he shows himself to be so cruel, nay, so fierce in response to my love. For I fear (alas) that one day he will die in front of my eyes. 515 And I feel more intense pain the more certain I become that his only source of pain comes from being bound to me by that indissoluble knot of matrimony. 520 Venelia Do not fear this, Fulgentia, for no one could drive him to reject that charming virgin pursued and loved by him, as everyone knows, for so long! 525 Do you think he regrets being your husband already? This is not true, and certainly you will see that, following the lovely dances, 530 I will reveal a joyful fact

116 Amorosa speranza da quel che tu sospetti. Perché farò scoprirmi, a viva forza, quel interno pensiero ch’oppresso il tiene e ti fa dubitare ch’ei non t’ami e agogni di non esserti sposo. Fulgentia Volesse il ciel ch’a tanto mio desio ritrovassi propizio oggi ‘l destino! Andiam, Venetia, a l’invitate danze dove intender dobbiamo la cagion del mio bene e del mio male.

535

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Venelia Andiamo liete pure! E tu, Fulgentia, godi lieta i santi Imenei 545 d’un sì pregiato sposo. Fulgentia Il cielo favorisca, o mia Venetia amata, la tua voglia bramata! Venelia Così spero e confido 550 di vederti contenta com’io giamai non spero di ritrovar più fede in quel infido core del spietato Damone. 555

SCENA QUARTA Tirenia sola Tirenia Ombrose selve, e voi leggiadri allori che spesso al mormorar di questo fonte udiste la cagion che mi tormenta,

Amorous Hope 117 very different from what you suspect! For I will have him disclose to me (by force if necessary) that innermost thought that keeps him oppressed and makes you suspect that he does not love you and that he agonizes over being your husband. Fulgentia If only heaven were willing to make destiny favorable to my desires today! Let’s go, Venetia, to the dances where we are expected and where we must understand the cause of my joy and of my anguish.

535

540

Venelia Let us go then, joyfully! And you, Fulgentia, enjoy happily your sacred matrimony 545 to such a worthy husband. Fulgentia May the heavens favor, o my beloved Venetia, your much-desired wish! Venelia I hope and I trust 550 to see you content, just as I have no hope to find any loyalty in that treacherous heart of pitiless Damone. 555

SCENE FOUR Tirenia alone Tirenia Shady woods, and you, lovely laurels, you that have often heard the reason for my torment alongside the murmuring of this spring,

118 Amorosa speranza non vi fia grave ancora a questo esser cortesi 560 ultimo forse mio ragionamento. Gode Venetia ingrata nel essermi rivale e d’avermi rapito ingiustamente quel che mia servitù sol meritava 565 per caro amante e sposo. Come possibil sia, crudo Alliseo, che mia sincera fede, mio verace servire, la pena del morire 570 (che pur sovente provo) non desti nel tuo cor picciola dramma di pietà verso me? Tu sai che furto festixiv a questo mio cor nell’iscoprirti insidiator della mia libertade. 575 Ma fui pur crudel! Tanto veloce non sarà ‘l tuo fuggir che più veloce non giunga col desio quel fiero core ch’in sì dura prigion tien l’alma mia. T’amai, t’amerò sempre 580 finto amante e amico (se ben vero inimico ne l’interno tu sei)! Non sai misero forse che Venetia, tua amante, 585 in più di mille lochi ha ‘l cor partito? Non sai, che’l fier Damone colse ’l pregiato fiore e poi partendo lunge da l’Arcadia lasciò l’amata donna, 590 quasi priva del cor, come ben mostra la mesta e trista faccia. E spesso in questi boschi fa risuonar (ahimè) d’aspri lamenti gl’antri e le cave intorno a cui sol Eco, 595 pietosa del suo mal, mesta risponde. Né ti fia noto ancor il suo pensiero di più tosto morire che per altro gioire?xv

Amorous Hope 119 let it not be a burden on you if you once again lend a kind ear 560 to this (perhaps last) discourse of mine. She takes pleasure, that ungrateful Venetia,26 in being my rival and in having robbed me, unjustly, of the only one who deserved my service 565 as a beloved lover and husband. How is it possible, cruel Alliseo, that neither my sincere loyalty, my genuine service, nor the pain of death 570 (which indeed I often feel) does not arouse in your heart even a single ounce of pity toward me? You know what you stole from this heart of mine when you showed yourself to be the usurper of my freedom. 575 But you were so cruel! Not fast enough will you be able to flee, for just as quickly an intense desire will conquer that fierce heart of yours that holds my soul hostage in such a harsh prison. I have loved and will always love you, 580 false lover and friend (even if within, you are more truly an enemy to yourself)! Do you perhaps not know, wretched one, that Venetia, your lover, 585 has left her heart in more than a thousand places?27 Do you not know that fierce Damone has snatched that precious flower?28 And then, having left Arcadia far behind, he left that beloved lady 590 almost deprived of her own heart, as one can clearly see in her crestfallen and saddened face. For often in these woods she makes her bitter laments resound (alas) in the caves amongst which only Echo, 595 compassionate to her sorrow, sorrowfully responds.29 Do you still not know that she would rather die than rejoice with another?

120 Amorosa speranza Ama lunge d’Arcadia 600 d’un amor puro e vero un pregiato pastore che di lei sen’portò già seco il core. Per quanto dice il suo biffolco, ognora seco ragiona della data fede, 605 del suo cocente ardore, che per gelo, e per nevi ognor le accende il core. E ben che lunge sia più cruda ognora prova 610 l’aspra sua pena ria. Questo pastore è di pregiata stirpe, dalla bella città del mar reina, disceso. Ma non so per quale sorte capitato in Arcadia 615 s’accese de’ bei lumi di costei la qual or per mio male mi si è fatta rivale facendo altera mostra al mio bel Alliseo de la sua vista. 620 Oggi dunque conviene far noto ogni secreto al mio amato pastore acciò cortese doni tributo a questo core 625 de le passate pene de’ passati tormenti. Scoprirò prima come fu Venetia da l’infido Damon tradita e vinta; e come sotto frode 630 di lusinghiero amante violata rimanesse. E dopo questo ancora come a Lucrino (già) pastor pregiato donasse il core: e solo attende lieta 635 la cara sua venuta e sempre gode sì cara rimembranza e lieto giorno. E ch’in segno del vero egli s’è fatto in Argo sacerdote di Diana. E che però per sì pregiato amante 640

Amorous Hope 121 She loves one far from Arcadia 600 with a love pure and true— an esteemed shepherd who has already taken her heart away with him.30 According to what her goatherd says, she constantly talks to herself about the vow she made, 605 about her burning passion which—even during the chills of winter and of snowstorms— continues to ignite her heart. And even though he is far away, ever more cruelly does she experience 610 the harsh, wicked pain. This shepherd is of worthy lineage, coming from that beautiful city, queen of the sea.31 But I know not how it came about that, having stumbled into Arcadia, 615 he fell in love with the beautiful eyes of this woman, the one who now—to my detriment— presents herself as my rival by pridefully displaying herself to my handsome Alliseo. 620 Today,32 therefore, it is fitting to make known every secret to my beloved shepherd so that courteously he will pay a tribute to this heart 625 for its past pains, for its past torments. First, I will reveal how Venetia was betrayed and vanquished by the faithless Damone; and how, under the guise of fraud 630 by an alluring lover she was violated. And after this I will reveal also how she had (already) given her heart to Lucrino, that esteemed shepherd; the only thing she joyfully awaits 635 is his cherished return, and she always treasures such precious memories and that joyful day. And as a mark of his intentions he made himself a high priest of Diana in Argos.33 And that because of such an esteemed lover 640

122 Amorosa speranza non vorrà mai cortese a lui mostrarsi.xvi Forse allor vinto da giusta ragione ridonerà a questo petto il core; e se non cara amante almen per umil serva 645 grata incaminerei ne la sua grazia. Verso le case, adunque, di Delia, mia compagna, me n’andrò perché meglio fia scorta a questo core 650 nel ragionar d’Amore al mio caro pastore. Fine del Primo Atto

Atto Secondo SCENA PRIMA Elliodoro satiro Elliodoro Amore, e con qual armi espugnato hai la rocca del mio feroce petto? 655 Qual militar valore, inesperto fanciullo, uscir facesti mai da la tua mano? Garzon ignudo e cieco nato e nutrito d’ozio e di lascivia 660 con semplic’arco e vagabonda face, con picciola saetta, in debil giro, hai trapassato un così irsuto petto che tante volte in crude pugne opposto con feroci cinghiali, e fieri tauri, 665 tigri crudeli e fere fu sempre vincitore? Testimonio di questo sian le zanne, gl’orribil teschi, e le famose spoglie de li da me tanti animali uccisi, 670 ch’appesi adornan la spelonca mia. Dunque, fanciullo, un sì orgoglioso sguardo,

Amorous Hope 123 she will never be willing to show him [Alliseo] any favor. Maybe then, won over by just reason, might he be willing to place this heart back in its bosom— if not as his dear lover, then at least as his humble servant, gratefully would I acquire his grace. I will therefore go toward the abode of Delia, my companion, because it is better that she be an escort to this heart while I speak of Love to my beloved shepherd.

645

650

End of Act One

Act Two SCENE ONE Elliodoro, satyr34 Elliodoro Love, with what weapons have you stormed the fortress of my ferocious breast? 655 What military prowess, inexperienced little boy, have you ever made issue forth from your hands? A naked and blind boy born and nourished on leisure and wantonness, 660 with a simple bow and a wandering torch, and a little arrow, turned toward me, with its feeble flight, with which you pierced such a thick, hairy chest? This thick, hairy chest which so many times in fierce combat with wild boars and fierce bulls, 665 with cruel tigers and wild beasts, has always been the victor. Proof of this are the tusks, the horrid skulls, and the famous spoils of all those animals I killed, 670 which, hung up, adorn the walls of my cave. Well then, little boy, did such a prideful gaze as mine,

124 Amorosa speranza sì formidabil faccia quest’altere mie corna non ti han tolto il pensiero 675 ch’avevi di oltraggiarmi? E vincitore chiamarti in questo tuo crudel duello? E queste forti mie robuste braccia con questi pie caprini, e questo aspetto, non t’hanno affatto privo di potere 680 oprare in me, con arte, l’amoroso tuo incendio? Ahi che per guerra farmi d’altrui prendesti l’armi: l’arco formasti in due serene ciglia 685 servendoti de’ sguardi per maladetti dardi! E per lacci e catene, togliesti i biondi crini, e per incendio e faci 690 desti parole e baci che tra perle e rubini aventa e scocca un’amorosa bocca;xvii e ne l’eburneo seno componi il tuo veneno, 695 tal ch’io mi chiamo vinto, né più pretendo scampo. Fia dunque tua la gloria e il campo, Amore fa pur leggiadra mostra della rapita libertade nostra! 700 E così, falso, lusinghier, fallace, con arti e falsi inganni, facesti a una leggiadra pastorella. Ma che dic’io? A una celeste dea! E furarmi e rapirmi e tormi (ahi lasso) 705 l’alma e ‘l core in un punto col sol girar de’ suoi lucenti rai. A prima vista parve in gonna e bianco velo donna discesa a me dal terzo cielo 710 che mi dicessi: “Questo core è mio. Quest’alma (che ti credi) ancora è mia!” E così volentieri mi fei preda

Amorous Hope 125 such a formidable face as I have, and these lofty horns of mine, did all this not deter your intention 675 to injure me? And to call yourself the victor in this cruel joust of yours? And these strong and robust arms of mine with these goat feet and this countenance— did all this not render you powerless 680 in manipulating me with your artful ways and igniting me with your amorous flame? Aiee, for in order to make war on me, you took the weapons of another:35 you formed your bow out of two serene brows, 685 you used glances as your cursèd arrows! As for traps and chains, you used blonde tresses, and for flames and torches 690 you sent me words and kisses shot between pearls and rubies from an amorous mouth. And in her ivory breast you concoct your poison, 695 such that I consider myself defeated, nor can I any longer hope to find escape. May the glory and the battlefield be yours, Love, you surely make a lovely show of our stolen freedom! 700 And so, false, flattering, and fallacious— with your skills and false tricks— you aimed to deceive a lovely shepherdess. But what am I saying? You aimed at a heavenly goddess! And so she managed to rob, dispossess, and finally take from me (alas!) 705 my soul and my heart—all in one swoop— just by aiming those two shining eyes of hers at me! At first sight she seemed a lady descended from the third heaven36 in a dress and white veil 710 who said to me: “This heart is mine. This soul (which you consider yours) is also mine!”37 And so, willingly, I offered myself

126 Amorosa speranza volontaria a costei, nata certo fra i dei 715 poscia ch’a dea cotanto rassimiglia! Onde pensando qual più degno ufficio possi un amante core far alla donna amata, ho ritrovato che più agevol mezzo 720 (per renderla alla fin corrispondente al mio desio amoroso), sarà la servitù, sarà l’amore, una viva prontezza di morire, anco per suo servigio. 725 Un secreto amoroso, un vivo affetto, un cauto circondar sovente i lochi dov’ella spesso sola albergar suole e dimostrarle al fin un vero impero, 730 un’alta signoria sopra me stesso. E quando ciò non giovi, adoprar seco i doni perch’in femminil core stima pregio d’Amore 735 don di gradito amante; s’adunque servitù sarà mai degna, se acceso amore, e se real prontezza, se vivo affetto, e se frequentar spesso (con pie amoroso) i desiati alberghi 740 o se mostrar impero e signoria potrà mostrar desio d’un reciproco amore, ben oggi mostrarallo, Elliodoro infelice, 745 per venir se può in breve al caro fin del suo desio focoso. Qui attendo la mia vaga e bella ninfa la qual sovente a questa chiara linfa suol ristorar le sue affannate membra, 750 per farle dono e voto a un tempo stesso la pena in che per lei mi strugge Amore. Questo pardo leggiadro ella avrà in dono oggi da me.

Amorous Hope 127 as a willing prey to her— most surely born among the gods 715 since she so much resembles a goddess! Then as I wondered what more worthy service a loving heart could bestow on its beloved lady, I discovered that the easiest way 720 (to make her, in the end, more favorable to my amorous desire) would be by way of servitude, by way of love, by way of a true readiness even to die in her service. 725 Spurred on then by an amorous secret, by a lively passion, I would frequently (with caution) pass near those places where she was often in the habit of dwelling alone, so as to show her at last that I possess a veritable power, 730 a formidable authority over myself. And if that didn’t work, I would then resort to offering her gifts— for in a feminine heart the gift of a pleasing lover 735 is considered a reward of Love. Now then, if ever servitude were worthy, if ever a burning love, and if ever a noble readiness, if ever a lively affection, and if ever frequent visits (with an amorous stride) to those longed-for places where she resides 740 or if a demonstration of power and authority could ever show a desire for reciprocal love38— today, surely, that will be revealed to him, unhappy Elliodoro, 745 so that he may, if possible, swiftly reach the longed-for end of his fiery desire. Here I will await my lovely, beautiful nymph, who often comes to this clear water to restore her tired limbs, 750 to give her gifts as well as to offer her my vow at the same time, testimony of those pains with which, for her, Love destroys me. This lovely panther she shall have as a gift from me today.39

128 Amorosa speranza Deh pur volesse il cielo 755 ch’invece di quel pardo i’ fossi il dono perché quel gran desire che mi circonda il core ben tosto adempirei; e poi raccolto altrui raccoglierei 760 e quasi al sommo Giove ugual potrei chiamarmi— che s’egli finto augello con rostro e con artigli rapì ‘l bel Ganimede 765 io placido e umil senza rapina terrei, e senza offesa, in queste braccia mie, la mia leggiadra ninfa. Quì attenderola e in questo colle ameno 770 coglier vo fiori, e insieme agresti frutti, fraghe silvestri, e pomi acerbi e vaghi, per farne dono a chi del miser core ha fatto il furto e della libertade; come riescono belli e vaghi a l’occhio 775 questi doi pomi in un sol ramo accolti! Saranno anch’essi di colei ch’aspetto e queste piccioline e belle fragile; O come saran grate alla mia ninfa! Ben di pregiato amante 780 sarà pregiato dono per fanciulla leggiadra. Quivi m’appiatto e questa fera umile sarà guancial de l’ondeggiante testa. Vieni, fatti vicina! 785 O come mansueta par che gli dolgan le mie pene acerbe! S’invece tua potessi aver colei ch’in sì dolce prigion tiene il mio core, potess’io almeno esser sicuro e certo 790 che la tua compagnia foss’a lei guida d’ogni affannato mio tristo pensiero. Eccomi or mi ti mostri sì piacevole e cara compagnia; sicuro esser potessi 795

Amorous Hope 129 Oh, if only heaven were willing 755 that instead of that panther I were the gift so that great desire which envelops my heart I would be able to fulfill right away. And then as I am received, I would receive another 760 and thus almost an equal of lofty Jove I would be able to call myself. For if he, transformed into a bird, ravished the handsome Ganymede40 with a rapacious beak and with claws, 765 I peacefully and humbly—without the use of force— would hold, without offending, my lovely nymph in these arms of mine. Here I will wait for her and on this pleasant hill 770 I want to gather flowers together with country fruits, wild strawberries, and some of those lovely sour apples, in order to give them as a gift to the one who stole my wretched heart and with it my freedom. How beautiful and lovely they are to the eye, 775 these two apples collected on a single branch! They too will be for her whom I await and so too these little, lovely strawberries, oh, how they will be welcome to my nymph! This will surely be the precious gift 780 of a precious lover for a lovely young girl! Here I shall lie down; this humble animal will serve as a pillow for my curly head. Come, draw near! 785 Oh, how kindly this creature seems to lament my bitter pains! If instead of you I could have her who in such sweet imprisonment holds my heart, if I could at least be reassured and certain 790 that your company would serve as a guide to her of every one of my sad and weary thoughts. Here I am; now you show me that you can be such a pleasing and dear companion. If only I could be sure 795

130 Amorosa speranza ch’a lei dolce raccordo foste de’ miei martiri. Ma non sent’io nel bosco calpestio strepitoso di pie veloce e snello? 800 Ahi che la bianca gonna e gl’ondeggianti crini, i bei color di rose, mi dinotano pur esser colei discesa dagli dei 805 ch’oggi tanto desio all’arco suo dorato. Io riconosco la triforme dea! Risvegliati mio core, ora ch’il tempo ‘l chiede! 810 Scopri l’ acceso ardore, donagli i frutti e fagli noto come amante più fedele di te non vive in queste selve o altronde. Ma udir prima vogl’io dove guida il desio 815 sua leggiadra persona. E per meglio potere e udire e vedere e penetrar de suoi pensieri il fine m’appiatto in questa macchia. 820

SCENA SECONDA Tirenia, Elliodoro satiro Tirenia O misera Tirenia, e qual tua cruda e dispietata stella oggi ti guida per questi orridi, alpestri, e duri monti, accompagnata sol dal fiero Amore, il qual tiene nudrita 825 questa mia fragil vita, di cocenti sospiri (messi del core) per cui mai sempre piango, mi consumo, mi sfacciò come neve a caldi rai del sole. 830

Amorous Hope 131 that you would be like a sweet reminder to her of my torments! [startled by some noise] But do I not hear in the woods the rustling step of a swift and slender foot? Aiee! It seems that the white skirt and the wavy hair, those beautiful rose colors, everything indicates that this is, in fact, her, the one who descends from the gods and whom today I so much desire with her golden bow. I recognize the triform goddess!41 Awaken, heart of mine, now that the time has come! Reveal your burning passion, give her the fruits and let her know how a lover more faithful than you does not exist in these woods or elsewhere. But first I want to hear where desire guides her lovely person. And so that I can better hear and see and discern the aim of her thoughts, I shall lie down and hide in this bush.

800

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815

820

SCENE TWO Tirenia, Elliodoro satyr Tirenia Oh, wretched Tirenia, what cruel and pitiless star guides you today among these horrid cliffs and harsh mountains, accompanied only by fierce Love, the one who keeps nourishing 825 this fragile life of mine with scorching sighs (messengers of the heart) and who is reason for which I am always crying, I consume myself42 and I melt as snow does in the sun’s hot rays. 830

132 Amorosa speranza Cortese dea Ciprigna, s’unqua provasti del tuo figlio il foco, per quel dolor, ti prego, ch’appunto in verde colle provasti per amor del vago Adone, 835 ricevi queste mie preghiere umili, vaga amorosa dea, sì ch’oggi il mio pastore trovi cortese e renda per amore sol cambievol amore. 840 E sì come d’ogni altro egli è più bello, fa sì, pietosa dea, che quella crudeltade (di ch’egli ha ‘l core e ‘l petto sempre armato) si cangi e ne divenga umanitade. 845 E invece di Venetia chiudi me nel suo seno. Acciò, contenta a pieno, possi con dolci e con sonori accenti cantar le lodi tue, cantar gl’onori 850 del mio caro Alliseo. Son sì affannata e stanca dal disagio, dal duolo, e dalle pene, che forza è di corcarmi a questo fonte. O chiaro ruscelletto 855 come vera mi rende la stessa immagin mia, rinfrescar voglio la sudata faccia, o come è fresca, bere anco ne voglio un sorso . . . o come dolce e saporita 860 m’ha ravivato il spirto! O che belle vermiglie e vaghe rose, o come odoran bene io ne vo correxviii infino a dieci o venti e inghirlandarne i crini miei dispersi. 865 O come questa è vaga, o quanto volontieri farei dono di lei e di me stessa al mio crudel amante! O come s’assimiglia 870 alle sue belle labbra!

Amorous Hope 133 Gracious Cyprian Goddess,43 if ever you have felt your son’s44 flame by that pain which on a green hill you in fact felt for the love of handsome Adonis,45 835 I beg of you, receive these humble prayers of mine fair and amorous goddess, so that today my shepherd will be generous and offer love in exchange for love. 840 And since of all the others he is the most handsome, make it so, compassionate goddess, that the cruelty that always protects his heart and breast is transformed and becomes humane! 845 And instead of Venetia46 let him hold me in his bosom! So that, happy to the fullest measure, I can, with sweet and with sonorous notes, sing your praises and sing the honors 850 of my beloved Alliseo. I am so weary and tired from the discomfort, from the suffering, and from the pain that I must lie down beside this spring. Oh, clear little stream 855 how clearly it reflects my very own image!47 I want to refresh my perspired face, oh, how refreshing it is, I want also to take a sip . . . oh, how sweet, how good it tastes, 860 it has restored my spirit! Oh, how beautiful those vermilion, lovely roses are, oh, how wonderful they smell! I want to gather as many as ten or twenty and use them as a garland to adorn my scattered hair. 865 Oh, how beautiful this one is, oh, how willingly I would give it and myself to my cruel lover! Oh, how it matches 870 his beautiful lips!

134 Amorosa speranza N’ho colto assai, vo intesser la ghirlanda, ma pria depor vo l’arco e la faretra. Satiro Costei parla d’amor, anzi, d’amante! È tutta volta a intesser vaghi fiori.

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Tirenia Non saranno abbastanza. Mancano ancora rose per finir il lavoro incominciato. Satiro Numera quelle ch’hai nel tuo bel viso che son sì vaghe e belle! E via di quelle più odorose e care che con le fiere sue custodi spine oltraggiò il bianco piè di Citerea. Onde in vendetta poi mutò lo stesso sangue il suo bel bianco in vermiglio colore ed in celeste il suo terreno odore. Non posso più tacere! È forza ch’io scioglia la lingua e apra il varco al core. I dei faccino paga ogni tua voglia, O bella del mio cor ninfa leggiadra. Tirenia Ohimè misera, ohimè soccorso, aiuto! Soccorrete pastori, uscite tutti al soccorso di me misera ninfa! O dea del terzo cielo, soccorri l’amoroso mio pensiero! Satiro Ferma cor mio, deh, ferma ch’io non sono. . .. Tirenia Lasciami, ahimè crudel, lascia ti dico! Satiro Non son fera crudel, mira chi sono!

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Amorous Hope 135 I have gathered enough, now I want to weave the garland, but first I want to place my bow and quiver on the ground. Satyr [aside] She speaks of love, actually, she speaks of a lover! She’s busy weaving lovely flowers.

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Tirenia They will not suffice; roses are still needed to finish the work begun. Satyr [aside] Count those you have in your face, for they are so lovely and beautiful! And much more fragrant and more dear than those which with their fierce, protective thorns harmed the white foot of the Cyprian. In revenge, then, that same blood transformed it from white to a vermilion hue and the scent from an earthly to a heavenly one. But I can no longer keep silent! I must perforce loosen my tongue and open that passageway to the heart. [to Tirenia] May the gods grant every one of your wishes, Oh my heart’s beautiful, charming nymph!

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Tirenia Ah me, wretched! Ah me, help, help! Help me, shepherds, come out, all of you, to rescue me, a wretched nymph! O goddess of the third heaven,48 895 give succor to my amorous thoughts! Satyr Stop, my heart’s treasure, please, stop, for I am not . . . Tirenia Let go of me! Ah me, cruel one! Let go, I tell you! Satyr I am no fierce beast, look and see who I am!

136 Amorosa speranza Tirenia Sei satiro, lo so, lasciami stare! Soccorretemi ninfe! Aiutate pastori una serva d’Amore! Satiro Poiché d’amor sei serva rivolgi a me ‘l pensiero! E fa che servo io sia e tu patrona mia!

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Tirenia Porgimi una saetta. Satiro E che far vuoi di quella? Tirenia Lascia, non mi far forza che sarai castigato dalla triforme dea acerbamente.

910

Satiro Io non ti faccio forza, ma sol ti chieggio aita perché ne le tue mani 915 vi sta la morte mia, vi sta la vita. Tirenia Porgimi adunque un strale dalla faretra mia. Satiro Andiam, che son contento, prendilo da te stessa. 920 Tirenia Lasciame fiera e orgogliosa bestia.

Amorous Hope 137 Tirenia You are a satyr, I know that, let me be! Nymphs, come to my rescue! Help, shepherds, I am a servant of Love!

900

Satyr Since you are love’s maidservant, turn your thoughts to me! 905 And allow me to be your servant and you my mistress! Tirenia Hand me an arrow. Satyr And what would you do with it? Tirenia Let me be, do not use force on me for you will be punished bitterly, by the triform goddess!

910

Satyr I am not using any force; I ask only for your help because in your hands 915 rests my life, there rests my death! Tirenia Hand me, then, an arrow from my quiver. Satyr All right, I’m happy to oblige, take it yourself. 920 Tirenia Let go of me, you fierce, pompous beast!

138 Amorosa speranza Satiro Non ti posso lasciar che l’alma mia ne le tue spoglie è involta. Tirenia Lasciame tuor lo strale. Satiro Eccoti al segno, prendi ora se vuoi lo stral che più t’aggrada.

925

Tirenia Ricevi, o sommo Giove, il corpo e l’alma puro e immaculato appena tocco dalle mani di questo infido mostro. Vivi lieto, Alliseo, 930 che privo resterai de li noiosi e tristi miei lamenti, fruendo di Venetia i dolci amori che fia un colmar di refrigerio i cuori. Satiro Non far, ninfa leggiadra, 935 ch’uccideresti ancora me che nel tuo bel petto ho fatto albergo. Tirenia Che far più deggio misera e infelice? Satiro Lascia ormai di dolerti, luce de gl’occhi miei! 940 Volgi a me quel bel volto che m’ave il cor di mezzo il petto tolto. Porgi cortese orecchie alle poche parole, a l’acceso desio del misero cor mio. 945 Tirenia E che mi vuoi tu dire?

Amorous Hope 139 Satyr I cannot let go of you, for my soul is all wrapped up among your spoils! Tirenia Let me take the arrow! Satyr Here you are, take it now if you wish, take the arrow that pleases you the most!

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Tirenia Receive, o lofty Jove,49 my body and my soul, pure and immaculate, barely touched by the hands of this treacherous monster. Live happily, Alliseo, 930 for you will be rid of my annoying and sad laments. Enjoy Venetia’s sweet love and may your hearts be filled with solace! Satyr Don’t do this, lovely nymph, for you would kill me as well, for I dwell in your beautiful bosom.

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Tirenia What else can I do, wretched and unhappy as I am? Satyr Now, stop lamenting, light of my eyes! 940 Turn to me that beautiful face that snatched away my heart from the midst of my breast! Offer courteous ears to my few words, to the burning desire of my wretched heart! 945 Tirenia And what do you have to say to me?

140 Amorosa speranza Satiro Che tu mi fai morire. Tirenia Non ch’io non t’udirò, se non mi lasci, né mai ti mirerò, se non ti scosti. Satiro Ti lascio con le mani, ma ti stringo col core. Mi scosto, ma se fuggi ti seguirò fin ne gl’oscuri abissi. Che miri in quel cipresso? Tirenia E che vuoi tu sapere? Satiro Dillo caro cor mio non ci vedo già alcuno e pur attenta miri. Lascia, lascia ‘l mirar di queste pinate, mira me che te seguo e questo pardo il qual t’offro in dono. Tirenia O che leggiadro pardo! O che fera domestica e cortese! O come mi accarezza e par appunto che di già per patrona ei mi conosca.

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Satiro Se tu sei la mia dea non vuoi ch’egli, mia fera, umil a te s’inchina? Anzi, meco ti adora, [e] serva. Tirenia Me ‘l doni? 970 Satiro Sì, mia vita, ch’io te’l dono!

Amorous Hope 141 Satyr That you are killing me. Tirenia I will not listen to you if you don’t let go of me! Nor will I ever look at you if you don’t move farther away! Satyr All right, I will let go of you with my hands, but still hold on to you with my heart! I will move aside, but, if you flee I will follow you even through the dark abysses. What are you looking at in that cypress tree?50 Tirenia And why do you want to know?

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Satyr Tell me, dear heart of mine! I don’t see anyone up there but your gaze is quite focused. Stop that, cease gazing up at those pine trees! Look at me who follows you! And look at this panther51 960 that I am offering you as a gift! Tirenia Oh, what a lovely panther! Oh, what a tame and gracious animal!52 Oh, how it caresses me and it seems, in fact, that he already recognizes me as his mistress!

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Satyr If you are my goddess, do you not want this beast of mine to humbly bow down to you? In fact, he—along with me—adores and serves you! Tirenia Are you giving him to me? Satyr Yes, my life, of course I am giving him to you!

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142 Amorosa speranza Tirenia O come egli m’è caro! Mi doni anco le fraghe? Satiro Le fraghe, il pardo, e me stesso ti dono! Tirenia Ti ringrazio. Perdonami se prima fei tanta resistenza al tuo sì caro invito che non uomo, ma fera ti stimai. Or che dimostri sì real aspetto della tua compagnia io mi compiaccio.

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Satiro Ti rendo grazie, o mia celeste dea. Ed al tuo cenno sol io sarò pronto e ubbidiente servo. Ma che miravi sopra quel cipresso? Dimmelo, in cortesia. 985 Tirenia Io te’l vo dir di somma grazia. Ascolta: poco fa, mi girava intorno a questo colle quando vidi volar un bel pavone ne l’alta cima di questo cipresso. 990 Ond’io, da l’ozio stanca, mi posi a insidiare di quello augello l’innocente vita. Né prima lo scopersi che vibrando da l’arco, 995 il più pregiato stral de la faretra (che di già avea incoccato) ucciderlo credei. Ma appena giunto lo strale a mezzo il corso 1000 fu ch’ei ratto fuggì volando altrove, e ‘l mio stral restò fisso ne l’alta cima di questo cipresso

Amorous Hope 143 Tirenia Oh, how dear he is to me! Are you also giving me those wild berries? Satyr The berries, the panther, and myself: I give it all to you! Tirenia I thank you. Forgive me if at first I put up such resistance to your gracious invitation, but I thought you were a beast, not a man. Now that you display such a noble bearing, I am pleased to be in your company! Satyr I give you thanks, oh my heavenly goddess! At your command alone I shall be a ready and obedient servant. But what were you gazing at on top of that cypress tree? Tell me, if you would be so kind!

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Tirenia I will tell you most willingly! Listen: not too long ago, I was walking around this hill when I saw a beautiful peacock fly to the uppermost branch of this cypress tree. 990 Whereupon I, tired of my idleness, began to secretly plot against the innocent life of that bird. No sooner had I seen it that my bow shot 995 the most precious arrow I had in my quiver (which was already prepared for use) and I thought I had killed it. But as soon as the arrow reached midway in its course, 1000 the bird quickly escaped, flying elsewhere, and my arrow remained stuck up there at the very top of this cypress tree.

144 Amorosa speranza con grave mio dolore che senza preda alcuna 1005 dovessi restar priva di sì pregiato strale. Satiro Mi prometti tu ninfa di restare ferma qui dove sei? Tirenia Io ti prometto: ecco la destra in pegno. E ti prometto non lasciarti mai. Satiro O bellissima mano! O stringermi soave! Provo ogni altro gioir quanto sia vile, e strale in liber cor piaga simile non fe mai saettando il bel d’un viso. Così, mio sol, ti prego ognor amarmi; non chieggio altro da te che cortesia.

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Tirenia Vanne pur ch’io sto ferma. E per più sicurezza, 1020 mi affido quivi in terra. Satiro Salirò, e in tanto con la bella man mostrami dov’è, vita mia, lo strale. O com’io son gagliardo e mi par d’aver l’ali.xix 1025 Tirenia Ascendi meglio e mira bene ad alto. L’hai trovato? No ‘l vedi in quelli rami che spunta con le penne da quel sinistro lato? Satiro Io nol posso veder, diletta ninfa.

1030

Amorous Hope 145 With much sorrow and without any spoils 1005 I was deprived of such a treasured arrow! Satyr Would you, nymph, promise to remain still here where you are right now? Tirenia I promise. Here’s my right hand as my pledge and I promise to never leave you. Satyr O most beautiful hand! Oh, embrace me sweetly! Every other joy I feel is nothing by comparison! An arrow has never inflicted such a wound in a free heart shot by such a beautiful face. And so, my sun, I beg you to love me forever; I ask nothing else from you, just kindness. Tirenia Go ahead, I will stay put! And, just so you can rest assured, I will sit down here on the ground. Satyr I will climb up but, in the meantime, with your beautiful hand show me, my life, where the arrow is. [aside] Oh, how valiant I feel, I feel like I have wings!

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Tirenia Climb up a bit more and look carefully on high! Have you found it? Don’t you see it among those branches showing its feathers over there on the left side? Satyr I can’t see it, delightful nymph!

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146 Amorosa speranza Tirenia Almen giunger potessi fra questi ramicelli che te lo mostrarei più facilmente. O se non fusse questi panni lunghi l’animo mi darebbe di salire. Ma non mi fido, temo di cadere! O m’è venuto pur il bel pensiero. Vientene a me Magiorte te, te, te.

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Satiro E che vuoi far del cane? Tirenia Vedi tu questa fune? 1040 Lascia ch’io te l’avolga ad ambedue le braccia in due correnti nodi poi che come di sopra tu sarai io legherò la cima della fune 1045 al pie maggior di questo bel cipresso, avolgendo e intessendo con diversi legami per farmi più opportuna strada al giunger di sopra 1050 sapendo quanto t’abbia esser a core la salute e la vita che tant’ami. Satiro Io vado e ascendo ad alto. Tirenia Tien ben ferme le braccia ch’io non cada, mia vita, e morta innanzi agl’occhi tuoi rimanghi. Satiro Non dubitar, cor mio, fa pur tu bene l’ufficio tuo e non mancar di nulla! Tirenia Or ora lo vedrai.

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Amorous Hope 147 Tirenia If only I might reach up among these little branches to show it to you more easily. Oh, if it were not for this long dress I would have the courage to climb up. But I don’t trust it, I fear I will fall . . . Oh, but I just had a lovely thought! Come on over to me, Magiorte te, te, te!53

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Satyr And what is it you want to do with that dog? Tirenia You see this rope? 1040 Let me wrap it around you, around both your arms, with two swift knots. Then, while you are at the top, I will tie the end of the rope 1045 to the foot of this beautiful cypress tree wrapping it around and around, and weaving it together with various knots, in order to create for myself a favorable path to climb up there, 1050 knowing how much you care about the life and well-being of the one you love so much!54 Satyr I will go and climb to the top. Tirenia Keep your arms really still, my life, so that I may not fall and die before your very eyes! Satyr Do not hesitate, my heart, go ahead and take good care of whatever you need to do and don’t leave anything out! Tirenia [aside] Soon enough you’ll find out!

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148 Amorosa speranza O come ben è intorto . . . scenderai se potrai! Mira se vedi a tuo piacer lo strale.

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Satiro Nulla veder non posso! Ma, se l’additerai, potrei vederlo. Tirenia Aspettami ch’io vengo. 1065 Ma parmi aver in quelle frondi udito un non so che cadere. Certo sarà ‘l mio strale che nel crollar del albero è caduto. Satiro Potrebbe esser di certo. 1070 O quanto mi sarebbe di contento e di gioia! Tirenia Resta pur vago augello, anzi, leggiadro corvo! Gracchia pur quanto sai, 1075 ch’in la tua pania me più non avrai! Addio te, caro, il mio Magiorte amato . . . Satiro Ninfa l’hai ritrovato? Affrettati di grazia che sazio son ormai de l’aspettare! 1080 Che dici? Non rispondi? Dov’ita sei? Deh, cara vita mia. Per l’amor che mi porti, per quel cocente ardore che già ti strugge il core, 1085 s’hai trovato il tuo strale snoda, cortese mia, le funi e rendi libere queste mie robuste braccia, cupide d’annodarsi al tuo candido collo 1090

Amorous Hope 149 Oh, how well he’s tied up . . . let’s see you come back down if you can! See if you can find that arrow at your leisure!

1060

Satyr I cannot see anything! But, if you point it out, maybe I could spot it. Tirenia Wait for me, I’m coming! 1065 But I seem to hear among those leaves something (though I know not what) falling down. Surely, it must be my arrow which, with the shaking of the tree, fell to the ground. Satyr That could very well be. 1070 Oh, how happy and joyful that would make me! Tirenia [aside] Stay right there, charming bird or, rather, lovely raven! Chatter as much as you can for in your net you’ll never have me again! Farewell; my dear, my beloved Magiorte . . .

