Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition (Volume 8) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [1 ed.] 0772720754, 9780772720757

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Valeria Miani

Celinda, A Tragedy Edite d by

Valeria Finucci

Tr an sl ate d by

Julia Kisacky

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 8

CELINDA, A TRAGEDY

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 8

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

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

Recent Publications in the Series 1 Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens 2009 2 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder 2009 3 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde 2010 4 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata 2010

5 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr 2010 6 Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Karen Simroth James Translated by Marta Rijn Finch 2010 7 Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Biligual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook 2010

Celinda, A Tragedy: A BILINGUAL EDITION VALERIA MIANI • Edited with an introduction by VALERIA FINUCCI Translated by JULIA KISACKY Annotated by VALERIA FINUCCI & JULIA KISACKY

Iter Inc. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Toronto 2010

Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance Tel: 416/978–7074 Fax: 416/978–1668 Email: [email protected] Web: www.itergateway.org CRRS Publications, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7 Canada Tel: 416/585–4465 Fax: 416/585–4430 Email: [email protected] Web: www.crrs.ca © 2010 Iter Inc. & the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies All Rights Reserved Printed in Canada Iter and the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation toward the publication of this book. Iter and the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies gratefully acknowledge the generous support of James E. Rabil, in memory of Scottie W. Rabil, toward the publication of this book. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Miani, Valeria Celinda : a tragedy : a bilingual edition / Valeria Miani ; edited and with an introduction by Valeria Finucci ; tranlated by Julia Kisacky ; annotated by Valeria Finucci & Julia Kisacky. (The other voice in early modern Europe : the Toronto series ; 8) Translation of the Italian play by the same title. Co-published by: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued also in electronic format. Text in Italian with English translation on facing pages. ISBN 978–07727–2075–7 I. Finucci, Valeria II. Kisacky, Julia, 1965– III. Victoria University (Toronto, Ont.). Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies IV. Iter Inc V. Title. VI. Series: Other voice in early modern Europe. Toronto series ; 8 PQ4630.M425C4513 2010 852’.5 C2010–905744–9 Cover illustration: Sofonisba Anguisciola (Anguissola), Portrait of a Young Woman The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum Cover design: Maureen Morin, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries Typesetting and production: Iter Inc.

Contents Acknowledgements

ix

Editor’s Introduction The Other Voice

1

Biography

7

Situating Miani’s Work: A Survey of Early Modern Drama Penned by Women

14

The Pastoral Play Amorosa Speranza

21

The Tragic Genre

25

Celinda: Structure and Themes

30

The Fortunes of Valeria Miani

49

Note on the Italian Text

51

Note on Transcription

52

Note on the Translation

53

Celinda, A Tragedy: Italian Text with English Translation on Facing Pages

55

Endnotes to the Translation

370

Editors’ Bibliography

391

Index

407

vii

Acknowledgements Editing and translating Valeria Miani’s Celinda has been a work of love and patience and we have incurred many debts throughout the years. Reconstructing the life and cultural world of a writer as unknown as Valeria Miani has meant innumerable trips to research libraries, continuous reliance on friends and colleagues who at times volunteered to go to archives to chase down documents, and some good luck. Valeria Finucci would like to thank first of all the institutions that have supported her research, in particular the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for Work on Venice and the Veneto, which awarded her a fellowship in 2005-06, and the Arts & Sciences Committee on Faculty Research at Duke University for a research grant in 2005. In Venice and Padua she relied on the superb guidance for things early modern of Marco Callegari, Elisabetta Graziosi, and Paola Modesti, and on the equally superb friendship of Luciano Donato, Annamaria Ferrarotti, Andrea Gallo, Maurizio Rippa-Bonati, and Valeria Tomasi. On this side of the Atlantic, she would like to thank Elizabeth Clark, Giuseppe Gerbino, Vicki Kirkham, and Rosa Maria Preparata. Special recognition goes to Katie Rees for generously sharing some of her research, to Virginia Cox for her wise advice, to the patient staff of the Biblioteca Civica in Padua, and to Michael Cornett for his skillful editing. Through the years Mark Sosower has been a most cherished interlocutor as well as a gracious host for Sunday dinners. His sudden death has left a void that still cannot be filled. This book is dedicated to him. Julia Kisacky would like to thank Valeria Finucci for another very congenial collaboration; the University of Chicago Library for the invaluable Italian Women Writers database; and the professors who nourished her initial enthusiasm for early modern Italian literature: Guido Guarino, David Marsh, and Laura Sanguineti White. As the Italian program at Baylor has grown, she has recalled, with warmth and ever-increasing admiration, Professor Ottavio Giorgio Renzi, whose humanity, skill as a teacher, and profound love of Italy drew her into Italian studies in the first place. This book is dedicated to him too. ix

x Special thanks are due to the anonymous reader for the press, whose gracious suggestions and editorial revisions have greatly spurred us to improve the manuscript. And last, but not least, we would like to thank Albert Rabil and Margaret King, who one day dreamed of being able to put together an intellectual genealogy au féminin, and thus of totally rewriting the Early Modern European canon. They actually did it—and keep doing it.

Valeria Miani and the Tragic Genre The Other Voice The dramatist and poet Valeria Miani (c. 1563–post 1620) is the author of the only tragedy penned by a woman writer in Italian before the eighteenth century, Celinda, published in 1611.1 Other women writers may have written tragedies in the early modern period, but they were not sent to press and no manuscript has yet surfaced. Miani is also the author of a pastoral play, Amorosa speranza (Loving Hope), printed in 1604, which makes her chronologically the third early modern published female author in Italy to tackle the new, and soon extremely popular, genre of the pastoral.2 In addition to the two works above, Miani published some poems here and there: two songs and a sonnet in a collection of 1609 entitled Polinnia;3 two epigrams in a collection of the same year by Ercole Manzoni entitled Amorosi spirti;4 and a “moral” madrigal in a collection of 1611 by the Accademici Orditi, entitled Gareggiamento poetico.5 She also wrote a religious 1. Valeria Miani, Celinda, tragedia di Valeria Miani dedicata alla Serenissima Madamma Eleonora Medici Gonzaga, duchessa di Mantova, et di Monferrato (Vicenza: Appresso Francesco Bolzetta libraro in Padova, 1611; and Vicenza: Appresso Domenico Amadio, 1611. 2. Valeria Miani, Amorosa speranza, favola pastorale della molto mag[nifi]ca signora Valeria Miani (Venice: Per Francesco Bolzetta, 1604). 3. Polinnia, per l’ Illustrissimo Signor Tommaso Contarini Cavaliere Conte del Zaffo, e Podestà di Padova, ed. Martino Sandelli [?] (Padua: Bolzetta, 1609). Pages are unnumbered; works are in Italian and Latin. The editor’s name does not appear in the text but Marco Callegari thinks that the idea of the collection came from Francesco Bolzetta, a well-known bookseller in Padua, who asked the priest Martino Sandelli to collect poems to honor Podestà Contarini. See Dal torchio del tipografo al banco del libraio: Stampatori, editori e librai a Padova dal XV al XVIII secolo (Padua: Il Prato, 2002), 49. 4. Ercole Manzoni, Amorosi spirti. Seconda parte de madrigali di Ercole Manzoni, estense, filosofo, medico e cavaliere veneto (Padua: Pasquati, 1609). Pages are unnumbered. Manzoni was connected with the world of theater and with both male and female musicians and singers. 5. Confuso Accademico Ordito, Il Gareggiamento Poetico del Confuso Accademico Ordito. Madrigali amorosi, gravi e piacevoli ne’ quali si vede il bello, il leggiadro, e il vivace dei più illustri poeti d’Italia, 3 vols. (Venice: Barezzi, 1611). Still, even in the very book in which her poetry was published, Miani is referred to nonchalantly and imprecisely as “Valeria Maria.”

1

2 Editor’s Introduction madrigal, now in a collection of 1613 by Leonardo Sanudo, and works that have been lost, including at least two comedies mentioned by a contemporary city historian, an oration for which she became first known at age eighteen, and a book of poetry that the poet and critic Giovan Maria Crescimbeni, a founder of the Accademia dell’ Arcadia in 1690, attributes to her.6 Miani’s publishing career thus lasted a few years, but her intellectual pursuits, which place her consistently in Padua, predated her first publication by more than two decades. Miani is the product of an extraordinary period of creativity by a number of women writers who were lucky enough to be born in Venice and the territories under the Serenissima’s rule (Padua, Vicenza, Rovigo) and work in the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. As the most recent scholarship reveals, these women were able to compose in all the different genres that defined the Italian Renaissance: poetry, philosophical prose, novella, romance, chivalric romance, epic, comedy, tragedy, pastoral, and musical composition. They even wrote pharmacopoeial treatises and engaged in scientific disquisitions, thus demonstrating once and for all that women who set their minds to producing intellectual work could in fact do so. But all too typically most women writers could not singlemindedly pursue their careers, for unlike what we see in most wellchronicled male professions, women’s literary productivity has often Giovan Maria Crescimbeni corrects this: “Valeria Miani Padovana, wrongly called Valeria Maria in the Gareggiamento Poetico.” See his L’Istoria della volgar poesia scritta da Giovan Maria Crescimbeni (1698; Rome: Stamperia Antonio de’ Rossi, 1714), 438. Unless otherwise noted, translations from Italian, here and throughout, are my own. Similarly, the Paduan Giulia Bigolina, who authored a prose romance and some novellas in an earlier generation, was referred to simply as “Giulia Padovana” in Pietro Paolo Ribera, Le glorie immortali de’ Trionfi, et heroiche imprese d’ ottocento quarantacinque Donne illustri antiche, e moderne, dotate di conditioni, e scienze segnalate: cioè in sacra scrittura, teologia, profetia, filosofia, retorica, gramatica, medicina, astrologia, leggi civili, pittura, musica, armi, et in altre virtù principali (Venice: Evangelista Deuchino, 1609), 287. 6. Leonardo Sanudo, ed., Vita, attioni, miracoli, morte, resurrettione, et ascensione di Dio humano, raccolti … in versi lirici da ‘ più famosi Autori de questo secolo (Venice: Santo Grillo e fratelli, 1613). I thank Virginia Cox for this reference. Crescimbeni, L’Istoria della volgar poesia, 438–39: “By her [Miani] we have a volume of poetry, a pastoral play entitled L’ Amorosa speranza, and a tragedy entitled La Celinda.”

Editor’s Introduction 3 been interrupted by biological destiny and social circumstances. Of course, there are the dramatic cases of early modern women writers who died in the Veneto during that most feminine job of childbirth, such as Moderata Fonte and Isabella Andreini, but I am thinking of more prosaic circumstances that forced women to put down their pens: the eventuality of marriage chiefly (Lucrezia Marinella, for example, stopped writing at least ten years during her marriage) or a sudden widowhood. In the case of Valeria Miani, following the death of her husband one or two years after the publication of Celinda she was left with five children to raise and a small property to live on and run. As mentioned above, she published no more. Most of these early modern women writers came from the upper middle class or the lower nobility, for writing required some humanist learning, whether acquired through a private tutor or through a connection to a university or academic environment by way of relatives. Lower class women with a sharp mind willing to sell entertainment and sex to the Venetian male nobility and clergy, such as the talented “honest” courtesans (“cortigiane oneste”), could toil to gain a refined taste and thereby enhance their chances for a better life. The list of Veneto women writers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is surprisingly long and growing by the day as more are discovered: Giulia Bigolina (c. 1518–1569) wrote novellas and prose romances; Gaspara Stampa (c. 1523–1554), Veronica Franco (1546–1591), Sara Copio Sullam (c. 1590–1640), and Veneranda Bragadin (c. 1566–post 1619) wrote poetry; Isabella Andreini (1562–1604), Maddalena Campiglia (1553–1595), and Miani herself wrote pastoral comedies; Moderata Fonte (1555–1592) and Lucrezia Marinella (1571–1653) wrote chivalric romances, polemical treatises on the worth or excellence of women, religious plays, and pastoral romances.7 And then there are less-known cases, such as that of Issicratea Monte (c. 1562–1584), a poet who died way too young, or the scientist Camilla Herculiana, who worked in Padua at the Pharmacy of the Three Stars, or the alchemist and cosmetician Isabella Cortese, 7. Many of these writers have appeared or are going to appear in The Other Voice series. Further information on individual authors can be found in the text or notes below. For a study of their writings, see Virginia Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

4 Editor’s Introduction who saw her book on obstetrics and “women’s secrets” become an often reprinted bestseller.8 Many of these women knew each other and drew inspiration from the others’ work, for the success of one motivated another to strive for the same. Miani perhaps would not have written her Amorosa speranza were it not for the earlier examples of Andreini and Campiglia, whose pastorals, respectively La Mirtilla and Flori, came out in 1588. Likewise, she perhaps would not have chosen Duchess Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga as the dedicatee of her Celinda if Marinella, who was living in Padua in those very years, had not recently dedicated her Arcadia felice to the duchess.9 All these women writers also had the opportunity to congregate with talented men, whether members of their own family, affiliates of local academies, or simply fellow patrons of bookshops, for in the absence of cafés or even public libraries, bookshops were the de facto meeting places of educated locals as well as foreigners. Venice had chosen Padua as the site for the Republic’s flagship university and had heavily invested in the enterprise by appointing well-known professors, thus providing the city with a vigorous intellectual community. Galileo Galilei and Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, for example, were on the faculty at the time of Miani’s writing. As a result, Padua hosted an international community of university students coming from abroad, mostly from Germany, but French students came, too, escaping the aftermath of the St. Bartholomew’s slaughter, as well 8. On Issicratea Monte, see Marisa Milani, “Quattro donne fra i pavani,” Museum Patavinum 1 (1983): 387–412, and below. The apothecary Camilla Herculiana published Lettere di philosophia naturale (Cracow: Stamperia di Lazaro, 1584), dedicated to the queen of Poland. There she complained that much of her written work had been stolen by a male colleague and published under another name. As with Cortese, we do not know her dates of birth and death. Cortese’s book, I secreti della signora Isabella Cortese (Venice: Bariletto, 1561), is dedicated to the archdeacon of Ragusa in Dalmatia. Some interesting scientific digressions are also present in Book 2 of Moderata Fonte’s The Worth of Women, ed. and trans. by Virginia Cox, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (1600; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997). It is also worth mentioning two female Veneto painters in this list, such as the Paduan Chiara Varotari (1584–c.1663), sister of the well-known painter Padovanino, who specialized in portraits, and the Venetian Marietta Robusti, JacopoTintoretto’s natural daughter (c. 1560–1590). 9. Susan Haskins has recently established that Marinella moved from Venice to Padua for a while upon her marriage in 1607. See her “Vexatious Litigant, or the Case of Lucrezia Marinella? (Part 2),” Nouvelles de la République des Lettres 1–2 (2007): 203–30.

Editor’s Introduction 5 as English and Polish students. And then there were intellectual tourists, like Philip Sidney and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who came down from Venice regularly to bask in Padua’s scholarly vitality. Visiting the city in 1608 Thomas Coryate made his first item of business a stop in a bookshop.10 The most important publisher and bookseller in Padua at the turn of the sixteenth century was Miani’s editor and friend, Francesco Bolzetta, who promoted both scientific and literary authors, especially those connected to the university.11 As for the academies, it was difficult for women to belong officially to one in Italy, but the university environment of a place like Padua may have fostered informal participation.12 For example, in the public gatherings of the Accademia de’ Ricovrati, founded in 1599 and which had among its members Galilei, women were invited, music was played 10. Coryate recounts that he met in this bookshop a young Italian so learned that he could even converse in Hebrew. See Michael Strachan, The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 37. For a reconstruction of the life and culture of Padua at the time, see Valeria Finucci, “Intellectual Tourism in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy: Costume and Manners in Venice and Padua,” in Mores Italiae: Costumi e scene di vita nel Rinascimento // Mores Italiae: Costume and Life in the Renaissance, ed. Maurizio Rippa Bonati and Valeria Finucci (Cittadella: Biblos, 2007), 37–77. 11. Bolzetta had two centrally located bookshops in Padua but did not have his own print shop. Instead, he relied on printers in Padua (Pasquati), Vicenza (Amadio), and Venice (Francesco de’ Franceschi). He published the medical works of Girolamo Fabrici, Prospero Alpini, and Fortunio Liceti. He also published Torquato Tasso’s epic Il Goffredo (1616). For the editorial activity of Bolzetta in Padua, see Callegari, Dal torchio del tipografo al banco del libraio, 45–55. Miani’s cooperation with Bolzetta echoes that of Lucrezia Marinella in Venice in those very years with the editor Ciotti, the publisher of Venetian academicians. See Stephen Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, Giuseppe Passi: An Early Seventeenth Century Feminist Controversy,” Modern Language Review 96 (2001): 973–89, at 977. 12. On the almost nonexistent formal presence of women in literary academies, see Conor Fahy, “Women and Italian Cinquecento Literary Academies,” in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. Letizia Panizza (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000), 438–52. But Tarquinia Molza became a member of the academy in Modena, Isabella Andreini was made a member of the Accademia degli Intenti in Pavia in 1601 and was given an honorary degree, Laura Battiferra had a formal link with the Accademia degli Intronati in Siena, and Laura Terracina with the Incogniti in Naples. Veronica Gambara was associated informally with the Accademia Corregiana. See Michele Maylander, Storia delle Accademie d’Italia, 5 vols. (Bologna: Capelli, 1926–30), 3:296 and 320. Veronica Franco and Gaspara Stampa seem to have also been informally associated with the Accademia della Fama, led by Domenico Venier in Venice. See Maylander, Storia, 5:446.

6 Editor’s Introduction between discussions, and refreshments and dances for the academicians and their guests often followed.13 Many of the academic discussions at the time of Miani’s writing were related to theater, for literary theorists were passionately arguing the merits of the “ancients” versus the “moderns.” Some of the hottest debates were notoriously taking place between the defenders and the accusers of Padua’s native son, Sperone Speroni, regarding his choices of plot and verse in his controversial play Canace, composed on the model of Seneca’s ancient Roman tragedy.14 Also at the core of the controversy between “ancient” and “modern” literary forms was the new genre of the pastoral, namely, Giambattista Guarini’s Il pastor fido, as well as the issues of contamination, decorum, and ethics surrounding the reception of this hybrid theatrical piece.15 Consider13. See Attilio Maggiolo, I soci dell’accademia patavina dalla sua fondazione (1599) (Padua: Accademia Patavina di Lettere, Scienze ed Arti, 1983), 10. On the Ricovrati, see Dall’ Accademia dei Ricovrati all’Accademia Galileiana, ed. Ezio Riondato (Padua: Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2001). A list of Ricovrati members shows that Miani may have known quite a few of them, from Tommaso Contarini, to whom is dedicated the collection Polinnia in which her poetry is printed, to Francesco Contarini, the author of La finta Fiammetta, of whom more later, and finally to Ottonello Descalzi, a founding member of the academy and husband of the woman to whom she dedicated her Amorosa speranza. The Ricovrati admitted some women in the seventeenth century, such as Madeleine de Scudery and the Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman ever to graduate from a European university. 14. Sperone Speroni’s Canace (1546) was reprinted in Venice by Giovani Alberti in 1587 in a much talked about revised version, Canace tragedia del sig. Sperone Speroni alla quale sono aggiunte alcune altre sue compositioni e una apologia e alcune altre lettioni, sporting a finished prologue, a new division into acts and scenes, a partial chorus, and also for the first time Speroni’s own Apologia contra il Giudicio fatto sopra la Canace. This is a short and incomplete defense against the detractors of his tragedy in which Speroni defended his selections. Faustino Summo, an Aristotelian professor of logic in Padua and a member of the Accademia de’ Ricovrati, undertook the defense of Speroni, although he also objected to a number of Speroni’s assertions as not sufficiently Aristotelian, in Due discorsi l’uno intorno al contrasto tra il signor Speron Speroni et il giudicio stampato contra la sua tragedia di Canace e di Macareo et l’altro della nobilta dell’eccellente signor Faustino Summo padovano (Padua: Meietti, 1590). 15. Giambattista Guarini, Il pastor fido (Venice: Ciotti, 1602). The author read his play in the house of the nobleman Zabarella in Padua around 1590. Summo wrote against the new genres of tragicomedy and pastoral in Due discorsi di Faustino Summo padovano, l’uno contra le tragicomedie et moderne pastorali, l’altro particolarmente contra il Pastor Fido dell’ill.re sig.

Editor’s Introduction 7 ing that the majority of plays at the time were written and published in the area of Venice, Padua, and Vicenza (there were 450 printers, publishers, booksellers, and print-dealers in the Veneto area alone in the sixteenth century), intellectuals in this area, within and outside the university and the academies, were keen to debate the formal aesthetics of plays and how they should be staged.16 It is quite likely that a woman dramatist like Miani would not have had the same chance elsewhere to think critically, compose, and publish for the stage.

Biography According to the few historians who mention her, Valeria Miani was born, probably in Padua, around the year 1563. She is first mentioned for an oration she gave in 1581 at age eighteen for the festive pageantry that accompanied the visit to Padua of Dowager Empress Maria, widow of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II von Habsburg and daughter of Charles V, who was passing through the city on her way to Portugal, where her son, Rudolf II, was to take the crown.17 It was not unusual for women of an educated family background to be chosen by local authorities to deliver orations in honor of noble figures, Cavaliere Battista Guarini (Padua/Vicenza: Bolzetta, 1601). For the controversies in Padua, see Giancarlo Cavazzini, “Padova e Guarini: la Poetica di Aristotele nella teoria drammaturgica prebarocca,” in Il diletto della scena e dell’ armonia: Teatro e musica nelle Venezie dal Cinquecento al Settecento, ed. Ivano Cavallini (Rovigo: Minelliana, 1990), 137–88. See also Lisa Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: The Making of a New Genre (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2006), 134–40; and more generally, Daniel Javitch, “The Emergence of Poetic Genre Theory in the Cinquecento,” Modern Language Quarterly 59 (1998): 139–69. 16. On the array of Veneto presses and editors, see Ester Pastorello, Tipografi, editori, librai a Venezia nel secolo XVI (Florence: Olschki, 1924). For the specific case of Padua, see Marco Callegari, Dal torchio del tipografo al banco del libraio. 17. See Ribera, Le glorie immortali de’ Trionfi, 335: “In the year 1581, as Empress Maria (who was the wife of Maximilian II and the mother of Rudolf, current Emperor) passed through Italy as she was called to Spain by King Philip to govern Portugal, she came to the Paduan region and a young woman of eighteen with a most noble talent, Valeria, daughter of Achille Miniani [sic], a lawyer, recited in her honor an oration which received plenty of applause from the listeners, considering also her sex and her age.” I have found no printed record of Miani’s speech. For more on this event, see Anton Bonaventura Sberti, Degli spettacoli e delle feste che si facevano in Padova (Padua: Cesare, 1818), 134. Sberti does not mention Miani.

8 Editor’s Introduction especially female ones. We know of another seventeen-year-old poet, for example, Issicratea Monte, who delivered a moral speech on the same occasion as Miani and later published it.18 The name “Miani” is usually connected with Venice, for the Miani are listed in the Golden Book of 1298, and the family gave Venice more than one doge.19 Its Paduan branch is named twice in the 1590s by an unknown historian in a chronological compilation of noble and middle class families (“nobili … et … civili famiglie”) living in Padua. The Miani, he wrote, had inherited wealth (“beni di fortuna”).20 More specific information is contained in the chronicles of February 1598 of a respected Paduan historian, Cesare Padoano. As he wrote in his Cronichetta, They [the Miani], I believe, were once administering the property or living in the house of the noble Venetian family of Miani, although now they live by their means and also rent out to students. One of them is 18. Issicratea Monte’s oration was published in Dell’orazzioni di diversi huomini illustri (Padua: Paolo Meietto, 1581). Monte also read another oration three years earlier, when she was fourteen, in front of the doge, Sebastiano Venier. See Seconda oratione di Mad. Issicratea Monte Rodigiana nella congratulatione dell’Invitiss. et Sereniss. Principe di Venetia Sebastiano Veniero, da lei propria recitata nell’Illustriss. et Eccellentiss. Collegio à Sua Serenità (Venice: Guerra, 1578). Moderata Fonte also had a dramatic dialogue performed in front of doge Nicolò da Ponte in 1581, when she was twenty-six. See Le Feste. Rappresentazione avanti al Serenissimo Prencipe di Venetia Nicolò Da Ponte, il giorno di Santo Stefano 1581 (Venice: Guerra, 1581), soon to be available in a modern edition by Courtney Quaintance. A generation earlier, in 1556, another woman writer, Cassandra Fedele, was asked to deliver an oration in honor of the queen of Poland, Bona Sforza, who was passing through Venice on her way to Abano to address health issues. Even earlier in the 1440s, Costanza Varano spoke in honor of Bianca Maria Visconti. 19. See Marco Barbaro, Arboro de’ patritii veneti, Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter ASV), Misc. Codici, s.1: Storia Veneta, at 21. 20. Historia cronologica delle cose antiche di Padova et delle famiglie nobili di essa et di molte altre civili famiglie, da incerto autore composta intorno l’ anno 1598 et fedelmente trascritta da Vincenzo abb. Zacco I. C. figlio del qm. Bartolomeo nell’ anno 1694, Biblioteca Civica di Padova (hereafter BCP), BP 250, at 328. Another contemporary Paduan historian, Cesare Malfatti, briefly mentions the Miani family in Descrittione particolare della città di Padoa et del territorio padoano con la descritione in brevità di famiglie di gentiluomini kora fioriscono in detta città … , in BCP, BP 1352, II, at 42.

Editor’s Introduction 9 a lawyer; he teaches and also houses students. There is also a son, a priest and doctor of philosophy, and a daughter named Isabella, a very learned woman. She has sent to print a pastoral entitled L’ amorosa speranza and is composing a tragedy and two comedies. She will compose more if God grants her life.21 Here Miani is called Isabella and not Valeria, which I will come to below. But all other information given by Padoano corroborates what we know about Miani from a variety of sources. Her father, Vidal (Vitale) Miani (or Emiliani, in its latinate spelling) was called “dottore” in the marriage certificate of his daughter Valeria and was listed as living in Padua in the parish of San Tomìo, which is close to the heart of the university and to the grandiose, Mantegna-frescoed Church of the Eremitani.22 As Padoano wrote, Vidal made money practicing law and teaching it, as well as by housing stu21. “Questi credo che siano stati o Gastaldi o habitatori delli Miani Nobili veneziani, basta si come si voglia ora vivono vita civile delle loro rendite, et anco del tenir scolla e dozenanti, essendovi uno di loro dottore di legge tiene scholla, e li dozenanti; ha uno figliuolo prete e dottore in filosofia, et una figliola nominata Isabella donna molto letterata. Ha mandato in stampa una Pastorale chiamata L’ Amorosa speranza, compone una tragedia, et doi commedie, et altre opere componerà se Dio le darà vita.” In Cesare Padoano, Cronichetta, overo Epitome delle famiglie che hora sono nella città di Padoa, composta da me Cesare Padoano di famiglia Nobile, composta qui in Padoa questo anno della Salute nostra 1598, 24 febraro. In casa mia a Santa Sofia io scrissi, BCP, BP 1239, 15, no page number. The information is in a chapter entitled “Casate o Famiglie de Padoani honorati, non pervenute ancora al grado dell’ antidette [nobili]: vero è, che ve ne potrebbero essere dell’altre, che io non le sappi, però se qui non saranno, questo non sarà per malignità, ma per non le saper tutte.” 22. Ribera is wrong in identifying Miani’s father as Achille, a lawyer (“dottore di legge”) from Bologna (see earlier note), but Miani herself has since appeared in biographies of Bolognese writers. In recording women’s work of the past, for example, Sarah Josepha Hale lists Miani together with three other Bolognese women intellectuals as having “achieved that difficulty some male skeptics arrogantly refuse to feminine capacity—a successful tragedy.” In Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman’s Record: Sketches of All Distinguished Women from the Beginning Till A.D. 1850 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853), 209. Miani’s name also appears in compilations of Bolognese writers, such as in Antonio Pellegrino Orlandi’s Notizie degli scrittori bolognesi e dell’opere loro stampate e manoscritte (Bologna: Pisarri, 1714), 255; and Giovanni Fantuzzi’s Notizie degli scrittori bolognesi raccolte da Giovanni Fantuzzi (Bologna: Stamperia d’Aquino, 1788), 17–18.

10 Editor’s Introduction dents enrolled as Legisti in the Paduan “Studio.”23 Galilei too housed students in those very years and in the same city, and we know that the practice was widespread. In this educated environment, it would not be out of the ordinary for a family to have a son with a degree and a daughter composing literary work.24 There were, moreover, other intellectuals in the Miani family at large, more or less of Valeria’s age, to judge from the time of publication of their works, such as Giovanni Luigi Miani, “a poet like Valeria,” in the words of the Paduan biographer Giuseppe Vedova,25 and Giovanni Alvise Miani, a published playwright.26 At thirty years old, quite late for a woman of her time, Miani married Domenico (Menego) Negri (the name is also variously spelled de’ Negri or Neri).27 The date was September 22, 1593, and the wedding took place at the Eremitani, after an original marriage 23. Vidal Miani did some work as a lawyer (he is referred to as “Ch.mo Avogador”) for the confraternity of L’ Annunziata dell’ Arena (which was lodged close to the Church of the Eremitani, and thus close to the Miani) in 1578–79. See Archivio di Stato di Padova (herafter ASP), Scuole Religiose: Annunziata dell’Arena, vol. 5, fols. 145r–146v. I thank Katie Rees for this reference. 24. There were perhaps other children in the family, beyond Valeria and her brother. Padoano does not name them, because they were not living at the time in Vidal Miani’s home, but given that the son mentioned is a priest, there was probably another son not connected to the clergy in charge of continuing the family line and (perhaps) the father’s profession. Katie Rees has also found a daughter, Cornelia, who in May 6, 1615, filed a tax return (a short one in which she appears far from rich). In ASP, Estimi (year 1615), vol. 37, no. 3343. 25. Giuseppe Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, 2 vols. (Padua: Coi Tipi della Minerva, 1832), 1:602. Giovanni Luigi Miani edited a collection of poems, Poesie varie di gravissimi autori raccolte dal Sig. G. Luigi Miani (Padua: Martini, 1619), which includes poems of a number of friends of Valeria. Some of them show a link between the author and the theatrical world, such as a sonnet to honor an actress, “Alla Sig. Delia Comica,” and a sonnet to a singer turned nun, “Bella cantatrice eletta monaca.” 26. Giovanni Alvise Miani published La prigione (Padua, n.p., 1618) and La fama (Padua, n.p., 1624). He also appears in a collection of poems, L’urna d’oro colma delle sovr’humane lodi delli Ill.mi Rettori di Padova i signori Gio. Batt.a Foscarino et Antonio Barbaro (Padua: Trivellari, 1614). I have been unable to establish a clear relationship between either Alvise or Luigi Miani and the writer Valeria. 27. The marriageable age for women of similar background in the Veneto area at the time was around sixteen to eighteen. Other women writers also married late: Fonte was twentyeight and Marinella thirty-five.

Editor’s Introduction 11 contract was signed in Venice, the groom’s city of origin.28 The Negri were from the nobility and were well connected to the university; there was also a playwright in the family, Marin Negro, who earlier had published an important polyglot comedy, La Pace.29 Domenico was still alive in 1612 when he is mentioned together with Valeria in a power of attorney document (procura) on behalf of his daughter Isabella. The address of the couple is given as near the Ponte Pidocchioso, a neighborhood close to Miani’s childhood home.30 But by 1614 he is listed as quondam (dead) in a deed in which provisions are made, perhaps in place of a will, for his daughters’ dowries.31 The couple had three daughters, Lucretia, Isabella, and Isabetta, and two sons, Giulio and Anzolo, but without more precise documentation we do not know whether all these children were from the couple’s marriage 28. Katie Rees has found the marriage certificate among the documents regarding the parish of San Tomìo. See Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile di Padova, Parocchia S. Tomìo: Matrimonii, 1582–1606, ad vocem. Domenico’s father, Gasparo, may have also been a lawyer, like Miani’s father. A Gasparo Negro, who may or may not be the same person, is in fact mentioned as having matriculated in law in Padua in 1546. See Angelo Portenari, Della felicità di Padova. Libri Nove. (Padua: Tozzi, 1623), Bk. 7, ad vocem. 29. Marin Negro, La Pace. Commedia non meno piacevole che ridicolosa (1561; Venice: Cornetti, 1584). There is also an Antonio Negro, a university doctor created knight and count by Pope Clement VIII when he worked in Rome. He was also a member of the Accademia de’ Ricovrati and of the Accademia Delia in Padua. See Maggiolo, I soci dell’accademia patavina dalla sua fondazione, 218. The family name Negri appears in the Consiglio Nobile in Padua. See Giovanni Battista Di Crollalanza, Dizionario storico-blasonico delle famiglie nobili e notabili italiane estinte e fiorenti, 3 vols. (Bologna: Forni, 1965), ad vocem. A Domenico Negri performed as an actor in the Compagnia degli Uniti under the stage name of Curzio in places like Mantua and Milan, and was active between the years 1614 and 1634. Domenico played with the famous actress Virginia Rotari at the Gonzaga court in Mantua on June 6, 1611 (a month before Valeria Miani sent her Celinda to her dedicatee, Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga). See Comici dell’ Arte. Corrispondenze: G. B. Andreini, N. Barbieri, P. M. Cecchini, S. Fiorillo, T. Martinelli, F. Scala, ed. Claudia Burattelli, Domenica Landolfi, and Anna Zinanni (Florence: Le Lettere, 1993), 52. 30. ASP, Archivio Notarile, 4352, fol. 96r–v. The Ponte Pidocchioso area (“Pontis Pidochiolii”) is in the heart of the university, near the church of Santa Sofia. See Giovanni Saggioli, Padova nella storia delle sue strade (Padua: Piazzon, 1972), 272–73. 31. In the document his daughter Lucretia is referred to as “figlia del q. Menego Negro e consorte di s. Zuane.” In ASP, Archivio Notarile, 3140 (Sardini), fol. 320r. I thank Katie Lees for alerting me to this document. Since the procura is made in Lucretia’s name, she may have been the couple’s oldest daughter.

12 Editor’s Introduction or from previous relationships.32 In any case, daughter Isabella was born in 1598 (the time in which Padoano had written about the Miani’s household and had mentioned a woman writer named Isabella, apparently confusing the names of mother and newborn daughter). We know this from her death certificate on August 31, 1618: “Signora Isabella, daughter of signora Valeria de’ Negri, twenty years old, having been sick for the last six months and consumed by high fever, died tonight in the Parish of San Lunario, being visited by the Most Excellent Vigonza.”33 Isabella left a daughter, Massimila, for whom Valeria cared for a couple of years and who was subsequently placed in the Convent of Santa Sofia in Padua (thus close to Miani’s home) until it was time for her either to marry or enter a convent. As we read in a document of February 12, 1620, if Masimila chose to marry in due time, Valeria was to provide for some of her dowry; if she chose to become a nun instead, her father alone, the nobleman Giulio Noale, would have been in charge of the smaller dowry traditionally paid before entering a convent.34 Although we do not know when Valeria died or whether she died in Padua, we know from the eighteenth-century critic Francesco Saverio Quadrio that she may have spent part of her life in a wellknown vacation spot and farming community named “Carpi.” This can be gathered from a letter of presentation for her play, Celinda, to her dedicatee sent from there. In the early modern period this village, once referred to as Carpi Veneziana and now as Villa Bartolomea, sported a number of country estates owned by Venetian and Paduan families like the San Bonifacio, the Barbarigo, the dal Verme, and the Donà delle Rose, who built their terraferma palaces in the area. Miani may either have had a house in Carpi or may have been a guest of 32. For Isabella, Giulio, and Anzolo, see ASP, Archivio Notarile, 1717, fol. 416r–v; for Lucretia, see ASP, Archivio Notarile, 3140, fol, 320r. 33. ASP, Ufficio di Sanità, Busta 467, Registro dei morti (1598–1618), sub indice. I thank Marco Callegari for help in locating this document. The registers of births and deaths of the parish of San Lunario (or Lunardo/Leonardo) in the archbishopry of Padua, which could have offered more crucial biographical information on the family, start unfortunately later in the century. The parish was next door to that of San Tomìo, where the Miani originally lived. 34. ASP, Archivio Notarile, 1716, fol. 416r–v. Isabella may not have married Giulio, for he is not mentioned in her death certificate as her husband. Also Masimila is referred in the later document as Valeria’s “mezza figlia naturale.” I thank Katie Rees for this reference.

Editor’s Introduction 13 noble friends summering in the area.35 Her Amorosa speranza and Celinda contain clues suggesting that both plays were staged more or less in the area, the first along a canal not far from Padua (Carpi lies one hour south of the town along La Chirola, a tributary of the large river Adige), and the second in the Euganean Hills, also south of Padua and a favorite spot of Petrarch. Entertainment connected to reading aloud, recitations, singing, performances, or a wedding banquet (the case of Amorosa speranza) was an anticipated feature of the weeks the nobility spent leisurely in villa. The famous eighteenth-century Venetian writer Carlo Goldoni, for example, was for many summers a guest of the aristocracy in countryside villas around Padua and had his comedies performed there in makeshift halls and gardens. The practice of musical and dramatic entertainment in country houses (especially with pastorals, which were often acted by the nobility itself), was so widespread both inside and outside Italy as to become almost a central feature of summertime.36 35. Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Della storia e della ragione d’ogni poesia, 7 vols. (Milan: Agnelli, 1739–52), 1:78. The letter has not surfaced. Carpi Veneziana sits between the southern border of the province of Padua and the northern one of Rovigo (now it is part of the province of Verona). Today the Villa Ghedini/Panziera, built between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, that is, during Miani’s possible sojourn there, is all that remains of the original “insula Carpi,” but its main church still has a painting by Palma il Giovane testifying to the town’s Venetian connections. Parish documents of birth and death of Villa Bartolomea prior to 1630 were burned during that year’s plague; therefore, we do not have any archival information on the Miani/Negri, but the name Negri is still present in the area. For more on Carpi, see Piergiovanni Mometto, L’ azienda agricola Barbarigo a Carpi (Venice: Il Cardo, 1992). I would like to thank Renato Altobello of the Biblioteca Comunale of Villa Bartolomea and Valeria Tomasi for their help in navigating the history of Carpi Veneziana. According to the historian Fra’ Tornini da Carpi, Quadrio must have referred to this Venetian Carpi rather than to the more famous Carpi in the province of Modena, whose history he was writing down, because Miani did not die there, he argued, and the names of Miani and Negri did not appear anywhere in the province. See Rappresentanti della città di Carpi, in Archivio Storico di Carpi, Archivio Guaitoli, Filza 246, 3 vols., 2:294. I would like to thank Lucia Armentano of the Archives of the Civic Library in Carpi for this information. The misidentification of the real “Carpi” may be another reason, besides the identification of her father as a lawyer from Bologna, for why the name Miani appears in lists of Bolognese writers, for Carpi is not far from Bologna. 36. For a similar avenue open to women dramatists in England, see Marion Wynne-Davies, “‘My Seeled Chamber and Dark Parlor Room’: The English Country House and Renaissance Women Dramatists,” in Readings in Renaissance Women’s Drama: Criticism, History and Per-

14 Editor’s Introduction

Situating Miani’s Work: A Survey of Early Modern Drama Penned by Women It would be an understatement to say that the panorama of the Italian stage toward the end of the sixteenth century was complicated, for not only was there an unprecedented flourishing of hybrid genres, but there was also confusion about how to name them and what the difference in naming really meant. Canonical tragedies and comedies in five acts were often supplanted by an array of new forms, some of which soon disappeared. Tragicomedies (that is, tragedies with a happy ending), rustic plays, eclogues, tragic and heroic operas, satyric drama, musical comedies, pastoral drama, mythological and maritime fables, sacred representations, and moral plays constitute just some of the ephemeral terms referring to this crowd of performances.37 Some cross-mixtures offered music, ballets, and intermezzi; others presented only discursive texts. In this panorama, two genres proved particularly difficult for women writers to produce, comedy and tragedy, while the pastoral was much less problematic for them to craft. In comedy, the public’s preference for marriage plots meant that playwrights had to present some sort of sentimental, and later sexual, liason for their young female characters, and some transgression of paternal authority that could eventually be redressed and accommodated through a marriage. This proved challenging for women writers, for their output, whatever the content, was inevitably read autobiographically. Moreover, the preference at the time for staging in the open air, often in well traveled piazzas, spelled problems for formance, 1594–1998, ed. S. P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies (London: Routledge, 1998), 60–68. Sampson also cites performances by noble ladies in Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy, 105–06. 37. On the mixing of genres, see Bernard Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 2:679–84. The librettist and poet Ottavio Rinuccini called his La Dafne (Florence: Marescotti, 1600) a pastoral fable, and his Euridice (Florence: Giunti, 1600) a tragedy. Now we call them both operas and wonder whether there is a real difference in genre between the two. I use “genres” in a fluid sense, as having the property of “stackability, switchability, scalability, … for they too can be layered on one another, flipped back and forth, maximized or minimized, with chance associations.” See Wai Chee Dimock, “Introduction: Genres as Fields of Knowledge,” PMLA 122.5 (2007), 1377–88, at 1379.

Editor’s Introduction 15 authors planning on showcasing women, because there were few plausible reasons for marriageable women to be caught, hopefully alone, outside their own homes. This often translated into plots involving women’s (and men’s) cross-dressing, or plots that gave a larger emphasis to older women and bawdy female servants.38 It comes as no surprise then that when actresses began to appear on stage (sometime in the 1560s) and women writers started to publish plays (in the late 1580s), suddenly a new prop became all the rage: the window, because this allowed “innocent” inamoratas, and thus young and realistically playable women, to renegotiate their place in society and further their causes directly on stage. It also allowed professional actresses of the newly fashionable Commedia dell’Arte companies to play them.39 The earliest known actresses, such as Vincenza Armani and Flaminia Romana, were celebrated for their stagecraft whether dressed as women or cross-dressed as men. Half the city of Mantua, we are told, showed up in 1567 to see Flaminia playing the role of Marganorre’s daughterin-law from Ariosto’s chivalric romance, Orlando furioso.40 For her 38. To limit myself to two cases, Ludovico Ariosto’s La Lena (Venice: Sessa, 1533) is titled after the old go-between Lena; in Nicolò Machiavelli’s Clizia (Florence: Giunta, 1548), the young woman Clizia never even appears on stage. 39. For the role of windows in developing parts for women, see Jane Tylus, “Women at the Windows: Commedia dell’ Arte and Theatrical Practice in Early Modern Italy,” Theatre Journal 49.3 (1997): 323–42. On the social difficulties accompanying women’s desire to perform, see Bernadette Majorana, “Finzioni, imitazioni, azioni: donne e teatro,” in Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII secolo: Studi e testi a stampa, ed. Gabriella Zarri (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1996), 121–39. More generally on Commedia dell’Arte and early modern actresses on stage, see Robert Henke, Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell’Arte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 85–105; Richard Andrews, “Isabella Andreini and Others: Women on Stage in the Late Cinquecento,” in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society, ed. Panizza, 316–33; Richard Andrews, Scripts and Scenarios: The Performance of Comedy in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); and Pamela Brown, “The Counterfeit Innamorata or the Diva Vanishes,” Shakespeare Yearbook 10 (1999): 402–26. 40. Letter of Luigi Rogna, court secretary in the Gonzaga court, of July 6, 1567, in Eric Nicholson, “Romance as Role Model: Early Female Performances of Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata,” in Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso, ed. Valeria Finucci (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 246–69, at 246–47. The Marganorre episode is in Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, trans. Guido Waldman (1532; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), canto 36.

16 Editor’s Introduction part, Armani, the first ever diva of the Italian stage, sent male spectators into delirium whether she was singing or looking like an armed Mars, a furious Zeus, or a talkative Hermes.41 Numberless pamphlets soon started to deplore the threat that unbridled femininity produced on the comic stage. Reflecting Counter-Reformation angst, Cesare Franciotti argued that actresses’ gesticulation, “whorish adornments,” and songs were sufficient “to infect the world” and inflame all men in the audience—and his treatise was published the same year as Miani’s Celinda.42 A bit later and along the same lines, Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli denounced all sorts of actresses, for in his judgment they constituted a public enemy for every township.43 But the actor-writer Nicolò Barbieri, an acute apologist of mimetic theater, dismissed the notion that actresses in loving or adulterous plots inflamed men in the audience, because fornication does not lead to rape in real life, he argued, nor adultery to incest.44 Actresses of various Commedia dell’ Arte troupes, a mostly

41. I am paraphrasing from the poem: “vince delle Muse il canto, // se si mostra tall’hor in viril manto / cinta la spada, sembra Marte armato, / se s’ adira tall’hor par Giove irato, / e parlando a Mercurio toglie il vanto.” In Adriano Valerini, Oratione…in morte della Divina Signora Vincenza Armani (1570), in La Commedia dell’Arte e la società barocca: La professione del teatro, ed. Ferruccio Marotti and Giovanna Romei (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), 31–41. This may go a long way toward explaining Armani’s tragic premature death by poison in 1568. 42. Franciotti’s treatise is in La commedia dell’ arte e la società barocca: La fascinazione del teatro, ed. Ferdinando Taviani (Rome: Bulzoni, 1969), 177–78. Domenico Gori argued likewise in Trattato contro alle commedie lascive (1604), now in La commedia dell’arte e la società barocca: La fascinazione del teatro, ed. Taviani, 136–44. 43. Giovan Domenico Ottonelli, Della Christiana Moderatione del Theatro. Libro I detto La Qualità delle Commedie (1646), in Il segreto della Commedia dell’ Arte: La memoria delle compagnie italiane del XVI, XVII e XVIII secolo, ed. Ferdinando Taviani and Mirella Schino (Florence: Usher, 1982), 169. There was also no masculinity on the Italian stage, the intellectual tourist Thomas Nashe opined, for “the players beyond the sea [are] a sort of squirting baudie Comedians, that have Whores and common Curtizens to playe womens partes, and forbeare no immodest speech, or unchast action that may procure laughter.” See Thomas Nashe, “Pierce Penilesse his supplication to the Divell,” in The Works of Thomas Nashe, ed. Ronald McKerrow (1592; Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 215. 44. See La supplica. Discorso Famigliare (1636), in La Commedia dell’ Arte e la società barocca: La professione del teatro, ed. Marotti and Romei, 610.

Editor’s Introduction 17 Veneto phenomenon, were by then the rage, not only in Italy but also in France. Discounting the comedic-religious theatrical production of the convent, which was in any case never meant to be performed outside pious institutions (a good example by Sister Beatrice del Sera was published a few years ago),45 and aside from the production of parish dramas and sacred representations, such as those of Antonia Pulci46 and of Moderata Fonte,47 the first example of a female authored comedy could be considered L’interesse by the actress Vittoria Piissimi of the Compagnia dei Gelosi. Piissimi was famous on stage as Isabella Andreini’s counterpart, and she was so admired that the French Henry de Valois, journeying through Venice in 1574 on his way to be crowned King Henry III, asked specifically for her performance during his celebrated sojourn there. But this comedy has not surfaced.48 Officially, the first published comedy by an Italian woman writer is Li buffoni by Margherita Costa, a Roman actress, singer, and poet, and also, tellingly, a courtesan, who flaunted even in print all rules of feminine decorum. Thanks to the protection of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici, she published her play in 1641.49 A few years later, she

45. Beatrice del Sera (1515–1585), Amor di virtù, ed. Elissa Weaver (Ravenna: Longo, 1990); and more generally on conventual production, Elissa Weaver, Convent Theater in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 46. Antonia Pulci (1452–1501), Florentine Drama for Convent and Festival, ed. James Wyatt Cook and Barbara Collier Cook, trans. James Wyatt Cook, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 47. Moderata Fonte, La passione di Cristo descritta in ottava rima (Venice: Guerra, 1582). 48. She also wrote a now lost pastoral, Fillide. See Jolanda De Blasi, Le scrittrici italiane dalle origini al 1800 (Florence: Nemi, 1930), 105–13. 49. Margherita Costa, Li Buffoni: Commedia ridicola (Florence: Massi e Landi, 1641). A modern edition of this play is in Commedie dell’Arte, ed. Siro Ferrone, 2 vols. (Milan: Mursia, 1996), 235–359. There are, however, still doubts about the real author of this play. See Ferrone’s bibliographical note to the play in Commedie dell’Arte, 2:236–37. For an eloquent assessment of Costa’s poetic output, see Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 212–15; on her innovative approach, see Marcella Salvi, “‘Il solito è sempre quello, l’insolito è più nuovo’: Li Buffoni e le prostitute di Margherita Costa tra tradizione e innovazione,” Forum Italicum 38.2 (2004): 376–99.