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Satyr Nymph, did you find it? Hurry up, for heaven’s sake, I’m tired of waiting! 1080 What do you say? No response? Where did you go? Come, dear life of mine, for the love you bear for me, for that burning passion that consumes your heart, 1085 if you’ve found your arrow, kindly untie these ropes around me and free up these robust arms of mine that long to wrap themselves around your white neck 1090

150 Amorosa speranza ed il digiuno cor farne satollo. Ma non rispondi ninfa? O ninfa, ove sei ita da me così lontano? 1095 O misero e infelice trascurato che fui ben a finte parole ed a menzogne ancora di questa falsa maga! M’ho lasciato 1100 prender in questo modo? Come seppe fingendo quel suo strale chiedermi quasi in dono! Ahi falsa mentitrice a questo modo ingrata 1105 di fragili speranze hai pagato ‘l mio amore con tanto danno mio, con tanto scorno? Esempio memorando a mille più di me felici amanti 1110 tu far mi vuoi mostrando oggi a ciascun di qual possanza sia una vera bellezza in finto viso! O miserelli amanti, ecco la ricompensa de l’amore! 1115 Ecco bel segno di gradito core! Ah scelerata, perfida, e malvagia! Sesso dannoso e infido, privo di fè, di amor, e di consiglio! Ch’abborrito e fuggito esser dovrebbe 1120 qual fero serpe ognor da l’uom prudente! E noto esser dovrebbe a tutto il mondo l’infedeltà d’una superba donna la qual trattien da scherzo, con mentite speranze, 1125 mille amatori in vita. E poi, per più mostrare l’altera sua possanza, non contenta vederli ognor languire, vuole col lor morire 1130 finir l’impresa del suo impuro amore,

Amorous Hope 151 and satisfy my starving heart! But you do not answer, nymph? O nymph, where have you gone so far away from me? 1095 Oh, wretched and sad, I’ve been abandoned indeed— with false words and with lies by this false sorceress! Did I let myself 1100 be taken in this way? How well she knew how to feign concern for her arrow, asking me for it, as if it were a favor! Aiee, false woman, you liar! In this way, ingrate, 1105 with frail hopes, did you reward my love with so much injury to me, with so much contempt? What a memorable example to a thousand lovers happier than me! 1110 You want to make a spectacle of me today to everyone, to show how much power true beauty in a false countenance possesses! O wretched little lovers, here’s love’s compensation! 1115 Here’s the beautiful mark of a prized heart! Ah, evil, false, and wicked! That harmful and treacherous female sex devoid of trust, of love, and of good sense! It should be abhorred and shunned, 1120 just as a prudent man avoids a ferocious serpent! And it should be known to all the world, the infidelity of a haughty woman, one who as a joke keeps alive and gives false hope 1125 to a thousand suitors. And then, to demonstrate even further her overweening power, not content to see them languish forever, she wants with their death 1130 to bring her impure love to a conclusion—

152 Amorosa speranza com’ha fatto costei meco a lasciarmi in così gran periglio. E forse che ben forte non avvinse quest’intricata fune a grossi rami 1135 che con tutto ch’io scuota (questa caprina mia misera vita!) non posso in alcun modo svilupparmi da loro avendo e mani e piedi 1140 tutti posti in catena. O s’io non faccio memoranda strage di quelle mani tue, di quel tuo falso crine, spietata tigre, sia mio danno. Parmi sentir qui intorno 1145 alcun, che se ne venghi a questa parte; mi vo nasconder nei più densi rami e attender quel che sia che a scopo quì ne viene che forse mi trarrà di queste pene. 1150

SCENA TERZA Artemia, Elliodoro satiri Artemia Qual strada inusitata, qual più intricata selva, o qual alpestre monte potrò più ricercare per ritrovare il mio desiato amante? Per tutta Arcadia e alla caverna propria l’ho ricercato indarno. Anzi, niun vestigio potuto n’ho fin ora ritrovare; e parmi molto fuori de l’usato che questo pardo (già mio dono) vadi solo per queste selve! L’avrà forse smarrito e lo deve cercar per monti e valli? O che non molto lunge anch’ei si trova.

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Amorous Hope 153 as this one has done— by leaving me in such great danger! And how tightly she must have bound this unwieldy rope around these large branches for no matter how much I shake them (wretched life of mine as a goat!) I cannot in any way free myself from them, having both hands and feet bound up as if in chains. Oh, if I don’t make a memorable massacre of those hands of yours, of those false locks,55 merciless tigress, may the loss be mine. I seem to hear someone somewhere around me that may come this way— I want to hide in the thickest branches and wait to see who it is what the purpose of coming here is for maybe he will free me from this agony.

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SCENE THREE Artemia, Elliodoro satyrs56 Artemia What unfamiliar road, what more tangled woods, what alpine mountain can I search further in order to find my desired lover? 1155 All over Arcadia and in his own cave I looked for him in vain. In fact, no trace have I been able to find of him so far; and it seems very unusual 1160 that this panther (formerly my gift to him)57 would wander alone in these woods. Might he have perhaps lost him, and so he must be looking for him across mountains and valleys? Oh, may it not be too far before he too is found! 1165

154 Amorosa speranza Satiro Non molto lunge certo ma ben tropp’ert’io sono da sagace maestra posto in cima quest’arbor che rassembro un uom pieno di paglia messo a bel studio a impaurir gl’augelli!

1170

Artemia Se ‘l trovo ridonargli vo’ la fera tanto da lui stimata quant’io (lassa) sprezzata. Ma prego il ciel ch’un giorno 1175 cortese si dimostri a miei desiri. E di tanti martiri e cocenti sospiri ei riconosca che ‘l misero petto (sovente esala) onde mi fa sentire 1180 un continuo languire. Ma che vegg’io? Quello sarebbe forse il mio desiato bene che sopra quel cipresso alla fresc’aura passa il caldo estivo? 1185 È desso: io lo conosco. Caro e gradito amante poi ch’oggi il mio desire cortese a te m’invia discendi ch’io t’abbracci 1190 e doni a i labri affettuosi baci. Elliodoro, non odi? Ascender voglio, cert’è dal sonno presso. O quanto mi fia caro in questo stato trovar chi tanto bramo. 1195 (E poi che sì opportuna occasione mi si appresenta involaroli un bacio). O dei perché concesso non m’è di poter star con dolce pace mai sempre teco e tu meco congiunto? 1200 Ahimè che veggo? Sei dunque legato? E stringon le tue braccia aspre ritorte d’una fune crudel in questi rami?

Amorous Hope 155 Satyr [aside] Not very far, for sure! But too well tied up was I by that crafty woman— placed at the top of this tree so that I resemble a man full of straw, 1170 propped up there intentionally to scare away the birds! Artemia [aside] If I find him, I want to give him back the wild beast so much by him cherished as I am (alas!) disdained. But I beg heaven that one day he show himself kind to my desires. And of my many sufferings and burning sighs he will recognize why this wretched breast (that often heaves) makes me feel a constant languishing. But what do I see? The one who might perhaps be my longed-for good who on top of that cypress tree is passing away the summer heat in the fresh breeze? It is he, I recognize him! My dear, beloved lover, since today my desire graciously brings me to you, come down so that I can embrace you and place my affectionate kisses on your lips! Elliodoro, don’t you hear me? [aside] I want to climb up there, it’s clear he’s dozing off. Oh, how happy it makes me to find him in this state, the one I so much long for! (And since such an opportune moment presents itself to me, I will steal a kiss from him.) O gods, why is it not possible for me to rest in sweet peace, me with you and you with me, forever joined? Ah me, what do I see? Are you then tied up? And so bound up your arms are harshly twisted by a cruel rope, inside these branches.

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156 Amorosa speranza Lo vo slegar pian, piano. Vedi con quanti nodi 1205 aviluppata stassi questa fune intorno a questi tronchi, appena posso districarli a un tratto! Che sia lodato il cielo, dalla fune e dal sonno è liberato! 1210 Satiro Artemia, amata mia, come sei qui salita? Qual desio ti conduce a cercarmi con tanto tuo travaglio? Non sai che tutto tuo io fui e sarò sempre? E che ti devo amare per obligo d’amore? Artemia Il gran desio di ritrovarmi teco non m’ha lasciato in tutt’oggi un momento di quiete e di riposo! Per te cercare e al fin ti ritrovai sopra questo cipresso ove stavi dormendo legato, vita mia, con questa fune.

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Satiro Io legato? Mi burli, o caro sole! Artemia S’io ti burlo, cor mio? Ch’ognor mi sia contrario il tuo pensiero e l’amor che mi porti si cangi in mortal odio. Satiro Io non ti credo. Tu sei stata quella che mi legò per prender di me gioco. Artemia Io già non fui perché legata essendo

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Amorous Hope 157 Let me unbind him little by little. You see how with many knots this rope is twisted around these trunks, I can hardly undo them all at once! May heaven be praised, he’s now free from rope and from sleep! Satyr Artemia, my beloved, how did you climb up here? What desire leads you to take such trouble to search for me? Do you not know that all yours I was and will be always? And that I must love you as love obliges me to do?58 Artemia The great desire to find myself with you again has not given me a moment of peace or repose all day! I looked for you and, in the end, I found you on top of this cypress tree where you were sleeping all bound up, my life, with this rope!

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Satyr Me tied up? You mock me, O my dear sun! Artemia Mock you, my heart? If so, may your thoughts always be contrary to mine and the love that you bear me be changed to mortal hate! 1230 Satyr I don’t believe you. You were the one who tied me up to tease me! Artemia It surely wasn’t me, since I am myself bound up

158 Amorosa speranza con sì dura catena nel tuo amore non potrei te legar con debil fune. Satiro Orsù lasciamo i scherzi e le parole! Andiamo a la spelonca ch’ivi sciorai la tua catena dura dolce legame di sincero amore. E prometto ch’a pien sarai contenta de l’amoroso e ardente tuo desio.

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Artemia Così speme facciam di questo core. Va ch’io prendo la fera or del nostro gioir fida compagna. Satiro Tu, cara fera mia, lascia le fere e le selvagge belle che fera più diletta mi sei tu d’altra e di tua cara preda solo il mio cor gioisce.

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Artemia Beata me s’amore 1250 mi fece fera e preda del tuo core. Ma non però voglio lasciar errando andar il dono mio! Eccola, presa. Or va ch’anch’io ti seguo. Fine del Secondo Atto

Atto Terzo SCENA PRIMA Venelia sola Venelia Crudo e spietato Amore 1255 se sol pena e dolore prova l’amante nel tuo falso regno.

Amorous Hope 159 with such a harsh chain by the love I bear for you that I couldn’t bind you up even with a frail rope! Satyr Come now, let’s leave aside the jokes and the words! Let’s go to the cave, for it’s there that you will loosen your hard chain which is the sweet bond of sincere love. And I promise that your amorous and burning desire will be fully satisfied.

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Artemia That gives hope to this heart of mine. Go on ahead, for I will take this wild beast now, the faithful companion of our rejoicing.59 Satyr You, my dear wild creature, leave those wild animals and those beautiful wild beasts behind, for much more delight you bring to me than any other! And as your dear prey alone my heart rejoices!

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Artemia Blessed I am if love 1250 turns me into a wild beast and your heart into my prey! But even so I don’t want to let my gift go wandering off! Here it is, captured. Now go, for I too will follow you! End of Act Two

Act Three SCENE ONE Venelia alone Venelia Cruel and pitiless Love is 1255 if pain and sorrow are all that the lover feels in your false reign!

160 Amorosa speranza Lassa, come sperar dunque degg’io in alcun tempo mai ricever quel tributo 1260 che merita il cor mio? Ahi che mentre sperava col favor d’una cara e amica stella per l’amoroso mar de le mie pene varcar salda e sicura 1265 sicché dopo un girar lungo e penoso godere al fin potessi il desiato porto ecco che in un momento sì come un sogno entr’a notturne larvexx 1270 un infida procella mi si è mostra nemica e depresso il nocchiero, rotto e spezzato l’agitato legno, sommerso e vele e sarte, 1275 smarrito il caro porto nel vasto mar di lagrime e sospiri. Lassa, fatta son’esca d’incendi, di tormenti, e di martiri. Questi son dei tuoi frutti, ingrato arciero.xxi 1280 E finissero qui l’empie tue voglie che fora minor mal, perché sarei sola al languir, sola a le pene, al pianto; ma come io fossi fatta tuo bersaglio, vai scegliendo amatori, 1285 che mostran compiacersi di questa (qual si sia) poca bellezza mia. Quasi che tu non sappi c’ho solo un cor che (tua mercé) donai 1290 a quello a cui lo ritorrò giamai. Ecco fra l’altre cure mi s’appresenta quella d’Alliseo che dianzi dimostrò Fulgentia amare più che’l suo proprio cor più che la vita 1295 ed or, toltosi a lei, par che me sola miri. Ahi malgradita sposa

Amorous Hope 161 Alas, how can I then hope to ever receive that recognition 1260 that my heart deserves? Aiee, for while I was hoping with the favor of a dear and amicable star to overcome, safe and secure, the sea of my amorous sorrows 1265 so that after some long and painful tossing and turning I could, in the end, take pleasure in my longed-for harbor lo, for in one instant— just as in a dream, a nocturnal specter enters— 1270 a treacherous storm showed itself my enemy, with my helmsman down, the tossed ship broken and shattered; the sails and shrouds submerged, 1275 the cherished port lost in the great sea of tears and sighs. Alas, I have been turned into the bait of flames, of torments, and of anguish. These are some of your fruits, ungrateful archer!60 1280 And if only your wishes were to end here, they would reap less damage, because I would be alone in my languishing, alone in my pain, alone in my weeping. But just as I was made your target, you go around choosing lovers 1285 who take delight in this (however it may be) faint beauty of mine! As if you did not know that I have only one heart which (thanks to you) I gave away 1290 to him from whom I will never take it back.61 Here, among all my other troubles, Alliseo’s presents itself to me: he who earlier proved to love Fulgentia more than his own heart, more than life itself; 1295 and now, having withdrawn himself from her, seems to gaze at me alone.62 Aiee, unwanted bride,

162 Amorosa speranza potrai (mal grado tuo) veder diversa la fede in me di quel che ti credevi? 1300 Potrai creder ch’io sia sola cagion che ‘l tuo leggiadro sposo non ti faccia più vezzi? Oserà questo core? Ardirà questa lingua? 1305 S’aprirà questa bocca per dire arditamente quel estremo languire quel vicino morire quegl’ardenti sospiri 1310 che con tanti martiri oppresso il tuo Alliseo tiene? E afflitto d’altra cagion non viene che dalla tua beltade dalla qual soggiogato egli rimase 1315 per opera d’Amore allor ch’in suoni e canti giuochi e leggiadri balli si celebrò la pompa de l’onorate tue novelle nozze. 1320 So che mortal ferita sarebbe alla tua vita questa spietata nova. Ma qual stupor fu’l mio, quando che intesi queste sole parole 1325 che fresche ancor nel core io tengo d’Alliseo scolpite a forza! Ei m’invitò alla danza né prima m’ebbe a mano che lo veggo mutar tutto di faccia 1330 e i bei purpurei delle vaghe rose sparsi per le sue guancie in un momento (quasi fior suciso) venir languidi e smorti e quasi isvenne. Ond’io, di ciò ignorando la cagione, 1335 dissi: “Alliseo qual fiero dolor t’opprime che così diverso dal solito ti mostri e tanto fuori di te? Sei morto o vivo?

Amorous Hope 163 will you (in spite of yourself) be able to see differently that faith you thought you had in me? 1300 Will you believe that I alone am the reason your charming husband no longer shows you his affection? Will this heart dare? Will this tongue be brazen enough? 1305 Will this mouth open to brazenly reveal that extreme languishing, that near death, those burning sighs 1310 that with such suffering oppress your Alliseo? [turns to herself as if to a mirror] And he is afflicted for no reason other than your beauty, which subjugated him 1315 by Love’s doing just at the very moment when sounds and songs, games and lovely dances celebrated the festivities of your63 honored recent nuptials. 1320 I know this pitiless news would be a mortal blow to your life. But can you only imagine my own stupor when I understood these very words of Alliseo’s, 1325 which I still keep fresh in my heart, carved onto it by force? He invited me to dance, and no sooner did he have my hand than I was able to see his entire countenance changing 1330 and that beautiful crimson of lovely roses spread all over his cheeks in one instant—just like a flower, when it is severed, becomes wan and pale—and he almost fainted. At which point I, ignoring the cause, 1335 said: “Alliseo, what violent pain oppresses you that makes you so different from your usual self, and so beside yourself? Are you dead or alive?

164 Amorosa speranza Non t’affliger ch’a te non si conviene 1340 turbar le proprie nozze.” Ed egli, a tal parlar, tratto un sospiro da l’intimo del core, disse: “Non creda amore, trarmi quel fier dolore 1345 con gioir amoroso perché nel farmi sposo in un tempo mi fe infelice amante d’una leggiadra ninfa la qual ora m’è innante. 1350 Ed opra per suo mezzo amor la forza sua con tanta crudeltade che morir voglio amante e finto sposo.” E poi flevidamente a me stringendo 1355 la mano mi lasciò partendo afflitto dipinto il viso di color di morte. Io, poscia che finite fur le danze, con pie furtivo a tutti m’involai e quì ratta me’n venni. E mi parea 1360 ad or ad or Fulgentia aver a canto che mi dicesse: “Quest’è ‘l premio e ‘l merto della nostra amicizia? Adunque farti pellice vuoi di sì cara compagna?” Or che sarà? Consigliami tu Amore, 1365 che mi spiaccia l’amor di questo amante. Lassa, no’l posso dir, solo mi spiace farmi rivale a così cara amica. Anzi, gli rapirei furtivamente quel che gli dona Amore, 1370 quel che gli da Fortuna, quel che gli è destinato dal ciel compagno e sposo. Ahi fortuna crudele con quanti vari modi 1375 giri quella tua ruota! Ahi come ti diletti far il mio petto scudo de l’aspre tue percosse! Che noiosi pensieri 1380

Amorous Hope 165 Don’t look afflicted, for it is not appropriate for you 1340 to disturb your own nuptials.” And he, in response to this, exhaling a sigh from deep within his heart, said: “Let not love think he can take away such fierce pain 1345 with amorous joy, for, in making me a groom, he has at the very same time made me the unhappy lover of a charming nymph— the one whom I now behold. 1350 And by such means love wields his power with such cruelty that I want to die a lover and a false groom.” And then he faintly squeezed 1355 my hand and, afflicted, he left me, his face painted with the hue of death. I, once the dances were over, with a furtive foot fled from everyone and here quickly I came. And it seemed to me 1360 at every moment as if I had Fulgentia at my side, saying to me: “Is this the reward and the honor of our friendship?64 Do you want to make a trophy of such a dear companion?” What will happen now? Love, you advise me, 1365 for I do not welcome the love of this lover! Alas, I don’t know what to say, but I would hate to become a rival to such a dear friend! Should I instead secretly snatch that which Love bestows upon her, 1370 that which Fortune gives her, the one who was destined for her by heaven as her companion and husband? Aiee, cruel fortune, in how many different ways 1375 you turn that wheel of yours!65 Aiee, how you take delight in turning my breast into a shield for your harsh blows! What painful thoughts 1380

166 Amorosa speranza m’affligon l’alma ognora e parmi ogni momento vedermi inanzi gl’occhi l’addolorata amante, la malgradita sposa 1385 del pastor Alliseo. Ma poi che questo loco alpestre e inabitato conforme al rio pensiero mi fa sicura dal comerzio altrui 1390 starò qui ascosa infin che si darà principio alla novella caccia— caccia grande e famosa oggi fanno i pastori al terribil cinghiale 1395 che così gravi e importanti danni fatt’ha per tutta Arcadia. Ebbi pensier di ritrovarmi anch’io con l’altre ninfe a insanguinar il dardo. Ma tolga il ciel che mai 1400 cerchi più d’offerire la mia faccia, i miei sguardi a chi solo languire si diletta e si pasce nel mirarmi sovente. 1405 M’involerò alle ninfe e ai pastori; m’involerò a Fulgentia la qual tanto desia star meco in compagnia (per non le dar sospetto). 1410 Par ben che per stanchezza i’ venga meno. Sarebbe il sonno mai pietoso de’ miei guai questo che mi circonda gl’occhi e ‘l core? Gli è desso. I’ vò posarmi a questa erbetta 1415 e ristorar l’afflitte e stanche membra già ch’un sì grato e così bel silenzio m’invita richiamando il caro nome de l’amato Lucrin, mio car tesoro. Mi poserò per far un dolce sonno 1420 al mormorio di questa bella fonte

Amorous Hope 167 afflict my soul at all times: at every moment I seem to see before my eyes that mournful lover, that unwanted bride 1385 of the shepherd Alliseo. But since this place, mountainous and uninhabited, conforms to cruel thoughts and secures me from mingling with others, 1390 I will stay here hidden until a new hunt is initiated and begun— a hunt widespread and famous that shepherds will undertake today against that horrifying boar66 1395 who has wreaked such grave and significant damage throughout Arcadia! I was planning to participate myself, and, with the other nymphs, stain my dart with its blood. But heaven has forbidden 1400 that I should ever again show my face, my glances, to someone who only takes delight in languishing, and who feeds on gazing at me often. 1405 I will steal away from the nymphs and shepherds, I will steal away from Fulgentia, who so much desires to be in my company (and so as not to give her reason to suspect anything) 1410 It does seem that I’m feeling faint from weariness. Might it be that sleep is taking pity on my cares, this sleep that envelops my eyes and my heart? So it is. I want to lie down on this patch of grass 1415 to refresh my afflicted and weary limbs, now that such a pleasurable and delightful silence invites me, calling out the dear name of my beloved Lucrino, my dear treasure.67 I will lie down and take a sweet nap 1420 to the murmur of this lovely spring

168 Amorosa speranza e al grato ventillare di queste verdi, vaghe, e belle frondi.

SCENA SECONDA Alliseo, Venelia dormendo Alliseo Udite frondi, e fiori udite piante, erbette, sterpi, e sassi 1425 antri e spelonche! Udite opache selve la cagion del mio duol, de’ miei sospiri! Accompagnate voi fere silvestri con gl’ululati vostri le mie querele e l’angoscioso pianto. 1430 Ahi che del troppo osar, del troppo ardire n’avrò ben la dovuta ricompensa che mi fia memorabile, in eterno. Ahi maladetta bocca, ahi scelerata lingua ch’osasti far palese 1435 il secreto del cuore alla mia bella ninfa! Deh’ si fosser seccate quelle fauci foss’io restato muttolo mai sempre poiché la cruda non sì tosto udito 1440 ebbe le mie parole a pien compresi i segni del dolore che per questa crudel m’impresse Amore, che quasi in un baleno si turbò, mi fuggì, se n’andò lunge 1445 da ninfe e da pastori lasciando me dolente e semivivo privo d’ogni speranza e d’ogni bene. Ma lasso, ove dev’io girare il piede s’ogni cosa mi par atra e funesta? 1450 Io vissi con speranza ch’oggi cortesi orecchie, col mezzo di Corintia, a miei martiri ella prestar dovesse; e fu vano il sperare. 1455 Ahi che conobbi tardi

Amorous Hope 169 and with the pleasing breeze of these green, delightful, and lovely branches.

SCENE TWO Alliseo, Venelia sleeping Alliseo Listen, branches and flowers! Listen, plants and blades of grass, thorns, and stones, 1425 caverns and caves! Listen, dark woods, to the reason for my suffering, for my sighs! You, wild animals of the woods, accompany with your own howling my complaints and my anguished weeping! 1430 Aiee, for excessive daring, for excessive boldness, I shall have just payment that I will remember forever! Aiee damned mouth, aiee evil tongue that dared make known 1435 the secret of my heart to my beautiful nymph! Ah, if only these jaws had dried up, if only I had remained dumb and mute forever, since no sooner did the cruel one hear this 1440 and fully understand the signs of anguish that for her cruel Love impressed upon me than, quick as a flash, troubled, she fled from me and went far off 1445 from nymphs and from shepherds, leaving me grieving and half-dead bereft of any hope and of any good!68 But alas, where shall I turn my foot if everything seems dark and mournful? 1450 I lived with hope that today, with the help of Corintia, she would offer courteous ears to my anguish; but my hope was in vain. 1455 Aiee, too late did I understand

170 Amorosa speranza il presagio mortale de l’aspro mio martire. Ma che veggio? Che miro? Non son questi i dorati e crespi crini, 1460 non è questa l’eburnea e chiara faccia, della gentil e vaga mia nemica? Ah che se ben dormendo tien le due stelle (anzi, i duoi lumi) ascosi da così vaghe ecclissi; 1465 sfavillan dolci stille di venenato foco che va serpendo intorno al miser core. Quest’è la mia Venetia! Ah perché mia, lasso, chiamar la voglio 1470 se mi si toglie e vieta? E se’l bendato e faretrato dio solo la face mia al martire, al tormento e d’altrui al gioire e al contento? 1475 Che angelico sembiante che regia maestade costei dimostra in faccia! Com’oggi m’è concesso ch’innanzi al mio morire 1480 potrò lieto fruire mirando in quel bel viso quanto a me donar possi . . . O che soave e odoroso fiato spira da quelle labbra 1485 anzi da quelle rose! S’acquetin gli Sabei ch’ebbero mai odori di gran lunga pari a questo! Ahimè quanto gioisco mirando te, mio sol sereno e puro! 1490 Desio mi sprona e insegna che (qual ape ingegnosa) cerchi rapir quel mele ch’in così vago fiore. Oggi m’addita Amore! 1495 Ma non comporti il cielo che quel candido velo

Amorous Hope 171 the fatal foreshadowing of my harsh anguish. But what do I see? What do I behold? Aren’t these the golden, curly locks? 1460 Isn’t this the ivory, radiant face of my noble and fair enemy? Ah, for even if while sleeping she holds those two stars—rather, those two lights— hidden in such a lovely eclipse, 1465 they dazzle with sweet drops of poisoned fire that encircle my wretched heart. This is my Venetia! Ah why do I call her mine, alas, 1470 if she avoids and forbids me? And if the blindfolded god with arrows69 only makes her mine in misery, in torment, and another’s in pleasure and in joy? 1475 What an angelic countenance, what a noble demeanor she shows in her face! It seems that today I am granted— just before I die— 1480 the chance to happily enjoy, as I behold that beautiful face, how much can be bestowed upon me . . . Oh, what a sweet and fragrant breath exhales from those lips, 1485 rather, from those roses! Let the Sabeans70 rest assured that they have never had fragrances even nearly equal to this one! Ah me, how much pleasure I derive from gazing upon you, my pure and serene sun! 1490 Desire incites and instructs me (just as it does an ingenious bee) to try to snatch the honey that lies in such a lovely flower. Today Love beckons me! 1495 But may heaven not allow that that white veil

172 Amorosa speranza che d’onestà ti copre (com’amante impudico) resti da me macchiato. 1500 Morirò desiando i cari frutti (qual Tantalo infelice) modesto sì ma non ardito amante. E quel sì grave errore ch’oggi (colpa d’Amore) 1505 mi fe cotanto ardito e lo commise il core emenderà la morte. Mira chi a turbar viene un sì dolce contento, 1510 indiscreto villano! Io mi voglio nasconder che forse ei non l’avrà veduta.

SCENA TERZA Bassano Bassano È forse un’ora che cercando vado (e di smania arrabbiando com’un cane) la mia patrona e non la trovo ancora! Che fosse sotto terra? Quante [ore] sono dianzi colui m’ebbe a stornir per lei gracchiandomi nel capo del suo amore? Or non sì tosto ho chiusi nella mandra gl’armenti, che mi caccia come un bue il padre a gir per lei (non so che buona nova gl’abbi a dare). Pegg’è che non la trovo e ho cercato il monte e ‘l piano. O foss’ella nascosta ne la capanna di qualche pastore? Non so più che mi dir né che mi fare! Se non andassi al solito provisto di zaino ben fornito, io ti so dire che mal me n’averia quanto a padroni. Che gli strangoli il diavolo una notte! Sarà meglio ch’io mangi un pò di pane

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Amorous Hope 173 which covers your honor be tarnished by me (as an immodest lover would do). 1500 I will die desiring those beloved fruits (just as unhappy Tantalus71), indeed as a modest but not as a brazen lover. And that very serious error which today72 (through the fault of Love) 1505 made me so brazen, that error which my heart committed, death will amend. [aside] Behold, who’s coming to disturb such sweet contentment, 1510 indiscreet villain! I want to hide myself, for perhaps he hasn’t seen her.

SCENE THREE Bassano Bassano It’s been maybe an hour since I started searching (angrily and like a dog full of rage) for my mistress, and I still can’t find her! Might she be underground? How many hours have passed since I was standing before him who sent my head into a daze with his squawking about his love for her? Then no sooner did I bring the flock and herd back home than her father chased me off like an ox to go and look for her (I don’t know what good news he has to give her). The worst is that I can’t find her, and I’ve looked through the mountains and the plains. Oh, could she be hiding in the hut of some shepherd? I don’t know anymore what to say or what to do! If I didn’t have my usual knapsack well-stocked, I tell you, harm would befall those masters. May the devil strangle them one night!73 It’s better if I eat some bread

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174 Amorosa speranza con questo cascio ritondetto e fresco indi con due sorsate di buon vino rinfrancherò l’affaticate membra. 1535 Insomma il mangiar bene e meglio bere è la vera ricetta de l’amore. Altri gusti son questi che si provano mangiando un grasso capro una fresca ricotta e un bianco pane 1540 che pascersi di pianti e di sospiri! Sciocchi servi d’Amore, che vivon di lamenti e di dolore! Onorin pur gli amanti il cieco dio ch’io di Cerere sempre andrò cantando! 1545 E di Bacco le prove e le grandezze di cui gustando il buon liquor mai sempre vivo in quanta dolcezzza il ciel può dare e in questo mondo Giove! E tu lo sai, diletta fiasca mia, 1550 che a baciarmi t’avviso, anima cara! Ma parmi di veder colà una ninfa. O che non voglio dir di chi m’ha fatto quell’è la mia padrona! Salva, salva fratello 1555 il cascio, il pane e ‘l fiasco che non mi bisognasse di padirexxii avanti che mangiare! Canchero ell’è pur bella! Infin vo dire che questi amanti suoi con gran ragione 1560 provan per sua beltà tanta passione. E (s’io non vo mentire) a quel tremulo latte, a quel vermiglio che nel suo bel volto con tanta grazia splende 1565 già mi sento riciarsi intorno amore. E non ricuserei robar da quella bocca inzuccherata un poco di dolcissima gioncata. Ma sciocco è s’ella poi 1570 contasse alla mia schiena i piacer suoi. Nò, nò, non sarò già così leggiero ch’io facci quel che non è mio mestiero.

Amorous Hope 175 with this little round, fresh cheese and two hefty gulps of some good wine; I will then regain force in my weary limbs. 1535 In short, eating well and drinking even better is the true recipe of love. Other tastes are these that one enjoys when eating a plump goat, some fresh ricotta, and some white bread 1540 than when feeding oneself on weeping and sighing! Silly servants of Love who live on laments and on suffering!74 Let those lovers go ahead and honor the blind god, for I will forever sing of Ceres! 1545 And of Bacchus’s feats and great deeds, for by constantly tasting his good liquor I live in as much sweetness as the heavens can offer and that in this world Jove can give!75 And you know this, my delightful flask, 1550 for I ask you to kiss me, my dear soul! [startled] But I seem to see a nymph over there. Oh, for heaven’s sake, that’s my mistress! Let’s safeguard it, brother, let’s safeguard 1555 the cheese, the bread, and the flask— so that I wouldn’t need to endure any beating prior to eating! [staring at Venelia] Damn, she’s really beautiful! In short, I have to say that all these lovers of hers have good reason 1560 to feel such passion for her beauty! And (if I’m not going to lie about it) faced with that tremulous milky hue, that vermilion in her beautiful face that shines with such grace 1565 I can already feel love rearing its head up.76 And I wouldn’t refuse stealing a bit of that sweetest delicacy from that sugar-sweet mouth! But I’d be a fool if she then 1570 could count on my back for her own pleasures. No, no, I won’t indeed be so careless as to do something that’s not in my line of business.77

176 Amorosa speranza O come dolcemente ella si dorme! Io non vo’ già sprezzar questa fortuna. Isandro mi promise (s’io poteva dargliela in questo modo) che donato m’avrebbe quattro agnelli del suo gregge con altre cose poi che mi sariano mangiandole per gusto star contento. Ma però non mi disse che dormendo volesse ricercar niente da lei. Le dirò che vegghiava ma che tanto fu lungo l’aspettare che a dormire si pose e che di certo l’attendeva. Facci poi quel che vuol ch’altro fastidio di ciò prender non voglio. E se ‘l padre di lei m’addimandasse s’io l’ho trovata io gli dirò che mai l’ho potuta trovar in alcun loco. Io vado e spero per sì bon ufficio averne premio tale che mi potrò chiamar sempre contento!

1575

1580

1585

1590

SCENA QUARTA Alliseo, Venelia dormendo Alliseo Di che tratta costui? Che pensa fare? Ai detti e al dipartirsi così ratto 1595 gran negozio d’aver ei mostra bene. A quel che disse dianzi egli ha pensiero d’oltraggiar questa ninfa. Ma non pensi già lui (né tutta Arcadia insieme) 1600 fin che l’afflitto spirto reggerà queste frali e stanche membra, fino che questo dardo rimarrà intiero e forte mirarla a suo piacere 1605 nonché di farle oltraggio! Per quanto intesi, ei se n’andò a chiamare Isandro, il folle amante.

Amorous Hope 177 Oh, how sweetly she sleeps! I certainly don’t want to throw away this good fortune. 1575 Isandro promised me (if I could deliver her to him in this way) that he would give me four lambs from his flock along with other tasty things that I would be happy to eat. 1580 But even so, he didn’t say that if she were sleeping he would expect anything from her. I’ll tell him that she was awake, but that so long was the wait that she lay down to sleep, and that certainly she was waiting for him. 1585 Let him then do whatever he wants, for I don’t want any other nuisance with this. And if her father were to ask me whether I found her, I will tell him that I couldn’t find her anywhere. 1590 I’m leaving, and hope that for such good service I will get such a reward that I will be able to call myself happy forever!

SCENE FOUR Alliseo, Venelia sleeping78 Alliseo What’s this guy talking about? What’s he thinking of doing? Judging by his words and his running off so quickly, 1595 he surely seems to have big business going on. Judging by what he just said, he seems to want to do harm to this nymph. But as long as this afflicted spirit of mine will sustain these frail and weary limbs, 1600 let him not think (nor all of Arcadia together) to gaze upon her for his own pleasure, much less do her any harm, so long as this arrow 1605 remains intact and strong! From what I understood, he went off to call Isandro, the mad lover.

178 Amorosa speranza Isandro, non pur degno di mirare la capanna di lei nonché ‘l suo viso! 1610 Isandro, ch’oggi mai per tutta Arcadia con parole indiscrete con un fasto superbo è andato seminando quel che mai fu, quel che non fia in eterno: 1615 ch’egli solo è padrone de i pensieri e del core de la casta Venelia! Foss’egli così cieco come mai non ebbe un suo bel sguardo! 1620 E ben troppo lo sa questo mio core e pur amante son fido e secreto. Voglio levarle il dardo acciò in favor s’adopri de la signora sua. 1625 Forse che questa punta farà pagar il fio al folle lor desio. Voglio tornar al loco dove dianzi partii 1630 ed aspettar (d’ardente voglia acceso) chi sarà l’indiscreto e così ardito ch’avicinar si voglia a questa ninfa con pensiero lascivo e disonesto. Odo con passo molto frettoloso 1635 camminar per la selva; vo’ appiattarmi.

SCENA QUINTA Isandro, Alliseo, Venelia Isandro Non sì veloce al corso il rapido torrente porta il tributo al mare allor che più dal fonte è reso gonfio, non tanto affrettò il piede la vergine Atalanta allor che vide il suo rivale ardito

1640

Amorous Hope 179 Isandro, not even worthy of gazing at her hut, let alone her face! 1610 Isandro, who today all over Arcadia with indiscreet words and with arrogant pomp went around spreading word about what has never been, what will never be: 1615 that he alone is master of the thoughts and the heart of the chaste Venelia! Even if he were as blind as ever, he never got a single lovely glance of hers! 1620 And all too well does this heart of mine know it, and still I am a faithful and discreet lover. I want to take away her arrow so that I may use it on behalf of its mistress. 1625 Maybe this tip will pay the price for their mad desire! I want to go back to the place from where I came just now 1630 and wait there, kindled by my burning desire, to see who would be so indiscreet, so brazen as to come near this nymph with lascivious, unchaste thoughts. I hear someone with a hurried pace 1635 walking in the woods; let me crouch down here.

SCENE FIVE Isandro, Alliseo, Venelia Isandro [unaware of others’ presence] No faster in its course does the speedy stream bring tribute to the sea when it is most swollen from its source, no quicker did the virgin Atalanta79 hasten her foot when she saw her brazen rival

1640

180 Amorosa speranza prima attinger di lei la terminata meta, 1645 com’io ratto me’n venni quà poscia che Bassano m’ebbe detto che la mia cara, e dolce ninfa sola attendendo mi stava per dar di tante pene 1650 (lasso), di tanti guai, di tanti affanni, a questo core il meritato premio. O questo è appunto il loco e quest’è ‘l fonte ove Bassan mi disse: “Ella t’attende.” Ma non la veggo ancor, né meno l’odo! 1655 Sarà forse partita, sazia de l’aspettare. (Causa ch’io viverò sempre dolente). O fortunato quattro volte e sei. Eccola! Vita mia, ricco tesoro 1660 de le pompe d’amore! In così dolce stato io ti miro e non moro. Dorme e al suo dormire cessano gl’augellini di garrire. 1665 Ogni fera fugace in questa selva (per suo amor) si rinselva. Cessato ha il ventillare questi bei rami le sue verdi frondi. Si ferma il sole e ammirativo resta 1670 poi che non sa chi sia questa nova leggiadra abitatrice de le selve d’Arcadia. E par quasi sdegnoso ch’altra dea emula fatta sia de la sirocchia. 1675 Non li veggo altra scorta ch’un zeffiro soave così acuto e pungente che mi trapassa il core mandato a me da quelle dolci labbra, 1680 da quella dolce e cara soavissima bocca, da quelle vaghe gemme che ricoprono ad ora le più pregiate perle d’Oriente. 1685

Amorous Hope 181 reach the finish line before her, than I rushed to come here 1645 once Bassano told me that my beloved, sweet nymph was waiting alone here for me to give just reward for the many pains, 1650 alas, for the many woes, for the many torments this heart of mine has suffered! Oh, this is surely the place, and this the spring, where Bassano said: “She awaits you.” But I don’t see her yet, nor do I hear her! 1655 Perhaps she left, tired of waiting? (Cause for me to live forever grieving!) [discovers Venelia] Oh, fortunate four times over and even six! Here she is! My life, precious treasure 1660 of the splendors of love! In such a sweet state I gaze upon you and do not die! She sleeps, and during her sleep the little birds cease their chirping! 1665 Every wild animal fleeing to this wood (on account of its love) takes refuge. The breeze ceases to blow on these beautiful branches with their green leaves. The sun stops and ponders admiringly 1670 since he does not know who this new, delightful inhabitant of Arcadia’s woods could be. And he seems almost disdainful that another goddess has become the rival of his sister.80 1675 I see no one accompanying her other than the sweet breeze of a zephyr,81 so intense and piercing that it pierces my heart— it82 is sent to me by those sweet lips, 1680 by that sweet and beloved most gentle mouth, by those lovely gems that now cover the most precious pearls of the Orient. 1685

182 Amorosa speranza Io risvegliarla intendo: Amor, dettami il modo! Con un soave bacio, già tanto desiato da quelle labbra mie 1690 e così te lo porgo, o bellissima bocca! Alliseo Prendi tu prima questo e poi quest’altro da le mani mie, indiscreto villan, perfido caco!

1695

Isandro In questo modo ad un che non si guarda? Ma spero ritrovarti lunge da questa selva perfido ingannator, mentito amante! Venelia Che romori son questi? 1700 Ahimè dove son io? Chi m’ha levato il dardo? Adunque in loco alcuno io non sarò sicura? Alliseo Non ti turbar ninfa leggiadra e bella! Questo è il tuo dardo e lo privai del ferro mentre (sì come meritava appunto il furator del tuo pregiato onore) gli ho dato il convenevole castigo; egli volse rapir, furtivamente, da quei vivi corali quel nettare amoroso (cui di rapir sarebbe indegno Giove). Ond’a caso giungendo in questo loco, vedendo l’immodestia di colui, lo percorsi coi gridi; e poi, con l’asta di questo tuo dardo, lo fei pentir del temerario ardire!

1705

1710

1715

Amorous Hope 183 I want to wake her: Love, show me how! With a sweet kiss— already so much desired by those lips of mine— 1690 and thus I give it to you, o most beautiful mouth! Alliseo [to Isandro] First you take this and then this from my hands, you indiscreet villain, you deceitful slime!

1695

Isandro Is this the way you approach someone? From behind? But I sure hope to find you again far off from this wood, you perfidious deceiver, lying lover! Venelia What noises are these? 1700 Ah me, where am I? Who took my arrow from me? Is there no place, then, where I can be safe? Alliseo Do not fret, lovely and beautiful nymph! This is your arrow, and I took it from its sheath in order to give proper punishment (as he rightly deserved) to the thief of your precious honor. He wanted to steal, furtively, that amorous nectar from those living corals (something even Jove would be unworthy of stealing!). Hence, by chance happening upon this place and seeing his immodest act, I ran to him with shouts and cries and then, with the point of this arrow of yours, I made him repent his reckless daring!

1705

1710

1715

184 Amorosa speranza Venelia E chi fu l’indiscreto così ardito? Alliseo Immaginar tel puoi! 1720 Poscia che ‘l sentii dire, queste parole appunto: “Rapirò questo bacio in premio del sì lungo mio penare, per te sola servire.” 1725 Venelia Oltre ch’immaginar non sò (né posso) chi sia questo protervo! Inimico lascivo e non amante! Déi saper, Alliseo, che non da me allettato 1730 ma dal suo proprio ardir si sarà messo a far l’opera indegna degna di biasmo eterno perché ho una fede sola, fida, e salda e mi trovo un sol core 1735 del qual (s’io ne potessi a mia voglia disporre) altri che tu non ne saria padrone. Alliseo Non posso già non ringraziarti molto per sì grata mercé ch’ora mi fai ma non devo già manco (per aiutar me stesso) con silenzio passar quella risposta che si deve al tuo pronto e bon volere. Pria, t’addimando in grazia che non ti spiaccia un poco l’ascoltarmi e che non turbi il mio parlar tua mente. Sappi Venelia adunque ch’Alliseo che ti sta innanzi non è più Alliseo ma sola l’ombra sua, solo il suo spirto; perché dopo ch’Amore per te gli aperse con suoi strali il core

1740

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1750

Amorous Hope 185 Venelia And who was that indiscreet one, so brazen? Alliseo You can imagine! 1720 Then I heard him say these exact words: “I will steal this kiss as reward for my very long suffering, having served only you!” 1725 Venelia Other than imagine, I don’t know (nor can I know) who this arrogant fellow could be! Lascivious enemy83 and not a lover! You must know, Alliseo, that he was not enticed by me, 1730 but by his own daring he attempted to do such an undignified deed, a deed worthy of eternal blame. For I have made only one pledge, faithful, and firm. And I have only one heart 1735 with which—if I could do as I please— no one, other than you, would be its master. Alliseo I cannot help but thank you profusely for such a treasured reward that you now give me, but I should not fall short (for my own benefit) and pass over this with silence, but give a response that is fitting to your ready and good will. First, I ask that you please not mind listening to me a bit and that my speech does not disturb your mind. Know then, Venelia, that Alliseo who stands before you is no longer Alliseo but only his shadow, only his spirit. Because once Love opened up his heart for you with its arrows,

1740

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1750

186 Amorosa speranza i tormenti, i martiri, le gravi pene, il non osar scoprire l’ardente fiamma che lo consumava, 1755 l’avea ridotto in stato di morire; quando, ripieno di certa speranza da Corintia mia madre (se ben parea ch’el cor mi predicesse le future disgrazie) 1760 oggi fui tanto ardito che ti scopersi quello, quel vero e vivo amore che gran tempo portai chiuso e celato nel centro del mio core; 1765 che foss’io stato senza lingua allora che non avrei veduto il tuo viso turbato che fu ben la crudel e fiera Cete ultima troncatrice 1770 d’ogni sperar e de la vita insieme. Da indi in quà son divenuto appunto ricetto d’ogni male; perché, se gli occhi miri, han sì frequente e sì continuo il pianto 1775 che Flegetonte a lor si rassogmiglia. E se rimiri al petto, io posso dire Vulcan non ave, entr’al sulfureo nido, fiamme sì acerbe o faville sì ardenti quant’io riserbo in lui sospiri e pianti 1780 e gemiti e lamenti e nove pene e dolorosi accenti. Insomma un Mongibello son fatto di martiri; qual l’infelice e misero Sisifo 1785 son divenuto, il qual, non ha sì tosto ricondotto il pesante e grave sasso sopra l’orrido monte ch’incontanente al basso le riccade: così interviene a me (lasso e afflitto) 1790 che non prima ti veggo che tu da me ti fuggi ed io forzato sono

Amorous Hope 187 the torments, the sorrows, the harsh pain, and his inability to reveal the burning flame that has been consuming him 1755 has reduced him to a state of death. Whereupon, filled with a certain hope84 by Corintia, my mother (and even though my heart seemed to foreshadow my future disappointments), 1760 today I was so courageous that I revealed this to you— that true and bright love which for a long time I carried enclosed and hidden in the very center of my heart. 1765 If only I had been without a tongue, for then I would not have seen your perturbed face. It was as if I had indeed met the cruel and fierce Cete,85 the final severer 1770 of every hope together with life itself. From then on I became, in fact, the receptacle of every misfortune. For, if you look into my eyes, they betray such frequent and continuous weeping 1775 86 that Phlegethon resembles them. And if you look into my bosom, I can tell you that Vulcan himself does not have in his sulfur-abundant nest87 flames so bitter and sparks so burning as those stored in my own [bosom]—sighs and weeping 1780 and groans and laments, renewed suffering and painful words. In short, into a Mongibello88 I have been transformed by my sufferings. I became like the wretched, unhappy Sisyphus,89 1785 who just as soon as he brought the heavy, weighty stone to the top of the horrible mountain, it immediately fell back down. The same happens to me (alas!) in my afflicted state 1790 for as soon as I see you, you run away from me, and I am, of course, obliged

188 Amorosa speranza di nuovo seguitarti poscia che te ne porti il mio cor teco. 1795 Venelia, io Titio sono e l’avoltore, ch’è la tua crudeltade, mai sempre rode il mio misero core. Sono al fin l’affamato e sitibondo Tantalo infelice, 1800 e tu, mia dea, se’ il bel frutto vietato, e ben lo sai, crudel! Piacciati, adunque, mirar il tuo pastor anzi, il tuo servo, moribondo, languente, e semivivo, con occhio di pietade. 1805 Venelia Alliseo, t’ho già detto ch’occupata è la stanza e che nissun di te fora più degno di godersi quel seggio quand’Amor e’l destino 1810 non l’avesser (per mia sola disgrazia) fatto tutto d’altrui. Però lasciam per ora il ragionar di questo e dimmi chi fu quello 1815 ch’osò tentar d’offendermi l’onore. Alliseo Ti dissi no’l sapere e non vorrei mentire. Ma del suo ragionare, compresi ben un certo stratagema di Bassan, tuo biffolco, il qual (per quanto stimo) fu sol cagion di sì spiacevol danno. Venelia Comprend’or: quest’è Isandro, indiscreto villano e rozzo amante, pusillanimo vil, fetido mostro. Ti rendo grazie. E una catena eterna al cor mi cingerà questa memoria;

1820

1825

Amorous Hope 189 to follow you again since you take my heart with you. 1795 90 Venelia, I am Tityus, and the vulture, which is your own cruelty, forever gnaws at my wretched heart. I am, in the end, the starved and parched, unhappy Tantalus,91 1800 and you, my goddess, are the beautiful forbidden fruit, and you know this well, cruel one! May it please you, then, to look upon your shepherd, or rather, your servant, dying, languishing, and barely alive, with more compassionate eyes! 1805 Venelia Alliseo, I already told you: that place in my heart is occupied, though no one is more worthy than you of enjoying that seat had Love and fate 1810 not made it (to my misfortune alone) entirely someone else’s. So for now, let us leave talk of this aside and tell me who was the one 1815 who dared attempt to offend my honor. Alliseo I told you I didn’t know and I wouldn’t want to lie. But, judging by his speech, I certainly understood that it was a strategy of Bassano, your goatherd, the one who (as far as I can tell) was the sole cause of such unpleasant harm. Venelia Now I understand: that’s Isandro, that indiscreet villain and uncouth lover, cowardly, base, foul monster! I thank you. And an eternal chain attached to my heart, this story will hold in this memory.

1820

1825

190 Amorosa speranza e memoranda istoria a ninfe e a pastori 1830 farò mai sempre di sì gran servigio. Cercar voglio il biffolco infin che ‘l giusto sdegno m’occupa il cor acciò di tanto fallo ei non vada impunito. 1835 Pastor, intanto, resta che felice sempre ti faccia il cielo e se con l’onor mio la propria vita farà bisogno in tuo servizio porre, la vedrai sempre pronta. Addio, ti lascio. 1840 Alliseo E pur se n’è partita e gli ha sofferto il core di quì lasciarmi in preda a tanto duolo. E mi sostento in piedi? Ahi misero mio core 1845 in un tempo agitato da speranza e timore! Ecco s’offre per mia e in un medesmo tempo mi fugge e m’abbandona. 1850 Ma fuggi pur crudele! Quanto più fuggirai tant’io sarò più acceso de’ tuoi fulgenti rai. E qual sola fenice 1855 arderò nel mio rogo del mio continuo foco e solo mi farò fra gli altri amanti fido nel mondo e più che mai costante. E nel dibatter l’ali 1860 degli eterni martiri spero accender tal fiamma da la lontana sfera del tuo volto ch’in cenere combusto, quest’incarco mortale, 1865 quel core adamantino tardi fatto pietoso del mio male

Amorous Hope 191 And a memorable story I will forever recount 1830 to nymphs and shepherds for such a great service. Now I want to look for that goatherd while my heart is filled with just indignation so that for such an offense he will not go unpunished! 1835 Shepherd, in the meantime, may the heavens always bring you happiness, and if ever my honor, or indeed my own life, is needed to be placed at your service, you will always find it ready. Farewell, I leave you. 1840 Alliseo And so she has indeed left, and her heart has allowed her to leave me here prey to so much pain! Can I stand on my feet? Aiee, my wretched heart, 1845 agitated all at once by hope and fear! Here she is offering herself to me and at the same time she flees and abandons me! 1850 Go ahead and run, cruel one! The more you run away the more I will burn for your sparkling, shining eyes. And like the unique phoenix 1855 I will burn in the pyre of my constant flame, and I alone among other lovers will make myself faithful in the world and more than ever constant. And in beating the wings 1860 of these eternal sorrows I hope to light up such a flame from the faraway sphere of your countenance that, when this mortal body of mine is reduced to ashes, 1865 that adamantine heart, too late taking pity on my sorrow

192 Amorosa speranza (se fia chi gliel ridica) si dorrà d’esser stato sì crudele contra un pastor amante. 1870 Ahimè, lasso, ove sono?

SCENA SESTA Tirenia, Alliseo Tirenia Non è fra tutti gl’animalixxiii in terra alcun ch’in vario modo non abbia qualche meta al suo dolore o non si goda almen del giorno un ora 1875 dolce riposo. Io sola infelice fra quanti vivono sotto questo cerchio, ahi lassa, non trovo mai quiete! Non ho un’ora di bene, 1880 sempre in moto son io, or alto or basso, a guisa di minuta e lieve polve girata al ciel da duo contrari venti. Cercato e ricercato ho queste selve per trovar Alliseo, 1885 caro dolce e amato mio nemico (così da la compagna consigliata) per fargli noto come vanamente consuma il tempo e l’opra se mai pensa acquistare 1890 con lunga servitude e con suoi prieghi il bipartito corxxiv già di Venelia. Né l’ho potuto ritrovar fin ora. Alliseo Ahi cruda più che l’orse turcolenti! Ahi viè più dura che l’annose quercie! 1895 Ahi fredda più che l’agghiacciato Atlante, e più cieca e più sorda che non sono gl’insani mormorii di questo fonte. Fora pur manco mal, ninfa spietata, usar la crudeltade 1900

Amorous Hope 193 (if anyone tells her about it), will regret having been so cruel to a shepherd-lover. 1870 Ah me, alas, where am I?

SCENE SIX Tirenia, Alliseo Tirenia Among all living things on earth there is none that does not in some way have an outlet for its pain or that does not enjoy at least one hour a day 1875 of sweet repose. I alone, unhappy among the many who live under the heavens (alas), can never find peace! I do not have one hour’s respite; 1880 I am always in motion, now high, now low, just like the small, light particles of dust tossed up to the sky by contrary winds. I have searched and searched again these forests to find Alliseo, 1885 dear, sweet, beloved enemy of mine (thus advised by my companion) to make him aware how uselessly he is wasting his time and efforts if he thinks he will ever acquire, 1890 with long service and with his prayers, the already divided heart of Venelia. Nor have I been able to find him until now. Alliseo [aside] Aiee, cruel one, more cruel than the belligerent she-bears! Aiee, much harder than the aged oak trees! 1895 Aiee, colder than icy Atlas92 and more blind and more deaf than the uneven murmurs of this spring. It would even be less hurtful, pitiless nymph, to use cruelty, 1900

194 Amorosa speranza ch’in me saria pietade.xxv Sveller da questa salma l’afflitta e miser alma, pria che lasciar in vita penar eternamente 1905 un amante fra tutti il più fedele. Tirenia Ahimè quest’è Alliseo che si lamenta, e sarà per Venelia. O come egl’è smarrito tutto di faccia! O che sospiri ardenti gli escon dal petto, misero pastore.

1910

Alliseo Non potea già (per giunger mal al male) cosa più odiosa e infesta veder di questa ninfa. Tirenia Interromper le voglio 1915 l’incominciato e duro suo lamento e forse, mitigando il suo dolore, trarlo di quest’errore. Ti faccia il ciel pastor mai sempre lieto, e ti levi dal cor l’aspro veleno 1920 che per ingrata ninfa ognor t’opprime; e da gl’occhi quel velo che ti cela del ver la vera imago. Alliseo E te mai sempre il cielo mi ti tenga lontana, 1925 nemica del mio ben, del mio riposo! Tirenia Leva, leva Alliseo quella nebbia da gl’occhi quel pensiero dal core che ti fa desiare 1930 il male e ‘l ben fuggire!

Amorous Hope 195 for to me, that would be kindness. To wrest out of this body that afflicted, miserable soul rather than allowing to live on in eternal suffering 1905 a lover who is—among all others—the most faithful.93 Tirenia [aside] Ah me, this is Alliseo who laments and it’s probably for Venelia! Oh how completely dismayed he looks in his face! Oh what burning sighs are coming out of his bosom, wretched shepherd!

1910

Alliseo Nothing could make things worse (to add more harm to harm!), nothing could be more odious, more hostile to me than to see this nymph! Tirenia [aside] I want to interrupt 1915 the harsh lament he’s begun and maybe, by mitigating his pain, wrest him from his error. [to Alliseo] May Heaven make you ever more content, shepherd, may it take away your heart’s harsh poison, 1920 which, for an ungrateful nymph, constantly oppresses you. And from your eyes may it remove that veil that hides from you the true image of truth! Alliseo And may heaven always keep you far away from me— enemy of my well-being, of my tranquility!

1925

Tirenia Remove, Alliseo, remove that fog from your eyes, that thought from your heart that makes you desire 1930 the bad and flee the good!

196 Amorosa speranza Ascolta quella ninfa che te solo ama, che te solo onora, e non ha il cor rivolto in altre parti, sì ch’esser non possa che mai gradisca del tuo amor un cenno, com’ha la tua Venelia.

1935

Alliseo Ninfa s’è ver che m’ami e cerchi compiacermi (che non te n’ho già grazia) 1940 levatimi dinanzi e non mi travagliare! Che’l voler dar consiglio a chi non te’l richiede è cosa da insensato. 1945 Tirenia Non mi voglio partire pria che non t’abbi detto (prendilo pur a ben, prendilo a male) che quella di cui cerchi ammollir l’indurato e empio core, di tè si burla ognor, di tè si ride; e avezza a far rapine de’ cuori altrui, si gode di vedere i miseri languire. E poi, caro Alliseo, come può amarti? Non sai ch’ella promise già a Damone la fede e che non gliela può ritorre? Oltre che di Lucrin poi fatta amante non vede e non conosce altro ben altro gaudio in questo mondo. Or vedi come stai, vedi se speri il vago vento in tale rete accogliere.

1950

1955

1960

Alliseo Ah sinistra cornice, i’ prego Giove che mai per te s’aggiorni l’emispero acciò in continua notte 1965 sen stian sepolte le tue false noti

Amorous Hope 197 Listen to that nymph who loves only you, who honors only you and does not have her heart turned to other places, as your Venelia does,94 1935 who will never be able to delight in your love for even an instant. Alliseo Nymph, if it is true that you love me and want to please me (something for which I did not ask), remove yourself from my sight and don’t distress me! For to want to give advice to one who is not asking for it is something only a fool would do.

1940

1945

Tirenia I don’t want to go before I tell you (whether you take it well or take it badly) that the woman whose hardened and wicked heart you are trying to soften 1950 mocks you and laughs at you all the time. And, accustomed to stealing the hearts of others, she takes delight in seeing the wretched languish.95 And then, dear Alliseo, how could she love you? 1955 Do you not know that she has already promised Damone her loyalty, and that this she cannot take back? Aside from Lucrino (to whom she then became a lover96) she does not see or know other good or other pleasure in this world. 1960 Now see how you fare, see if you can hope to capture the fleeting wind in such a net as yours! Alliseo Ah, malevolent raven,97 I pray Jove that for you the hemisphere will never bring daylight so that in continuous night 1965 your false words remain buried

198 Amorosa speranza e l’annunzio mendace ch’or mi fai! Pregolo ancor che privi te di vita in loco ermo e solingo acciò quel tuo cadavero fetente resti insepolto pasto a gl’avoltori— de’ falsi sempre memorando esempio.

1970

Tirenia O folle, scempio, e sconoscente amante! Tu ti beffi di me, mi vilipendi, mi fuggi e villaneggi? 1975 E perché il ver t’ho detto, m’hai la morte augurato? Vattene crudele che ‘l cielo e gl’elementi faccino a te . . . ah che non posso o voglio 1980 predirti mal perché ‘l misero core non ti può mal volere (se ben lo merti); ma sforzerò il volere, farò legge a me stessa, e il cor che ti donai 1985 (mercé del crudo Amore) ti ritorrò; forse tardi pentito di non m’aver amata del tuo fallo te stesso piangerai! Fine del Terzo Atto

Atto Quarto SCENA PRIMA Isandro solo Isandro Quanto ben, quanto contento, e gioia 1990 mi turbò quel pastore. O quanto mal, quanto scontento, e noia io le farò provar come lo trovo! Poteva la Fortuna nel più solingo loco 1995 o nel più accomodato

Amorous Hope 199 and the mendacious news you now bring to me! I pray to him also that he deprive you of life in a lonely, isolated place so that that rancid corpse of yours remains unburied as a meal to vultures. May this be a memorable example for all liars! Tirenia O mad, shameful, and unappreciative lover! You mock me, you despise me, you flee me and treat me so uncivilly? And because I told you the truth, you wish death upon me? Begone, cruel one! May the heavens and the elements do to you . . . ah, but I cannot nor will not foretell harm to you because my wretched heart cannot wish you harm, even if you really deserve it! But I will force my will, I will compel myself! And the heart I gave to you (the reward of cruel Love) I will take back from you—perhaps too late you will regret not having loved me and regretting your error you will weep for yourself!

1970

1975

1980

1985

End of Act Three

Act Four SCENE ONE Isandro alone Isandro How much good, how much of my joy and happiness did that shepherd shatter! Oh how much harm, how much unhappiness and discomfort will I make him suffer for this when I find him! Could Fortune have helped me find the one I love so much in a more lonely,

1990

1995

200 Amorosa speranza farmi trovar colei che cotant’amo? Quella ch’ognor mi fugge, quella ch’ognor m’uccide! E si stava dormendo . . . O disgraziato 2000 che fui, che sono, e che sarò in eterno! Ma tu, Alliseo, che fusti sol, di tanto mio male, la principal cagione! Apparecchiati pur quando t’incontro 2005 ricever doppiamente quel castigo che se ti deve per un tanto fallo! Merti doppio castigo che doppio fu l’errore impedirmi il fruire 2010 quel nettare soave! Né contento di questo (che fu un svellermi il cor fuori del petto) senza pietà, senza ch’io t’abbi offeso, battermi in quella guisa. . . 2015 Io mi credea trovarlo in questo loco ma poi che s’è partito fia meglio che me’n vadi a ricercarlo altrove.

SCENA SECONDA Tirenia, Eco Tirenia Dura legge d’Amore 2020 che vuol ch’ami e disami in un’istesso tempo! Egli si crede forse che gl’occhi miei fin’or stati due fonti per il continuo piangere 2025 del pastor Alliseo la feritate sian le famose fonti de la gran selva Ardena de le quali si dice l’una esser tutta amore 2030 e l’altra odio e rancore

Amorous Hope 201 in a more convenient place? The one who constantly flees me, the one who constantly kills me! And she was sleeping . . . Oh how unfortunate I was, I am, and I will be forever! But you, Alliseo, who were alone the principal cause of so much of my misfortune! Prepare yourself indeed, for when I come across you you will receive double the punishment that you deserve for such wrongdoing! You deserve double punishment, for double was your error in preventing me from enjoying that sweet nectar! Nor were you content with just this (the equivalent of wresting my heart out of my bosom), but without pity, without my having offended you, you then beat me to a pulp . . . I thought I’d find him in this place, but since he has left, it would be better for me to go and look for him elsewhere.

2000

2005

2010

2015

SCENE TWO 98 Tirenia, Echo Tirenia Harsh law of Love 2020 that dictates that one love and not love at the very same time! He99 believes, perhaps, that my eyes—until now turned into two fountains of unrelenting weeping 2025 on account of the shepherd Alliseo’s cruelty— are the famous springs of the great forest of Arden, about which it is said that one is all love, 2030 the other hate and rancor:100

202 Amorosa speranza e che mentre di lagrime rigando le guancie alcuna volta gustato abbia de l’una e l’altra a un tempo. E così possi amare e disamare 2035 a mio gusto, a mia voglia! Pure volesse il cielo che così fusse che or m’appigliarei a la miglior (lassa) assenzio e fele. Furon sempre le lagrime e i sospiri 2040 che cibar queste labbra per amore del mio crudel pastore (ingrato e disleale) vago sol del mio male. E fia dunque possibile ch’un giorno 2045 non si pieghi quel core adamantino e che, mosso a pietade del infelice e misero mio stato, non dica “Eccoti ninfa che tutto mi ti dono!”xxvi [Eco: no] 2050 Ahi ch’empio no, che flebile parola mi torna indietro a ribombar su’l core? Chi è questo che risponde tanto contrario al giusto mio desio? [Eco: io] Chi sei tu? Io se nel parlar non pecco [Eco: eco] 2055 sei Eco quella ninfa sì leggiadra che per amor del crudo suo Narciso lasciò la vita e sol ritenne il suono. [Eco: sono] Dimmi, ninfa gentile, ti movon forse a pietà 2060 i sospiri e l’angoscie che dal petto essalò in tanta copia che le languide membra a pena in piedi possono sostenersi? [Eco: si] Dunque, se del mio male hai compassione, 2065 dimmi quand’avran fine li miei guai? [Eco: ahi] Par che ti dogli ninfa. Dimmi chiaro: poss’io sperar che il crudo mio Alliseo di me si mova a compassion giamai? [Eco: mai] Dunque, che debbo far? Debbo mai sempre 2070 pascer questo mio core di sospiri e tormenti

Amorous Hope 203 and so, when tears stream down my cheeks sometimes it’s as if I have tasted one and then the other at the same time! And in this way, I might be able to love and cease loving 2035 according to my fancy, according to my will!101 If only heaven were willing that this were so, for then I would grasp at the best (alas) absinthe and bile.102 Tears and sighs have always 2040 nourished these lips for the love I bear my cruel shepherd (ungrateful and disloyal!), eager only for my undoing. Might it be possible that one day 2045 that adamantine heart will give in and that, moved to pity for this unhappy and miserable state of mine, might say “Here you are, nymph— I give myself entirely to you!” [Echo: you]. 2050 Aiee, how cruel, no! What faint word turns back to me, resounding in my heart? Who is this who responds so contrary to my just desire? [Echo: sire] Who are you? You—if I am not mistaken—[Echo: taken] 2055 are Echo, that very lovely nymph who, for the love of her cruel Narcissus,103 abandoned life and was left only with sound. [Echo: sound] Tell me, gentle nymph, are you moved to pity 2060 by the sighs and the anguish that I exhaled from my bosom in such abundance, so much so that my feeble limbs can barely sustain my feet to hold me upright? [Echo: right] Then, if you take pity on my suffering, 2065 tell me, when will my woes end? [Echo: end] It seems like you are lamenting, nymph. Tell me clearly: Can I hope that my cruel Alliseo will take pity on me ever? [Echo: never] Then what should I do? Should I forever 2070 have to feed my heart on sighs and torments

204 Amorosa speranza e di lagrime amare? [Eco: amare] Amare un che mi fugge? Un da chi mai non spero averne ricompensa? 2075 Non è buono il consiglio. Vorresti appunto ch’a me intervenisse quel che di già t’accade con quell’altro. [Eco: altro] Ora t’indendo: tu vuoi ch’ami un’altro. E chi farà questo miracol mai 2080 che mi possa distorre da l’amor d’Alliseo e darmi a novo amante senza portarne eternamente macchia? D’un empia crudeltà [Eco: crudeltà] 2085 sì che tu dici bene che crudeltà suol consumar amore. Pur voglio far un altra volta prova se posso romper l’indurato core. E se’l ritrovo al solito crudele 2090 (che quasi non lo credo) farò forza a me stessa e volgerò il pensiero in via più degno loco. Ninfa, ti rendo grazie del consiglio 2095 e prego umile il cielo per me ti renda il merto! Or che farò? A strano pass’io sono. Sarà un svellermi l’anima dal petto il tormi ad Alliseo per darmi altrui! 2100 Io vorrei ritrovarlo e ogni momento mi par un anno intero!

SCENA TERZA Alliseo, Tirenia Alliseo Ancora arrabbio, ancora il cor si strugge per quel che poco dianzi mi volse a forza riferir colei de l’amato mio ben, del mio bel sole. La qual se ben conosco (mal mio grado)

2105

Amorous Hope 205 and bitter tears? In this way I should love? [Echo: love] Love one who flees me? One from whom I can never hope to have any recompense? 2075 This is not good advice. Would you in fact wish upon me what already happened to you with that other? [Echo: other] Now I understand you: you want me to love another? And who would be able to bring about this miracle? 2080 What could divert me from my love for Alliseo and give myself to a new lover without bearing an eternal stain? What wicked cruelty [Echo: cruelty]— 2085 indeed you say it, and rightly so, for cruelty is known to consume love. Even so, I want to make another attempt to see if I can shatter his hard heart. And if I find him just as cruel 2090 (which I almost can’t imagine), I will force myself and I will turn my thoughts elsewhere to a place more worthy. Nymph, I give you thanks for the advice 2095 and I humbly pray heaven that (on my behalf) it give you just reward! [aside] Now what shall I do? I’m at a strange impasse. It would mean wresting my soul from its bosom, removing myself from Alliseo to give myself to another! 2100 I would like to find him again, and every moment seems like an entire year!

SCENE THREE Alliseo, Tirenia Alliseo Still furious, my heart is still consumed by that which, just now, I was forced to recount to her about my beloved good, about my beautiful sun. Even if I well know (despite myself)

2105

206 Amorosa speranza ognora più crudele. Non posso, anzi, non voglio non amarla fin’ a l’estremo! Vale. 2110 Tirenia O desiato incontro, O leggiadro mio sole, O caro mio pastore, eccolo appunto! Io prego Amor sì come di beltade cortese ti fu il cielo 2115 che ti levi dal core quell’aspra crudeltade che ti fa contro me sì acerbo e fiero. Alliseo Ahi perché aver non posso d’aquila i vanni e d’una tigre il corso 2120 per fuggir ratto da l’odiato volto? Ninfa, quel che tu chiami crudeltà così fiera la comprai col mio sangue a forza di tormenti, pene, e guai 2125 da un’amoroso volto; la onde, così cara avendola comprata, mai non sarà in eterno che di quella mi privi 2130 se la pietà di chi mi fa crudele oggi fatta dolente (mercé e bontà d’amore, di pianti flebilissimi e sospriri) non desse tregua a i lunghi miei martiri. 2135 Tirenia Deh’l mio caro Alliseo oggi col sol amore compra questo mio core. Ahimè troppo arrogante son desiosa amante. 2140 Che dico con l’amarmi di quei begli occhi con un sguardo solo

Amorous Hope 207 that she is ever more cruel, I cannot, or rather, I do not want to cease loving her until the very end! Farewell. Tirenia Oh, such a longed-for encounter, Oh, my delightful sun, Oh, my dear shepherd, here he is indeed! I beseech Love that, just as heaven was gracious in making you beautiful, it lift from your heart that harsh cruelty that makes you so bitter and fierce against me!

2110

2115

Alliseo [aside] Aiee, why can I not have an eagle’s wings and a tigress’s speed 2120 so that I can rapidly flee that hated face? [to Tirenia] Nymph, what you call cruelty so fierce I acquired with my blood on account of torments, pain, and woes 2125 from an amorous face. Therefore, since I acquired it at such a high price, never will you be able to ever deprive me of it 2130 if the pity of the one who makes me cruel today were made sorrowful (thanks to the kindness of love and to [my] most tearful weeping and sighs), giving respite to my long sufferings. 2135 Tirenia Ah, my beloved Alliseo, today with love alone acquire this heart of mine. Ah me, too arrogant I am as the desiring lover. For I say, if you love me, with one sole glance from those beautiful eyes

2140

208 Amorosa speranza dà tributo al martire che per voler d’amor (misera) provo. Rendi la crudeltade 2145 a chi tanto dolore, miser, ti fa provar a tutte l’ore. Dona a me l’amor tuo che palaggio reale sarà questo mio petto 2150 di sì regal sogetto. E così, amante amato, riamando proverai quel contento che suol provar un riamato amante.xxvii Sempre mi troverai 2155 qual fida tortorella esserti al fianco e per monti e per colli, per freddi ghiacci e nevi, fra le più algenti brine. Quando a i più caldi rai del sol ardente 2160 ti sarò fida scorta al bene e al male. Non m’esser dunque ingrato, non mi far più languire! Ascolta li miei preghi, accetta il vivo affetto 2165 che vedrai in effetto s’io t’amo più de la mia vita stessa! Alliseo Per altra ninfa mai che per Venelia cercherò di gioire! Venga, venga il morire, 2170 che lo desio ben prima ch’in alcun tempo mai per qual si voglia causa estinguer sì bel foco che come salamandra 2175 più forte mi mantiene. Ti puoi, dunque, distorre da questo tuo pensiero! Te l’ho già detto tante volte e tante; e sappi ch’a te avviene 2180 come a le figlie del misero Titio

Amorous Hope 209 give tribute to the anguish which—according to love’s will (wretched me)—I feel! Give back cruelty 2145 to the one who makes you feel so much sorrow, wretched one, at all hours! Give your love to me, for this bosom of mine shall become the royal palace 2150 of such a noble subject. And so, as a beloved lover who loves in return, you will experience that happiness that a requited lover is wont to feel. Forever you will find me 2155 like a faithful dove by your side across mountains and across hills through freezing ice and snow among the most icy frosts. So too in the warmest rays of the burning sun 2160 I will be your faithful companion in good times and in bad. Do not therefore be ungrateful to me, do not make me languish any more! Hear my prayers, accept my earnest affection, 2165 for you will see if in effect I love you more than my life itself! Alliseo For no nymph other than for Venelia will I ever rejoice! Let death come, let it come upon me, 2170 for I desire it much more than at any time ever, for whatever reason— to extinguish so beautiful a fire; for like the salamander, 2175 it keeps me stronger.104 You can therefore forget this thought of yours! I have already told you, again and again! Know that what happened to the wretched daughters of Tityus,105 2180 who tried to dry up the sea

210 Amorosa speranza che cercan di seccare con picciol vaso il mare. Così possibil sia a te, ninfa, acquistar di me l’amore. Or che già sento il risvegliante corno che tuttavia m’invita a la famosa caccia del feroce cinghiale ti lascio e volgo il piede dove il mio cor risiede.

2185

2190

SCENA QUARTA Tirenia sola Tirenia Ahi crudo e dispietato, indegnamente amato! Vanne che prego il cielo che sì come squarciasti 2195 questo misero core rimangano squarciate le tue membra spietate da l’orribil cinghiale! O volesse il ciel che queste luci 2200 le vedesser squarciare a brano a brano per mia giusta vendetta! Or sì ch’Eco pietosa ben mi predisse il vero: che sol la crudeltate 2205 di questo fiero mostro di natura potrà tornarmi il core in libertade! Io mi sento mutata tutta dal primo stato: e sì come l’amai perfettamente 2210 or l’odio mortalmente.

Amorous Hope 211 with a small pitcher, will happen to you. That is how possible it is for you, nymph, to acquire my love. And now that I hear the rousing sound of that horn inviting me right now to join the famous hunt of the ferocious boar, I leave you and turn my foot to where my heart resides.

2185

2190

SCENE FOUR Tirenia alone Tirenia Aiee, cruel and pitiless man, undeservedly loved! Go then, for I will pray to heaven that just as you tore to pieces 2195 this wretched heart of mine, so too your cruel limbs will be torn asunder by the horrible boar! Oh, if only heaven willed that these eyes 2200 could see your limbs torn apart, one by one, for my just vengeance! How clear it now is that merciful Echo indeed predicted the truth: that only the cruelty 2205 of this fierce monster of nature could set my heart free. I do feel completely transformed from my former self, and just as I once loved him perfectly 2210 now I hate him mortally!106

212 Amorosa speranza SCENA QUINTA Satiro, Tirenia Satiro Altre funi, altri nodi saran queste mie braccia, ingrata ninfa! Tirenia Chi mi fa violenza? Chi mi tiene? Ahimè che son tradita! 2215 Son violata e punita di quel giusto rigore che usai sol per serbare il mio pregiato onore. Satiro Ah falsa menzogniera 2220 traditrice malvagia! Vieni, non far ch’a forza ti conduca impudica! Tirenia Ahimè ch’io moro, ahi lassa. Satiro Troppo lieve castigo 2225 saria sì presta morte. Io vo che questo tronco sia testimonio ancora di quel che far intendo per ricompensa del tuo folle errore. 2230 Tirenia Satiro, li miei crini, che pensi ingrato far? Svelergli tutti? Satiro Chiudi sù quell’immondo pelago di tristizie, perfida e scelerata, 2235 ti scioglierai dal tronco,

Amorous Hope 213 SCENE FIVE Satyr, Tirenia Satyr Ropes and knots of a different kind will these arms of mine be, ungrateful nymph! Tirenia Who is trying to do me violence? Who is constraining me? Ah me, I am betrayed, I am violated and punished for that just harshness that I used only to preserve my precious honor.107

2215

Satyr Ah, false liar, 2220 malicious traitor! Come here, don’t let me have to resort to force to lead you away, shameless one! Tirenia Ah me, I am dying, alas! Satyr Far too light a punishment would a speedy death be for you! I want this tree trunk here to bear witness, once again, to what I intend to do to you as recompense for your foolish error!

2225

2230

Tirenia Satyr, my hair . . . You churl, what are you thinking of doing? Pulling it all out? Satyr Shut that filthy sea of sorrows, false and evil one! 2235 You will unbind yourself from this trunk

214 Amorosa speranza dibatti pur (se sai)! Con più novo artificio bisogna che t’ingegni a fuggir (se potrai) 2240 astutissima volpe! Fingi pur di morire che io (per il gran contento) sento il mio cor gioire. Tirenia Io moro, ohimè, soccorso! O sommi dei! Satiro Spogliar ti voglio nuda e a questo tronco batterti sin che spirto ti rimanga e poi lasciarti per cibo a le fere. E questo bianco velo con cotesti monili e ricche gioie sarà forse cagione di farmi racquistare un novo amore. Voglio sceglier la verga in questi rami per tormentarti viva. E non occorre fingere, malvagia, che tu sia morta che non camperai!