18 Editor’s Introduction published a mythological play, Gli amori della luna.50 A Venetian comedy by Orsetta Pellegrini, Il serraglio aperto ovvero le malattie politiche del Gran Sultano, was also published in 1687.51 If comedy was less welcoming as a genre to women writers than we might have expected, tragedy was even less accessible, for it required a grandiose cast, expensive outfits, and a plot of sensational carnage at a time when women were not even allowed to perform tragic roles.52 It does not surprise, then, that Valeria Miani is the first—and unless new documentation becomes available also the 50. Margherita Costa, Gli amori della luna (Venice: Giuliani, 1654). 51. Orsetta Pellegrini, Il serraglio aperto, ovvero le malattie politiche del gran Sultano (Venice: Nicolini, 1687). Orsetta is mentioned in Nicola Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” in Storia della cultura veneta: Dalla Controriforma alla fine della Repubblica. Il Seicento, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, 6 vols. (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1983), 4/1: 297–326, at 317. An author named Angelita Scaramuccia, who published the comedies La stratonica (1616), Gli amori concordi (1618), La schiava di Cipro (1624), and La Rosalba (1638), is actually not a woman but a man with a Spanish-style first name. He continues to be mistaken for a woman by a number of critics who rename her “Angelica.” For a convincing rebuttal, see Antonella Calzavara, “‘Istoria’ e ‘Comedia’ nell’opera di un autore marchigiano del XVII secolo: Angelita Scaramuccia,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 171 (1994): 534–52. Leopoldo Ferri included in his collection a set of later works by the countess Maria Isabella Dosi-Grati, who wrote seven comical works in Bolognese dialect under the pseudonym of Dorigista, such as Le fortune non conosciute del dottore. Commedia (Bologna: Sarti, 1688); Il padre accorto della figlia prudente. Commedia (Bologna: Sarti, 1690); and La Fortunata (Bologna: Longhi, 1706). See Biblioteca femminile italiana raccolta, posseduta e descritta dal Conte Pietro Leopoldo Ferri, Padovano (Padua: Crescini, 1842), 148–49. 52. There were exceptions, of course. Vincenza Armani, for example, acted the role of Tragedy herself in Mantua in 1567, to great applause, as her biographer Valerini lovingly recalled: “At the end of the play she would come out wearing a lugubrious black dress which represented Tragedy itself and sing some stanzas summarizing the poem’s subject … and once her singing stopped, one would hear a loud roar, a manifest applause rising to the sky, and the people in the audience, astonished and motionless, would not know which way to turn.” In Valerini, Oratione … in morte, in La Commedia dell’ Arte e la società barocca: La professione del teatro, ed. Marotti and Romei, 36. We also know that a nun, the noblewoman Donna Giulia Camilla Castigliona, played a tragic role in Luigi Groto’s Adriana in 1584. See Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi, 323 n117. Traveling in Italy in 1728, Charles de Montesquieu noticed that male students dressed as women performed on the Roman stage, but that tragedies in Jesuit theaters used women rather than men to play female parts—not for the sake of verisimilitude, as we might infer, but as a response to moralistic concerns. See Viaggio in Italia, ed. Giovanni Macchia and Massimo Colesanti (Bari: Laterza, 1995), 166.

Editor’s Introduction 19 only—Italian woman author of a tragedy until the eighteenth century when the Venetian Luisa Bergalli published Teba, Tragedia (1728).53 Maria Fortuna, a writer from Pisa, then published Zaffira (1771) and Saffo (1776).54 Unlike comedy and tragedy whose female-authored history I have traced above, the pastoral play offered fertile ground for the talent of women writers, of actresses, and also of female singers, for once the realism central to court comedy ceased to preoccupy the stage— and women became nymphs and men melancholic shepherds—sex could be taken out of the picture and female patrons could both sponsor pastoral performances and play in them.55 The playwright Angelo Ingegneri even argued that the pastoral was in fact the only genre in which young women could appear on stage: With their rustic apparatus and scenery, and with costumes more elegant than pretentious, pastorals are most pleasing to the eye; and with their soft verse and delicate sentiments, most beautiful to the ears and the 53. Luisa Bergalli, Teba, tragedia (Venice: Cristoforo Zane, 1728). Curiously this piece is dedicated to “his excellence Marco Miani.” The plot, which has a happy ending à la Giraldi Cinzio, tells the story of Teba, whose husband, Alessandro, the tyrant of Fere, condemns to death in order to marry another woman, Ismene. For a reading of this tragedy, which was staged in Venice and well received, but soon forgotten, see Pamela Stewart, “Eroine della dissimulazione: Il teatro di Luisa Bergalli,” Quaderni veneti 19 (1994), 73–92, at 82–83. Bergalli also published musical dramas, such as Agide, re di Sparta. Dramma per musica (Venice: Rossetti, 1725), while the Milanese Francesca Manzoni Giusti wrote a religious tragedy, L’ Ester (Verona: Tumermani, 1733). Interest in tragedies was lively then and some women writers translated French tragedies, such as Bergalli and Manzoni Giusti as well as Elisabetta Caminer Turra, who directed on Venetian stages the plays she translated. 54. Maria Fortuna, Zaffira. Tragedia (Siena: Rossi, 1771); Maria Fortuna, Saffo. Tragedia (Livorno: Falorni, 1776). The information was compiled following the list of Ferri in Biblioteca femminile italiana, and it is by no means complete for the eighteenth century. 55. That was the case for Tasso’s Aminta, for example, staged in 1580 at the Medici court, as related in a letter by Caterina Guidiccioni, mother of the poet and writer of (lost) pastorals, Laura Guidiccioni: “This carnival the princesses and the ladies of the court themselves will play young Tasso’s [“Tassino”] pastoral and would like some madrigals to be set to music.” In Warren Kirkendale, “L’opera in musica prima del Peri: le pastorali perdute di Laura Guidiccioni ed Emilio de’ Cavalieri,” in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del Cinquecento, ed. Giancarlo Garfagnini et al., 3 vols. (Florence: Olschki, 1982–83), 2:370.

20 Editor’s Introduction intellect. In permitting onstage young maidens and honest women who are forbidden from comedy, they give a voice to the noblest of affections, not to be disdained by tragedy itself.56 Female dramatists gave a voice to the genre right away: Isabella Andreini, as mentioned above, published La Mirtilla in 1588;57 and Maddalena Campiglia joined her the same year with Flori, favola boschereccia.58 Miani herself, with the publication of Amorosa speranza in 1604, is the third woman writer in this genealogy au féminin to publish a pastoral with musical intermezzi. A later writer is Isabella Coreglia, perhaps a singer native of Lucca, who produced La Dori, favola pescatoria (1634), and Erindo il fido, favola pastorale (1650).59 She may have belonged to the same circle as Eleonora Bernardi Bellati (1559–post 1627), also from Lucca, who may have written Clorindo, now lost.60 Recently the manuscript of a pastoral play by Barbara Torelli Benedetti, an author from Parma, who wrote Parthenia by 1587, has

56. Angelo Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Modena: Panini, 1989), 7. 57. Isabella Andreni’s play is now available in both Italian and English translation as La Mirtilla, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Lucca: Pacini Fazzi, 1995); and La Mirtilla: A Pastoral, ed. Julie D. Campbell (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002). On Andreini, see also Anne MacNeil, “The Divine Madness of Isabella Andreini,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 120 (1995): 193–215; and Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy, 98–128. 58. For a modern edition, see Flori: A Pastoral Drama, ed. Virginia Cox and Lisa Sampson, trans. Virginia Cox, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 59. Isabella Coreglia, La Dori. favola pescatoria (Naples: Montanaro, 1634); and Erindo il fido, favola pastorale (Pistoia: Fortunati, 1650). See Virginia Cox, “Fiction,” in A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 52–64, at 55. See also Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano con particolare riguardo alla storia della musica italiana, ed. Giovanni Salvioli and Carlo Salvioli (Venice: Ferrari, 1903). 60. For a useful list of all performed and printed pastorals, see Marzia Pieri, “La breve stagione della drammaturgia,” in La scena boschereccia nel Rinascimento italiano (Padua: Liviana, 1983), 151–80.

Editor’s Introduction 21 surfaced, an edition and translation of which is forthcoming.61 Still unclear is the author of an untitled pastoral play (referred to simply as “tragicommedia pastorale”) composed possibly in the late 1580s by a noblewoman from Lucca (“Gentildonna lucchese”), now housed in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice.62

The Pastoral Play Amorosa Speranza Amorosa speranza, Miani’s elegant verse play of 1604, tells the story of the nymph Venelia (perhaps a stand-in for the author Valeria) abandoned soon after her wedding by her husband, Damone, and pursued by two shepherds, Issandro and Alliseo, whom she refuses. Issandro eventually saves the nymph Tirenia from a sadistic satyr and falls in love with her, while Alliseo, who dejectedly tries to commit suicide, is convinced to marry a friend of Venenia, Fulgentia.63 The Arcadian plot of Amorosa speranza is similar to Torquato Tasso’s Aminta, first performed in Ferrara in 1573 but published only in 1580, and it is especially comparable to Isabella Andreini’s La Mirtilla, a “feminist” version, so to speak, of the more famous Aminta.64 As with Andreini’s 61. The manuscript of Partenia, favola boschereccia della Signora Barbara Torelli Benedetti is located in the Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, Deposito Libreria Civica, Ms. AA. 1.33. Giuseppe Zonta first mentioned it in “La Partenia di Barbara Torelli Benedetti,” RBLI 14 (1906): 206–10. On Torelli (1546–post 1603), 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, ed. Brian Richardson et al. (Leeds: Society for Italian Studies, 2004), 99–115. Sampson thinks that Torelli may have had her Partenia recited in front of members of the Accademia degli Innominati in Parma. 62. Biblioteca Marciana MS, Class IX, CCXXXIX (6999). Internal reference to the marriage of Ferdinando I de’ Medici and Christine de Lorraine, which took place in Florence in 1589, would justify such a date. Virginia Cox has called attention to this Venetian manuscript in “Fiction,” 55. 63. Critical interest in Amorosa speranza is just beginning, with two recent good articles: Katie Rees, “Female-Authored Drama in Early Modern Padua: Valeria Miani Negri,” Italian Studies 63:1 (2008), 41–61; and Françoise Decroisette, “Satyres au féminin dans la pastorale italienne de la fin du XVIe siècle,” in La campagna in città: Letteratura e ideologia nel Rinascimento. Scritti in onore di Michel Plaisance, ed. Giuditta Isotti Rosowsky et al. (Florence: Cesari Editore, 2002), 149–82. 64. Torquato Tasso, Aminta, ed. Luigi Fasso, 3rd ed. (Florence: Sansoni, 1954).

22 Editor’s Introduction Mirtilla, Miani too has her nymph, Tirenia, trick her would-be rapist, a satyr named Elliodro, into being tied to a tree. When the satyr subsequently seeks to take vengeance for being unmanned by the nymph’s quick wit—swearing to undress her, beat her to death, and then leave her to wild animals for food—Tirenia is saved by friendly shepherds, who award her custody of the miscreant. In jest, she trims his beard and cuts one of his horns; thus by figuratively castrating him, she effectively reverses the traditional active and passive cultural roles of male and female.65 The satyr is then saved by Artemia, who believes his version of the events and forgives him in an act of love. Unlike Tasso, who showed a penchant for portraying damsels in distress victimized by male predators, Miani emphasizes the subversive qualities and ingenuity of her nymphs, giving them more agency even at the cost of making their characterizations dull by limiting drastically their love interests. Her treatment also brings to mind Guarini’s pastoral, Il pastor fido, with its theme of unrequited love (Miani knew it well; for instance, she transposes his Lucrina into her character Lucrino). Venenia, as will also be the case with princess Celinda, is a good example of faith and female constancy: she entertains only chaste feelings for the priest Lucrino, and is rewarded at the end with the return of her wayward husband.66 Tellingly in this pastoral, as in the majority of women-authored works in the early modern period, constancy is the most celebrated feminine trait.67 Creating fictional women who are 65. Decroisette rightly notices that unlike Andreini’s satyr, who is duped by the nymph in mainly comic fashion, Miani is deadly serious when she has Tirenia literally cut the satyr’s beard. See “Satyres au féminin,” 182. On the role of the satyr in Tasso, Andreini, and Guarini, see Meredith Ray, “La castità conquistata: The Function of the Satyr in Pastoral Drama,” Romance Languages Annual 9 (1998) 316–20. Ray is unaware of the satyr/nymph treatment in Miani. 66. Decroisette reads Venenia’s abandonment by her husband autobiographically, suggesting that this is the reason why Miani mentions some unspecified personal travails in her dedicatory letter to the play. See “Satyres au feminine,” 178. To me this reference rings more like the Petrarchan rhetorical figure of captatio benevolentiae, an attempt to seek sympathy from a potential supporter. 67. Rees thinks of Venenia’s constancy and “heroic chastity” in quasi-religious terms, linking this quality to the sacred drama of Antonia Pulci and to the religious theater performed in convents. See “Female-Authored Drama,” 49. The comments are well taken, but the link may be perhaps far-fetched, since the entire female-authored literary production of the cen-

Editor’s Introduction 23 marked by constancy allowed a woman writer to be respected intellectually and to publish her work. If, as scholars have argued, some scenes of Shakespeare’s As You Like It evoke Tasso’s Aminta and Andreini’s Mirtilla, then Miani’s Amorosa speranza could be usefully studied now as participating in the subtext of that Shakespearean stock romantic comedy.68 That it took Valeria Miani from the year 1598, when Padoano first mentioned that she had sent Amorosa speranza to press, to 1604 to see her Arcadian fable actually come out in print should not surprise, for many plays at the time remained in the drawers of both occasional and established writers, even in Venice, the place, famously, where ninety percent of all theatrical works were published in Italy.69 We know from her editor Francesco Bolzetta that he had the pastoral in his hands for a while before being urged by friends and literati to print it. As Bolzetta wrote to the dedicatee of Amorosa speranza, the noblewoman Marietta Uberti Descalzi, on April 4, 1604, in a lengthy and revealing foreword, some men will never give a fair reading to a book published by a woman. “Falsely persuading themselves that not even a half good, let alone a perfect work, can come from female taltury, whatever the genre, is mostly focused on a major heroine whose main virtues are unassailable chastity and constancy. Examples of this behavior on the part of women (men also are often faithful in the hands of women writers) appear throughout the literature written by women. To cite examples from five different genres, one can look at Gaspara Stampa’s Petrarchan Rime (Milan: Rizzoli, 1954); Giulia Bigolina’s novella “Giulia Camposampiero” and prose romance Urania, both in Urania: A Romance, ed. and trans. Valeria Finucci, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Lucrezia Marinella’s dialogue The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Moderata Fonte’s epic Floridoro: A Chivalric Romance, ed. Valeria Finucci, trans. Julia Kisacky, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Lucrezia Marinella’s prose pastoral Arcadia felice, ed. Françoise Lavocat (Florence: Olschki, 1998). 68. On the link between Isabella Andreini and Shakespeare’s theater, see Frances Barasch, “Italian Actresses in Shakespeare’s World: Vittoria and Isabella,” Shakespeare Bulletin 19.3 (2001): 5–9; and Louise George Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 67–89 and 264–69. 69. See Tiziana Pesenti, “Stampatori e letterati nell’ industria editoriale a Venezia e in terraferma,” in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Gianfranco Folena, 6 vols. (Vicenza: Pozza, 1976– ), 4:93–129.

24 Editor’s Introduction ent, without considering anything else, such as poetic worth or another woman’s output,” these male critics too often, he wrote, “damn and disparage” a woman’s work “unsympathetically, without having seen it or read it, out of habit. In this they clearly show how unaware they are that in all past ages there have always been a number of women who have advanced by becoming commendably learned in all possible ways to contend for a position of first place among the most famous men of their time.”70 And so the Amorosa speranza was printed and was “well received and commended,” according to Miani’s contemporary critic, Pietro Paolo Ribera.71 We know from the character of the boy Julo (or Iulo) at the end of Act 5 that the play was performed on the occasion of a wedding banquet for an audience composed of men and women from Padua, who had come to enjoy this entertainment by boat: I would invite you, but perhaps it is better To go back to Padua (And in fact, I advise you to do so) With that same boat That has brought you here. And regarding our wedding Do not think that you Will have much more Than the thousand thanks 70. Amorosa speranza, dedicatory letter, n.p.: “falsamente persuadendosi, che di feminile ingegno opera pur di mezzana bontà, non che interamente perfetta non possa nascere, senza havere ad alcuna altra cosa riguardo, qual si voglia ò Poetico, ò altro componimento di Donna, bene spesso senza haverlo 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 habbian potuto contender del primo luogo con gli huomini più famosi del tempo loro.” See “Alla molto illustre signora, et patrona osser.ma la Signora Marietta Uberti Descalzi.” Bolzetta also confirms that Miani was composing a tragedy: “una Tragedia, che la medesima Signora Valeria vá tuttavia componendo.” Assuming that he is referring to Celinda, it was published seven years later. 71. Ribera wrote his comments in 1609. See Le glorie immortali de’ Trionfi, 355. He makes no reference to Celinda, which he may not have known about, since it came out two years after he published his book.

Editor’s Introduction 25 I am giving everybody For your courteous listening. Go then. [5.6] The actors may have been chosen among the inner circle of the nobility that gathered at the wedding, and the play could have been partly read and partly acted, with some singing and dancing.72 The part of the young shepherd could also have been played by a cross-dressed woman, as was often the case. The performance could have taken place near Carpi Veneziana, as mentioned earlier, where patrons could relax in refined pastoral simplicity and leisurely enjoy in villa, in Giuseppe Gerbino’s words, “all the benefit of the aristocratic otium, without the burden of the political negotium.”73 Because the show was private as well as exclusive, it would not have been officially recorded.

The Tragic Genre A history of the early modern tragedy in Italy starts with the discovery in the late Middle Ages of Seneca’s plays (his tragedies were printed in 1478–84) and the discovery in the early fifteenth century of ancient Greek tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.74 This led to 72. The prologue also makes reference to a live public audience in the address by Speranza: “you, lovely ladies, / who look so much like angels.” On the pleasures of reading aloud at home, in public, in taverns, in court, and even among soldiers, see Roger Chartier, “Leisure and Sociability: Reading Aloud in Early Modern Europe,” in Urban Life in the Renaissance, ed. Susan Zimmerman and Ronald Weissman (London: Associated University Presses, 1989), 103–20. 73. Giuseppe Gerbino, Music and the Myth of Arcadia in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 303. Villas with their extensive gardens—such as the Boboli Gardens for the Medici and the Villa d’ Este for the Roman aristocracy—provided the nobility with the illusion of a return to nature through their creation of a bucolic and artificial paradise that united natural pleasure with a privileged status. On the villa lifestyle, see Anton Francesco Doni, Le ville, ed. Ugo Bellocchi (1566; Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 1969). On the use of the villa as a theatrical space, see Marcello Fagiolo, “La nascita della villa e del teatro nell’ età dell’ umanesimo,” in Lo specchio del paradiso: L’ immagine del giardino dall’ antico al Novecento, ed. Marcello Fagiolo and Maria Adriana Giusti (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 1996), 22–41. 74. On the discovery of Greek tragedies—the humanist Giovanni Aurispa put together a library of 238 manuscripts during his stay in Greece, and this included many of Euripides’s tragedies—see Eugenio Garin, La cultura del Rinascimento (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1995), 32.

26 Editor’s Introduction their translation, thanks also to the interest on the part of intellectuals and educated patrons (the nobility, rather than the citizenry, being at the center of every tragic plot) at a time when presses were facilitating the spread of new ideas.75 By applying or refuting the three unities of time, action, and place in Aristotle’s Poetics and by invoking Horace’s Ars poetica when it best suited them, the new playwrights developed a somewhat standardized tragic form in five acts written in vernacular verse that proved successful first among intellectuals and the nobility, and then with the paying public at large, as was the case for all stage performances in Venice. Momentum for the tragic form in Italian came when the heroic motifs from Seneca were joined with the amorous themes found in the novelistic tradition both in prose, as in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, and in verse, as in the popular chivalric literature of “knights and ladies, love and arms” that Ludovico Ariosto had made popular in Orlando furioso.76 In this context, the role of Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio (Cinthio) was paramount, for his treatise on how to write comedies and tragedies, Discorsi intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie, his success in the staging of Orbecche in 1541 (the first tragedy ever performed on stage in Italian), his invention of the genre of tragedy with a happy ending (as in Altile, 1543), and his creation of a Greek pedigree for a satyric pastoral drama (as in

On the rush to discover even more Greek tragedies in Italian libraries, see Agostino Pertusi, “Il ritorno alle fonti del teatro greco classico: Euripide nell’Umanesimo e nel Rinascimento,” in Venezia e l’ Oriente tra tardo Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Agostino Pertusi (Florence: Sansoni, 1966), 205–24. 75. The Venetian polygraph Ludovico Dolce was instrumental, for example, in introducing a number of tragedies to the reading public, such as Thyeste (1543), Didone (1547), La Hecuba (1549), La Medea (1560), Progne (1561), Marianna (1565), Ifigenia (1566), and Le troiane (1567). 76. Boccaccio’s Decameron appeared in twelve editions in the sixteenth century, testifying to its popularity. We also know that Boccaccio owned a copy of Seneca’s plays, and there are scattered references to this Latin author in his work. See Vittorio Russo, “Il senso del tragico nel Decameron,” Filologia e letteratura 11 (1965), 29–84; and Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Background: Boccaccio’s Non-Tragedies,” in his Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 11–38.

Editor’s Introduction 27 Egle, 1545) kept the following generation of dramatists busy indeed.77 Giraldi Cinzio authoritatively established the successful form of tragedies, the proper number of actors, the function of the chorus and the succession of acts, and set guidelines for reconciling verisimilitude with the supernatural machinery particularly appreciated by the public. He also commented on what to do with the Aristotelian unities, suggested ways for the author to deal with messengers and soliloquies, and sketched how to delineate tragic characters with their accompanying tragic flaws. Finally, he argued that the dramatic twist that he popularized, the tragedy with a happy ending, was well suited to the “honest” love of virgins and young women.78 By copying, rejecting, or reworking Giraldi Cinzio’s insights, the playwrights of the next generation were able to define and expand the parameters of the genre.79 It could be said, of course, that unlike comedy or pastoral, tragedy was hardly a genre in which Italian male literati, let alone women writers, excelled, and the field, even today, is a cemetery of disappointments and failures. Sperone Speroni’s Canace, chronologically speaking the first tragedy written in Italian, on the incestuous love of twins, was scheduled to be performed in Padua by the playwright and actor Ruzante (Angelo Beolco) in 1542 in the meeting rooms of the Accademia degli Infiammati, but the show had to be cancelled in the wake of the sudden death of Ruzante himself. Tragedies, even when 77. Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, Discorso intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie, in Scritti critici, ed. Camillo Guerrieri-Crocetti (1554; Milan: Marzorati, 1973), 169–224. 78. Giraldi Cinzio claimed that he was not the first to argue for the value of tragedies with a happy ending and provided a list of classic Euripidean tragedies which adopted that format, such as Ion, Helen, Orestes, and Iphigenia. Aristotle too had claimed that audiences much preferred happy endings. 79. See Riccardo Bruscagli, “G. B. Giraldi: comico, satirico, tragico,” in Il teatro italiano del Rinascimento, ed. Maristella de Panizza Lorch (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità, 1980), 261–83; and Marvin T. Herrick, Italian Tragedy in the Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). For a general history of the tragic stage in the period, see Ferdinando Neri, La tragedia italiana del Cinquecento (Florence: Galletti e Cocci, 1904); Emilio Bertana, La tragedia (Milan: Vallardi, 1905), 132–35; Marco Ariani, Tra classicismo e manierismo: Il teatro tragico del Cinquecento (Florence: Olschki, 1974); and Salvatore Di Maria, The Italian Tragedy in the Renaissance: Cultural Realities and Theatrical Innovations (London: Associated University Presses, 2002). For a more specific look at the production of tragedy in Venice and the Veneto region, see Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi.

28 Editor’s Introduction they had a good plot, were defective (“difettose”), Angelo Ingegneri claimed in 1598, that is, expensive and melancholic, and thus were not often produced. The public wanted entertainment rather than suffering, and for that purpose patrons preferred pastorals. Since tragedies required large purses because the subject sported a royal apparatus and lavish clothes, princes with good sense (“con sano giudizio”), Ingegneri argued, preferred not to incur the expense. For the previous fifty years, he surmised. there had not been a single production of a good tragedy, for only a few cities, Venice among them, or generous academies, such as Vicenza’s, or a wonderful theater, like the newly built Olimpico in Vicenza, could do justice to tragedies.80 Given the topic, moreover, tragedies were thought to bring bad luck. As the Gonzaga court secretary in Mantua, Alessandro Striggio, wrote in 1606 to his enthusiastic prince, Vincenzo, who was looking for plays with elaborate and expensive scenarios for the forthcoming wedding of his son, Francesco, “tragedies bring little real pleasure because their subject fills the reader’s soul with anxiety and compassion … and it is the ancient view … that they are bad omens to whoever acts in them.”81 Already by 1620, in any case, tragedy was on the wane, supplanted by the newly invented, and immediately popular, musical opera.82 I would like to argue, however, that unlike comedy, the tragic genre offered something that was potentially very appealing to women writers, for tragedies were mostly centered on female characters of noble status and (often) noble intentions dealing with such overarching issues as blood lines, political opportunism, and (masculine) codes of honor. Indeed, the majority of tragedies performed or printed at the time have female names on the title page, from Cleopatra to 80. Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa, 7. To give an idea of how expensive it was to put on a tragedy, the 1585 performance of Orsato Giustiniano’s Edippo had 109 people on stage in the various roles of actors, guards, chorus, and attendants. The actors’ costumes were so sumptuous that the nobility flooded the stage after the show to admire their manufacture. See Storia documentaria del teatro italiano, ed. Ferruccio Marotti (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974), 303. 81. Letter of Alessandro Striggio to Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua, 5 March 1606, in Archivio di Stato di Mantova (hereafter ASM), Archivio Gonzaga, busta 2705. 82. Citing the date (“intorno al 1620”), Bertana argues that the tragedy actually had been in decline since the last decade of the sixteenth century, although the production of tragedies per se had increased at the turn of the seventeenth century. See La tragedia, 113–14.

Editor’s Introduction 29 Orbecche, from Semiramis to Tomiri, from Iridia to Isifile, and from Dalida to Irene.83 Giraldi Cinzio had also authoritatively stated that unlike comedies, judged by him unsuited to good and well-mannered female protagonists because they featured lowly characters (such as slave-girls, who were inevitably caught in the “lascivia” of the plot), tragedies spoke well for women’s participation, because they required a higher social setting and characters from the nobility.84 The fact that tragedy, like opera, was repeatedly predicated on sex, death, and (often) revenge, and thus on the undoing of the woman in the title role, was clearly problematic for female playwrights. Still they could show that if rebellion to the submissive roles women were given in culture always involved a social cost, courage and steadfastness in the face of adversity made them worthy not just of pity but of admiration. In a sense, tragedy could put women at the center of debates about their place in society, for the upper class world that populated the tragic stage prized nobility of the soul in women at the same time that it asked for their submission to patriarchy and male prerogatives. By delineating an array of female personalities, women dramatists could also show that there was more to women than the deception and meanness that accompanied the storylines of the popular Medea and Semiramis being currently staged by male writers. To say the least, they could problematize a theatrical discourse by not offering a sacrificial female victim or by advantageously nuancing the dichotomous rendering of women as virgin or whore, angel or villain that informed the dramatic imagination as well as the literary canon of the time. The heroine’s suicide at the end, too, could be recuperated 83. With few exceptions—as with Tasso’s Il re Torrismondo (1587), Valerio Fuligni’s Il Bragadino (1589), and Francesco Contarini’s Isaccio (1615)—almost all Renaissance tragedies have the names of female protagonists in their titles, such as Speroni’s La Canace; Giraldi Cinzio’s Altile, Orbecche, Epitia, and Selene; Vincenzo Giusti’s Irene (1579); Francesco Mondella’s Isifile (1582); Muzio Manfredi’s La Semiramis (1581); Luigi Grotos’s La Dalida (1582) and L’Adriana (1583); Antonio Decio da Horte’s Acripanda (1603); Francesco Vinta’s La regina Iridia (1605); Angelo Ingegneri’s Tomiri (1607); Ansaldo Ceba’s La principessa Silandra (1621); Antonio Buzzacarini’s Altile (1624); and Federico Della Valle’s Judith (1627), Esther (1627), and La reina di Scozia (1591, but published in 1628). For a study of sixteenth-century tragic female models, see Alessandro Bianchi, Alterità ed equivalenza: Modelli femminili nella tragedia italiana del Cinquecento (Milan: Unicopli, 2007). 84. Giraldi Cinzio, Discorso intorno al comporre delle commedie e delle tragedie, 216–18.

30 Editor’s Introduction as a heroic act if it could reveal a woman’s moral superiority rather than her weakness. Finally, the fact that tragedy was traditionally written in verse was a plus for Italian women writers, who preferred poetry by far to prose, perhaps because they needed to demonstrate their literacy at a time when they lacked formal schooling.

Celinda: Structures and Themes Celinda is the story of the forbidden love between a fifteen-year-old bold princess, Celinda, and a besotted Persian prince, Autilio, living incognito under the name of Lucinia in the royal palace of Celinda’s father, Cubo, in Lydia, in western coastal Turkey. Having fallen in love with Celinda’s portrait and reputation, as the author explains in the “Argument,” Autilio abandons his home in Persia and breaks his engagement to princess Eusina, who out of desperation commits suicide. The play opens with Eusina’s ghost bursting out in rage and asking for revenge. Autilio then chooses to be sold in disguise as a female Irish slave under the fictitious name of Lucinia, so that he can serve in King Cubo’s court at Ephesus and be assigned to the service of Celinda.85 Continually in the presence of the seemingly timid and melancholic Lucinia, Celinda comes to admire the comely face and gentle attitude of her new attendant, and to her own surprise—for she cannot believe her attraction to a person of her same sex—she falls in love. One night while they share the same bed, Celinda declares her feelings. But she is astonished to discover, upon a detailed physical examination, that Lucinia is a man, Autilio. He confesses his love and utmost devotion to her straight away, still seemingly shy, and not much later Celinda discovers herself to be pregnant. At the start of the play, she is four months along in her pregnancy and has just received the news that her father is going to marry her to a Scottish prince. But something else is even more pressing: Fulco, king of Persia and Autilio’s father, has suddenly declared war on Lydia, because he has been told by a diviner that his son is being kept hidden in Cubo’s court. Cubo denies that 85. Although Miani’s choice of giving an Irish identity to a slave could be maligned as an instance of a woman writer’s lack of geographical expertise, there are precedents for this atypical choice in plays such as Giraldi Cinzio’s Gli antivalomeni (Venice: Cagnacini, 1583), where the two daughters of King Loteringo are persuaded to marry two Irish commoners.

Editor’s Introduction 31 there is a man in the retinue of his unmarried daughter; nevertheless, he gets ready to wage war. Autilio, in the meantime, always dressed as a woman, finds himself the object of Cubo’s desire. In the guise of Lucinia he resists Cubo’s proffer of marriage (the queen mother having recently died) not by revealing his true identity but by pleading that since at the moment there is such a discrepancy in their status, he should be given the chance to prove some worth in the battlefield in order to be appreciated later as a queen. He is thus allowed to go to battle with manly armor and sword. In hand to hand combat with his own father, Autilio’s heroism counts for nothing as the king of Persia, unaware that the warrior maiden in front of him is his only son, mortally wounds Autilio. Then, having also killed Cubo, Fulco sends the king’s decapitated head to Autilio/Lucinia and his severed hands and heart to Celinda in the Lydian court. After seeing her father’s mutilated limbs and after giving her beloved Autilio, who expires in her arms, a teary farewell, Celinda commits suicide. She has been urged to remain alive both by her dying Autilio, who reminds her that she is carrying his heir and for this very reason should be strong, and by Fulco, who wishes to make amends for the horrific destruction that he has brought upon Celinda and his own son. But Celinda commits suicide nevertheless, for the child she is carrying is a bastard. Regretting his rush to war, the king of Persia agrees at the end to grant the two lovers’ wish to be buried in the same tomb—theirs was, after all, a love that unfortunate circumstances and misunderstandings had made tragic. Following Boccaccio, Miani adopts the motif of a double burial, which Luigi Groto had revived in his tragedy La Hadriana, and which Shakespeare, too, poignantly uses in Romeo and Juliet.86 There is no record of any public performance of Celinda. Many early modern tragedies were sent straight to press, given the prohibitive cost of staging them and paying for professional actors. 86. Like Celinda, Hadriana confides to the nurse that she has fallen in love and also has spent the night with Latino, an enemy prince. And again, as in Celinda, Adriana has to deal with the fact that her father has just chosen somebody else for her to marry. When Latino kills her brother unknowingly and Hadriana refuses to marry the man chosen for her, we know that a calamitous end is in the picture. The two die by poison, as in Romeo and Juliet. See Luigi Groto, La Hadriana (Venice: Zoppino, 1583). There were eight printings of this tragedy in the fifty years after its first edition in 1578 to attest to its popularity.

32 Editor’s Introduction The first tragedies were in fact often written with only a reading public in mind, and many took more than fifty years from their composition or publication to being presented on the stage. Giraldi Cinzio had even argued that most tragedies were better suited for printing than for performance, and that only hybrid tragedies with happy endings should be reserved for the stage.87 By the fourth quarter of the sixteenth century and until they were expelled in all territories of the Serenissima in 1607, the Jesuits also were making it very difficult for plays to be performed. How successful they were is debatable, although Giovanni Domenico Ottonelli, himself a Jesuit, flatly declared that no plays were publicly staged in Venice between the 1580s and 1607.88 On the rare occasions when tragedies were professionally performed in Padua, lavish festivities and expensive banquets were offered to remark the unusualness of the event. For example, in 1581 the performance of an unnamed tragedy was followed by a “surprise party in which more than one hundred Venetian noblewomen and two hundred and thirty-three Paduan women participated, in addition to those coming from far away, and they were all treated to magnificent refreshments.”89 We also have records of the elaborate staging of the pastoral tragedy, Aurora, by Ottaviano Brescianini in 1588, and of the unusual performance by young noblemen of the tragedy Altile

87. On the diffuse custom of sending plays directly to print without staging them first, see Jonas Barish, “The Problem of Closet Drama in the Italian Renaissance,” Italica 71 (1994): 4–31. Even for an important tragedy like Giovanni Rucellai’s Rosmunda, it took ten years after its composition (ca. 1515) to be printed (1525) and almost fifty years to be staged (1562). See Di Maria, The Italian Tragedy in the Renaissance, 18. 88. Ottonelli, Della christiana moderatione del teatro. This does not mean that it did not occasionally happen. As Johnson remarks, “During the carnival of 1591 the Ten ordered a halt to the comedies that were being performed for profit on Murano and sent the comedians packing. Clearly no one had asked the Ten for permission for these performances; Venetians knew that any such request would be turned down. One wonders how many other bootleg comedies may have escaped the Ten’s attention in these years, or how many performances may even have been deliberately overlooked.” See Eugene J. Johnson, “The Short, Lascivious Lives of Two Venetian Theaters, 1580–85,” Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002), 936–68, at 957. 89. Anna Böhm, “Notizie sulla storia del teatro a Padova nel secolo XVI e nella prima metà del XVII,” Ateneo Veneto [old series] 22 (1899), 249–83; reprint 1–60, at 11.

Editor’s Introduction 33 by Antonio Buzzacarini in the Carnival of 1618.90 Before specialized acting companies were formed, plays were mostly staged by students of law and humanities of the Studio (Legisti and Artisti), often in the Sala Verde, and specifically after the first snow in winter, when the students were traditionally allowed to collect money for their performances. We know that in 1597, for example, university students asked that a pastoral by Cesare Cremonini, a professor of philosophy, be performed and that their request was approved with seventeen votes in favor and four opposed.91 When funds were insufficient, well-todo colleagues belonging to different nationes, especially the Germans, filled the students’ coffers or allowed for recitals to take place in their own rented palaces. By the 1590s, performances by university students were mostly supplanted in Padua by itinerant entertainers belonging to the new professional Compagnie dell’ Arte that regularly visited the city on their way to Venice and to the courts of Ferrara and Mantua (they had taken up the slack in Venice after the disappearance of the nonprofessional Compagnie della Calza around 1565). The actress Vittoria Armani was in Padua between 1567 and 1570; the comic female impersonator Battista deli Amorevoli, who took on old women’s parts under the name of Franceschina, played in Padua in May 1579; the actress Vittoria Piissimi performed in Padua in 1580; an unknown professional company with lively actresses made the Carnival of 1599 in the city remarkable by reciting in a number of comedies in the Palazzo del Capitano; the diva Isabella Andreini was in Padua with her company, the Gelosi, in April 1600; and the actor Pier Maria Cecchini together with his company, the Accesi, got permission from the duke 90. See Bruno Brunelli, I teatri di Padova dalle origini alla fine del secolo XIX (Padua: Draghi, 1921), 67. All other staging or public recitations Brunelli mentions belong to the pastoral, including Biagio Maggi’s Il tradimento amoroso in 1604 and Francesco Contarini’s La finta Fiammetta in the Carnival of 1610 by the law students of the Studio. See also Sberti, Degli spettacoli e delle feste che si facevano in Padova, 144. For other performances in the Veneto area, see Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi, 324–26. 91. Böhm, “Notizie sulla storia del teatro di Padova,” 11. For a study of Paduan theaters through the centuries with a reprint of original documents, see Franco Mancini, Maria Teresa Muraro, and Elena Povoledo, I teatri del Veneto: Padova, Rovigo e il loro territorio, 5 vols. (Venice: Corbo e Fiore, 1988), 3:3–192.

34 Editor’s Introduction of Mantua to perform in Padua in 1612.92 As a result, the only genre that regularly saw nonprofessional acting, including occasional performances by noblemen, noblewomen, and their children, remained the aristocracy’s favorite: the pastoral. Although a stable theater in the Sala de’ Giganti was constructed in 1573, plays in Padua were often performed in other spaces, whether public, such as in the Palazzo del Capitano or the palace of the Podestà, or more often private, such as in the palaces of the Buzzacarini, Dotti, Zabarella, and Obizzi families.93 Other venues were also used on occasion, such as academies, in particular those of the Filotimi and of the Delia.94 Even though extensive research on theaters and theatrical practices in Padua has unearthed no evidence of a staged production of Celinda, an unofficial, experimental performance of this tragedy in the countryside, combining perhaps acting with simple recitation, would very well have gone unrecorded. Just like Amorosa speranza, Celinda too, in fact, may have been performed, or at least so claims the painter and intellectual Cavalier Vanni in a cryptic sonnet addressed to Miani that is now printed in the prefatory section of Celinda. Here he acknowledges that the tragedy (“funeste scene”) had been successfully performed outside Padua in the Euganean Hills.95 If it were performed, music may have been played in between acts, for Celinda is listed in a 92. See Brunelli, I teatri di Padova, 62–65; and Nicola Mangini, “La situazione teatrale a Padova al tempo di Carlo de’ Dottori,” Quaderni Veneti 8 (1988), 131–46, at 135–36. 93. In Venice, too, most performances were in private houses, although by 1581 there were at least two theaters that sported private boxes (palchi), as in today’s opera houses, rented out to the nobility and perhaps to courtesans as well. The Jesuits successfully argued for their closure. See Johnson, “The Short, Lascivious Lives of Two Venetian Theaters,” and more generally, Nicola Mangini, I teatri di Venezia (Milan: Mursia, 1974). 94. Mangini, “La situazione teatrale a Padova,” 132–33. Convents were also used but we still know little about what took place there. 95. The verses read: “the Phaedras and the Medeas … / … crave on the Euganean Hills doomed passions. // But here to you alone as your fate / was it given, by means of your verses with emotion filled, / to make theaters grieve at others’ deaths //and, joyful, to wear through the serene paths of glory / among your golden twining tresses / the first laurel of the mournful scenes.” Mariella Magliani seems to think that the play was staged. See “Giulia, Lucia e Valeria: Tre donne così poco ‘comuni,’” in Tracciati del femminile a Padova: Immagini e storie di donne, ed. Caterina Limentani Virdis and Mirella Cisotto Nalon (Padua: Il Poligrafo, 1995), 64–69, at 69.

Editor’s Introduction 35 bibliography of plays that contained musical accompaniment.96 We have no specific information as to the year in which it could have been staged (its composition, as mentioned earlier, appears to have been started by 1598), but the date of publication could perhaps be linked to the wildly successful production and simultaneous publication in Padua in 1610 of Francesco Contarini’s pastoral, La finta Fiammetta, which has a plot similar to Celinda and even the same name, in its masculine form, for the main character.97 In Contarini, a young man, Celindo, cross-dresses to win the love of a nymph and passes under the name of Fiammetta. In Miani’s play, by contrast, the setting is no idyllic landscape but the royal palace of Lydia, and Celinda is the tragic heroine for whose love the prince of Persia cross-dresses and whose blood demands the tragic closure of suicide. Other plays with characters similarly named or with comparable plots were published in those years, testifying in a sense to how much artists competed with each other for a successful script or nonchalantly cannibalized previous successful productions. Take, for example, the Paduan Giulio Malmignati’s Il Celindo, tragedia pastorale, set in the woods around Naples. Here Celindo is a prince.98 A similar plot structures the pastoral of the Ferrarese author Marco Petrocini, La costante Celinda, in which Celinda is able to marry her beloved Lucenio (Miani’s cross-dressed hero is named Lucinia) after a number of misadventures.99 In a tragedy by another Veneto author, Giacomo Guidoccio’s La Mathilda, the hero Clorindo is raised at the court of the king of Granada with the king’s two daughters, Mathilda and Clelia. In due time, Clorindo secretly marries Mathilda, but then he has to leave the court to fight for his own father in Sicily. Soon after Mathilda’s hand is requested in marriage, forcing her to reveal the news of her unpublicized wedding to her father. The suitor declares war and conquers her city while she poisons herself. 96. See Salvioli and Salvioli, Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano, vol. 1 (letters A–C). 97. Francesco Contarini’s La finta Fiammetta. Favola pastorale (Venice: Ambrosio Dei, 1611) is dedicated to Ferdinando Gonzaga, son of Miani’s dedicatee, Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga. 98. Giulio Malmignati’s Il Celindo. Tragedia pastorale (Treviso: Righettini, 1604) is dedicated to Francesco Gonzaga, son of Eleonora Gonzaga. 99. Marco Petrocini, La costante Celinda (Siena: Bonetti, 1626).

36 Editor’s Introduction Clorindo arrives at Mathilda’s bed when she is still barely alive, and she begs him to go on with his life. But he chooses to die.100 Finally, Celinda’s plot recalls a tragedy, La Rodopeia, by Leonoro Verlato, a playwright from nearby Vicenza. Here the son of the king of Armenia, Sinibaldo, having fallen in love with Rodopeia, the only daughter of the king of Thrace, comes to see her, disguised as a gardener. When the king hears of his daughter’s dalliance, he has Sinibaldo killed and his heart taken out. She dies thoroughly desperate and almost everybody else is killed by the play’s end.101 Like many of the horrific tragedies written in Italian toward the end of the sixteenth century, Celinda offers blood-curdling vendettas and decapitated limbs on stage as well as instances of psychological violence and the usual overdose of mourning and remembrance typical of revenge drama. Such tragedies were common in the Venetian territory, starting with the gory samples offered by Giraldi Cinzio, and they became even more popular after the loss of Cyprus to the Ottomans and the appalling skinning and quartering of the island’s Venetian commander in Famagusta, Marcantonio Bragadin, in 1571. We can look at the entire tragic output of the Serenissima to see how widespread was the motif of incest, patricidal killing, bloodshed, and vengeance on stage. Happily, for reasons of decorum, bloody events had to be described on the Italian stage rather than explicitly witnessed. Plots of revenge were already present in Greek tragedies, as in Aeschylus’s Oresteia, and of course in Seneca. But starting with Giraldi Cinzio’s Orbecche, in which the vengeful King Sulmone has Oronte, his son-in-law, murdered and dismembered to preserve his own power, a stream of violent, cruel, gruesome, and inhuman acts flooded the stage.102 This ideology of horror had its roots in contemporary sociopolitical reality, as I mentioned, as well as in the bereavement and retribution that love, the underlying motor of these plays, perversely urges. Thus Vincenzo Giusti’s Irene has an enemy king send the main character, Irene, the head of her husband and the hands of her child. 100. Giacomo Guidoccio, La Mathilda (Treviso: Amici, 1592). For more on the plot, see Bertana, La tragedia, 96–97. 101. Leonoro Verlato, La Rodopeia (Venice: Ziletti, 1582). For more on Verlato, see Bertana, La tragedia, 92–93. 102. Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, Orbecche (Venice: Lorenzini da Turino, 1560).

Editor’s Introduction 37 Like Bragadin, the husband’s nose and ears are cut off, and he is then skinned and quartered while his son is beaten to death. As a result, Irene commits suicide.103 In Angelo Ingegneri’s Tomiri, King Cyrus is killed and quartered together with his people by Queen Tomiri. When the queen finds out that her own son, fearful of his mother’s possible loss, has committed suicide, she takes revenge on the body of Cyrus by having his cadaver brought to her; his decapitated head is then immersed in human blood.104 In Groto’s La Dalida, the queen gives her husband, King Candaule, the poisoned limbs of his children as a punishment for his adulterous union with Dalida.105 In Antonio Decio da Horte’s Acripanda, sons have their hands cut off and their bodies cut apart. The queen commits suicide and all the other women at court know that they will be raped.106 In Francesco Mondella’s Isifile, the title character receives the heads of her children as well as the head and hands of her husband. He has also been skinned. She cries over his skull until it is totally washed by her tears, in a scene reminiscent of Boccaccio’s story of Ghismonda in the Decameron.107 The Elizabethan stage of the time, too, was flooded with sensational carnage, from Shakespeare’s Othello and Hamlet to Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, for audiences then as now enjoyed pulp violence. As in all early modern tragedies, in Celinda we have loyal soldiers, noble-hearted counselors, messengers with critical news, and compassionate servants, as well as a sympathetic chorus (in fact, three separate choruses) to accentuate the Aristotelian element of catharsis. Central to the plot is also a good, resilient nurse, who provides here and there important historical background and consoles the beloveds. In Celinda the nutrice is well delineated, recalling the nurse in Groto’s Hadriana and in Giraldi Cinzio’s Orbecche. Miani also imitates the theatrics of the time with the creation of a ghost at the start of the play, that of Autilio’s embittered promised bride, who commits suicide 103. Vincenzo Giusti, Irene (Venice: Rampazetto, 1579). 104. Angelo Ingegneri, Tomiri (Naples: Vitale, 1607). 105. Luigi Groto, La Dalida (Venice: n.p., 1572). 106. Antonio Decio da Horte, Acripanda (Venice: Bonfadino, 1598). 107. Francesco Mondella, Isifile (Verona: Giovanni e Sebastiano dalle Donne, 1582); Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. Guido Waldman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 4.1, 255–64.

38 Editor’s Introduction after discovering that he has deserted her. Her call for justice and revenge—she refuses to be a sacrificial victim—echoes that of the father in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, of the murdered wife in Giraldi Cinzio’s Orbecche, of King Maleonte in Groto’s Dalida, and of Nino, dead king of Assyria, in Muzio Manfredi’s La Semiramis.108 To add an element of distance so that the public is not too tempted to read the tragedy realistically or politically, Celinda is set in an exotic, vaguely identified “Orient,” Lydia, in Turkey, while prince Autilio comes from nearby Persia.109 This orientalized and yet familiar locale is also present in Groto’s La Hadriana, while Mondella’s Isifile is set in Turkish Salamina, Valerio Fuligni’s Bragadino (1589) in Cyprus, Claudio Forzatè’s La Recinda (1590) in Algiers, Buzzacarini’s Altile in Syria and Persia, Francesco Contarini’s Isaccio (1615) in Constantinople, Giraldi Cinzio’s Orbecche in Persia and Armenia, and Maffio Venier’s Hidalba (1596) in Denmark, a northern European locale following Torquato Tasso’s Scandinavian choice for his tragedy, Re Torrismondo (1586). Within this tragic environment, elements from popular epic romances also abound. I don’t mean the customary moments of prowess, which in tragedies sometimes hint of amorality, since the hero often kills the innocent rather than the wrongdoer, nor do I mean the issue of nobility, central to chivalry, since love makes characters forget their responsibilities and position rather than force them to abide by the rule of honor. I am referring, rather, to the motifs of cross-dressing and gender-bending, which after all would better fit comedies. But unlike the literature of the period, whatever the genre, in which crossdressing concerned women exiting the paternal household incognito in order to pursue their amatory goals, in Celinda it concerns a man who enters willingly into a submissive role of both “woman” and slave 108. Muzio Manfredi, La Semiramis (Bergamo: Comin Ventura, 1593). Although it may seem strange, ghosts also appear in pastorals, as when Petrarch appears at the beginning of Contarini’s La finta Fiammetta. 109. The locales have not been chosen at random, for Miani shows herself highly knowledgeable of the myth, folklore, and historical facts connected to Lydia and Persia. The war between King Cubo of Lydia and King Fulco of Persia, for example, is constructed along the lines of the famous war between Croesus, king of Lydia, and Cyrus, king of Persia. For specific references, see the notes accompanying Celinda.

Editor’s Introduction 39 to have the woman he loves, not on his own, probably sexual, terms, but on hers. The amorous action, indeed, starts when Celinda falls in love with Autilio and literally checks him out physically. At this point only he declares the love that motivated his disguise in the first place, thus creating a brief lesbian moment that Miani conveys in the erotic tones typical of the tragedies of the time: And so, there I went, where the feigned Lucinia on soft cushions remained infirm and languishing. And from my rich attire having disrobed, nude, I settled by her side. And touching and kissing again now her white face, now her beautiful neck, I made of these arms around her a chain. And she, who was thinking of the imminent peril, all tensed up in herself, with a hot sigh which from the depths of her heart issued, said to me, “Why attempt, my lady, measures so that I will not die?” And then to my mouth she joined her vivid rubies, and she almost fainted, except that her gaze, pregnant with tears and with grief, fixed she held on my eyes and my face. But so much did I do and so much did I say in the end that she pushed my right hand over her white chest, and then I realized it was not, like mine, adorned with breasts. (1.3.347–71) Examples of same-sex desire brought on by cross-dressing are often present in women writers’ literature of the period, as in Giulia Bigolina’s Urania, where the cross-dressed heroine excites the love interest of Emilia, or in Lucrezia Marinella’s Arcadia, in which

40 Editor’s Introduction the nymphs fall in love with Ersilia thinking that she is a man because she is cross-dressed. More specifically and expansively there is a scene of same-sex desire in Maddalena Campiglia’s Flori.110 All these instances—including Miani’s—are recuperated at the end into heterosexual normativity or into contented spinsterhood, but in the meantime they offer the author an occasion to empower women by signifying the importance of the bond of friendship and by making female desire active through an exploration (often simply linguistic) of intimacy and erotic engagement. Giraldi Cinzio had argued that tragic characters should be delineated so as to be partly good and partly evil, in order to engender compassion in the audience when something terrible happens to them. Given their tragic flaw, these half-good, half-bad characters deserve some sort of penalty for Giraldi Cinzio, but not a horrible one; thus, as justice is reestablished, the audience can feel both compassion and horror—the two elements that make tragedies powerful. Horror, moreover, is more commanding if the victim is ignorant of the sin that he or she has committed, for the spectators are thus likely to identify so much with the hideous and yet pitiful character on stage that they look for a change of fortune, from unhappy to happy. In a sense, the audience’s expectations, Giraldi Cinzio suggests, are feminine in nature. Following these dramaturgical conventions, in Celinda King Cubo is not delineated as overly villainous, excessive, or monstrous, but simply as being self-possessed, autocratic, and, in the end, stupid. Following his wife’s death, he has lost his moral compass, and rather than attending to affairs of state he becomes victim of a senile passion to the point of asking a slave to marry him. Forgetting that his role is to rule and that in any case he is too old, Cubo then chooses to go out of his walled Ephesus to combat, even though his counselor correctly reminds him that a king’s life is paramount to the good of a kingdom, and therefore it is the task of soldiers and knights to fight for his causes. In the end, Cubo proves to be a brave soldier in defending a wounded Lucinia/Autilio on the battlefield and dies in the bargain, but the audience is left with a sense of befuddlement rather than pity 110. See Bigolina, Urania, 126; Marinella, Arcadia felice, 80; and Campiglia, Flori. See also Campiglia’s Calisa, ecloga, in So che donna ama donna: La Calisa di Maddalena Campiglia, ed. Carlachiara Perrone (Galatina: Congedo, 1996), 71–88.