2245

2250

2255

Tirenia Io ti chieggio pietà, non chieggio aita. Dammi, dammi la morte, ma non tanto martire! Passami questo petto 2260 con qualche acuto strale, che così finirò la vita e’l male e tu sarai contento. Fine del mio penar, del mio tormento. Satiro Tu getti al vento polve, 2265 artificiosa strega. Ora lo proverai! Non ti vo’ dar la morte, no! Martire preparati a sentire

Amorous Hope 215 by flapping your wings (if you know how)! You’ll need to find a new and ingenious strategy to flee (if you can), you most wily fox! You can even go ahead and fake your own death, for I—spurred on by great happiness— feel my heart rejoicing! Tirenia I am dying, oh my, help me! O lofty gods! Satyr I want to strip you naked and, against this trunk, beat you until nothing is left of you and then leave you as food to the wild beasts!108 And this white veil with these trinkets and rich jewels will perhaps be the means for me to acquire a new love. I want to choose a rod among these branches to torment you while you’re still alive. And there’s no point in pretending, wicked one, that you are dead, for you won’t get away!

2240

2245

2250

2255

Tirenia I am asking you for pity, not asking for help. Give me, give me death but don’t make me suffer so much! Through this bosom 2260 let a sharp arrow pass for that is how I will end both life and anguish and you will be content. It will be the end of my suffering, of my torment. Satyr You throw dust in the wind, you affected witch. Now you will experience it! I don’t want to give you death, no! Torment prepare yourself to feel

2265

216 Amorosa speranza infin che moribonda resterai! 2270 Che allora a viva forza farò di quel tuo corpo il mio voler, al tuo dispetto, ingrata! Vo privar de le frondi questa verga ma non già delle spine. 2275 Tirenia O sommi dei, mercede io v’addimando de la miseria mia, del mio travaglio!

SCENA SESTA Isandro, Coro, Tirenia, Satiro Isandro Odo querula voce che di donna mi rassimiglia a gli pietosi accenti. Vedo o di veder parmi 2280 (ben che lontano io sia) in grave pena ria una leggiadra ninfa. Vedetela pastori! Coro Ell’è certo una ninfa, 2285 e par in gran travaglio! Parmi che sia legata ad un tronco, la misera infelice. Satiro Guardati non gridare ch’i pastori non t’odano 2290 perché fora la pena duplicata e’l castigo maggiore! Tirenia Sfoga, rigido mostro, quell’arrabbiato cor di tigre ircana! Bestia nefanda e animal fetente! Se credi che non t’ami, il vero credi!

2295

Amorous Hope 217 until you are practically dead! 2270 It’s at that moment that—with overwhelming force— I will do violence to that body of yours and will do as I please, in spite of you, ungrateful one! [aside] I want to rid this rod of its leaves but not of its thorns.109 2275 Tirenia O lofty gods, I beseech you to show mercy for my misery, for my agony!

SCENE SIX Isandro, Chorus, Tirenia, Satyr Isandro [aside] I hear a lamenting voice that resembles a woman’s, judging by the sorrowful sounds. I see or seem to see (though I am far off) a lovely nymph in grave and pitiful agony. Behold her, shepherds!

2280

Chorus She is certainly a nymph 2285 and seems to be in great distress! It seems she is tied up to a trunk, the unhappy wretch! Satyr [to Tirenia] Don’t bother shouting for the shepherds won’t hear you, and the pain will double and the punishment will be greater! Tirenia You hardened monster, go ahead and unleash that wrathful, Hyrcanian tiger’s heart!110 Vile beast, you foul animal! If you believe that I don’t love you, then you believe the truth!

2290

2295

218 Amorosa speranza Ve’ che belle fattezze e che bel viso che vago cesso di leggiadro amante!xxviii Satiro Ancora ardisci, trista, di parlare? Così ti credi movermi a pietade sì che non t’abbi a fiaccar queste membra?

2300

Tirenia E con qual forza batter mi potrai? Vecchio impazzito, disdentato e fiacco! Prova a toccarmi un minimo capello! Satiro Non so se il tuo incantesmo nulla quivi potrà, mentito mostro.

2305

Isandro Mentre più m’avicino comprendo esser di donna le querele, e i lamenti. Satiro Scelgo un grosso bastone, 2310 non più spinata verga, per batterti più forte. Tirenia Tu sarai così ardito di battermi con quelle tue zattine che m’han battuto il core? Satiro Tu mi beffi? Tu ridi? Aveva destinato di lasciarti dopo un lieve castigo ma queste tue parole così ardite m’hanno infiammato sì, che non ti lascio fin che trar possi il fiato. Isandro Ahimè par una dea

2315

2320

Amorous Hope 219 [mocking him] What handsome features you have, what a beautiful face, what a lovely shithole for such a charming lover! Satyr Once again you dare, miserable one, to speak? Is this how you think you will move me to pity so that I don’t break those limbs of yours?

2300

Tirenia And with what strength will you beat me? You crazy old man, toothless and weak! Just try to touch a single hair of mine! Satyr I doubt your bewitching 2305 will do you any good here, mendacious monster! Isandro [aside] As I get closer I understand these to be the complaints and laments of a woman. Satyr I will choose a large stick rather than a twig with thorns to beat you even harder!

2310

Tirenia You will be so brazen as to strike me with those claws of yours that struck my heart? 2315 Satyr Are you mocking me? Are you laughing at me? I had intended to leave you alone after a light punishment, but these brazen words of yours have fired me up so much that I won’t leave you until I am out of breath! Isandro [aside] Ah me, she resembles a goddess,

2320

220 Amorosa speranza non boschereccia ninfa costei ch’è travagliata! Date la voce al corno che s’aiuto convien ne darà segno!

2325

Coro Ecco, eseguito in tutto il tuo commando. Isandro È un satiro colui che gli fa torto! Tirenia Pastori, aiuto! Aiuto cacciatori! Uccidete o prendete il violatore ch’a forza qui mi tiene!

2330

Isandro Indiscreto villan che pensi fare? Fermati se non vuoi che questo ferro ti passi il petto e il core! Coro Uccidanlo i pastor, che questi mostri indegni son di stare in queste selve né pensano altro mai che d’oltraggiar le ninfe.

2335

Satiro Ah pastori mercé! Pietà per dio! Deh non scoccate gl’archi 2340 e non vibrate ancor le ferree punte che in verità vi giuro non offender mai più ninfa o pastore ch’abitin queste selve. Isandro Pastori, per mio amor, non l’uccidete ma prendetelo vivo e si consegni a questa bella ninfa che ‘l suo voler ne faccia e lo castighi in ricompensa de l’avuto oltraggio.

2345

Amorous Hope 221 not a woodland nymph, this tormented woman! Blow the horn, 2325 for if assistance is needed, that will give the signal! Chorus Done, your command has been fully carried out. Isandro [aside] The one harassing her is a satyr! Tirenia Shepherds, help! Help me, hunters! Kill or capture the violator 2330 who is holding me here by force! Isandro [to satyr] Shameful villain, what do you think you are doing? Stop unless you want this blade to pierce your bosom and your heart! Chorus Let the shepherds kill him, for these monsters are unworthy of being in these woods! Nor do they ever think of anything other than harming the nymphs!111 Satyr Ah, shepherds, have mercy! Have pity, for god’s sake! Please, don’t aim your arrows and don’t shake your steely darts! In truth, I swear to you, I will never again harm either nymph or shepherd that lives in these forests. Isandro Shepherds, for my sake, don’t kill him, but take him alive and let him be handed over to this beautiful nymph. Let her do as she likes and punish him in return for the harm she has suffered.

2335

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222 Amorosa speranza Coro Sia fatto il tuo volere. E tu non ti scostar, cornuto mostro, se non che sentirai l’ultimo colpo!

2350

Satiro E lasciatemi in grazia, pastori, e a miglior uopo serbate queste funi. 2355 Tirenia Non lo lasciate già perché si merta mille morti il fellone. Isandro Legatelo pastori sì che fuggir non possa. Coro Ecco, l’abbiam legato, fanne ormai pastor quel che ti piace.

2360

Isandro Ninfa bella e gentile che nume anzi divin ch’uman rassembri, quest’è il nemico tuo? Quest’è il crudele che volea tormentarti? 2365 Eccolo, ti facciamo assoluta padrona, però al suo gran fallir tu non perdona. Tirenia Pastori, io vi ringrazio sì de l’avermi a tempo oggi soccorsa come de l’aver posto il mio nemico in le mie proprie mani. E a te, pastor leggiadro, che così ardente e pronto in mio soccorso corresti: ecco, ti rendo eterne grazie. Isandro Ho fatto ninfa quel che si dovea

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Amorous Hope 223 Chorus Let your wish be granted. And you, do not move, you horned monster, or you will feel the final blow!

2350

Satyr Leave me alone, I beg you, shepherds, and save these ropes for a better occasion! 2355 Tirenia Do not leave him alone just yet, for he deserves a thousand deaths, that criminal!112 Isandro Tie him up, shepherds, so that he may not be able to run away. Chorus Here, we’ve tied him up, do now as you wish, shepherd! Isandro Beautiful and noble nymph, you who resemble a deity rather than a human, is this your enemy? Is this the cruel one who wanted to torment you? Here he is, we make you his absolute mistress, but do not pardon his great offense! Tirenia Shepherds, I thank you both for having saved me in time today and for having placed my enemy into my own hands. And to you, charming shepherd, who so ardently and promptly ran to my rescue, I give you eternal thanks! Isandro Nymph, I did what was appropriate

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224 Amorosa speranza a un ben nato pastore. Ma dimmi, che vuoi far di questo mostro? Tirenia Io lo vo’ castigar, com’egli merta! E acciò che non mi fugga, legatelo di grazia con le sue proprie funi a questo tronco, con quelle funi stesse ch’avea legato me, questo malvaggio.

2380

Coro Lo farem volentieri, 2385 tirati indietro, o perfido ladrone. Satiro Ah vi mova l’età canuta e stanca a qualche picciol segno di pietade. Tirenia Chieder pietade ardisci? Ah scelerato can, non sai quel ch’ora volevi far a me? Né compassione ti movea la mia verde e fresca etade! Legatelo pur stretto! Satiro Ninfa, sai che t’ho amata al par de gl’occhi miei e di me stesso. E s’avessi voluto io t’avrei offesa.

2390

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Tirenia Dunque, se m’hai amato la ricompensa avrai de l’amor tuo. Coro L’abbiam legato ninfa così bene che non si scioglierà per molte scosse. Satiro Ninfa, ti prego, almeno

2400

Amorous Hope 225 for a well-born shepherd. But tell me, what do you want to do to this monster? Tirenia I want to punish him as he deserves! And so that he may not run away, please tie him up with his own ropes to this trunk; with those same ropes with which he tied me up, this malicious one!113 Chorus We will gladly do this. Back up, o you wicked thief!

2380

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Satyr Ah, let my old and tired age move you to show some small sign of pity! Tirenia You dare ask for pity?114 Ah, malicious dog, you don’t know what you just now wanted to do to me? Nor did compassion for my green and tender age move you! Tie him up really tightly! Satyr Nymph, you know that I loved you as much as my own eyes and my own self. And if I had wanted to, I would have violated you.

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Tirenia Well, then, if you loved me, you will have the recompense for your love. Chorus We tied him up, nymph, so well he will not release himself no matter how many times he tries!115 Satyr Nymph, I beg of you,

2400

226 Amorosa speranza già che di questo fallo brami far la vendetta incrudelisci sola in questo corpo.

2405

Tirenia Ti sia fatta la grazia. Voi, cortesi pastori, ritornatene al loco ove dianzi partiste acciò resti contento. 2410 Ed io del segnalato ricevuto favore terrò sempre in me stessa una verde memoria. Isandro Andremo volentieri e in questo mentre, 2415 ninfa graziosa e bella, ti sia sempre un raccordo che’n questo stesso loco l’inimico punisti e l’amico feristi. 2420 Addio. Pastori, andiamo! Tirenia Pastor, a miglior tempo riserbo la risposta. E tu sei quel sì rudo e fiero amante ch’amor ferì con un piombato strale per farti a la pietà tanto contrario? Lodato amor, che pur potrò contenta (a mio modo) mirar quel bel visetto con quegli occhi sereni che sembran quelli del tuo vago pardo quando di fame arrabbia. Satiro Di grazia, ninfa, fammi presto quello ch’hai pensato di farmi che ‘l tutto soffrirò da le tue mani pur che mi sleghi e mi lasci partire.

2425

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Amorous Hope 227 since you long to take revenge for my wrongdoing, then take your anger out on this body alone!

2405

Tirenia Let your wish be granted! You, gracious shepherds, return to the place where you just came from and be well. 2410 As for me, I will always keep alive in me the memory of the noteworthy favor that I received from you. Isandro We will willingly go, and may you, 2415 graceful and beautiful nymph, always remember that in this very place you punished an enemy and wounded a friend. 2420 Farewell! Shepherds, let’s go! Tirenia Shepherd, I shall defer my response for a more appropriate moment. [to the satyr] And are you that fierce and uncouth lover that love wounded with a lead arrow so as to make you so opposed to pity? Let love be praised that I am able to happily (in my own way) look at that beautiful little face [of yours] with those serene eyes that resemble those of your handsome panther when he rages from hunger. Satyr For heaven’s sake, nymph, hurry up and do what you intend to do to me, for I will suffer anything in your hands so long as you untie me and let me go afterwards!

2425

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228 Amorosa speranza Tirenia Ch’io ti sleghi? No, no, or pensa ad altro che tu ben sai, nimico, de la mia purità quello ch’avevi preparato di farmi. Satiro S’io t’avea preparato qualche male ogni cosa è risolto in lieve nebbia, e in fumo. Ecco, perdon ti chieggio, lasciami dunque andar cortese in pace.

2440

Tirenia Se vuoi di quì partirti, io son contenta. 2445 Ma pria voglio due cose mi prometti e queste acciò tu stesso del tuo fallo sii testimonio a tutte queste selve; ch’io ti prometto poi slegarti immantinente. 2450 Satiro Commanda ciò ch’immaginar ti sai che con ogni pazienza farò quanto vorrai. Tirenia La prima è questa: che tu sia contento che ti tagli la barba per memoria 2455 de l’esser stato tardi a innamorarti. Che dici? Ti contenti? Tu non rispondi e attendi a sospirare? Spediscimi se vuoi, se non legato ti lascio a questo tronco: 2460 scherno e sollazzo di quanti biffolchi si trovano in Arcadia! Satiro Non tanta crudeltà ninfa cortese sovengati l’amor ch’io ti portai.

Amorous Hope 229 Tirenia Untie you? No, no, you can forget that! For you know full well, foe, what you were prepared to do with my virginity! Satyr If I ever intended to do you any harm, everything went up in smoke and then dissolved as if in a light fog! Now then, I ask for your forgiveness. Let me then courteously go in peace! Tirenia If you want to leave here, I am content. But first I want you to promise me two things, and this so that you yourself bear witness of your crime to all these woods.116 Afterwards, I promise to untie you without any further ado!

2440

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2450

Satyr Command whatever your imagination desires, for I will do whatever you wish down to the very last detail! Tirenia The first is this: that you allow me to cut off your beard so that you remember that you were late in falling in love.117 What do you say? Are you willing? You don’t respond and you are sighing? You can send me away if you want, but I will leave you tied to this trunk as the laughingstock and amusement of all the goatherds who live in Arcadia! Satyr Not so much cruelty, courteous nymph, remember all the love that I bore for you!

2455

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230 Amorosa speranza Tirenia Questo che far intendo 2465 è ben segno d’amore: volendo quella bella e cara barba sempre appresso di me per caro pegno de l’amor tuo crudele. Satiro Comanda ogn’altra cosa, o cara ninfa, e tra ‘l altre che vuoi lasciami questa! Tirenia Questa voglio e non altra. E più la voglio quanto odo ch’ella t’incresce! E se tarderai molto a consentirlo a forza leverolla. E mi par di sognare che la tocchi e la stringa.

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Satiro Bastiti questo e lasciamela stare. Tirenia Ti dico che la voglio ora. M’intendi?

2480

Satiro Pigliala, discortese, in tua malora! Tirenia Queste forbici mie saran a tempo. Fermati, acciò ch’un occhio invece de la barba i’ non ti cavi. Satiro Or slegami acciò ratto 2485 fugga a la mia spelonca e occulto sempre stia sin che torni e rinasca quel ch’or tu m’hai tagliato, donna perfida, e ria di core ingrato. 2490

Amorous Hope 231 Tirenia What I intend to do 2465 is surely a sign of love: to want that beautiful and dear beard of yours always near me as a dear token of your cruel love. Satyr Ask for any other thing, o dear nymph, but among all the other things you want, leave me this one! Tirenia This is what I want, and not something else. And I want it all the more as I hear how much it pains you! And if you delay much longer in giving your consent, I will take it from you by force. Eh, I’m already dreaming of touching it and holding it tightly!

2470

2475

Satyr Let that suffice, and leave it alone, then! Tirenia I’m telling you that I want it now. Understand? 2480 Satyr Take it, disgraceful one—to your misfortune! Tirenia [aside] These scissors of mine will come in handy! [to the satyr] Be still so that I don’t remove an eye instead of your beard!118 Satyr Now untie me so that 2485 I can scurry off right away to my cave and stay forever hidden until that which you just now cut off returns and reappears! You deceitful, wicked woman of ungrateful heart! 2490

232 Amorosa speranza Tirenia O come bello, o come giovinetto par che prima lanugine ti copra le vaghe, mole, e ritondette guancie! Non avrò già molestia nel baciarti, ben mio. 2495 Satiro Ah che mi fai? Mi sputi nella faccia? E mi scherni con tanto vilipendio? Slegami per pietà, per cortesia! Tirenia E l’altra cosa che tu m’hai promessa? Satiro Che cosa sarà mai? Che t’ho promesso?

2500

Tirenia Tutto quel che sapeva addimandare! Satiro Comanda anco quest’altro, o mia disgrazia! Tirenia Voglio che tu mi doni una di quelle tue sì belle corna. Satiro Ahimè che dici? Più tosto la morte ch’opera sì nefanda e vergognosa.

2505

Tirenia Non vuoi? Restati adunque legato come sei ch’io andrò per tutta Arcadia raccontando quel stato in ch’or ti trovi. 2510 E manderò a vederti quanti pastori e ninfe abitan queste selve. Vedi che bella gloria oggi sarà la tua! 2515

Amorous Hope 233 Tirenia Oh how handsome, oh how youthful you seem now without that wool covering your handsome, soft, and round little cheeks! Now they won’t get in the way of my kissing you, my treasure! 2495 Satyr Ah, what are you doing to me? Are you spitting in my face? And you deride me with such contempt? Untie me for pity’s sake, for courtesy’s sake! Tirenia And the other thing you promised me? Satyr What would that be? What did I promise you?

2500

Tirenia Anything and everything I asked for! Satyr Go on then, take this other thing. (Oh, I’m undone!) Tirenia I want you to give me one of those really beautiful horns of yours. Satyr Ah me! What are you saying? I would rather die than surrender to such an unspeakable, shameful act!

2505

Tirenia Not willing? Remain then tied up as you are for I will go all over Arcadia telling everyone about the state you are now in. 2510 And I will send to see you as many shepherds and nymphs as inhabit these woods. See what lovely glory will be yours today! 2515

234 Amorosa speranza Satiro E come vuoi tagliare un così duro e vecchio corno con femminil mano? Tirenia Non ti curar di questo. Sei risolto di farlo? Satiro Se ti serve la forza, io son contento.

2520

Tirenia Ma pria voglio bendarti gl’occhi con questo velo acciò non ti sgomenti nel vedermi il coltello. Satiro In qual mani mi trovo, ohimè infelice! Non stringer così forte, abbi pietate!

2525

Tirenia Non dubitar, che temi? Questo non è già membro sensitivo al sicuro. Fermati, pur ch’or ora 2530 sarà in tua libertade l’andar dove vorrai. E di più, vo’ donarti un delicato bacio. (Io vo’ straparlo a viva forza!) 2535 Satiro Ahimè, ahimè ninfa, pietà! Con tanta forza opri la mano tua ne la mia testa? Meglio sarebbe stato presta e subita morte 2540 che per il gran dolore . . . io mi sento mancare. Sbendami questo velo!

Amorous Hope 235 Satyr And how do you intend to cut off such a hard old horn with your feminine hand?119 Tirenia You need not worry about that. Are you ready for it?120 Satyr If your strength suffices, I am ready.

2520

Tirenia But first I want to blindfold your eyes with this veil121 so that you won’t be alarmed when you see my knife. Satyr In whose hands have I ended up—ah me—wretched me! Don’t squeeze so tightly, have pity!

2525

Tirenia Rest assured, what do you fear? This is not a sensitive limb to be sure!122 Stay still, for in just a short while 2530 you’ll be set free, you’ll be able to go wherever you want! And in addition, I want to give you a delicate kiss. [aside] I want to snatch it from him with lively force!123 2535 Satyr Ah me! Ah me, nymph, have pity! With such great force you use your hand against my head? A quick and swift death would have been better 2540 than this great pain . . . ah . . . I feel faint! Take off this veil!

236 Amorosa speranza Scioglimi queste funi poi che così sta il patto.

2545

Tirenia Rende troppo vaghezza questo mio velo a la tua bella faccia. Oh sembri un dio d’Amore! Satiro Liberami, ti prego, acciò volendo corra ne la profonda mia cava spelonca.

2550

Tirenia Or sì che credo essermi vendicata! Resta, il mio caro amante, sin ch’io ritorno a rivederti ancora con l’altre mie compagne! 2555

SCENA SETTIMA Elliodoro satiro solo Satiro O misero infelice sfortunato e tradito da questa rea malvagia nova circe infernale! Più di Circe crudele, 2560 perché se ben colei castigava gli amanti, se gli godeva prima. Ond’i meschinixxix avean questo contento che potean bilanciare 2565 la gioia col tormento. Ma io, di tanti giorni amante e servo di questa empia Medea, senza aver pur avuto un sguardo solo, vedi, come m’ha giunto. 2570 O faccia il cielo ormai le voglie di costui ch’ora sen viene pietose del mio male!

Amorous Hope 237 Release me from these ropes, since that was our pact! 2545 Tirenia But this veil of mine gives your lovely face such charm!124 Oh, you look like a god of Love! Satyr Set me free, I beg you, so that I can run (if I am still able!) into the very depth of my cave. Tirenia [aside] Yes, now I believe I’ve been avenged! [to satyr] Stay, my dear lover, until I come back to visit you again, this time with my other companion nymphs!

2550

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SCENE SEVEN Elliodoro, satyr alone Satyr Oh wretched, unhappy, unfortunate and betrayed by this malicious cruel one— a new Circe125 from Hell! More cruel than Circe herself 2560 for, if it’s really true that she punished her lovers, she took pleasure in them first—so that those wretched ones had this advantage that they could temper 2565 torment with joy! But I (after so many days as a lover and a servant to this wicked Medea126) couldn’t even get a single glance! Look at how she has left me, to what she has reduced me! 2570 Oh, may the heavens make the will of this one who’s now coming sympathetic to my plight!

238 Amorosa speranza SCENA OTTAVA Bassano, Satiro Bassano Non si perde mai l’opra se non quando si serve un’omo ingrato. 2575 Vedi che ricompensa Isandro, traditore (ingrato più d’ogn’altro e sconoscente) m’ha dato pel servigio che già li fei, con pronto mio volere! 2580 Egli se n’è venuto (di nascosto) mentr’al rezo mi stava cantando del gran Bacco i sommi onori e dietro mi percosse con un legno sì sconciamente, diece volte e diece, 2585 che tutta pesta mi sento la vita, né posso appena mover questo braccio. Non sono questi gl’agni ch’egli promise darmi? O che ti venga attorno tanti mali 2590 quanti ne manda il ciel ogni or quà in terra! Perfido, ingrato, e mancator di fede! Ma dubito di peggio (poscia che vo pensandoxxx): che costui non s’avendo potuto 2595 accordar con Venelia gl’avrà detto ch’io son stato la spia. E così avrò in un tempo avuto le percosse, perso gli agni e l’amico, 2600 con speranza d’un altra tintinata di buone bastonate da la padrona mia! E pur che non mi mandi a la malora, o povero Bassano! 2605 Satiro O cortese biffolco, o caro amico, soccorri questo misero infelice legato qui da un tristo e ingrato pastore.

Amorous Hope 239 SCENE EIGHT Bassano, Satyr127 Bassano One never wastes any effort except when one serves an ungrateful man! 2575 Look at what compensation I got from Isandro, that traitor— more ungrateful than any other and unappreciative— for a service I had already rendered him with such prompt willingness! 2580 He came (stealthily) while I was sitting in the cool shade, singing the lofty praises of great Bacchus, and struck me from behind with a wooden stick so brutally—about twenty times (maybe more)— 2585 that I feel my life shattered! I can hardly move this arm. So these are the lambs he promised to give me? Oh, may many ills come your way— 2590 as many as the heavens constantly bring down here on earth! False, ungrateful traitor! But I fear even worse (now that I’m thinking): that this one, not being able 2595 to come to an agreement with Venelia, may have told her that I was the spy. And this is how I, in a single instant, received the beatings, lost the lambs and my friend 2600 with the hope of another round of good canings from my mistress! And let’s hope she doesn’t send me off to hell, oh poor Bassano! 2605 Satyr O gracious goatherd, o dear friend, save this miserable wretch tied up here by an evil and ungrateful shepherd!

240 Amorosa speranza Bassano Ohimè chi è quel che parla? Io ti scongiuro, spirto maledetto, da parte del mio Giove che a l’Inferno vadi che non ti voglio né toccar né mirare! Satiro Deh fratello cortese, mira bene . . . non ti sovien avermi visto ancora? Non mi conosci? Il satiro son io d’Arcadia, quel tuo amico!

2610

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Bassano Se tu sei, il mal’anno ancor ti dia! Credi che non conosca 2620 che porti in capo due pungenti corna? Tu non mi ci corrai, maligno spirto! Satiro Non dubitar! Ti dico son quel satiro istesso, così acconcio e trattato 2625 da un’uom fiero e spietato. Bassano A la voce mi pari (a dirti il vero) colui che dici; ma nel resto poi, eccetto i pie caprini, dissimile ti scerno ora da quello.

2630

Satiro Ti prego, ascolta e mirami anco bene! Guarda se mi conosci: levami da la faccia questo velo che mi conoscerai! Né ingannar ti potrai! 2635 Bassano Avenga ciò che vuole! (Ogni modo, son mezzo disperato.)

Amorous Hope 241 Bassano Oh my, who’s that who speaks? Stay away, cursed spirit, I’m warning you! May you go straight to hell, by my Jove! Begone, for I don’t want to touch you or even glance at you! Satyr Please, courteous brother, look carefully . . . don’t you remember seeing me before? Don’t you recognize me? I am the satyr of Arcadia, that friend of yours! Bassano If that’s you, may you still go to hell! You think that I don’t know that you’re supposed to have two piercing horns on your head? You won’t fool me, you evil spirit! Satyr Don’t doubt! I tell you I am that very same satyr, reduced to this state and mistreated by a fierce and pitiless man!128 Bassano Judging by your voice (to tell you the truth), you seem to be the one you say; but then as far as the rest— with the exception of the goat’s feet— you look different to me now from the way you looked then.

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Satyr I beg you, listen and look at me again carefully! See if you recognize me: remove this veil from my face and you’ll recognize me! You can’t be deceived! 2635 Bassano May whatever happens, happen! (In any case, I’m pretty desperate.)

242 Amorosa speranza Ti vo’ sbendar il viso. O sei pur desso! Ma com’hai tu fatto a ritornar così giovine e bello? Per mia fè che somigli un mio castrone vecchio ch’ho ne la mandra al qual tagliai la barba e manca un corno. Oh meschinazzo vecchio! Chi t’ha concio in questo modo? Mi fai compassione!

2640

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Satiro Una ninfa crudele (a dirti il vero) che mi legò per scherzo e poi legato m’acconciò (come vedi) in tal maniera. Bassano In vero ella dovea aver un cor di tigre 2650 se senza che gl’aveste fatto offesa t’oltraggiò in questa guisa. Satiro Io non le feci oltraggio se non tiene che l’avessi oltraggiata perché più di me stesso l’abbia amata!

2655

Bassano O questo sarà il fatto: vogliono i giovanetti ch’abbian le guancie sparse di cinabro, queste ninfe leggiadre; e non i vecchi, come tu, sdentati!

2660

Satiro Or sia come si voglia non m’avran più, per dio! Son castigato. Discioglimi, ti prego, queste funi che mi sento a morire né credo al mondo sia maggior martire.

2665

Bassano Non mi guadagno nulla per così gran servigio?

Amorous Hope 243 Let me unveil your face . . . Oh, you really are him! But what did you do to become so young and good-looking? Oh, my word, you resemble one of my geldings,129 an old one I have in my flock, whose beard I cut off, and who’s missing one horn! O wretched little old man! Who reduced you to this state? You move me to pity!

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Satyr A cruel nymph, to tell you the truth, tied me up for fun and then, while I was tied up, she styled me up (as you can see) in this way! Bassano She really must have had a tigress’s heart 2650 if—without your offending her— she mistreated you in this way! Satyr I did no harm to her, unless she considers that I harmed her by having loved her more than my own self! Bassano Oh, that’s probably the case: they want young men who have rose-colored cheeks, these lovely nymphs, and not old men, like you, toothless!

2655

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Satyr Be that as it may, they won’t have me anymore, by god! I am punished. Untie these ropes, I beg you, I feel like I’m dying! I doubt the world has ever seen greater suffering!130 2665 Bassano Don’t I get anything for such great service?

244 Amorosa speranza Satiro Sì che voglio donarti (e da quest’ora in poi io tel prometto) un mio fiaschetto d’accero sì bello, e sì vago e gentil, e sì polito ch’unqua tu abbi veduto. Nel qual, appunto, cape tanto vino quanto basti ad un corpo tutto un giorno.

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Bassano O questo sarà buono 2675 poscia che’l traditore che poco fa m’ebbe a fiaccar le spalle mi ruppe quello ch’io portava a cintola. Ti slego adunque non mancar di fede mira; perché mai più saremo amici! 2680 Satiro Che ti mancassi mai, ne guardi Giove! Ritornami pur presto in libertade. Bassano E so che avea ristretti questi nodi i v’ho quasi lasciato l’ugne e i denti! Or eccoti disciolto. 2685 Voglio raccoglier tutte queste funi che per la mandra mia saranno buone. Satiro Biffolco, io ti ringrazio e vo correndo a pigliarti il fiaschetto. Fa che tu qui m’attendi 2690 ch’or ora sarò teco. Bassano Va’ ch’io t’attendo. O quanto desioso sono d’averlo, e mi parea che privo foss’io del miglior braccio. Io sento un novo assalto! 2695 Io mi sento tremar dal capo a piedi!

Amorous Hope 245 Satyr Yes, of course I want to give you (and from this moment on I promise it) one of my beautiful maple wood flasks,131 2670 so charming and lovely, and so polished that nowhere have you seen one like it! It holds, in fact, as much wine as to last a body an entire day! Bassano Oh, this will certainly come in handy, especially since that traitor who just a little while ago shattered my shoulders broke off the one I was carrying tucked into my belt. I’ll untie you, then, but watch out if you fall short on your promise! Because if you do, never again will we be friends!

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Satyr If I should ever fail to keep it, may Jove be witness! Now hurry up and set me free! Bassano I know these knots were tight but, boy, I nearly left my nails and teeth there! Now here you are, released. I want to gather up all these ropes as they’ll be useful for my flock.

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Satyr Goatherd, I thank you, and now I’m running off to get that little flask for you! Wait here for me 2690 for I’ll be right back! Bassano Go, I’ll wait for you! Oh, how much I long to have it! Without one it seemed as if I’d been left without my best arm! [sees Venelia approaching] I feel a new ambush coming on! I feel my whole body shaking from head to toe!

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246 Amorosa speranza SCENA NONA Venelia, Bassano Venelia Ah tristo, ah scelerato! Ancora ardisci di mirarmi, assassino traditore? Levamiti dinanzi e fa che ardito già mai più tu non sia di comparirmi innanzi! Se non ch’io ti farò ben provar di questo dardo l’acutissima punta! O rio malvaggio! E bando eterno da le case mie ti protesto, villano, infido servo.

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Bassano Ascolta un poco almen la mia ragione: nulla t’ho fatto se ben quel pastore, tutto il giorno, di me ti dice male. Venelia Son pur forzata da la nova rabbia far quel che non volea. Or vanne adesso con questa che potevi far dimeno se ti fosti levato a me dinanzi. Bassano Ahi povero Bassano, che sarà più di me? Che far debb’io? Ogn’un mi batte, come io fossi un cane. Ma piano ancor verrà un dì la mia. Venelia Calcata serpe, mai venen tanto non ebbe, o tanta rabbia, quant’io contra costui, né com’ho potuto ora frenare lo sdegno sì ch’innanzi questi piedi non l’abbi fatto rimanere esangue.

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Amorous Hope 247 SCENE NINE Venelia, Bassano Venelia [sees Bassano] Ah wretch, ah criminal! You still dare look at me, murderous traitor? Get out of my sight and be sure never again to dare 2700 appear before me! If you do, I will be sure to make you feel this arrow’s sharpest point! O wretched evil! And to eternal exile from any of my abodes I sentence you, villain, disloyal servant! 2705 Bassano Listen to my reasoning if only for a minute: I did nothing to you, even if that shepherd speaks ill of me all day long. Venelia I am even forced by this renewed wrath to do what I did not want to do. Now go away with this [blow] that you could have been spared had you removed yourself from my sight sooner! Bassano Aiee, poor Bassano, what will happen to me? What should I do? Everyone beats me as if I were a dog. But let’s be patient, one of these days my turn will come!132 Venelia [aside] A treaded snake never had as much venom or as much wrath as I feel against this fellow! I don’t know how I was able to restrain my anger, just now, so as not to leave him lifeless at my feet!

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248 Amorosa speranza SCENA DECIMA Alliseo, Isandro, Venelia Alliseo Indegnamente oprasti e lo ridico: a voler tor furtivamente quello che, per legge d’amor, non era tuo.

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Isandro E tu? Qual legge, qual comandamento stolto commise a la difesa altrui in quello di che a te nulla appartiene? Non sai quant’anni son che amo Venelia, leggiadra e gentil ninfa, 2730 e da lei riamato? Che maraviglia fu, se poco premio di così lungo amor coglier volea? Alliseo Sol legge d’amicizia mi fè pronto a la difesa del suo caro onore, per il qual debitore son di por mille vite in sua difesa. E stolto ben sei tu se credi ch’ella t’ami o pur si raccordi se sei vivo. Isandro Che contezza puoi tu aver di questo? Se amante le sei, voglio provarti ch’indegnamente puoi chiamarti tale. E questo loco ancor ove arrogante foste ne l’oltraggiarmi io vo’ che sia or testimonio di vendetta mia. Alliseo Lasciamo le parole un poco a fatti, pastor, che si vedrà chi fè l’errore. Venelia Ferma, indiscreto amante, ch’opra degna non può d’un sì vil cor uscir giamai

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Amorous Hope 249 SCENE TEN Alliseo, Isandro, Venelia Alliseo You behaved disgracefully, and I’ll say it again: to want to take stealthily that which, according to the laws of love, was not yours.

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Isandro And you? What law, what commandment did you, fool, enact for another’s defense in a matter that has nothing to do with you? Do you not know how many years I have loved Venelia, that charming and noble nymph, 2730 and that I am loved by her in return? How surprising could it have been that I wanted to collect a small reward in return for such a long courtship? Alliseo The law of friendship alone made me ready to defend her precious honor on behalf of which I am ready to lay down a thousand lives in her defense! And in fact you’re the foolish one if you believe that she loves you or that she’s even aware that you’re alive! Isandro What certainty can you have of this? If you are her lover, I want to take you on and show you that you undeservedly refer to yourself as that! And this place where you proved yourself so arrogant by attempting to harm me now I want to make witness of my revenge! Alliseo Let’s leave the words aside a bit and get to the deeds,133 shepherd, then we’ll see who committed the error! Venelia Stop, indiscreet lover, for nothing worthy can ever come out of such a lowly heart,

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250 Amorosa speranza ch’ogni moto, ogni cenno, che tu fai è rozzo, disonesto, e arrogante.

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Isandro Ninfa, al tuo dir m’acqueto; anzi, immobil divengo; né son per uscir mai del tuo commandamento. Ecco, mi faccio adietro. 2755 Alliseo Venelia, sai che i fregi del tuo onore m’han messo l’armi in mano, la [o]ve stanco, non sazio; potrei ben tralasciarle ma vorrei pria vedere 2760 giacere o l’offensore o ‘l difensore. Ma s’è pur tuo volere ch’io prolunghi il castigo a chi lo merta, eccomi pronto ad obedirti—e legge sempre mi fia ‘l tuo cenno, 2765 che l’onestà de l’amicizia nostra il tutto vuole e mostra. Venelia Or ti contenti fare il mio parere? Alliseo Altro dal ciel non bramo, sol di far cosa ch’a te grata sia.

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Isandro Ed io, ninfa gentile, altro non cerco che l’oprar mio ti sia mai sempre accetto. Venelia Se dunque è vero che risponda il core a l’ardito parlar de la tua lingua ti dico e ti commando 2775 che ti parti da me e opri in modo ch’unqua (per alcun tempo) gl’occhi tuoi ardiscano mirar ne la mia faccia!

Amorous Hope 251 for every move, every sign you make is uncouth, dishonest, and arrogant.

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Isandro Nymph, I will simmer down as you wish, in fact, I will become still; nor will I ever disobey your command. There, I am retreating. 2755 Alliseo Venelia, you know that the prestige of your honor prompted me to take up arms, and though I was weary I wasn’t satisfied. I would be willing to let this [quarrel] go, but first I would like to see either the offender or the defender on the ground. But if your wish is indeed that I defer the punishment to the one who deserves it, here I am ready to obey you— your glance is always my command for the sincerity of our friendship wills it all and demonstrates it too.