Editor’s Introduction 41 at his actions. He is too much of a fool for the spectators to care much about him. Autilio/Lucinia, however, is a morally complex figure. On the one hand, he is undoubtedly brave, generous, resourceful, and faithful, but on the other he consciously risks a senseless war and the shocking carnage between two armies, the Persians and the Lydians, for the simple reason that he does not want to reveal that he is within Ephesus’s royal palace as the diviner has intimated to the Persians and as his father thoroughly believes. He presents himself in Act 1.1 as a Hercules figure, and indeed his story with Celinda is similar to the mythical one of Hercules and Omphale. As the myth tells us, Omphale was queen of Lydia, a position that Celinda herself is destined to occupy as Cubo’s only daughter. Like Autilio, Hercules too lived as a slave in Omphale’s court, wore feminine clothes, and was assigned to feminine tasks at the same time that he was able to fight against the Syleus and the Ikonoi. Omphale fell in love with him, the two married and had a child, Lamos.111 But unlike Hercules, who punished himself for murders he had committed and wore feminine clothes precisely to atone for those crimes, for Autilio the disguise is the result of love, a way to get to Celinda. More damningly, he wants to kill his father, who has no ethical reasons to be punished either as a father or as a king, for the war he wages against Lydia is for the purpose of getting back his own runaway son and heir. On the battlefield Autilio slaughters or conquers his own friends and loses along the way much of the moral standing that he may have gained with the spectators. More damningly, he is cast as being not good enough: he falls, wounded, by the hand of his father and has to be protected from further mortal injuries by that other father of the story, King Cubo, who is then killed for his efforts. In a sense, Autilio is the typical young male hero in women writers’ narrative: he displays more feelings and less aggression than would have been the case in the hands of male authors—and for this reason he generates profound love and devotion in his mate—but since he hardly represents a model of masculine social behavior, there is little room in the end for an author bent on pleasing the public (and success on stage 111. For the many connections that Miani weaves into Celinda between the mythical pair of Hercules/Omphale and the tragic pair Autilio/Celinda, see detailed notes in the text.

42 Editor’s Introduction is the most overriding factor in a playwright’s mind) to propose him as the perfect example of a good husband, father, and king. Celinda’s femininity, too, is transgressive, for behind an innocent façade she is the most assertive character in the play. As in Giraldi Cinzio’s Altile, the introduction of the amorous component deriving from Boccaccio and the novella genre makes the female protagonist forget, or at least bend, the more masculine virtues that typically women writers give them, such as wisdom and prudence. Celinda herself laments her precipitous social descent after having made love to Autilio: “I lost with my virtue my regal spirit” (1.3.461). In the literature of the period, some authors were arguing that there should be a difference in the way royal female characters are treated; unlike women of the citizenry, it was argued, fictional royal women were supposed to be heroic and so not necessarily chaste and modest. Traiano Boccalini, another intellectual with Paduan connections, wrote, perhaps satyrically, that “to keep always between the bounds of modesty was the duty only of women not especially rich (“donne private”), while full-bloodied princesses, when exceptional circumstances demanded it, had to demonstrate virility.”112 But this high-class virility was almost inescapably viewed on the tragic stage as allowing princesses and queens to be sexually greedy, morally impetuous, and theatrically vengeful. Given the imitative nature of plot elements in contemporary plays, it was inevitable for Miani to model at least in part her conflicted Celinda after the royal princesses that the stage was offering. Having made Celinda a character who is unpatriotic for the sake of love, Miani has her heroine then say that it would be better for her own people to be defeated by the Persians in the upcoming war (“The ruin of our side can lighten, Nurse, the torment” [1.3.470–71]). Although torn and anguished at the thought of the effects that her private choices may have on things political, Celinda is characterized as pursuing her dream of heroic love in a self-centered way and with no regrets. Love is her engulfing tyrant: “I for Love erred, / and for Love I will bear pains and woe” (2.2.193–94). But it is also a natural one, she claims, because her beloved deserves her, as in this scene in which 112. Traiano Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso e Pietra del paragone politico, ed. Giuseppe Rua, 2 vols. (1612; Bari: Laterza, 1910–12), 1.121.

Editor’s Introduction 43 her astounded nurse first hears of her charge’s liaison with a slave she presumes to be a woman: Celinda Not the procuress, but the means most apt, she [Lucinia/Autilio] was of my failure. She is my lover, and the fortunate king. Nurse You deride and mock me. You, a woman’s lover? Eh, daughter, these are of little faith all truthful signs. Celinda Under a lying skirt and under the false name of Lucinia hides Autilio, the prince of Persia, my welcome consort and dear lover. (1.3.253–63) In women’s narratives sexual activity is always fraught with consequences, and Celinda soon finds herself pregnant. Even if her union does not disturb social classes (Autilio is her equal in rank) nor, once the disguise is shed, gender boundaries, it is still anathema to the Law of the Father, for she is unmistakably a polluted daughter.113 For this reason, Celinda can only remain deaf to Autilio’s and King Fulco’s repeated appeals to go on with life so that she can give birth to the heir of both Lydia and Persia. In the end she displays the same defiant attitude and refusal to be consoled that Boccaccio’s Ghismonda had adopted toward her father, Prince Tancredi, after he had killed her beloved.114 Celinda’s understanding that an unmarried princess’s pregnancy will become a permanent social blemish leads 113. In this, the plot recalls Speroni’s Canace, in which Canace’s newborn is strangled by her father because he is the outcome of the incestuous love between Canace and her twin brother, Macareo. 114. As Boccaccio tells it, “‘Save your tears, Tancredi,’ his daughter told him; ‘keep them, don’t give them to me, I don’t want them, keep them for those who find Fortune’s last gift

44 Editor’s Introduction her to the conclusion that her body politic, too, is dishonest, a sham. Thus she opts to see herself as an exceedingly constant lover who welcomes the unconventional because Cupid has overtaken her— she is after all only fifteen years old and without a mother’s guidance. Strong, talkative, and never repentant like Antigone, Celinda refuses to live a life whose dreams are compromised, and so falls into suicidal depression and welcomes the coming catastrophe. In choosing to make Celinda heroically defiant, Miani cannot also make her morally virtuous, and therefore, as in Senecan tragedies, Celinda is made to pay the final price, whose inevitability she herself acknowledges: “I, of my father and the kingdom an infected limb, / deserve to be severed / and the compassionate surgeon would be my death” (4.4.187–89). The resolution is pathetic, as the tears of the commodified and victimized daughter are directed to the public, and her pitiable lament works as a figurative cleansing of the emotions. This is a theater in which Petrarch is just as much at home as Aristotle, and Cupid/Amor reigns unchecked. The heroic grief of classic tragedy has become the love anguish of the early modern stage as individuals sacrifice themselves left and right on the altar of love. The cathartic encouragement of pity and fear among the spectators of the classical theater is thus substituted by the therapeutic value of the lament that explains the passion of love both in terms of its aesthetic value (as in courtly love and Petrarchist poetry) and in terms of a destructive and yet fated individual choice. In pleading with the audience for an understanding of her suffering, Celinda showcases a novel idea about tragic pleasure. In those very years, the woman’s lament had become not only a way for an actress to express her virtuosity on stage but also a means to articulate her subjectivity, often in eroticized ways, as in Isabella Andreini’s famous mad scene of bereavement in her performance of “La pazzia d’Isabella” in Florence in 1589 and in Virginia Andreini’s “Arianna’s lament” in the Rinuccini/Monteverdi opera of the same name, staged in Mantua in 1608.115 It was in fact the addition of Arianna’s weeping, according to less welcome than I do. Who ever saw anyone but you weep over the thing he sought for?’” In Decameron, trans. Waldman, 4.1, 264. 115. On the importance of the lament on stage in those very years, see for the Florentine case, McNeil, “The Divine Madness of Isabella Andreini,” 195–215; and for the Mantuan

Editor’s Introduction 45 Tim Carter, that relieved the libretto of that extreme dryness (“assai sciutta”) of which Duchess Eleonora Gonzaga had complained—and let us keep in mind that Miani had Eleonora’s preferences clearly in mind when three years later she dedicated Celinda to her.116 Giraldi Cinzio had understood that if he modeled his tragedies along the storyline of patient and passive Griselda (Decameron 10.10) rather than on that of obstinate and lively Ghismonda in Boccaccio, he would be able to keep his heroine alive. That this eventually resulted in boring female characters is only part of the story. For a woman writer like Miani, such a choice would have meant certain disempowerment of her female protagonist, for the valiant patience and utter submission of Griselda can hardly be qualities realistically adoptable by women. Better to have the distressed and bereaved Celinda fully realize the hopelessness of her situation and die tragically, dominating the stage with her grief. Her castigation for having wreaked havoc becomes thus a self-silencing; her surreptitious plunging of a just-found knife into her chest (a gesture that is recounted by the valet Corimbo to keep decorum on stage) works as a cautionary tale: women of high rank who profit from a breakdown of patriarchal authority will pay dearly for their choice of a partner: She, who until then as if of marble, immobile had stayed, reinvigorated, with her own right hand closed his eyes—and with a certain blade, a military instrument, which she found upon the bed of the dead man, unseen by anyone, her own breast she transfixed. (5.7.185–92) case, Suzanne Cusick, “‘There was not one lady who failed to shed a tear’: Arianna’s Lament and the Construction of Modern Womanhood,” Early Music 22 (1994), 21–41. Alexandra Collier has recently shown how the introduction of the lament in the commedia grave of the late sixteenth century paved the way for the virtuoso performances of actresses and female singers in early opera. See “Ladies and Courtesans in Late Sixteenth-Century Commedia Grave: Vernacular Antecedents of Early Opera’s Prime Donne,” Italian Studies 62:1 (2007), 27–44. On tragic pleasure and catharsis, see A. D. Nuttall, Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 116. Tim Carter, “Lamenting Ariadne?” Early Music 27.3 (1999): 395–406, at 395.

46 Editor’s Introduction

The price for Celinda to remain alive would have been for Miani to change a tragedy modeled after Giraldi Cinzio’s Orbecche into a tragedy with a happy ending modeled after Giraldi Cinzio’s Altile.117 By proposing a sort of tragic pleasure arising from misfortune in love, the play could have “happily” concluded with Celinda’s powerful tears, which would have substituted for the Aristotelian requirement of a fearful ending through a mixture of pity, pain, sorrow, and loss: a final turn away from desperation to relief, from horror to joy.118 But then what sort of justice could the author have claimed by keeping alive a princess who had disobeyed her father/king by making herself sexually available on the sly and by becoming pregnant with the enemy’s bastard? Counter-Reformation morality would hardly have forgiven a female author for creating a physically unchaste, verbally exuberant, and politically unorthodox teenager who becomes queen of two kingdoms after so much senseless blood spilled for the sake of an infatuation.119 Although the publication of Celinda was officially authorized by the Reformers of the Studio in Padua on August 24, 1610, Miani’s dedication of her tragedy to Duchess Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga in Mantua came eleven months later.120 This time Miani did not need an 117. Giraldi Cinzio, Altile (Venice: Cagnacini, 1583). For the new model, see also Diana Handley, “‘Amore’ and ‘Maestà’: Giambattista Giraldi’s Tragic Heroines,” Modern Language Review 80:2 (1985), 330–39. 118. See Ariani’s reading of Giraldi Cinzio’s sense of pleasurable suffering in Tra classicismo e manierismo, 139. 119. We should recall that from the 1560s on, Italian society began to see fully the victory of the patriliny, the devaluation of women as political assets, and the tyrannizing power of the father/ruler. For an excellent overview of the shift, see Gianna Pomata, “Family and Gender,” in Early Modern Italy, ed. John Marino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 69–86. 120. “Noi Riformatori del Studio di Padova infrascritti facciamo fede alle signorie vostre eccellentissime che per quello [che] ci viene attestato dal Reverendo Padre Inquisitore et dal Circospetto Segretario Giovanni Meraveglia con giuramento nel libro intitolato Celinda tragedia di Valeria Miani non si trova alcuna cosa contraria alla santa fede cristiana, principi o buoni costumi et è degno di stampa. Datoli 24 agosto 1610” [We, the below-mentioned Riformatori allo Studio di Padova, following what the reverend Father Inquisitor and the secretary Giovanni Meraveglia testify under oath, guarantee to Your Excellencies that in the book entitled Celinda, a tragedy by Valeria Miani, there is nothing contrary to the holy Christian faith, principles, and good morals, and that it deserves to be printed. Permis-

Editor’s Introduction 47 intermediary to offer her work to a patron, as earlier when the editor Bolzetta took charge in presenting Amorosa speranza to the noblewoman Descalzi; rather, here she claims her own authorship with a sure hand, even though she expresses herself modestly in the dedicatory letter, as the occasion unquestionably dictated.121 Choosing Eleonora as the dedicatee of her tragedy was not simply a way for a female author to appeal to the good graces of a patron with a large purse, for Eleonora was already the dedicatee of Tasso’s Il ghirlinzone overo l’ epitafio and also of Marinella’s Arcadia felice, who in sending her “boschereccie fatiche” to the duchess was in return “honored and aggrandized with titles and munificent presents.”122 Ill timing, if not a thoroughly unlucky set of circumstances, however, befell Miani at the very moment that she hoped to reap success. Her dedication to Eleonora is dated July 1611. This means that her letter and copy were delivered when the duchess was bedridden, plagued by malaria. Unlike sion granted on August 24, 1610]. This permission is addressed to the heads of the Council of Ten in Venice and is signed by Anton Valaresso, Almorò Zane, and Pietro Correr. The document is in ASV, Riformatori allo Studio di Padova, years 1609–11, busta 285, no page number. The official permission of the Ten, which followed three days later, on August 27, is printed in Celinda, and I have transcribed it in the section “Note on the Italian Text.” 121. An attitude of extreme modesty and deference was typical at the time also when men were dedicating their work, but Virginia Cox rightly notices a new professionalization on the part of women writers and judges that in the period 1560–1602 “twenty-three of the twenty-six works listed [as authored by women] are presented by the author.” See Women’s Writing in Italy, 155. No matter how Miani was addressed in private life (probably as Valeria de’ Negri), only in this letter does the name Negri appear in print next to Valeria Miani. 122. See Lavocat’s introduction to Arcadia felice, xviii: “onorata, et aggrandita e con titoli, e colla magnificenza de’ doni.” Tasso dedicated his tragedy, Il Re Torrismondo (Bergamo: Comino Ventura e Compagni, 1587), to Eleonora’s husband, Vincenzo. The duke was famously enthralled with the minutiae of contracts and costumes for the stage, but Eleonora too solicited plays and had a good deal of authority in pursuing her schemes. Her interest in Torelli’s Parthenia, for example, is recorded in a letter to Torelli by the poet Muzio Manfredi. See Sampson, “Dramatica secreta,” 114 n. 39. Eleonora also solicited performances by women artists as when she asked her uncle, Granduke Ferdinando, to send to Mantua a group of female singers (“le donne di Giulio Romano”) to perform a “pastorale cantata” on the occasion of her son Francesco’s wedding. The request was denied. See Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato, 2944/429. On Eleonora’s role as patron of the arts, see also Renato Berzaghi, “Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga e l’oratorio sopra Santa Croce,” in Rubens. Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga e l’oratorio sopra Santa Croce: Pittura devota a corte, ed. Filippo Trevisani and Stefano L’Occaso (Milan: Electa, 2005), 33–44.

48 Editor’s Introduction previous bouts with this disease, Eleonora did not survive the present onslaught and died two months later.123 The mourning Gonzaga court showed understandably no interest in having Miani’s play read or performed. A few months later, in February 1612, all Carnival festivities were canceled, for Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga too had died, thus putting an end to the most fruitful collaboration of the era between princes and artists. The ornate frontispiece of Celinda proudly shows on the upper part the Medici’s traditional palle next to the Gonzaga’s scorpion, thus correctly representing Eleonora’s genealogy. To the left and right there are two putti, each holding a laurel and each sitting on a capitol decorated with the head of a horned faun. The two lateral columns have a man and a woman dressed in pastoral clothes, long arrows/ spears in their hands, and laurel wreaths on their heads. At the bottom, together with some apotropeic masks, there are two fauns with legs of goats ( see fig. 1). The abundance of references makes clear that we inhabit an idyllic Arcadian world, although the title in the middle of the title page spells out its tragic content. And indeed Celinda has the same title page layout as Miani’s Amorosa speranza (see fig. 2), with a slight modification at the top to accommodate now the Medici and the Gonzaga coats of arms. But who is the feminine figure appearing on both title pages with a laurel branch in her right hand? She is drawn within a tiny rondeau at the center of the woodcut as she leans on a column in which the word Pax is printed. She has curly hair and is dressed like a character in a pastoral. I would like to suggest that this could be the way that Valeria Miani the playwright chose to inscribe herself.124 For a woman about whose personal life we know so little, it is tempting to imagine that she might have chosen on purpose to represent herself for posterity in the title page of the only medium that she strove to inhabit throughout her life, that of the theater.

123. There is no record in the Gonzaga Archive of any thank you letter addressed to Miani. I have consulted busta 2167 and busta 2276, both connected to the year 1611. Also there is no mention of Miani in “Comici e commedie,” years 1408–1787, in the Schede Davari relevant to the period 1610–11. See ASM, Archivio Gonzaga, Schede Davari, Busta 14. 124. In poems prefacing Celinda, Miani is described as having stereotypically curly blond tresses.

Editor’s Introduction 49

The Fortunes of Valeria Miani Chronology, as well as fashion, worked unfortunately from the beginning against any outright recognition of Miani’s literary worth. As the public lost interest in the spoken tragic stage in favor of the musical starting from the very decade in which Celinda appeared—the triumph of Claudio Monteverdi’s Orpheus at the Gonzaga court in Mantua in 1607 and of Arianna in 1608 spelled the fate of opera—so Italian critics lost their interest in the literary production of the seventeenth century, arrogantly judged as overabundant, teary, boring, accumulative, and falsely religious. A long time passed after the first mention of Valeria Miani’s Amorosa speranza by Pietro Paolo Ribera in 1609 and of Celinda by Agostino della Chiesa’s in 1620—both made when Miani was still alive.125 Apart from a madrigal by Pietro Petracci praising her as honoring Padua and a short entry by Giovan Maria Crescimbeni in 1698 that mentions a now lost volume of poetry by Miani, we have to wait until the early eighteenth century to see reprinted four poems by our author thanks to the Venetian poet and playwright Luisa Bergalli, who put together the first collection after the early modern period of works by women poets.126 Shortly after, Miani made it into the authoritative catalogue of Italian writers by Francesco Saverio Quadrio.127 In the nineteenth century, both of Miani’s books were collected in Leopoldo Ferri’s library, which today constitutes an indispensable stop for any critic interested in works by 125. But Della Chiesa wrongly remarked that Celinda was dedicated to the Duke of Mantua rather than to his wife. Following Ribera, he also wrongly identified Miani’s father as “a famous doctor from Bologna.” See Agostino Della Chiesa, Theatro delle donne letterate con un breve discorso della preeminenza, e perfettione del sesso donnesco (Mondovì: Ginardi e Rossi, 1620), 295. 126. Pietro Petracci, Rime diverse (Venice: n.p. 1615?). I thank Virgina Cox for this reference. Crescimbeni, L’Istoria della volgar poesia, 438–39; Luisa Bergalli, Componimenti poetici delle più illustri rimatrici di ogni secolo (Venice: Morra, 1726), 84. Bergalli worked with Apostolo Zeno. The poems, cited here by their first line, are “Se del sereno ciel divino ardore,” “Pianta chiara e feconda,” “Quanti son del tuo sposo i pregi illustri,” and “O de’ tuoi cari, ed amorosi spirti.” Bergalli writes that Miani “flourished around 1598” (291). The date uncannily echoes that of the chronicler Cesare Padoano mentioned earlier, although it is not apparent unless further biographical sources are located why Bergalli chose this specific year in Miani’s life. 127. Quadrio, Della storia e della ragione d’ogni poesia, 1:78.

50 Editor’s Introduction Italian women writers of the past.128 Miani was also included in another historically important biographical dictionary of work by women writers put together by Ginevra Canonici Fachini, and she is also mentioned in catalogues of illustrious Paduan intellectuals through the centuries.129 As for the modern period, Miani’s work has received little attention. Anna Böhm includes the author in a history of early modern theaters and playwrights in Padua, and calls her “an educated noblewoman” and “a good writer of poems.”130 Nicola Mangini cites the romance elements in Celinda and notices the author’s lack of verisimilitude.131 More appreciatively, Emilio Bertana includes Miani in his overview of Renaissance tragedy, arguing that the presence of a female playwright at the turn of the seventeenth century in Italy was a historically important and unique event.132 Still, even when lucky enough to be mentioned, Miani is relegated to footnotes, and no study of her tragedy has yet been published.133 But she is emerging from the shadows: recently Mariella Magliani has showcased her in a brief piece in 1995; and Françoise Decroisette has studied her Amorosa speranza.134 In 2008, Katie Rees published the first full-length article 128. Ferri, Biblioteca femminile italiana, 234–35. 129. Ginevra Canonici Fachini, Prospetto biografico delle donne italiane rinomate in letteratura (Venice: Alvisopoli, 1824); Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, 2:600–602; and Napoleone Pietrucci, Delle illustri donne padovane: Cenni biografici (Padua: Bianchi, 1853), 45–46. 130. Böhm, “Notizie sulla storia del teatro a Padova,” 58. Also Maria Bandini Buti mentions Miani in Poetesse e scrittrici, 2 vols. (Busto Arsizio: Tip. Pellegatta, 1941), 2:25. 131. Mangini, “La tragedia e la commedia,” in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. Arnaldi and Pastore Stocchi, 307. 132. Bertana, La tragedia, 132. 133. Bruno Brunelli, for example, ignores our playwright in I teatri di Padova; and Delfina Forti dismisses her pastoral play together with that of the other two known female playwrights of the period. As she puts it, “I even find among the authors of pastorals some women: Isabella Andreini from Padua, Valeria Miani, and Maddalena Campiglia, whose little works I do not think merit any special mention.” In Forti, “I drammi pastorali del 1600 e le rappresentazioni a Venezia prima del teatro,” Ateneo Veneto [old ser.] 26”1 (1903), 25–40, at 31. 134. Magliani, “Giulia, Lucia e Valeria: Tre donne così poco ‘comuni’”; and Decroisette, “Satyres au féminin.”

Editor’s Introduction 51 on Miani; moreover, her dissertation, soon to be defended at Cambridge University, promises to fill other gaps in the literary career of Valeria Miani.135

Note on Italian Text No manuscript version has surfaced of Celinda in Italian, for it was the custom to discard the handwritten copy once a work was published. The present transcription is based on the 1611 edition in quartos of the text published by the Paduan printer Francesco Bolzetta through [appresso] Domenico Amadio in Vicenza. Since occasionally some characters in the play are faded, I have used two printed versions: the one at the Marciana Library in Venice (Dramm. 0116) and the one in the Special Collections of Rare Books at the University of Chicago. The Marciana copy bears some handwritten corrections, either by the author or the printer, in black in the text. The Chicago copy appears to have come to us through a French connection. The motto preceding the title page there shows two female angels surrounding a coat of arms that reads “Comme Je Fus.” Celinda is numbered sequentially on the right and is made up of 84r and 84v pages, exactly like Amorosa speranza, with which it shares the same cover, apart from the coat of arms. It contains a copy of the permission to publish it, given by the Council of Ten in Venice, upon recommendation of the Reformers of the Studio in Padua on August 27, 1610. That permission reads as follows: Gli Eccellentissimi SS. Capi dell’ Eccelso Consiglio di Dieci, havuta fede dalli Signori Reformatori dello studio di Padova, per relatione delli doi a ciò deputati, cioè del Reverendo Padre Inquisitore e del Cir. Secretario del Senato Gio[vanni] Maraveglia con giuramento, che nel libro intitolato Celinda Tragedia di Valeria Miani non si trova alcuna cosa contraria alla santa fede christiana, princìpi o buoni costumi, e è degno

135. Rees, “Female-Authored Drama,” has a section on Celinda at 55–60. Rees’s dissertation is entitled “Women Writers for the Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Valeria Miani Negri.”

52 Editor’s Introduction di stampa, concedono che possi essere stampato. Dat. die XXVII Augusti 1610.136 Capi dell’Illustrissimo Consiglio di X: Capi D. M. Anton[io] Vallaresso D. Almorò Zane D. Pietro Correr Excelsi Consilij Decem Secr. Ioann. Bapt. Padavinus Celinda then has a three-page letter of Miani to her dedicatee, Princess Eleonora de’ Medici Gonzaga, and a sequence of nine poems or sonnets in praise of the work or of the author, by Gratiadio Conservi, Cavalier Vanni, Arrigo Falconio (two poems), Ercole Manzoni, Fabio Leonida, Gasparo Murtola (two poems), and Marcantonio Balcianelli.

Notes on Transcription The transcription follows the text, written in a Tuscan-based Italian, as closely as possible and changes were made exclusively to enhance reading or to correct printer’s omissions and mistakes. More specifically, following modern usage there has been conservative intervention in the following: 1. The letters v and u have been distinguished; and the letter j when in initial position or intervocalic has been changed into i (varji is now vari) 2. Punctuation has been added or removed when necessary 3. et has been changed into e 4. Words spelled inconsistently or misspelled have been corrected

136. “The most excellent Signori, heads of the Most High Council of Ten, having had notification from the Riformatori allo Studio di Padova, upon a report made under oath by the two appointed members—that is, the Reverend Father Inquisitor and the Secretary of the Senate, Giovanni Maraveglia—that in the book entitled Celinda a tragedy, by Valeria Miani there is nothing contrary to the holy Christian faith, principles, and good morals and that it deserves to be published, grant permission to print it. August 27, 1610.”

Editor’s Introduction 53 5. Consonants have been doubled (imagine becomes immagine) and viceversa (doppo is now dopo), following today’s conventions, when the text offered both versions 6. Accents and apostrophes have been modernized (ré is now re), and abbreviations have been transcribed in full 7. t followed by a vowel has been changed into z (gratie is now grazie); iu at the beginning of a word is now giu (iustitia is giustizia) 8. Capitalization follows now standard practice, except with the word “Amore” when it refers, even indirectly, to Cupid 9. Modern spelling has been given very conservatively for some most common words in the text (prencipe is now principe; omai is ormai) 10. The letter h has been removed at the beginning of words (huomini is now uomini) and in the middle (choro is coro) when unnecessary 11. Prepositions, adverbs and some names have been tied (là su is now lassù; in somma is insomma) As is characteristic of Italian Renaissance tragedy, the text consists of unrhymed seven-and eleven-syllable verses.

Note on the Translation The translation attempts to follow the structure of the verses for the sake of those poetic elements that could be reproduced, focusing primarily on the poetic word order, rhythm and alliteration, but without trying to recreate English verse. The other primary concern has been clarity of meaning.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

VALERIA MIANI CELINDA, A TRAGEDY ITALIAN TEXT WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION ON FACING PAGES

56 Celinda, A Tragedy

Lettera Dedicatoria ALLA SERENISSIMA PRINCIPESSA, SIGNORA E PATRONA COL[ENDISSIMA], MADAMA ELEONORA GONZAGA, DUCHESSA DI MANTOVA E DI MONFERRRATO

Fu parere di tutti i più savi dell’antichità, approvato dall’uso, che dove fosse altezza di stirpe reale ed eminenza d’eroico spendore, ivi di necessità si ritrovasse ancora ingenerata l’indole d’ un’ anima valorosa. V[ostra] A[ltezza], favorita da Dio, ornata dalla natura e arricchita dalla fortuna di più sovrani doni e di maggior prerogative che altra principessa de’ nostri tempi o de’ secoli trascorsi, viene giustamente ammirata dal mondo e riverita come sacro tabernacolo delle virtù e venerando tempio delle grazie di Venere celeste e del divino amore. In questa comune opinione rapita anch’ io a viva forza dal soave influsso di rare e innumerabili virtù, non so se illuminato il cielo dell’ anima vostra, o pure illuminate da quella come da prima intelligenza, umile e oscura mi rappresento al cospetto di V[ostra] Altezza per mostrarle parte di quella riverenza e debita soggezione ch’ ognun le dee ed in particolare il nostro sesso, illustrato a meraviglia dal chiarissimo sole della serenissima sua luce. Ho creduto non esser disdicevole in questo mio primo incontro con l’offerirle me stessa consecrarle insieme questa mia qual si sia poetica fatica, parto di sterile ingegno, a madre fecondissima non meno di virtù che di stirpe reale e gloriosa. Né doverà dal mondo esser stimato presonzione o temeraria impresa la mia perch’ abbi osato d’ inviarle questo basso dono risplendendo con esso magnanimi e valorosi eroi, non forse indegni d’esser ricevuti dall’ animo eroico ed eccelso di lei; nell’ ombre de i lagrimosi ed infelici avvenimenti de’ quali spero a costume di pittore far maggiormente spiccare il rilevo delle felicità e grandezze di V[ostra] A[ltezza] e così co ’l paragone delle tenebre far conoscere il pregio della luce.

Celinda, A Tragedy 57

Dedicatory Letter TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCESS, LADY, AND MOST HONORABLE PATRONESS MADAME ELEONORA MEDICI GONZAGA, DUCHESS OF MANTUA AND OF MONFERRATO

It was the opinion of all the wisest men of antiquity, an opinion approved by custom, that wherever one found the loftiness of royal lineage and the eminence of heroic splendor, there by necessity was also found the inborn disposition of a valorous spirit. Your Highness, favored by God, adorned by Nature, and enriched by Fortune with more exalted endowments and greater prerogatives than any other princess of our time or of the past centuries, is justly admired by the world and revered as a holy tabernacle of virtues and a venerable temple of the graces of the celestial Venus and the divine Love. In this same opinion I too have been swept up with overwhelming force by the sweet influence of your rare and innumerable virtues; I don’t know whether Heaven is illuminated by your soul, or those virtues are illuminated by your soul, as if by a prime intelligence. Humble and obscure, I present myself in the presence of Your Highness, in order to show you part of that reverence and dutiful subjection which everyone owes you, and particularly our sex which is marvelously glorified by the very bright sun of your most serene light. I believed it not unseemly, in this my first encounter, to offer you myself and at the same time to consecrate to you this poetic effort of mine, such as it is, the offspring of a sterile intellect, to a mother most prolific no less of virtues than of a royal and glorious lineage. Nor must the world deem my endeavor presumptuous or reckless, because I have dared to send you this lowly gift, since shining with it are magnanimous and valorous heroes, perhaps not unworthy to be received by your heroic and outstanding intellect. By means of the shadows of tearful and unhappy events I hope, as is the custom with painters, to make stand out more clearly in contrast the joys and grandeurs of Your Highness, and so with the comparison of the shadows to make better known the worth of the light.

58 Celinda, A Tragedy Della qual molto vaga la mia CELINDA , nell’uscire dall’oscuro silenzio dove finora è stata involta, ingegnosa farfalla, volando s’ indirizza a lei, oggetto più d’ ogn’ altro luminoso, e quivi con sorte felice accendendosi al chiaro lume della sua grazia, arderà, s’ incenderà e nel celeste rogo di quel divin splendore non morte o sepoltura, ma spera chiara e gloriosa vita riportarne. Resta che l’Altezza Vostra non sdegni questo tragico parto, avendo più riguardo all’animo di me, umilissima donatrice, che alla bassezza dello stesso dono, in cui non riconosco altro merito che quella sincerità e quell’ affetto co ’l quale glielo consacro, supplicando l’ Altezza Vostra che resti servita di ricevermi nel grado delle sue più infime servitrici, recandomi a specie di somma felicità l’ esser annoverata in quelle per poter ad ogn’ ora con l’ occhio della mente rimirare e riverire co ’l core la bella idea di V[ostra] A[ltezza], mia sovrana Signora, mio solo oggetto, mia benigna stella e mio benefico sole. E augurandole dal cielo il colmo d’ogni felicità, umilmente me le inchino. Di Padova il ___ dì Luglio 1611 Di V[ostra] A[ltissima] S[erenissima] devotiss[ima] e umiliss[ima] servitrice Valeria Miani Negri

Celinda, A Tragedy 59 Of this light my Celinda is very desirous as she emerges from the shadowy silence where up till now she has been enveloped; like an ingenious moth she directs her flight to you as to the object more luminous than any other. There she meets a happy fate: set aflame in the bright light of your grace, she will burn; she will catch fire; and in the celestial pyre of that divine splendor, not death or burial, but a bright and glorious life she hopes to carry away. It remains for Your Highness not to disdain this tragic offspring of mine, having greater regard for the spirit of the humble giver than for the lowliness of the gift itself. I recognize no other merit in my gift than that sincerity and affection with which I consecrate it to you, supplicating Your Highness that you consent to receive me into the ranks of your lowliest servants. It would bring me to a sort of supreme happiness to be numbered among them, so that I may at any time with my mind’s eye gaze at, and revere with my heart, the beautiful Ideal of Your Highness, my sovereign Lady, my only objective, my benign star, and my beneficent sun. And wishing for you from Heaven the height of every joy, humbly I bow to you. From Padua, the ___ day of July, 1611. Your Highness’s most devoted and most humble servant, Valeria Miani Negri

60 Celinda, A Tragedy

Poesie Celebrative ALLA MOLTO ILLUSTRE SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI PER LA SUA CELINDA TETRASTICI DEL SIGNOR CONTE GRATIADIO CONSERVI

Con quai fregi o quai pompe oggi risuona Tra funesta d’amor fiera procella La sonora tua cetra, o vaga e bella Cittadina di Pindo e d’Elicona? Del sacrato Elicona, che fastoso Gl’animati cristalli e i vivi argenti Mesce ne’ dolci tuoi canori accenti, E sol oggi per te sorge pomposo. Sorge pomposo ed a ragion t’onora, Che dal lugubre tuo bel canto impara Viver vita Celinda assai più chiara De la luce del ciel, che ’l mondo indora. Di quella luce onde, portando il giorno L’eterno auriga co’ destrier volanti, Te sola addita e de’ suoi propri vanti Fregia il tuo nome di virtute adorno. Quindi egli avien che la verace diva, Celeste musa, nel cantar ti lodi, Perché oprar sai con pelegrini modi Che la fama de’ regi eterna viva. A la bellezza sei madre d’Amore E nel girar del guardo onesto e santo

Celinda, A Tragedy 61

Celebratory Poems TO THE VERY ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI FOR HER CELINDA TETRASTICHES BY COUNT GRATIADIO CONSERVI 1

With what decorations or what splendors today resounds amid love’s baleful fierce storm your sonorous lyre, O you charming and beautiful citizen of Pindus and of Helicon?2 Of sacred Helicon which sumptuously mixes, in your sweet melodious accents, animated crystals and vivid argents, and today through you alone does it rise up in splendor. It rises up in splendor, and rightfully honors you, for from your beautiful lugubrious song Celinda learns to live a life far brighter than the light of Heaven which gilds the world; than that light with which, in bringing the day, the eternal charioteer with his flying destriers points out you alone, and with his own merits he decorates your name which is adorned with virtue.3 Then it happens that the truthful divine celestial Muse in her singing praises you, because you know how to work in elegant ways so that the fame of kings eternally may live. Judging from your beauty you are the mother of Love, and when you turn roundabout your honest and holy gaze,

62 Celinda, A Tragedy Stupido ognun t’ammira e dice intanto: “Venere al volto sei, Pallade al core.” A te dunque, VALERIA , ognun s’inchina C’hai ne la mente e nel leggiadro volto Ogni sapere, ogni bel pregio accolto Onde sei, fra mortali, opra divina.

ALLA MOLTO ILLUSTRE SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI PER LA SUA CELINDA, TRAGEDIA [DE] IL CAVALIER VANNI

Mentre tragiche nozze e mesti amori Co ’l canto di Melpomene tu canti E vestendo di duol volto e sembianti Con grido eterno oggi il coturno onori, Per le selve d’Eliso e per gl’orrori Le Fedre e le Medee, nud’ombre erranti, Vaghe di rimirar gl’antichi pianti, Braman su i colli Euganei infausti ardori, Però che quivi a te sol dato in sorte Fu con le note tue d’affetto piene Far dolenti i teatri a l’altrui morte, E de la gloria per le vie serene Lieta portar fra l’auree trecce attorte Il primo allor de le funeste scene.

Celinda, A Tragedy 63 everyone, stunned, admires you, and says meanwhile: “You are Venus in your visage, but Pallas at heart.”4 To you therefore, VALERIA , everyone bows, for you have in your mind and in your lovely visage all knowledge and every fine merit gathered; hence you are among mortals a work divine.

TO THE VERY ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI FOR HER TRAGEDY, CELINDA FROM CAVALIER VANNI 5

While tragic nuptials and sad loves with Melpomene’s song you sing, and dressing with grief your visage and expression, with eternal fame today the buskin you honor,6 through the woods of Elysium and through horrors the Phaedras and the Medeas, errant naked shades desirous of staring at the ancient plaints, crave on the Euganean Hills doomed passions.7 But here to you alone as your fate was it given, by means of your verses with emotion filled, to make theaters grieve at others’ deaths, and through glory’s serene paths to wear joyfully among your golden twining tresses the first laurel of the mournful scenes.8

64 Celinda, A Tragedy PER LA TRAGEDIA DELL’ILLUSTRISSIMA SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI [DEL CAVALIER VANNI?]

Questa, d’alti coturni Sovrana dicitrice, Quì ne mostra con stil raro e felice Di Celinda il mortal ultimo giorno, Ma co ’l bel guardo d’onestate adorno (Ove il cor di mirar non è mai sazio) In dispietata sorte Crudel ne mena a morte. Così di doppio strazio Questa bella omicida Con la penna e con gli occhi a morte sfida.

PER LA MEDESIMA DEL SIG. ARRIGO FALCONIO

Oh, come chiara splendi Nel tuo sovrano stile, Alma saggia e gentile! Oh, come dolci rendi Questi tragici accenti Di cui non udìo Tebe i più dolenti! Tu splendi sì ma chiara anco ne i rai De gl’occhi tuoi, che ’l sol vincon d’assai.

PER LA TRAGEDIA DELL’ILLUSTRE SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI DEL SIG. ERCOLE MANZONI ESTENSE

Altri pur le vittorie e i duci egregi, E le guerre e gl’incendi e’ canti e scriva, Come chi di Laerte e de la diva La prole ornò di mille fregi eterni.

Celinda, A Tragedy 65 FOR THE TRAGEDY BY THE ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI [BY CAVALIER VANNI?]

Of lofty buskins this supreme narrator here shows us, with a style rare and felicitous, Celinda’s fatal last day; but with her beautiful gaze with chastity adorned (where the heart is never sated with looking), to a pitiless fate cruelly she leads us to death. Thus with double torment this beautiful murderess with her pen and with her eyes challenges us to death.

FOR THE SAME BY SIGNOR ARRIGO FALCONIO 9

Oh, how brightly you shine in your supreme style, O soul wise and noble! Oh, how sweet you render these tragic accents— Thebes heard none more sorrowful. You shine, yes; but brightly also in the rays of your eyes, which overcome the sun by far.10

FOR THE TRAGEDY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI BY SIGNOR ERCOLE MANZONI, ESTENSE 11

By all means, of victories and outstanding generals, wars and fires, let others sing and write, like those who adorned with a thousand eternal ornaments the offspring of Laertes and of the goddess;12

66 Celinda, A Tragedy Altri di bella donna a i veri pregi Dia con perpetui inchiostri imago viva, Onde dal freddo Borea a l’arsa riva Il bel nome di lei s’ illustri e fregi, Che deposte Valeria e tromba e l’ira, Tu regia scena e mesta oggi dimostra Ch’a via più degna impresa ardente aspira, Poiché da fama è pinta imago mostra Che sa trarne l’amor, la fuga e l’ira, E guerra e morte e indi la doglia nostra.

PER LA TRAGEDIA DELL’ILLUSTRE SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI DEL SIG. FABIO LEONIDA

Qual ti deggio dar, donna gentile, O di musa o di grazia e nome e vanto? Già mortal pregio al tuo valore è vile Che sembri al volto grazia, e musa al canto. Te dica a le sirene altri simile Perché porti cantando morte e pianto, Ch’un vitale morir dai con lo stile Come vita col guardo onesto e santo. Né mai l’unico augel sì bello uscìo Dal rogo che l’ancide e lo rinnova Contr’a danni del tempo invido e rio, Come da’ versi tuoi bella, vegg’io, Celinda, arsa d’amor, a vita nova Alzarsi, e giù volar lunge d’oblio.

Celinda, A Tragedy 67 let others to a beautiful woman’s true merits give with perpetual ink a living image, so that from chilly Boreas’s lands13 to the burning shore her fair name is glorified and decorated; for you, Valeria, having laid down both trumpet and wrath, show us today a sorrowful royal scene, which to a far worthier ardent endeavor aspires, since by fame a painted image is shown which knows how to draw forth love, flight, wrath, and war, and death, and hence our grief.

FOR THE TRAGEDY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI BY SIGNOR FABIO LEONIDA 14

Which must I give you, O noble lady, of Muse or of Grace the name and the praise? Mere mortal esteem for your valor would be base, for you seem from your visage a Grace, and a Muse from your song.15 Let others say that the Sirens you resemble, because in your singing you bear death and weeping; a vivifying death you give with your style, as well as life with your chaste and pious regard. Never so beautiful did the unique bird emerge from the pyre which kills it and renews it against the harms of invidious and wicked Time,16 as from your verses I see beautiful Celinda, burned by love, to a new life rise up, and indeed fly far from oblivion.

68 Celinda, A Tragedy PER LA TRAGEDIA DELL’ILLUSTRE SIGNORA VALERIA MIANI DEL SIG. GASPARO MURTOLA

Se già la vita al proprio figlio tolse Il re de’ Persi invitto e fulminante, Se la bella di lui, seguace amante, La sua tragica mano in sè rivolse, 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. Né sol la vita dar con l’aurea cetra, Saggia donna, puoi tu, né con ’l sole Notte a chi fu gran tempo, oimè, sepolto. Ma con un guardo ancor altrui rivolto L’alpi animar di più selvaggia pietra Ma in ciel la luna anco arrestar e ’l sole.

PER LA MEDESIMA DEL S[IG.] GASPARO MURTOLA

Abito finto in femminil sembiante Prese de i re de’ Persi il figlio audace, E in Lidia volto il regio pié fugace Ancella fu de la sua bella amante. Accorto Amor, o quante astuzie, o quante Inspira altrui la sua possente face! Venne egli, e vide e vinse, e la sua pace Ritrovò lieto al suo bel sol davante.

Celinda, A Tragedy 69 FOR THE TRAGEDY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI BY SIGNOR GASPARO MURTOLA 17

If formerly the king of the Persians, victorious and fulminating, took the life of his own son; if his beautiful follower and lover her tragic hand upon herself turned; you, with the style that gathered life in itself, call back those characters under the wandering moon, and among scenes and theaters in front of others you draw them forth from the urn18 which formerly enveloped them. It is only life that with your golden lyre you cannot give, O wise lady, nor with the sun can you give night to those who were, alas, long ago buried. But yet with one look turned to others you can animate the alps with wilder stone, and in the sky you can halt the moon and the sun.

FOR THE SAME BY SIGNOR GASPARO MURTOLA

The son of the king of the Persians audaciously took up a deceiving dress and feminine semblance, and when the royal refugee’s foot arrived in Lydia, a maidservant he became of his beautiful lover. Clever Love, oh how, how much craftiness your powerful torch inspires in people! He came, and saw, and conquered, and his peace he found with delight in front of his beautiful sun.

70 Celinda, A Tragedy Ma poi con esso a guerreggiar uscito Contra il suo genitor, ah come estinto Giacque da strale impetuoso e forte! Misero inganno, così Amor sei finto? Così co ’l dolce in un l’amaro è unito? Così la vita dai? Così la morte?

ALL’ ILLUSTRE SIG. VALERIA MIANI PER LA SUA TRAGEDIA INTITOLATA CELINDA DEL S[IG]. MARC’ANT[ONIO] BALCIANELLI

Donna ben ti direi, sì come al volto, Nova pompa del ciel, umil t’onoro Mentre ’l tuo canto pellegrino ascolto De gli alati cantori il più canoro. Se non che ne ’l tuo stil rimiro accolto Tragico pianto e funeral decoro, Sirena anco chiamarti indi m’è tolto Ché non porgi, cantando, aspro martoro. Dunque qual nominar giammai ti deggio, O nel canto simile al dio di Delo Diva ch’in mortal forma io pur vagheggio? Ah, che mostro sei tu sotto uman velo Perché stupido in un ascolto e veggio Nel suon l’inferno, e nel bel volto il cielo?

Celinda, A Tragedy 71 But then when he to wage war went forth against his sire, ah! he fell, slain by an arrow impetuous and strong. A miserable deceit; in this way, Love, you are false? In this way together with the sweet is the bitter united? In this way you give life? In this way, death?

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS LADY VALERIA MIANI, FOR HER TRAGEDY ENTITLED CELINDA BY SIGNOR MARC’ANTONIO BALCIANELLI 19

I would properly call you a lady, since I honor humbly the new magnificence from Heaven in your visage while I listen to your rare song (of the winged singers the most melodious),20 except that in your style I see united tragic weeping and funereal decorum. To call you a Siren is also forbidden me, for with your singing you do not cause harsh torment. Therefore by whatever name must I call you, O goddess who in song resembles the god of Delos,21 yet whom in a mortal form I cherish? Ah, what sort of monster are you under your human veil? Because at the same time I, stunned, hear and see: in your sound, Hell, and in your beautiful visage, Heaven.

72 Celinda, A Tragedy

Argomento Autilio, principe di Persia, innamoratosi per fama e per un’immagine veduta di Celinda, principessa di Lidia, mentre dal padre gli erano preparate le nozze della figliastra, principessa di Tracia, nascostamente fuggì dal regno suo, e vestitosi in abito femminile venne in Lidia, tenne modo d’esser venduto come schiava d’Irlanda al re Cubo, padre della principessa Celinda. Aiutato da l’età e dalla delicatezza del viso, diede al suo pensiero effetto, e posto a servire per damigella l’ amata principessa, dopo certo tempo e vari accidenti scopertosi, gode dell’amor suo. Ma volendo mostrargli la fortuna quanto facilmente sa girare la sua ruota, fece ch’egli, ogn’altra cosa dispregiando, per difendere il regno della sua donna andasse al campo pur in abito di donna guerriera a combattere contra ’l proprio padre, che per certo risponso dell’oracolo avea mosso guerra alla Lidia; dal quale non essendo però conosciuto, fu mortalmente ferito; donde ne segue poi la volontaria morte della principessa Celinda.

Celinda, A Tragedy 73

Argument Autilio, the prince of Persia, fell in love with Celinda, the princess of Lydia, from her reputation and an image he saw of her. While his father was preparing Autilio’s nuptials with his stepdaughter, the princess of Thrace, Autilio secretly fled his kingdom. Dressed in feminine attire, he came to Lydia and took care to be sold as an Irish slave girl to King Cubo, father of Princess Celinda. Aided by his youth and the delicacy of his features, he carried out his plan, and as a maid served his beloved princess. After some time and various incidents, he revealed his identity, and enjoyed her love. But Fortune wanted to show him how easily she can turn her wheel: she made him disregard everything else in order to defend his lady’s kingdom by going to the battlefield, though dressed as a woman warrior, to fight against his own father, who, because of a certain pronouncement by the oracle, had started a war against Lydia. Autilio however was not recognized by his father, and by him was mortally wounded, which led to the subsequent voluntary death of Princess Celinda.

74 Celinda, A Tragedy

Persone che parlano Prologo Ombra d’Eusina, figliastra del re di Persia, amante già del principe Autilio Lucinia Cioè Autilio, principe di Persia, amante della princi- pessa Celinda Cubo Re di Lidia Consigliero Celinda Principessa di Lidia Nutrice Armilla Matrona di corte Attamante Cavaliero spartano della corte di Lidia, amante della principessa Celinda Araldo Fanciullo Alcandro Capitano de’ soldati di Lidia Corimbo Cameriero Arminio Principe di Selandia, condotto prigione Itaco Duce dell’esercito de’ Medi, condotto prigione Messo del campo di Lidiani Messo che porta la testa, il cor e le mani del re Cubo Fulco Re di Persia Coro Coro Coro

de’ soldati di Lidia de’ soldati di Persia stabile di donne di Lidia

La scena è in Efeso, città di Lidia.

Celinda, A Tragedy 75

Cast Prologue the ghost of Eusina, stepdaughter of the King of Persia, formerly in love with Prince Autilio Lucinia the disguised Prince Autilio of Persia, lover of Princess Celinda Cubo King of Lydia Counselor Celinda Princess of Lydia Nurse Armilla matron of the court Attamante Spartan knight at the court of Lydia, suitor of Princess Celinda Herald a young boy Alcandro captain of the soldiers of Lydia Corimbo manservant Arminio prince of Zeeland, a prisoner Itaco general of the army of the Medes, a prisoner Messenger from the Lydian army Messenger who brings the head, heart, and hands of King Cubo Fulco King of Persia Chorus Chorus stable

of Lydian Soldiers of Persian Soldiers Chorus of Lydian Ladies

The setting is the Lydian city of Ephesus.