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Venelia So now you are prepared to do my bidding? Alliseo Nothing else do I desire from heaven, only to do what pleases you.

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Isandro And I, noble nymph, seek nothing else than that what I do is always well received by you. Venelia If, then, it is true that your heart corresponds to your brazen tongue’s speech, I say to you and I command you that you take leave of me, and see to it that nowhere (for some time) your eyes dare look me in the face!

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252 Amorosa speranza Anzi, ti fia vietato di mirar verso dove io mi ritrovi! 2780 Acciò mandi in oblio quel cieco e folle umore ch’ora t’opprime il core; e che questo pastore, ch’or tieni per nimico 2785 sol perché fece l’onorata impresa (quando s’oppose al tuo voler ingiusto) lo tenga per amico. Isandro Grande e potente imperio sovra me ti concesse il crudo Amore! 2790 Io t’obedisco ninfa: ecco la destra ad Alliseo congiunta. E per più certo segno ch’in tutto son scordato de l’ingiuria, baciarlo ancora intendo. 2795 Alliseo Ed io svello il pensiero che tristo e infetto tien l’animo mio verso la tua persona e com’or la mia destra con la tua si congiunge, 2800 anco il cor ti risponde. Venelia Opra degna di voi questa, che fatta avete. Conservatevi amici e bandite dal cor quella speranza, che falsamente vi nutrisce e pasce, perch’al fin vederete al fin conoscerete come quella bugiarda vi riesca.

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Isandro Ninfa, voglio partire 2810 e ti resto obligato

Amorous Hope 253 Better yet, let it be forbidden for you to look toward wherever I am! And so, commit to oblivion that blind and mad disposition that now oppresses your heart! And this shepherd that you now consider your enemy only because he carried out an honorable deed (when he opposed your unjust desire), keep him as your friend. Isandro Great and powerful sovereignty has cruel Love given you over me! I will obey you, nymph: here’s my right hand to Alliseo’s conjoined. And as a more certain sign that I have completely forgotten the offense, I even intend to give him a kiss.

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Alliseo And I, in turn, will dispel any thoughts that keep my spirit hostile and impure toward your person, and I offer my right hand to join your own. 2800 And my heart too concurs. Venelia A deed worthy of you both what you’ve just accomplished. Remain friends and banish that hope from your heart (the hope that falsely nurtures and feeds you) for in the end you will see, in the end you will understand how that false hope has led you astray!134

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Isandro Nymph, I want to take my leave, but I remain obliged to you

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254 Amorosa speranza poscia ch’oggi da te ricevo a caso due segnalate grazie: l’una la pace fatta; l’altra ch’apertamente 2815 avendomi mostrato quell’errore, in che fin or senza speranza alcuna mi son vissuto; i’cercherò d’amare, dunque, per l’avenire, ninfa che mi dia pace e non martire. 2820 Addio pastor, addio ninfa leggiadra. Venelia Ora Alliseo, che s’è partito Isandro rivolgo a te il parlare perché non era onesto far altri consapevol del tuo amore.

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Alliseo Non dissi mai che ti portassi amore se ben t’onoro e arde questo petto; ma dissi ben che legge d’amicizia m’aveva sollevato in tua diffesa. Venelia Questa è tutta prudenzia, 2830 degna di laude e d’un discreto amante. Ma ti voglio pregare (se nulla puote in te le mie preghiere) che se non tutto, almeno una picciola parte 2835 di quell’immenso amor, ch’a me tu porti rivolgi a la tua sposa. Che cosa più bramata né di maggior servizio far mi puoi lasciando a me serbar la data fede 2840 a chi’l destino l’obbligò in eterno. E con questo ti lascio che son attesa altrove da una schiera di ninfe. Alliseo Ecco pur torno a le querelle antiche.

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Amorous Hope 255 since today (unexpectedly) I received two noteworthy favors from you: one, that I made peace, and the other that you openly showed me the error in which, until now, I lived without any hope at all. Therefore, in the future, I will try to love a nymph who brings me peace rather than anguish. Farewell shepherd, farewell lovely nymph! Venelia Now that Isandro has left, Alliseo, I turn my words to you for it was not right to reveal your love to others.

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Alliseo I never said that I felt love for you, even though I worship you and this bosom burns for you. But I did indeed say that the law of friendship made me rise up in your defense. Venelia This is most prudent of you, 2830 worthy of praise and of a discreet lover. But I want to ask you (if my prayers can sway you at all) that if not all, at least a small portion 2835 of that immense love that you bear for me, you extend to your wife. For I cannot ask for something I desire more, nor can you do me a greater service than to allow me to maintain my promise 2840 to the one to whom destiny eternally obligated me. And with this I leave you, for I am expected elsewhere by a group of nymphs. Alliseo Look at how I return to the old complaints!

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256 Amorosa speranza Che far mi deggio? Misero Alliseo adunque sarai solo contrario al comandar de la tua diva? Mi avanzerà ne l’obbedirla Isandro ch’a disamarla si mostrò sì pronto? 2850 Ma che poss’io più fare, se dal destino (ahimè lasso) m’è tolto il poter far del suo desir la voglia? Non posso, no’l consente il crudo Amore, ch’io svella così fiera e gran radice 2855 e al debile volere contrasta il non potere. Sì che non posso far di non amarti per ubbidirti. Dunque che rimedio fia il mio? 2860 La morte fia rimedio: ma perché morte dico s’anco quella trovo debil rimedio al mio dolore, se ancora dopo morte amar ti debbo. Or via, resterà paga 2865 la sua rigida voglia perché conoscerà mia cruda ninfa ch’altro—per obedirla— far non avrei potuto che con l’eterno sonno 2870 celargli quel che tanto ora le spiace. Cercherò dunque morte e siami scorta Amore— cagion de l’aspro e fiero mio dolore. E ne l’orribil fossa 2875 di venenosi serpi mi getterò, crudel, per affrettare la desiata morte. Così me’n vado lieto ad eseguire il tuo fiero desire. 2880 Fine del Quarto Atto

Amorous Hope 257 What am I supposed to do? Wretched Alliseo, therefore, will you alone oppose what your goddess commands? Will Isandro take the lead in obeying her, since he showed himself so ready to stop loving her? 2850 But what more can I do if destiny took away, ah me (alas!), my ability to make her desire my command? I cannot—cruel Love does not permit that I pull up such a large and powerful root 2855 and against my weak will stands my inability, such that I cannot not love you in order to obey you. Then what remedy do I have? 2860 Let death be my remedy: but why do I say death, if that too I find to be a weak remedy for my pain, if even after death I must love you. Now then, her rigid will 2865 shall be satisfied for she will know, my cruel nymph, that—to obey her— I could do nothing other than allow that eternal sleep 2870 to hide from her what now so much displeases her. I will therefore seek out death, and may Love be my guide— the cause of my harsh and fierce suffering. And into that horrible ditch 2875 full of venomous serpents I will throw myself, cruel one, to hasten my longed-for death. I leave now happily to execute your fierce desire. 2880 End of Act Four

258 Amorosa speranza Atto Quinto SCENA PRIMA Fulgentia, Venelia

Fulgentia Or sia lodato il ciel, Venelia mia, che la fiera cagione ch’odiosa mi rendeva al caro sposo si sarà pur levata. Né avrò più quel timore 2885 che la cruda me’l togli o me l’usurpi poiché mi par avere inteso che Tirenia, mia rivale, ha rivolto l’amor a nuovo amante; anzi, spera di breve 2890 goderne gl’Imenei. Onde, per allegrezza, non capisco in me stessa. Venelia E sarà vero che Tirenia accesa tanto del tuo Alliseo, 2895 d’altro sia fatta amante (e procuri le nozze) per l’amor che ti porto, Fulgentia mia, ne sento allegrezza infinita. 2900 E certo posso dire che sia fatto commune il mio col tuo gioire. Ma sai, sorella mia, qual sia stata la causa 2905 che sì improvvisamente l’ha levata da l’amor d’Alliseo? E quale sia il pastore futuro sposo e novo amante ancora? Fulgentia La cagion non la sò, ma se gl’è il vero ciò che da Coridon intesi a dire,

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Amorous Hope 259 Act Five SCENE ONE Fulgentia, Venelia

Fulgentia May heaven be praised, my Venelia, for the harsh reason that made me so appalling in the eyes of my beloved husband will indeed be lifted! Nor will I still have to fear 2885 that the cruel one will seize him or steal him from me since I seem to have heard that Tirenia, my rival, has turned her love toward a new lover. In fact, she hopes soon 2890 to enjoy the pleasures of marriage. For this reason, I am beside myself with joy! Venelia And if it is true that Tirenia, kindled to such a degree by your Alliseo, 2895 has found herself another lover (and is eager for the nuptials)— on account of the love I bear for you, my Fulgentia, I feel infinite joy! 2900 And with certainty I can say that your joy and mine are shared. But do you know, my sister, what the cause was 2905 that so suddenly she freed herself from the love she bore for Alliseo? And who is the shepherd who will be her future husband and new lover as well? Fulgentia I do not know the reason, but if what I heard Coridon135 say is true,

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260 Amorosa speranza il novo amante e sposo fia il pastorello Isandro. Venelia Dunque Isandro è lo sposo? O grata e lieta nova! O me felice! E qual premio potrò, Fulgentia mia, donarti per sì dolce e caro annunzio, che picciolo non sia? Fulgentia Perché tanto contento? Forse speri per queste nozze pervenire al fine di qualche tuo disegno? Venelia Spero da queste nozze (pur che riescano vere!) anch’io non men contento di quel che tu ne speri.

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Fulgentia Quant’a me spero aver giamai quiete da sì lunga battaglia che per amor di lei sin’or m’ha fatto l’empia gelosia. E spero di godere 2930 dolci e soavi baci, abbracciamenti cari, e lieta ognor godere del mio caro pastore, del mio bramato sposo. 2935 Venelia Ed io d’Amor non spero gaudio alcuno o contento ma ben ch’oggi finito sia ‘l travaglio, l’insolente molestia ch’ognor mi tormentava. 2940 Fulgentia Io t’intendo Venelia,

Amorous Hope 261 her new lover and husband is the little shepherd Isandro. Venelia Then Isandro is the husband? Oh what pleasing and joyful news, oh how happy this makes me! And what reward, my Fulgentia, shall I be able to give you for such sweet and longed-for news that is not too little? Fulgentia Why such joy? Perhaps you hope to accomplish some plan of your own on account of these nuptials? Venelia I too hope to derive from these nuptials (so long as they come true!) no less joy than you hope to derive from them.

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Fulgentia As for me, I hope to have respite from such a long battle that wicked jealousy has waged upon me until now on account of his love for her. And I hope to enjoy 2930 those sweet and gentle kisses, those longed-for embraces, and always to take pleasure happily in my beloved shepherd, in my much-desired husband. 2935 Venelia And I from Love have no hope of any kind of pleasure or joy other than that my tribulations, the insolent harassment that constantly tormented me, be over today. Fulgentia I understand you, Venelia,

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262 Amorosa speranza quest’era quell’amante tanto da te sprezzato e abborrito. Dunque, liete e felici oggi possiam chiamarci 2945 già ch’un sol matrimonio contenti rende tanti cuori a un tratto. Venelia Non ti diss’io, cara Fulgentia mia, che ‘l tuo sposo fedele intatta serberebbe a te la fede? Eccone da l’effetto segno di veritade.

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Fulgentia Fu amato veramente il mio pastore da questa ninfa (e del mio ben nimica) con pensier disonesto 2955 e al coniugal mio letto traditore. Ma pur la fè vincendo del mio diletto sposo il suo pensier profano vide riuscire in nulla il suo disegno. 2960 Onde, fattasi accorta del suo fallo, s’è volta a novo amore . . . Venelia Ed io vad’or più lieta per queste selve ormai libera dalle insidie e da le cure in che l’amor di questo vil pastore m’ha fin or travagliata. Fulgentia Per segno del favor ch’oggi ricevo da la gran dea di Gnido queste bianche colombe, in sacrificio offrir le voglio. E ripregare insieme quell’amoroso nume ch’opri sì nel mio petto ch’i vani miei pensieri abbian qui fine.

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Amorous Hope 263 this was that lover so much disdained and despised by you. Therefore, happy and content we can call ourselves today 2945 since a single wedding will make many hearts joyful all at once! Venelia Didn’t I tell you, my dear Fulgentia, that your faithful husband would hold fast and intact the vow he made to you? Here is the result, a token of truth.

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Fulgentia My shepherd was truly loved by this nymph—an enemy of my well-being— with dishonest intent 2955 that betrayed my conjugal bed. But even so, the fidelity of my cherished husband conquered her profane thoughts, and she saw her plan result in nothing at all.136 2960 As a result, realizing that she had committed an error, she turned toward a new love . . . Venelia And I now more happily roam around these woods free from the plots and the cares with which this lowly shepherd’s love until now tormented me.137 Fulgentia As a token of gratitude for the favor I receive today from the great goddess of Gnido,138 I want to offer to her in sacrifice these white doves. And, together, let us offer prayers to that amorous deity so that he may intervene within this bosom of mine in such a way that my futile thoughts end here.

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264 Amorosa speranza E se venir tu ancora 2975 intendi, amata e cara mia compagna, mi sarà dolce e grato l’averti in compagnia. Però se vuoi venir, ecco la via. Venelia Io verrei volentieri 2980 ma convengo tornare a le capanne a prender certe cose bisognose per onorar gl’altari del’alma Citerea. Però vatene al tempio e lì m’aspetta 2985 che non tarderò molto con gl’incensi e con preghiere ad esserti fautrice. Fulgentia Me’n vado al tempio e mai quindi son per partire insino al tuo ritorno. 2990 Venelia Tanto farai ch’in breve sarò teco. Vanne, misera ninfa, incauta e semplicetta! Vatene pur al tempio de la gran dea di Papho 2995 che ben ti sia mestiero di prighiere devote e affetuose. Perché se ben estimi estinto il foco de l’una tua rivale cagion di maggior male 3000 esser potrebbe l’altra. Ma sallo Giove quanto me ne doglia! Oh chi sarà costui con sì turbato ciglio, così squallido in faccia, 3005 che per la via del tempio se ne viene? E par ch’abbia ver me volto il camino! Egli è appunto Alliseo, quel d’amor travagliato,

Amorous Hope 265 And if you also intend to come, my beloved and dear companion, I would be pleased and grateful to have your company. So, if you want to come, here’s the road.

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Venelia I would gladly come, 2980 but I must return to the huts in order to get some things necessary to decorate the altars of the divine Cytherean.139 So go to the temple and wait there for me, 2985 for it will not be long before I come with the incense and with prayers to support you. Fulgentia I will go to the temple and will not leave it until you arrive. 2990 Venelia You go ahead, for soon I shall be with you. [aside] Go, wretched nymph, imprudent and naïve, go on ahead to the temple of the great goddess of Paphos,140 2995 for you certainly need to render her loving and devout prayers! Because if you rightly believe that the flame of one of your rivals has been extinguished, there is reason to fear even more harm 3000 from the other one. But Jove knows how much this pains me! [notices a shepherd] Oh, who could this fellow be with such a perturbed brow, so dismal a face, 3005 coming along the path to the temple? And it seems he’s turned his course toward me! This is indeed Alliseo, the one tormented by love,

266 Amorosa speranza quel ch’a le volte, con suoi dolci preghi, 3010 mi fa restar che non sò quel che voglia. O volesselo il cielo ch’egli volgesse il core alla sua fida sposa! O come è rabbuffato! 3015 Come mostra di fuore il dolor ch’ha di dentro! Io mi voglio nascondere e udire (se potrò) la cagione di tanto suo travaglio e rio martire. 3020

SCENA SECONDA Alliseo, Venelia Alliseo Amene selve e dilettosi colli! Vaghi arborscelli e voi, fioriti prati! Leggiadri rivi e chiaro e puro fonte che tante volte testimonio foste del mio fiero dolor, siate cortesi, 3025 udite il suono de’ miei tristi accenti, udite la cagione e vedette la morte che pronto m’apparecchio far noto e questi e quella 3030 a l’amata crudele, mia nemica. Crudel mi commetesti ch’io dovessi morire quando l’empia parola proferisti essortando il mio core 3035 arder di novo amore! Ahi cruda ninfa! E come potrò mai lasciar d’amarti e sostenermi in vita? Questo fora impossibil, né obligato a l’impossibil sono; 3040 adunque, non potendo star in vita e non amarti, anzi, onorar te sola, fia meglio ch’io mi muoia e te contenta faccia.

Amorous Hope 267 the one who sometimes with his sweet prayers makes me linger, though I know not what he wants. Oh if only heaven were willing to turn his heart toward his faithful wife! Oh how disheveled he is! How on the outside he shows the pain he harbors within! I want to hide and hear (if I am able) the cause of his so great travail and bitter torment.

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SCENE TWO 141 Alliseo, Venelia Alliseo Welcoming woods and delightful hills! Lovely little trees and you, flowery meadows! Graceful banks and clear and pure spring who have so many times witnessed142 my fierce pain, be gracious, 3025 listen to the sound of my sorrowful words, hear the reason and witness the death for which I eagerly prepare myself, make both known 3030 to my cruel, beloved enemy! Cruel one, you decreed that I should die when you spoke those wicked words urging my heart 3035 to burn for a new love! Aiee, cruel nymph! How could I ever cease loving you and remain alive? This would be impossible, nor can I be forced to do the impossible. 3040 Therefore, since I am not able to remain alive and not love you, or rather, not worship you alone, it is better that I die and make you happy.

268 Amorosa speranza E converrò pur dire 3045 (prima ch’essali l’ultimo sospiro), ch’un aspide crudele t’avanzò di pietà, di cortesia. Dianzi m’ero inviato all’atra e fera cava de’ serpenti 3050 per chiuder l’ultim’ora a miei martiri, quando, vicino al loco mi si parò dinanzi un fiero serpe d’orribil vista. E parea ch’attendesse 3055 sol a darmi la morte. Allora, risoluto io di morire, m’offersi pronto a sì crudel supplizio lodando il ciel che mi parasse innanzi sì bella occasione 3060 (senza andar a cibar tanti serpenti con le mie proprie carni). Se non che vidi il serpe umiliarsi e invece di assalirmi pareva addormentato. 3065 Onde compresi certo che gli venne pietà de’ miei martiri. (Or vedi di qual cor, di qual fierezza tu porti armato il petto, o cruda ninfa!) Io non dimeno al tutto 3070 di morir risoluto, presi il serpe e ‘l riposi dentro di questo zaino. E qui me’n venni ratto ove alle volte si suol ridur Venelia 3075 sol per farle palese (s’averrà mai che legga in questo tronco) ch’ei sola fu cagion del mio morire. Nella corteccia di quest’orno appunto voglio incider le noti 3080 “il più fedele e affettuoso amante che vivesse in Arcadia giace estinto mediante un serpe: e a tal furor lo spinse la beltà di Venelia e l’impietade.” (Chi terrà gl’occhi asciutti?) Ei fu Alliseo. 3085

Amorous Hope 269 And it behooves me to say also 3045 (before I draw my last breath) that a cruel viper excelled you in pity, in kindness. Just now I dragged myself to the dark and wild den of serpents 3050 where I was going to end the last hours of my torment when, suddenly, right next to this place a fierce serpent appeared in front of me (a horrible sight!). And he seemed to be waiting 3055 only to give me death. At that point (determined to die) I readily offered myself to such cruel agony, praising heaven that such a beautiful opportunity presented itself to me 3060 (rather than offering up my flesh to feed so many serpents). But then I saw the serpent humble himself , and instead of attacking me he appeared to have gone to sleep. 3065 And so I understood that, certainly, he felt pity for my anguish. (Now you see with what kind of heart and what kind of harshness you keep your breast armed, o cruel nymph!) I, resolved to die 3070 in spite of everything, took the serpent and placed it inside this knapsack. And here I quickly came—where sometimes Venelia is accustomed to appear— 3075 only to make clear to her (should she ever happen to read it on this bark) that she alone was the cause of my death.143 And so on the bark of this ash tree144 I want to carve the words 3080 “the most faithful and affectionate lover who has ever lived in Arcadia, lies here dead by means of a snake’s bite: to such madness was he propelled by the beauty of Venelia and her lack of pity.” (Who will ever refrain from weeping?) That was Alliseo. 3085

270 Amorosa speranza Ma non è tempo ormai ch’io differisca più la bella impresa! Bella già ch’adempisco il voler di colei che di questo si gode. 3090 Ti prego ben, qual tu ti sia, serpente, ch’adopri in me il veleno e che tu sia ver me tant’empio e crudo quanto foste pietoso. Voglio scoprirmi il petto 3095 acciò il mortal veleno passi più presto al core: or ti levo dal zaino e stringerotti tanto che tu sarai sforzato 3100 di far il crudo ufficio ancor che non volesti. Venelia Ahimè (lassa) costui è risoluto al tutto di morire! Alliseo, che ti pensi? Allaccia il zaino! 3105 Vesti quel seno e non lasciar che’l duolo divenga a te signore! Scaccia quella passione che ti fa traviar dal ver sentiero! Uccidi il frale senso 3110 dandotti tutto in preda a la ragione che vedrai in qual’errore non Amor ti condusse ma furore! Mirami bene, mi conosci ancora? Alliseo Ah s’io ti riconosco se non ti perdo mai? 3115 Se t’ho sempre ne gl’occhi? Se t’ho fitta nel core? E come non vuoi tu ch’io ti conosca? Ah cruda mia nemica! E tanto più inumana 3120 quanto a turbar or la mia morte vieni che deve esser il fine

Amorous Hope 271 But there is no time now for me to delay any longer my fair enterprise! Fair because I will fulfill the desire of the woman who will take pleasure in this. I beg of you, serpent, whoever you are, that you instill in me that poison and be as pitiless and cruel toward me as you have been merciful. [unbuttoning his shirt] I want to expose my breast so that the mortal poison may more quickly penetrate to the heart: now, I will remove you from my knapsack and will embrace you so hard that you will be forced to do this cruel service even if you didn’t wish to do it. Venelia [aside] Ah me—alas—this one is absolutely resolved to die! Alliseo, what do you think you’re doing? Tie up that knapsack! Cover up that breast, and don’t allow pain to become your master! Chase away that passion that makes you stray from the true path! Extinguish those frail senses and give yourself entirely to reason for you will see to what error not Love but madness has driven you! Look at me carefully, do you still recognize me?

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Alliseo Ah, if I recognize you, if I never lose sight of you? 3115 If you are always on my mind? If you are firmly lodged in my heart? And how could you think I don’t recognize you? Ah, cruel enemy of mine! And even more inhuman 3120 since you’ve now come to disturb my death, that must be the end

272 Amorosa speranza di tanti miei tormenti. Deh lasciami morire ed adempire il tuo fiero volere! Venelia Ferma un poco il pensiero, o miserello amante. E se foco amoroso è quel che t’arde per amor mio l’addolorato core, ti prego e ti scongiuro dirmi quella cagione che ti spinge alla morte. Alliseo A questo modo dunque, ninfa, di me ti burli? Per prolongarmi forse ne’ martiri? Tu sei l’aspra cagion de la mia morte negandomi pietà, cosa sì giusta.

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Venelia Io dunque son cagion de la tua morte? Ti riscongiuro per quel grand’amore che tu dici portarmi 3140 che con allegra faccia ti disponi farmi meglio capace in che consista questa mia crudeltade per la qual sei sforzato, per ultimo rimedio, darti morte. 3145 Alliseo Dunque (misero me) convengo ancora esser solo ministro del mio male? Converrò dal profondo del cor cavar gl’accenti, anzi, i coltei taglienti 3150 che t’abbia da ridire la negletta pietate l’empia tua crudeltate ambi cagion ch’io bramo la morte; anzi, me la procuri. 3155

Amorous Hope 273 of all my torments. Ah, let me die and so fulfill your cruel desire!145 3125 Venelia Pause your attention for just a bit, o wretched little lover! And if these are flames of love with which your pained heart burns for me, I beg of you and I beseech you to tell me that reason that propels you to your death. Alliseo In this way then, nymph, you mock me? To prolong my torment, perhaps? You are the harsh cause of my death by denying me pity, a thing so just! Venelia I therefore am the cause of your death? I beseech you again by that great love that you say you bear for me that with a joyful countenance you help me to better understand what constitutes this cruelty of mine on account of which you feel forced, as a last resort, to take your own life.

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Alliseo Then (wretched me!) must I once again be the minister of my own misfortune? I will need to dig out from deep down inside my heart the words or, rather, the sharp knives 3150 that will retell you the story of your neglected pity, your wicked cruelty— both the reasons for which I long for death! In truth, you bring this on. 3155

274 Amorosa speranza Deh lasciami morire ed adempir il tuo fiero volere! Venelia Poi ch’ostinato sei e qual immobil alpe ognor più fermo stai 3160 in questo van pensiero, credi certo, Alliseo, (e lo spero e lo credo io stessa ancora) ch’avrà più forza nel tuo nobil petto la ragion che l’affetto. 3165 E pago resterai di quel ch’aver potrai. Qual cosa ami tu in me, se non ho nulla? S’in mio poter non è pur di girare gl’occhi dove m’accenna un bel desio? 3170 Alliseo E qual forza può ostare al tuo volere? Venelia Tu potresti dir questo quando ch’in mio poter fosse il volere ed avresti ragione di dolerti! Ma voler del destin, voler de’ cieli a te mi tolse e mi donò ad altrui. Tal che esser mi conviene sottoposta alla severa legge del servar sempre inviolabil fede a chi già la promisi stimando quella più che mille morti.

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Alliseo Fia lecito ogni cosa per ostar alla morte. Venelia Anzi, un cor generoso elegge volontario mille morti più tosto ch’un sol neo d’infame avvenimento.

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Amorous Hope 275 Ah, let me die and so fulfill your cruel desire! Venelia Since you are obstinate, and like the immovable Alps146 remain ever more firm 3160 in these futile thoughts, believe with certainty, Alliseo (and I hope and believe this myself), that reason will have more power than affection in your noble breast. 3165 And you will remain satisfied with that which you can have. What can you love in me if I have nothing? If it is not within my power to turn my eyes where a lovely desire beckons me?147 3170 Alliseo And what power can oppose your will? Venelia You could say that only if my will were subject to my power— then you would have reason to suffer! But it is the will of fate, the will of the heavens that took me from you and gave me to another. So much so that I must surrender to that severe law that makes me uphold inviolable faith to the one to whom I already promised it, even if I consider that worse than a thousand deaths!148

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Alliseo May everything be permissible in order to avoid death! Venelia On the contrary, a brave heart would willingly choose a thousand deaths rather than accept a single blemish of infamy!

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276 Amorosa speranza Alliseo Eleggei dunque morte per ultimo rimedio sì ch’oprai degnamente. 3190 Venelia Opera disperata, non atto generoso, caro Alliseo, fu il tuo— per nulla disprezzar tanto te stesso. Alliseo Misero, tu m’uccidi in mille modi. E mi procuri con questa tardanza cento e più morti a l’ora! Deh lasciami morire ed adempir il tuo fiero volere.

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Venelia S’imperio ebbi in te stesso, 3200 mercé di quello amore che tu dici portarmi, ti comando ch’affreni quel furor che t’adombra, misero, il core e i sensi. 3205 E ritorni in te stesso! S’io t’amo sallo il cielo sallo Amor, lo sai tu, lo so ben io. E se già pregno il core porto di quel desio 3210 che si deve a l’amante . . . (ma—ahimè—che discorrendo fra me stessa considero la fè, che son dovuta serbar a un infedele). Ma poniamo in disparte questa sola costanza de la fede 3215 poi che tu non la stimi! Di qual castigo, di qual pena è degna un’impudica donna oggi fra noi che da parole e da preghiere vinta, di leggiadro amator, al fin si renda 3220 e faccia il suo volere?

Amorous Hope 277 Alliseo I therefore chose death as a last resort, and thus I acted with dignity.

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Venelia A desperate deed— not a brave gesture— was yours, dear Alliseo, that you should despise yourself so much for nothing. Alliseo Wretched me, you kill me in a thousand ways! And you give me, with this delay, one hundred and many more deaths in a single hour! Ah, let me die and so fulfill your cruel desire!

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Venelia If I ever had any power over you, 3200 as a reward of that love that you say you bear me, I command you to rein in that madness that obfuscates, wretched one, your heart and your senses. 3205 And be yourself again! If I love you heaven knows it, Love knows it, you know it, and I certainly know it. And if my heart is already filled with that desire— 3210 the kind that one must feel toward a lover . . . [aside] (but—ah me—as I ponder this myself, I must consider the loyalty I had to maintain toward that unfaithful one!)149 [to Alliseo] But let us put aside this matter of the constancy of loyalty 3215 since you do not appreciate it! What punishment, what penalty does an unchaste woman among us deserve today— a woman won over by the words and by the prayers of her charming lover—one who, in the end, gives in 3220 and does as he wishes?150

278 Amorosa speranza Alliseo Se l’amator è tale che merta esser amato non è di biasmo degna quella donna ma ben degna di lode 3225 che ricompensa il suo caro amatore. Venelia Mira ben Alliseo, quel che tu dici e dimmi quali amanti sono questi che possan meritare ch’una donna pudica 3230 se gli dia in preda e faccia il suo volere senza che biasmo eterno ne riporti dal mondo? Alliseo Te lo dirò (così volesse il cielo che fosser conosciuti). 3235 L’amante, dunque, di chi parlo deve aver le condizioni ch’udirai: pria, deve esser leale, assiduo solo, tacito in servendo, obedir ogni cenno de l’amata, 3240 diffendere il suo onor fino a la morte, e se tal or’ gl’avien che si lamenti, farlo in loco solingo. E quel ch’importa sopr’ogn’altra cosa esser secreto sì ch’appena il cielo 3245 penetri il suo pensiero. Or questo fia l’amante degno di ricompensa ove l’amata viver puote sicura di non esser biasmata. 3250 (E qual’io mi sia stato, tu lo sai.) Ma come può biasmarsi i secreti del cuore? Venelia Sì, ma non dici poi, che la conscienza macchiata in cor pudico 3255

Amorous Hope 279 Alliseo If the lover is such that he deserves to be loved, then that woman is not worthy of blame— on the contrary, she who gives just reward to her dear lover is worthy of praise!

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Venelia Consider carefully what you say, Alliseo, and tell me which lovers are those who could merit that a chaste woman 3230 fall prey to them and do according to their wishes without suffering eternal blame from the world? Alliseo I will tell you (would that heaven wished them to be known). 3235 The lover, therefore, of whom I speak must have the characteristics you will now hear me list: first, he must be loyal, of utmost diligence, silent in serving, obey his beloved’s every command, 3240 defend her honor to the death, and if sometimes he may need to lament, do so in a place of solitude. And what is important above all else is that he be so discreet that even heaven 3245 can barely penetrate his thoughts. Now then, let this be the lover worthy of recompense whose beloved can live reassured of not incurring blame. 3250 (And how I myself have been in this, you know.) But how can one blame oneself for the secrets of the heart? Venelia Yes, but do you not also admit that a blemished conscience in a chaste heart

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280 Amorosa speranza l’offende più? Quanto più abbruccia il foco rinchiuso che non ha strada ove essali; e mi soviene appunto e voglio raccontarti l’esempio d’un amante che tra gl’altri il più vero, leale, e più fedele, essere si tenea di quanti il mondo n’ebbe o n’avrà giamai. Attendi e, per udirmi, leva da quel terreno i languid’occhi e affissagli ne’ miei perché co’l rimirarmi darai forza al mio dire. Alliseo Ahi lasso, come vuoi ch’io giri gl’occhi miei ne la mia morte e mi sostenga in vita e che t’ascolti? Vedi a che strano passo m’hai ridotto? Se spiri mi ferisci e se pur gl’occhi tuoi miran li miei assenzio avelenato ber mi fai. Se parli tu m’uccidi. Come dunque può stare tanti contrari insieme? Deh lasciami morire ed adempir il tuo fiero volere! Venelia Queste ch’or son per dirti poche e brevi parole diletto più che noia t’apporteranno certo. Fu già, non è gran tempo, un leggiadro pastore dotato di virtù, di bello ingegno ch’a ninfa qui d’Arcadia si fè amante. Così, per molti giorni, con reciproco amor favori onesti si fer l’un l’altro come fidi amanti quando il pastor ardito

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Amorous Hope 281 offends it more? Just as a fire scorches all the more when enclosed, for it has no space to breathe. And this, in fact, reminds me of a story I want to tell you: the example of a lover among all others who considered himself the most genuine, most loyal, and most faithful the world had ever had or ever will have. Listen and, to hear me better, lift those languishing eyes off the ground and affix them into mine so that with your fixed gaze you will lend power to my speech.151 Alliseo Aiee (alas!), how can you want me to turn my eyes toward my own death and stay alive and listen to you? Do you see to what a strange condition you’ve reduced me? If you breathe, you wound me, and if your eyes only gaze at mine you make me drink poisoned absinthe! If you speak, you kill me. How can I thus resist so many adversaries all at once? Ah, let me die and so fulfill your cruel desire! Venelia These words I am about to speak are few and brief— they will surely bring you more delight than harm. There once was, not long ago, a charming shepherd, well endowed with virtue and a beautiful mind, who became the lover of a nymph here in Arcadia. And so, for many days, this went on with reciprocal love and chaste pleasures they offered one another as faithful lovers, when the brazen shepherd

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282 Amorosa speranza (perch’in lei grand’amore conobbe e grand’affetto) improvvisa dimanda e indiscreta 3295 (con danno del suo onore con pericolo grave de la vita) ardito chiese a l’onorata ninfa dicendole: “Vorrei che mi donaste, ninfa, la più pregiata e cara cosa 3300 ch’in questo mondo prezzi, istimi e ami.” Ed ella a tal parlar lieta rispose: “Pur che sia in mio poter quel che tu chiedi libero a te farò cortese dono. Dimanda adunque lieto ciò che vuoi 3305 ch’io son per soddisfarti.” Egli allor dimandò cosa dannosa, altera e inonesta, e tal che non potea la ninfa compiacerlo 3310 senza rendersi priva d’ogni lodata e più stimata parte che grata la rendeva e bella a tutti. Alliseo Certo indegno del nome del qual lo procreò l’alma naturaxxxi 3315 potea dirsi costui volendo cosa da l’amata donna che disprezzata in odio la rendesse d’ogn’uno. Venelia E che sorte di pena, e qual castigo si meritò costui per sì gran fellonia? Per tant’ardire?

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Alliseo Costui meriterebbe un’acerbo castigo e dovrebbe star queto 3325 e attenderlo da lei constantemente senza un minimo punto a quel contravvenire.

Amorous Hope 283 (knowing she loved him greatly and had much affection for him), asked her an unexpected and indiscreet question— 3295 damaging to her honor, endangering her life greatly; brazenly he asked the honorable nymph, saying this to her: “I would like you to give me, nymph, the most precious and dear thing 3300 you value, treasure, and love in this world.” And to such a request she happily replied: “So long as that which you ask of me is in my power to give, I will bestow it upon you as a free, courteous gift. Ask happily then for what you want, 3305 for I am ready to satisfy you.” He then asked for something damaging, arrogant and dishonest— such that the nymph could not oblige him 3310 without depriving herself of the most praiseworthy, the most treasured part she possessed, that which rendered her precious and beautiful to all. Alliseo Certainly unworthy of the name that Mother Nature bestowed upon him could this fellow have considered himself wanting something from his beloved lady that would have rendered her odious and despised by everyone. Venelia And what sort of penalty, what punishment did this fellow deserve for committing such a serious crime? For such audacity?152

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Alliseo This fellow would deserve bitter punishment for such transgression 3325 and should remain silent and wait for it to come from her at any time without showing any resistance.153

284 Amorosa speranza Venelia E quando a quel castigo non stesse paziente 3330 ma adirato volgesse altrove il passo qual pena saria degna al suo fallire? Alliseo Mille tormenti e mille crude morti sarian condegno premio al suo demerto. Venelia Quella ninfa son io, io son l’amante, e l’ardito pastor sei tu, Alliseo, che cerchi di rapirmi (e chiedi in dono) la più pregiata e onorata cosa, la più sublime e più stimata gemma che m’abbia al mondo, con la qual io vivo fra le ninfe d’Arcadia oggi stimata onorata, e pregiata da ciascuno. Alliseo E qual cosa già mai miser’io chieggio? E qual cosa t’usurpo? O sovra tutti gl’altri me infelice! Dunque, per dimandarti del mio male pietà, ti chieggio cosa di così gran valore? Ma t’intendo ben io! A la morte, a la morte! E tu, mio core intrepido sopporta il fero e crudel colpo che già t’è destinato. Adesso io vo morire e dar fine al martire.xxxii

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Venelia Ferma che sottoposto 3355 tu sei a la mia legge! Giudice di te stesso non ti ramenta la sentenza forse che poco dianzi deste contro il pastor sì ardito e sì arrogante? 3360

Amorous Hope 285 Venelia And if in response to that punishment he were unwilling to accept it patiently but instead would turn his course angrily elsewhere? What punishment would be fitting for his wrongdoing, then?

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Alliseo A thousand torments and a thousand cruel deaths would be fitting reward for his dishonor. Venelia That nymph is me, I am the lover, and the brazen shepherd is you, Alliseo, for you are trying to snatch from me (and you ask for it as a gift) that most precious and honorable thing, that most sublime and most worthy gem I have in this world, on account of which I live among the nymphs of Arcadia today esteemed, honored, and praised by everyone. Alliseo And what thing, wretched me, did I ever ask for? And what thing do I usurp from you? Oh, among all other men, unhappy me! Then, by asking you to take pity on my pain, do I ask for something of such great value? But now I understand you very well! Bring death, bring death upon me! And you, my heart, may you accept intrepidly the fierce and cruel blow that is already destined for you. Now I want to die and put an end to my torment!

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Venelia Stop—for you are 3355 subject to my law! Since you are your own judge, do you not perhaps recall the sentence that, just a little while ago, you pronounced against such a brazen and arrogant shepherd? 3360

286 Amorosa speranza Alliseo Or via dammi la morte degno di morte son: mi chiamo reo. Venelia Piano, sei obligato di far il mio volere non io di fare il tuo!

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Alliseo Ti concedo ogni cosa. Mi negherai in quest’ultimo punto tu almen quest’una grazia che possi brevemente in mia difesa dirti quattro parole? 3370 Venelia Io son contenta, di’ quel che ti piace. Alliseo Dimmi qual dio, qual’uom, qual cosa al mondo puote più di Cupido? Puote più di colui che Giove già ferì, Nettuno e Marte 3375 e ferì questo core d’avelenato strale? Or se lo stesso nume parimente ferì quel tuo bel seno perché, pari col mio, non fai il tuo core? 3380 Che sarebbe un levarmi da così cruda morte! Adunque, non è amore quel che dici portarmi per mantenermi in vita? 3385 E’l provo e’l so meschino che quando pari al mio fusse il tuo vero amore la fè d’un altro amante bandiresti. Né sapresti le leggi del onore, né men ti sarian note quelle false 3390 insidie de le lingue inique e ree ma goderesti lieta

Amorous Hope 287 Alliseo Go on then and give me death! I merit death: I am that wicked one! Venelia Easy now—you are obligated to do my bidding, not I to do yours! 3365 Alliseo I grant you everything you wish. Would you refuse me, at this final point, just this one favor: that I may briefly say a few words to you in my defense?

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Venelia I am willing, say what you like. Alliseo Tell me what god, what man, what thing in the world can do more than Cupid? What god can do more than him who already struck Jove, Neptune, and Mars154 3375 and struck this heart of mine with poisoned arrows? Now if the same deity struck that beautiful breast of yours in the same manner, why do you not make your heart equal with mine? 3380 That would save me from such a cruel death! And then is it not love which you say you bear for me in order to keep me alive? 3385 I feel it and know it, wretched me, that if your true love were equal to mine, you would set aside the pledge of another lover. Nor would you know the laws of honor, nor would you pay attention to those false 3390 intrigues of unjust and evil tongues; instead, you would happily enjoy [seeing]

288 Amorosa speranza ch’a questo miser core si scemasse l’ardore.xxxiii Venelia Tu vaneggi, Alliseo! La passione 3395 non ti lascia discernere qual sia il vero e puro amore; anzi’l desio d’onore con che t’amo e t’osservo. Ma dimmi: di che modo 3400 vorresti esser amato? Alliseo Tanto dir non ardisco; addimando pietà, pietà ti chieggio. Venelia Pietà t’ho sempre avuto e avrò in eterno e amor ti porterò fin al’estremo 3405 giorno della mia vita. Ma ch’io rompa la fede? Questo non sarà mai. E sì come tu d’altra esser non puoi poscia che avvinto fosti 3410 a quel santo legame cui morte sol discioglie conosci ancora, e intendi ch’io tua esser non posso. Donna son io e donna la tua sposa 3415 pari a me, pari a l’altre di bellezza. Se disgombri l’affetto ch’ora ti vela il sano de la mente conoscerai che siamo tutte donne; e se pur l’amoroso tuo pensiero 3420 volesse render pago il tuo desio, con l’immaginazion potrai ben dire (stringendo e abbracciando la tua sposa): “Stringo de la mia ninfa il caro seno, bacio l’amata bocca, e godo lieto 3425 e moro e torno in vita ne le braccia di lei che solo onoro.”

Amorous Hope 289 that the burning of this wretched heart was relieved. Venelia You are delirious, Alliseo! Passion does not allow you to discern what true and pure love is— it is rather with a desire for honor that I love and revere you.155 But tell me: in what way would you like to be loved?

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Alliseo So much I dare not say— I am asking for pity, pity is what I ask you for! Venelia You have always had my pity, and you will have it forever! And love I will bear for you until the very last day of my life. But that I should break my pledge? This will never happen. And just as you cannot belong to another now that you were bound by that sacred bond which only death can dissolve, know also and understand that I cannot be yours.156 I am a woman, and your wife is a woman equal to me, equal to others in beauty. If you rid yourself of the passion that now veils the health of your mind, you will recognize that we are all women.157 And if, even so, your amorous thoughts wanted to fulfill your desire, then—with the aid of your imagination—you will surely be able to say (holding tightly and embracing your bride): “I am holding tightly the dear breast of my nymph, I kiss her beloved mouth and I take pleasure happily and I die and I come back to life in the arms of her whom I alone honor.”158

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290 Amorosa speranza E tanto più soavi saranno i tuoi riposi quanto che la tua donna 3430 dolci ti renderà baci per baci conforme al’grand’amore che, languendo, ti porta. Alliseo Ahi che perdo la forza e stupido divengo 3435 solo in pensando a queste tue parole. E poscia che pur debbo questa vita finire (io son tardato troppo) mi parto. 3440 Venelia E dove Alliseo, dunque, fuggi? Tu non vuoi che dia compiutamente esecuzione alla sentenza tua? Arresta, ascolta attento: 3445 tu vuoi per me morire e vuoi da me partire, cosa, che tanto mi dispiace e tanto abborisco. Ti prego s’alcun merto appo te mi fa degna 3450 che sii contento, farmi due grazie sole avanti la tua morte (se ben il tuo morir mi sarà sempre poco segno d’amore). Alliseo Ahimè, crudel, che dici? 3455 Poco segno d’amore ti par anco il morire? Ma perché dir non possi ch’insino a l’ultim’ora io non t’abbia obedito, 3460 comandami che pronto (ti giuro, e ti prometto

Amorous Hope 291 And all the more pleasant your repose will be when your lady 3430 will give you sweet kisses for kisses— equal to the great love that, languishing, she bears for you. Alliseo Aiee, I am losing my strength and becoming delirious 3435 just thinking about these words of yours. And since I must still end this life (I have delayed this too much), I am leaving. 3440 Venelia And where are you fleeing to then, Alliseo? Do you not want to comply fully with the execution of your sentence? Stop—listen carefully: 3445 you want to die on my account and you want to leave me— this grieves me so much and much do I abhor it! I beg you—if I am worthy of any merit in your eyes at all— 3450 be willing to grant me just two small favors before your death (even if your dying will always be a meager sign of love).159 Alliseo Ah me, cruel one, what are you saying? Even death seems to you a meager sign of love? But so that you cannot say that until my last hour I did not obey you, command me, for you will find me ready (I swear and promise you this

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292 Amorosa speranza per quello estremo amore che ti porto) mi troverai a far il tuo volere! Venelia Porgimi adunque la tua destra in segno d’inviolabil fede.

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Alliseo Eccola, anima mia, ecco la vita ch’insieme con la man ti dono a un tempo. Tralla ormai di miseria, ormai di pene. Venelia Trarla di pene intendo: 3470 io ti comando, adunque, ch’oggi tu sia contento di celebrar l’incominciate nozze con Fulgentia tua sposa. E far sì ch’Imeneo 3475 goda del tuo gioir, del tuo contento. Alliseo Altra richiesta (ahi lasso!) mi credeva, che questa! Quest’è un trarmi di pene? Nò, nò, quest’è un colmarmi vie di maggior affanni! Insomma io vo’ morire prima che farmi sposo! Venelia Alliseo non credei mai così poca fè ne la tua fede. Mi promettesti. Anzi, la destra in pegno mi desti. E or mi manchi? Alliseo Mi chiedesti due grazie ma già sapevi certo ch’io aveva destinato di morire. Perché chiedesti cosa

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Amorous Hope 293 by that extreme love I bear for you) to do as you wish! Venelia Give me then your right hand as a sign of inviolable pledge.

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Alliseo Here it is, my soul, here is my life which together with my hand I give you all at once. Rescue it at last from its misery, at last from its suffering! Venelia To rescue it from suffering is my intent: 3470 I command you, then, that today you be willing to celebrate the already begun nuptials with Fulgentia, your bride. And see to it that Hymen160 3475 delights in your joy, in your happiness. Alliseo Any request (alas!) did I imagine other than this one! This is supposed to rescue me from my suffering? No, no, this is to overwhelm me with even greater sorrows! In sum, I would rather die first than become a husband! Venelia Alliseo, I never thought your pledge would be worth so little! You promised me. In fact, you gave me your right hand as a pledge. And now you fail to keep it?161 Alliseo You asked for two favors but you already knew, surely, that I was destined to die. Why then did you ask

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294 Amorosa speranza contraria a quel di già determinato? Fu ben l’error il tuo! Né ti rompo la fede. Non ti doler di me dunque, ch’hai torto.

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Venelia Piano, ch’a te non lice il dar questa sentenza! Non ti vieto la morte, ma dimando intervallo al tuo morire. Vivi misero, vivi 3500 contento sposo con quella speranza che suol nutrir gl’amanti perché gran cose il cielo gira per noi mortali! Alliseo O che ti sian propizie ognor le stelle— l’hai pur detto una volta— quel che solo potea tenermi in vita. Ora son pronto a far quanto tu vuoi.

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Venelia Andiamo dunque a ritrovar Fulgentia, ch’al tempio de la dea, madre d’Amore, 3510 n’attende. E ivi lieto celebrerai l’incominciate nozze. Ed io, per tal effetto, avrò mai sempre il core ripieno d’allegrezza 3515 poi che vedrò quietarsi in lei l’amata cura che sempre la rodeva. E leverò il sospetto a ninfe e a pastori 3520 che di me già pareva avessero concetto. E quel che sempre al pari de la vita mi sarà caro, serberò la fede a chi già la promisi. 3525 Or via, caro Alliseo, andiamo allegramente.

Amorous Hope 295 for something contrary to what was already determined? The error was surely yours! Nor am I breaking the pledge I made to you. Don’t be disappointed with me, then, for you are wrong!

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Venelia Easy, for it is not permitted for you to decide this verdict! I am not forbidding you to die, I am simply asking you to delay your death. Live, wretched one, live 3500 as a happy husband with that hope which is known to nourish lovers, since heaven has great things in store for us mortals! Alliseo Oh, may the stars always be propitious to you— you in fact said this once— that which alone could keep me alive. Now I am ready to do as you wish.

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Venelia Let us then go and find Fulgentia who awaits us at the temple of the goddess, mother of Love. 3510 And there happily you will celebrate the interrupted nuptials. And I, on account of such an outcome, will have a heart forever filled with joy 3515 since I will see subside that amorous preoccupation that was constantly gnawing at her. And I will be able to lift the suspicion— of nymphs and of shepherds— 3520 that they seemed to have conceived about me.162 And that which will always be as dear to me as life itself is that I will be able to maintain the pledge I made to the one to whom I promised it. 3525 Come now, dear Alliseo, let us go joyfully.

296 Amorosa speranza Alliseo Chi mi ritiene? Ahi lasso par ch’io sia spinto indietro. Io vengo come suole 3530 andar il serpe a l’incantato carme.xxxiv

SCENA TERZA Isandro solo Isandro Non è gioia o contento non è piacer al mondo che pareggi un reciproco amore ed ora in me lo provo 3535 poi ch’a gran lunga supera il diletto ch’oggi sente il mio core quell’aspro e fier dolore che già per crudel ninfa lungo tempo provai. 3540 E pur oggi conosco (se ben tardi) quant’opri indegnamente un miserello amante che serva cruda e dispietata donna, la qual, quanto più crede esser amata 3545 tanto più insuperbisce. E parendogli fare un’impresa onorata s’arma di crudeltà verso l’amante. E così oprò Venelia— 3550 istimata, pregiata, e onorata da me sì lungo tempo. Che mentre con amor, con fedeltade, con un’assidua servitù sperai renderla disarmata 3555 d’un empia rigidezza la ritrovai qual fiera tigre sempre e qual immobil scoglio: più dura e più crudele. Dunque restine pur folle se crede 3560 che per sua crudeltà voglia morire;

Amorous Hope 297 Alliseo Who is holding me back? Aiee, alas, it seems as if I’m being pushed backwards! I am coming as the serpent is wont to go when he’s led by an enchanting song!

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SCENE THREE Isandro alone Isandro There is no joy or happiness, there is no pleasure in this world that equals a love requited,163 and now I experience it myself, 3535 since this delight that today my heart feels by far exceeds that harsh and cruel pain that I felt for a cruel nymph for such a long time. 3540 And so it is that today I understand (if indeed late) how unworthy it is for a wretched little lover to serve a cruel and pitiless woman— a woman who, the more she believes to be loved 3545 the more arrogant she becomes. And believing she’s doing an honorable deed, she arms herself with cruelty against the lover. And this is how Venelia acted— 3550 esteemed, praised, and honored by me for so long. For while with love, loyalty, and steadfast service I had hoped to disarm her 3555 of that wicked rigidity, I always found her, instead, to be like a fierce tigress and like an immovable rock: more hard and more cruel! Therefore, let her continue in her folly if she thinks 3560 that I want to die as a result of her cruelty.164

298 Amorosa speranza anzi ch’ormai me’n voglio viver lieto e giocondo poi che libero son da suoi legami ed ho rivolto il core 3565 a la più bella e più leggiadra ninfa ch’oggi sia in tutta Arcadia. E in breve tempo oprato di modo ch’altro non mi resta solo che del sacr’Imeneo goder i frutti 3570 con dolce compagnia fin a la morte. Resti Venelia pure. Attenda pur a far morir gli amanti che per me, io sono fuori de le sue mortal reti! 3575 E ben stolto e impazzito fu Alliseo, che per serbarle fè corse a la morte. E quanti l’ameranno se fossero Narcisi, se fossero Giacinti, o Adoni tutti 3580 han da restar con un medesimo premio di tormenti, di pene, e di martiri e, a la fin, di morte. Ahimè, guardimi il cielo di sottoporre a giogo tale il collo! 3585 Ben fu per me che seppi sciormi a tempo da la tua pania e trar, come si dice, chiodo con chiodo fuore.xxxv Non vorrei tardar troppo a gir al tempio de l’amorosa dea 3590 ove co’l sacerdote si deve comparire a celebrare le da me tanto desiate nozze. O come mi riempio di gioia, e d’allegrezza 3595 in sol ciò ripensando. E sia meglio ch’io vada.

Amorous Hope 299 On the contrary, I now want to live happily and joyfully since I am free of her bonds and have turned my heart 3565 to the most beautiful and most charming nymph that today exists in all of Arcadia! And, in a short time, I made it so that nothing is left for me to do other than to enjoy the fruits of sacred Hymen 3570 with sweet company until my death. Let Venelia remain as she is. Let her expect to make other lovers die for, as far as I’m concerned, I’m out of her mortal snares!165 3575 Surely foolish and mad was Alliseo to have run to his own death in order to maintain his loyalty to her! And however many will love her— even if they were a Narcissus, even if they were a Hyacinth or an Adonis166— 3580 all will end up with the same reward: torment, suffering, and anguish, and, in the end, death. Alas, may heaven safeguard me against subjecting my neck to such a yoke! 3585 Good for me that I knew how to free myself in time from your trap and drive out, as they say, one nail with another! I wouldn’t want to delay too much going to the temple of the amorous goddess 3590 where, with the priest, we have to appear to celebrate the nuptials I so long for! Oh, how I am filled with joy and happiness 3595 just thinking about it! And so, it’s better that I be on my way.

300 Amorosa speranza SCENA QUARTA Venelia sola Venelia Timida, sola, con cor palpitante (quasi smarrita agnella) dal mezzo della folta e spessa turba 3600 di ninfe e di pastori furtivamente ho pur girato il piede in questa solitaria e fresca selva per dispensar in generoso ufficio di questo giorno una mezz’ora sola. 3605 E mentre li pastori preparano le nozze d’Alliseo, mi son partita sola e scompagnata, misera tortorella, e girando di secco in secco ramo l’afflitto piede a le speranze spente 3610 vengo per onorar la bella imago del mio lontano amante la quale (al suo partire) mi lasciò caro pegno. Caro pegno d’amore 3615 che qui vicino al petto dove (scolpito da più dotta mano) nel mezzo del mio core siede l’immagin’viva. Sempre ti porto appresso 3620 in così lunga e amara lontananza. Consolami, ti prego! Ahi piccolo monile da la tua picciolezza pende sì ricca gioia, e sì gran dono. 3625 Deh che mi trema il core non ardisce la mano non possono quest’occhi mirar quel gran splendore che dal tuo simulacro esce, Lucrino. 3630 Che dovea far, ahi lassa, quando il vivo mirai? Io temo certo al bel de la tua effigie (misera) rimanere qual Semele per Giove già rimase! 3635

Amorous Hope 301 SCENE FOUR Venelia alone Venelia Timid, alone, with fluttering heart (just like a lost lamb) from the midst of a dense and thick crowd 3600 of nymphs and shepherds secretly I turned my steps to this solitary and cool forest to spend just half an hour of this day in a generous deed. 3605 And so, while the shepherds are preparing Alliseo’s nuptials, I left alone and unaccompanied— like a wretched turtledove who goes from one dry branch to another with a limp foot and vanished hopes— 3610 I come to honor the beautiful image of my distant lover which (upon his departure) he left with me as a precious token.167 Precious token of love 3615 here near my breast where (carved by a more expert hand) at my heart’s midpoint, lies his living image. I always hold you near 3620 in such a long and bitter distance. Console me, I beg you! Aiee, little charm, from your littleness derives such a rich joy and such a great gift! 3625 Oh, my heart trembles, my hand does not dare, these eyes cannot gaze upon that great splendor that emanates from your likeness, Lucrino. 3630 What would I do (alas!) were I to gaze upon him in the flesh? I fear indeed that, faced with the beauty of your image, I would be (wretched me) consumed just as Semele was on account of Jove!168 3635

302 Amorosa speranza Mercé di quel desio che circonda il cor mio: rimirarti e vederti amato bene, anzi, mio caro sole! Pur ti miro, ben mio, e teco parlo 3640 e tu sei muto a i miei preghi umili. So ben, misera e lassa, che ‘l più pregiato in Argo di te pastor non vive. E che per lungo esilio 3645 hai me posto in oblio e fatto altra signora del tuo core. E forse anco più bella ma non sarà per questo già mai di me più fida e più costante. 3650 Ahi ch’un fiero dolore mi copre e adombra il core. Porgimi, vita mia, porgimi aita! Ma (lassa) con chi parlo? Non mi aveggo (infelice) 3655 ch’è insensata l’immagine ch’io miro e nel mirarla solo multiplica il mio duolo? Ahi che sento la morte, sento il mio cor trafitto 3660 (misera), chi m’aita?

SCENA QUINTA Lucrino pastor straniero, Venelia Lucrino Pur dopo tanto tempo dopo un sì lungo esilio, io ti rimiro, o bellissima Arcadia, degli piaceri miei fidato nido! 3665 Godo pur di vedere ne la ridente e vaga primavera questi prati di fior, tutti coperti. E lieto godo ancora de la pomposa veste 3670 ch’a la nova stagione

Amorous Hope 303 This would be the reward of that desire which envelops my heart: to gaze upon you again and to see you, my beloved sweetheart, rather, my dear sun! Even as I look upon you, my good, as I speak to you, you are deaf to my humble prayers. I well know (wretched me, alas) that in Argos a shepherd more prized than you does not exist. And that due to a long exile, you have forgotten me and made another the mistress of your heart.169 And she may even be more beautiful, but she cannot for this reason be more loyal, or more constant, than me! Aiee, a fierce pain covers and darkens my heart. Offer me, my life, offer me help! But (alas) to whom do I speak? Can I not realize (wretched me) that this is a lifeless image that I gaze upon, and that gazing at it will only increase my suffering?170 Aiee, I feel death upon me, I feel my heart pierced (wretched me), who will help me?

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SCENE FIVE Lucrino, a shepherd from outside Arcadia, and Venelia171 Lucrino Even after such a long time, after such a long exile, I look upon you again, o most beautiful Arcadia, faithful homet of my pleasures! 3665 I take such delight in seeing these meadows all covered with flowers in the smiling and lovely Spring! And happily I delight again in the sumptuous garment— 3670 changed according to the new season—

304 Amorosa speranza han mutato le selve, i boschi, e i monti. O sovra ogn’altra cosa bella e cara mia desiata Arcadia! In te godei pur lieto 3675 de la mia ninfa gl’amorosi sguardi— primi segni d’amor—che dolcemente m’invitavano a amare. Inviti dolci e cari che costante e fedele, 3680 misero, in questo lungo esilio mio sì che nudrii le fiamme del suo amore in una sempre verde ed amorosa speme. Non conoscete, o piante, quel pastore 3685 che vi fe compagnia sì lungo tempo? Quel ch’intatte mai sempre serbò le vostre frondi? Quello appunto son io che tante e tante volte, 3690 misero, al ciel mandò dolenti stridi, per ritrovar pietà nel crudo petto de la mia cara e desiata donna la qual viè più costante (quasi ch’avesse di macigno il core) 3695 con modesto rossore mi negò, semplicetta, la bramata pietate. E invece mi donò, con dolce riso, un ampio mar di speme 3700 con leggiadri concetti di parole! Par che raviva in me quel grand’ardore, par che de la mia ninfa oda la voce, parmela di veder in questa selva (al solito in beltà cosa divina) 3705 farmi copia di sguardi e di parole! Par che non molto lunge da la seguente via siano l’amate case. Ahimè che tristo incontro? 3710 Segno infausto e funesto di morta ninfa un corpo? Sarà da qualche fera,

Amorous Hope 305 of forests, woods, and mountains! O above all other things beautiful and dear, my beloved Arcadia! In your realm I took delight so happily 3675 in my nymph’s amorous glances— the first signs of love—that sweetly invited me to love. Sweet and precious entreaties, steadfast and faithful 3680 (wretched me) in this long exile of mine, so that they nourished the flames of her love with an ever present and amorous hope!172 Do you not recognize, o trees, that shepherd 3685 who kept you company for so long? The one who always preserved your leaves intact? I am that very one who time and time again 3690 (wretched me) sent painful cries to heaven in the hope of finding pity in the cruel breast of my dear and much desired lady, who in turn, even more implacable (almost as if she had a heart of stone) , 3695 with bashful blushing, would deny me—that naïve maiden!— the desired pity. And instead she gave me—with a sweet smile— an abundant sea of hope 3700 with a lovely choice of words! It seems that great passion is aroused in me once again— it seems that I hear her voice, it seems that I see her in this wood (as usual, in beauty resembling a divine being), 3705 sending me lots of glances and words! It seems that this is not far off from the next road where those beloved dwellings lie. [discovers nymph] Alas, what a sorrowful sight is this? 3710 An ominous and mournful sign . . . the body of a dead nymph? Could she have been killed

306 Amorosa speranza misera, stata uccisa? Ma (lasso) non è questa 3715 la ninfa amata e cara la mia bella Venelia? È dessa certo: O caso orrendo e crudo! E se ben miro, tiene ne la sua destra appunto il mio ritratto. 3720 Ahimè tristo, infelice adunque sarò giunto a veder la tua morte? Ahi Atropo crudele, come potesti in così verde etade recider di quel stame il vital corso 3725 del qual oggi il più bello non vivea in tutto il mondo? Ahi tutte crude, inique, mal nate e fiere Parche! O viso che puoi far la morte dolce 3730 se ben di amaro mi riempi il core! Non osa la tremante avida mano (sì come già vivendo) esser toca mai volse né anco in morte toccarla. 3735 Ma che farò? Degg’io quindi partire e preda d’aspre fere lasciar sì belle membra? No che no’l debbo far; anzi, guardarle più che ‘l mio proprio core 3740 fin che qualche pastor o qualche ninfa se ‘n venga per donare a sì bel corpo l’onorata tomba. Misera e infelice mal conosciuta ninfa 3745 e mal gradita sposa che in la tua giovinezza mietesti amari frutti de l’amor tuo leale; ed or che ti giungea 3750 inaspettata nova del tuo lontano sposo che tantosto vicino sarà per celebrar le care nozze, sei morta. O fatto crudo! 3755

Amorous Hope 307 (wretched one!) by some beast? But—alas!—is this not 3715 my beloved dear nymph, my beautiful Venelia? It is her indeed! O harsh and horrible fate! And if I look closely, she carries my portrait in her right hand! 3720 Ah me, unlucky and unhappy, have I arrived to look upon your death?173 Aiee, cruel Atropos,174 how could you (at such a young age!) cut short the course of that vital thread, 3725 that life whose beauty has no equal in all the world? Aiee, all you cruel, unjust, godforsaken and fierce Fates! O face who can make death seem sweet 3730 even as you fill my heart with bitter sorrow! My trembling, eager hand does not dare draw near to touch her even now while she lies dead, just as it did not when she was still living! 3735 But what shall I do? Must I then go and leave such beautiful limbs as prey to wild beasts? No, of course I will not do that! On the contrary, I will watch over them more than my own heart 3740 until some shepherd or some nymph comes along to give honorable burial to such a beautiful body. Wretched and unhappy, misunderstood nymph, 3745 and unappreciated wife! In your youth you reaped bitter fruits in return for your faithful love.175 And now that 3750 the unexpected news of your distant husband was reaching you— who will so soon be near to celebrate your longed-for nuptials176— you are dead. O cruel fate! 3755

308 Amorosa speranza Ma che? Sei forse in agonia che mi par di vedere da le tue belle labbra spiriti vitali uscire? Un tanto danno il cielo 3760 non avrà sofferto! Prender da questo fonte io voglio l’acqua fresca e bagnarle pian piano il vago viso acciò che si rissenta 3765 che certo non è morta! O caro e amato volto ch’ancor squallido e smorto apporti gioia a quest’afflitto core. Eccomi pronto a sì pietoso ufficio 3770 e con il fresco umor di questo fonte e con il caldo (che per via del core) scaturisce da gl’occhi,xxxvi cerco di ritornare al suo bel corpo gli smarriti spiriti. 3775 Venelia Ahi chi mi porge aita? Dove son io, infelice? Lucrino Chi ti ritorna i spiriti a suoi soliti ufficii vuoi dir, Venelia mia, caro mio sole! Non riconosci adunque il tuo caro pastore, il tuo fido Lucrino? Nel lungo esilio suo più che mai vivo de la speranza che così cortese nel partir gli donasti vieppiù che mai ripieno.

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Venelia Ahi che veggio? Che miro? Son viva, morta, o sogno? O soave languire! 3790

Amorous Hope 309 But what? Are you perhaps in agony? For I seem to see vital spirits emanate from your beautiful lips. Ah, such a harsh blow heaven would not have suffered! I want to get some fresh water from this spring and wash her lovely face ever so gently so that she is revived, for surely she is not dead! O dear and beloved face, even when you are wan and pale, you bring joy to this sorrowful heart of mine. Here I am, ready for such a merciful task, and with the fresh moisture of this spring and with the warmth which (by way of my heart) emanates from my eyes, I will try to bring back the scattered spirits of her beautiful body.

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Venelia Aiee, who is offering me help? Where am I, wretched me? Lucrino Who is the one recovering your lost spirits and placing them back where they belong is what you mean to say, my Venelia, my dear sun! Do you not then recognize your dear shepherd, your faithful Lucrino? Now back from a long exile, more than ever alive, now more than ever filled with the hope that you so graciously bestowed on him upon his departure!177

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Venelia Aiee, what do I see? What am I looking at? Am I alive, dead, or dreaming? O sweet languishing! 3790

310 Amorosa speranza O felice morire!xxxvii O dolce e caro sogno! O contento infinito! Dunque, sei tu Lucrino, almo mio bene? Lucrino Son io. Levati in piedi, 3795 o mio diletto bene! E trova la contesa ch’in questo petto fanno Amore e Morte. Sorgi ch’odo tumulto di ninfe e di pastori 3800 e vengon verso noi perch’a la lor presenza sarò messaggio del tuo caro sposo il qual mi manda a dirti che tosto sia presente 3805 a consolarti e starti teco sempre.

SCENA SESTA Isandro, Alliseo, Fulgentia, Tirenia, Venelia, Lucrino, Bassano, e Iulo pastorello fanciullo Isandro Rendiamo grazie a Giove e col voler del cielo conformiamoci godendo lieti de l’amate spose; ognora più contenti 3810 [ne]gl’abbracciamenti loro e gli Imenei, scordandosi gl’affanni e le passate pene. Alliseo E chi sarà colui che vicino a Venelia 3815 le parla ne l’orecchia? Fulgentia Al’abito straniero (quasi sacerdotale)

Amorous Hope 311 O happy death! O dear and cherished dream! O infinite joy! Could this be you, then, Lucrino, my life-giving good? Lucrino It is me. Get up on your feet, 3795 O my beloved sweetheart, and look upon the contention that in this bosom issues between Love and Death! Rise up, for I hear noise of nymphs and shepherds 3800 coming toward us, and in their presence I will be your dear husband’s messenger who sent me to tell you that he will soon be here 3805 to console you and to stay with you forever!

SCENE SIX Isandro, Alliseo, Fulgentia, Tirenia, Venelia, Lucrino, Bassano, and Iulo, a little boy shepherd Isandro Let us give thanks to Jove, let us conform to the will of heaven, by taking pleasure happily in our beloved brides! Each hour happier 3810 in their embraces and our nuptials, forgetting sorrows and past pains! Alliseo [to Fulgentia] And who could that fellow be, near Venelia, who 3815 whispers in her ear? Fulgentia Judging by his unusual dress (almost priestly),

312 Amorosa speranza Arcado non rassembra! E poi ch’a gir al tempio convien appunto prender quella strada avremo occasione d’investigar chi sia.

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Venelia Mi rallegro Fulgentia, che pur goderai lieta 3825 de l’amato pastore il premio già promessoti d’Amore. Fulgentia Venelia, io ti ringrazio e ti prometto che son tanto gelosa che par ch’insino il vento me l’usurpi! Ma cavaci di dubbio, cara dolce compagna, chi sia questo sì nobile pastore che teco fa soggiorno.

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Lucrino Ninfa, d’Argo son io, 3835 sacerdote di Cinzia. E son da lei mandato a queste selve a questo tempo appunto per congiunger insieme (poi ch’è voler del cielo) 3840 voi, fidi e cari sposi, a queste belle ninfe. E perché è giunto il tempo che le pene e gl’affanni di Venelia abbiano d’aver fine, 3845 a la presenza vostra, ora le dico come Damon (già rozzo e fiero amante) per voler degli dei già fatt’umile se’n viene anch’egli d’Argo a goder gl’Imenei dolci e soavi 3850 de la sua cara sposa. Né molto può tardare il suo bramato arrivo. Però pastori, e voi leggiadre ninfe,

Amorous Hope 313 he doesn’t resemble an Arcadian! But since we are on our way to the temple, which means taking precisely that road, we will have an occasion to discover who he is. Venelia [appearing from off stage] I rejoice, Fulgentia, that you will indeed delight happily in that beloved shepherd— the reward already promised you by Love! Fulgentia Venelia, I thank you and I can promise you that I am so jealous that it seems as if the wind itself might take him away from me! But rid us of our uncertainty, my sweet, dear companion, and tell us who is this very noble shepherd traveling with you.

3820

3825

3830

Lucrino [to Fulgentia] Nymph, I am from Argos, 3835 a high priest of Cynthia. And I was sent by her to these woods and at this time precisely to bring together (since it is the will of heaven) 3840 you, faithful and beloved grooms, with these beautiful nymphs. And since the time has come that the suffering and the sorrows of Venelia are nearing their end, 3845 in your presence, now I shall tell her how Damone (previously an uncouth and fierce lover178) has been made humble by the will of the gods; he too is on his way from Argos to take delight in the sweet and pleasurable nuptials 3850 of his dear bride. Nor can his longed-for arrival be delayed much longer. Therefore, shepherds, and you, lovely nymphs,

314 Amorosa speranza andiamo uniti al tempio 3855 a offrir in olocausto a’ sommi deixxxviii oggi per tante grazie con puro latte e incensi le vittime dovute. Isandro Tanto eseguito sia quanto comandi per obedir gli dei.

3860

Alliseo Anch’io cercherò fare opera grata al cielo. Fulgentia Ti stringo, mia diletta e cara amica, ti bacio e mi rallegro 3865 de le tue contentezze. Alliseo E chi saranno questi? Un biffolco spogliato e un fanciullo? Se’l veder non m’inganna, Bassano mi cred’io, 3870 e Iulo, il pastorello. L’un fratel di Venelia e l’altro servo. Venelia Son dessi, certo. Qualche novitate? Lucrino Non pastore d’Arcadia ma di sangue regale 3875 questi mostra esser nato. Iulo Scielta vaga e leggiadra di ninfe e di pastori mantengavi mai sempre il cielo in festa! Chi sarebbe di voi che m’insegnasse dove trovar potessi Venelia, mia sorella?

3880

Amorous Hope 315 let us go together to the temple in order to offer as sacrifice to the lofty gods today—as tokens of our gratitude— those chosen sacrificial victims with pure milk and incense. Isandro Let it be as you command so that we may obey the gods.

3855

3860

Alliseo I too will try to do a deed that pleases heaven. Fulgentia [to Venelia] I embrace you, my cherished dear friend, I kiss you and I take much pleasure in your happiness!

3865

Alliseo And who could these two fellows be? An unclothed goatherd and a young boy? If my sight doesn’t deceive me, I believe this is Bassano 3870 and Iulo, the little boy shepherd. One is Venelia’s brother, the other her servant. Venelia It is them, indeed. Bearing some news? Lucrino No shepherd of Arcadia but of royal blood born this one seems to be! Iulo [to the nymphs and shepherds] Fair and lovely gathering of nymphs and shepherds, may heaven always keep you festive! Which one of you might be able to show me where I might find Venelia, my sister?

3875

3880

316 Amorosa speranza Fulgentia Gira ben gl’occhi intorno che la ritroverai, vago fanciullo. Venelia Eccomi. Chi ti manda? Temi forse ch’io sia perduta, Iulo?

3885

Iulo Aveva ben desio di rivederti! Ma ti vengo a cercare per chiederti una grazia. Lucrino Una grazia addimandi? A tempo, a tempo sei venuto fanciullo che non si può disdir grazia a nessuno se ben degno te’n face ogni rispetto. Iulo Tua cortesia pastor, ma dimmi un poco: perché tanti pastori e tante ninfe sono quì insieme? Hai fatto forse nozze?

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3895

Lucrino Non si son fate ancor ma si faranno fra poco, al ciel piacendo! E quel ch’importa che Venelia ancora oggi sarà la sposa. 3900 Iulo Dunque sarà la sposa anco Venelia? Non mi potrà dunque negar la grazia. E peggio vorrò ancora de le nozze pieno, pieno il mio zaino. O quanto son allegro! 3905 Venelia Ti prometto ogni cosa chiedi mò quel che vuoi, fanciullo amato e caro.

Amorous Hope 317 Fulgentia Just look around a bit and you will find her, charming young boy! Venelia Here I am. Who sends you? You fear perhaps that I was lost, Iulo?

3885

Iulo I was so longing to see you again! But I came to look for you to ask you a favor. Lucrino A favor you ask? Just in time, just in time you came, young boy! For a favor cannot be denied to anyone— if you are indeed worthy of every respect! Iulo I am much obliged to you, shepherd, but tell me briefly: why are there so many shepherds and so many nymphs gathered here all together? Have you perhaps celebrated a wedding? Lucrino Not yet, but they will be celebrated in a little while, heaven willing! And what is even more important is that Venelia too today shall be the bride.

3890

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3900

Iulo Really? Venelia too shall be a bride? Then she will not be able to refuse me the favor. Worst case, I will still have my knapsack filled to the brim with wedding goodies! Oh, how happy I am! 3905 Venelia [to Iulo] I promise you whatever you ask for: ask me now what you wish for, my dear beloved boy!

318 Amorosa speranza Iulo Io ti chiedo perdono in nome di Bassano. 3910 Eccolo quì, me n’ha pregato tanto ch’ho lasciato il mio gioco e son venuto a posta a ritrovarti. Bassano Eccomi quì, padrona. Abbiate compassione 3915 al povero Bassano che si muor da la fame. Venelia Arrogante villano e traditore! Temerario assassino! Tu hai trovato il mezzo a perdonarti. 3920 Non posso far di meno avendolo promesso. Io ti perdono ma ne l’avvenire fa che tu sia fedele se non che salderai 3925 due partite in un tratto. Come sei quasi ignudo? Bassano Astretto da la fame io fui sforzato dar il vestito a chi mi diede il pane. Che tu sai ben che come un’ora sola io sto senza mangiare non posso star in piedi!

3930

Venelia Io so che tu sei troppo sciagurato. Or vanne a le capanne a governar le mandre! 3935 Bassano Ti rendo mille grazie per la sola che mi facesti e vado a far l’ufficio mio.

Amorous Hope 319 Iulo I ask for your forgiveness on behalf of Bassano. 3910 Here he is; he has begged me so much for this that I left my games and came for this very reason to find you. Bassano Here I am, my mistress. Have pity 3915 on poor Bassano, for he’s dying of hunger! Venelia Arrogant villain and traitor! Brazen murderer! You have found a way to get pardoned since I cannot undo what I already promised! I will forgive you, but in the future see to it that you are loyal; otherwise, you’ll have to pay for two things at once. But why are you nearly naked? Bassano Constrained by my hunger, I was forced to give away my clothes to whoever gave me some bread. For you know very well that if I don’t eat something every single hour I can barely stand on my own two feet!

3920

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Venelia What I know is that you’re too much of a nuisance! Now go back to the huts and manage our flock! 3935 Bassano I give you a thousand thanks for the one favor you did me, and now I’ll go and take care of my business.

320 Amorosa speranza Iulo Ed io, sorella cara, ti ringrazio che m’hai levato al cor un gran dolore che aveva per Bassano il qual mi porta sempre (quando torna dal pasco) tanti frutti e tanti fiori. Lucrino Hai ragione, fanciullo, a procurare la pace a chi contenta le tue voglie.

3940

3945

Isandro Orsù pastori, andiamo al venerando tempio per compire a quel che far ci resta. Lucrino Tanto si facci e poi che compagnate sono le vaghe spose 3950 non è ben ch’una sola se’n venga scompagnata adunque insino al tempio; sarò scorta a Venelia e scuserolle il sposo 3955 il qual so che non puote star molto ad arrivare. Venelia Andiamo lieti, andiamo, che mi giubila il cor per allegrezza! Iulo Tutti son’iti al tempio 3960 e vanno a maritarsi l’un con l’altro. Ed io senza la sposa son rimasto qui solo. Almen fosse fra voi, leggiadre dame, alcuna che volesse 3965 farsi meco la sposa . . . o veggo che ridete! Vorreste tutte? È vero? Capexxxix sete golose! Mi vorreste

Amorous Hope 321 Iulo And I, dear sister, thank you for having lifted from my heart a great pain that I felt for Bassano, who always brings me (when he returns from the pasture) lots of fruits and lots of flowers. Lucrino You are right, young boy, to bring peace to whoever satisfies your desires.