76 Celinda, A Tragedy

Prologo Ombra d’Eusina Da quegli oscuri e spaventevol regni Ov’han lor seggio il duol, i gridi e ’l pianto, Da quei profondi e tenebrosi abissi Ove i tre fiumi con sulfurei rivi Bagnano i campi de’ tormenti eterni, Ov’il trifauce difensor d’Averno, Orribilmente fiero, A l’entrata è custode E co’ latrati i miseri spaventa, Di tenebre vestita alma dolente D’infelice donzella, Di mal nata regina, Di ver’amante miserabil ombra, Oggi risorgo a riveder il giorno, E torno a rimirar fra gente viva La diurna del ciel splendida face. Che dico a rimirar? Ahi, lassa, vengo A ministrar veneno A le tre suore c’han vipereo ’l crine! Così a me fu concesso Dal crudo regnator de l’ombre eterne Per vendicar i miei sofferti oltraggi Contra Autilio crudel, ch’in molle gonna, E con mentito crin, mentito nome, Com’ebbe il cor mentito, in Lidia venne, Tratto da le bellezze De la figlia del re. Fortuna arrise A’ suoi desir lascivi, ond’egli poi De l’amato suo ben fu fatto dono. Quivi ’l crudel senza memoria vive De l’amor mio, in mezzo a gl’agi, a i lussi; E quanto ebbe me in odio Altrettanto Celinda ama ed apprezza.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 77

Prologue Ghost of Eusina From those dark and frightful realms where dwell grief, screams, and weeping; from those deep and shadowy abysses where the three rivers with sulfurous banks bathe the fields of eternal torments, where the three-headed defender of Avernus (horribly fierce) at the entrance is the guard, and with his barking affrights the wretched ones;22 dressed in shadows, the suffering spirit of an unhappy maiden, of an unfortunate queen, a true lover’s miserable ghost, today I rise up to see again the daylight. I return to behold, among living people, the firmament’s splendid diurnal torch. What am I saying, to behold? Alas, I come to administer poison to the three sisters with the snaky hair.23 To me this was granted by the cruel ruler of the eternal shades, to take revenge, for the outrages I suffered, upon cruel Autilio, who in a woman’s skirt and with lying hair and a lying name, just like his lying heart, to Lydia came,24 drawn by the beauties of the king’s daughter. Fortune smiled on his lascivious desires, so that he later of his beloved darling received the gift. Here the cruel man lives, forgetful of my love, amid comforts and luxuries; and as much as he hated me, that much he loves Celinda, and esteems her.

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78 Celinda, A Tragedy Ama la sua beltà, pregia la stirpe De gli avi suoi regali, adora e cole La corrotta onestà ch’in me cotanto Diceva odiar, non violata ancora. Barbaro dispietato e cor ferino, A me negò l’amore, Spregiò ’l mio regio sangue, E ricusò il crudel, per non bearmi Con li bramati suoi dolci imenei, Di Tracia la corona; Né di tanto satollo, Sotto ’l velo coperto De l’inimica notte, Fuggì dal regno suo a l’ora quando Chiedevo ’l guiderdon de’ miei tormenti, E venne dov’Amor cieco ’l condusse Perch’io, che da suoi lumi Il mio lume traea, vivesse cieca. E se nel suo partire Non mi privò di vita Non fu già per pietà (ch’in cor sì fiero D’entrar pietate aborre), Ma sol per eternare il mio tormento Ché, fuggendo la speme E crescendomi ’l duolo, S’accrebbe sì che gli fu vaso angusto Il mio ferito core, E me stessa sforzò di porre il ferro Nel proprio seno ignudo, Pensando ch’una morte Sciogliendo il cor da l’alma, Sciogliesse ancora i lacci Di disperarato amore. Ma lassa, i’ m’ingannai! Si nutre Amore Ne’ più profondi abissi, E meco vive ove la speme è morta.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 79 He loves her beauty; he prizes the bloodline of her regal ancestors; he adores and worships her corrupted chastity—though to the same extent he said he hated mine, unviolated still. Pitiless barbarian and beastly heart! To me he denied his love. He disdained my royal blood. And the cruel man, in order not to bless me with his sweet, desired nuptials, refused Thrace’s crown,25 nor with this was he satisfied. Under inimical Night’s veil, hidden, he fled from his kingdom at the moment when I was asking for the reward for my torments, and he came where blind Love led him,26 so that I, who from his lights drew my own light, would live blind. And if with his departure he did not deprive me of life, it was certainly not for pity’s sake (for into a heart so fierce Pity finds entry abhorrent), but only to render eternal my torment; for with the flight of hope and the increase of my grief, it grew so great that my wounded heart was too strait a vessel for it, and it forced me to place the blade in my own naked breast. I thought that death, in releasing my heart from my soul, would release as well the bonds of hopeless love. But wretched me! I was mistaken. Love is nourished in the deepest abysses, and lives with me where hope is dead.

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80 Celinda, A Tragedy Vive, ma disperato, e lascia campo Al mio desio da procurar la morte, Lo strazio e le ruine Di lui, che tanto amai, ed oggi appunto Spero vederne memorandi esempi. Né mai dal carcer sciolto Il feroce Aquilon verso ’l ciel spinse De l’ingordo ocean l’instabil flutto Con rabbia tal qual io da giusto sdegno, Da brama di vendetta Mossa ed accesa, spingerò le furie A l’esterminio altrui. Ecco s’io non vaneggio D’Efeso antica le superbe mura. Questi son pur che torreggiante al cielo Sergon, questa è la reggia Per loggie spaziose, Per bianchi marmi e per gentil lavoro D’artefice preclaro al mondo illustre, De’ tiranni di Lidia infame nido. In queste regie stanze Torpe in ozio amoroso Il principe de’ Persi, Ed io tra tanti affanni, Tra mille schiere d’indicibil pene Ancor quì perdo ’l tempo? E invendicata ancor sta la mia morte? Ah, non così sia sempre! Ombra dolente, Turberò i sonni suoi; questa ferita Che rosseggiante ancor mi mostra ’l petto Di sanguinose stille Li porrò avanti gli occhi, ed in maniera Fermi stabilirò gli affetti suoi, Che sforzate verran ruine e morti, Che d’altro sangue gocciolar in breve Faranno questi tetti Ed ogni gioia volgeranno in pianto.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 81 It lives, but hopeless, and it cedes the field 70 to my desire to obtain the death, the suffering, and the ruin of him whom I loved so much, and this very day I hope to see memorable instances of it. Never, once from imprisonment released, 75 27 did ferocious Aquilone up toward the sky impel the swollen ocean’s unstable wave with such rage as I, who by just wrath, by the desire for vengeance, am moved and inflamed, shall impel the Furies 80 to the extermination of others.28 Behold, if I am not hallucinating, ancient Ephesus’s proud city walls.29 Indeed they are; towering toward the sky they rise. This is the royal palace; 85 for its spacious loggias, for its white marble, and for the noble work of an outstanding craftsman, throughout the world it is illustrious. Of the tyrants of Lydia it is the infamous nest. In these regal rooms 90 the prince of the Persians lazes in amorous idleness. And I among so many sorrows, among a thousand ranks of unspeakable pains, still here I waste my time? 95 And my death remains still unavenged? Ah, it will not be so forever. As a grieving shade I will disturb his slumbers. This wound, which still reddens my breast with bloody droplets, 100 I shall place before his eyes; and in such a way I shall make him firmly believe that inevitably shall come ruin and deaths which will make these roofs drip with other blood before long, 105 and will turn every joy into weeping.

82 Celinda, A Tragedy La regina de’ Persi, Per la mia morte afflitta, Viva congiuri con la morta figlia; E congiuri l’Inferno A’ danni de l’iniquo, Ond’egli mora, e seco Ruini e pera con l’amata il regno. Stan padre e figlio aspri nemici, e l’uno Versi de l’altro il sangue Co ’l spirto indegno, ed ambo Paghin la vita mia con la lor morte.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 83 May the queen of the Persians, by my death afflicted, while yet living conspire with her dead daughter, and may Hell conspire 110 to the detriment of the wicked one, so that he may die, and with him may fall to ruin and perish, together with his beloved, this kingdom. May father and son be bitter enemies, and the one spill the other’s blood 115 along with his unworthy spirit, and may they both pay for my life with their deaths.

84 Celinda, A Tragedy

Atto Primo SCENA PRIMA LUCINIA

Lucinia Non così tosto in oriente apparve Raggio di sole, a’ miei desir nemico, E s’ascoser le stelle in grembo a Teti, Ch’io sorsi da le dolci amate piume Ove in cara vigilia Passai la notte al mio bel sole in braccio— Al mio bel sol, che ’n sì remota parte Su l’ali de la fama Di sua beltà divina Femmi sentire i caldi raggi al core— Quei raggi, ohimè, quei raggi, Che risplendendo poi tra i vaghi lumi, Che ben seppe imitar pennello industre Su l’animata tela, Furon catene e strali Che mi fer nodi a l’alma e piaghe al petto, Onde lasciando ’l padre, La mia grandezza e ’l regno, E quì venuto ov’insegnommi Amore, In abito di schiava Feci servo il mio corpo Di lei, che del mio cor avea l’impero, E meritai esserne amante e sposo; Da cui fato crudel or mi dilunga E gir mi face ove a l’eterno occaso Varchi sicuro e de la vita al fine. Così trionfa Amor de’ cori amanti, Così sono sue leggi oblique e torte. Ei m’additò quel ben che visto a pena In un baleno sparve. Ah, d’ingiusto signor empi decreti!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 85

Act One SCENE ONE LUCINIA

Lucinia As soon as in the East there appeared a ray of sunlight (of my desires an enemy), and the stars hid in the lap of Thetis,30 I rose from the sweet beloved bed where in dear wakefulness I spent the night in my fair sun’s arms— my fair sun who in so remote a land, on the wings of fame, made me feel the hot rays in my heart of her beauty divine. Those rays, ah me! Those rays which shone later in her charming eyes, imitated masterfully by an industrious paintbrush on the animated canvas, were chains and arrows which made knots in my soul and wounds in my breast so that I left my father, my high estate, and my kingdom, and came here, where Love directed me. In the dress of a slave girl I made my body her servant, for over my heart she held dominion. And I was worthy to be her lover and husband. From her cruel Fate now distances me, and makes me go where toward the eternal sunset I may cross surely, and toward life’s end. Thus Love triumphs over loving hearts; thus are his edicts oblique and twisted. He pointed out to me that treasure which, once seen, in a flash disappeared. Ah, what an unjust lord’s cruel decrees!

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86 Celinda, A Tragedy Tu trasporti gli amanti Dal porto de le gioie al mar de’ pianti; Tu mentir m’insegnasti Sotto amorosa frode abito e patria, Nome e ciò che potea Farmi conoscer d’alto re figliuolo E del regno de’ Persi unico erede, Scoprendo a gl’occhi miei quel vivo raggio Del ciel, fiamma de ’l cor, cibo de l’alme, Per cui, seguendo il glorioso Alcide, Non ricusai cinger la gonna al fianco, Torcer il fuso, inanellar la chioma, Favoleggiar fra le pudiche ancelle. E fui qual donna caramente accolto, Dove in processo poi di giorni e mesi Frutti gustai de le mie ardenti fiamme, Che non invidio il gran tonante Giove Ne gli amorosi suoi furtivi amplessi. Ma qual mio fato avverso, Qual ira di lassù, qual dio d’Averno, Qual mio peccato mi fa in ira al cielo? Chi mi sgrida e mi chiama Da gli amorosi miei dolci soggiorni, E dal campo d’Amore a quel di Marte? E Dio pur voglia che da questo ancora Non m’involi la morte, Morte, che mi predice Ne’ tristi sogni con notturne larve Lo spirto, ohimè, de la funesta Eusina, Ch’agitandomi irata Da le piume con voce orrida e fera, “Sorgi iniquo,” mi dice, “sorgi ormai Da l’oziose piume, e là t’invia Dove il padre accampato ha genti ed armi, Dove strage minaccia, e guerra e morte Al regno, al rege, a la tua concubina.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 87 You transport lovers from the port of joys into the sea of tears. As a lover’s deception, you taught me to lie as to my attire, and my homeland, my name, and whatever could cause me to be recognized as an exalted king’s son, and the Persian kingdom’s sole heir. You revealed to my eyes that vivid ray from heaven, the flame of hearts, the food of souls, for which, following glorious Hercules, I did not refuse to cinch a skirt to my flank, to wind a spindle, to curl my locks, to make up stories among the chaste maidservants.31 And I was as a woman cordially welcomed where later, after a period of days and months, the fruits I tasted of my ardent passion, such that I do not envy the great thunderer Jove in his furtive amorous embraces.32 But what adverse Fate, what wrath from above, what god of Avernus,33 what sin of mine brings down on me the wrath of Heaven? Who rebukes me and calls me from my sweet amorous sojourns, and from the field of Love to that of Mars? And may it be God’s will that from this field as well death may not steal me away. Ah me! The spirit of the baleful Eusina my death predicts in wretched dreams with nocturnal specters.34 Enraged, she rousts me from my bed. With a voice horrid and fierce, “Rise, wicked one,” she tells me. “Rise now from your idle bed, and direct yourself there where your father is encamped with men and arms, where he threatens massacre, and war, and death35 to this kingdom, to the king, to your concubine.

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88 Celinda, A Tragedy Sorgi, sorgi oggimai, Effeminato Autilio, che quel giorno Tanto da me bramato oggi si mostra Nel qual fine la guerra Avrà con la tua vita, E con la vita insieme Di quella che tant’ami.” Ah, d’Eusina infelice Anima, se in amor ti fui sì caro, Come so che gradito io ti fui tanto, Perché sì cruda oggi ver me ti mostri? Ti sprezzai, egli è ver, ma che poteva Un’alma accesa di sì ardenti fiamme? Con quella forza stessa Che te spingeva amore, Diversamente me spronava ancora; Ned era in mio potere Altra albergar dove sedea Celinda— Celinda del mio cor unica speme, De le speranze mie meta felice. Frena, deh, frena, alma gentil e bella (Se vagliono i miei preghi) Quel focoso desio Che sì ti preme di vendetta ingordo, Ch’alzar prometto il tuo delubro eretto Nel regno mio, e ogni giorno i’ giuro Con arabi profumi e sacri incensi Onorar pien di puro e santo zelo La tomba de le tue reliquie caste. E se del sangue mio sete hai cotanta, E l’alma mia ne’ tenebrosi abissi Teco brami comune a i fier tormenti, Almen verso colei che non t’offese Dimostrati benigna, ch’io contento Con questa gran speranza a’ regni stigi Verrò a pagar il debito tributo A l’alma tua sì del mio strazio vaga,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 89 Rise! Rise now, effeminate Autilio, for that day I have so much desired is revealed as today, when to an end the war will come, together with your life, and with the life also of that woman whom you love so much.” Ah, unhappy spirit of Eusina, if I was so dear to you in love (which I know, for you welcomed me so warmly), why today do you show yourself so cruel toward me? I despised you, it’s true, but what else could a soul do when kindled with such ardent flames? With that selfsame force with which Love impelled you, in a different direction he spurred me. It was not in my power to lodge another woman where Celinda resided. Celinda, my heart’s only hope, of my aspirations the happy goal! Restrain, restrain, O soul noble and beautiful (if my prayers avail), that fiery desire which so presses you in your greed for vengeance, for I promise to raise your shrine upright in my kingdom; and every day, I swear, full of pure and holy zeal, I shall honor the tomb of your chaste remains with Arabian perfumes and sacred incenses. And if for my blood you thirst so much, and you long for my soul to be in the shadowy abysses together with you among fierce torments, at least toward her who has not offended you, show yourself benign; and I, content with this great hope, to the Stygian realms36 will come to pay due tribute to your spirit (for my suffering so eager).

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90 Celinda, A Tragedy Pur ch’in vita colei resti di cui Portando meco la divina imago Entro gli orribil chiostri, avrà virtute Con la sua singolar alma beltate D’infonder raggi al paventoso Dite E luce dar a la palude Stigia. Ma non m’accorgo, ahi, lasso, Ch’è tempo ormai che a l’ultimo congedo De la mia donna misero m’accinga? Già tempo è di dipor la gonna e ’l manto, Il nome femminil, l’aurata chioma, E in vece sua d’acciar vestir le membra E contra il padre mio girne volando. Ed ancor che l’esser creduto donna Mi concedesse il riposar in pace Senza che di viltà fossi notato— E ciò sarebbe pur piacer e gioia De la bella Celinda (Cielo de le mie fiamme Fiamma d’illustre foco, E foco del mio cor che dolce l’arde), E vi s’aggiugna ancor che mal potrei Un sol giorno, un sol punto Viver da lei lontano Ch’è de la mia vita solo sostegno— Con tutto ciò sento rapirme a forza Da un desiderio immenso Ch’a la difesa del gran re di Lidia, Amato padre di colei ch’adoro, Mi sprona e mi constringe, E tanto più perché non può scusarmi Questa femminea veste Con quella a cui mi fe’ soggetto ’l cielo. Che direbbe CELINDA , Se me, suo cavaliere amato e amante, Mentre folgora più guerra feroce Intorno a queste mura

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Celinda, A Tragedy 91 Provided that this woman remains alive when I carry with me her divine image into the horrible cloisters, it will have the power, with her singular bountiful beauty, to instill rays in frightful Dis37 and give light to the Stygian swamp. But now I realize, alas! that the time has come (wretched me!) to get ready to take of my lady my final leave? Already it is time to set down my skirt and mantle, my feminine name, my golden locks, and in their stead with steel to dress my limbs, and against my father to fly out. And although being believed a woman has enabled me to repose in peace, without cowardice’s taint, and it would continue to bring pleasure and joy to beautiful Celinda (the Heaven of my flames,38 flame of an illustrious fire, and fire of my heart, which sweetly burns it), and what’s more, I would hardly be able to live far from her for a single day, a single moment, for she is my life’s sole support— despite all this, I feel overwhelmed by the force of an immense desire which to the defense of the great king of Lydia, the beloved father of her whom I adore, urges me and constrains me. Even more so because this womanly dress cannot excuse me in the eyes of the woman to whom Heaven made me subject. What would CELINDA say if, while bellicose Mars hurls thunderbolts of more ferocious war around these city walls,

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92 Celinda, A Tragedy Il bellicoso Marte, Vedesse star effeminato e molle Ne gli agi de la pace? Insomma a quest’impresa Mi spinge ’l fato, il ciel, gli uomini e i dei. Ma che? Figliuolo iniquo Tingerò dunque nel paterno sangue Le proprie mani mie? Volgerò l’armi Contro lui che per me guerreggia invitto? Distruggerò quel regno Ch’è destinato mio? Farò privi de l’alme Quei popoli fedeli De’ quali il mondo e ’l cielo M’han dichiarato rege? Oh me, infelice AUTILIO , In qual mar de pensier, misero, ondeggio? Che non mi scopro al padre? Perché non vieto il tanto male ch’oggi Potrebbe farsi al mondo? La tenera pietà del caro padre Ed il sangue innocente Che spargerassi de’ vassalli miei, E quel che devo a questo re di Lidia Con il comune ben (che dee seguirsi Da quelli che al regnar destinò ’l cielo) A ciò fare mi spinge, Ma geloso timore Di far palese il mio amoroso fallo Non solo al re de’ Persi Ma al re di Lidia e al mondo tutto ancora È un duro fren che mi trattiene a forza. E più d’ogn’altra cosa Me ’l proibisce Amore, Amor, che non consente Ch’io facci cosa onde potessi un punto De l’amato mio ben restar mai privo.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 93 she saw me, her beloved knight and lover, remain effeminate and soft among the comforts of peace?39 In short, to this enterprise I am urged by fate, Heaven, men, and the gods. But wait! Shall I, an iniquitous son, therefore stain with paternal blood my very own hands? Shall I turn weapons against him who for me wages war indomitably? Shall I destroy that kingdom which is destined to be mine? Shall I deprive of their souls those faithful peoples over whom the world and Heaven have declared me king? Woe is me, unhappy AUTILIO ! In what a sea of thoughts do I miserably waver? Why don’t I reveal myself to my father? Why don’t I forbid so great an evil which today might take place in the world? Tender compassion for my dear father, and the innocent blood of my vassals that will be shed, and that which I owe to this king of Lydia, along with the common good (which must be followed by those destined for rule by Heaven), to do this urge me; but jealous fear of making known my amorous error not only to the king of the Persians but also to the king of Lydia and to the whole world as well is a tight rein that holds me back by force. And more than any other thing, it is forbidden me by Love, Love who does not consent that I do anything by which I might for a moment of my beloved darling ever be deprived.

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94 Celinda, A Tragedy Ma forse a questa guerra Cruda morte mi chiama. Conviemmi andar: non farò guerra al padre, Ma ne’ maggior bisogni Farò del petto mio riparo e scudo Al genitor de la mia bella amante. O nova aurora, o novo orror dir volsi, Ti scorgo e miro oltre l’usato altera! Ritornerò dove più bell’aurora Spero veder, se di rugiada il molle E candido suo sen non avrà asperso, Perché un novo Titon lasciar convenga.

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SCENA SECONDA CUBO, CONSIGLIERO

Cubo Qual sì codardo v’è che temer possi D’infausto avvenimento Per la futura guerra Che del novo nemico s’è dimostra, Né che danneggi la cittade o ’l regno La bellicosa sua gente nemica? Prevenirò i disegni, Provvederò ch’a danneggiar non vaglia La mia cittade e ’l regno Il re de’ Persi, benché d’oro e d’armi Possente a noi ne venga, e ben t’è noto Quai forze apparecchiate Ho per opporre a sì gran furia, e quanto Il mio ardir, la mia gloria in pregio sorga Fra duci guerreggianti. Dicanlo insieme le provincie e i regni A me soggetti, e da l’andate guerre, Da le tante vittorie e palme avute

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Celinda, A Tragedy 95 But perhaps to this war cruel Death calls me. It is necessary for me to go. I shall not make war on my father, but in the case of greatest need I shall make my breast the shelter and shield of the sire of my beautiful lover. O new Aurora, O new horror I meant to say, I discern and perceive you unusually haughty. I shall return where a more beautiful Aurora I hope to see, if with dew her soft, white breast she has not sprinkled, because it is necessary for her to leave a new Tithonus.40

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SCENE TWO CUBO, COUNSELOR

Cubo Who is there so cowardly that he might fear an unfavorable outcome of the upcoming war, which by the new enemy has been threatened? Or that his warlike inimical people might damage the city or the kingdom? I shall forestall his plans. I shall ensure that the Persian king will not be able to damage my city and kingdom, though powerful in gold and in arms he comes against us. And well you know what forces prepared I have to oppose against fury so great, and how the esteem for my daring and my glory rises high among warlike rulers. Let them say it as well in the provinces and the kingdoms subject to me. From the past wars, from the many victories and palms I have obtained,41

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96 Celinda, A Tragedy Ben si può argomentar se a questa accinto Sien per mancarmi ardir, forza, e valore. Consigliero Alto signor, il cui sublime impero Asia e Africa pave, Dal cui parlar magnanimo si scopre Qual spirto di virtù nel petto chiuda Prence sì degno, la cui destra invitta Porger potrebbe a Marte, Non che al fiero nemico, ed onta e scorno, Confesso ei merta di cotanto ardire Ond’osa perturbar la pace regia E por ne la gran Lidia audace ’l piede Che lo fulmini il ciel, l’inghoi la terra. Ma non lodo però ch’in preda al sdegno Qual uom del volgo tutto s’abbandoni Il mio signor, ma [sia] qual prudente rege Ch’ognor con occhio di giustizia scerne Quali gl’inganni sien, quali le frodi Ch’oggidì ne le corti usano gl’empi Spregiatori di pace, i quali sotto Velo di servitù, di finto amore Fan lor poter che si disperda e sciolga. E qual suol nel superbo ampio oceano Il veloce Aquilon le placid’onde Agitando innalzar dal fondo al cielo Sì che sembran portar guerra a le stelle, Soglion tesser costor empie congiure Sorgendo, d’opre rie, ministri alteri. Senza sdegno adirato E senz’ira sdegnato Gradisci ’l fiero invito, E la risposta egual sia a la proposta Di questa guerra, ch’empia mano ordìo.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 97 well can one reason whether, girded up for this war, my daring, strength, and valor are likely to fail me.42 Counselor High lord, whose sublime empire Asia and Africa fear, in whose magnanimous speech is revealed what strength of spirit so worthy a prince in his breast encloses, whose undefeated right hand could deal out to Mars, let alone to our fierce enemy, both shame and humiliation; I confess he merits, for the so great boldness with which he dares to perturb the royal peace and to set in great Lydia his bold foot, that Heaven might blast him, that earth engulf him. I do not however approve that, in prey to anger like a common man, my lord abandons himself completely. Rather, let him act as a prudent king who at all times with the eye of justice discerns which are the ruses, which the deceptions used nowadays in the courts by the impious disdainers of peace, those who under a veil of service, of feigned love, do whatever they can to disperse and dissolve it. And as speedy Aquilone43 in the proud wide ocean, agitating the placid waves, is accustomed to raise them from the depths up to the sky, so that they seem to wage war on the stars, just so these men are accustomed to weave impious plots, rising up as of wicked works the haughty executors. Without scorn wrathful, and without wrath scornful, welcome the fierce invitation, and let your response be equal to the proposal of this war, which an impious hand plotted.44

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98 Celinda, A Tragedy Cubo Se mai di Lidia rimbombar le valli Di bellici stromenti oggi udiransi, Tuonar vie più che l’affumata grotta Ove il fabbro di Lenno al gran troiano Fabbricò l’armi che domar l’Italia, Ed oggi vederassi Fatto d’umano sangue il suol vermiglio E mio prigion il re. Vuo’ che confessi Quanto fuor di ragion tentò espugnare Oggi di Lidia le superbe mura Dando credenza a le mentite voci Di quel falso indovin, nunzio bugiardo, Che dal regno di Dite, e non dal cielo, È sorto a partorir l’orrenda guerra, Onde al credulo re finzioni e frodi Seminò ne la mente, Che ’l perduto suo figlio Fosse soggetto al re di Lidia e fosse Prigion o servo a la regal corona. Il che, se vano sia, sassel la corte, Sannolo i cittadini e tu lo sai, A cui ogni pensier de la mia mente È lecito spiare e i profondi Reconditi segreti del mio petto I quali a te non fur celati mai. E quanto grato a sue richieste m’abbia Dimostrato e cortese anco tu sai, Mentr’egli (oh, grande ardire!) Per via d’ambasciatori Tentò saper de l’indovin bugiardo I vaticini falsi, Li quali da me furo Ne l’alta reggia gratamente accolti Ne le stanze più chiuse e più segrete Del mio palagio e ne l’eccelse torri. Ne’ sotterranei luoghi i’ proprio volsi

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Celinda, A Tragedy 99 Cubo If ever Lydia’s valleys resounded with warlike instruments, today they will be heard to thunder far more than the smoky grotto where the blacksmith of Lemnos for the great Trojan fashioned the weapons which tamed Italy.45 And today we will see with human blood the soil made vermilion, and the king as my prisoner. I want him to confess how wrongfully he attempted to storm today Lydia’s proud city walls, giving credence to the mendacious words of that false fortuneteller, a lying messenger who from the realm of Dis and not from Heaven rose up to birth the horrendous war. With his words he sowed fictions and frauds in the credulous king’s mind: that his lost son was subject to the king of Lydia, and was a prisoner or a servant of the royal crown. All of this, if it is baseless, the court knows it, the citizens know it, and you know it. Every thought in my mind it is permitted you to spy out, along with the deep recondite secrets of my heart, which from you were never concealed. And how agreeable to his requests I have proven myself, and how courteous, you know also, when he (oh great boldness!) by way of ambassadors tried to find out about the lying fortuneteller’s false prophecies. By me they were into the lofty royal palace agreeably welcomed, into those rooms most private and secret of my palace, and into the soaring towers, into the subterranean places I myself bade

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100 Celinda, A Tragedy Che fossero condotti, e del lor dubbio Fatti sicuri e de la fede regia; E poco vi mancò ch’entro le stanze Introdotti non fosser di mia figlia Per poter meglio a pieno Di mia sincera fé restar sicuri. Oltre di ciò, di propria mano i’ scrissi E gli affermai e gli giurai ancora Come re, come amico, Che scevro il figlio era di Lidia, e lunge Dal mio palagio egli viveva altrove, Soggiongendo che pronto era per fare Ciò che possibil fosse al dubbio caso, Mentr’egli altra credenza Contro il dover di me tener volesse; Ond’egli arditamente Con ponderosa armata è giunto al porto, Tal che d’uopo sia ben ch’oggi dimostri L’invitto mio poter con questa destra. Consigliero Non ch’ardisca, signor, tua mente regia Dal proposto voler punto sviare, Con poche mie parole or io vorrei Dir a l’Altezza tua quel che in tal caso La fedeltà mi suggerisce e gl’anni, Perché la vecchia mente Mira talvolta ov’il fervor del sangue Giunger non lascia gli guerrieri ingegni. Cubo Antico mio fedele, Ne la prospera sorte e ne l’avversa Conforme al crine il tuo saper canuto Sempre stimai, né ricusar or deggio Tuo maturo consiglio al maggior uopo.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 101 that they be conducted and of their suspicion’s baselessness they be assured, and of my royal integrity. And very nearly within the rooms they were introduced of my daughter, to be better able fully of my sincere faith to be reassured. What’s more, with my own hand I wrote and affirmed to him, and I swore to him as well, as a king, as a friend, that his son was not in Lydia, and far from my palace he lived elsewhere, adding that I was ready to do whatever might be possible in this dubious case. Yet he another belief wrongfully about me insisted on holding. Thereupon he boldly with a powerful army arrived at the port, such that it is certainly necessary that today I demonstrate my undefeated power with this right hand. Counselor Not that I dare, lord, in the least to deflect from your proposed will your royal mind; but with a few words now I would like to tell Your Highness what in such a case my loyalty suggests, and my years, because an aged mind sometimes gazes where the fervor of the blood does not allow warlike intellects to reach. Cubo My venerable faithful one, in circumstances prosperous or adverse always I deemed your wisdom hoary in conformity with your hair, nor now must I refuse your mature counsel at the greatest need.

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102 Celinda, A Tragedy Consigliero Grazia sì grande ogni mio merto eccede Benignissimo re, né per pagarla Altro che fedeltà cosa veruna Mi trovo aver. Dunque, da questo spinto, Dirò che raddolcisci l’ira alquanto Contra ’l gran re de’ Persi perché forse Egli ha giusta cagion d’esser sdegnato.

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Cubo Come giusta cagion d’esser sdegnato? Gli tengo a forza il figlio? E` forse mio prigion? Dove s’alloggia? Consigliero Non hai prigion il figlio; egli lo pensa, Perché non tien per vani Gli responsi de i dei.

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Cubo Gli dei certo non fur. Predir il falso Non suol celeste nume. Consigliero L’oracolo d’Apollo a lui predisse Ch’il figlio era soggetto A Lidia, e soggiogato Da la regia corona, E nel furor de l’armi Oggi a trovar l’avrebbe. Cubo S’è pur ver che l’oracolo predetto Gli abbi che ne le mischia De’ soldati a trovar egli abbia il figlio, Il che non nego ch’accader non possa, Predetto aver non puote

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Celinda, A Tragedy 103 Counselor Grace so great exceeds my every merit, most benign king, nor to repay it do I find I have anything at all other than fidelity. Therefore by this impelled, I will advise you to mellow your wrath somewhat against the great king of the Persians, because perhaps he has just cause to be enraged.

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Cubo What just cause to be enraged? Do I hold by force his son? Is he perhaps my prisoner? Where does he dwell? Counselor You do not have his son as a prisoner. He thinks so because he does not hold as baseless the pronouncements of the gods.

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Cubo It was certainly not the gods. A celestial deity is not accustomed to make false pronouncements. Counselor The oracle of Apollo to him predicted46 that his son was subject to Lydia and subjugated by the royal crown, and in the furor of arms today he is to find him.

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Cubo Even if it’s true that the oracle predicted to him that in the fray among the soldiers he is to find his son (and I do not deny that it could happen), he cannot have disclosed

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104 Celinda, A Tragedy Che soggiogato io lo tenessi in Lidia; Ma di falso indovin voce bugiarda Fu che sparse tal grido, Opra de’ congiurati De l’infedel mia corte Ch’al credulo signor de’ persiani Tai da lui fer ridir falsi prodigi. Consigliero Fu ver che congiurati Molti de la tua corte Ribellanti al tuo regno a lui s’offriro, Ma ch’un falso indovino a lui condotto Fosse colui non so, perch’ei predisse Sotto velo d’enimma il vaticinio, Dicendo aver nel divin’antro intesi, Mentre il sopor di Lethe asperso l’ave, I sacrati responsi. Né sopra questo il re fermossi punto, Se ben presagio di future cose Ignote a lui ei sospettò quei detti, Ma ricorso a gli dei, mentre immolava Genuflesso a l’altar del sacro nume Un grasso toro più che neve bianco, Con auguri velati e oscure note Ebbe il responso tale Qual l’indovin gli diede: Ch’in Lidia era il figliolo, E che guerra e non pace Glie lo darebbe alfine. Lieto a cotal responso ei sorse umile, Rinnovando più degno il sacrificio In onor del gran Marte, il cui favore Poi che impetrato aver gli parve, a’ suoi Ministri e capitan instrutte schiere De’ soldati assegnò perché il cammino Ver di Lidia prendesser con la scorta

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Celinda, A Tragedy 105 that I held him subjugated in Lydia. No, a false fortuneteller’s lying speech it was, which spread such a rumor— the work of conspirators in my faithless court, who to the credulous lord of the Persians made him repeat such false prognostications. Counselor It was true that plotters in great numbers from your court, rebellious against your kingdom, to him offered themselves. But whether that man who was to him conducted was a false fortuneteller, I don’t know, because he announced under the veil of enigma the prophecy, saying that in the divine cavern he had heard, while the drowsiness of sprinkled Lethe held him, the sacred responses.47 Nor did the king stop at this point. Although a presage of future things unknown to him, he suspected those tidings. But he had recourse to the gods; while he immolated, kneeling at the altar of the holy deity, a fat bull whiter than snow, with veiled auguries and obscure indications he received a response just such as the fortuneteller gave him: that in Lydia was his son, and that war and not peace would give him to him in the end. Delighted at such a response he rose up humbly, and started over with an even worthier sacrifice in honor of great Mars. Once this god’s favor it seemed to him he had gained with his pleas, to his ministers and captains expert bands of soldiers he assigned, so that the route toward Lydia they might take with the escort

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106 Celinda, A Tragedy De’ maggior tuoi ribelli, ond’esso ancora Con quella maestà ch’a re conviensi Fieramente è comparso A por l’assedio a queste mura intorno. Or se giusta cagion a ciò lo spinga Oppur contra ragion la guerra imprenda Diterminar non oso, perch’invero Quanto venghi dal ciel non ben discerno. E qual sarà che di poter presuma Penetrar del gran Giove entro gl’occulti Secreti se l’umana mente sciocca Quasi occhio di vil nottola a la luce Del sol s’abbaglia mentre audace tenta Spiar del fato e de gli eterni numi L’irrevocabil leggi e i gran decreti? Però, inclito signor, lodarei molto Che mitigato fosse Quest’impeto primiero Con insegne di pace e non di guerra, [Che] tu l’accogliesti entro l’eccelso regno, Ché forse pago del principio scorso Repugnerà contra sì falso dubbio, E frattanto benigno il cielo forse Gli renderà il figliol fra tante schiere D’uomini armati, bellicosi e forti. Cubo Faccia l’alto motore Ch’oggi pur nel fervor de la battaglia Sia ritrovato il figlio Del re di Persia, e senza sparger sangue Termini in un la guerra e ’l falso dubbio. Frattanto a me non lece Neghittoso aspettarlo; Ma già cedendo a la ragione l’ira, Il cor mio, già di foco, or è di ghiaccio Ne l’assalir questo nemico rege

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Celinda, A Tragedy 107 of your greatest rebels. Subsequently he also, with that majesty which to a king is appropriate, proudly has arrived to direct the siege around these city walls. Now whether a just cause to this urges him, or whether wrongfully the war he undertakes, I do not dare to determine, because truly whatever might come from Heaven I do not clearly discern. And what sort of man will presume to be able to penetrate among great Jove’s hidden secrets? For the human mind is foolish, just like the eye of the lowly bat which by the light of the sun is dazzled, when audaciously it tries to spy out the irrevocable laws and the great decrees of Fate and of the eternal deities. On account of this, noble lord, I would commend it highly if this first impetus were mitigated with tokens of peace and not of war. You might welcome him within your superb kingdom, for perhaps satisfied with the principle being granted, he will find repugnant so false a suspicion; and meanwhile benign Heaven perhaps will return him his son among so many ranks of men armed, bellicose, and strong.

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Cubo May the Mover on high make it so that this very day in the fervor of battle there may be found the son of the king of Persia, and without shedding blood may he terminate at the same time the war and the false suspicion. 210 Meanwhile it is not permissible for me neglectfully to await him. Rather, with wrath already giving way to reason, my heart, formerly on fire, now is icy in assailing this enemy king 215

108 Celinda, A Tragedy Che la voce del cielo Guerreggiante e nemico a me l’invia. Ma prima ir voglio ad adorar umile I sacrosanti e venerandi numi Con sacrifici e voti, e da gl’auspici Del cielo e de gli dei fatto sicuro, Porrommi in campo al periglioso marte. Consigliero Tanto appunto, signor, quanto conviensi Al tuo saper, a le tue forze invitte. Ringrazio l’alto Giove D’esser posto a servir un re sì giusto, Che se ben dritto miro Dal ciel suo ben l’uom saggio attende. Folle chi per superbia al ciel contrasta, E per gran regni e per ricchezze immense Sprezza ’l motor del mondo; a questi, a questi Saran d’eterno esempio i mostri orrendi Che pugnando co ’l ciel lasciaro in Flegra La fulminata spoglia. Segui, amato signor, il tuo costume Di riverir e porger preghi a i dei, E de’ nemici poi vittoria aspetta.

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SCENA TERZA NUTRICE, CELINDA

Nutrice Come giglio talor ch’al natio stelo In su ’l mattino avida mano invola E ’l seno e ’l crine infiora Langue e perde il candor de la sua spoglia, Così del vostro sen, del vostro volto Le scolorite porpore rimiro. Ditemi, figlia mia, che per l’amore

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Celinda, A Tragedy 109 whom the voice of Heaven warring and inimical sends to me. But first I want to go worship humbly the sacrosanct and venerable deities with sacrifices and vows, and by the auspices of Heaven and of the gods reassured, I will place myself on the field for the perilous battle. Counselor Just so much, lord, as is appropriate to your wisdom, to your indomitable strength. I thank lofty Jove for having been set to serve a king so just, for if rightly I discern, from Heaven his every good the wise man expects. Mad is he who for pride against Heaven contends, and who for great kingdoms and for immense riches disdains the Mover of the world. To these, to these will be an eternal example the horrendous monsters who, in battling against Heaven, left in the Phlegraean Fields their thunderstruck remains.48 Follow, beloved lord, your custom of revering and offering prayers to the gods, and then over your enemies expect victory.

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SCENE THREE NURSE, CELINDA

Nurse Just as sometimes a lily, which from its native stem in the early morning an avid hand steals to adorn with flowers her breast and locks, languishes and loses the whiteness of its body, just so the faded roses I behold of your bosom, of your visage. Tell me, my daughter (for because of my love

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110 Celinda, A Tragedy Figlia chiamarvi posso, e come avete Ogni gioia del cor posta in disparte, Se ’l ver mi mostra il mesto ciglio vostro? Quai noiosi pensier, quai triste cure Vi perturbano ’l core E vi destano al duol così per tempo? Ove sì frettolosa? Ove s’aggira Fra i dubbi e le paure La vostra mente inferma? Dite, se di tal grazia ormai vi paio Degna, cara mia figlia, La cagion sì crudele Che vi move ne l’alba a sospirare. Da quell’amore ch’io v’ho portato e porto, Da questo crin canuto Sperar certo dovete Nel dubbio caso ogni fedel consiglio; Nota vi è pur mia fede e ’l trattar mio. Fate tregua co ’l pianto, E sfogarvi cercate Scoprendo a me le vostre pene acerbe. Celinda Io non posso negar, nutrice, o deggio, Che per soverchio duol egra la mente Non porti e ’l cor afflitto, onde nel volto Talor scintilla di dolor interno Altrui si scopra, ancor ch’indarno tenti Chiuderlo sì ch’ei non si mostri fuore. Nutrice La fosca nebbia che ineclissa il chiaro Sol del bel vostro volto E ’l tristo umor de la cadente pioggia Che v’irriga le guancie, onde riceve Vostra rara beltate oltraggio e scorno, Son testimoni d’amorose cure.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 111 I may call you daughter), how is it you have every joy of your heart set aside, if your sad brow shows me the truth? What disturbing thoughts, what miserable cares perturb your heart, and rouse you to grief so early? Why so hurried? Why among doubts and fears does your infirm mind whirl? Tell me, if of such grace by now I seem to you worthy, my dear daughter, the cause so cruel that moves you at dawn to sigh. From that love for you which I have borne and still bear, from this gray-haired head, certainly you must hope in dubious circumstances for every faithful counsel. You know well my loyalty and my way of dealing with matters. Make a truce with your weeping, and try to unburden yourself, by revealing to me your bitter pains. Celinda I cannot deny, Nurse, nor must I, that for overflowing grief an ailing mind I bear, and an afflicted heart. Therefore in my visage sometimes a flicker of internal anguish reveals itself to others, even though in vain I attempt to close it up so that it does not show outside. Nurse The gloomy fog that eclipses the bright sun of your beautiful visage, and the sad liquid of the falling rain that irrigates your cheeks, from which your rare beauty receives outrage and humiliation, are witnesses of love’s cares.

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112 Celinda, A Tragedy Altro non ha il bel volto Che pallide viole Dove pur dianzi egli era Vago giardin di rose e di ligustri; Al novello pallor, al mesto sguardo, Al tardo mover de le piante i’ scerno D’un’interna passion segni evidenti, E se la lingua tace, Parlan ben gli occhi, e sono De’ nostri affetti interni Ambasciator più de la lingua esperti. Celinda Cara nutrice, egl’è pur ver che male Puote un misero cor tener celato Quel duol ch’in sè rinchiude. Ma lassa! E con qual modo Scioglierò questa lingua Per dar principio a tanti affanni miei? E come accusatrice Sarò di mie vergogne? O ciel pria sovra me folgora e tuona, O terra e tu m’inghoia anzi ch’io scopra A colei che in amor tengo per madre De’ tanti miei dolor l’alta cagione. Nutrice Dunque sì poca fé ne la mia fede Avete, o figlia? Dunque il sangue mio, Che bambina suggeste, in voi non puote Sì che grazia sì lieve oggi m’impetri? Ahi, misera infelice, Ben mal gradita serva Di sì diletta figlia!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 113 Nothing else does your beautiful visage have but pale violets, where just recently there was a charming garden of roses and privets. From the new pallor, the sad regard, the slow movement of your footsteps, I discern an internal passion’s evident signs; and if the tongue is silent, the eyes speak clearly, and they are of our internal affections ambassadors than the tongue more expert. Celinda Dear Nurse, it is indeed true, for not well can a wretched heart keep concealed the grief that it encloses. But wretched me! In what manner shall I loosen this tongue to start listing my many troubles? And how shall I of my shames be the accuser? O Heaven, first blast me with lightning and thunder! And you, O Earth, swallow me up before I reveal to her whom I hold in love as a mother, of my so many pains the momentous cause. Nurse Therefore so little faith in my faithfulness you have, O daughter? Therefore my blood, which as a baby you sucked, in you is unable to entreat for me today so slight a grace? Ah, unhappy wretch! A poorly appreciated servant of so beloved a daughter.

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114 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Bastiti saper dunque, Già che ’l brami cotanto, Ch’oggi l’ultimo dì fia di mia vita. Non ricercar più oltre Se mille morte in una stessa morte A la tua figlia procurar non vuoi. Nutrice Ahi, lassa, Ahi, me dolente, Ahi, sfortunata vecchia, Ahi, povera nutrice! È questa dunque La gioia ch’io sperava? È questo il nodo Ond’Imeneo vi stringe Con glorioso rege? Ed è la face Questa ch’io veggio a le gran nozze accesa? Così l’augusta prole Veder di voi m’è dato? Ahi, che con tai parole Troncate a me lo stame Di questa debil mia penosa vita! Celinda Frena, nutrice, il pianto, Che il troppo tuo dolore Quasi esca in vivo foco M’aggiunge pena al core; Oltre ch’esser udita Di leggiero potresti D’alcuno de la corte Che potrebbe ridirlo e insospettire Il re mio padre di sinistro incontro. T’acqueta e ti consola, e vivi certa Che il viver tuo dopo la morte mia Farà l’alma passar contenta in pace.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 115 Celinda Let it suffice for you to know therefore, since you wish it so much, that today will be the last day of my life. Seek no further, if for your daughter you do not want to procure a thousand deaths in one single death. Nurse Alas! Aiee, what suffering! Aiee, unlucky old woman! Aiee, poor nurse! Is this therefore the joy that I hoped for? Is this the knot with which Hymen binds you to a glorious king?49 And is this the torch that for the grand nuptials I see kindled? Thus it is given to me to see your august offspring? Alas, for with such words you sever the thread of this my weak, painful life. Celinda Restrain, O Nurse, your weeping, for your excessive anguish, just like fuel for a blazing fire, adds pain to my heart. What’s more, you could easily be heard by someone from the court, who could repeat it and give rise to suspicion in the king my father of a sinister encounter. Be quiet and console yourself, and live in the certainty that your living on after my death will make my soul pass on content and in peace.

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116 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice Non più, non più ch’io moro: O del vostro gran male La cagion mi scoprite O questo petto aprite! E qual commesso avete error sì grave, Che v’induca a morire? Celinda Non dee chiamarsi errore Ove v’ha colpa Amore; Pur Amor mi constrinse Ad esser di me sol vergogna e scorno.

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Nutrice Chi tanto osò dal custodito stelo Coglier la bella rosa? E in che modo Che con quest’occhi miei non abbia visto, E vietatone il varco al passo altrui? Celinda Cieco si finge il pargoletto nume Perché reca a gli amanti, Sotto mentita luce, or gioia or pianti. Ei con la propria benda A te velò le ciglia, Che pria qual d’Argo in cent’aperti lumi A me sempr’eran volte E deste sempre a la custodia mia. Nutrice Se velommi di benda Le luci al maggior uopo, Ahi, perché voi spogliar di quella veste Onde bella onestà rendeavi adorna?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 117 Nurse No more, no more, for I’m dying! Either your great pain’s cause reveal to me, or open up my breast. And what error have you committed so grave that it might induce you to die? Celinda It must not be called an error where the blame is held by Love. It was precisely Love who constrained me to be my own shame and humiliation.

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Nurse Who dared so greatly as from the guarded stem to gather the beautiful rose?50 And in what way, so that with these eyes of mine I did not see and forbid the trespass of this other? Celinda He pretends to be blind, the little child god, so as to bring to lovers under a mendacious light now joy, now sorrows. He with his own blindfold veiled your brows, which formerly like Argus’s with a hundred open eyes51 toward me were always turned, and alert always for my safekeeping. Nurse If he blindfolded my eyes at the greatest need, alas! why did he undress you of that garment with which fair Chastity adorned you?

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118 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Con lusinghe e promesse Di dar più nobil manto a queste membra Ei spogliommi di quelle, Dove ignuda e ingannata M’ha ’l falso menzognier al fin lasciata. Nutrice Asciugate le lagrime figliuola, Ch’il volto d’alabastro, Tinto da l’improviso Vermiglio de le rose, E la tremula voce Mi fa note gran cose. Raccontatemi pure Se non con lieto, almen con mesto ciglio, Tutta da capo l’amorosa istoria, Che tanto alleggerir sento ’l mio duolo Quanto cresce la speme Di poter darvi aita. Celinda Al caso mio non de’ sperarsi aita; E ben indarno tenti Sveller da questo cor le cure acerbe. Nutrice O che celar pensate Questo caso d’amor o palesarlo? Se celarlo si può, non dubitate De l’opra mia, ma se tant’oltre è scorso Che celar non si possa Al gran re, padre vostro e mio signore, Tentisi ogni rimedio anzi che morte, Estremo d’ogni male. Seguane ciò che puote, Pur che restiate in vita.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 119 Celinda With flattery and promises of giving a nobler mantle to these limbs, he undressed me of that one; whereas naked and deceived the false liar in the end has left me. Nurse Dry your tears, daughter, for your visage of alabaster, tinted suddenly with the vermilion of roses, and your tremulous voice make known to me great things. Tell me, by all means (if not with a delighted, at least with a sad brow), from the beginning, of this love the whole story, for to the same extent I feel my grief lighten, just as much as my hope grows to be able to give you aid. Celinda In my circumstances one cannot hope for aid. And certainly in vain you attempt to root out from this heart the bitter cares. Nurse Do you plan to conceal this case of love, or to make it plain? If it can be concealed, do not doubt that I will help, but if so far it has gone on that concealed it cannot be from the great king your father and my lord, let every remedy be attempted before death, the extremest of every harm. Let follow what may, provided that you remain alive.