3940

3945

Isandro Come now, shepherds, let us go to the blessed temple in order to accomplish what still remains for us to do! Lucrino Let that be done, and since our lovely brides are accompanied, it is not right that a single one of them comes unaccompanied, therefore, all the way to the temple. I will be Venelia’s escort and her groom I will excuse (on her behalf) who, I know, won’t take long to arrive.

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Venelia Let us go merrily, let us go, for my heart rejoices with happiness! Iulo [addresses the audience] Everyone has gone to the temple and there they will marry one another. But I am without a bride, I am left here alone! If only there were among you, lovely ladies, any one who might want to become my bride . . . oh, I see that you’re laughing! Perhaps you would all want to? Is that so? Ladies, you’re all too greedy! You would want me

3960

3965

322 Amorosa speranza perché son bello e che son picciolino! 3970 Chi non lo sa? Ma non mi coglierete so ben il fatto mio, son anch’io giotto! Credete ch’io sia sciocco e non m’immagini che quando foste sazie di baciarmi e farmi i vezzi (che si fanno a sposi) 3975 perché son un fanicullo non atto ancor a governarvi bene (come fanno i pastori ch’han già fatto la barba) mi dareste le busce e cacciereste 3980 ben spesso al letto senza darmi cena? No, no, parlate pur quanto vi piace all’orecchie, signore, che io non voglio più farmi il sposo ma sarò ben servo umil di tutte, se vi contentate. 3985 E così m’offro pronto! E se non fusse che mal mi si conviene, anzi, che non potrei allogiar tante padroncine care nell’angusta capanna 3990 (e quel ch’è peggio mi rovinereste mangiandomi la parte delle nozze) io ben v’inviterei. Ma che? Sia meglio (ed io ve ne consiglio) ritornarvene a Padova 3995 con quella stessa barca che quivi v’ha condotte. E de le nozze nostre non aspettate avere altro che mille grazie 4000 ch’io vi rendo per tutti de la cortese audienza. Itene dunque. Il Fine

Amorous Hope 323 because I’m handsome and because I’m little! 3970 Who doesn’t know this? But you won’t be able to catch me; I know my business well, I’m pretty shrewd too! Do you think that I’m dumb and don’t realize that when you would tire of kissing me and giving me caresses (the kind that are given to husbands)— 3975 because I am a young boy not yet able to govern you well (as those shepherds can who have already grown a beard)— you would then give me the cold shoulder and would send me away 3980 to bed just as often without giving me dinner? No, no! Go ahead and talk about it into each other’s ears as much as you wish, ladies, for I no longer want to be a groom, but will certainly be a humble servant to you all, if you’d like. 3985 And that’s how I readily offer myself! And if it weren’t for the fact that it would be unsuitable for me, or rather, impossible for me to accommodate so many dear little mistresses into my narrow hut 3990 (and what is worse: you would ruin me by eating my share of the nuptial goodies) I would certainly invite you in. But what am I saying? It would be better (and I recommend it!) that you return to Padua179 3995 with that same boat that brought you here. And as far as our wedding celebrations, don’t expect to have anything more than a thousand thanks 4000 which I now bestow upon you—on behalf of everyone— for being such a courteous audience. Now then, be on your way! The End

324 Amorosa speranza

Notes to the Italian Text i. “Ginetto” (or “ginnetto”) refers to a Spanish horse. My thanks to Janet Smarr for clarification on this term. The term is thought to be a corruption of “Zenata,” a Berber tribe of North Africa famed as horsemen and horse breeders. Thousands of Zenata horsemen were part of the Muslim forces that invaded the Iberian peninsula in 711 CE. ii. In presenting herself as a “donna inesperta” (an inexperienced woman) with a “sterile intelletto” (sterile intellect), Miani employs a rhetorical gesture commonly used by women writers, not meant to be taken at face value; her show of humility toward male writers or potential readers more “expert” than herself (a point she reiterates) is meant to attract rather than repel. iii. This statement points back to the letter’s first paragraph and warns against drawing any (incorrect) conclusions regarding the “worth” of a work based solely on its external appearance and/or the status of its author. iv. “Talari” comes from the Latin talaria, and generally refers to the golden winged sandals worn by Hermes or Mercury, the messenger god. v. “Amore” is used as a synonym for the little boy Cupid (as translated in this instance). vi. Compare the phrase “cortesi donne e grate,” which appears in the opening line to canto 22 of Lodovico Ariosto’s chivalric romance, Orlando furioso (1532). vii. Compare the phrase “verdeggianti rami,” which appears in Andreini’s Mirtilla (l. 406). viii. “[D]uce” refers to Amore or Cupid. ix. Compare Petrarch, Rime sparse, 87.4: “. . . al destinato segno.” x. With the mention of “oggi” (today), repeated in Alliseo’s subsequent lines as well as elsewhere in the play, the unity of time is signaled and, presumably, observed. According to the Horatian dictum, the plot of a staged play is to begin and end within a twenty-four-hour window. xi. “[R]efrigerio” (translated here as “respite”) is a term used in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron to refer to the “respite” women in love might find in his storytelling as they pass away the time languishing (on account of love or other matters such as boredom) and confined to their own rooms; see the Preface to the Decameron. xii. The name “Venelia” is sometimes spelled “Venetia” here and elsewhere throughout the playscript, with clear (although possibly unintended) allusions to the city of Venice, where the play may have been staged. xiii. Here and throughout, “speranza/sperar” (hope) returns as a leitmotif in concordance with the play’s title.

Amorous Hope 325 xiv. “Festi” is the second person singular form of the verb fare in the passato remoto tense, and is an abbreviated form of “facesti.” See, for instance, Ariosto’s use of it in Orlando furioso (43.103). xv. The rhyme “morire [. . .] gioire” is used by Andreini in Mirtilla in a very similar context (see ll. 344–46). xvi. “[A] lui” refers to Alliseo, whose name appears in brackets in the translation for the sake of clarity. xvii. The reference to the beloved’s countenance (including her eyes, her brows, and her hair), and its potential use by the little boy Cupid as a “weapon” (with analogies to his own bow and arrow) against a lamenting, unwanted lover, also appears in Andreini (see Mirtilla, ll. 996–1003). Much of this vocabulary is of course derived from Petrarch’s Rime sparse. xviii. “Corre” is an obsolete form of “cogliere,” meaning to gather, pick up. xix. The term “gagliardo” (translated here as “valiant”) is famously reminiscent of Machiavelli’s Nicomaco, who uses it with reference to himself (see Clizia, 4.11); like Miani’s satyr, Machiavelli’s Nicomaco is an old married man who lusts after a young virgin. See Niccolò Machiavelli, Teatro: Andria, Mandragola, Clizia, ed. Guido Davico Bonino (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), 189. xx. The phrase “notturne larve” appears in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (12.60), as well as in Andreini’s Mirtilla (l. 564). xxi. “[I]ngrato arciero” (“ungrateful archer”) is a reference to Cupid, who traditionally holds a bow and arrow in his hands. xxii. “Padire” is an old form of “patire,” meaning to suffer, endure, tolerate. Bassano is anticipating the possibility of having to “endure” beatings from his mistress, given what she is reported to have said regarding Isandro’s entreaties in 1.2 (i.e., that Bassano should not dare to bring his name up again). xxiii. The term used in the original is “animanti,” which has been corrected to “animali.” It is used by Petrarch in the Rime sparse (216.6); in fact, the rest of the passage is reminiscent of Petrarch’s verses. The tenor of these verses also recalls Virgil’s Dido and her agonizing restlessness once she realizes Aeneas has abandoned her (Aeneid, 4.522–31). Finally, the passage is reminiscent of a scene in Isabetta Coreglia’s La Dori, a pastoral drama published in 1634 and forthcoming in the Other Voice Series (ed. and trans. Alexandra Coller). xxiv. “[B]ipartito cor” is translated as “divided heart,” and it is a central theme in Miani’s play; in part, it is what makes Venelia’s characterization unique. Her behavior, as described by Tirenia, may be described as aberrant or out of the ordinary. xxv. These lines echo a passage in Dante’s Inferno (33.150).

326 Amorosa speranza xxvi. This line echoes Ariosto’s “e me ti dono” (Orlando furioso, 11.8) and Tasso’s “me medesmo ti dono” (Aminta, 2.1), as well as Andreini’s “io mi ti dono,” which is of course derivative (Mirtilla, 5.3, l. 2785). xxvii. These verses recall the dolce stil novo and its dictum, “Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona,” as it is famously rehearsed by Francesca da Rimini in Dante’s Inferno (5.103). Literally, “no one loved can be forgiven for not loving in return.” Miani’s verses also echo those we find in Andreini’s pastoral: “né di maggior contento che l’amare / quand’altri è riamato” (Mirtilla, 3.3, ll. 1517–18; see also 3.2, ll. 1290–91; 4.2, ll. 2252–53 and ll. 2296–301; and 4.3, ll. 2472–79). These are all allusions to the notion of reciprocal love, which can manifest itself either as a form of duty or as an ideal. In the course of the Amorosa speranza, both the satyr and Isandro will voice their desire for such love (see 2.1 and 5.3). The notion is also referenced in the “lesson on love” that Venelia delivers in 5.2. xxviii. Tirenia’s flattering words are of course full of sarcasm, and the term “cesso,” while difficult to translate, points to something resembling a “sewer”: vulgar, dirty, foul-smelling, ugly. The term is used by Pietro Aretino in his Sei giornate (1534–36), a lascivious and satirical account of unparalleled frankness on the education of a prostitute in the making; see Dialogo nel quale la Nanna insegna a la Pippa. xxix. The original reads “Aleschini,” likely a misprint for “meschini,” translated here as “wretched ones.” My thanks to the Biblioteca Marciana librarian, Piero Falchetta, for this suggestion. xxx. Bassano’s “vo pensando” is among Petrarch’s most emblematic phrases (Rime sparse, 264.1), which, in this context, is rendered farcical. xxxi. The phrase “alma natura” appears in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (27.120; 35.5), as well as in Tasso’s sonnet in praise of Isabella Andreini, “Quando v’ordiva il prezioso velo” (Rime, 304). xxxii. The end rhyme “morire [. . .] martire” should be noted but cannot be reproduced. xxxiii. The end rhyme “core [. . .] ardore” should be noted but cannot be reproduced. xxxiv. The analogy is similar to the one we find in Mirtilla (4.3, ll. 2379–82). xxxv. The idiomatic expression “trar [. . .] chiodo con chiodo fuore” refers to “driving out one love with another.” xxxvi. Love, it was thought, emanated from the heart by way of one’s eyes. xxxvii. The oxymoronic expression “felice morire” (happy death) is frequently found in early modern tragedies, and it is often voiced by tragic heroines; it has its roots in Petrarch’s Rime sparse, in which the idea of a “bel morir” or “caro morir” (beautiful death or precious death) is conjured up by the frustrated lover (see, for instance, 71.30,

Amorous Hope 327 86.4, and 207.65). I am currently at work on an essay that traces the provenance of this frequently used expression in Italian Renaissance tragedy. xxxviii. “[O]locausto” is translated here as “sacrifice.” The term “holocaust” dates back to the ancient Greeks, for whom it meant sacrificing a human or animal in the name of a deity by way of incineration. xxxix. The term “Cape,” translated here as “Ladies,” comes from a Venetian dialect word meaning “Signore.”

Notes to the English Translation 1. This is a reference to Apollo, god of poetry and music, whose lyre is sometimes described as being made of gold; Apollo is also referenced here in his role as the god of harmony and order (as in the last two verses of this composition). 2. This is a reference to Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses and sacred to both Apollo and Dionysus. 3. In Greek mythology, Urania was the muse of astronomy. For the historical and mythological information provided in these notes and throughout the text, I have relied on The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, ed. Simon Price and Emily Kearns (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), and Michael Grant’s A Guide to the Ancient World: A Dictionary of Classical Place Names (Bronx, NY: H.W. Wilson, 1986). 4. This is a reference to the Hippocrene spring on Mount Helicon, created when the winged horse, Pegasus, struck the rock with his hoof, causing water to burst forth. Both Mount Helicon and its spring were considered sources of poetic inspiration. Mount Helicon was also the site of the spring at which Narcissus (who is mentioned in the play) fell in love with his own reflection. 5. Here Miani refers to the ‘tale of the turnip.’ On this tale see Jan M. Ziolkowski, Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007): “The Wonder of The Turnip Tale (ca. 1200)” (164– 99) and “The Turnip Tale: Two Presents for the King” (322–41). Erasmus recounts a version of this tale in his Colloquia (see “The Fabulous Feast” in Colloquies, vol. 39 of The Collected Works of Erasmus, translated and annotated by Craig R. Thompson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 571–89, at 579. 6. On the use of a personified figure to deliver the prologue, see Refini, “Prologhi figurati.” 7. The term virtù, translated here as “virtues,” has a variety of meanings in Italian; it can refer to talent, skill, virtue, worth, ability, ingenuity, fame, or glory, but it can

328 Amorosa speranza also refer to manliness, strength, courage, excellence, etc., depending on its immediate context. 8. Hence the play’s title, Amorous Hope. 9. As will become clear in a moment, the “blind goddess” is Fortune (Fortuna). Traditionally gendered female, sometimes represented as blindfolded, and famous for her unstable nature, she could change one’s fortune, arbitrarily, from good to bad and bad to good. On Renaissance iconography of the figure of Fortuna, see Ripa, Iconologia, 250–51. 10. Hymen, or Hymenaios, is the Greek god of marriage; iconographically, he appears as an older Cupid carrying a lit wedding torch. His role was to lead the bride into the groom’s home. Hymen is often invoked synecdochically in Renaissance and early modern poetry as a reference to marriage or the rites of marriage. 11. Greek tradition boasted nine Muses or inspirational goddesses of literature, the sciences, and the arts; each of them represented and sponsored one or more of these categories. Calliope, for example, was the Muse of song, dance, and epic poetry; Urania, the Muse of astronomy; Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy; and Euterpe, the Muse of music. The Muses were also considered the source of the knowledge one needed to possess in order to perform well in each of these domains. 12. The word order here replicates the original framing structure created by means of the term “mother” (madre). 13. Venelia’s sarcasm aims to expose Alliseo’s lack of fidelity, thereby establishing from the very beginning one of the play’s main themes, male infidelity. 14. Alliseo’s desire to see the naked Venelia bathe in the spring displays a satyr-like voyeurism reminiscent of Tasso’s Aminta, who is guilty of the same behavior toward the recalcitrant nymph Silvia, bound naked to a tree by a satyr. Of course, the stratagem evokes the story of the hunter Actaeon, who dared to look upon the goddess Diana (Artemis) as she bathed, naked, in a spring; Diana punished the young man’s transgression by transforming him into a stag, later mauled to death by his own dogs. Titian, the Italian Renaissance master, famously depicted this myth in two paintings: Diana and Actaeon (1556–59) and The Death of Actaeon (ca. 1559–1575). 15. The reference is to the island of Cythera, near the shores of which the goddess Aphrodite was said to have been born. “Kythéreia” is an epithet for Aphrodite. 16. This is the first instance of “Venelia” spelled with a “t;” there will be several other such instances. 17. Bassano’s characterization is based on the comic character of the glutton, modeled on the figure of ancient Roman comedy and often found in the plots of sixteenthcentury scripted comedy or commedia erudita. Miani capitalizes on this role, thereby adding a good dose of comic effect to her plot.

Amorous Hope 329 18. Hence the idea of reciprocal love in friendship, a Renaissance (masculine) ideal that is largely based on Cicero’s treatise De amicitia. For more on this topic, see chapter 2 in Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, and its bibliography. 19. The theme of same-sex female friendship, as of that between Fulgentia and Venelia, is developed to a certain extent in Miani’s plot as it is in other female-authored pastoral dramas, such as those of Maddalena Campiglia and Leonora Bernardi. See the reading of this theme—with pertinent examples, including those that appear in maleauthored plays—in Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama. 20. On the term “virtues” (virtù), see note 7. 21. Given what we have just heard in Alliseo’s confession to his mother, this is of course quite ironic; it serves only to underscore Alliseo’s wavering heart and does little to distance him from Damone, the faithless husband par excellence. 22. This statement attests to Venelia’s resilience. 23. This is a remarkable and polemical passage, one that resonates strongly with a similar passage in Leonora Bernardi’s Tragicomedia pastorale. For a discussion of both plays, see chapter 3 in Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama. 24. Note, once again, the spelling of “Venelia” with a “t.” 25. Venelia’s “eloquence,” demonstrated here as one of her trademarks, will be made manifest again in her exchange with Alliseo and Isandro in 4.10 and in her lengthy exchange with Alliseo alone in 5.2. 26. Note, as in the previous lines, the spelling of “Venelia” with a “t.” 27. This is the first of three references to Venelia’s multiple amorous adventures and her conflicted or “divided” heart. The other two appear in 3.6 and are articulated by the same character, Tirenia, who views Venelia as her rival in her quest for Alliseo’s affection. 28. A detail already revealed in the previous scene, this refers to Venelia’s deflowering or loss of her virginity. 29. This is a reference to the Ovidian myth of Echo and Narcissus (Metamorphoses, 3.356–507). Echo, a talkative mountain nymph, had distracted Juno from learning of the infidelities of her husband, Jupiter. As punishment, Juno silenced her, reducing her to repeating or “echoing” the last words of any utterance, including her own. When Echo met the handsome Narcissus, therefore, she could not express her love for him, causing him to reject her. 30. The reference here is to Lucrino, as will be revealed a few lines later. 31. An allusion to Venice; the shepherd “of worthy lineage” in the previous line may be an allusion to Domenico Negri, Miani’s husband, a nobleman and a native of that

330 Amorosa speranza city. German cartographer, Sebastian Münster, described the city of Venice as “regina maris” in his groundbreaking Cosmographia (1544), an encyclopedic volume of world geography; see “De civitate et populo Venetorum,” part of the section on Europe in Book 2 of Cosmographia (Basel: Henri Petri, 1550), at 155. 32. One of the first markers of time (“today”), and as such a reference to the so-called “unity of time” that the play seems to underscore, following the Horatian dictum that the action of a play should begin and end in a single day. Although a reference to the element of time is not unusual, it would have been especially crucial for a play considered or in preparation for performance to respect the element of duration; see, for example, Angelo Ingegneri’s emphasis on this in his Della poesia rappresentativa, 28. 33. Argos is an ancient city in the Peloponnese. The appellative will be used at other points in the dialogue to refer generically to pastoral’s domain, the field inhabited by shepherds and nymphs. 34. In Greek mythology the satyr was a woodland god represented as part man, part beast, with goat’s feet, ears, and horns, and a permanent erection denoting an excessively lustful nature; the satyr was closely associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, and was a main character in the ancient genre of the satyr play, classified as tragicomedy. In the sixteenth century, the satyr figure usually appeared as a character in pastoral drama, and was considered a threat to its otherwise idyllic setting—in particular, to its vulnerable nymphs, whom he pursued with lascivious intent; as such, the satyr scene is traditionally labeled as a locus of masculine misogyny, and women authors capitalized on the opportunity to showcase the gendered implications and gendered tensions this encounter created between satyr as perpetrator and nymph as “helpless” victim. For an analysis of these scenes in both male- and female-authored pastorals, see chapter 3 of Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, and passim. 35. As revealed a few lines later, this “other” (altrui) is Tirenia, the leggiadra pastorella, whom the little boy Cupid is here using as “bait” to ensnare the satyr into his domain. 36. The reference is to Venus, whose planet is third from the earth in a geocentric cosmos: earth, moon, Mercury, Venus. We may also recall that in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the third cantica, dedicated to Paradise, includes a “third heaven” also known as the sphere of Venus. 37. The vocabulary used here is reminiscent of Dante’s dream vision in La Vita Nuova and the way in which he describes Beatrice, who appears to him there. Miani’s placement of these terms in this rustic character’s mouth can only make him seem all the more ridiculous, given the satyr’s reputation in pastoral drama and how far removed he is from civilized, courtly behavior. 38. This is a recap of the satyr’s previous list, which included demonstrating his power over himself. The idea of using his “power and authority” in order to obtain “reciprocal

Amorous Hope 331 love” is obviously absurd; in other words, Elliodoro wonders whether he will have to resort to force (that is, rape) in order to possess the nymph. 39. In Greek mythology, the panther was associated with Dionysus; the deity was often depicted riding, or accompanied by, this large cat. 40. This is a reference to the story of Jupiter (or Jove) and his desire for the young and handsome shepherd, Ganymede; wishing to have Ganymede serve as the cupbearer of the gods, Jupiter transformed himself into an eagle and carried the boy up to Mount Olympus. 41. This is an epithet for Diana, the “triple deity” or diva triformis, who—conflated with the deities Luna (Selene) and Hecate—was worshipped as goddess of the hunt, the moon, and the underworld. Diana was also known as the goddess of chastity, hence her veneration by Arcadia’s chaste nymphs, who often eschewed amorous adventures in favor of solitude and the hunt. 42. The terms “for which” that appear in the preceding line, are meant to also precede “I consume myself.” 43. “Cyprian goddess” is a reference to Venus (or Aphrodite), the goddess of love and beauty said to have been born on the island of Cyprus (hence the adjectival noun “Cyprian”); traditionally, she is also known as the mother of Cupid. For another traditional birthplace of Venus off the coast of Cythera, see note 15. 44. The reference is to Cupid. 45. Adonis, considered the archetype of male beauty, was the mortal lover of Venus. As recounted by Ovid, Adonis was fatally wounded by a wild boar and bled to death in the arms of the goddess, who caused the anemone flower to spring up wherever his blood was spilled; see Metamorphoses, 10.708–39. 46. Note, once again, the spelling of “Venelia” with a “t.” 47. Although the passage evokes the Narcissus-like self-admiration of the nymph Silvia in Tasso’s Aminta (2.2, ll. 35–39), and, perhaps even more famously, of the nymph Ardelia in Isabella Andreini’s Mirtilla, Miani does not develop the allusion any further. Andreini, on the other hand, goes beyond Tasso’s subtle remarks and devotes an entire scene (4.4) to Ardelia’s Narcissus-like innamoramento. 48. The reference is to Venus. 49. Jove (or Jupiter) was the principal Roman god, whose residence was on Mount Olympus; he was also the god of the sky and thunder, and his sister was thought to be Ceres (on whom see note 75). 50. On the one hand, the cypress tree is a traditional symbol of death and mourning; on the other, its evergreen leaves stand for life and resurrection. Miani’s choice may hint at how this scene (as well as their second encounter) will end, and the satyr’s

332 Amorosa speranza ultimate failure to capture and possess the nymph. The tree’s other meaning may hint at the satyr’s own insatiable, lustful appetite (and that of other males, of which he serves as prototype), which the second encounter serves to underscore. 51. Interestingly, in Moderata Fonte’s Merito delle donne (1600), the “panther” is described as “the cruelest of all animals,” and is aligned with a certain type of male lover; see Cox, ed. and trans., The Worth of Women, 76. As Fonte’s speaker, Cornelia, explains, “sensible women” would be right to approach this kind of male with extreme caution. Miani’s use of this same negative symbol offers, of course, ironic delight given the context; Tirenia will recall the panther (“vago pardo”) in a subsequent scene, as she strategizes on how to best punish the satyr who has ambushed her a second time (4.6). With Fonte in the background, my translation of “vago” in that scene as “handsome” has the intended effect of tying the panther to its owner, the satyr, as well as to other male characters described as such. 52. As will be revealed below, the panther is tame because it is already domesticized, having been given to Elliodoro as a gift by his wife. 53. This is the name of what is likely a hunting dog. The repetition of the last syllable is meant to create an echo. Incidentally, a hunting dog also makes a cameo appearance in Andreini’s pastoral; he belongs to Ardelia and his name is Torrente (see Mirtilla, 2.3, l. 1087). 54. The stratagem of binding up the satyr to a tree has a number of precedents: Agostino Beccari’s Sacrificio, Giovan Maria Avanzi’s Il Satiro (1587), and Andreini’s Mirtilla. It is also noteworthy that in Tasso’s Aminta (3.1), the nymph Silvia is reported to have been tied to a tree by the strands of her hair, in preparation for her rape (“stupro”) by the satyr; thus, in their tying up of the satyr’s arms, Andreini and Miani may be gesturing back to that scene in a “corrective” manner, reversing the roles of the would-be rapist and his victim. 55. Throughout this passage Elliodoro’s characterization is reminiscent of Guarini’s and Andreini’s (anonymous) satyrs, especially as they each respond with vitriol against the entire female sex when they are unable to reach their goal (see Mirtilla, 3.2, ll. 1499–1509); moreover, the phrase “falso crine” (false locks) is used by Guarini’s satyr to describe Corisca, the nymph who has just escaped being raped by him (see Il Pastor fido, 2.6). Miani’s “memoranda strage” recalls Guarini’s “vendetta memorabile,” which are Corisca’s words as she expresses her scorn toward the unresponsive Mirtillo (1.3). 56. Artemia is a female satyr and plays the role of Elliodoro’s wife. The only other example I have come across that precedes Miani’s inclusion of a female satyr is in Francesco Contarini’s pastoral drama La fida ninfa: Favola pastorale (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1598).

Amorous Hope 333 57. Here, Artemia reveals that the panther had been her gift to Elliodoro. That he wants to “regift” the panther to Tirenia just makes his infidelity that much more reprehensible. 58. Given the scene we have just witnessed, Elliodoro’s remarks should be interpreted as Miani likely intended them to be: exceedingly ironic. 59. Bearing in mind what Fonte writes with regard to the panther (here referred to more generally as “the wild beast”), the meaning of these verses is filled with irony, as is the reference to the panther as the couple’s “faithful companion.” 60. The reference is to Cupid, who traditionally holds a bow and arrow in his hands, hence the appellative “archer.” 61. Andreini places similar terms in the mouth of her eponymous nymph (Mirtilla, 4.3, ll. 2445–46). However, neither Miani’s Venelia nor Andreini’s Mirtilla can be charged with double-dealing, since neither admits to have freely given away her heart to more than one lover—as Celia clearly admits when she speaks of her heart’s “double flame” (doppia fiamma) in Bonarelli’s Filli di Sciro (2.2, ll. 41–43). 62. Hence Miani’s effort to demonstrate that men are just as fickle in love (if not more so) than women. 63. In this case and the one that immediately follows, the possessive adjective “your” refers to Fulgentia. 64. As mentioned earlier, one of the themes explored in Miani’s play is friendship among women. 65. On Fortune (Fortuna) and her wheel, see note 9, which discusses the image of the goddess as used by Lady Hope in the Prologue. 66. Perhaps evoking the death of Adonis, mortally wounded by a boar. 67. This is the first time that Venelia reveals to us her affection for Lucrino; previously, in 1.4, Tirenia had mentioned Lucrino as just one among Venelia’s paramours. 68. As this line and the lines that follow convey, hope (speranza) is a leitmotif used in lovers’ laments, here and elsewhere, justifying and reminding us of the play’s title. 69. Another reference to Cupid. 70. The “Sabeans” take their name from the ancient kingdom of Saba (styled in the Bible as “Sheba”), located in the area of present-day Yemen. As noted by Herodotus (Histories, 3.107), this region was famed as a rich source of fragrances, including frankincense and myrrh. 71. Tantalus is a figure from ancient Greek mythology; a legendary king of Lydia, he was condemned by the gods to stand in a pool of water chin-deep, and just below a hanging bough laden with fruit which would recede at each attempt to grasp it. The

334 Amorosa speranza scene is normally depicted as taking place in Hades, the ancient underworld and land of the dead. 72. On the emphasis placed on the element of time (“today”), see note 32. 73. A lighthearted although seemingly sincere master-servant polemic is introduced here by Miani. 74. With her characterization of Bassano, the emphasis on his basic bodily needs and their satisfaction, and comments such as these and those that follow, Miani infuses a lighthearted and comic element into her pastoral that stands in contrast to the melodramatic seriousness of the lovers’ laments (deemed utterly useless in the goatherd’s opinion). So, too, Andreini in her characterization of the goatherd Gorgo (see Mirtilla, 3.3, ll. 1510–23, 1576–83, and 1600–9). 75. The “blind god” is Cupid, who is sometimes depicted as blindfolded to denote the arbitrary quality of his choices and his capriciousness in selecting his victims. In ancient Greek mythology Ceres is the goddess of agriculture who presides over the harvest, crops, etc.; Bacchus is the god of wine and revelry. In the pastoral genre, the goatherd is traditionally a follower of both of these deities, given his propensity for food and drink. 76. Likely an allusion to Bassano’s sexual arousal. 77. “[C]areless . . . business” attempts to mimic the original’s rhyme “leggiero . . . mestiero.” 78. The image of the sleeping nymph is iconic in literature and the visual arts. See, for example, Barbara Baert, Locus Amoenus and the Sleeping Nymph: Ekphrasis, Silence and Genius Loci (Leuven, Belgium, and Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2016). 79. In Greek mythology, Atalanta was a virgin huntress, opposed to marriage, and pursued and loved by the hero, Meleager. Atalanta was also an exceptional athlete, hence the allusion to her swiftness in this passage. 80. The adjective “disdainful” (sdegnoso) modifies “he,” a pronoun standing in for the “sun” and subject of this phrase. The sun’s sister (sirocchia) is a reference to the moon, traditionally identified as such. 81. The zephyr (zeffiro) is a soft, gentle breeze or westerly wind, often a sign of spring. 82. The pronoun “it” refers to the “zephyr.” 83. The allusion here is to a satyr, who is the “lascivious enemy” par excellence of nymphs. 84. Hope (speranza) comes back as a leitmotif. 85. In Greek mythology, the Ketea or Cetea (cetus in singular form) were monsters of the sea or large fish, two examples of which were slain by Perseus and Heracles; they were

Amorous Hope 335 also referred to in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The sea-goddess Ceto, on the other hand, was the wife of Phorcus and mother of the Gorgons, including Medusa; see Accademia della Crusca, Dizionario della lingua italiana, vol. 7 (Padua: Minerva, 1830), 832. Given the context, however, it is more than likely that here Miani meant to invoke “Atropos,” one of the Fates and the “final severer / of every hope together with life itself ” (l. 1770–1). 86. In Greek mythology, Phlegethon is one of the five rivers of the infernal regions of the underworld/Hades (along with the rivers Styx, Lethe, Cocytus, and Acheron). As with the others, Phlegethon also forms a part of Dante’s geography of hell in the Divine Comedy. 87. See Francesco Petrarca’s Rime sparse, 42.4, in which Vulcan is referred to as “l’antiquissimo fabbro ciciliano,” the ancient Sicilian smith; Vulcan was also known as the god of fire and volcanoes in ancient Roman religion and myth. 88. A reference to Mount Etna, traditionally the location of Vulcan’s forge. The volcano was also known as “Mongibello” or “Montebello” (“beautiful mountain”). 89. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (now Corinth). His excessive arrogance and self-aggrandizing craftiness incurred the wrath of the gods; they punished him by making him roll an immense boulder up a hill, which would then come back down to hit him—an action he was condemned to repeat for eternity. 90. Tityus was a mythological giant who appeared, among others of his kind, in Dante’s Inferno, 31.124. He attempted to rape Leto (Latona), but was slain by her twin children, Apollo and Artemis (Diana). Relegated to the underworld realm of Tartarus, he was condemned to be stretched out for eternity while two vultures fed continuously on his liver, which grew back each night (“avoltore” means “vulture”). Tityus also appeared in Lucan’s Pharsalia (4.595–96) as one of the giants, son of Zeus and Elara. 91. See note 71. 92. “Atlas” (“Atlante”) refers to the mountain range of North Africa, which was thought to “shade” Morocco. 93. How ironic this statement is, indeed, given the identity of the speaker. 94. The phrase reinforces what Tirenia has just said to the audience about Venelia’s character and about her conflicted state of mind; her heart is, literally, “turned to other places” (rivolto in altre parti). 95. As we read this (unflattering) characterization of Venelia, we should keep in mind that it is voiced by Tirenia, her rival in love. 96. The sequence of events which Tirenia establishes here (with her use of the conjunction “poi,” meaning “then”) is misleading, since, as Venelia has revealed already, the order is actually the reverse: that is, Lucrino came before Damone. Both men, however, abandoned her.

336 Amorosa speranza 97. In Greek mythology, the raven was Apollo’s messenger, and was originally a white bird. Apollo sent the raven to keep watch on his lover, Coronis, who was pregnant with his child. When the raven observed Coronis’s infidelity to Apollo, it flew back and told him the unhappy news, at which Apollo became so angry that he scorched the raven’s feathers, turning it black. 98. Throughout this scene, some changes to the original were necessary given the intricacies of having to account for Echo’s interventions in translation. 99. That is, Cupid. 100. The “selva Ardena” may refer to the “Forest of Arden,” located in central England, or to the Ardennes, a forested region covering an area of southeast Belgium, western Luxembourg, and northeastern France. In Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It (1599), all the action takes place in the forest of Arden, at a duchy in France (which may suggest the Ardennes); therein lies Merlin’s magic fountain, which has the same attributes as those described here. 101. With these words Tirenia articulates a statement made by Andreini’s Uranio in Mirtilla (1.1, ll. 227–28). Unlike Uranio, however, Miani’s Tirenia is eventually able to impose this rational thinking on herself (“farò forza a me stessa”) and to love the one who also loves her (Isandro). 102. Andreini’s Tirsi, a shepherd averse to love, uses the same terms to establish (sarcastically, of course) an analogy between love’s purported “pleasures” and those unpleasant, unsavory elements (absinthe and bile); see Mirtilla, 4.2, ll. 2104–5. Absinthe is a bitter alcoholic drink derived from plants, notably wormwood; bile, or gall is the bitter fluid produced by the liver that aids in digestion. 103. On the story of Narcissus and Echo, see note 29. A number of pastorals included an Echo episode; while Andreini’s Mirtilla does not, it does include a handful of allusions to the Echo myth (see Mirtilla, 1.2, ll. 569–70; 2.2, l. 880; 4.2, ll. 2126–28). 104. Unique among vertebrates, the salamander is capable of regenerating lost limbs along with other damaged body parts. Legendarily, the salamander is associated with fire, remaining unharmed by its flames. 105. Miani appears to have confused the story of Tityus (first referred to, also by Alliseo, in 3.5) with that of the Danaïdes, the fifty daughters of Danaus. In Greek mythology, Danaus was the king of Libya and twin brother of Aegyptus, the king of Arabia and father of fifty sons. An arrangement that the daughters of Danaus should marry the sons of Aegyptus was violated by Danaus, who instructed his daughters to murder their bridegrooms on their wedding night. Only one refused to do so. The forty-nine others were then punished in Tartarus—the same underworld abyss in which Tityus was imprisoned—by having to carry water to a bath in order to wash

Amorous Hope 337 away their sins; because the vessel had a leaky bottom, the water continually ran out and they were condemned to repeat this task for eternity. 106. The terms “perfectly . . . mortally” reproduce the original’s rhyme “perfettamente . . . mortalmente.” Tirenia’s volte-face circles back to the magic fountains of the forest of Arden, to which she alluded in her previous monologue. 107. Tirenia’s words are pertinent to and reflective of the polemic Miani’s play emphatically embraces: a woman should be able to protect her “precious honor” by using “just harshness” (giusto rigore). As we shall see in a subsequent episode, Tirenia is both justified and applauded for doing so. Significantly, “rigore” can also be translated as “penalty.” 108. Tasso’s Silvia is stripped naked by a satyr and tied to a tree trunk using her own tresses, but as in Miani’s and Andreini’s plays, the building momentum of the threatened violation is never translated into fact. In Aminta, however, the nymph’s near-rape is reported rather than staged; Silvia’s rescue by Aminta is recounted to the chorus by his friend Tirsi (Aminta, 3.1). In Andreini’s Mirtilla, the satyr threatens to violate the nymph Filli, and uses language similar to that of Miani (3.2, ll. 1315–26). 109. The thorns will cut Tirenia’s skin badly; therefore, this is a rather sadistic aside that no doubt justifies his own punishment at Tirenia’s hands. 110. From the Latin hyrcanus; the noun, Hyrcania, refers to a region of ancient Persia (present-day Iran). The metaphor “Hyrcanian tiger” appears in Virgil’s Aeneid (Book 4, ll. 365–67) and in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (16.57), as well as in Andreini’s Mirtilla (1.1, 1. 262). Shakespeare refers to both the “Hyrcan tiger” (Macbeth, 3.4) and the “Hyrcanian beast” (Hamlet, 2.2). 111. These lines may be read as an overt declamation against the satyr figure in pastoral plays. Numerous pastorals did have a satyr figure, and more often than not that figure threatened or carried out violence against nymphs, usually in the form of rape. “Oltraggiar” (which can be variously translated as “offend” or “harm,” but also as “rape” or “violate”) is a key term here. There are of course also some variations and innovations. For a discussion of this theme, see chapter 3 of Coller, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama, as well as references to a handful of other studies cited therein. 112. Here begins a central and, indeed, a striking “pro-feminist” episode, written from the perspective of a female victim and female author. 113. For comparison with other satyr-nymph episodes, see Beccari’s Sacrificio (1554) and Andreini’s Mirtilla (1588), from which Miani derives some of her nymph’s maneuvers. 114. Note that this is the same turn of phrase used by the satyr in the prior scene when Tirenia was his victim; the rhetoric reinforces Tirenia’s agenda, as the tables have now been reversed.