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120 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Vita chiamar non dei Quella d’un infelice Che solo a un bel morir la mente ha volta. Nutrice Deh, narratemi almen tutto il successo, Con l’amor mi scoprite anco l’amante! Forse fu il paggio Urino, Quel leggiadro garzone Che spesse volte a ragionar con voi Io vidi con quest’occhi e ’l simulai? Oppur quel arso petto Da la vostra beltà, quel cavaliero Di Sparta, quei che chiara Da l’adusto Etiope al freddo Scitha Fa di vostra beltà giunger la fama? O Anista, il gran barone Che nel festivo giorno Del superbo torneo Vostro amante e campion ei si scoverse A l’arme e a l’insegne, A la fregiata sopravesta intorno Di mille cor feriti in fiamme avvolti, Al superbo corsier non meno adorno Di cor piagati ed arsi, Cui sì leggiadramente Or allentando, ora stringendo il morso, Girata la gran piazza, Mosse al corso veloce, agile al salto, Sempre con gl’occhi al vostro viso intento; Ed impugnata al fin la grossa lancia Ed invocato Amore Ed invocato il cielo, Perché dal cielo aveste Non men voi, che beltà, nome celeste, Corse contro ’l nemico

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Celinda, A Tragedy 121 Celinda Life you must not call it which belongs to an unhappy woman who solely toward a good death has turned her mind. Nurse Come, at least tell me all that’s happened. Along with your love, reveal to me also your lover. Perhaps it was the page Urino, that good-looking boy who many times spoke with you, as I saw with these eyes, and I kept mum? Or that heart burnt by your beauty, that knight of Sparta, he who from burning Ethiopia to cold Scythia sends your beauty’s bright fame? Or Anista, the great baron who on the festive day of the splendid tourney as your lover and champion revealed himself by his arms and the insignia that was on his decorated surcoat arrayed, of a thousand wounded hearts in flames enveloped, and on his splendid courser no less adorned with hearts wounded and burning. He so gracefully, now loosing, now taking up the bit, once he had circled the great square, moved quickly in the course, nimbly at the jump, always with his eyes upon your visage intent. And having seized at last the hefty lance, and having invoked Love, and having invoked Heaven (because from Heaven you had no less than beauty, a name celestial),52 he charged against the enemy

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122 Celinda, A Tragedy Con tal furore e tanto Che, rottagli la lancia in mezzo ’l fronte, Volar si vide in aria in mille scheggie, Onde l’applauso poi Del popol tutto dichiarollo intorno Vincitor del la giostra. Ed egli, a voi rivolto, Quasi anelando con lo sguardo pregno Di grazie, ben parea che dir volesse “Sol da voi riconosco La ricevuta gloria.” Ma voi, qual saggia, di gradir sdegnaste D’un cotanto amator fervidi segni, Che per questo difficile mi sembra Che voi tant’oltre scorsa Siate seco in amor o con altrui Che il bel virgineo fior v’abbia involato. Celinda Ah, nutrice, nutrice, Dunque osi di viltà tentar Celinda, Principessa di Lidia? Io d’un vil servo amante? Ch’io dunque non ricusi Con le donne di Sparta andar a paro, Violata fanciulla E non regina altera? O del mio regno un cavalier da poco, D’aspetto rozzo e di difforme faccia, Far de’ miei primi avventurosi amplessi, De le primizie mie Metitor fortunato? Né ’l servo, né ’l baron, né ’l cavaliero Meritò mai, nutrice, Ch’io me li dessi amicamente in braccio.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 123 with furor such and so great that when he broke his lance in the center of the other’s forehead, it was seen to fly into the air in a thousand splinters For this the ensuing applause of all the people around declared him 195 victor of the joust; and he toward you turned, as if yearning, with his regard pregnant with thanks, and certainly seemed to want to say, “Only from you do I recognize 200 the glory I’ve received.” But you, like a wise woman, disdained to welcome so great a lover’s fervid signs. For this reason, it is difficult for me to imagine that you so far beyond have sped 205 in love with him, or with another, that he might have stolen away your beautiful virginal flower. Celinda Ah, Nurse, Nurse. Therefore you dare with baseness to taint Celinda, the princess of Lydia? I, a base servant’s lover? Or therefore I might not refuse with the women of Sparta to go as a peer, a violated girl and not a proud queen? Or of my kingdom a knight of little worth, with a rough aspect and a misshapen face, I might make of my first adventurous embraces, of my first fruits the lucky harvester? Not the servant, nor the baron, nor the knight ever merited, Nurse, that I give myself amicably into his arms.

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124 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice Perdonatemi figlia, Se, qual cieco, tentando Io vo l’ignota strada De l’oscuro cammino, E con incerte note Il non compreso dubbio Cerco saper, ed a ragion desio. Celinda D’un re son fatta amante, Di marito fedele e non di vago. Con nodo maritale Seco Imeneo mi stringe, Egli a me vive, io vivo a lui consorte. Nutrice D’un re fatta consorte, Di gradito amator gradita amante, E parlate di morte? Parvi materia questa, Da lasciarne la vita? E chi fu dunque il fortunato rege? Ditelo, ch’io mi struggo Di desir e di gioia, Non più di duol, di noia. Celinda Conosci tu quella gentil donzella, Lucinia, mia gradita e cara serva, Secretaria fidel de’ miei pensieri? Nutrice Conoscola pur troppo, ed essa deve Esser stata mezzana al vostre errore, Che sovente la vidi nel giardino 250

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Celinda, A Tragedy 125 Nurse Pardon me, daughter, if like a blind man I feel out the unfamiliar street on my dark path, and with uncertain notes the uncomprehended puzzle I try to figure out, and rightfully I wish it. Celinda Of a king I have made myself the lover, of a faithful husband and not of a fickle man.53 With a marital knot to him Hymen binds me. For me he lives, and I live for him, as consorts. Nurse Of a king you are made the consort, of a welcome lover you are the welcome lover, and you speak of death? Does this seem to you a reason to abandon life? And who then was the fortunate king? Tell me, for I am consumed with desire and joy, no longer with grief and trouble. Celinda Do you know that noble damsel, Lucinia, my dear and welcome servant, faithful secretary of my thoughts? Nurse I know her, unfortunately, and she must have been the procuress for your error, for often I saw her, afflicted and sighing,

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126 Celinda, A Tragedy A quella porta ch’a le vostre stanze È dirimpetto, afflitta e sospirosa. Celinda Non mezzana, ma il mezzo Attissimo ella fu del mio fallire, Ella è l’amante e ’l fortunato rege.

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Nutrice Mi schernite e beffate: Voi d’una donna amante? Eh figlia! questi sono Tutti di poca fé segni veraci. Celinda Sotto mentita gonna E sotto il finto nome di Lucinia S’asconde Autilio, principe di Persia, Mio gradito consorte e caro amante. Nutrice Che mi dite? che intendo? Ingannata vi ha dunque Sotto mentite insegne Il cavalier, per cui già guerra e morte L’altier suo padre al vostro regno indice? Celinda E egli e io ingannati, Miseri siam restati Da quel fanciul che tutto ’l mondo allaccia. Egli venne a servirmi, Ma s’usurpò del core a forza il regno. Nutrice E come si scoperse?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 127 at that door which to your rooms is opposite, in the garden. Celinda Not the procuress, but the means most apt, she was of my failure. She is my lover, and the fortunate king.

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Nurse You deride and mock me. You, a woman’s lover?54 Eh, daughter, these are of little faith all truthful signs. Celinda Under a lying skirt and under the false name of Lucinia hides Autilio, the prince of Persia, my welcome consort and dear lover. Nurse What do you tell me? What do I hear? Then he has deceived you with lying garb, the very knight on whose behalf war and death his haughty father against your kingdom declares? Celinda Both he and I have ended up wretched and deceived by that boy who all the world ensnares. He came to serve me, but he usurped by force my heart’s kingdom. Nurse And how did he reveal himself?

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128 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Io te ’l dirò. Egli t’è noto pure Che ’l re mio padre a me guidollo in prima Come schiava d’Irlanda Ch’estranio mercatante a lui condusse; Come d’altri cattivi, e Persi e Mori, Ch’ei qui guidati aveva. Sol la bella Lucinia, Ch’è sol de gl’occhi miei luce gradita, Piacesse al re, fossegli data in dono, Che quasi n’arse d’amoroso foco. Come diellami infine il re, mio padre, Or costei pur dirò, che donna ancora Io la credea, per lungo tempo meco Dimorò pria ch’arder di me mostrasse, Ma tanto grata a me si fece, e tanto Ch’esser di luce priva Senza di lei pareva e semiviva. Alfin tant’oltre scorso Il suo amoroso incendio era ch’a pena Ormai capiva entro l’angusto seno, Ond’il bel volto scolorossi a punto Qual al soverchio ardor del sol cocente Rosa languir si vede Scossa da gl’onor suoi vaghi e vermigli, E con sospiri ardenti, Ch’eran messi del core, A me fè’ noto il suo cocente ardore; Onde, mentr’ella un giorno Era sopra il suo letto egra giacente, Dissi: “Lucinia, e quale Fia mai l’alta cagion di tanto duolo? Ond’è che se’ sì afflitta? Sorgi ormai lieta e scaccia il duol, la tema D’ esser più schiava o serva, Ch’anzi, compagna eletta

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Celinda, A Tragedy 129 Celinda I will tell you. You well know that the king my father brought him to me in the first place, as a slave girl from Ireland, whom a foreign merchant to him conducted, like other captives both Persian and Moorish whom he had brought here. Only beautiful Lucinia, who is the sun of my eyes, a welcome light, pleased the king, and was given to him as a gift, for almost he burned for her with amorous fire. When in the end the king my father gave her to me (now I shall call him her, for a woman still I believed her), for a long time with me she dwelled before showing she burned for me; but she made herself to me so, so agreeable that of light deprived I seemed without her, and half alive. At last her amorous blaze had progressed so far that by now it barely was contained within her incapacious breast, so that her beautiful visage actually faded, as when in the excessive heat of the burning sun a rose is seen to languish, shaken from its honors charming and vermilion; and with ardent sighs which were messengers of her heart to me she made known her burning ardor. Therefore while she one day was on her sickbed lying, I said, “Lucinia, whatever is the lofty cause of so much grief? Why are you so afflicted? Rise up happy now, and chase away the grief, the fear of being any longer a slave or a servant, for instead an elect companion

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130 Celinda, A Tragedy Voglio ch’a me tu sia, e le mie gioie Siano teco comuni.” Nutrice Amor, ch’iva tessendo L’amoroso suo inganno, Somministrava i modi, Suggerìa le parole. Celinda E con un bacio ardente Che dal cor inviava un dolce affetto Baciandola tentai Con la mia destra il molle e bianco petto Palparle, e ’l collo, e ’l fianco (Quasi in atto di scherzo). Ella tremante I bianchi lini si restrinse al seno E mi guardò tacendo. Io pur oltre seguendo, Quant’ella s’ascondea Tanto più di scovrirla anco cercando, “O come sei guardinga!” le soggiunsi. Ed ella non rispose, Sol che le guancie sue si fer due rose Ch’ornando il suo pallore Scoprir quante ha vaghezze In quel bel volto Amore. Ma Febo, ormai sciogliendo I veloci corsier dal carro adorno, Si posò lieto a la sua Teti in seno, E intanto iva sorgendo Da le cimerie grotte Con mille aurate stelle Pompa e famiglia sua, l’amica notte, Che non so s’io la deggia Inimica chiamar, oppur amica.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 131 I want you to be to me, and let my joys with you be held in common.” Nurse Love, who was weaving his amorous deceit, provided the ways; he suggested the words. Celinda And with an ardent kiss, which from my heart a sweet affection sent,55 kissing her I attempted with my right hand to palpate her soft, white breast, and her neck and her flank (as if jokingly). She, trembling, pulled the white linens tightly to her chest, and she looked at me silently. I yet further pursued; the more she hid herself, the more I still kept trying to uncover her. “Oh, how wary you are!” I added, and she did not answer— except that her cheeks became two roses which, in decorating her pallor, revealed in that beautiful visage how many charms Love has. But Phoebus by now was releasing the speedy coursers from his adorned chariot; he alighted gladly onto his Thetis’s breast.56 And meanwhile there was rising from the Cimmerian grottoes57 with a thousand golden stars (her adornment and her entourage) friendly Night, though I don’t know whether I must call her an enemy, or rather a friend.

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132 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice O degno di pietà caso d’amore! Celinda Amor, che congiurato Aveva a’ danni miei, Volle ch’anco ministra Fossi di mie vergogne. E però là n’andai Ove finta Lucinia in molli piume Si stava egra languendo, E spogliatami ignuda De la mia ricca veste A lei mi posi accanto, Ed ora il bianco volto, ora il bel collo Toccando e ribaciando Facea di queste braccia a lei catena. Ed ella che pensava Al vicino periglio, In sè stessa ristretta, Con un caldo sospir che dal profondo Del cor le uscio, mi disse: “A che tentar, signora Modi perch’io non mora?” E poi a la mia bocca Giunse i vivi rubini e quasi isvenne, Se non ch’il guardo pregno Di lagrime e di duol fisso tenea Ne gl’occhi e nel mio volto. Ma tanto feci e tanto dissi alfine Che spinse la mia destra Sopra il candido seno, e allor m’avvidi Non esser com’il mio de’ pomi adorno. Ella smarrita, immota e di sè fuori, Viva, ma senza vita e senza moto, Cadavero vivente, Più non facea difesa,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 133 Nurse Oh pitiful case of love! Celinda Love, who had plotted my harm, wanted me to administer also my shames. And so, there I went, where the feigned Lucinia on soft cushions remained infirm and languishing. And from my rich attire having disrobed, nude, I settled by her side. And touching and kissing again now her white face, now her beautiful neck, I made of these arms around her a chain.58 And she, who was thinking of the imminent peril, all tensed up in herself, with a hot sigh which from the depths of her heart issued, said to me, “Why attempt, my lady, measures so that I will not die?” And then to my mouth she joined her vivid rubies,59 and she almost fainted, except that her gaze, pregnant with tears and with grief, fixed she held on my eyes and my face. But so much did I do and so much did I say in the end that she pushed my right hand over her white chest, and then I realized it was not, like mine, adorned with breasts. She, swooning, unmoving, and beside herself, alive but without life and motionless, a living cadaver, no longer did she make a defense

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134 Celinda, A Tragedy Se non che sorta da le piume, involta Pur nel candido lino, Corse al mentito manto Ch’ella, non dirò più, ben dirò, ch’egli (Io lo conobbi allora) Colà vicino al letto S’avea spogliato in prima, E ne trasse un lavor ricco e pregiato Dove scolpita era l’immagin mia. E in lunga istoria il su’ amoroso foco, Come prezzò l’amore D’Eusina, la figliuola De la matrigna sua ch’il re suo padre Dar le volea in moglie, Con lei sprezzando insieme Di Tracia il grand’impero Avendo volto a me, sua cara amante, Ch’idolo del suo cor fatto s’aveva, Il pensier e le voglie Per cui nascosamente Lasciando ’l patrio regno Fu poi cagion che l’infelice Eusina, A se stessa crudele, Da disperata voglia, Dal mal gradito amor accesa e spinta, S’aprisse il sen co ’l proprio ferro ignudo. Dopo ciò fatto, in atto umile e vago Genuflesso pregava Che del suo tant’osar fessi l’emenda Levandoli la vita, Che per servirmi sol gl’era gradita. A l’improvvise e non pensate mai Scoperte larve, a l’impensate frodi, Al novello accidente, Pensa, nutrice mia, qual io rimasi. Volea gridar, ma mi ritenne, ahi, lassa, Il timor che d’intorno al cor m’assalse

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Celinda, A Tragedy 135 if not that, risen from the bed, enwrapped still in the candid linen he ran to the lying mantle (I will no longer say “she,” indeed I shall say “he,” for I knew him then) which there near the bed he had taken off earlier. He drew from it a work rich and precious wherein sculpted was my image, and in a long story he recounted his amorous fire: how little he cared about the love of Eusina, the daughter of his stepmother, whom the king his father wanted to give him as wife, together with her despising the great empire of Thrace. This was because he had turned toward me, his dear beloved who had become the idol of his heart, the thoughts and wishes for which, in secretly leaving his paternal kingdom, he was then the cause that unhappy Eusina, to herself cruel, by a desperate desire, by her unrequited love burned and impelled, opened her breast with her own naked blade. After that, he became in his demeanor humble and charming; kneeling, he prayed that of his so-great daring I would make the correction, by taking away his life, which to him was valuable only in order to serve me. At the sudden and never-foreseen shams discovered, at the unsuspected frauds, at the unprecedented incident, think, my Nurse, what state I was in. I wanted to cry out, but I was held back, wretched me! by the fear which around my heart assailed me

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136 Celinda, A Tragedy Di non esser tenuta Infame e omicida, Poi ch’e gli volse allora Con ignudo coltel passarsi il petto. Quì, nutrice, ha principio De la perduta mia verginitade L’istoria miserabile e dolente. Vinse egli alfin, mercé del crudo Amore, Onde giungendo a questa La non men forte ch’amorosa mano Di fede un saldo pegno D’essermi sposo diede. Ah, d’ogni altra più bella Ma più d’ogn’altra infida e trista notte, A cui strugger, pensando, il cor mi sento Qual fredda neve al sole in colle aprico! Nutrice Ah, notte, non fu mai di te né fia La più malvagia e ria! Celinda Da che seguiro l’amorose gioie La sorella del sol ha già mostrato Ne l’ampio ciel l’inargentata faccia Quattro volte crescente e quattro scema, E per aggiunger esca al mio gran duolo, Porto gravido il ventre. Evvi anco peggio, Che ’l re mio padre ad altro ormai non pensa A far de le mie nozze, ohimè, felice Con ricca dote un glorioso rege. Nutrice Alta per certo è la cagion e grave Che v’induce a doler; ma consolate In parte il vostro duol, che sorte lieta Sottraggeravvi ’l ciel a tante cure.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 137 of being held infamous and a murderess, since he wanted then with a naked knife to pierce his chest. Here, Nurse, begins the story, miserable and sorrowful, of my lost virginity. He won in the end, thanks to cruel Love; therefore, joining to this hand of mine his no less strong than amorous hand, of his faithfulness a firm pledge to be my bridegroom he gave. Ah, night more beautiful than every other, but more than every other faithless and wretched! In thinking of it I feel my heart melt like cold snow in the sun on a bright hill. Nurse Ah, Night! There never was nor will be one than you more malicious and wicked. Celinda Since the occasion of those amorous joys, the sun’s sister60 has already shown in the broad sky her silvery face four times waxing, and four waning; and to add fuel to my great grief, I bear a gravid belly. There is yet worse, for the king my father by now of nothing else thinks than with my nuptials, ah me! and with a rich dowry to delight some glorious king. Nurse Momentous indeed is the cause, and grave, which induces you to suffer. But console in part your grief, for with a happy fate Heaven will steal away your many cares.

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138 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Io, nutrice, non posso Ubbedir altrimenti al re mio padre Ne le odiate nozze, Sì perché non vorrei, Ch’illegitima prole Lo scettro avesse e ’l manto ed imperasse Ne gli altrui regni un successor bastardo, Com’anco perch’io viver non potrei Dove splendesse in altra parte il lume Ch’esce dal volto di Lucinia mia. Nutrice Temprate, figlia, l’amoroso incendio, Non ponete in oblio l’animo regio Onde sete pur anco Non indegna nipote a gli avi illustri, E l’onorato grido De l’antiche seguite Del regio sangue vostro.

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Celinda Perdei con la virtù l’animo regio Allor che di donzella Mi conobbi esser donna. Nutrice Con le lagrime vostre Giungete duolo a duolo. Ma che fia di Lucinia? Qual partito si deve Prender onde a cessar abbi la guerra Che per costei orribile è già sorta? Celinda La rovina de’ nostri Può allegerir, nutrice, il mio tormento,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 139 Celinda I, Nurse, cannot in any case obey the king my father in the matter of the hateful nuptials, firstly because I would not like it if illegitimate offspring held the scepter and the mantle, and if there reigned in others’ kingdoms a bastard successor; and furthermore, because I could not live other than where shone the light which comes forth from the visage of my Lucinia. Nurse Temper, daughter, your amorous blaze. Don’t disregard your regal spirit (because of which you are still a not unworthy granddaughter of your illustrious ancestors); and the honorable acclaim follow of the venerable ladies of your regal blood.

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Celinda I lost with my virtue my regal spirit, at the moment when, no longer a maiden, I knew I was a woman. Nurse With your tears you add grief to grief. But what of Lucinia? What course of action must be taken to bring to an end the horrible war which for her has already arisen? Celinda The ruin of our side can lighten, Nurse, my torment,

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140 Celinda, A Tragedy Che, preda de l’amante, Sotto insegne nemiche Sol d’avversa fortuna io gioirei. Nutrice E se restasse, ohimé (che ’l ciel non voglia) Preda del fer nemico il padre vostro, Vi soffrirebbe il core? Celinda Non temo, mia nutrice, Con Autilio nel campo (Che tal è il nome di Lucinia mia) Che le squadre nemiche Faccian al padre mio scorno ed oltraggio. Nutrice E come Autilio in campo, Se già in succinta gonna, in lunga chioma Inerme con voi stassi e neghittoso? Celinda Depon gli arnesi femminili e insieme La bella chioma, e bellicoso in atto Di mover co ’l mio cor guerra anco al cielo Vuol gir nel campo al periglioso marte, Sperando con la vita Del re, mio padre, sua vittoria certa. Nutrice Così permetta il cielo. Ma perché parmi gente udir quì intorno Andianne entro ’l palagio, Che [con] più vostr’onor spiar potrete Del campo e de la guerra Ogni segreto dal balcon sovrano.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 141 for as the prey of a lover who wears enemy insignia, only at adverse fortune would I rejoice. Nurse And if (alas! may Heaven forbid it!) your father ended up as prey of the fierce enemy, would you suffer in your heart? Celinda I fear not, my Nurse, with Autilio in the field (for such is the name of my Lucinia), that the squadrons of the enemy might cause my father humiliation and outrage. Nurse What do you mean, Autilio in the field? If indeed in a short skirt, with long tresses, unarmed, with you he stays, and slothful? Celinda He is laying down his feminine trappings, together with his beautiful tresses. Bellicose in demeanor, to wage war against both my heart and also Heaven, he intends to go into the field to the perilous battle. He hopes, with the continued life of the king my father, to find certain victory. Nurse May Heaven permit it. But because I seem to hear people around here, let us go into the palace, for more honorably you will be able to espy of the battlefield and of the war every secret from the highest balcony.

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142 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Con la scorta del cielo andiam, nutrice. Coro O cara, o santa Pace, O figlia del gran Giove, O del bel giro de’ pianeti erranti Conservatrice eterna, Da i luoghi ove non verna, Ove non tuona o piove Gira ver noi pietosa i lumi santi, E con celeste aita Dona la pace a l’alme, a i cor la vita! Tu che giungesti prima Al curvo aratro i buoi, Ed a rustica mano Di coglier concedesti Dal sen fecondo de la madre antica Quanti frutti comparte A la natura, la natura e l’arte, Difendi chi ti prega, Pendan da i voler tuoi L’armi del fier tiranno, E ’l freno tuo gli altri furor reprima Che pacifico stato Così godrem di bel riposo amato. Sgombra gli dubbi incerti, Rischiara i veli oscuri Ch’offuscan l’alme e fan desiar la guerra. Scendi da l’alto cielo E ’l cominciato gelo, Prima che più s’induri, Leva da i cor, ferma la pace in terra E i nemici furori Togli da i petti, e dà riposo a i cori. Scendi, pietosa dea,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 143 Celinda With Heaven’s escort let us go, Nurse. Chorus of Ladies61 O dear, O sacred Peace,62 O daughter of great Jove, O eternal preserver of the lovely eternal circuits of the wandering planets, from the realms where there is no winter, where it does not thunder or rain, turn toward us with pity your holy eyes, and with celestial help give peace to souls, and to hearts, life. You who yoked first to the curved plow the oxen, and a rustic hand you allowed to gather from the fertile bosom of the ancient mother as many fruits as are distributed to nature, by nature, and art, defend those who pray to you. May upon your will depend the weapons of the fierce tyrant, and may your bridle repress others’ furor. Thus the peaceful state we will enjoy of sweet, beloved repose. Sweep away dubious suspicions; clear up the obscure veils which obfuscate souls and make them desire war. Descend from the lofty firmament, and that newly begun ice, before more it hardens— lift it away from people’s hearts, keep peace on earth. And the enemies’ furor remove from their breasts, and give repose to their hearts. Descend, compassionate goddess,

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144 Celinda, A Tragedy E lo sdegno e ’l rancore Rivolgi in pace ed in quieto amore.

Atto Secondo SCENA PRIMA ARMILLA, LUCINIA

Armilla Ricerco ho, figlia, i più remoti luoghi De la regia magion per ritrovarti, E dove sperai meno Io ti riveggo alfine. Ma perché sì dolente e sì pensosa? Ond’è, Lucinia mia, ch’a i bianchi gigli, Cui soverchia mestizia or fa più belli Mentre d’altro color li spoglia e lascia Ne la candida lor semplice veste, Han lasciato le rose Che co ’l vermiglio lor purpureo manto T’adornavano il volto Libero campo in tutto, Quasi perdenti e in lor ragion deluse? Deh, sgombra ogni timore, ogni spavento, Ogni larva d’orror dal molle petto, Che se ben or di mille armate schiere Il re nemico ha circondato il regno, Minor, onde timore a te si debba, La cagion ti si porge; Che qual sotto i gran vanni aquila altera I pargoletti figli accoglie e stringe Per custodirli illesi Dal superbo soffiar del cielo irato, Da gl’orgogliosi e minaccievol venti Con materna pietade, Così non men tu al nostro re gradita,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 145 and turn wrath and rancor into peace and quiet love.

Act Two SCENE ONE ARMILLA, LUCINIA

Armilla I have sought, daughter, through the remotest places in the royal dwelling to find you, and where I hoped least, I see you at last. But why are you so sorrowful and so pensive? Why is it, my Lucinia, that to your complexion’s white lilies (which excessive sorrow now makes more beautiful, while of other colors it deprives them, and leaves them in their simple, white attire) the roses (which with their vermilion and purple mantle used to adorn your visage) have left the field entirely, as if defeated, and in their rightful cause disappointed? Come, clear away every fear, every fright, every figment of horror from your soft breast. Although now with a thousand armed ranks the enemy king has encircled our kingdom, less reason it provides for you to take fright. Just as under her great vanes the proud eagle gathers her little children and clasps them, to preserve them unharmed from the haughty gusts of irate Heaven, from the prideful and threatening winds with maternal compassion, just so you, to our king no less pleasing,

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146 Celinda, A Tragedy In dolce amor congiunta, Caro membro del regno, Sotto de le sue posse a l’ali immense Sarai sempre difesa, ognor accolta In guisa tal che, gloriosa e lieta, Qual illustre matrona a te si deve Forte, intrepido core, Non qual donna del volgo Un vil timor che ti s’annidi in seno. Lucinia Madre e signora mia, che così deggio Per riverenza e per amor chiamarvi, S’entro le regie stanze, Dove a cercarmi faticosa cura Trassevi, invan vi raggiraste (udite) Diroven’ la cagione: Ne l’ora ch’è confine Tra le tenebre e ’l dì nel novo albore, Ne lo sparir de l’amorosa stella Fu di strano prodigio alto spavento Che m’interruppe il sonno, Femmi lasciar le piume, Ond’io piena d’orror quì, dove il piede Trassemi più ch’il cor, trovommi infine Senza saper dov’io m’aggiri o volga. Armilla Dal terror de’ prodigi Lieti auspici e felici il ciel pietoso Ci promette sovente, e i lor segreti Sotto manto d’orror copron gli dei. L’anima non avvezza A gl’annunzi celesti Paventa e teme, e quindi avvien che stima Sinistro evento a le future imprese Ciò che futura gioia il ciel le avvisa.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 147 in sweet love conjoined, a dear member of the kingdom, to the limit of his powers, by his immense wings you will always be defended, at all times welcomed, in such a way that, glorious and happy, like an illustrious matron, you must have a strong, intrepid heart, not like a woman of the common people, in whose heart a base fear might nest. Lucinia Mother, and my lady (for so I must out of reverence and love call you), if within the royal apartments to seek me a wearisome care drew you, in vain you roamed. Listen, I will tell you the reason. In the hour which is the border between the shadows and the day, in the new dawn, at the disappearance of Love’s star,63 a strange portent caused me an intense fright which interrupted my sleep, and made me leave my bed. Therefore I, full of horror, here where my foot drew me more than my heart, find myself in the end, without knowing where to wander or to turn. Armilla Out of the terror of portents, happy and lucky auguries compassionate Heaven often promises us, and their secrets the gods cover under a mantle of horror. The soul unaccustomed to celestial announcements fears and dreads, and often that soul deems sinister an omen about upcoming ventures, when in truth Heaven is informing it of a future joy.

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148 Celinda, A Tragedy Disvestendo il pensier d’infausto velo, Spera ormai di gioire, Che se mai risplendente oltre l’usato Vedesti uscir dal ricco Gange il giorno, Questo per te sia glorioso e chiaro, Daratti al riso e sotterratti al pianto, E da l’umile stato in che tu sei Innalzeratti a le corone, a gli ostri, Di serva ti farà donna e regina. Lucinia, ormai di più pregiate spoglie Vedransi ornar le tue leggiadre membra, E ’l bel dorato crine, ora senz’arte, Ad arte forse incolto, Fregiato si vedrà di gemme e d’oro Cui cedran di vaghezza e gemme ed oro. Lucinia Conchiuso ha forse il nostro re e signore Co ’l principe di Scozia il maritaggio Pria che co ’l re di Persi Segua la pace o fine abbia la guerra? Acconsentì la figlia d’ubedirlo Onde tanta letizia il cor v’ingombra? Armilla Vedrò te stessa in alto seggio assisa Risplender ne la porpora e ne l’oro, Ed al giogo servil sottratto il collo Di corona regal cinger il crine. Lucinia Io per voler del cielo Non già semplice serva, Ma schiava al fin venuta Di barbarica gente, Per mio fatal destin serva a Celinda, Principessa di Lidia, agogno forse

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Celinda, A Tragedy 149 Divesting the thought of its ominous veil, hope now to rejoice, for if ever from the rich Ganges you saw the day emerge resplendent beyond its usual custom,64 this day for you will be glorious and bright. It will give you to laughter and remove you from weeping; and from the humble state in which you are, it will raise you to crowns and to the royal purple. From a servant it will make you a lady and a queen. Lucinia, now more precious garments will be seen to adorn your graceful limbs, and your beautiful golden hair, now artless, artfully perhaps unkempt, will be seen decorated with gems and gold; to it will yield in charm both gems and gold. Lucinia Has perhaps our king and lord concluded with the prince of Scotland the marriage, before with the king of the Persians peace is made, or the war brought to its end? Did his daughter consent to obey him? Why with so much joy is your heart filled? Armilla I will see you yourself on a lofty throne seated, shining in purple and in gold, and from the servile yoke your neck released, and a royal crown encircle your hair. Lucinia I am through the will of Heaven not merely a simple servant, but in the end a slave come from a barbarous people, through my fateful destiny the servant of Celinda, princess of Lydia; do I covet perhaps

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150 Celinda, A Tragedy La dovuta corona a lei di Lidia Usurparmi arrogante? Serva umile al mio re viver vogl’io, A membra pur più degne e scettro e manto Serbinsi, e cinga la regal corona Di stirpe regia altri più degni crini, Che di semplice velo a me le treccie Giova cinger incolte, Di vile gonna al fianco Vestir conforme a mia fortuna umile. Armilla Non copre abito vil la nobil luce Né quanto in lei d’altero e di gentile Ch’una regia maestate in te traluce Come ben sallo il nostro re, già preso Da le tante di te doti divine, Che non cape in suo cor l’incendio e ’l foco Che per te l’arde, lo consuma e sface, Onde a chiederti in moglie ei si risolve. Pur ora egli m’ha spinta a tal richiesta E con doni di fede anco m’invia Quai pur tu vedi; a la segreta stanza N’attende, ov’egli in testimonio Giove Chiamerà co’ Imeneo, con gli altri dei; Ed in segno di fé la destra ornarti D’aurea gemma promette, e farti infine De la vita consorte e del suo regno. Lucinia Voi, signora, stringete in picciol fascio Gran cose, alte promesse Che in sol pensarle impallidisco e tremo. Quando sarà pur ver che ’l re di Lidia, Di me invaghito, soddisfar le piaccia Su’ amoroso desio, m’avrà qual serva Ne le sue braccia, e non qual donna e sposa:

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Celinda, A Tragedy 151 to usurp arrogantly the crown due to her of Lydia? As a humble servant to my king I want to live. For limbs yet worthier let the scepter and mantle be reserved, and let the royal crown encircle other locks, worthier because royal-blooded. With a simple veil my unkempt tresses let me instead encircle, and dress my flank with a lowly skirt appropriate to my humble fortune. Armilla Lowly attire does not cover your noble light, nor how much it is proud and fine, for a regal majesty shines through you, as well our king knows. He is already so taken with your many divine endowments that his heart cannot contain the blaze and the fire which for you burn him, consume and undo him. Therefore to ask you to wife he is resolved. Just now he has urged me on with such a request, and with tokens of faith as well he sends me, which you see here. In the private room he awaits us, where he as a witness will call Jove, with Hymen, with the other gods. And as a sign of faith he promises to adorn your right hand with a golden gem, and to make you in the end the consort of his life and of his kingdom. Lucinia You, lady, clasp in a small bundle great matters, momentous promises, such that in merely thinking of them I grow pale and tremble. Even if it is true that the king of Lydia, infatuated with me, might like to satisfy his amorous desire, he will have me as a servant in his arms, and not as a lady and bride.

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152 Celinda, A Tragedy E questo sia del puro affetto mio Veridico sigillo. Ch’ei mi brami consorte e mi richieda Non meritata e non bramata grazia Io la conosco, e duolmi ch’io non abbia Modo di ringraziar l’altezza sua. Riferirle sia ben com’io son pronta D’esser seco a’ suoi cenni, ma che prima Una grazia da lui chieggio e desio, Ei di benigno re conforme a l’uso Sottoscriva la supplica, e no ’l neghi. Armilla Lodarei molto più che tu diletto Ed amato desio De la maestà regia a lui n’andassi Ad offerir te stessa e chieder grazia, Perché, in donando, il don conseguiresti. Oh quanto, figlia, altera andar potrai Fra le donne di Lidia, Poi che scielta t’avrà fra quant’il regno N’ha di belle e gentil per la più bella! O quante si vedran guatarti e dire, Da generosa invidia il cor compunto, “E perché me non fè’ sì bella il cielo?” Ch’oltre l’esser di Lidia alta regina (Ch’è sommo grado a ch’imperar desia) La nobiltate, le maniere accorte De l’inclito signor, la gran virtute, È tal ch’ognun l’ammira, N’ha gioia il regno e ne stupisce il mondo. Lucinia S’al primo suon de’ vostri novi accenti Fra speranza e timor mi stetti in forse, Ne l’udir del mio re l’alta imbasciata Ragion ve n’ebbe parte,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 153 And let this be of my pure affection a truthful seal. That he desires me as his consort, and requests it— as an unmerited and undesired grace I recognize it, and it grieves me that I do not have a way to thank His Highness. It will be good to relate to him how I am ready to be with him at his nod, but that first a grace from him I ask and wish. Let him grant my supplication and not deny it, as would conform to a benign king’s custom.

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Armilla I would praise much more if you, the adored and beloved delight of his royal Majesty, to him went to offer yourself and to ask for this grace, because in giving, the gift you would obtain. 140 Oh how proudly, daughter, you will be able to go among the ladies of Lydia, since he will have chosen you from among as many as the kingdom holds of beautiful and noble women, as the most beautiful. Oh how many women will look at you and say, 145 with hearts afflicted by intense envy, “Oh, why didn’t Heaven make me so beautiful?” For besides being Lydia’s exalted queen (which is the highest rank to whoever wishes to rule), his nobility, his clear-sighted manners, 150 the illustrious lord’s great virtue are such that everyone admires him; the kingdom rejoices in him, and with him amazes the world. Lucinia If at the first sound of your unprecedented words, between hope and fear I was suspended, in hearing of my king’s momentous embassy, reason therein took part.

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154 Celinda, A Tragedy Che ripensando pur, come degg’io, Col virginal mio pregio Mercar di concubina il nome, e ’l fasto E la grazia d’un re che tanto vale, Qual albor combattuto Da i venti de l’autunno, ond’ei si spoglia De la primiera sua frondosa chioma, Dal voler del mio re, dal novo assalto Sento spogliarmi in parte Sol per vestir le sue de le mie voglie, Quasi dal cor fugando D’onor ogni rispetto Che d’aggradir il re possa ritrarmi. Né d’altro, che ’l poc’anzi Accennato infelice, infausto sogno Mi perturba e riempie Di nuovo orror la mente e di spavento. Armilla Figlia, son due le porte, e burnea l’una, Di corno l’altra, ov’han l’uscita i sogni: Da quella i falsi, i veri escon da questa. Mentita orrida larva Che per l’uscio d’avorio a te se’n venne Ben fu cotesto tuo, al ver m’appongo, Non già sogno verace. Deh, scaccia ogni spavento, ogni temenza! Non creder, figlia, a i sogni, Che di rado o non mai Fede suol prestar loro alma prudente. Altro i sogni non son che larve ed ombre Onde l’uomo si nutre, Immagini corrotte, Tanto varie e diverse Quanto anco è varia l’esca onde si vive.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 155 Thinking over it again, as I must, with my virginal worth to buy of a concubine the name and the pomp,65 and the grace of a king who is worth so much— like a tree battered by the winds of autumn so that it is disrobed of its prior leafy foliage, by the will of my king, by the new assault I feel myself disrobed in part of my desires, only to get dressed in his, as if from my heart dispelling honor’s every respect that might from satisfying the king hold me back. Nothing else but the aforementioned unhappy, ominous dream perturbs me, and fills with a strange horror my mind, and with fright.

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Armilla Daughter, two are the gates, ivory the one, 175 of horn the other, from which issue dreams; from the former the false ones, the true ones emerge from the latter. Certainly this one of yours was (to the truth I adhere) a lying, horrid phantasm which came to you through the ivory door, 180 not at all a truthful dream.66 Come, chase away every fright, every fear. Do not believe, daughter, in dreams, for rarely or never is a prudent soul accustomed to put faith in them. 185 Dreams are nothing else but figments and shadows on which man feeds, corrupt images as varied and diverse as is varied the fuel on which he lives. 190

156 Celinda, A Tragedy Lucinia Gli alti misteri a nostri sensi occulti Tra le cure diurne e le vigilie È dato di scoprir anco talvolta Quando il corpo mortal s’adagia e dorme. A l’anima immortale Nel divin di se stessa Retiratasi allora Tal ella vien, che li penetra e scorge Qual in lucido specchio O in trasparente e limpido cristallo. Tale ho previsto anch’io le mie sventure Entro l’ombre d’un sogno. Ma che sogno? Fu vision verace. Armilla Deh, no ’l tacer Lucinia, Deh, fa che anch’io l’intenda, Ch’in narrando il timore Che ne perturba e ange Si scema il duol e ’l cor si disacerba. Lucinia Era ne l’ora poco inanti a l’alba Quando queste mie luci in breve sonno Chiusersi, ahi, lassa, onde veder mi parve Del nostro regno entro l’eccelse mura Belve di mille spetie ed un sol sesso Che, fieramente combattendo, ’l sangue Si vedeano versar d’ampie ferite, Quando ruggendo un fier leon apparve Che con l’unghie e co ’i morsi Feriva e uccideva or questo or quello, Con gli artigli squarciava a brano a brano Satollando di lor le brame ingorde. E mentre volsi in ver le loggie il guardo,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 157 Lucinia The lofty mysteries that from our senses are hidden by daytime cares and by vigils, it is given us also to discover sometimes, when the mortal body takes its ease and sleeps. The immortal soul, into the divinity of itself withdrawn at that time, becomes such that it penetrates and discerns them as in a lucid mirror, or in a transparent and limpid crystal. In this manner I too have foreseen my misfortunes within the shadows of a dream— but why do I say a dream? It was a truthful vision. Armilla Come, don’t be silent about it, Lucinia. Come, let me also hear it, for in narrating the fear which perturbs and distresses us, grief wanes, and the heart is soothed.67

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Lucinia It was in the hour shortly before dawn 210 when these eyes of mine in a brief sleep closed. Alas! I seemed to see inside our realm’s lofty city walls wild beasts of a thousand species but of only one sex, which in fiercely combating were seen 215 to pour out blood from ample wounds. Then, roaring, a fierce lion appeared which with claws and with bites wounded and killed now this one, now that one. With his talons he tore them apart into shreds and more shreds, 220 sating with these his greedy hungers. And when I turned toward the loggias my gaze,

158 Celinda, A Tragedy Ove le donne intente Stavano a rimirar l’aspra tenzone, Di pianto molle il sen, le guancie asperse Vidi d’ogn’altra più mesta e dogliosa La principessa nostra al ciel rivolta Invocar Giove e Marte, Che a l’indomita fiera Togliessero il furor, ed al suo sdegno Fiaccassero le corna. Ma fessi in questo mentre La sua furia più grave, Più spaventosa l’ira: Erasi orribilmente egli acciuffato Con un altro leon poc’anzi uscito Da la porta maggiore Del palagio regal vicino al varco, Cui forti, armate schiere Seguiano di soldati arditi e pronti A correr co ’l leon fortuna uguale. Ed io di donna allor cangiar mi vidi La gonna umile in bel lucente usbergo; Sovra un feroce corridor assisa Parevami trattar l’asta e la spada, E far del sangue mio l’armi vermiglie In pro di quel leon ch’anch’ io seguiva; Che al fin vinto e legato e preso, ’l vidi Guidar al fondo de l’eterno oblio, Onde verso il nemico allor mi parve Furiosa gridar e forsennata: “Lascia, mostro crudel, il mio signore, E sbrama nel mio cor le fauci immonde.” E con tal dir ne andai Dolente, furibonda e disperata, A darmi in preda de’ suoi fieri artigli. Non così tosto egli del sangue mio Vide vermiglio il fondo e sè bruttato, Che fe’ con un tremendo, alto ruggito

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Celinda, A Tragedy 159 where the ladies were, intently watching the relentless combat, I saw more sad than all the others, more grief-stricken, with tears her breast softened, her cheeks sprinkled, our princess. Toward Heaven facing, she invoked Jove and Mars, that the untamed beast’s furor they might remove, and of his anger they might weaken the horns.68 But at the same time his fury became more severe, more frightful his wrath. He was horribly brawling with another lion which had shortly before come out from the great gate of the royal palace, near the passageway, and strong, armed ranks of bold soldiers followed him, ready to share with the lion an equal fortune. And then I saw myself change from a woman’s humble skirt into a beautiful, shining hauberk. Upon a ferocious courser seated, I appeared to wield the lance and sword and to make with my blood the weapons vermilion in the service of that lion which I too followed. In the end I saw him defeated and bound and captured, led to the depths of eternal oblivion. Then toward the enemy I appeared to cry out, furious and out of my mind, “Cruel monster, leave my lord, and sate with my heart your filthy jaws!” And with such a speech I went out grieving, wild, and desperate, to give myself in prey to his fierce claws. As soon as with my blood he saw the soil vermilion and himself stained, he made with a tremendous, loud roar

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160 Celinda, A Tragedy Non solo il campo rimbombar d’intorno Ma Lidia tutta e le riposte valli, Onde ferita, pavida e tremante Non so come fuggii, come potei Sottrarmi al gran periglio, e pur fuggita Era in un prato ove leggiadra cerva, Assai candida più del bianco cigno, Vidi non men fuggire Al gran rimbombo, spaventata anch’ella, Che me veggendo fuggitiva in atto Fuga maggior de la mia fuga apprese. Pur si ritenne poi quando mi vide Su l’erba molle a l’affannate membra Da l’armi e da la pugna Cercar posa e quiete; Anzi, resa sicura, Là venne ov’io giacea, Ed amica e pietosa Lambendo già da le mie piaghe il sangue. Indi, crucciosa e mesta, E di morir già vaga, Verso la punta del mio brando ignudo, Ch’anco la destra mia tenea impugnato, Misera, il petto volse e si trafisse. Innocente omicida io così fui, Rea de la morte sua senza mia colpa. Da tal orror, da tal portento desta Dal sonno quì ne venni, ove pur anco Qual mentecatta or ora Voi mi trovaste, Armilla. Or s’è vano il timor voi pur lo dite, E se di rallegrarmi oggi ho cagione. Armilla Il sogno è un vaneggiar di nostra mente, Ch’a lo sparir del sonno anch’ei sparisce.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 161 not only the battlefield thunder around us, but all of Lydia and the innermost valleys. Then wounded, pale, and trembling, I don’t know how I fled, how I was able to extract myself from the great peril, and yet I had fled into a meadow where a graceful doe, far whiter than the white swan, I saw; she was frightened as well. From the great roar she was fleeing, no less than I; and upon seeing me a fugitive in my actions, from my flight she learned even greater flight. Yet she held back later when she saw me upon the soft grass, with weary limbs, from weapons and from the fight seeking a pause and quiet. Rather, reassured, she came there where I was lying and, friendly and pitiful, lapped up my wounds’ blood. Then chagrined and sorrowful and indeed of death desirous, toward the point of my naked blade, which my right hand held gripped, the wretch turned her breast and transfixed herself.69 Thus an innocent murderess I was, guilty of her death without my being at fault. By such a horror, by such a portent awakened from sleep, I came here where veritably like a lunatic just now you found me, Armilla. Now if my fear is vain, you yourself tell me, and whether today I have reason to rejoice. Armilla A dream is a delirium of our mind which at the disappearance of sleep also disappears,

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162 Celinda, A Tragedy O sia tristo o sia lieto, Deh, quivi al vaneggiar sia ’l fine. Ed or, che sei pur desta, Cessino le notturne Chimere e i falsi orrori, e ’l cor s’appresti A lo scettro, a le nozze, al manto, al regno. Andiamo entro ’l palagio, Già corsa è l’ora a me dal re prescritta.

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Lucinia A le solite stanze di Celinda Andrò per venire poi quando ’l comandi Lo mio signor; là vi starò attendendo. Armilla Così farò. Resta tu lieta, figlia, E dando pace al core Rasserena il bel guardo.

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SCENA SECONDA LUCINIA, CELINDA

Lucinia Pietoso il ciel, mentre pur langue il core E nel proprio suo duol l’alma vien meno (O de l’anima mia delizie amate!) Opportuno rimedio anco vi porge Onde sgombriate ormai le tante cure Che perturbanvi ’l lieto de la mente, E come sovra ogn’altra il pregio dievivi Non men concederavvi Felicità suprema. Ma che singhiozzi, ohimè, che tristi auguri Di lagrime son questi e di sospiri Ch’a guisa di messaggi entro la rocca Di questo petto al misero mio core

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Celinda, A Tragedy 163 whether it’s sad or happy. Come, let the delirium draw to a close. And now that you are truly awake, let cease the nocturnal chimeras and the false horrors, and let your heart prepare for the scepter, the nuptials, the mantle, the kingdom. Let us go inside the palace; already the hour has passed that the king to me prescribed.

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Lucinia As usual, to the rooms of Celinda I will go, to come later at the command of my lord. There I will be waiting. Armilla So be it. You be happy, daughter. Set your heart at peace, and cheer up your beautiful countenance.

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SCENE TWO LUCINIA, CELINDA

Lucinia Pitiful Heaven, while the heart yet languishes, and in its own grief the soul faints (oh my spirit’s beloved delights!), an opportune remedy offers you, by which you might now clear away the many cares which perturb the happiness of your mind. And as merit above every other woman it gave you, no less will it grant you supreme felicity. But what sobs, ah me, what sad presages of tears are these, and of sighs? In the guise of messages, into the fortress of this breast, to my miserable heart,

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164 Celinda, A Tragedy Mandate inanti a disfidarlo al duolo? Rischiarate, mio sole, i vivi rai, E scacciate le nubi, onde ammantati Son d’umido vel, lieta scoprendo Nel bel teatro del leggiadro viso La solita beltà con le sue insegne, Da cui nulla averan riparo o schermo Le schiere de’ nemici Tanto da voi temute. O bella destra, o caro pegno amato D’amicizia e di pace, e come posso Sotto auspicio sì grande Temer laccio o catena o duro incontro? Anzi perché sperar non deggio lieto Bella vittoria e fortunato evento? Voi, perché disperar letizia e gioia? Celinda Con Lucinia ogni luce, Lassa, da me s’involerà lontana, Ch’il profondo ocean del vasto oblio, Quasi spalmata nave Vaga di più bel porto, andrà varcando. Altro duol non m’accora, Né per altra cagion mai seppi come Il duol insegni a distillar il pianto Fuori che per quest’una, or ch’al partire Veggiovi accinto, onde paventa il core. Né in me ragioni han forza Di scemar del mio duol pur poca parte, Che qual foco per vento si rinforza Tal per ragion contrarie ei più s’avanza. Lucinia Come, Celinda mia, quando fu dato Per lor fatal destino a queste luci Del vostro almo sembiante il simulacro

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Celinda, A Tragedy 165 you send them ahead to challenge it to grief? Clear up, my sun, your vivid rays,70 and chase away the clouds by which they are mantled with a moist veil, revealing in the fair theater of your comely visage your usual happy beauty with its emblems; from these will have no shelter or protection the ranks of the enemy, by you so greatly feared. O beautiful right hand, O dear beloved pledge71 of friendship and of peace, how can I, under auspices so grand, fear bonds or chains or a hard encounter? Rather, why must I not hope happily for a fine victory and a fortunate outcome? Why do you despair of delight and joy? Celinda With Lucinia every light (alas!) from me will fly far away, for she will go crossing, like a smeared ship72 eager for a fairer port, the deep ocean of vast oblivion. No other grief strikes at my heart, for no other cause did I ever learn how grief teaches people to distill tears outwardly, than for this one. Now that for departure I see you ready, my heart fears. Nor does reasoning have the force to decrease my grief even a little bit, for just as a fire by the wind is reinforced, so too by contrary reasonings my grief advances more. Lucinia Similarly, my Celinda, when it was given, for their fateful destiny, to these eyes your bountiful semblance’s simulacrum

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166 Celinda, A Tragedy Mirar nel natio regno, Ove il colpo primiero in me discese (Mercé d’Amor, che il più pregiato strale Trasse dalla faretra Solo per consacrarvi In olocausto il mio ferito core) Volontario m’offersi al giogo amato, Né sottrarmene mai fu ch’io pensassi. Così vostro son’io, vostro mai sempre Esser voglio e vorrò, fin che al mortale Fragil incarco mio l’acerba Parca Recida il filo e diami in grembo a morte. Tale abbiate fidanza, o cara, o bella Alma de l’alma mia per cui respiro. Io ve ’l prometto e giuro, Per quell’immensa gioia Che tal provai qual di ridir m’è tolto, Mentre medica mia foste pietosa Quand’io languia giacendo, Colpa sol d’una lenta occulta febbre Nunzia, ma del mio core Non ben intesa allor, del mio gioire; E più vi giuro ancora, Per quella face che ne’ bei vostr’occhi Ripose Amor, di non mutar pensiero Se pria non varco a Lethe o ad Acheronte. Marte destimi pur dal sonno a l’armi, M’invitino le trombe e gli nitriti De’ superbi corsieri al faticoso Rischio de la battaglia, elmo e lorica Mi sian di chioma e sian di gonna invece. Non fia però ch’io m’allontani o parta Da l’insegne d’Amor guerriero amante; Tanto seguir il marzial agone Solo io vorrò quanto ’l conceda Amore. Al sacro altar de l’amoroso nume In atto d’umiltà chino e devoto

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Celinda, A Tragedy 167 to gaze at in my native kingdom, where the unprecedented blow upon me descended (thanks to Love, who his most precious arrow drew from his quiver, 50 only to consecrate to you in a holocaust my wounded heart),73 voluntarily I offered myself to the yoke of love, nor did I ever consider extracting myself from it. So much yours I am; yours forever and ever 55 I want to be; and I shall want it until of my mortal, fragile burden the bitter Fate severs the thread and gives me to the lap of Death. Trust in this, O dear, O beautiful soul of my soul, for whom I breathe. 60 I promise it to you and swear it by that immense joy I experienced (such that the ability to describe it is taken from me) while you my doctor were compassionate when I lay languishing 65 only because of a slow, hidden fever heralding joy, but by my heart not well understood at the time of my rejoicing. And more, I swear to you as well, by that torch which in your beautiful eyes 70 Love placed, not to change my mind if first I do not cross Lethe or Acheron. Let Mars wake me all the way from sleep to weapons. Let the trumpets invite me, along with the neighing of the proud coursers, to the wearisome 75 risk of battle. Let helm and breastplate of my tresses and skirt take the place. Let it not be, however, that I, a warrior lover, from the insignia of Love stray or depart. I want to pursue the martial contest 80 only as far as Love allows. At the sacred altar of the amorous deity, in an act of humility bowed down, devotedly

168 Celinda, A Tragedy Depor voglio la gonna, il cinto e ’l crine, Arme pregiate e care Ond’io, fatto di lui campion audace Finor ho militato, e quinci al fianco Vuò che la bella man ch’il cor mi stringe Mi cinga l’aurea spada, e ’n gloria vostra Vestir l’altr’armi, ir senza tema al campo Ove il suocero vostro ha ragunato Grand’oste e poderosa a le ruine Del vostro amato regno, e quindi uscire Non temo inglorioso. A suoi fedeli Amor gli onori e le vittorie acquista. Però soverchio fora, alma mia vita, Sparger da bei vostr’occhi un mar di pianto, Perché l’anima mia vi si sommerge. Sarà vittorioso il mio ritorno, Condurrovvi prigione il re mio padre, Tratteransi le nozze, ed io, qual sempre Vostro fui, vostro allor farommi in tutto. Deh, riguardate il vostro fido sposo, Volgete a me tranquillo il caro lume De’ vostri vivi soli, onde vigore 105 Sempre maggior da i raggi lor s’inspiri Nel petto mio, né lo conturbi il pianto. Celinda Deh, misera infelice Sfortunata Celinda, Principessa di duol, ricca d’affanni, Povera di diletti, Regina sol di nome Ed ancella d’effetti! Tra due fieri contrari, aspri desiri Pende ’l mio cor incerto, Né sa dove si volga: L’uno vuol ch’io vi segua, L’altro vuol ch’io vi fugga.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 169 I want to lay down my skirt, my girdle, and my tresses— weapons precious and dear with which I, his audacious champion, until now have soldiered. And here onto my flank I want the beautiful hand which grips my heart to gird my golden sword; and to your glory I want to dress in other arms, to go fearlessly to the field where your father-in-law has assembled a host great and powerful to the ruin of your beloved kingdom, and then to go forth ingloriously I do not fear. For his faithful followers, honors and victories Love acquires. Therefore it would be excessive, O my divine life, to spill from your beautiful eyes a sea of tears, because my soul therein is submerged. Victorious will be my return. I will conduct to you as a prisoner the king my father.74 The wedding will be contracted, and I who always have been yours, yours then I will be completely. Come, look at your faithful bridegroom. Turn upon me tranquilly the dear light of your vivid eyes, so that from them vigor ever greater by their rays may be inspired in my breast; do not let it be disturbed by weeping. Celinda Oh, wretched, unhappy, unfortunate Celinda, princess of grief, rich in sorrows, poor in delights, queen only in name, and maidservant in effect! Between two fierce, contrary, harsh desires my uncertain heart is suspended, nor does it know where to turn. The one wants me to follow you; the other wants me to flee you.

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170 Celinda, A Tragedy Mà come fuggirò, se voi pur sete, Malgrado del destin che vuol partirne L’alma del corpo mio, Né d’egli può fuggire L’alma senza morire. Io mai fuggirvi? Prima rinverdiran gli arbori il verno, Fuggiran prima dal lor letto i fiumi, E prima dal mio corpo Fuggirà l’alma ch’io da voi men fugga. Ah, dunque io seguirovvi Vostra fedel consorte, Vostra leal amante, Tra le fortune avverse e le feconde! Ma qual pena già mai Nel bel regno d’amor altrui s’offerse Che si possa uguagliar a questo mio Infelice desio? Fuggir, ohimé, bramando Il desiato oggetto, Ed in mezzo al gioire Morir nel duolo e non sentir martire? Sento, mentre io vi miro e vi vagheggio Per soverchio piacer dentro bearmi, Né così bello al mattutino raggio, Vago apre il sen fior di rugiada asperso, Qualor rimiro il vostro dolce viso; Ma se penso al partire Per soverchio dolor strugger mi sento, Né sì da fiera falce erba novella Recisa inaridisce Com’io con tal pensier rimango esangue; E le vostre ragioni, Debil conforto a chi si vive amando E si vede privar d’ogni suo bene, Non han forza in mio core Per far ch’io non mi dolga

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Celinda, A Tragedy 171 But how shall I flee, if you nonetheless are, despite destiny, the one who wants to divide the soul from my body,75 nor can the soul flee from it without dying. I ever flee you? Sooner trees will be made green again by Winter; from their bed sooner the rivers will flee; and sooner from my body the soul will flee than I from you will flee. Ah, therefore I will follow you as your faithful consort, your loyal lover, among fortunes both adverse and propitious. But what pain ever in the fair kingdom of Love to another was offered that might compare to this my unhappy desire? To flee, alas! while wishing for the desired object, and in the middle of rejoicing to die in grief, and not feel anguish?76 I feel, while I look at you and cherish you, with overflowing pleasure within I am blessed. Not so beautiful in the charming ray of morning is the flower’s opening breast, with dew besprinkled, as the beauty I now gaze at in your sweet visage. But if I think about parting, for excessive pain I feel myself waste away. Not so speedily does tender grass, cut off by a fierce scythe, dry up, as I with such a thought am drained of blood. And all your reasons, weak comfort to one who lives by loving and sees herself deprived of her every treasure, do not have enough force in my heart to prevent me from grieving

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172 Celinda, A Tragedy Del troppo ingiusto Amore, Ch’avvelena e dà morte a’ suoi seguaci. Lucinia Fiero ed empio signore, Giudice ingiusto Amor deve chiamarsi Quando fa ch’uno avvampa e l’altro agghiaccia E con voglie discordi in due cor mira; Ingiusto allora quando Di non lecite fiamme un’alma accende, Ed al bramar l’induce Genitor o german, come pur suona E di Mira, e di Bible e di Canace 165 Lo scellerato amor che macchia e fregia D’eterna infamia i loro nomi e l’opre; Ingiusto allor non meno Che, di pietoso Dio fatto tiranno, Assiso del furor ne l’empia sede, Così la mente accieca e ’l cor infiamma, Ch’in proprio seggio la ragion vien meno, Ond’è ch’alfin quella sfrenata voglia In un misero petto arde e s’avanza, Sì che il misero amante Per vie torte ed oblique Giunge al suo fin, opra gl’inganni e l’arti, Usa la forza e pur ch’egli ne goda Se lece quel che fa, nulla riguarda. Ma noi discordi o d’empie brame accesi Non siamo no, né ’l nostro caso è tale Ch’a richiamarci abbiam de le sue leggi, Che se fortuna a noi tanto rubella Mostrasi quanto pur propizio Amore, Se con un solo stral ne’ petti nostri Dolce fe’ il colpo e la ferita eguale, Giusto e caro signore Chiamiam, non empio Amore.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 173 about Love’s great injustice, since he poisons and deals death to his followers. Lucinia A fierce and cruel lord, an unjust judge Love must be called when one he inflames and the other he freezes, and with contrasting desires at two hearts he aims. Unjust the times when with illicit flames a soul he ignites, and he induces it to desire a parent or a sibling, as indeed we hear, in the cases of Myrrha and Byblis and Canace, of the wicked love which stains and decorates with eternal infamy their names and their works.77 Unjust those times no less, when, from a pitiful god become a tyrant, seated on wicked furor’s seat, the mind he blinds, and the heart he inflames, such that in its own seat reason fails, so that in the end that unrestrained desire in a wretched heart burns and grows to the point where the wretched lover by ways twisted and oblique reaches his goal, employs deceits and guile, uses force—and provided that he enjoy it, whether what he does is right, he pays no attention. But we in discord or with impious desires kindled are not, no! Nor is our situation such that we might justly chide his laws, for if Fortune to us just as rebellious shows herself, as on the other hand Love is propitious, if with a single arrow in our hearts he made the blow sweet and the wound equivalent, a just and dear lord, not cruel, let us call Love.

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174 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda E come può dir ciò la lingua mia Se predir la sua morte il cor si sente Dal fiero Amor, ch’è solo Cagion d’ogni mio duolo? Io per Amor errai, E per Amor sosterrò pene e guai! Ma onde avvien, caro pegno, Peso del ventre mio, Viscere del mio core, Anima del mio spirto, Del principe de’ Persi amato seme, Ch’oggi solo, in quest’ora, Al suon de le dolente mie querele, Dentro l’alvo materno Ti scuoti così forte? Forse d’uscirne tenti Ancorché intempestivo? Deh, figlio amato e caro, Il tuo moto è un portento Di mio novo tormento! Sollo e ’l preveggio, ohimè, no ’l far palese, Caro ed amato figlio, Concetto in gioia ed or nodrito in pianto! Ohimè, chi mi rapisce? Sostenetemi, ohimè, ch’io cado! Ahi, lassa! Lucinia O Giunone gran dea, O de nascenti autrice, O dea de’ parti amica, La mia sposa, il mio ben, l’anima mia, Tutta ti raccomando! Ohimè, signora, Ohimè, qual duol v’accora? O labbra o rose, spento Veggio il vostro vermiglio, e ancor io vivo? Che deggio far? Porgi, pietosa dea

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Celinda, A Tragedy 175 Celinda And how can my tongue say that, if my heart feels its death predicted by fierce Love, who is the sole cause of my every sorrow? I for Love erred, and for Love I will bear pains and woe, but why does it happen, dear gage, weight of my belly, viscera of my heart, soul of my spirit, the prince of Persia’s beloved seed, that today only just now at the sound of my sorrowful complaints, inside the maternal womb you shake so strongly? Perhaps to come forth you attempt, although untimely? My son beloved and dear, your motion is a portent of my new torment.78 I know it and I foresee it, ah me! Do not make it plain, my dear and beloved son, conceived in joy and now nourished in tears. Ah me, who steals me away? Hold me up, ah me! I am falling, alas. Lucinia O Juno, great goddess, O of those to be born the author, O kindly goddess of childbirth, my bride, my darling, my soul, I recommend her completely to you, ah me!79 My lady? Ah me, what sorrow stabs your heart? O lips, O roses, extinguished I see your vermilion, and yet I live? What must I do? Provide, pitiful goddess,

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176 Celinda, A Tragedy Rimedio a tanto duolo! Ma par che si risenta; ohimè, respiro. Celinda Ahi, morte, amica morte, Deh, non ti allontanar, non ti partire, Ohimè, che a gli spietati, odiosi uffici Tornan gli afflitti spirti! Lucinia Che pensate, mia vita, Far eterna partita? E qual restarà poi, Morendo, vivo chi tien l’alma in voi? Celinda Di me privo, signor, non rimarrete, Né con meco morrà questo mio core, Che, perché viva in voi, ha chiuso Amore. In voi vivrommi anch’io, Che né, vivendo voi, morir poss’io. Lucinia Darà uno spirto sol vita a due salme, Ond’ambi sen vivrem forse più lieti Di quel ch’or ci promette empia fortuna. E come io tanto speri, udite ormai, E nova maraviglia il cor v’ingombri: Oggi nunzia del re, nunzia d’Amore, A me se ’n venne Armilla, alte ambasciate Del vostro genitor recommi, e disse Ch’ei mi vuol per sua amante e per sua sposa, Consorte del suo letto e del suo regno, E questa sera entro le molli piume Seco mi giaccia e ’l suo desir n’appaghi.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 177 a remedy to so much sorrow. But it seems she is coming to. Ah me, I breathe again. Celinda Aiee, Death, friendly Death, oh do not depart, do not leave! Ah me, to their pitiless, hateful duties my afflicted spirits return. Lucinia What! Are you thinking, my life, of departing forever? And in what state will he remain then, dying yet alive, the one who keeps his soul in you? Celinda Deprived of me, my lord, you shall not be for long. Neither with me shall die this my heart, because, so that it would live, in you Love has enclosed it. In you I shall live also, for, with you living, die I cannot. Lucinia A single spirit will give life to two bodies, so perhaps we both shall live happier than is now promised us by wicked Fortune. And how I may hope so much, hear now, and let a new marvel pervade your heart. Today as a messenger of the king, a messenger of Love, to me came Armilla. Momentous embassies from your sire she brought me, and said that he wants me for his lover and his bride, the consort of his bed and his kingdom, and this evening in the soft bed I should lie with him and his desire fulfill.

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178 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Eccolo appunto. Lucinia Ohimè, non vi turbate Celi ’l sembiante lieto il cor dolente.

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Celinda Sì, se tanto poter, lassa, potessi.

SCENA TERZA CUBO, CELINDA, LUCINIA, NUTRICE, CORO

Cubo Così ti lassi trasportar tant’oltre E forse dal timor d’incerto evento, Cara diletta figlia, Quì con Lucinia sola ove ti stai, Per quant’io veggio, assai turbata e mesta? A te figlia conviensi in chiusa cella Star lieta e porger preghi a i numi eterni, Che ne dian vinto in mano il fier nemico. Celinda Alto signor e padre, egli è ben dritto Che se voi travagliar dovete in guerra Ed a le regie membra il grave incarco Impor de l’armi in quell’etate appunto Che chiede la quiete ed il riposo, Che anco la figlia vostra Per tanto moto si risenta e tema; E quì mi trasse un rio pensier molesto, Ch’ingombrandomi ’l cor, quasi da gli occhi Par che a versar mi sforzi un mar di pianto.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 179 Celinda Here is the very one you speak of. Lucinia Ah me! Do not be disturbed. Let a happy expression conceal your sorrowing heart.

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Celinda Yes, if only, wretched me! I might be able to do so much.

SCENE THREE CUBO, CELINDA, LUCINIA, NURSE, CHORUS OF LADIES

Cubo To such an extent you let yourself get carried away, perhaps by the fear of an uncertain outcome, dear beloved daughter, here alone with Lucinia, where you are, from what I see, very disturbed and sorrowful? To you, daughter, it is appropriate in an enclosed cell to be happy, and to offer prayers to the eternal deities, that they may give defeated into my hand the fierce enemy. Celinda Exalted lord and father, it is certainly right, if you must toil in war, and upon your regal limbs the heavy burden impose of weapons at that age precisely which asks for quiet and repose, that also your daughter at so much motion revives, and fears. And here I was drawn by a thought wicked and troublesome which disheartens me; it seems as if from my eyes it will force me to spill a sea of tears.

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180 Celinda, A Tragedy Lucinia Invitto sire, il duol che attrista e ange La tua diletta figlia è perché udito Ell’ha finora mormorar d’intorno, Che la garrula Fama unqua non tace, Che ad onta del nemico, a pro del regno, Tu sei per gire in campo, Sovrano capitan de le tue schiere. E quindi avvien che sì turbata e mesta E con sì figlial tenero affetto, Com’ha tenero il cor, parla e paventa. Cubo Non di tenero affetto, Ma d’animo dimesso e ’n tutto vile Son argomenti il pianto e la paura. Scaccia, scaccia da te sì rei nemici, S’esser figlia mi vuoi cara e diletta; E se animo regal in tutto scuopri, Mostra conformi effetti al regio sangue. Sgombra il vano timor, sgombra il sospetto. Maraviglio e stupisco Ch’in più tenera età più forte core Tu dimostrasti allora Che più gravi nemici e più potenti Mosser guerra al mio regno. Va pur dentro il palagio, e teco insieme La nutrice; e le grandi de la corte Preparino le feste a la vittoria, E le donne più degne del mio regno Di serici trapunti, e d’oro e d’ostri Riccamente adornate, Faccian da le fenestre e da le loggie Con pomposo apparato altera mostra, Onde sen maravigli il re nemico; E tu depon ’l duol, vesti di gioia

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Celinda, A Tragedy 181 Lucinia Indomitable Sire, the grief which saddens and distresses your beloved daughter is because she has heard by now gossip hereabouts (for garrulous Rumor is never silent)80 that to the shame of the enemy, to the benefit of the kingdom, you are to go onto the field as the sovereign captain of your forces. And this is why she is so disturbed and sorrowful; and with such tender filial affection, as tender as her heart, she speaks and fears. Cubo Not of tender affection, but of a spirit lowly and completely base both weeping and fear are evidence. Chase away, chase away from yourself such wicked enemies, if you want to be a dear and beloved daughter to me. If you evince a spirit entirely regal, it demonstrates effects in conformity with your royal blood. Clear away vain fear, clear away doubt. I marvel and am amazed that at a more tender age a stronger heart you demonstrated, at the time when enemies more serious and more powerful waged war on my kingdom. Go by all means into the palace, and together with you the Nurse, and let the great ladies of the court prepare the celebrations for victory, along with the worthiest women of my kingdom. With silken embroideries, and in gold and purple cloth richly adorned, let them make from the windows and from the loggias, with a display of pomp, a proud show, so as to amaze the enemy king. And you, lay down grief. Dress with joy

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182 Celinda, A Tragedy L’alma, e le membra di superbo manto Di porpora regal contesta e d’oro. Coro Di sì degno signore D’animo tanto invitto Son ben degne parole. Consoliamoci tutte, e voi signora, Ch’a guisa di bel sol splendete intorno Onde n’ha lume il regno, Vivete lieta e con pomposa mostra Date segni di gioia, Che noi da voi pendendo, Membri del vostro regno, Quai picciole facelle Starem in cerchio al vostro vivo lume. Cubo Ottenuta ch’avrem poi la vittoria, Dopo il degno trionfo a le tue nozze Attendrassi, e tal sarà lo sposo Che sia degno di te, del re di Lidia Genero non indegno, e del gran regno Successor fortunato, Che qual essermi suole il ciel amico, Propizio sempre a le bramate imprese, Tal mi concederà ch’or vecchio padre Io mi vedrò ringiovenir felice Qual novo Eson, non già per via d’incanti Ma per valor di tua feconda prole, In cui, del tempo ad onta e de la morte, Vivrò per mille lustri e mille etadi. Rischiara dunque, ormai rischiara il ciglio, Né fa che ’l giri più mesto e turbato Ma sovra il petto mio posa tue cure.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 183 your soul, and your limbs with a superb mantle with royal purple intertwined, and with gold. Chorus of Ladies Of so worthy a lord, of a spirit so indomitable, these are indeed worthy words. Let us all be consoled. And you O lady (who in the guise of a beautiful sun shine all around, such that from you the kingdom has light), live cheerfully and with a magnificent show. Give signs of joy, for we on you depend; members of your kingdom, like little torches, we will stay in a circle around your vivid light. Cubo Once we have obtained the victory, after the worthy triumph, your nuptials will be attended to, and such a one will be the groom as to be worthy of you, and of the king of Lydia a not-unworthy son-in-law, and of this great kingdom the fortunate successor. For since usually to me Heaven is friendly, always propitious to my desired endeavors, it will grant me that, now an old father, I shall see myself rejuvenate cheerfully like a new Aeson,81 not by way of enchantments, but through the valor of your fertile offspring, in whom in spite of time and death I shall live for a thousand lustrums,82 and a thousand ages. Clear up therefore, now clear up your brow, nor allow it anymore to turn sad and disturbed, but upon my breast lay down your cares.

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184 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Io qual afflitto addormentato al suono Di dolce melodia gli spirti sciolgo Da quel sonno in che ’l duol teneami involta. Al musico concerto De la nova speranza Desto l’orecchie e ’l core, Onde spirto vital di nova gioia Riceve la mortal mia fragil salma. Secondi ’l cielo i nostri voti umili, Caro padre e signore, E a questa mano alle vittorie avvezza Marte doni i trofei, porga le palme, Né fia ch’al suo valor contraria forza Resista più ch’arrida fronde al vento. Cubo Cosi permetteran, figlia, li dei. Ma vedi ecco venire la tua nutrice, La tua fida custode. Or tu con lei t’invia Ver le segrete stanze. Resti meco Lucinia, ordeni e leggi Abbia da noi segrete, e poi ti segua.

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Lucinia Il tuo voler m’è legge. Cubo E tu, saggia nutrice, Al cui seno in custodia, al cui governo Le mie delizie ho date e ’l mio più caro Ed amato tesoro, Custodisci mia figlia, e dal suo petto Scaccia co ’l tuo parlar questi timori.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 185 Celinda Like an afflicted man who fell asleep to the sound of a sweet melody, my spirits I release from that sleep in which sorrow kept me enveloped. At the musical concert of new hope I awaken my ears and my heart, from which a vital spirit of new joy is received by my mortal, fragile body. May Heaven second our humble vows, Dear father and lord. To this hand accustomed to victories may Mars give trophies and offer victory’s palms; nor let it be that against your valor a contrary force might resist more than Heaven smiles upon fronds in the wind. Cubo Such will the gods permit, daughter. But see, here comes your Nurse, your faithful guardian. Now you with her go off toward the private rooms. Let Lucinia stay with me. Secret orders and directives let her have from us, and then let her follow you.

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Lucinia Your will is my law. Cubo And you, wise Nurse, into whose safekeeping, into whose tending I have given my delights and my dearest and most beloved treasure, guard my daughter, and from her heart chase away with your speech these fears.

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186 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice Se da materno affetto Cosa sperar si de’, tanto prometto Al mio rege e signore. Celinda Padre e signor, poi che ’l comandi, io parto. Cubo Vanne, figlia, ch’il cielo Quanta ti diè bellezza, Ti dia letizia e gioia.

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SCENA QUARTA CUBO, LUCINIA

Cubo Così dunque, Lucinia, un re si sprezza, Un re che co ’l saper giunt’ha le forze Per far soggette le provincie e i regni? Ed io sosterrò dunque Che donna vil, poveramente nata, A me, che degno lei dell’amor mio, Neghi render Amore? A me, nella cui mano Sta il disporne a mia voglia? Ti fei noto il mio amor, te ’l disse Armilla, Segretaria fedel de le mie voglie, Intendesti da lei qual nel mio core Vada incendio serpendo e tanto fiero, Tanto vorace più quanto conosco Ch’a te con tue sciochezze un rogo formi, Dove fiamma mortal de l’ira mia Vi si accenda, e t’abbruggi e ti disperda; Ti fei pregar, usai promesse e fui, Promettendo e pregando, umil amante

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Celinda, A Tragedy 187 Nurse If from maternal affection anything must be hoped, this much do I promise to my king and lord. Celinda Father and lord, since you command it, I depart. Cubo Go, daughter. May Heaven give you as much delight and joy as it gave you beauty.

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SCENE FOUR CUBO, LUCINIA

Cubo So, Lucinia, this way a king is despised? A king who has the knowledge together with the forces to subjugate provinces and kingdoms? And shall I tolerate it, that a woman base and illborn, whom I honor with my love, refuses to return my love? Me! In whose hand it lies to dispose of her according to my whim? I made known to you my love; it was told you by Armilla, the faithful secretary of my wishes. You heard from her how through my heart a blaze is snaking, even more fiercely and more voraciously since I know that for you with your foolishness a pyre it shall form, where the lethal flame of my anger will ignite and burn you and scatter you. I made her beseech you, I used promises, and I was in the promising and beseeching a humble lover,

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188 Celinda, A Tragedy E quasi d’esser re posi in oblio. Ritrosa dunque osasti Negarmi l’amor tuo? Spregiar il mio? Ma vaglia in tua difesa Che pregia pudicizia alma ben nata. Scuso la degna legge al vostro sesso Da l’onestate prescritta e te ne lodo. Ma dove tu ricusi? Ove non vaglia. Salvo l’onor, co ’l nodo d’Himeneo Giungerti al tuo signor, cara consorte, Al tuo signor che te vuol far regina, Scettro darti a la man, corona al crine. Biasmo o pena non v’ha che non la merti; E sarà ben ch’io creda Ciò che di te va mormorando il volgo, Che ti piace di gir libera errando, E crederò che molto più t’alletti Di donna vagabonda il nome e l’opre Che ’l titolo di moglie e di regina. Ma siasi, e tu ne godi, a me fra gl’altri Tuoi cari amanti or la ragion non tolga, Né si niegi al suo re ciò ch’è concesso Al suggetto, al minor. Di te godermi Anch’io dovrò, né vuò badar se ’l fine Sia ne’ moti di Persia o guerra o pace. Lucinia Quai potenti nemici han congiurato Contra lo stato mio, lassa e dolente? Io di te spregiatrice o de’ tuoi cenni? Ahi, sì folle non son ch’io non conosca Com’io, mercé del ciel che tanto diemmi Lume e saper quanto miserie e doglie, Son serva, e serva umile Di re tanto possente Quant’egli è grande e giusto! Ma che per mio destin siasi invaghito

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Celinda, A Tragedy 189 and that I am a king I almost forgot. Coy then, you dared to deny me your love? to despise mine? But one can say in your defense that a wellborn soul prizes chastity.83 I excuse the worthy law that is for your sex by honesty prescribed, and I praise you for it. But when do you refuse? When it is not applicable. Honor is secure, with the knot of Hymen to join you to your lord as a dear consort; to your lord, who wants to make you a queen, to give you a scepter in hand, a crown on your locks. Blame or punishment one does not have, who does not deserve it. And perhaps I should believe what about you the crowd whispers: that you like to go freely wandering. And I could believe that the name (and the deeds) of a woman vagabond much more entices you than the title of wife and queen. But if it’s so, and you enjoy it, I should join your other dear lovers now; it is unreasonable to refuse me this privilege, nor does one deny to one’s king what is granted to the subject, to the lesser man. Enjoy you I too must, nor do I care whether the end of Persia’s motions is either war or peace. Lucinia What powerful enemies have conspired against my condition, poor sad me? I contemptuous of you? Or of your commands? Ah! I am not so crazy as not to know that I, thanks to Heaven which gave me as much light and knowledge as miseries and pains, am a servant, and a humble servant of a king as powerful as he is great and just. But that the worthiest lord who currently reigns,

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190 Celinda, A Tragedy Di me, qual io mi sia, Il più degno signor ch’oggidì regna Io non so se favore Debba dirlo d’Amore, Perché se come amante Tu volessi adempir l’ingorde brame, Io ti risponderò quel che ad Armilla Io pur dissi poc’anzi: a me fia sempre Mercar di concubina il nome infausto Malagevole e grave. E se come regina e come donna Del mio caro signor erger osassi Ai sovrani imenei l’inferme voglie Di qual ardir fu mai donna notata Simile al mio? Che ne direbbe il regno? Che ne direbbe l’alta figlia tua Se le mie indegnamente avventurose Vedesse ella anteporre a le sue nozze? Se me d’umil ancella, Anzi per prezzo comperata schiava, Matrigna sua vedesse, Qual sussurro e romore Ne faria l’ampia corte? Ah, tolga il cielo Di cecitate il velo a gl’occhi tuoi! Ah, pria di me si faccia Spettacolo funesto al regno intorno! Misera nacqui al mondo Donna ch’altro che danno al fin non suona, E mio sia pur il danno! Pera sol questa vita Anzi ch’altri a bramar m’abbia la morte, Pria che la terra e ’l ciel m’abbino in ira. E se come signor mostrar ti aggrada Ne l’umil serva tua ciò che tu puoi, Eccomi in tuo potere, Che poco cura l’alma L’incarco vil di questa fragil salma.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 191 because of my destiny, has taken a fancy 55 to me, such as I am— I don’t know whether a favor I must call it of Love, because if as lover you wanted to fulfill your greedy desires, 60 I will answer you with what to Armilla I said just a little earlier: To me always to buy of “concubine” the unlucky name will be hard and grave. And if as the queen and the lady 65 of my dear lord I dared to raise up to highest matrimony my infirm wishes— in that case, what woman was ever notorious for boldness like mine? What would the kingdom say? What would your exalted daughter say? 70 If my unworthily fortunate nuptials she saw set before her own? If from a humble maidservant, or rather one bought for money as a slave girl, she saw me become her stepmother? 75 What murmuring and gossip the whole court would make of it! Ah, may Heaven take away the veil of blindness from your eyes. Ah, sooner let of me be made a mournful spectacle for the whole realm. 80 I was born in the world a wretched woman, which other than “woe” in the end does not sound.84 And let mine be the woe. Only let me perish before others come to desire my death, 85 85 before Earth and Heaven hold me in their wrath. And if as a lord it pleases you to show what with your humble servant you are capable of, here I am in your power, for little cares my soul 90 about the base weight of this fragile body.

192 Celinda, A Tragedy Morte a me fia gradita Pur che tua regia mano Recida il filo a sì penosa vita. Cubo Se i preghi non potran, potrà la forza.

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Lucinia Non lece a l’uomo far ciò ch’egli puote. Cubo Lece quando ch’Amor furioso sprona. Lucinia Non sforza Amor ove ragion s’oppone. Cubo Ragion non v’ha dove governa il senso. Lucinia Non può imperar chi nacque servo e schiavo.

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Cubo Sono tal volta regi i nostri sensi. Lucinia Reggon ben i pensier, non la ragione. Cubo E pur dal senso la ragion è vinta? Lucinia Non vien mai vinto ch’invincibil nasce. Cubo Invincibil sei tu, qual Idra fiera.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 193 Death to me will be welcome, provided that your regal hand cuts off the thread of so painful a life. Cubo If entreaties cannot, force can.

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Lucinia It is not right for a man to do whatsoever he can. Cubo It is right when frenzied Love spurs him on. Lucinia Love does not force, where reason is opposed. Cubo Reason is not there, where the senses rule. Lucinia He cannot command who was born a servant and a slave.

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Cubo Sometimes our senses are kings. Lucinia Certainly they rule thoughts, not reason. Cubo And yet by the senses reason is defeated? Lucinia He is never defeated who is born invincible. Cubo You are invincible, like a fierce Hydra.86

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194 Celinda, A Tragedy Lucinia S’altro non vinco, almen vinco me stessa. Cubo Vinci tua crudeltà me stesso amando. Lucinia Vincer non può chi non aborre i gusti. Cubo In ciò dura fatica chi è mortale. Lucinia Con la fatica l’uom glorioso resta.

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Cubo Non è gloria maggior ch’esser felice. Lucinia Niun felice in questa vita vive. Cubo Vivrei felice nel morirti in braccio. Lucinia Come dal sol picciola nube è vinta Così la morte tronca i piacer nostri. Cubo Gustiam vivendo, e non parliam di morte. Lucinia Meglio è morir, pur che la gloria viva. Cubo Dunque sei tu disposta Pria morir che bearmi,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 195 Lucinia If I defeat nothing else, at least I defeat myself. Cubo Defeat your cruelty, in loving me. Lucinia He cannot win who does not abhor caprices. Cubo In this he endures toil, whoever is mortal. Lucinia With toil man ends up glorious.

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Cubo No glory is greater than to be happy. Lucinia No one in this life lives happily. Cubo I would live happily when dying in your arms. Lucinia As by the sun a small cloud is defeated, just so death cuts short our pleasures. Cubo Let us relish them while living, and let us not speak of death. Lucinia It is better to die, provided one’s glory lives. Cubo Therefore you are disposed sooner to die than to delight me?

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196 Celinda, A Tragedy Me ricusando insieme Ed amante e consorte? Vil femmina del volgo Voi che con tuo disnor, con la tua morte Faccia le voglie mie paghe e contente? Farollo in tuo dispregio, E quel corpo ch’adorno Veder bramai di regio manto intorno Godrò d’espor ignudo Al furor de’ soldati, e poi scacciata Quivi tu te n’andrai, serva impudica, Donna vil, sesso audace, infame mostro. Vattene a le tue stanze, e quivi aspetta Di veder di te stessa un fiero scempio. Non proverai più amore, proverai odio: Qual irato leon che i lacci sdegna, Romperò le catene, Infrangerò quei nodi Onde stringeami Amore, Fremerò nel furore E sbranerò te, desiata preda. Non fia che non adempia il mio desire, Ch’egl’è pazzia morire Per un cor ostinato. Lucinia Andrò mio sire, ubbedirò, ma prego La tua bontà che non perché ritrosa Mi veggia in quello onde il mio cor paventa Colpa n’ascrivi ad ostinata voglia. Non creder o pensar che nel vederti Morirti di desio Io mi prenda diletto; Troppo, troppo aspra e fiera Sarei, troppo inumana, Che sol da la tua vita Pende questa mia vita.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 197 Refusing in me both a lover and a consort? You, a base woman of the mob, who with your dishonor, with your death might satisfy and content my wishes? I shall do it to your disrepute, and that body which I wished to see adorned, with a royal mantle enwrapped, I will enjoy exposing nude to the furor of the soldiers, and then chased away. From here you will go as an unchaste servant, a base woman, a bold wench, and infamous monster. Go to your rooms and there wait to see your own fierce ruination. You will no longer experience love, you will encounter hate. Like an angered lion which its bonds disdains, I will break the chains, I will shatter those links with which Love gripped me, I will tremble with furor, and I will tear you to shreds, O my desired prey. Let it not be that my desire not be accomplished, for it is madness to die for an obstinate heart. Lucinia I will go, Sire, I will obey. But I entreat your goodness that, because reluctant you see me in that which my heart fears, you do not ascribe the blame to an obstinate disposition. Do not believe or think that in seeing you dying from desire, in it I take delight. Too, too harsh and fierce I would be, too inhuman, for only on your life depends this my life.

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198 Celinda, A Tragedy Come riceve il lume Pur dal lume del sol l’umida luna, Felice e avventurosa Più d’ogn’altra sarei Se, qual diletta amante Del mio signor, godessi I fortunati amplessi; Felicissima poi, se qual regina Mi vedessero ancora Presso al mio re le lidiane genti Assisa in alta e gloriosa sede. Ma mentre sono queste mura intorno Cinte da fiero assedio, Che diranno le schiere e i capitani Tutto vedendo il lor signor intento A le mollizie, a gli usi D’amor e d’Himeneo, Ed in tempo di guerra esercitarsi In palestra amorosa, Quasi fuggendo i marziali assalti? Son contrari possenti, Né fia ch’uom possi unitamente mai Seguir amor e le marziali insegne. Ti sovvenga, signor, che vita e fama Tolse Augusto ad Antonio, e sua ruina Furon gli ozi d’amore, Che meglio era per lui non mai l’Egitto Veder, e Cleopatra anco il suo nome. Bello forse vivrebbe, e le sue navi E l’esercito suo rotto e disperso Stato non saria forse Del sovran vincitor preda e trofeo. Ti sovenga non men che Mitridate Sol per seguir l’amor di Sofonisba Lasciò la vita e ’l regno. Lungo a dir d’Annibal e di tant’altri Or sarebbe noioso, ed io non deggio

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Celinda, A Tragedy 199 Just as the humid moon receives light from the sun’s light, happy and fortunate more than any other woman I would be, if as a beloved lover, of my lord I enjoyed the lucky embraces; most happy then if as queen, next to my king the Lydian peoples saw me yet seated on the high and glorious seat. But while these walls around us are encircled by a fierce siege, what will the army and the captains say at seeing their lord all intent on luxuries, on the practices of love and marriage? And in time of war exert himself in the gymnasium of Love, as if fleeing the martial assaults? They are powerful opposites, nor will it ever be that a man might undividedly follow both love and martial emblems. Recall, my lord, that life and fame Augustus took from Antony, and his ruin was the idleness of love, for it would have been better for him never Egypt to see, and Cleopatra, not even her name. Fair perhaps he would live on, and his ships and his army, broken and dispersed, would not have been perhaps the sovereign victor’s prey and trophy.87 Recall no less that Mithridates solely for following the love of Sophonisba lost his life and kingdom.88 Long it would be to tell of Hannibal, and of so many others now it would be tiresome; and I must not

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200 Celinda, A Tragedy Tedio recarti; or sien mie parti dunque Te sol pregar con più vivace affetto, Che ’l pensier volgi a la guerriera impresa Di liberar questa cittade afflitta, Di consolar il popolo dolente, La mesta figlia e l’altre donne imbelli, Che allor si vedrà quanto Può bellicosa destra Di un sommo capitan cui scaldi amore Il generoso petto, E quanto Amor sa fare in danno altrui, Garzon fra mille armati inerme e nudo. Di me tanto prometto invitta e fida Sempre io sarò, né cangerò mai stile, E quel fior virginal, ch’io serbai pure Da le barbare mani intatto e puro, Per te solo signor abbia serbato La mia dal nascer mio misera sorte, Sol fortunata in questo. Ma se non è di qualche grazia indegna, Se non è in tutto vil sì cara offerta Di mia virginitate in guiderdone, Chieggio a l’altezza tua e ne la prego, Che teco corra egual fortuna anch’io: Me con recisa chioma, Con non più viste insegne il campo veda D’arme vestita a guerreggiar feroce. E se tanto da te mi si concede, Qual dopo la vittoria o Lidia o il mondo È per veder più avventurosa donna? Caro allora mi fia L’esser da quelle braccia il collo e ’l fianco D’intorno cinta. Oh fortunati amplessi Che mi faranno a pien lieta e beata! Parrammi allor dove l’affanno e ’l rischio D’aver per te pugnato a me s’ascriva A qualche merto ancor che lieve o nullo,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 201 cause you tedium. Now let my charge therefore be only to beseech you with livelier affection to turn your thoughts to the warlike enterprise, to liberate this afflicted city, to console the grieving populace, your sorrowful daughter, and the other unwarlike women. In this case one will see of how much is capable the warlike right hand of a supreme captain, whose generous heart is heated by love, and how much Love is capable of doing to others’ harm— a boy, among a thousand armed men, unarmed and naked. For myself I promise this much: undefeated and faithful I will always be, nor shall I ever change my ways; and that virginal flower which I preserved even from the barbarians’ hands, intact and pure for you alone, lord, has been preserved since my birth by my wretched fate, lucky only in this. But if it is not of some grace unworthy, if not completely base is so dear an offer of my virginity as reward, I ask your Highness and beseech you that I too might venture to share your same fortune: with cut-off hair, with never-before-seen insignia, let the field see me, in armor dressed, combat ferociously. And if to me so much by you is granted, after the victory shall either Lydia or the world see a more fortunate woman? Dear to me then it will be when by those arms my neck and my flank are encircled. O fortunate embraces, that will make me fully happy and blessed! Then it will seem to me that the exertion and the risk of having fought for you will ascribe to me some merit, even if slight or minimal,

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202 Celinda, A Tragedy Ove con la regal alta corona D’un tanto regno in lance egli sia posto Ch’io non sia d’ogni grazia in tutto indegna. Cubo Tu tessendo d’inganni un finto velo Chiedi ch’uscir ti lasci Femmina imbelle al periglioso campo, Con sicuro pensiero Di rimaner tra mille spade estinta Anzi che amata preda Di me, tuo caro e sviscerato amante. Conosco gli artifici e non gl’approvo: A la guerra d’Amor e non di Marte Te generò natura, a te non diede Cotanto il ciel. Altr’armi ed altro campo Ha destinato a le tue imprese Amore. Lucinia Chiude tal volta Amore Ne’ delicati petti Non men valor che ne’ robusti cori. Trattai la lancia e maneggiai lo scudo Ed ho frenato ed allentato il morso A più d’un corridor nei gran perigli: Per questo ciel, per questo sol te ’l giuro. Cubo Come potrò negar ciò che dimandi Se ’l mio voler teco ha congiunto Amore? Te sia dato il vestir l’usbergo e l’armi, Ma prima teco in prova Un cavalier de la mia corte venga. Se ’l vincerai, ti do mia fede in pegno Che tu meco comune abbi la sorte; Ma se vinta serai, tu mi prometti Di soddisfare a le mie accese voglie,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 203 so that when, with the lofty royal crown of so great a kingdom, on the balance scale my merit is placed, I will not be of every grace completely unworthy. Cubo You, in weaving a false veil of deceptions, ask that I allow you to go forth, an unwarlike female, to the perilous battlefield, with the certain expectation of ending up among a thousand swords dispatched, rather than as the beloved prey of me, your dear and eviscerated lover. I know these artifices, and I do not approve them. For the war of Love and not of Mars Nature generated you. To you Heaven did not give so much. For your enterprises Love has destined other weapons and another field.

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Lucinia Sometimes Love encloses in delicate breasts 245 no less valor than in robust hearts. I have wielded the lance and handled the shield, and I have reined in and spurred on more than one courser in great perils; by this Heaven, by this sun I swear it to you.89 250 Cubo How can I deny what you ask, if my will has been joined to you by Love? Let it be granted you to dress in a hauberk and weapons. But first let a knight of my court come against you in a trial. If you defeat him, I pledge you my word that you and I will meet a shared fate. But if you are defeated, promise me to satisfy my burning desires;

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204 Celinda, A Tragedy E prigioniera e vinta Nel carcer del mio seno Ti sian le braccia mie dolce catena.

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Lucinia O di giusto signor giusta sentenza! Coro Qual più feroce e più ferino artiglio, Qual più pungente e ben vibrato dardo, Qual più volante e ben pennuto strale Sarà che maggior male Faccia ne i cori nostri Che non sia vile o frale, S’aver vogliam rispetto A gli eccessi del mal del caro figlio De la bella Ciprigna, Che ’l più tenero affetto Pria lusingando co ’l seren d’un sguardo Si fa soggette l’alme, e i petti e i cori Lascia trofei de’ suoi penosi ardori? Figlio di quella madre Ch’è pur figlia de l’onde Ch’aggirate da’ venti Instabil sempre a gli altri danni sono, Cui mille e mille squadre Di sospiri e lamenti Seguono sempre in lagrimoso suono, Che tra ’l vermiglio di vezzose labbra Nascondendo il veleno, Mentre promette altrui più lieta sorte, Altro non dona alfin che rischi o morte. Questi ne i vaghi colli De’ campi Elisi ov’è ’l sereno eterno, Tra mille fiori e care erbette molli Nacque, mentre a la mensa De l’ambrosia sedean gli eterni numi,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 205 and as a prisoner and vanquished, in the prison of my breast my arms will be your sweet chain.

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Lucinia Oh, a just lord’s just decree! Chorus of Ladies What more ferocious and more frenzied claw, what more piercing and vigorous dart, what more fleet and well-fletched arrow will it be that in our hearts causes greater pain? Let it not be base or frail, if we are to feel respect for the excesses of pain from the dear son of the beautiful Cyprian. The tenderest affection, at first coaxing with a serene look, subjects to itself souls—and breasts and hearts it leaves as trophies of his painful ardors. Son of that mother who is herself the daughter of the waves which, stirred up by the winds, are unstable always, to others’ harm. Thousands and thousands of sighs and laments follow him always with a tearful sound, for between the vermilion of charming lips he hides poison. While he promises people a more delightful fate, nothing else does he give in the end but risks or death. This one in the pretty hills of the Elysian fields, where there is eternal serenity, among a thousand flowers and dear soft little grasses, was born, while at table with their ambrosia the eternal deities were seated.

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206 Celinda, A Tragedy Là dove ’l sommo Giove Le sue grazie dispensa, Là dove con quiete Sen vivono l’alme riposate e liete. E sorto sì vezzoso, Si come egli era bello Fu creduto pietoso, Ma dominò superbo Appena nato, appena aperti i lumi, Non sol fra noi nel ciel, nel mar, ne’ fiumi. E non prezzando li figliali affetti, Feo la sua madre serva D’impudichi diletti, E sparso ’l foco in ciel, in mar, in terra, Fuggio la pace, e ’n lui visse la guerra. Che maraviglia dunque S’avrà potuto fra i tenaci nodi Di sue lascivie e frodi Cinger il nostro re, che qual amante Porga pregando altrui sospiri e pianto? Misero lui, ch’in tanto, Già vecchio, bamboleggia e non s’avvede Di questo grave errore, Ch’in bianco crin non ben campeggia amore.

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Atto Terzo SCENA PRIMA ATTAMANTE, ARALDO

Attamante In qual parte del mondo ima e deserta, In qual più solitario, orrido monte Ormai cercherai tu di ricovrarti, Sfortunato Attamante, S’oggi oscurar tu ti vedrai quel fregio

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Celinda, A Tragedy 207 There, where highest Jove his favors dispenses; there, where peacefully they live on, those souls restful and joyous. And having sprung forth as charming as he was handsome, he was believed to be compassionate; but he dominated haughtily as soon as he was born, as soon as he opened his eyes, not only among us, but in the heavens, in the sea, in the rivers. And not esteeming filial affections, he made his mother the servant of unchaste delights. Once he had spread fire in the heavens, in the sea, on earth, peace fled, and in him there lived war.90 What wonder is it therefore if he has been able among the tenacious knots of his lusts and frauds to grip our king who, as a lover, beseeching, offers up to another sighs and tears? Wretched man, who while already old acts childish, and does not realize his grave error, for among white hairs it is not well for Love to encamp.

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Act Three SCENE ONE ATTAMANTE, HERALD

Attamante In what lowest and most deserted part of the world, on what most solitary, horrid mountain, will you now try to take shelter, unfortunate Attamante? If today you will see yourself besmirch that ornament

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208 Celinda, A Tragedy Che de la donna tua ti facea degno? Han congiurato a mia ruina i fati, Hanno a sdegno le stelle il mio ardimento, Del non commesso error port’io la pena. Oggi scielto m’ha il re perch’io sol deggia Tutta oscurar la mia spartana prole E sommerger in Lethe ogni mio fato Ond’è celebre e chiaro anco ’l mio nome. Mi mette in prova in singular agone Non già con donna o in chiuso campo avvezza Od in aperto affaticar la destra Ne’ fieri usi di Marte, Qual fu Zenobia o qual colei che ardita Corse a la babilonica ruina. Ahi, che quanto più innalzo i pensier miei Tanto fortuna più tenta abbassarmi! Uscir conviemmi a singolar certame Con donna avvezza a la conocchia, al fuso, Cui d’un usbergo e d’un destrier fa dono L’effeminato re, che così voglio Oggi Cubo chiamar, e se non fosse Ch’ei, di Celinda mia, padre è diletto, Non so già come sopportar potrei L’ingiuria ond’anco indegnamente offeso Meco è l’onor de la mia bella Sparta. Vo’ comparer ne la gran piazza inerme, Vestito sol di sopraveste azzurra, D’oro contesta e de’ bei freggi adorna, A guisa d’un bel ciel pinto di stelle, Testimonio al mio sol, che come porto Impresso dentro al cor il suo bel nome, Così farlo palese al mondo bramo, Che non sono men belli i pregi suoi De le stelle e del sol ch’ornano il cielo. Ma, lasso, ove mi spinge Troppo soverchio amore, Troppo fiero dolore?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 209 which of your lady made you worthy? The fates have conspired to my ruin; the stars hold in contempt my daring; for an error I did not commit I bear the penalty. Today the king has chosen me so that I alone must cast a shadow over all my Spartan offspring, and submerge in Lethe my every deed that has brought fame and luster to my name. He sets me to the trial of a one-on-one contest, not indeed with a woman accustomed either in an enclosed field or in an open one to exert her right hand in the fierce customs of Mars, such as was Zenobia,91 or she who boldly ran to Babylonian ruin.92 Ah, however much more I raise my thoughts, that much more Fortune attempts to cast me down! It is necessary for me to go forth in single combat with a woman accustomed to the distaff, to the spindle, who a hauberk and a destrier receives as a gift from the effeminate king, for so I want to call Cubo today. And if he were not my Celinda’s beloved father, indeed I do not know how I could bear the insult with which also unjustly offended, along with me, is the honor of my beautiful Sparta.93 I want to present myself in the great piazza unarmed, dressed only in a surcoat of azure, with gold intertwined and with beautiful decorations adorned, in the manner of a beautiful sky painted with stars, as testimony to my sun that just as I bear impressed within my heart her fair name, I desire to make it plain likewise to the world, for no less beautiful are her merits than the stars and the sun which adorn the firmament. But alas, where am I driven by too immoderate love? Too fierce sorrow?