338 Amorosa speranza 115. When compared to the satyr-nymph episodes of Beccari, Andreini, and other playwrights, the active involvement of the chorus (representative of the entire woodland community of shepherds) is a novel element and, as explained in the Introduction, constitutes part of Miani’s contribution to this theatergram. As in tragedy, the chorus takes on the role of observer or witness to an event or sequence of events. It is in this episode, above all, that Miani demonstrates her profound frustration with the injustices women suffer at the hands of (unrepentant) males. She thus pens a “response” to those men with more frankness, verve, and gusto than any of her predecessors, male or female. 116. The notion of “bearing witness” (sii testimonio) is an important one, as mentioned in the Introduction. Venelia’s lament, voiced at the beginning of the play (and later on in her one-on-one encounter with Alliseo), should appropriately come back to mind at this point as Tirenia tries to “redress” the stated inequality between the sexes and the male tendency to escape punishment for any crime/s committed. 117. The older man (forty and beyond) falling in love with a woman less than half his age is a well-known comic drama topos, and Miani’s reader/audience would have certainly recognized the resonances here. Machiavelli’s Nicomaco is just one very famous case in point among many such comic theatergrams (see Notes to the Italian Text, note 19). 118. The shearing off of the satyr’s beard is a gesture akin to castration, as is what follows (the cutting off of one of the satyr’s two horns). 119. The satyr’s conviction that Tirenia’s “femminil mano” lacks the adequate strength needed to perform such a task harks back to Bolzetta’s remarks in his dedicatory letter regarding mistaken stereotypical misogynist leanings. It also reminds us of Miani’s own dedicatory letter, in which she depicts herself as a “donna inesperta.” Obviously all three instances share a tongue-in-cheek valence. 120. Tirenia’s cheeky response flies in the face of stereotypes regarding female strength, intelligence, or ingegno. 121. As the subsequent verses make clear, this is the same veil (velo) the satyr earlier boasted about using to enlist a “new lover,” and so, once again, this “trial” is demonstrated to be a tit-for-tat endeavor. 122. A sarcastic remark that exposes the satyr’s impotence (on account of his age no doubt). 123. This segment on “the kiss” reminds us of the scene in Mirtilla in which the nymph Filli prepares the satyr for a kiss by first having him chew on some “wild thyme” (serpillo). The entire scene is worthy of comparison (see Mirtilla, 3.2). 124. The use of the veil for a purpose so different from that which the satyr had at first envisioned infuses this remark with a heavy dose of irony and makes Tirenia’s revenge

Amorous Hope 339 all the more trenchant, especially if we consider the nymph’s sarcastic last words in this episode: “Resta, il mio caro amante.” 125. Circe was an enchantress, a goddess of magic in Greek mythology, and famous for transforming her (male) enemies/lovers into animals—as she did in Homer’s Odyssey when she changed most of Ulysses’s crew members into swine. Circe also appeared within the context of Dante’s Ulysses episode (Inferno, 26.91), as with her enchanting voice she tried to sway Ulysses away from his mission. 126. In Greek mythology the sorceress Medea was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, as well as the niece of Circe; she used her skills in magic and prophecy to help Jason (leader of the Argonauts) obtain the Golden Fleece from her father. To punish Jason for his betrayal of their union, Medea killed their two sons and served them to their father on a platter. Medea was the eponymous heroine of tragedies by Euripedes (ca. 430 BCE) and Seneca (ca. 50 CE); the latter, although considered an adaptation of the earlier play, remains one of the most well-known of Seneca’s works. With its focus on Medea’s bloodthirsty violence and revenge, along with the play’s themes of sorcery and the supernatural, Seneca’s version (otherwise deemed inferior to Euripides’s original) was a big hit on the Renaissance stage. Throughout the twentieth century, Medea was one of the most frequently performed tragedies, and it remains an indisputable classic of Greek and Roman literature. 127. Similarly, in Mirtilla, 3.3, it is the goatherd Gorgo who shows up to rescue and release the satyr. 128. As the reader knows, of course, the “fierce and pitiless man” invoked here was in fact a woman—and it is telling that the satyr feels uneasy or even embarrassed about confessing this detail. A few lines later, however, he does tell Bassano “the truth” (l. 2626). 129. A gelding is a castrated male animal; Bassano’s remark that Elliodoro resembles a gelding reinforces Tirenia’s symbolic castration of the satyr. 130. With “dying [. . .] suffering” I attempt to reproduce the original’s rhyme “morire [. . .] martire.” 131. The use of maple and other types of wood for drinking horns and vessels has a long history. On the maple wood flasks found at the Sutton Hoo burial mound in Suffolk, England, for example, see Martin G. Comey, “The Wooden Drinking Vessels in the Sutton Hoo Assemblage: Materials, Morphology, and Usage,” in Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World: Medieval History and Archaeology, ed. Michael D.J. Bintley and Michael G. Shapland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 107–21. 132. Bassano’s words here and elsewhere (see his monologue in 3.3) may reveal a tacit commentary (on the author’s part) regarding the oppressed or socially underprivileged, as apparent in the servant-master exchanges between Bassano and his mistress.

340 Amorosa speranza On the other hand, the exchange also serves to emphasize Venelia’s (rightful) indignation and her power over Bassano. 133. The gendered opposition between “words” (parole) and “deeds” (fatti) is present in Boccaccio’s Decameron, wherein words are tied to the realm of women and deeds to the realm of men. For more on this notion and its place in the world of the Decameron see Teodolinda Barolini, “ ‘Le parole son femmine e i fatti son maschi’: Toward a Sexual Poetics of the Decameron (Decameron II.10),” Studi sul Boccaccio 21 (1993): 175–97. 134. We are once again reminded of the play’s title and its significance. 135. This character does not have a speaking part. 136. Given what we know about Alliseo, Fulgentia’s perception of him is heavy with dramatic irony, since the character herself misperceives the real reason behind Alliseo’s abandonment of her. In her aside at the end of this scene, Venelia comments on Fulgentia’s naiveté while gesturing to her own privileged position in the balance of the plot: she must orchestrate the means whereby Alliseo is “cured” of his infatuation, and therefore pave the way for the play’s lieto fine. 137. The “vil pastore” (lowly shepherd) refers to Isandro, who is about to become Tirenia’s husband. 138. This is a reference to Venus as represented by the Aphrodite of Knidos, a sculpture of the goddess by Praxiteles of Athens created in the fourth century BCE; the sculpture was commissioned for the Temple of Aphrodite in Knidos, a city in modernday Turkey. 139. That is, Venus. 140. Another reference to Venus. 141. This is the longest scene in the play; that the second longest scene is the final encounter between the satyr and Tirenia (4.6) is perhaps not unintentional given the parallels one can find between the two episodes, as argued in the Introduction. The scene itself may be usefully compared to the one we find in Andreini’s Mirtilla between the nymph Filli and the shepherd Igilio, whose love she is unable to reciprocate (see 1.3 in its entirety). 142. Calling on the surrounding nature to “witness” the lover’s lament is a common topos of Petrarchan derivation. Petrarch’s “Chiare fresche et dolci acque” (Rime sparse, 126.1) is one of the most often-cited examples. 143. This stratagem and what follows is reminiscent of a passage in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, wherein the eponymous hero reads the names of his beloved Angelica and her lover, Medoro, on the bark of a tree and loses his wits as a result (23.130–31). The practice of inscribing the name of one’s beloved on the bark of a tree is also present in Andreini’s Mirtilla (see 5.2, ll. 2724–27); moreover, the incision made by Andreini’s

Amorous Hope 341 Igilio is reiterated with some nuance by Miani’s Alliseo in this scene (see Mirtilla, 5.3, l. 2766). 144. The ash tree was associated with the subgroup of nymphs known as Meliae (Meliads), who were said by the poet Callimachus to have nursed the infant Zeus in the mountains of Crete. Another subgroup of nymphs, the Dryads, was associated with the oak tree. 145. These two last lines become a refrain in what follows as if to underscore Alliseo’s already exaggerated plea for death in order to end his suffering. In my rendering of the refrain’s last word, I have opted to translate the Italian text’s “volere” as “desire” rather than “wish” for reasons having to do with better sound quality in the translated text. Given Venelia’s response to Alliseo’s silly request, we can just imagine how he becomes an object of entertainment for the audience/reader. 146. The Alps comprise the highest, most important, and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, extending across several countries, among them Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Slovenia, and Switzerland. 147. Venelia’s words are laced with sarcasm. Although it appears that way (certainly to her rival, Tirenia), Venelia does not act on impulse or on the basis of ephemeral desire, as she scorns Alliseo for doing, thereby neglecting his betrothed (much like Damone and Elliodoro). She can and does, however, flirt (with Alliseo), but that does not constitute a betrayal of her vows; in fact (as reported in 1.1), this is a means to an end: to expose her interlocutor’s infidelity. 148. Here Venelia returns, in part, to the argument she voiced in her first encounter with Fulgentia at the very beginning of the play. 149. “[T]hat unfaithful one” is Damone, the groom who abandoned her right after marriage vows were exchanged, as Venelia discloses in her conversation with Fulgentia (1.3). 150. Here begins a polemical exchange on the injustices faced by women when they are deemed unfaithful (as compared to, and as opposed to, what happens to men in the same situation). In this important scene, the longest in the balance of the play, Miani exposes society’s double standard. This theme appears in the first female-authored novel, La Princesse de Clèves, by Madame de La Fayette (published anonymously in 1678); Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) also belongs in this category. 151. This is a prelude to Venelia’s “lesson in disguise,” discussed and analyzed in the Introduction. 152. The lengthy exchange between Alliseo and Venelia concludes Miani’s exposure of society’s double standard regarding infidelity and dishonesty on the part of males and its repercussions for females—a conversation that began in Act 1.

342 Amorosa speranza 153. Venelia’s rhetorical prowess and her clever maneuvering have the effect of making the transgressor pronounce and deal out his own (well-deserved) punishment. The reader should recall that Fulgentia enlisted Venelia as her “defender” and “spokesperson,” based on her reputation for eloquence. 154. On Jove (Jupiter), see note 49; Neptune is the Roman god of water and the sea, a brother of Jove, and counterpart to the Greek god Poseidon; Mars, the son of Jove, is the Roman god of war and a guardian of agriculture. 155. This explanation is important, as it proves that Venelia’s love for each of the shepherds in question (Damone, Alliseo, and Lucrino) is different in kind. She is therefore less conflicted than others assume her to be, and different from Bonarelli’s Celia as a result. 156. Venelia articulates a catholic, orthodox conception of the sacrament of marriage, which during the Counter-Reformation in Italy (from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century) was emphasized and upheld with zeal. 157. Venelia repeats the same point she made earlier: a mind obfuscated by passion cannot be properly guided by reason. “Affetto” can be translated as “passion.” In the Renaissance there were theories regarding the passions (affetti) and the various humours, and how these phenomena could or could not be controlled by reason; these theories were derived from the second-century Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher Galen of Pergamon. On this topic, see for example, Il fiore delle passioni: Animo e virtù nel sistema dei saperi tra Cinque e Seicento, ed. Elisabetta Selmi, Luca Piantoni, and Massimo Rinaldi (Padua: CLEUP, 2012). Some readers may be tempted to read Venelia’s “we are all women” (and therefore, we are all alike), together with the invitation to her interlocutor to “imagine” this to be so, as paying lip service to a stereotypical view of the female sex voiced, in this instance, by a woman—and one cannot deny this possible valence; that said, the tone of Venelia’s voice (if the play were to be staged) is what would ultimately determine the possible implications of the speaker’s statement. 158. There is a sensual undercurrent in these verses which should not be ignored. When the male lover refers to his own life/death as experienced in his beloved’s arms and in her embrace, there is an allusion to his own sexual climax. This is evidence that amorous passion is something Miani champions within the framework of marital union. 159. Venelia’s rhetorical prowess is illustrated here as she cleverly questions the authenticity of Alliseo’s love for her, thereby prompting the response she is looking for. 160. Hymen is the god of marriage; see note 10. 161. Venelia deftly turns the tables on her interlocutor: she calls his integrity into question, then uses subtleties of meaning to keep him bound to the pledge he has already made.

Amorous Hope 343 162. The “suspicion” (sospetto) of which Venelia speaks here was first and foremost conceived by Tirenia, who perceived Venelia as her archrival and as conflicted in love matters. As we shall gather from the next scene, Isandro (the other unrequited lover) also views Venelia as a heartbreaker. 163. On the notion of reciprocal love, see Notes to the Italian Text, note 27. As with Andreini’s Filli, so too Miani’s Isandro and Tirenia eventually show their understanding (and acceptance) of the futile nature of unrequited love. 164. This is precisely Venelia’s own reasoning, as voiced by her in her conversation with Fulgentia (1.3); just like Isandro, she too wants to “live happily” (l. 3563) in spite of what fortune has brought her way (a fierce, unfaithful husband). It seems that when a woman voices these intentions, she is perceived as “aberrant,” as indeed Venelia is (along with those women she represents in the distinctly patriarchal society within which the author lived). Unlike men, women could not “freely turn their hearts” (as Isandro claims to have done in this passage) wherever they pleased. 165. As mentioned previously, this entire monologue is proof of the fact that Isandro concurs with Tirenia about Venelia’s character: according to both, she is a very talented tease and a heartbreaker. 166. On Narcissus, see note 29; on Adonis, see note 45. According to Greek legend, Hyacinthus—a youth of great beauty—attracted the admiration of Apollo, who accidentally killed him while teaching him how to throw the discus (some accounts refer to this as having been a competition between the youths). Hyacinthus was then transformed into the flower that bears his name. Narcissus is also thought to have been transformed into the narcissus flower upon his death, while anemones sprang up wherever the blood of the fatally wounded Adonis was spilled. 167. The “distant lover” (lontano amante) to whom Venelia alludes here is Lucrino, as will be revealed a few lines later. The “image” (a mnemonic term) of the lover that resides in the beloved’s heart and in his or her memory was a commonplace of lyric poetry; see also Andreini’s Mirtilla, in which Mirtilla, pining after Uranio, uses similar terms (4.3, l. 2434). 168. In Greek mythology Semele gave birth to Dionysus after being impregnated by Jove. When Jove’s wife, Hera, learned of the affair, she tricked Semele into asking her lover to appear before her eyes in all of his glory; Semele was then consumed by the fire of Jove’s lightning bolts. 169. As will be revealed when he finally appears on stage, Lucrino left Arcadia for Argos in order to become a high priest of Cynthia (another name for Diana and the Greek goddess Artemis). 170. Venelia’s lament touches on the pathological state of mind of the lover who cannot help but recall the image of the beloved, again and again. To use modern

344 Amorosa speranza terminology, Venelia (and others like her) may be said to suffer from an obsessive compulsive disorder. In a similar manner—although to a far greater and more serious extent—Maddalena Campiglia characterizes Flori, the eponymous heroine of her pastoral drama, as having a pathological attachment to the beloved (yet dead) nymph Amaranta. 171. This is Lucrino’s first stage appearance. 172. Fittingly, the phrase “amorous hope” (amorosa speme) reminds us of the play’s title. 173. Upon reading Lucrino’s lines the reader may conjure up the scene of the distraught Pyramus, who, finding the bloody scarf of his beloved Thisbe, imagines her dismembered by a wild forest animal. Ovid’s tale is most famously rendered (albeit in a farcical setting) as part of Shakespeare’s secondary plot in his romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595/96). The last decade of the sixteenth century, incidentally, is precisely the same period in which Miani was likely at work on her pastoral drama. 174. Atropos was the oldest of the Fates, the three Greek sister deities who determined the beginning and the end of one’s life. The others were Clotho, who spun the thread of life, and Lachesis, who measured it out. Atropos was in charge of cutting or terminating the thread. 175. Lucrino’s depiction of Venelia corroborates, in fact, what she herself confesses in Act 1. 176. This statement would indicate that Venelia and Damone had exchanged informal vows (at the time of his deflowering of her), but had not yet been formally married (as famously happens in Decameron, 2.3); even so, Venelia’s confession to Fulgentia at the beginning of the play conveys that their pledge to one another should have been respected, while Damone’s abandonment of her—after the fact—can only cast shame and blame on him. 177. The title’s key term, “hope” (speranza), appears as a leitmotif more and more frequently toward the play’s end, recalling as well the Prologue scene. 178. This is an important statement: it lends credibility to Venelia’s laments (in Act 1 and subsequently), and it is also equally worthy of note that the speaker, Lucrino, has an authority equivalent to that of a deus ex machina; the adjective “fierce” (fiero), moreover, is the same one used by Venelia to describe Damone in her exchange with Fulgentia (Act 1). Although his presence is announced as imminent, Damone never actually appears on stage. 179. As mentioned in the Introduction, the handful of allusions implies that the performance’s setting (if the play were performed in a theater or in a more private realm such as a courtly abode or palazzo) might have indeed been the city of Venice—hence

Amorous Hope 345 Iulo’s “recommendation” that the ladies in the audience “return to Padua” now that the show is over.

Appendix Selections from Polinnia I. Polinnia, Angelo Ingegneri, prefacing sonnet, unnumbered page. Queste de’ vostri honor vergate carte   Che dotta Musa in nobil fascio accoglie   E’n guisa di votive, appese spoglie   V’offre schiera gentil di parte in parte. Benche sia scarsa ogni facondia, ogn’arte   Ond’altri in voce l’alte laudi scioglie   A quelle eccelse & honorate voglie   Ch’amico Cielo à voi dona e comparte SIGNOR, gradite: e fia verace segno   De l’Heroica virtù che’n voi s’ammira   Non disprezzar la meritata gloria. Tal fia del valor vostro indicio degno,   Tanto lieta serbar di lui memoria   Quanto del suo partir PADOA sospira.

II. Polinnia, Francesco Contarini, canzone, unnumbered page. Fama eterna, immortale,   E voi del Santo Choro   Muse custodi, e tu Febo sovrano.   Tu, che con dotta mano   Tratti le corde d’oro,   Onde a’ be’ nomi illustri impenni l’ale;   Dite, dite voi quale   Sparso ha TOMASO qui lume di gloria;   E voi, bella memoria,   Fatene, O Mura; i marmi han voci, han lingue   Onde Honor parla, e i pregi suoi distingue. O Ninfe alme de’ fonti,   Figli de fonti, o Fiumi,   E voi, fiumi del Mar, pompa e richezza.   Traggavi alta vaghezza:   Pura fè, bei costumi, 347

348 Appendix   Aureo valor son quì famosi, e conti:   Coronate le fronti   D’Adria, correte a le beate sponde:   Non mai sì belle altronde   E di lucidi fregi ornate salme   Recaste loro, e di famose palme.   Infiorative, o rive,   Voi, fior, correte a l’acque,   Correte voi, bell’acque, onde d’argento;   Sia’l corso un bel concento,   Che trà l’aure, ove nacque,   Ne porti’l suono à le Castalie Dive.   Così canta, e descrive   L’Antenorea Città, frà l’onde, e i fiori,   I giusti, i santi ardori   Del CONTARINI; alto piacer gli detta;   Di Padre amante, in ver figlia diletta. Il maggior de’ suoi pregi   Titolo fù d’Amore,   Che sparse in ampio Ciel lume splendente:   Egli ne fù sì ardente,   Che del suo vivo ardore   Lasciale anco partendo aurati fregi;   Che ov’ella pur si pregi   Di noto suo valor, di providenza,   Di provata clemenza.   Opre sono d’Amor; se Amor ne togli,   Di virtù, di pietà frutto non cogli.   Cessi homai l’empia Terra,   Se produsse giganti   Contra’l Cielo guerrieri, ed’ei gli estinse.   Fulminolli, e costrinse   Sotto à Monti pesante,     Onde con fiamme ancor tentan la guerra;   Giacciansi pur sotterra,   Che, s’ella anco dà fuor la fama iniqua,   Tenta una strada obliqua,   Per rifarsi con Giove; un suon mordace   Contra il ver, contr’Amor sempre è fallace. Amor dunque sen voli,   Per celesti sentieri;   Segni à sè mal contesi, alti viaggi.

Appendix 349   Voci del cor messaggi,   Figli del cor pensieri,   Varcate con Amor gli estemi Poli,   Trascorrete, e non soli,   Il latteo calle, ogni stellante giro,   Anch’io con voi m’aggiro;   Portiam del CONTARINI i pregi intorno   Oltre, onde sorge, ove si corca il giorno. Fregi del gran TOMASO,   Sete infiniti, ed’io   Tutti cantarvi in dolce suon vorrei   Potessi e rapirei   Ramo d’oro in Parnaso,   Ghirlanda ne farei qual’io desio:   Fregi, del canto mio   Farvi fregio vorrei; ma d’Elicona   Trar non poss’io corona:   Fregi, deh siate voi fregi à voi stessi   Di vostra luce eternamente impressi. O se in Virtù potesse   Occhio mortal fissarsi,   Fregi, per voi mirar, foss’io pur’Argo,   Ma voci à l’aria spargo.   Nè può virtù mirarsi   Nè son luci sì rare altrui concesse:   Pur, se dall’orme impresse   Sul giogo alto d’Olimpo altri s’avvide   Quanto si fosse Alcide.   Orme voi, di virtù fregi, vagheggio,   Ch’ei quì me lascia, e quant’ei sia m’avveggio. Per me, Canzon, la luce anzi s’adombra.   Ciò ch’io disegno è un’ombra,   Troppo rozzo Pittor: ma che? Riluce   Figurata fra l’ombre anco la luce.

III. Polinnia, Francesco Contarini, sonnets, unnumbered page. Belle Dive di Pindo e d’Elicona   Dotta Minerva e s’altro il bel Liceo   Di quest’Athene albergo, ò Semideo

350 Appendix Voi tacite? Voi muti? Hor, ch’abbandona   TOMASO il vostro nido? Ei che poteo   Sol’accrescervi gloria? E tace Orfeo?   E la vaga sua cetra hor più non suona? De la Brenta arrestar, congelar l’onde   Dovreste Voi; pur tutto ponno in canti:   Vostro usato poter langue ò s’asconde? Ma, s’è destin ch’ei vada, i lumi in pianti   Stillando un novo fiume à le sue sponde   Voi nel portate; altri non n’habbia i vanti.         Del Medesimo Questi affetti del cor, questi concenti   Onde carte vergate e incisi marmi   Veggonsi, e queste rime, e questi carmi.   Stelle in un vago Ciel di lodi ardenti. A voi, Muse, à voi fiamme e de le menti   Aure le sacro; à voi, che sole aitarmi   Potete, à voi, cui veder bramo e parmi   Far sì che anco immortal mio stil diventi. Deh le portate à la bell’Adria in riva,   Perch’ella ancor del pio TOMASO intenda   Ciò che detti il mio cor, la mano scriva. Cara mercè fia, che à l’oprar vi accenda.   Che gloria di sue glorie à voi si ascriva,   E ch’io d’honor tributo ogn’hor vi renda.       Del Medesimo Di sì bei fregi ammirator pur’anco   Onde adorno te’n vai, di sì bel lume,   Onde risplendi, ergendo al Ciel le piume.   Non sarò di cantar satio, nè stanco. Snodi’l canto erga’l volo augel più franco;   Non più baldo di me mar, monte, e fiume   Altri solcar, poggiar, varcar presume,   Mentre hò’l desio de le tue lodi al fianco. Alba di glorie havran gli honori tuoi,   D’eternità Orizonte, ove la fama   Spiegherà chiaro Sole i raggi suoi.

Appendix 351 E tua lode gran metro, ed ella chiama,   TOMASO, i dotti carmi; e veder puoi   Ch’esserne altera Tromba il Mondo brama.

IV. Polinnia, Valeria Miani, canzone, unnumbered page. Se dal sereno Ciel divino ardore   D’alcun mortale accese il petto, e l’alma   A cantar mai d’altrui l’eccelse lodi   Hora benigno in me santo furore   Spiri, perch’io riporti illustre palma   Mentre ch’in chiari & in sonori modi   Spiegar del CONTARINI i nobil gesti   Io tento, e di sua gloria il chiaro lume   Stenda per me le piume   L’alta fama immortale onde non resti   Loco à la trista Invidia onde l’infesti. Quest’un col suo saper contempra e adegua   In concorde voler menti diverse   Scaccia da l’alme altrui sdegni e rancor;   Colà dove odio fù vuol che amor segua   E l’empie voglie altrui restin disperse   Rara virtù degna d’eterni fregi   Al bell’animo suo sola conforme   Cui vien che santo informe   Pacifico desio; sovrani pregi   Sole glorie di lui, bei privilegi. Come in torbido Ciel raggi spargendo   Di chiaro lume Apollo intorno sgombra   Nebbie, e vapori, e un bel sereno adduce.   Questi così fugando e dispergendo   A noi del vitio reo d’intorno l’ombra   Porta col suo valor candida luce   De l’Italica Atene il queto Impero   Gode hor per lui questa beata gente   Ne gl’empi danni sente   D’una manor rapace e d’un cor fiero   Gode stato più bello hor del primiero.

352 Appendix Pietà, Giustitia, e Providenza l’opre   Son di sì chiaro Duce, ond’ei risplende   Onde varca il suo nome Abila e Calpe   L’Ignudo poverel pasce e ricopre   A ciascun ciò ch’è suo comparte e rende.   Il gonfio Mar, l’inavisibil’ Alpe   E fral intoppo à le sue voglie accese   Che provide elle fan Cavalli e Navi   Onde l’arche sian gravi,   Ne sian la biada e l’esca altrui contese   Tanto ei del ben altrui cura si prese. Ben mi sprona un desio candido e puro   Per ch’io canti si degno alto soggetto,   Ma il poter al voler non corrisponde:   L’ingegno mio cinto è d’un velo oscuro,   Anzi per troppa luce hora è imperfetto   Il suo lume; e s’abbaglia e si confonde.   Ma di pronto desire anima grande   S’appaga; e il Mar, che tanti fiumi accoglie,   L’acque da un rivo toglie;   Ed’ei ciò gradirà fra memorande   Lodi, che varia vena a lui ne spande. Canzon, povera e rozza hor tu ti mostri   A lui che tanto intende e tanto vede,   Suo valor molto chiede.   Ma se non hai le gemme, e gl’ori, e gl’ostri,   Ti sian fregio non vil tuoi puri inchiostri.

V. Polinnia, Valeria Miani, madrigals and sonnet, unnumbered pages. All’Illustrissima Signora Podestaressa      Della Medesima Pianta chiara e feconda   Ceppo d’Illustri Eroi   Ch’inviti ogn’uno a’ tuoi celesti ardori   Co’ tuoi sovrani honori   Chi fia che i pregi tuoi

Appendix 353   Possa cantando celebrar in rime?   Qual sia stil si sublime   Che tanto osi levarsi   Se sono i versi a le tue glorie scarsi?         Della Medesima

               

Quanti son del tuo sposo i pregi illustri Ond’Eroico valor lo rende adorno, Tante son le tue lodi e i merti tuoi. E se nel tramontar di questo giorno Immergendo nel Mare i raggi suoi Promette, a noi più luminosa Aurora Da tue virtuti ancora Ne trae gloria, e honore Il Mare, il Mondo, la Natura, e Amore.

        Della Medesima Hor ch’invocano Apollo e le sorelle    Cui d’habitar il sacro monte è dato    Mille spirti Canori, hor che in pregiato    Stile cantando van lodi si belle, Hor che porta il gran nome oltre le stelle    Del sovrano tuo sposo un choro alato    Di Cigni, Io che d’ir’ lor dispero a lato,    Lascio che in vano il mio desir m’appelle. E a te mi volgo, a te che vai felice,    O Donna, ad abbellir d’Adria le sponde.    Anzi o Diva de l’acque habitatrice. Deh sianti i miei sospir aure seconde    Nave il cor mio; teco solcar ben lice    Dove argini hà l’honor, d’affetto l’onde.

Selections from Gareggiamento poetico, Le Lodi (Part Four)

    Vivian Viviani A Hercole Manzoni per li suoi Madrigali

Entro i confin d’Abila e Calpe Alcide L’opre sue terminò chiuse sua gloria

354 Appendix Onde di lui vive immortal memoria. Te novo Alcide, e del Signor di Delo Emulo glorioso, Or che’l nome sublime Vola con le tue rime Oltre i confin del mondo, anzi, del cielo Tanto di lui maggiore e più famoso, Io contemplo ed’ ammiro Quanto del punto suo più grande è ‘l giro.

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Index Academies of letterati in Padua, 6 Accademia degli Affidati (Cervoni), 36 Accademia degli Assorditi (Battiferri), 15 Accademia degli Intenti (Andreini), 15 Accademia degli Intronati (female participation), 15, 16n67 Accademia degli Olimpici (Campiglia), 47 Accademia degli Orditi (Fiamma), 37 Accademia dei Ricovrati: female participation, 15–18; gendered debates, 14, 18–23; Marietta Uberti Descalzi, connections to, 72; members, 3, 7–8, 12–13, 15n60, 24, 41; Polinnia contributors, 37 Accademia dell’Arcadia (female membership), 9n28, 20 Accademia delle Assicurate (Savini de’ Rossi), 20 Accademia Fiorentina (Bonciani, Bracciolini), 52, 53 Accademia Veneziana (Ciotti), 13 Agnesi, Maria Gaetana, 19 Aldobrandini, Silvestro, 12 Aleardi, Ludovico, 26 Aminta (Tasso), 2, 49, 53n158, 53n160, 59, 66n199, 70 Amorosa speranza (Miani): dedication, 47, 72; female empowerment, 23, 56–59, 65–66, 69–71; female-authored lessons, 59–65; female-authored literary models, 5, 58, 60, 72; personified figure in prologue 50, 51–55;

plot, 50–51; satyr figure, 58–59, 66–69; stage performance, 49–50, 52; Venelia, name significance, 56. See also male infidelity Amorosi spirti (Manzoni), 41, 43 Amoroso sdegno (Bracciolini), 53–55 Andreini, Isabella: Campiglia comparison, 48–49; choice of female dedicatee, 47–48; Gareggiamento poetico contributor, 24, 39–41; member of academic circles, 15, 72; model for Miani, 5, 47, 48, 52, 60, 69, 71, 72; Paduan letterate, 3, 15. See also Mirtilla d’Aragona, Tullia, 36 Aretino, Pietro, 8 Baroque aesthetics, 1, 37 Battiferri, Laura, 15 Beccari, Agostino, 59, 69, 70n215 Bembo, Maria d’Andrea (Contarini matriarch), 33, 35 Beni, Paolo, 15n60 Bergalli, Luisa, 9, 30 Bernardi, Leonora, 35–36, 46, 58 Bigolina, Giulia, 3, 5, 8, 22–23. See also Urania Boccaccian ethics, 1 Bolzetta, Francesco: Accademia dei Ricovrati publisher, 7, 13; Amorosa speranza, dedicatory letter 7, 47, 67n204, 72; Miani’s publisher, 2, 7; Polinnia publisher, 24, 31n108, 35n114, 36 Bonarelli, Guidobaldo, 56 Bonciani, Francesco, 52, 53 Borghini, Raffaello, 53 Bozi, Paolo, 24, 44–45 365

366 Index Bracciolini, Francesco, 53–55 buffoni, Li (Costa), 1

Cremonini, Cesare, 6, 15n60 Crescimbeni, Giovanni Mario, 8–9

Camillo, Giulio, 51–52 Campiglia, Maddalena: Accademia degli Olimpici, 47; collaboration with letterati, 21, 47, 49; femaleauthored pastoral drama 5, 21, 47; Miani comparison, 48. See also Flori Cavaletta, Orsina, 39 Celinda (Miani): female-authored tragedy, 2; praise, 39, 44; protofeminist agenda, 14n56; publication, 3; scholarly notice of, 5, 9, 10, 11 Cervoni, Isabella, 36 Chiappino, Paolo, 47 Ciotti, Giovan Battista, 13, 53 Colonna, Vittoria (model for Miani), 35 Componimenti poetici delle più illustri rimatrici d’ogni secolo (Bergalli), 9 Contarini, Francesco: Accademia dei Ricovrati, 7, 23; Gareggiamento poetico contributor, 39, 41, 45; Miani comparison, 27–30, 32, 34; Paduan letterati, 6; Polinnia contributor, 26, 27, 32. See also fida ninfa, La; finta Fiammetta, La Contarini, Tommaso (Count of Zaffo), 26, 30–32, 34–35 contrasto amoroso, Il (Manfredi), 49n145 Coreglia, Isabetta, 5, 10, 16n64, 49, 53n158 Cornaro Piscopia, Elena, 16–17, 19 Cornaro, Federico, 12, 16, 41 Costa, Margherita, 1–2, 11 Cox, Virginia, 1, 24, 45, 47–48, 60

Danza di Venere (Ingegneri), 47n138 Dei Medici, Maria, 36 Della Chiesa, Francesco Agostino, 8–9 Della poesia rappresentativa (Ingegneri), 2, 48n143, 54n159, 54n160, 65n198 Della Rovere, Lavinia, 47 Descalzi, Marietta Uberti, 18, 47–48, 72 Descalzi, Ottonello (Ricovrati cofounder), 18 Dialoghi spirituali (Matraini), 60–61 Diana pietosa (Borghini), 53 Domenichi, Lodovico, 9 donneschi diffetti, I (Passi), 13 Dowager Empress Maria, 8 Eleonora of Toledo, 36 Erasmus, 15 Erculiani Greghetti, Camilla, 3 Erindo il fido (Coreglia), 53n158 Fiamma, Carlo, 37, 39, 53 fida ninfa, La (Contarini), 7 Filli di Sciro (Bonarelli), 55n164, 56 finta Fiammetta, La (Contarini), 49n146 Flori (Campiglia), 21, 47–50, 58 Fonte, Moderata, 4, 13, 22, 46 Franco, Veronica, 30n103, 46, 72 Finucci, Valeria, 1n2, 10, 11, 72 Galilei, Galileo, 6–7, 15n60 Gareggiamento poetico (Fiamma), 3, 9, 18, 23–24, 37–44 Gelosa ninfa (Fiamma), 53 Gonzaga, Curzio, 21, 49 Gonzaga, Eleonora Medici, 47 Guarini, Giovan Battista, 2, 6, 12, 24, 39, 49, 55

Index 367 idea del theatro, L’ (Camillo), 51n153, 52 Ingegneri, Angelo: Accademia degli Olimpici, 26; Accademia dei Ricovrati, 12; Gareggiamento poetico contributor, 39, 45; Miani, acquaintance with, 2–3; Polinnia contributor, 26, 30, 37. See also Danza di Venere; Della poesia rappresentativa

notice of, 1, 8–11; Tasso comparison, 41–43; Vita, attioni, miracoli contributor, 44–46; Viviani, comparison, 43. See also Amorosa speranza; Celinda Mirtilla (Andreini): allegorical figure in prologue, 52, 60; dedication, 47; esteem, 2; female agency, 72; performance, 50; satyr scene, 69 Molza, Tarquinia, 45

male infidelity, 48, 57–59, 62, 66 Manfredi, Muzio, 12, 21, 39, 45, 49, 49n145 Manzoni, Ercole, 33n110, 39, 41, 43–44, 45 Marinella, Lucrezia, 4–5, 11, 13, 18, 45, 46 Marino, Giambattista, 12, 24, 37, 39n124, 45 Matraini, Chiara, 22, 60–61 merito delle donne, Il (Fonte), 13, 22, 23n88 Miani, Valeria: Accademia dei Ricovrati, collaboration, 3, 15, 17–18; Andreini comparison, 11, 48, 52, 60, 69, 71, 72; Bernardi comparison, 35–36; Bracciolini comparison, 53–55; Campiglia comparison, 48; civic pride, source of, 3, 8; Colonna comparison, 35; Contarini, rivalry and comparison, 27–30; family, 5–6; female addressee, 31–32; female agency advocate, 5, 23, 45, 59–60, 62, 65–66, 69–72; Gareggiamento poetico contributor, 24, 39, 41–44; literary genres, 5, 6, 23; mother figure in pastoral, 61; Petrarchan echoes, 36; Polinnia contributor, 26–27, 36–37; recognition and scholarly

nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti degli uomini, La (Marinella), 13 nymphs, 51, 55–58, 60, 63–64, 66, 68, 70, 71n220 Padua: celebrated in Polinnia, 26; cultural center, 3, 6, 12, 15; female letterate, based in 3, 8, 47; performance history of pastorals, 49; university, 3, 5–7, 16, 51 Pallavicino Lupi, Isabella, 47 Partenia (Torelli), 2, 49, 50 Passi, Giuseppe, 13, 14, 15 pastor fido, Il (Guarini), 2, 49, 55 pastoral drama: female-authored (see Amorosa speranza; Coreglia, Isabetta; Flori; Mirtilla; Partenia; Tragicomedia pastorale); inclusion of female writers, 2; male-authored (see Aminta; Amoroso sdegno; contrasto amoroso, Il; Danza di Venere; Diana pietosa; fida ninfa, La; Filli di Sciro; pastor fido, Il; Sacrificio); model for European authors, 6; performance history in Padua, 49; personification in prologue, 51–53; reform of gender dynamic, 65–66, 70–71. See also satyr figure Petracci, Pietro, 8

368 Index Petrarca, Francesco, 34–36, 41, 72 Piccolomini, Alessandro, 6 Polinnia (Bolzetta), 3, 18, 23–37 protofeminism, 5, 13–14, 23, 34–35, 65–66, 69–70. See also women’s education Quadrio, Francesco Saverio, 10 Recanati, Giambattista, 9 Rees, Katie, 7, 11, 59 Ribera, Pietro Paolo, 8–9 Rinaldini, Carlo (Accademia dei Ricovrati), 16 Sacrificio (Beccari), 59, 70n215 Salvatico, Bartolomeo, 8 Sanudo, Leonardo, 24 Sarrocchi, Margherita, 16n65 satyr figure, 51, 58–59, 65–69 Savini de’ Rossi, Aretafila, 19–23 Selva amorosa (Manzoni), 41 Speroni, Sperone, 6, 11, 21n82 Tarabotti, Arcangela, 4–5, 11 Tasso, Torquato: Gareggiamento poetico contributor, 24, 41; Maddalena Campiglia collaboration, 21, 49; Miani comparison, 41–43; Orsina Cavaletta, admiration for, 39; pastoral drama, model of, 7; Tarquinia Molza, praise of, 45. See also Aminta Theatro delle donne letterate (della Chiesa), 9 Torelli, Barbara, 2, 5, 49–50 Torelli, Pomponio, 12, 39 Tragicomedia pastorale (Bernardi), 58 Urania (Bigolina), 4, 5n10, 8, 21, 22, 48n142, 58n177, 62

Vallisneri, Antonio (Ricovrati debate on women’s education), 19–20 Venice: center of theatrical publication, 7–8; female authors active in, 3, 5, 9, 18, 41, 46; illustrious citizens, 24, 26, 31; Ricovrati members, citizens of, 12, 16 Vita, attioni, miracoli, morte, resurrettione, et ascensione di Dio humanato (Bozi), 24, 44–45 Viviani, Vivian, 41, 43, 44 Volpi, Giovanni Antonio (Ricovrati debate on women’s education), 19–21 women’s education, 14, 15n64, 18–22