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210 Celinda, A Tragedy Consentirò di venire dunque a prova Con una donna, e rimarronne vinto? Ma non deggio ubbedir al mio signore? Entrerò dunque ne l’imposto arringo Tutto dimesso ed in sembiante umile, Schernirò il van pensier de la donzella Vaga di fama e povera di merti, E vincitor de la mia vinta un dono Al re farò che ne mostrò desire. Io so ben quant’egli arda in chiusa fiamma, Novo Etna che su ’l dorso ha nevi e ghiaccio, Ed un eterno incendio il cor gli abbruggia. Ma qual sen viene or fanciulletto araldo, Vago d’aspetto e di gentil sembiante, In barbaro vestir d’oro contesto, Cui pende al fianco una ritorta spada Che di zagaglia arma l’ardita destra, Non men d’ardir che di bellezze armato, Qual tu ti sia fanciul, nunzio od araldo, Che generoso in vista a me ti mostri, Onde vien? Che riporti? E chi t’invia? Araldo Attamante di Sparta, inclito e chiaro, Il cui valor a tutto il mondo è noto, A te mi manda la gentil guerriera Di nobil arme adorna in campo uscita, Ch’impaziente è già de la dimora. Te solo aspetta il popol ragunato, Te solo i cavalier stanno attendendo; Le donne assise sopra l’alte loggie Aspettan di veder quell’animosa Se nulla vale al paragon de l’armi; E lieto il nostro re più de l’usato Arride al bel pensier de la donzella Che troppo te di tua tardanza accusa. Che badi solitario disarmato,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 211 Shall I consent therefore to come to a trial with a woman, and end up defeated? But must I not obey my lord? 45 Therefore I shall enter as obliged into the ring of battle, all modest and in demeanor humble. I will deride the vain thought of the damsel desirous of fame and poor in merits; and as the victor, of my defeated opponent a gift 50 I will make to the king, who for her has shown desire. I know well how much he burns with a hidden flame— a new Etna who on his back has snows and ice, while an eternal blaze burns his heart. But here comes now a boyish herald, 55 charming in aspect and with a noble semblance, in barbarous clothing with gold intertwined. At his side hangs a curved sword; with an assegai he arms his bold right hand, no less with boldness than with beauties armed. 60 Whether you, boy, are a messenger or a herald, you who show yourself brave in appearance, from where do you come? What do you report? And who sends you? Herald Attamante of Sparta, illustrious and renowned, whose valor to all the world is known, to you the noble woman warrior sends me. With noble arms adorned, to the field she has gone forth, for she is already impatient at the delay. For you alone do the assembled people wait; you alone the knights are awaiting. The ladies seated above the high loggias wait to see that spirited woman, whether she’s worth anything at the contest of arms. And our king, happier than usual, smiles at the fine thought of the damsel who greatly for your tardiness reproaches you. Why are you delaying, solitary and unarmed?

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212 Celinda, A Tragedy Quasi che seco di venire in prova Sdegni tu a l’armi e ’l suo valor non pregi? Attamante A colei che t’invia, molle garzone, Molle di te non men, torna e riporta Ch’io non rifiuto il generoso invito, Ch’ammiro il suo valor, non lo pavento, Che temo sol di sue bellezze i colpi, Non quei che venir ponno Da la sua bella e generosa destra. Quinci prendea dimora Per non venire anzi che in tutto chiusa Ella fosse ne l’armi, ond’a ferirmi Dovesse pria con le sue luci accese. Dille pur che tantosto sarò seco Anzi a servir che a guerreggiar ardito.

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Araldo Io vo, ma ancor tu tosto mi segui. Attamante Va, ch’io seguo i tuoi passi e più non bado.

SCENA SECONDA CONSIGLIERO

Consigliero O de l’uomo mortale instabil mente! Com’egli là fin sovra il ciel estolle Di Fortuna ad ogn’aura, Com’ei, fuggendo il bene al mal s’inchina, Onde soggiace la ragion al senso; Fatta del vizio la virtute ancella, Tiranneggia superbo al maggior duce L’infimo servo, ond’io piango talora

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Celinda, A Tragedy 213 As if with her to come to the trial of weapons you disdain? And her valor you do not esteem? Attamante To her who sends you, soft boy, no less soft than you, return and report that I do not refuse the generous invitation; that I admire her valor, I do not fear it; that I dread only her beauties’ blows, not those which can come from her beautiful and generous right hand. Here I was tarrying in order not to come before completely enclosed she was in the armor, for in that case she might wound me first with her shining eyes.94 Tell her by all means that as soon as possible I will be with her, daring sooner to serve her than to wage combat.

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Herald I go; but yet, quickly follow me. Attamante Go, for I follow your steps and no longer do I delay.

SCENE TWO COUNSELOR

Counselor Oh, mortal man’s unstable mind! Even over Heaven he extolls Fortune constantly. In fleeing the good, to ill he inclines. Therefore reason succumbs to the senses; virtue becomes of vice the maidservant; the lowest servant over the greatest duke tyrannizes haughtily, so that I mourn sometimes

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214 Celinda, A Tragedy La cecità de le miserie umane. O quant’egli a veder duro mi sembra Feroce minacciar l’instabil dea Al bel di Lidia insuperabil regno, Quanto strano ad udir, con qual portento Folgora del gran Giove L’ira vendicatrice sopra ’l rege Di questo afflitto regno, e per suo scampo Gli nega il preveder tanta miseria, Ond’ei nel proprio error più sempre cieco, Quasi talpa infelice, il lume fugge. Ma dove fuggirai misero? Dove, Che sempre a te non sia La tua propria conscienza Un tormento ne l’alma, un tarlo al core? E ben ciò t’avverrà quando ch’il Perso Avratti vinto, debellato e domo, Toltoti con l’onor la vita e ’l regno. Allor la cecità da gli occhi tuoi Per tua pena maggior leverà ’l cielo, Il ciel del nostro oprar giudice giusto, Il ciel che a governar popoli e regni Te sovra gl’altri elesse, a la tua cura Ne commise l’imperio ond’il guardassi Come conviensi a buon pastor l’ovile. Ma come il guarderai, se ti sei dato Tu da te stesso al fiero lupo in preda? Chi ti torce e travia Dal diritto cammin ch’al ben ti guida? Donno e tiranno del tuo cor, Amore, Cubo s’è fatto, e tu folle il permetti; E che men la ragion venga in suo seggio, Pargoletto fanciul te ’l nutri in seno, Perché poi fatto grande egli ti sia Un vorace avvoltor che ’l cor ti roda. Ma se te nulla muove il proprio danno, Movati almen lo tuo smarrito gregge,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 215 the blindness of human miseries. Oh how hard it seems to me, to see 10 the unstable goddess ferociously threatening Lydia’s fair, insuperable realm. How strange to hear with what portent the vengeful wrath of great Jove thunders over the king 15 of this afflicted kingdom and, lest he escape, it denies him the foresight of so much misery. Hence he, in his own error ever more blind, like an unhappy mole, flees the light. But where will you flee, wretch? Where, 20 that your own conscience will not always be a torment in your soul, a gnawing in your heart? And indeed this will happen to you when the Persian has defeated, crushed, and tamed you, 25 and taken from you, along with your honor, your life and kingdom. Then the blindness from your eyes, for your greater pain, will be lifted by Heaven— Heaven, of our actions the just judge, Heaven which to govern peoples and kingdoms 30 elected you over others. To your care it committed the empire, so that you might watch over it as is appropriate for a good shepherd with his sheepfold. But how will you watch over it if you have given yourself on your own to the fierce wolf as prey? 35 Who leads you astray and diverts you from the right path, which guides you toward the good? The overlord and tyrant of your heart Love has made himself, Cubo, and you, crazed, permit it. And in order that reason might fade in its seat, 40 as a little boy you nourish him in your breast, so that later once he’s big he will be a voracious vulture that will gnaw on your heart. But if not at all are you moved by your own harm, may you be moved at least by your lost flock, 45

216 Celinda, A Tragedy Il popolo fedele, i tuoi soggetti Che t’onorar, che t’ubbedir mai sempre, Ma sovra gli altri la tua propria figlia Ti stia nel cor. Ah, forse tu nol vedi Ch’è destinata preda al fier nemico, Dove tu inerme e neghittoso pendi Da l’errante fanciulla, Per ischermo d’amor d’armi guarnita? Ma qual aiuto può sperar il regno, Qual governo i soldati, Se tu, lor duce, in oziosa sede Spettacolo amoroso al tuo nemico D’inutil giostra le carriere osservi? E che pro t’avverrà se colei vince? Pensi misero forse in quella guisa Ch’a te ferì l’effeminato core Ella sia per piagar, per consumare Il fortissimo esercito nemico? Ah, voglia il ciel che mentre egli ti vede Tutto ne l’ozio e in vil pensiero immerso, Non t’assalisca impetuoso e fiero, Come sogliono e Borea ed Austro irati Gonfiar l’onde marine, farle gioco De’ loro acerbi sdegni! Ma qual applauso o qual stridor m’intuona Fin quì l’orecchie d’aura popolare? Vinta è rimasa o vincitrice invitta La donna del mio re. Tal è l’amore, Tal è la fé ch’al mio signor io devo, Che propri mi si fan gli affetti suoi, E come ei sia dolente o in vista lieto Simil convien ch’al mio signor io sia.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 217 the faithful populace, your subjects who have honored you, who have obeyed you always. But above the others your own daughter, let her stay in your heart. Ah, perhaps you do not see it, that she is destined as prey to the fierce enemy? Whereas you, unarmed and slothful, hang on the errant girl who as a shield against love with armaments is equipped. But what help can the kingdom hope for, what direction the soldiers, if you their leader sit idly, an amorous spectacle to your enemy, to observe the charges of a useless joust? And what advantage will it bring you, if that woman wins? Do you think, wretch, perhaps in the same manner in which she wounded your effeminate heart, she is to injure, to consume the mighty enemy’s army? Ah, may Heaven will that while he sees you completely in idleness and in lowly thoughts immersed, he does not assail you impetuously and fiercely, as customarily both the wrathful North and South winds swell up the marine waves, and make them the sport of their bitter angers. But what applause, oh! What shrieks thunder all the way here to my ears on the people’s breath? Defeated she has ended up, or the undefeated victor, my king’s woman. Such is the love, such is the faithfulness which to my lord I owe that his emotions become my own; whether he is sorrowful or his expression is happy, it is fitting that similar to my lord I be.

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218 Celinda, A Tragedy SCENA TERZA LUCINIA, CELINDA

Lucinia Dal popolar applauso e da la folta Turba de’ maggior satrapi del regno Che mi facea d’intorno ampia corona, E che cupidi gl’occhi in me girando Ammirava ora il volto ed or la destra, M’involai tosto che l’eccelsa loggia Del più vago ornamento io vidi priva, E quel spirto che quì trasse ’l mio sole, Quel stesso trasseme dal qual non credo Ch’intercetto mi sia di pace in segno Figger nel bianco avorio un dolce bacio. Caro bacio soave, Esca del cor gradita, Fiamma de le mie fiamme, Cibo de la mia vita, E cortese e pietoso Tu porgi a i labbri miei rose d’amore, Ma più pietoso e fiero Mandi le spine al core. Ed accresce i tormenti A quest’alma, ch’in pene amando more, Il bel pallor con gli interrotti accenti. Signora del mio core, Rasserenate i lumi Perché altrimente il duolo Mi cingerà di fosche nubi l’alma. Celinda Idolo del mio core, S’io piango amaramente Il pianger fa che lietamente io goda: Sono figli d’Amore Il pianto ed i sospiri,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 219 SCENE 3 LUCINIA, CELINDA

Lucinia From the people’s applause and from the dense crowd of the greatest satraps of the realm, who made around me an ample crown and who, their greedy eyes upon me turning, admired now my visage and now my right hand, I flew away as soon as the soaring loggia of its most charming ornament I saw deprived. And that spirit which here drew my sun, that same one drew me. From her I do not believe it will be forbidden me in sign of peace to set on the white ivory a sweet kiss. Dear gentle kiss, welcome tinder of the heart, flame of my flames, food of my life. O kiss both courteous and pitiful, you place upon my lips roses of love, but even more pitiful and fierce, you send thorns to my heart. And your face’s beautiful pallor along with your interrupted accents increase the torments of this my soul which in pain, while loving, is dying. Lady of my heart, brighten up the light from your eyes, because otherwise grief will surround my soul with dark clouds. Celinda Idol of my heart, if I weep bitterly, weeping makes me rejoice with delight. The offspring of Love are tears and sighs,

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220 Celinda, A Tragedy E ne i sospir, nel pianto Pargoleggiando vive Il possente signor de’ nostri cori; E le mie gioie interne, Parto de’ vostri onor, de’ vostri merti, Mandan per gli occhi fuore Non già di duol, ma d’allegrezza il pianto. Godo nel rimirarvi Me stessa innalzo, che signor sì degno, Cavalier così illustre al dolce giogo Mi guidi d’Himeneo pregiata sposa. Qual mai su ’l Termodonte Amazzona superba imbracciò scudo, Bipenne maneggiò con tanta forza Ch’al possente di voi braccio uguagliarsi Possi, nova Bellona, a gli occhi miei? Lucinia Aggrandito, signora, ha il valor mio Sol la vostra presenza, E da i vostri bei lumi Nacque tutto il poter di questa destra, Onde a ragion a voi conviensi ’l pregio Del conseguito onore. Ma oggi vedrete quanto A difesa del suocero e del regno, A l’aquisto di voi contro se stesso Saprà oggi Autilio maneggiarsi in campo. Celinda Quanto temei, mentre il felon di Sparta A la terza carriera irato vidi Foco gettar da l’infiammate nari E sdegnato chinar la lancia dove Bramai questo mio sen scudo al periglio, Ed invocai ben quattro volte e sei Marte pietoso e ’l pargoletto Nume.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 221 and in sighs and in tears, behaving like a child, lives the powerful lord of our hearts. My internal joys, birthed of your honors, of your merits, send through my eyes outward not indeed of grief, but of happiness these tears. I rejoice in gazing at you. Myself I exalt, since a lord so worthy, a knight so illustrious, to the sweet yoke of Hymen leads me as an esteemed bride. What proud Amazon ever on the Thermodon95 lifted up a shield, or wielded a double-bladed ax with so much force that she, a new Bellona,96 might equal your powerful arm, in my eyes? Lucinia Your mere presence, my lady, has increased my valor, and all the power of this right hand was born from your beautiful eyes. Therefore by rights the esteem of the attained honor should be yours. But today you will see how well and expertly Autilio will handle himself in the field, against himself, in defense of his father-in-law and of the kingdom, and to acquire you. Celinda How greatly I feared when the irate scoundrel of Sparta in the third charge I saw breathe fire from his flaming nostrils and, enraged, couch his lance. There did I wish this breast of mine to shield you from peril, and I invoked at least four times and six pitiful Mars and the little child god.

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222 Celinda, A Tragedy Lucinia Non osa di ferir superba mano Dove l’immagin vostra Scolpita appare da divin scultore. Celinda Pullulò questo cor mille rampolli Di gioie vere e di diletti interni, Mentre giù del destrier vidi l’ardito Spartano andar, opra di questa mano, D’armi non men d’amor cara ministra, Ch’un Alcide abbattutto avrebbe in guerra. E sol comune al mio gioir conobbi Del misero mio padre il cor ferito, Sol con gli affetti esterni iva applaudendo La virtù inaspettata, il valor grande, Il portamento, le maniere accorte Sotto quell’armi di gentil guerriera, Ed aggiungendo foco a’ suoi pensieri Dolce esca aggiunge a l’amoroso foco. Lucinia Dure leggi d’amore Forzan d’amar non conosciuti oggetti, E sotto finte spoglie, Sotto mentiti panni, Nascondon vere fiamme. Arde ’l vostro gran padre, Né so qual maggior sia: O l’ardor suo o del suo ardor l’errore. Oggi se n’avvedrà, né voglia ’l cielo Ch’ei se ne sdegni e cangi L’amor in odio, e forse Gli abbracciamenti cangierà in ferite. Ahimè, lingua inumana Ancor di parlar tenti, Né vedi che per te s’ange e s’attrista

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Celinda, A Tragedy 223 Lucinia Even a haughty hand dares not wound where your image appears sculpted by a divine Sculptor. Celinda My heart sprouted a thousand shoots of true joys and internal delights, when I saw down from his destrier the bold Spartan go, the work of this hand, of weaponry no less than of love the dear minister, which would have knocked down a Hercules in war.97 And other than my own rejoicing, I recognized only that my miserable father’s heart was wounded. Only with outward expressions was he applauding your unexpected prowess, your great valor, your bearing, your alert manner under those armaments of a noble woman warrior; and in adding fire to his thoughts, sweet kindling it adds to his amorous fire. Lucinia The hard laws of love force people to love unknown objects, and under false pretenses, under lying clothing, they hide true flames. Your great father burns, nor do I know which is greater: whether his ardor, or his ardor’s error. Today he will become aware of it, and may Heaven not will that he be enraged at it and change his love into hate; and perhaps he will replace embraces with wounds. Alas, inhuman tongue! Still to speak you attempt, nor do you see that because of you my beloved lady,

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224 Celinda, A Tragedy Conversa in duol la mia signora amata? State lieta mia dea, io ve ne prego, E ’l bel seren del ciglio Girate in me amoroso, Né lo conturbin gli timori vani. Vivrò co ’l padre a voi mio sol unito, E con felice sorte Termineran le guerre e i timor nostri. Talor il pianto suol mutarsi in riso E da principio infausto Sortisce lieto e fortunato fine. Ecco ’l re lieto che ver noi sen viene Di me forsi cercando. Or quì conviensi Altro valor nel superar gl’assalti Di lui che d’Attamante. Lieta pure Ad udir quanto dice, eccolo a noi.

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Celinda Deggio partirmi o quì attenderlo anch’io? Lucinia Anzi, ambo verso lui moviamo i passi.

SCENA QUARTA CUBO, CELINDA, LUCINIA, CORO

Cubo Il vederti Lucinia in armi involta Tutta spirante viriltà nel gesto, Di ventilanti penne ornat’il crine, In disparte trattar quì con mia figlia, M’ha in prima vista ripercosso il petto D’un stimulo d’onor il più pungente Ch’unqua a miei giorni abbi provato mai, Quasi che cinta di femminea gonna

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Celinda, A Tragedy 225 moved to grief, agonizes and sorrows? Be happy, my goddess, I pray you; and turn toward me, your lover, the beautiful serenity of your brow, nor let it be disturbed by vain fears. I will live with your father and with you my sun united, and with a happy outcome both wars and our fears will cease. Sometimes weeping transmutes into smiles, and from an inauspicious beginning there ensues a joyous and fortunate end. Behold the happy king who toward us comes, perhaps in search of me. Now here I will need another kind of valor in overcoming his assaults, different from Attamante’s. A happy woman I am still, to hear what he says. Here he is, almost upon us.

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Celinda Must I leave, or wait for him here as well? Lucinia Rather, let us both make our way toward him.

SCENE FOUR CUBO, CELINDA, LUCINIA, CHORUS OF LADIES, CHORUS OF LYDIAN SOLDIERS

Cubo Seeing you, Lucinia, in armor enveloped, emanating virility in your gestures, with fluttering plumes adorning your hair, converse aside here with my daughter, at first sight struck my heart with a goad of honor, the sharpest that ever in my days I have experienced, almost as if girded in a feminine skirt

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226 Celinda, A Tragedy Non t’avessi veduta a gli ozi, a gli agi Tra donneschi consessi. E pur è vero Ch’a trattar l’asta, a maneggiar la lancia Sembri la dea che guida il carro a Marte, Ond’hai pur or con tanta gloria vinto Lo spartano guerriero Con stupor del mio regno e mio comune. Lucinia Come ne gli ozi e nel femmineo manto Tua serva son, così ne l’armi involta Esser deggio. Così a me legge impone, Legge d’amor, di servitù, di fede, Né con minor piacer sosterrei ’l ferro Per te nel petto mio (Se ben n’uscisse l’alma) Di quello che farei tuoi dolci e cari Ed amorosi amplessi e dolci inviti. Cubo Qual uom, qual cavalier, qual duce illustre Per lo tuo gran valor t’onoro e stimo, Qual donna degna del mio grand’impero T’amo, ti pregio, e non isdegno averti De la morta regina in loco eguale, Qual mi fu cara e riverita sposa. Né te vederò offesa Da le nemiche spade, Se per lor opra io non rimango morto.

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Coro O parole d’amante e di guerriero! Lucinia Rendati ’l ciel, signor, di tanta grazia Condegno guiderdon. Ma quando fia L’ora bramata ed aspettata tanto

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Celinda, A Tragedy 227 I had not seen you at leisure, at ease among womanly assemblies. And yet it is true that in dealing with the spear, in handling the lance, you seem to be the goddess who drives the chariot of Mars,98 since just now with so much glory you have defeated the Spartan warrior to the astonishment of my kingdom, and my own as well. Lucinia Just as at leisure and in a feminine mantle I am your servant, I must be just the same when in armor enwrapped. Thus to me a law imposes, a law of love, of servitude, of faithfulness. I would accept the iron blade for you in my breast with no less pleasure (even if thereby my soul departed) than I would feel at your sweet and dear and amorous embraces and sweet invitations. Cubo As a man, as a knight, as an illustrious ruler, for your great valor I honor and esteem you. As a woman worthy of my great realm I love you, I value you, and I do not disdain to have you in the dead queen’s same place, she who was my dear and revered wife. Nor shall I see you harmed by enemies’ swords, unless by their work I am killed.

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Chorus of Ladies Oh, words of a lover, and of a warrior! Lucinia May Heaven bestow upon you, my lord, for so much grace a fitting reward. But when will it be, the hour desired and anticipated so much,

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228 Celinda, A Tragedy Quand’io potrò del fiero sangue ostile Imbrattar la mia destra e questa spada Spenga la sete che mi fa sì ardente Di guerreggiar contro ’l tuo gran nemico, Disturbator di pace, Seminator di guerra? Ma che si bada? Non si corre al campo? Indugian tanto gli stromenti invitti Del fiero Marte a risvegliar la gente Che nel pigro ozio addormentata giace, Che mi fora noioso il sofferirlo? Dunque tant’osa un credulo nemico, E lo sopportan queste eccelse mura? A l’esterminio, a le ruine dunque Andiam contro di lui, signor invitto, Che si liberarem da questo assedio A’ primi incontri de le armate schiere, E così spero in Giove alto e sovrano.

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Coro Secondi ’l ciel queste parole ardite! Cubo O di femmineo cor invitto ardire, O sovrauman valor di donna altera, Pensat’ho anch’io esser laudabil cosa Che presto ed improvviso S’assalisca il nemico. E pria che la regina delle stelle Mandi a corcarsi il sol ne l’oceano Vedrassi ’l fin de la sanguigna guerra O con la rotta del nemico nostro O con lasciar morendo etern’il nome.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 229 when I will be able with fierce hostile blood to smear my right hand, and this sword might quench the thirst that makes me so ardent to wage war against your great enemy, the disturber of peace, the sower of war? So, what are we waiting for? Why aren’t we running to the field? Will fierce Mars’ indomitable instruments delay so much to rouse the people, who in lazy idleness sleeping lie, that it will be irksome to me to bear it? So much then a credulous enemy dares, and these lofty city walls tolerate it? To extermination, to ruin therefore let us go against him, indomitable lord, for we will free ourselves from this siege at the first encounters of the armed ranks; and so I hope in lofty, sovereign Jove.

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Chorus of Ladies May Heaven favor these bold words. Cubo Oh, feminine heart’s undefeated boldness! Oh, superhuman valor of a majestic woman! I too have thought it a praiseworthy thing that soon and suddenly we assail the enemy. And before the queen of the stars sends the sun to his bed in the ocean,99 we shall see the end of the bloody war: either with the defeat of our enemy, or by rendering, in dying, eternal our names.

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230 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Deh, tolga ’l ciel, per Dio, sì tristi auguri, Alto signor e padre, ed abbia Persia Con la morte del re fine a l’imperio. Lucinia Così sarà, signor, e divulgato Spanderassi di Lidia il nome e ’l vanto Per tanto generoso abbattimento. Coro E noi in atto umile Cui non lice gravar di ferro ’l fianco Starem pregando li celesti numi Per la certa vittoria, che ben spesso Gradisce ’l cielo l’umiltà de’ cori. Cubo Già devon esser i soldati in pronto; Ei resta sol che ce n’andiamo al campo Di fino acciar guarniti A satollarsi del nemico sangue. Lucinia Tra tuoi fedel consorti m’avrai fida, Difenderò co ’l mio quel regio petto Che, ferito d’amore Per questa qual si sia poca bellezza, Non deve, e con ragione, Esser piagato da profani strali; E se ’l goderlo a me sola si serba, Io sola deggio e voglio, E custodirlo e conservarlo intatto Da le nemiche mani, E con sì bel pensier, non poca forza Spero dal ciel, spero dal Dio de l’armi.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 231 Celinda Ah, by God! May Heaven avert such evil prospects, my lofty lord and father, and let Persia with the death of its king have an end to empire. Lucinia So it will be, lord. And with the tidings will spread Lydia’s name, and also the boast for such courageous fighting. Chorus of Ladies And we humbly (since we cannot lawfully weight down with iron our flanks) will stay behind, praying to the celestial gods for certain victory, since very often Heaven favors the humility of hearts. Cubo Already the soldiers must be ready. There remains only for us to go to the field, with fine steel equipped, to sate ourselves with the enemy’s blood.

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Lucinia Among your faithful comrades you will have me, faithful. I will defend with my own that regal breast which, wounded by Love for this, as it may be, paltry beauty, 85 must not, and with reason, be injured by profane arrows. And if the enjoyment of your breast to me alone is reserved, I alone must and want both to guard it and to preserve it intact 90 from enemy hands. And with so fine a thought, no little strength do I hope for from Heaven, do I hope for from the god of weapons.100

232 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro Assai sperar conviene, Ch’ov’è l’ardir, ivi la forza regna. Cubo Tu con Celinda a ristorar n’andrai Le sofferte fatiche De la passata giostra, Mentre ch’io graverò gli omeri e ’l fianco D’un onorato incarco A qual forse non fu pari o simile Quello che maneggiò su ’l fiero Xanto L’invitto, generoso e forte Achille. Lucinia Così farò, signor, e non tantosto Vestite m’avrò altr’armi Ch’a Fortuna comune io sarò teco. Coro O fasti od alterezze, Pretension superbe Ch’il cieco mondo a nostri giorni apprezza, O dannose bellezze Che succhi amar ingrati Coprite sotto il manto di dolcezza, Così veggiam fra l’erbe Il serpente omicida Nascoso star perché tra frondi e fiori L’incauto pastorel mordendo uccida. Sotto un leggiadro viso Fingete un vago cielo A cui due soli dian splendor e lume, E cieche e senza lume Nostre cupide menti Non osservano i suoi raggi cadenti. Cadon qual dal suo stelo

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Celinda, A Tragedy 233 Chorus of Lydian Soldiers101 To hope for much is appropriate, for where boldness is, there strength reigns. Cubo You with Celinda will go to refresh yourself from the efforts you underwent in the recent joust, while I will weight down my shoulders and flanks with an honorable burden, to which perhaps was not equal or similar that which was wielded on the tumultuous river Xanthus by the undefeated, courageous, and strong Achilles.102 Lucinia So shall I do, lord, and as soon as I have donned other weapons, toward a shared fortune I will accompany you. Chorus of Lydian Soldiers Oh, ostentation, or arrogance! Prideful pretensions that in our days the blind world prizes. Oh harmful beauties, which cover, under the mantle of sweetness, juices bitter and unwelcome! Thus do we see among the grasses the murderous serpent lurk, so that amid fronds and flowers by biting the incautious young shepherd it might kill. Under a lovely face you feign a charming Heaven, to which two suns give splendor and light; and blind and without light, our greedy minds do not observe the face’s rays falling. They fall, as from its stem

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234 Celinda, A Tragedy Cade maturo fior che ceda al frutto, Al pianto cede il riso Ed al languor gli ardori, E da le guancie smorte Amor sen fugge e sol trionfa morte. Sotto due vaghi lumi Fra mille fior, di cui le guance sparte Sembran le piagge iblee, In rilevata parte Formate un picciol giro Di bei rubini ardenti, A cui cedon le gemme, ond’arde il seggio Del figlio di Latona, Tra cui ad arte scarse Bianche perle lucenti In ordin vago a noi dimostra Amore. Quì sta prigion il core, Di quì nascono i fiumi E de le gioie e de’ tormenti nostri, Di qui sorge il sospiro, Quì si nutre la speme, Esca gradita de gli amanti spirti; Quì nascon le parole Che legan più d’ogni possente laccio, Quì veggiamo tra gli ostri Star le grazie danzando, Ma miseri noi quando Più speriam di goderle Si mutan gli ostri in pallide viole, E ’l bel purpureo manto Cade qual rosa da l’ombrosa siepe. Se ’l bel pastor d’Anfriso Tuffa le bionde chiome Ne l’ocean onde ci fura ’l giorno, Di novo sorge e ancora Con le dorate briglie Regge i corsier su l’infiammato carro,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 235 falls the mature flower which gives way to the fruit. Laughter gives way to weeping, and ardors to languor; and from those faded cheeks Love flees, and Death alone triumphs. Under two pretty lights, among a thousand flowers whose spreading cheeks resemble the countryside of Ibla,103 in a raised part you form a small curve of rubies beautiful and bright, to which give way those gems that burn in the seat of the son of Latona.104 Between them, pearls white and lucent, artfully set in a charming order to us Love shows. Here as a prisoner remains the heart. From here are born the rivers of both our joys and our torments. From here arise sighs; here is nourished hope, the welcome fuel of lovers’ spirits. Here are born the words that bind more tightly than any powerful cord. Here we see among the scarlet105 the Graces dancing— but wretched us! When most we hope to enjoy them, the scarlet changes to pallid violets, and the fine crimson mantle falls like a rose from the shady hedge. If the handsome shepherd of Anfriso106 plunges his blond locks in the ocean, thereby stealing from us the day, once again he rises, and again with the golden bridles he directs the coursers from his fiery chariot.

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236 Celinda, A Tragedy E se la bella Aurora Ci asconde il vago viso Di novo vien co’ suoi lucenti crini A scacciar le stellate auree famiglie, Ma se bellezza fugge, More, né più s’avviva, Qual giglio privo de l’erbosa spoglia. Tra le guancie fiorite De la bella Lucinia, Tra le fiamme gradite Del nostro re, tra l’amorosa voglia S’asconde ’l serpe che gli uccide l’alma, E la corporea salma Non ben s’avvede che ’l creduto bene De lascivi desire E d’amate bellezze Fugge qual lampo, e al suo fuggir s’en more Quanto piacere ha nel suo regno Amore.

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Atto Quarto SCENA PRIMA CONSIGLIERO SOLO

Consigliero Non più questa regal sublime stanza Par la reggia di Cubo, quella reggia Che d’una mai non interrotta pace D’anni lunga stagion l’ozio ha goduto; Quell’orrida spelonca ella rassembla Che da l’un capo di Sicania sorge Cui diè ’l gran fabbro di Vulcania ’l nome, Dove i fieri Ciclopi, Suoi feroci ministri, opran gli incudi Per rinfrescar l’aspre saette a Giove. A scieglier armi ed adornar corsieri

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Celinda, A Tragedy 237 And if the beautiful Aurora hides from us her charming visage, once again she comes with her shining tresses to chase away the starry golden families. But if beauty flees, it dies. No more does it revive, like a lily deprived of its leafy body. Among the flowery cheeks of the beautiful Lucinia, among the flames welcomed by our king, amid the amorous desire hides the snake that kills his soul. And his corporeal body does not clearly realize that the believed good of the lascivious desires and of the beloved beauties flees like lightning, and at its flight also dies as much pleasure as is held in his kingdom by Love.

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Act Four SCENE ONE COUNSELOR

Counselor No longer does this regal sublime hall appear to be the royal palace of Cubo, that royal palace which for a long period of years has enjoyed the leisure of a never-interrupted peace. That horrid cave it resembles which on one end of Sicily rises, to which of “Vulcania” the great smith gave the name, where the fierce Cyclopes, his ferocious ministers, employ the anvils to refresh the supply of deadly shafts for Jove.107 On choosing arms and adorning warhorses

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238 Celinda, A Tragedy Molti intenti tu vedi, altri non meno D’elmo e di scudo armar il capo e ’l braccio, Altri il suo ferro a dura cote aguzza. S’adattan altri a maneggiar bandiere. Ed altri più pomposo Di sopravesta e di cimier s’adorna. E son questi ornamenti e questi fregi Del bellicoso Marte Nunci di duol, veri trofei di morte. Qua s’odon de’ cavalli i fier nitriti, S’ode colà di mille trombe il suono Ch’altri destano a l’armi ed altri al pianto; D’ogni porta il palagio e d’ogn’intorno Versa l’ampia cittate armi ed armati. Le care mogli e i pargoletti figli Son debil freno a le feroci voglie, Ch’ove di premio e speme Non cura ’l volgo d’arrischiar la vita, E chi di nobiltà chiaro risplende Morte non teme ove l’onor s’acquista. Ognun così travaglia, ognuno spera Degna del suo valor palme e mercede. Da l’altra parte le nemiche trombe A le fatiche del gravoso marte Invitano i soldati, e sopra gli altri Parmi veder lo spaventoso Fulco A dar ordini e leggi a le sue genti. Deh, piaccia al re de gli stellati giri Che fra la turba de le armate squadre Il principe di Persia oggi si trovi! Quì bramato risorga E sottragga la Lidia al duro incarco Di non dovuta, irragionevol guerra. Ma qual fuor del palagio eletto stuolo Uscir vegg’io di bellicose genti, E seco il vecchio re? Come pur forte Giovin atto a i sudori, armato appare?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 239 you see many intent, others no less on arming with helm and shield their heads and arms. Another his blade on the hard flint whets; others set themselves to handling banners; and another, more pompous, with surcoat and crest adorns himself. And these ornaments and these insignias of bellicose Mars are announcements of grief, true trophies of Death. Nearby are heard the horses’ spirited neighs; over there one hears of a thousand trumpets the sound. Some they rouse to arms, and others to weeping. From every gate the palace, and from every side the ample city pour out arms and armed men. The dear wives and the tender little children are a weak restraint for their ferocious desires— since where of a prize there is hope, the common people are heedless in risking their lives; and whoever bright with nobility shines, fears not death where honor is to be acquired. Everyone toils so, everyone hopes for victories and a worthy reward for his valor. On the other side the enemy’s trumpets to the strenuous exertions of battle invite the soldiers, and above the others I believe I see the fearsome Fulco give orders and commands to his people. Ah, may it please the king of the starry orbits that among the crowd of the armed ranks the prince of Persia today may be found. Here let the sought-after one reappear and release Lydia from the hard burden of undue, unreasonable war. But out of the palace what elect band of warlike people do I see issue forth, and with them the old king? Like a still strong young man apt to sweaty efforts, armed he appears?

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240 Celinda, A Tragedy Vuò ritrarmi in disparte e quindi udire E notarne i disegni e gli andamenti.

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SCENA SECONDA CUBO, LUCINIA, ALCANDRO, SOLDATI, CONSIGLIERO, CORO

Cubo Non men ne la ragione, o miei fedeli, Che nel vostro valor speme ripongo D’onorata vittoria, s’argomento Prender poss’io da quel vivace ardire Che ne’ più bassi ancora Non men che ne’ sublimi acceso io scorgo.

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Alcandro Avess’io mille braccia Per poter trar con mille spade il sangue A gli nemici nostri, augusto sire. Coro Un generoso cor ben spesso suole Prestar al corpo vigorose forze. Cubo Volesse ’l ciel che dieci tali avessi Pari a te di virtù, d’animo invitto, Ch’al solo primo assalto il fier nemico Preso e morto vedrei, la guerra estinta. Alcandro Sarà ’l mio sangue degnamente sparso S’io verserò fra le nemiche spade In pro del mio signor l’anima insieme.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 241 I shall withdraw aside and from there hear and note his plans and his progress.

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SCENE TWO CUBO, LUCINIA, ALCANDRO, SOLDIERS, COUNSELOR, CHORUS OF LADIES

Cubo No less in righteousness, O my faithful ones, than in your valor do I place my hope for honorable victory, if as evidence I can take that lively boldness which, kindled in the lowliest even, no less than in the highest, I discern.

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Alcandro If only I had a thousand arms and could draw with a thousand swords the blood of our enemies, august Sire. Chorus of Ladies A courageous heart customarily lends the body vigorous strength. Cubo If only Heaven willed that ten such men I had, similar to you in prowess, in spirit indomitable, for at the very first assault the fierce enemy captured and killed I would see, and the war terminated. Alcandro My blood will be worthily sprinkled, if I spill among the enemies’ swords, for the good of my lord, my soul together with it.

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242 Celinda, A Tragedy Cubo Ed io voglio sperar che la mia mano A miglior tempo e con più lieta sorte Daratti ’l guiderdon d’opra cotanta. Consigliero E dove, o mio signor, senza ’l tuo servo? Anch’io voglio comun teco la sorte: O ci prometta Marte alta vittoria O illustre morte ne predica ’l fato. Cubo Cinto da questi mei forti campioni, Non men d’ardir che di valor armati, Ove chiama ’l nemico ora m’invio; Al prudente tuo senno io do in governo La mia figlia, i tesori e la cittade. Tu da i nemici lor guarda e difendi, In mia vece qui reggi, e dove morte Fosse prescritta a la mia vita in cielo Od oscura prigion, di me pur segua Ciò ch’è fisso lassù. Godrà ’l mio core Ch’al consiglio, al valor, a la tua fede Restino in un la figlia, La cittade e i tesori. Consigliero Che saprà far senza di te, mio rege, Povero vecchio sconsolato e solo? 40 Come viver se ’n può corpo che langue S’in cui l’alma risiede il cor l’è tolto, E come ’l tuo bel regno Senza te che ’l cor sei può star in vita? Deh, vadino i soldati al grave rischio Del marzial assalto e ’l loro duce Lontano dai perigli altrui dia leggi, E i capitani suoi

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Celinda, A Tragedy 243 Cubo And I intend and hope that my hand at a better time and with a happier destiny will give you the reward for a work so great. Counselor And where, O my lord, without your servant? I too want in common with you my destiny, whether Mars might promise us lofty victory, or an illustrious death is predicted for us by Fate. Cubo Surrounded by these my strong champions, no less with boldness than with valor armed, where the enemy calls, now I set forth. To your prudent wisdom I give the disposition of my daughter, my treasures, and my city. From my enemies guard and defend them; in my stead rule here, and in case death is ordained for me by Heaven, or a dark prison—for me let come whatever has been decreed there above—my heart will rejoice that with your counsel, your valor, and your faithfulness remain all together my daughter, my city, and my treasures. Counselor What will a poor old man, disconsolate and alone, know to do without you, my king? How can a body live, that languishes, like one in whom the soul resides, whose heart is removed? And how can your fair kingdom, without you who are its heart, stay alive? Ah, let the soldiers go to the grave risk of the martial assault, and let their leader far from perils to others give commands. And let his captains

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244 Celinda, A Tragedy Oprino con la man, egli co ’l senno. Può ben l’altezza tua, tai son le forze De gli esperti soldati e del tuo regno, Se non certa vittoria, orribil strage Sperar de’ tuoi nemici. A maggior uopo De la figlia e del regno Serba l’invitto ardir, serba te stesso.

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Cubo Mancar non lice, ov’io giurai, vo’ girvi, Ne la ragion e nel valor confido, Ne la vivacità de’ miei soldati. Coro O noi avventurate, O popolo felice Cui di servire a tal signore è dato!

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Cubo Resta tu quì mio caro e fido amico, Tocchiti qual si voglia esser erede D’annunci fortunati o d’infelici. Lucinia Esser potria, signor, forse anco erede De la testa di Fulco. Coro Tu parti, o saggio re, e d’armi cinto Ne la piazza di Marte Vuoi mercar palme ed acquistar trofei. Felice sorte a te comparta ’l cielo! Consigliero O mio dolce signor, perché concesso Non è di morir teco al tuo fedele? So che questi occhi miei spargeran quante

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Celinda, A Tragedy 245 work with their hands, he with his wisdom. Well can Your Highness hope (such are the forces of your expert soldiers and of your kingdom) if not for certain victory, at least a horrible massacre among your enemies. For the greater need of your daughter and your kingdom, preserve your undefeated boldness, preserve yourself.

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Cubo To break my word is not lawful. Where I swore, there I intend to go. In the right and in valor I trust, in the liveliness of my soldiers. Chorus of Ladies Oh lucky us, oh happy people, to whom it is given to serve such a lord!

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Cubo You stay here, my dear and loyal friend. It is for you to be the inheritor of whatever announcements may come, whether fortunate or unhappy. Lucinia He could be, lord, perhaps also the inheritor of the head of Fulco. Chorus of Ladies You are leaving, O wise king, and girded with armaments in the piazza of Mars you want to buy palms of victory and acquire trophies. May Heaven mete out to you a happy fate. Counselor O my sweet lord, why isn’t it granted for your faithful one to die with you? I know that these eyes of mine will sprinkle as many

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246 Celinda, A Tragedy Tu sei per versar fuor gocce di sangue Tante stille di pianto. Ma fin ch’io posso, vuo mirarti, o caro, O mio amato signor, che contra a rischi Tu vai de l’aspra morte. Ah, ben chiaro ’l preveggio e so di quante E quali forze il re nemico abbonde, Il barbaro inuman, che gonfio ancora Sen va, ed altier de la vittoria avuta Contra il crudo Ottoman, ond’arricchito Ha la Persia di forze e di tesori, Ch’inespugnabil oggidì rassembra. Troppo a sicura morte, ah, troppo veggio Ir l’infelice padre De l’afflitta Celinda! Ma deh, ch’altro poss’io fuor ch’ubbedire Al mio signor! Sarà difesa e scudo, S’altro più non potrà, questo mio petto Contra l’arme insolenti A la figlia, a la reggia, a i suoi tesori. Coro Tanto ci attrista il lagrimoso vecchio Che da nuovo timor vinte ed oppresse, A noi fa distillar in pianto i lumi L’acerbissima doglia.

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SCENA TERZA NUTRICE, ARMILLA, CORO

Nutrice O del nostro riposo invido Amore, Tu pur sei la cagion de’ nostri mali, Empio nume d’Averno, Per li fecondi campi De’ nostri afflitti cori

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Celinda, A Tragedy 247 drops of tears as you are to spill forth beads of blood. But as long as I can, I want to gaze at you, O my dear, O my beloved lord, for toward the risks you go of bitter death. Ah, clearly do I foresee it! And I know with how many and what kind of forces the enemy king abounds, the inhuman barbarian who goes about still swelled up and haughty over the victory achieved against the cruel Ottoman, from which he has enriched Persia with forces and treasure, such that impregnable nowadays it seems.108 Toward certain death, ah, all too certain! I see go the unlucky father of sorrowful Celinda. But ah! What else can I do, other than obey my lord? This my breast, if it can do nothing else anymore, will be a defense and shield against insolent weapons for your daughter, for the royal palace, for its treasures. Chorus of Ladies So much does he sadden us, that lachrymose old man, that by new fear we are overcome and oppressed, and most bitter grief makes our eyes trickle with tears.

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SCENE THREE NURSE, ARMILLA, CHORUS OF LADIES

Nurse Envious of our repose, O Love, precisely you are the cause of our ills. Pitiless god of Avernus among the fertile fields of our afflicted hearts,

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248 Celinda, A Tragedy Seminator di pene, Tu con l’accesa face Del cielo no, ma de sulfurei fiumi Spiri ne l’alme altrui fieri tormenti, Nemico d’ogni bene, Cieco ch’ogn’altro accieca, Inesperto fanciullo, D’ogni ragion alfin spogliato e privo, Tu de gli altrui voleri Omicida e tiranno, Tra singulti e sospiri, Tra lamenti e querele Tieni il tuo seggio e i tuoi seguaci affreni! Oggi ben mille schiere Per te pur versaran rivi di sangue, E mille rivi e mille Di lagrimosa pioggia Da bei lumi dolenti Versa per te la mia figliuola amata. Coro O nutrice, o nutrice, Con qual dolente suono Ci desti l’alme al duolo e gli occhi al pianto? Deh, narra la cagion de’ tuoi lamenti. Nutrice Piango che in van procaccio Nel maggior uopo a la mia figlia aita. Dentro a la più segreta e chiusa stanza Sola s’è ritirata Se non quant’ha compagno il pianto e ’l duolo, Quivi si svelle il crin, si batte il petto, Percuote palma a palma e voci esala Dal profondo del cor flebili e meste, Che desterian pietate in cor nemico.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 249 the sower of pains. With the kindled torch of Heaven no, but of the sulphurous rivers, you breathe into people’s souls fierce torments. Enemy of everything good! A blind man yourself, who blinds all others. Inexperienced boy, of every pretense of justice in the end stripped and deprived. You, of others’ wishes the murderer and tyrant! Among sobs and sighs, among laments and complaints you keep your seat, and your followers you restrain. Today at least a thousand ranks because of you will spill streams of blood; and a thousand thousand streams of teary rain from her beautiful sorrowful eyes are spilled because of you by my beloved little daughter. Chorus of Ladies O Nurse, O Nurse, with what sorrowful sound do you rouse our souls to grief, and our eyes to weeping? Come, relate the cause of your laments. Nurse I weep, for in vain do I seek help in her greatest need for my daughter. Inside the most private and locked room alone she has withdrawn, unless she has for companions weeping and grief. There she tears out her hair, she beats her breast, she strikes palm on palm, and breathes forth from deep in her heart sounds mournful and sad, that would rouse pity in the heart of an enemy.

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250 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro Tu sosterrai, noi sosterrem che in pianto Si consumi colei che a noi dà vita? Ah, non per Dio, nutrice, usa tu ogn’arte Per scacciarle il timor di questa guerra! Ma che veggio venire sì frettoloso? Questa è donna di corte e parmi Armilla. Armilla Dentro il palagio il consigliero irato Cerca di te con sì terribil modo Ch’io pavento, o nutrice. Egli la principessa in chiusa stanza Trovat’ ha incrudelir contro se stessa. Sforzò le porte, aprille, ed al rumore Tutte trasse le donne e le donzelle, E che tu non v’accorri ha grave sdegno, Perché incapace de’ conforti altrui Cerca solo a la morte aprirsi il varco. Vieni, che con gran fretta egli mandommi Di te cercando, e ben di tua presenza Fa mestieri colà dove dolente Stassene e disperata La principessa, e nullo v’ha che vaglia A consolar i suoi martiri acerbi. Nutrice Ben mi predisse il cor quanto mi dici! Coro Eccola. O quanto ella è dolente e mesta! Armilla Resta seco, nutrice, ch’io mi parto.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 251 Chorus of Ladies Will you tolerate it, will we tolerate that in weeping she be consumed, she who to us gives life? Ah no, by God! Nurse, use your every art to drive away from her the fear of this war. But who do I see come so hurriedly? This is a lady of the court, and she appears to be Armilla. Armilla Within the palace the irate Counselor seeks you in so terrible a mood that I am affrighted, O Nurse. The princess in a locked room he found committing cruelties against herself. He forced the doors, he opened them, and with the noise he drew all the ladies and the maidens; and that you do not rush there causes him great anger, because refusing the comforting of others, she tries only to open for herself the way to death. Come, for in a great hurry he sent me seeking you, and indeed your presence is needed there, where sorrowful and desperate the princess stays, and has nothing that avails to console her bitter anguish. Nurse Truly my heart predicted what you say. Chorus of Ladies Behold her. Oh, how she grieves and sorrows! Armilla Stay with her, Nurse, for I am leaving.

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252 Celinda, A Tragedy SCENA QUARTA NUTRICE, CELINDA

Nutrice O figliola, o signora Così dunque volete In lagrime e in lamenti Tutte di questo giorno Passar l’ore piangendo? Non si sceman co ’l pianto Le mondane miserie! Grande è il vostro dolor, alta cagione A lamentar vi tragge, Ma non già sì che non abbiate ancora A mostrarvi più forte Di qual si voglia femmina del volgo, Che spesso a gli animosi Suol dimostrarsi più benigno il cielo; Ed esser animosa Degno è di voi, cui regal manto cinge Le belle membra e gran corona il crine. Così vi sono usciti oggi di mente I paterni ricordi? Voi d’un tanto signor unico germe Ne le fortune ree vi disperate Sì che fate a voi stessa oltraggio ed onta? Perdonatemi, o figlia, Con cotesto dolervi Voi passate ogni segno Non dirò di regina Ma di donna volgare Che de la mobil aura anco paventi. Eh, figlia, discrociate ormai le mani, Rasserenate i lumi e date segno D’esser pur viva e non marmorea imago. Che più far si potrìa s’inanti a gli occhi Esangue il genitor vedeste, e morto

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Celinda, A Tragedy 253 SCENE FOUR NURSE, CELINDA

Nurse O my daughter, O my lady, this way therefore you want in tears and in laments to spend all this day’s hours in crying? Earthly miseries are not reduced with weeping. Great is your grief; a good reason to lamentation draws you, but surely not so much that you may not still show you are stronger than whatsoever female of the masses, for often more benign does Heaven show itself to the spirited. And to be spirited is worthy of you, since a regal mantle girds your beautiful limbs, and a grand crown your locks. Your father’s reminders to such an extent today have slipped your mind? So great a lord’s sole offspring, in evil fortunes you despair, such that upon yourself you commit outrage and shame? Pardon me, O daughter; with this grieving of yours you pass every limit, I will not say appropriate for a queen, but even for a common woman who at the mere shifting of air takes fright. Come, daughter, stop wringing now your hands, calm yourself, and show signs of being still alive and not a marble image. What more could you do if before your eyes you saw your father drained of blood, and dead

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254 Celinda, A Tragedy Il caro sposo, e libertate e regno In un punto perduti? Pianger il padre e sospirar lo sposo Non vi si vieta no, ma se pensiamo Che un generoso ardir ambo gli ha tratti Per sicura vittoria a un tanto marte, Consolar ci doviamo e creder certo Che tanto lor ardire Sia gran presagio di felici eventi. Fate torto a voi stessa, Disobbedite al padre, Mancate al caro sposo, Nel suo tanto valor, ne la sua fede Così poco fidando, e pur ad ambo Generos’alma, invitto cor, giuraste Sempre mostrar, ovunque abbi a cadere, O buona o rea la non mai stabil sorte. Celinda Ti par dunque, nutrice, Ch’opra indegna di me per me si faccia Se con lagrime e segni D’espresso duol celebro un tanto e tale Giorno fatal dove sì grave è ’l rischio? Ti sembro dunque sì di senno priva Che per lieve cagione Il regio sangue e ’l titolo reale Voglia porre in non cale? E con assimigliarmi A vil donna del volgo Con cui ben cambiarei, Per misera che fosse, Il mio infelice e lagrimoso stato, Credi dar tregua al mio tormento eterno? E di che può dolersi Donna fin da le fascie A le miserie e a i disagi avezza,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 255 your dear husband, and both liberty and kingdom simultaneously lost? To weep for your father and sigh for your husband are not forbidden you, no. But if we consider that a courageous boldness has drawn both of them for certain victory to so great a battle, we must be consoled and believe with certainty that their great boldness is a clear portent of happy results. You wrong yourself; you disobey your father; you fail your dear husband, in his great valor, in his faithfulness trusting so little; and yet to them both a brave soul, an indomitable heart you swore always to show, no matter how ever-unstable Fortune, whether good or ill, might happen to fall out. Celinda Therefore it seems to you, Nurse, that an act unworthy of me, by me is performed, if with tears and signs of expressed grief I celebrate so momentous and such a fateful day wherein so grave is the risk? I seem to you therefore of wisdom so deprived that for a frivolous reason my regal blood and my title of royalty I choose to set in disregard? And by likening me to a lowly woman of the masses (with whom willingly I would exchange, however wretched she might be, my unhappy and tearful state), you think to bring surcease to my eternal torment? And what may cause grief to a woman who from the cradle to miseries and hardships is accustomed?

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256 Celinda, A Tragedy E ch’altro da sua povera fortuna Prescrittole dal ciel al suo natale Potrà per tutto di sua vita il corso Sperar fuor che i disagi De l’umile suo stato, Dov’io, cui fu dal ciel prescritto il regno, Che vita felicissima e tranquilla Di mia virginità lieta ed altera Ho co ’l mio genitor tre lustri in pace Vissuto, ohimè, ti par, che di soverchio Mi dolga e mi quereli? Io, che priva mi veggo Di tanti beni ond’io vivea felice? Ahi, come prato del suo manto adorno Di provvido pastor da l’empia falce Vedrommi d’ogni onor, d’ogni ben priva, E sia il duolo soverchio e vano il pianto? Felicissima donna Ch’in umil sì, ma in dolce stato nata, De le avventure sue sola ministra, Lietamente ella gode In povera fortuna Pacifico riposo In tetto umile, ove più Amor s’annida, Securo ozio amoroso, Dov’io ne i gran palagi, Fra i superbi tesori Sento che per digiun vien meno e langue L’animo tormentato. Donna volgar non teme Gli assalti di fortuna, Il desìo di regnar non la tormenta, Ne l’umiltà natia vive contenta, Non è ’l suo onor, qual viva face, esposto In eminente loco, Ma qual in chiusa stanza picciol lume Che da gli occhi d’ognun s’asconde e cela

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Celinda, A Tragedy 257 And for what else from her poor fortune, ordained for her by Heaven at her birth, can she hope through all her life’s course, other than the hardships of her humble estate?109 Whereas I, to whom Heaven destined the kingdom, I who a life most happy and tranquil, of my virginity happy and proud, with my father three lustrums in peace have lived, alas!110 It seems to you that excessively I grieve and complain? I who of so many good things see myself deprived, with which I used to live happily? Aiee, like a meadow deprived of its decorative mantle by a foresighted shepherd’s cruel sickle, I shall see myself of every honor, of every good deprived, and my grief is excessive, and vain my weeping? O most happy woman, who in a humble, yes, but a sweet estate was born! Of her own affairs the sole minister, cheerfully she enjoys in impoverished circumstances a pacific repose under a humble roof, where Love harbors a more secure amorous leisure. Whereas I in great palaces, among superb treasures, feel that my tormented spirit from fasting weakens and languishes. A common woman does not fear the assaults of Fortune. The desire to reign does not torment her; in the humility she was born to she lives content. Her honor is not, like a shining torch, exposed in a prominent place, but rather is like in a locked room a small light which from everyone’s eyes is hidden and concealed.

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258 Celinda, A Tragedy Perciò continuo tarlo D’aspra cura d’onor rado o non mai Le va limando il core, Né gli effetti d’Amor le turba onore. Ella se d’alcun ben, quantunque lieve, Vede gioir sua povera famiglia, Oh quanto più ne gode Di eccelsa donna a cui doni cortese I maggior ben con larga mano il cielo! Non è, s’erra talor, ch’ella paventi Gustar ne’ vasi aurati empio veleno. S’ella vuol tutto lice, Sol per esser negletta ella è felice, Sua bassezza l’affida e l’assicura, Né perché è vile altri l’osserva o cura. Ma me, misera! Ovunque i’ mi rivolga Ho da fieri tormenti il cor oppresso! Veggo l’amato padre Tra i perigli di morte, E questo regno d’ogn’intorno cinto Da potente nemico, E lacerato ancora L’onor, prima corona del mio crine, Gemma d’alma ben nata, Candido fregio un tempo De l’or perduta mia cara onestate, Con un infame acquisto Del già crescente frutto Nel mio misero ventre, ed avrò donde Io viver deggia, e consolata e lieta? Io l’amato mio sposo, ultima speme, Ch’è sol de’ miei pensier meta infelice, Vedrò fra mille spade, in mille lancie, E potrò viver lieta? Tant’alme che per me varcheran oggi Su la barca di Stige il rio di Lethe Per far tragitto al regno oscuro e tetro

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Celinda, A Tragedy 259 For this reason the constant worm of harsh concern for honor seldom or never goes gnawing at her heart, nor do the effects of Love disturb her honor. If at any good thing, however slight, she sees her poor family rejoicing, oh how much more she enjoys it than an exalted lady to whom courteously Heaven gives the greatest goods with a generous hand. It is not the case that, if she errs sometimes, she fears to taste in golden vessels a wicked poison.111 If she wishes, everything is lawful. Merely by being neglected she is happy. Her base condition protects and secures her. Because she is lowly, others do not observe her or care. But wretched me! Wherever I turn, by fierce torments my heart is oppressed. I see my beloved father in peril of death, and this kingdom on every side surrounded by a powerful enemy, and ruined as well my honor, the first crown on my locks, the gem of a well-born soul, the ornament, pure at one time, of my now lost, dear chastity, with the dishonorable acquisition of the already growing fruit in my wretched belly.112 And I shall have the wherewithal to live both consoled and happy? My beloved husband, my last hope, who alone of my thoughts is the unhappy subject— I shall see him amid a thousand swords, a thousand lances, and I shall be able to live happy? So many souls who because of me will cross today on the Stygian boat the River Lethe, to make their passage to that realm both dark and gloomy—113

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260 Celinda, A Tragedy Non denno anco destar entro ’l mio core Orror, tema e pietà? Non ho cagione Dunque d’incrudelir contro me stessa Come di tanto mal sola ministra? Nutrice Di grand’alma è gran segno Spesso il vincer se stesso, Ma ceder al dolore Segno è di poco core.

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Celinda Duolmi che debil cor sia vaso angusto A così estrema doglia. Nutrice Riceve il cor in sè tutti i dolori, Tutti i pensier insieme, Come riceve il mare Da i rapidi torrenti il suo tributo. Celinda E come il mar talvolta, Pregno di se medesmo, Sommerge il lito e i campi Alzando i flutti al cielo, Così gli umani cori, Sommersi ne gli affanni, Sviscerandosi esalano d’intorno Di sanguinoso duol torbidi fiumi, E inondano i campi De gli occhi e de la faccia, E gli ingombrano intorno D’atro pallor di morte. Nutrice Dunque fia il vostro fin solo di morte?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 261 should they not also rouse in my heart horror, fear, and pity? Do I not have cause therefore to mistreat myself, as of so much evil the sole minister? Nurse Of a great soul a clear sign often is defeating oneself; but giving way to grief is a sign of little heart.

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Celinda I grieve that a weak heart is a strait vessel for such extreme anguish. Nurse The heart receives in itself all pains, all thoughts together, as the ocean receives from the rapid torrents its tribute. Celinda And as the ocean sometimes, in swelling114 on its own, submerges the shore and the fields, raising its waves to the sky, just so human hearts, submerged in troubles, eviscerating themselves, exhale all around turbid rivers of bloody grief, and they inundate the fields of the eyes and the face, and they encumber them round about with the funereal pallor of death. Nurse Then your only goal is death?

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262 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Non altro. Nutrice E vi par poco?

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Celinda Poco per preservare il padre e ’l regno, Per serbar bella fede al caro sposo, E per tener celato Il mio fallo amoroso. Nutrice Ahi, che la vostra morte Ucciderebbe il padre e ’l caro sposo, Né vincer può con queste morti il regno. Celinda Se cirurgico esperto Vede in corpo gentil membro che langue Perché l’infetto sangue, Morendo per le vene, Con l’altre membra non offenda il core Presto al rimedio corre, E quella offesa parte, anzi che offenda, Con ruina mortal tronca e divelle. Io del padre e del regno infetto membro, Merto d’esser recisa, E ’l cirurgico pio sia la mia morte. Nutrice Suol far simili effetti Medico disperato di salute In corpo moribondo, Ma se lo vede tale, Onde possa sperarne anco salvezza, Tenta ogni medicina

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Celinda, A Tragedy 263 Celinda Nothing else. Nurse And to you it seems a small thing?

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Celinda A small thing to preserve my father and the kingdom, to keep good faith with my dear husband, and to keep concealed my amorous error. Nurse Aiee, but your death would kill your father and your dear husband, nor with these deaths can the kingdom live on. Celinda If an expert surgeon sees a fine body with a limb languishing, in order that the infected blood, in dying, through the veins may not harm along with the other limbs the heart, quickly to the remedy he rushes, and that damaged part, before it can cause harm, with mortal haste he cuts off and eradicates. I, of my father and of the kingdom an infected limb, deserve to be severed, and the compassionate surgeon would be my death. Nurse A doctor who despairs for the health of a moribund body is accustomed to perform such acts; but if he sees it in such a condition that he may hope for its safety, he attempts every medicine

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264 Celinda, A Tragedy Prima ch’a tanto rischio ei si risolva. Io già non stimo a questo sì bel regno Tanto mortale di fortuna il colpo Che quando man pietosa De l’eterno motore Le voglia sol prestar cortese aita Ch’egli non si risani Senza diveller voi membro più degno. Celinda A chi sarà piagato Da tanta avvelenata E orrida ferita, Medico sovra umano Non vorrà dar aita. Nutrice Anzi per più mostrar somma pietate Darà tosto salute A quelle ch’altri stima Insanabil ferite. Parmi veder dal campo una gran turba Venir d’uomini armati Che al barbaro vestir sembran nemici. Celinda Son Persi, io li conosco, il ciel m’aiuti. Nutrice Ma se pur non traveggio e’ son prigioni Ne le forze de’ nostri, e son legati. Celinda E sembran d’alto sangue a quel ch’io veggio, Riccamente guarniti.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 265 before upon so great a risk he resolves. I certainly do not judge Fortune’s blow so deadly to this fair kingdom, that if the compassionate hand of the Eternal Mover chose merely to give courteous aid, the kingdom might not recover, without eradicating you, its worthiest member. Celinda To one who is injured by so great a poisoned and horrid wound, a superhuman doctor will not want to give aid. Nurse On the contrary, in order to show the sublimest pity He will quickly give health to those which others judge unhealable wounds. I believe I see from the field a great crowd of armed men coming, who from their barbarous attire seem enemies. Celinda They are Persians, I recognize them. May Heaven help me! Nurse But if indeed I am not mistaken, they are prisoners of our forces, and they are bound. Celinda And they seem of noble blood, from what I see, and richly equipped.

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266 Celinda, A Tragedy SCENA QUINTA CELINDA, NUTRICE, ALCANDRO, ARMINIO E ITACO PRIGIONI, CORO

Alcandro Alta signora, il mio signor m’invia Nunzio felice; a voi men vengo e porto Di salute e di gioia Messaggi felicissimi, e son questi Del valor di Lucinia, Gloria del nostro campo, invitti segni: Duo superbi prigioni, Arminio l’uno De la minor Selandia unico germe Principe generoso; Itaco l’altro, Del campo ferocissimo de’ Medi Duce sovran, né puote in questi tempi Più magnifici doni o più bramati Ricever vostra altezza, egli mandarvi. Coro Per certo il disperarsi E promettersi il male De gli eventi futuri È un voler come al buio D’oscura notte entro a minuta arena Cercar gioia perduta. Arminio Come a donna reale a voi m’inchino, Vergine gloriosa, Se qual servo o prigione Volse la mia fortuna empia e nemica Che cattivo foss’io, ch’in dono a voi Fossi mandato, eccomi quale a punto Forse mi desiaste Fra duri ferri avvinto Ma d’ogni indegno laccio il cor disciolto.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 267 SCENE FIVE CELINDA, NURSE, ALCANDRO, ARMINIO AND ITACO (PRISONERS), CHORUS OF LADIES 115

Alcandro Exalted lady, my lord sends me as a happy messenger. To you I come, and I bring of health and of joy most happy messages; and these men of the valor of Lucinia (the glory of our forces) are the victorious signs. Two fine prisoners: Arminio is this one, of lesser Zeeland the sole offspring,116 a brave prince; Itaco the other, of the most ferocious army of the Medes the sovereign leader.117 It is not possible in these times for Your Highness to receive, or for her valor to send you, gifts more magnificent or more desired. Chorus of Ladies Most certainly to despair and to promise oneself evil in the events of the future is like wanting in the dark, on a gloomy night, in minute grains of sand, to look for a lost jewel. Arminio As to a royal lady, to you I bow. O glorious virgin, if as a servant or prisoner Fortune, to me cruel and inimical, willed that I be a captive who as a gift to you was sent, here I am precisely such as perhaps you desired, by hard chains shackled, but of every unworthy bond my heart is free.

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268 Celinda, A Tragedy Itaco Generosa signora, io pur umile Quanto al vostro regale alto cospetto Conviensi a voi ne vengo Cinto da indegno nodo, Dono de la fortuna, ah, non già dono Che dal valor de’ vostri oggi v’avvenga. Ordinate di noi ciò che v’aggrada, Che con invitto cor stiamo attendendo Da la bocca di voi Generosa sentenza. Coro O che degna presenza, Anco ne’ lacci avvinto Un regal corpo splende! Celinda Sallo il ciel se mi duole Di vedervi prigioni, Principi generosi Usi a gli scettri e al comandar altrui. Conosco al sangue regio, a i merti vostri, Quai modi di trattar grandi e illustri Siano dovuti. Ah, tolga il ciel che onori Di voi torri o prigioni o luoghi umili, Né ch’io vi voglia a l’obbligo soggetti De rei comune! Entro il real palagio Ite, liberi e sciolti Di servitù, d’onor degni di voi Sianvi effetti prestati: io così voglio. Itaco O d’indiscreto padre Discretissima figlia!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 269 Itaco Generous lady, as humbly as to your lofty, regal presence is appropriate, to you I come, bound by an unworthy shackle. A gift of Fortune, ah! by no means a gift that from the valor of your men today befalls you. Order for us whatever pleases you, for with indomitable hearts we are awaiting from your mouth a generous sentence. Chorus of Ladies Oh, what a worthy presence! Even in bonds fettered, a regal body shines. Celinda Heaven knows if I grieve to see you as prisoners, O brave princes accustomed to scepters and to commanding others. I know from your regal blood, from your merits, what sort of treatment grand and illustrious is due you. Ah, Heaven forfend I should honor with your presence towers or prisons or humble places, or that I should wish you to the parole subjected like criminals. Into the royal palace go free and unbound. Of servants and of honors worthy of you, let the effects be loaned to you; so do I will it. Itaco Oh, an unreasonable father’s most reasonable daughter!

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270 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Non credete però che tra me goda Per vedervi prigioni. Questo marzial principio a noi sì caro Voglia ’l ciel che nel colmo Di favorevol marte Non pieghi e non declini in ver l’occaso Di fortunoso evento. Itaco Saggiamente avvisate Che ancor potriano i Persi C’hanno desio di gloria e cor invitto Destar le loro forze A gran danno de’ vostri. Nutrice Se fu lieto ’l principio Sperar convien più fortunato il fine. Celinda Quello che ’l mondo immobilmente move Faccia quanto ha prefisso Ne la gravida mente O di buono o di reo ch’oggi sortisca. Frattanto entro ’l palagio Fate, Alcandro, condur questi signori E porli in libertade. Ne le stanze reali Faccino il lor soggiorno, E sian lor dati camerieri e servi Degni de’ merti lor, ch’io quì fra poco Attenderovvi, e al consiglier si mostri Anco il don generoso.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 271 Celinda Do not believe however that privately I rejoice at seeing you as prisoners, in this martial beginning to us so dear. May Heaven will that at the height of a favorable battle this beginning will not bend and set toward the West of an unlucky outcome. Itaco Wisely do you reason, for yet the Persians, who have the desire for glory and their hearts undefeated, could rouse their forces to the great harm of your side. Nurse If happy was the beginning, it is appropriate to hope for a more fortunate end. Celinda That One who, immobile, moves the world, let Him do whatever He has foreordained in his gravid mind, whether good or ill for today be allotted. In the meantime into the palace, Alcandro, have these lords conducted, and set them at liberty. In the royal rooms let them make their sojourn, and let them be given domestics and servants worthy of their merits. I here will await your prompt return. And also let be shown to the Counselor the generous gift.

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272 Celinda, A Tragedy Arminio Si ne scioglie i legami e non si lega con catene inumane Per legarci con nodi aurei d’intorno Vostro animo regal per tanta grazia; Ove ne scioglie i corpi Di più possenti lacci Ci lega l’alme e i cori, E invece di prigioni Le viveremo schiavi. Render le grazie a lei Che ben riconosciam ora c’è tolto, Ma s’avverrà giammai che queste mani Faccino cose che di voi sian degne, Vostra la gloria sia ch’or le serbate Da gli inumani ceppi.

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Celinda Chi fa ciò ch’egli de’, mercé non chiede.

SCENA SESTA NUTRICE, CELINDA

Nutrice Son questi segni, o figlia, Di future sciagure, o son presagi Di felice vittoria? Ancor piangete? E qual fuggito augello Da l’indiscreto laccio Di cupido fanciullo anco temete Fidarvi a saldo ramo Di felice speranza? Qual più stupendo dono Dal caro amato sposo Venirvi oggi poteva? Qual più verace segno

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Celinda, A Tragedy 273 Arminio Your regal spirit with so much grace releases our bonds, and does not bind us with inhuman chains, in order to bind us with golden knots all round. Though you release our bodies, with more powerful bonds you bind our souls and hearts, and instead of prisoners we will live as your slaves. To give back similar graces to you, to whom we are very grateful, for now it is not in our power. But if it ever happens that these hands achieve things that of you are worthy, yours will be the glory, for now you preserve them from inhuman manacles.

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Celinda Whoever does what he must, for a reward he does not ask.

SCENE SIX NURSE, CELINDA

Nurse Are these the signs, O my daughter, of future misfortunes, or are they presages of happy victory? You are still crying? And like a bird that’s escaped from the immoderate snare of a greedy boy, you still fear to entrust yourself to the solid branch of happy hope? What more stupendous gift from your dear, beloved husband could today have come to you? What more truthful sign

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274 Celinda, A Tragedy Del suo valor poteva egli mostrarvi? Ah, che qual pellicano Che del suo proprio sangue Nutre gli amati parti, Voi de’ propri dolor, de’ propri affanni Date alimento a l’alma, E come d’altro cibo Ei non vuol mantenerli, Voi d’altro che di pene e di dolore Negate cibo al core. Celinda Così natura insegna e cosi inclina Quell’augello amoroso A farsi esca de’ figli, Così l’alte cagion de’ miei tormenti Chieggion che di mie pene io mi nutrisca.

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SCENA SETTIMA CELINDA, ALCANDRO, SOLDATI

Alcandro Come ordinommi a punto In man del consiglier diedi i prigioni, De’ quali egli ha disposto Conforme al suo voler. S’altro signora, Comandarme le aggrada Facciolo, che conviemmi Tornar di nuovo all’oste Con quel maggior desio ch’oggi richiede Un principio sì degno e fortunato. Celinda Io desio di saper distintamente Con qual principio dal favor di Marte Oggi fosse protetto il nostro campo,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 275 of his valor could he show you? Ah, for like the pelican which with its own blood nourishes its beloved offspring,118 you with your own sufferings, with your own troubles, give nourishment to your soul; and just as with other food the pelican does not want to maintain them, you, other than that of pains and suffering, deny food to your heart. Celinda Thus Nature teaches and thus she inclines that loving bird to make itself provender for its children; thus the weighty causes of my torments require that on my pains I nourish myself.

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SCENE SEVEN CELINDA, ALCANDRO, CHORUS OF LYDIAN SOLDIERS 119

Alcandro As your Highness ordered me, straight into the hands of the Counselor I gave the prisoners; for them he has arranged matters according to your will. If anything else, my lady, it should please you to command me, I shall do it. Otherwise, I must return again to the host, with that greater desire today required by a beginning so worthy and fortunate. Celinda I wish to know in detail with what sort of beginning by the favor of Mars today our camp was protected.

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276 Celinda, A Tragedy Come siano venuti i due prigioni Ne le forze de’ nostri. Alcandro Mentre erano ordinate e quindi e quinci Da saggi capitan le armate schiere, Mentre fea di sue forze e di sue genti L’un esercito e l’altro altera mostra Onde stupor, vaghezza era a vedere I superbi destrier, gli alti cimieri, Il riflesso del sol ne’ tersi scudi, Ne l’armi rilucenti, a punto quale Talor suol percotendo In splendente cristal co’ raggi d’oro, Che da splendor soverchio il lume offeso Non può fissarsi in lui, Videsi uscir da le nemiche tende Fra più scelti e più grandi il re de’ Persi, Tutto, fuor che la testa, Superbamente di ricche arme adorno, Ch’or con questo or con quello augusto giva Compartendo i consigli e le ragioni, Quand’ecco ognun de’ nostri, Con lieto applauso e riverente affetto, Umilmente inchinarsi Venir veggendo il nostro re, ne l’armi Involto anch’egli, e comparir superbo In mezzo a forte ed onorata schiera De’ duci e de’ più grandi Del regno e de l’esercito. Al suo fianco Sempre è Lucinia, a lei sol tanto è dato; Sopra un bianco destrier, guerriera ardita, Mirava ella, ammirata, Cinta le molli membra in duro acciaio. Tra gli orrori di Marte il suo bel volto Le vaghezze di Venere scopriva. Minacciando a nemici,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 277 How did the two prisoners come under the power of our side? Alcandro By wise captains the armed ranks 15 were being organized here and there. Of their forces and of their people both the one army and the other were making a proud show. Astonishing and charming it was to see the superb destriers, the lofty crests, 20 the reflection of the sun on the polished shields, on the shining armaments—precisely as sometimes happens in striking a resplendent crystal with rays of gold, such that the eye, by excessive splendor offended, 25 cannot be fixed upon it. Then we saw come forth from the enemy’s tents, among the most elect and greatest men, the king of the Persians, who all over, except for his head, was superbly with rich armor adorned. 30 Now with this august person, now with that one, he was going round portioning out his advice and his reasoning, when suddenly every one of our people with happy applause and reverent affection humbly bowed 35 upon seeing the approach of our king, in armor girded likewise; and he cut a superb figure amid the strong and honorable band of leaders and of the greatest men in the kingdom and in the army. At his side 40 is always Lucinia; to her alone so much is given.120 Upon a white destrier a bold warrior woman, I gazed at her, wondrous,121 her soft limbs girded with hard steel. Among the horrors of war, her beautiful visage 45 revealed Venus’s charms. Threatening the enemies,

278 Celinda, A Tragedy Intrepida in sembiante, Vibra co ’l sguardo sol ferite e morti. Or mentre ognun de’ cavalieri e duci Umile al re s’inchina, e egli a loro Rende umano il saluto, ei fa dar segno Al marzial assalto. S’odon tosto sonar trombe e tamburi, Gridasi “A l’armi!” “A l’armi!” ognun risponde, Ed iterar “A l’armi!” Echo si sente. L’un esercito e l’altro Muovonsi con quell’impeto e furore Che piombando qua giù folgor dal cielo Abbatte ruinoso arbori e torri. Già si meschia la pugna a’ primi incontri, Già si veggon lasciare Altri a forza i destrieri, altri la vita. Or mentre si travaglia e si combatte Con pari marte, ecco che infesto a tutti Mirasi per lo campo il vago Arminio, Di cui non v’ha che porti arme più ricche, Sovra un destrier superbo Che morde il fren superbo e zampa e sbuffa Da le aperte narici ira e veleno, Di barde armato e vaghe piume adorno. Ha l’invitto guerrier da l’un de’ lati Pendente un arco aurato, una faretra Di cretense lavor purpureo panno; Veste di seta e d’or tutto contesto, Vassene sovra gli altri in vista altero, Gran lanciator de’ dardi, e ben li vibra Con mano più d’ogn’altra esperta ed usa. Lucinia, che lui sol vede fra tanti Sì riccamente armato e sì superbo Portar con ogni colpo altrui la morte, Tosto l’entra in pensier, come costui Faccia del suo valor degno trionfo. Vaga di vagheggiarlo, a lui s’accosta;

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Celinda, A Tragedy 279 intrepid in expression, she casts with her gaze only wounds and deaths. Now, while every one of the knights and leaders humbly to the king bows, and he to them returns a humane salutation, he orders the signal for the martial assault. Soon we hear trumpets and drums resound. One shouts, “To arms!” “To arms!” everyone responds, and Echo repeating, “To arms!” is heard. Both the one army and the other move with that selfsame impetus and furor with which in plummeting down here the lightning from the sky tempestuously beats down trees and towers. Already blows are exchanged at the first encounters. Already we see some leave perforce their destriers, others their lives. Now while we struggle and battle with matched forces, behold! Harmful to everyone we see through the battlefield the fine Arminio; than he no one bears arms richer. He’s upon a haughty destrier that bites the bit haughtily and stamps and puffs from its open nostrils anger and poison, with bards122 armored and with graceful plumes adorned. The undefeated warrior has on one side hanging a golden bow, a quiver of Cretan worked purple cloth, a garment of silk and gold all intertwined. He goes more than others in appearance proud, a great shooter of arrows, and well indeed he launches them with a hand more than anyone else’s expert and practiced. Lucinia sees him alone among so many, so richly armed and so haughty, to others with every stroke bringing death; soon it occurs to her how this man might make for her valor a worthy triumph. Desirous of gazing at him closely, she approaches.

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280 Celinda, A Tragedy “O chiunque tu sia,” poscia gli dice, “Cavalier che del pari inviti a l’armi Co ’l tuo valor, con le tue spoglie a preda, Teco de le mie forze in paragone, Io, che qual uom, ben che sia donna e molle, Vesto fra queste schiere elmo e lorica, Bramo venir; novo desio m’accende D’averti prigionier ne le mie forze, Per far dono di te poscia non vile A chi per servitù devo e per merti.” Così parlò. Quegli al parlar altero, Che subito destò dentro al suo petto Con invito di pugna aura di sdegno, Tosto rivolto a lei, su l’arco teso Intoccato lo stral, senz’altro dire Tende quanto può forte il nervo e vibra La volante saetta in quella parte Ove disegna far mortale il colpo. Ma lo riceve la guerriera ardita Su ’l ricco e terso scudo Di finissime tempre, e pur non giova Sì ch’ei non passi e non penetri a l’armi, Per cui ne parver quasi ad arte sparse Di vermigli rubin pompose stille Che da piaga levissima di sangue Tosto spicciar. Lucinia il vede, e d’ira Bolle, infuria ed avvampa, e si gli dice: “Or si vedrà se sa vibrar eguali Colpi una donna al lanciator de’ dardi, S’ei schermir sen saprà.” Cosi dicendo, Mentre ei vuol incoccar lo stral secondo, Veloce con lo stocco Sì fieramente andò a ferirlo a l’elmo Che stordito chinar fel su l’arcione; Né ben paga di ciò, presta e ardita, Replicò ’l fiero colpo, al qual si vide Impallidir Arminio:

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Celinda, A Tragedy 281 “Whoever you may be,” then she tells him, “O knight who invite equally to arms with your valor, and with your spoils to predation— with you my strength in a contest I desire to try, I who (although I am a woman and soft) wear among these ranks a helmet and cuirass like a man. A strong desire burns me to have you a prisoner in my power, thereafter to make of you a gift by no means base to one whom I owe for servitude and for merits.” Thus she spoke. That man at this haughty speech which immediately roused within his breast, along with the invitation to fight, an air of indignation, quickly turned to her, on his taut bow nocked the arrow, and without any more words he draws back as strongly as he can the bowstring, and shoots the flying shaft at that place where he plans to deliver a mortal blow. But the bold woman warrior receives it on her rich and polished shield of finest tempering, which yet is not sufficient to prevent it from passing and penetrating her armor through which there appeared, as if artfully sprinkled, like vermilion rubies magnificent drops of blood which from a very slight wound quickly flowed. Lucinia sees it, and with ire boils, rages, and blazes, and so tells him, “Now we shall see if a woman knows how to deliver blows to match the shooter of arrows, and if he will know how to parry them.” So saying, while he tries to nock his second arrow, quickly with her rapier so fiercely she went to strike him on the helmet that she made him lean down stunned on the saddlebow. Not entirely satisfied with that, speedy and bold she repeated the fierce blow, at which we saw Arminio grow pale.

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282 Celinda, A Tragedy Non versò il sangue no, ma ben esangue Parve a gli atti, al color, né più reggendo Co ’l spirto afflitto gli smarriti sensi, Giù del destrier cadeo, battendo ’l fianco Sovra ’l duro terren. Al cader suo Scese Lucinia, e affrettossi e corse Là v’ei giacea, slacciogli l’elmo e vide Ch’ei pur viveva, onde così gli disse: “Eccoti, o cavalier, eccoti ormai, Né ’l puoi negar, ne le mie man tua vita. Ma vuò però che da la stessa destra Da cui sovra ’l tuo capo Scese il gran colpo ancor pietà discenda.” Sì parla, e mentre sollevarlo intende, Ecco Itaco venire, barbaro e fiero, E lei sfidar, che l’omicida crede Del già caduto Arminio, a morte acerba. Ella venir impetuoso il mira, La custodia d’Arminio a me commette, Che quasi semivivo anco a le tende Fei trasportar, fei custodir, e ’n tanto Che con novo soccorso a lei ritorno Con Itaco la vedo in fiera ciuffa. Stilla da l’armi in più d’un loco il sangue, Ma quelle del pagan son già vermiglie. Corre precipitoso, e con la spada M’apro la strada si che tosto arrivo, Non bramato soccorso, al grave assalto. Alzo la destra e ’l barbaro feroce Cred’io ferir, ma la guerriera invitta Magnanima in suo cuor, non men che forte (Maraviglia a ridir) su ’l proprio scudo Tolse il mio colpo e poi con bieco sguardo A me rivolta, disse: “Esser vogl’io, Come sola a la pugna, a l’onor sola. Tu da mostrar trova tue forze altrove.” E replicando al suo nemico i colpi

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Celinda, A Tragedy 283 He did not shed blood, no, but certainly bloodless he appeared from his acts and his color, and no longer in control (with his spirit afflicted) of his scattered wits. Down from his destrier he fell, striking his flank on the hard ground. At his fall Lucinia dismounted, and rushed and ran there where he was lying. She unlatched his helmet and saw that he still lived, so she said to him: “Here you are, O knight, here you are now. You cannot deny it; in my hands is your life. But I choose, however, that from the same right hand with which upon your head descended the great blow, also pity shall descend.” So she says; and while to raise him up she intends, here comes Itaco, barbarous and fierce, and he challenges her, the murderer (as he believes) of the fallen Arminio, to bitter death. She watches him come impetuously. Custody of Arminio to me she hands over; I had him, still as if half-alive, to the tents transported, I had him guarded. Meanwhile, when with new succor to her I return, with Itaco I see her in a fierce clash. From her armor in more than one place there drips blood, but that of the pagan is already vermilion. I run precipitously, and with my sword I open a path so that soon I arrive, undesired help, at the intense combat. I raise my right hand, and the ferocious barbarian I believe I’ll wound—but the undefeated battle-maid, in her heart magnanimous no less than strong, (marvelous to relate) upon her own shield took my blow, and then with a cross look, to me turned and said, “I want to be, just as I am alone in the fight, in the honors also alone. To show your own strength, find somewhere else.” And redoubling upon her enemy her blows,

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284 Celinda, A Tragedy In breve spazio lo condusse a tale Che difendersi ormai nulla poteva. Ella grida che ceda e si dia vinto, Egli ricusa, ella l’incalza. Alfine Vinto riman ne la vittoria invitto, Ch’anzi eleggea morir che d’una donna Vinto chiamarsi a tutto il campo a fronte. Cosi venne in poter de la donzella Il feroce campion. Ella a me volse Che con Arminio in guardia egli si desse Perché ambo a vostra altezza Fossero per mia man in don recati. Io quì ne venni. Altro di più narrarle De la pugna o del campo io non saprei.

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Coro O generoso ardir d’invitta donna D’opere sovra umane e memorande! Alcandro Voglio andarmene al campo e spero tosto Tornar lieto messaggio Di felice vittoria. Se altro ordinar le aggrada, Eccomi ad ubbedirla. Celinda Altro sol che Lucinia Salutate in mio nome e ringraziate Del generoso don, del gran favore, E dirle che da Marte io le riprego Compita sorte al marzial principio, E che qual mi promise, al padre sempre Stia unita ne i perigli.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 285 in a brief period of time she conducted him to such a state that he could do nothing to defend himself. She shouts for him to give up and admit defeat. He refuses; she presses him. In the end defeated, he remains victorious, undefeated, for he elected to die sooner than in front of the whole field to declare himself defeated by a woman. Thus did he come into the power of the damsel.123 That fierce champion she to me turned over, so that with Arminio under guard he would be placed, so that both to Your Highness by my hand as a gift would be brought. I came here. Nothing else to relate to you of the battle or of the field would I know.

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Chorus of Lydian Soldiers Oh generous boldness of a victorious lady, what deeds superhuman and memorable! Alcandro I want to go back to the field, and I hope soon to return as a delighted messenger of happy victory. If to order otherwise should please you, I am ready to obey you. Celinda Otherwise only in that Lucinia you must greet in my name; and thank her for the generous gift, for the great favor; and tell her that to Mars for her I raise constant prayers for a favorable outcome to the martial beginning; and that (just as she promised me) with my father always let her stay united among perils.

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286 Celinda, A Tragedy Alcandro Tanto farò se ben fora soverchio Il dubbio e il ricordo Ov’è fede cotanta.

SCENA OTTAVA CORIMBO, CONSIGLIERO

Corimbo Il dono che dal campo Ha mandato Lucinia Può dirsi che sia stato Un vivo lampo de la sua virtute, Un chiaro raggio del valor de’ nostri, Una grand’arra di vittoria certa. Consigliero Sì come il lampo suol co ’l suo splendore Che nato appena, muore, Minacciar rinascendo Nembi d’irato ciel, d’aspre tempeste, Temo non siano i due prigioni appunto Come lampo comparsi Di morte e di ruine empi messaggi. Corimbo Di minacciante ciel è sempre il lampo Nunzio funesto al mondo, E pur da ciel sereno, Da favorevol marte, Balenò ’l lampo fuori Dietro a cui non ancora Son comparse le pioggie o le tempeste, Né de morti o feriti alcun s’è visto.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 287 Alcandro I will do it, although excessive is your doubt, and the reminder, where there is fidelity so great.

SCENE EIGHT CORIMBO, COUNSELOR

Corimbo The gift that from the battlefield Lucinia sent, one can say it was a vivid lightning bolt of her virtue, a bright ray of the valor of our men, a rich pledge of certain victory. Counselor Just as the lightning bolt does with its splendor (for as soon as it’s born it dies), carrying with its rebirth the threat of the rain clouds of wrathful Heaven, of harsh tempests— I fear that the two prisoners have precisely like lightning appeared, as of death and of ruin the cruel messengers. Corimbo Of threatening Heaven always the lightning is the baleful announcer to the world. And yet from a serene Heaven, from a favorable Mars, the lightning flashed out, behind which not yet have appeared rains or tempests; neither deaths nor any wounded have we seen.

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288 Celinda, A Tragedy Consigliero Se dopo ’l lampo, i tuoni Nascono dove ’l ciel rimbomba e freme E spezzando le nubi il folgor piomba, Così nel campo combattendo l’uno Esercito con l’altro, a poco a poco Balenando e tonando, Minacciando e ferendo, Tanti ne restan morti Che sbaragliato alfine Conquassato ei ne resta, e come insomma Un folgorato tetto ei cade a terra. Corimbo Spesso ho veduto ancora D’imperversato ciel quetarsi l’ira Ed in segno di pace Iris scoprirsi Tutta ridente e rugidosa ’l grembo, E d’oro e di rubin fregiato ’l lembo Per le piagge del cielo Con pacifica mano intorno intorno Ir promettendo pace a noi mortali. Consigliero Ma se ’l nostro buon re (che siano lunge, Ohimè, li tristi auguri!) entro ’l conflitto Del fiero marte rimanesse estinto, Che giovarebbe a noi L’esser poi vincitori? Che giovarebbe a timidetto armento Di semplicetti agnelli Aver del lupo reo l’ira fuggita Con perdita infelice del pastore? Non fora un raddoppiar il fier dolore? Se parimente il regno Folgorato cadesse E ’l re preso nel campo,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 289 Counselor If after the lightning, thunderclaps are born where Heaven booms and shudders, and piercing through the clouds the lightning flash plummets; just so in the field, battling the one army against the other, little by little, flashing and thundering, threatening and wounding, so many end up dead that, routed in the end, the army remains shattered and, in short, like a lightning-struck roof it falls to earth. Corimbo Often I have seen as well raging Heaven’s wrath quiet down, and in a sign of peace Iris is revealed, all smiling and dewy with her lap and her border with gold and rubies decorated, and through the shores of the sky, with a pacific hand, everywhere around she goes, promising peace to us mortals.124 Counselor But if our good king (far away, ah me! may the evil omens stay) in the conflict of the fierce war met his demise, what good would it do us to be then the victors? What good would it do a timid flock of simple little lambs to have the cruel wolf ’s wrath driven away, with the unhappy loss of the shepherd? Would it not be a redoubling of fierce grief? If similarly the kingdom, lightning-struck, fell, and the king were captured in the field,

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290 Celinda, A Tragedy Ben che ne la cittade Quasi belanti agnelli entro l’ovile Noi restassimo vivi, Non sarebbe un provare Quante ha l’abisso tormentose pene? Vagliami ’l ver, Corimbo, S’io vo pensando quanto Vada ’l ciel minacciando a questo regno, Parmelo già veder senza sostegno, Caduto e dissipato. Corimbo Signor, il parlar vostro Per lo senno, per gli anni ormai sì saggio Che mentir già non suole M’ha di cotanto orror il cor ripieno Che di veder mi sembra oggi ’l nemico Dentro de la cittade, E rapita la reggia e de’ tesori Di sua vittoria trionfar altero, E noi tutti in poter di lui caduti. Consigliero Quando che questo abbi prescritto ’l cielo, Corimbo mio, sappiate Che non puote più saggia e degna impresa Abbracciar un ch’abbi servito in corte Per restar immortal dopo la morte, Che sempre ne la fede Al suo signor mostrarsi invitto e forte, E prima di morir elegger deve Che ne la sorte avversa esser infido. Corimbo Verso ’l mio re tal m’ho mostrato sempre, E non v’è ne la corte,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 291 even if in the city, like bleating lambs in the sheepfold, we remained alive, would it not be to experience all the abyss’s painful torments? May the truth avail me, Corimbo; if I think how much Heaven is threatening this kingdom, I seem to see it already without support, fallen and vanished. Corimbo Lord, your speech, that for your wisdom and years by now is so wise, that to lies is certainly not accustomed, has filled my heart with so much horror that I seem to see today the enemy inside the city and the royal palace captured, and over the treasures of his victory he gloats proudly, and all of us into his power fallen. Counselor If this is ordained by Heaven, my Corimbo, know that one who has served in the court cannot embrace a wiser and worthier enterprise, in order to remain immortal after death, than always in loyalty to his lord to show himself undefeated and strong, and sooner to die he must elect than in adverse fortune to be disloyal. Corimbo Toward my king such a one I have shown myself always, and there is no one in the court,

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292 Celinda, A Tragedy Se non sete quell’un forse voi solo, A cui di fedeltà cedessi il loco. Consigliero E ciò m’è noto pur che anco fanciullo, De la prima lanugine fiorito Non avevate il mento, allor ch’in corte Del nostro re voi diveniste paggio Molto amato da lui, grato ad ognuno, E più d’ogn’altro a la regina estinta (Ahi, trista rimembranza!) Che, da che spenta giacque, Sempre di mal in peggio è gito il regno. Corimbo Vogliamo creder dunque Per la perdita sua ch’a questo regno Tantosto siano nate Tante ruine e tante turbulenze? Non son già queste guerre Né dal padre di lei né da i fratelli Mosse contra la Lidia? Consigliero Or non sapete voi che le consorti, Fedeli a lor mariti E d’onor e d’amor calde e zelanti, Si come l’acqua suol che ’l foco estingue Ammorzan le lor ire, E co ’l dolce parlar, co ’i modi accorti Li riducon al bene, Li ritraggon dal mal co ’i lor consigli? Io vo certo pensando Che se vivesse la regina nostra, Donna di tanti merti, Non sarian forse scorse Tante precipitose e gran ruine

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Celinda, A Tragedy 293 unless perhaps you are that one alone, to whom in loyalty I would cede the primacy. Counselor And it is known to me as well, that as a boy (the first down had not sprouted on your chin back then), in the court of our king you became a page much loved by him, liked by everyone, and more than any other by the deceased queen— ah, sad memory! for since she passed away always from bad to worse the kingdom has gone. Corimbo Shall we believe therefore that, because of her loss, in this kingdom so quickly have arisen so much ruin and so much turbulence? Surely these wars neither by her father nor her brothers are waged against Lydia? Counselor Now don’t you know that consorts faithful to their husbands, and both for honor and for love hot and zealous, just like water which extinguishes fire, mitigate their husband’s rages, and with sweet speech, with clever ways, they lead them back to good, they draw them back from evil with their counsels? I am certain in thinking that if our queen lived (a lady of so many merits), so many precipitous and great disasters perhaps would not have occurred,

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294 Celinda, A Tragedy Perché co ’l suo parlar saggio e discreto Avria rimosso il nostro re in gran parte A così strano affetto, Che come picciol angue Da lui nodrito ed allevato in vezzi Non sarebbe cresciuto a quell’etade, Cui giunto e guerra gli minaccia e morte. Corimbo Ah, volete accennar, signor, v’intendo, Or di quella Lucinia, Damigella di corte? Come ben v’apponesti! Anch’io non meno V’ho pensato più volte, E sallo ’l ciel c’ho lagrimato udendo Che questa tal donna vagante e folle Lo scettro abbi a tener di Lidia e ’l manto, Ed imperar come regina e donna.

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Consigliero Misero a che soggetto È quest’uomo nel mondo, Che del proprio disnor vago diviene E stima ’l vero ben tormenti e pene! Corimbo Certo può dirsi Amore Non ben desio di bello Che fonte di dolore; È la cagion seconda Che di pianto e di duol il regno inonda. Quella Lucinia è sola In Efeso, nudrita infesta fera, C’ha mosso al regno guerra. O più cruda del mostro Ch’Alcide vinse in Creta, O più feroce del leon Nemeo,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 295 because with her speech both wise and reasonable she would have dissuaded our king in great part from so strange an affection125 which, like a little serpent by him nourished and raised among caresses, would not have grown to that age when it threatens him with both war and death. Corimbo Ah, you want now, lord, I understand you, to indicate that Lucinia, a maiden of the court. How well you focused on her. I too no less have thought about it many times, and Heaven knows I have wept upon hearing that this woman, such a wanderer and deranged, will come to hold Lydia’s scepter and mantle, and to rule as its queen and lady.

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Counselor To what misery is subjected this man in the world! Of his own dishonor he becomes desirous, and he deems the true good to be torments and pains. Corimbo Certainly one can say love is not indeed the desire for beauty, but the source of grief. It is the secondary cause that with weeping and grief the kingdom is inundated. It is that Lucinia alone in Ephesus, a well-nourished and harmful wild beast, who has upon the kingdom waged war. Oh, more cruel than the monster that Hercules defeated in Crete, oh, more ferocious than the Nemean lion

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296 Celinda, A Tragedy E più di Lerna assai Con tanti e tanti capi orribil angue Ch’alfin domati furo! Ma tu, pria che domata Rimanghi, rimarrà pria desolata Questa misera terra. Consigliero Prepariamosi pure a strage, a morti, A miserie, a ruine; Ma con la fedeltate ognor inanti Serbisi fede al nostro re pur sempre, Che questo è quanto ch’io pretendo e voglio Mi sia dopo la morte ultimo onore. Corimbo A me sia pregio eterno Del mio longo servir morte fedele. Ma ditemi per grazia, avete inteso Il precipizio di quel gran colosso, Pompa de la gran piazza, Portentoso prodigio e lagrimoso Spettacolo a vedersi? Consigliero E chi non l’ha de la cittade udito? Segno infausto per certo Fu ’l cader del colosso Per lo cui ruinar piegossi l’arco, Risentissi il palagio, E tal fu ’l gran rimbombo Ch’ognun pensò che la città cadesse. Strinsero i figli il collo Con le tenere mani a le lor madri, E si strinser le madri i figli al seno; Sgomentata la plebe Ne sospirò, ne pianse.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 297 and far more than Lerna’s many, many-headed horrible serpent,126 for in the end they were tamed— but you, before tamed you will be, this wretched land will first be left desolate. Counselor Let us prepare ourselves by all means for massacre and death, for miseries, for ruin. But with faithfulness always before us, let loyalty to our king be preserved always, for this is what I claim and intend will be after death my ultimate honor. Corimbo For me a monument everlasting for my long service will be a faithful death.127 But tell me, please, have you heard of the sudden collapse of that great Colossus, the pride of the great piazza, a portentous wonder and a tearful spectacle to see? Counselor And who in the city has not heard? An ominous sign most certainly was the fall of the Colossus. At its crash the arch buckled; the palace felt the effects; and so great was the boom that everyone thought the city was falling.128 Children clutched the necks, with their tender hands, of their mothers, and mothers clutched children to their breasts. Dismayed, the plebeians sighed at it and wept.

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298 Celinda, A Tragedy Li fanciulli gridando Andorno in gran fretta a la ruina, E fanciullescamente ognun pigliando Di quella calce e di quei picciol sassi Feron due schiere, e d’una Nel mezzo l’un si pose Rappresentando il nostro re, ne l’altra L’altro rappresentossi il re de’ Persi. E così combattendo Spiccò da fiomba un sasso Uno di lor, e di tal colpo colse Quel ch’esser si fingeva il re di Lidia, Che tramortito egli cadeo nel piano, Donde non si levò s’afflitta e mesta Non v’occorse la madre, Che visto del suo figlio il fine acerbo Nov’Ecuba sembra a i gridi, al pianto. Son questi da tener fieri prodigi Del ciel, ma più mi duol che già saputo Il tutto avrà la principessa nostra, Onde per sollevarla Da i dolenti pensieri Fia meglio che con lei pietoso ufficio Facciamo, e con parole arte ed affetti Cerchiam sottrarla a li futuri oltraggi. Coro Ire, furori, sdegni, Strazi, ruine e morti, De le madri i lamenti e de le figlie, De i regi le miserie e de lor regni, Ancor che invitti e forti, Son veri parti de l’orribil guerra, Parto de l’aspre furie Sorta da i neri abissi Ad infettar la terra De i sanguinosi orridi frutti.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 299 Shouting boys went in a great hurry to the ruin, and childishly every one took up some of that lime and those little stones. They formed two bands, and in the middle of one, one boy took his position, representing our king; in the other another boy represented the king of the Persians. And so, in battling, one of them a stone hurled from a sling, and with such a blow hit that one who was pretending to be the king of Lydia that, stunned, he fell to the ground. From there he would not have risen if his afflicted and sad mother had not run over to him; having seen her son’s bitter end, she seems a new Hecuba by her shouts, her weeping.129 These are frightful and fierce wonders from Heaven, but more I sorrow that already our princess will have found out everything. Therefore, to relieve her from her grievous thoughts, it would be better that with her a compassionate duty we fulfill, and with words, artfulness, and affection we try to insulate her from future outrages. Chorus of Ladies Kings, furors, scorns, torments, ruins, and death, laments of mothers and daughters, the miseries of kings and of their kingdoms, even when they are victorious and strong, are the true offspring of horrible war. The offspring of the harsh Furies, war—risen up from the black abysses to infect the earth with its bloody, horrid harvest.

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300 Celinda, A Tragedy Ma dove trascorriam misere? Dove Troppo affetto ci move? E qual di mente insano Sarà che non comprenda i gran decreti Ordinati dal cielo, E chi non vede che da giusta mano De l’altissimo Giove Tutte son mosse queste azioni umane? Placido Euro non spira, oppur furioso Fremer l’onda non fa, né cade foglia Dal materno suo stelo, Né si cangiano i scettri o gli ori o gli ostri Se pria non lo concede Il gran fattor de li stellati chiostri Al qual mandiam co ’l cor divoto e puro Nostre preghiere e voci, Che da l’arme nemiche aspre e feroci Ci rendi ’l re sicuro; Né voglia in quella guisa Che i principi nemici Son venuti prigioni, A lui far perder libertate e regno. E se da giusto sdegno Ben fosse mosso per commessi errori Umilmente ’l preghiam che sopra noi Folgori e piova i giusti sdegni suoi.

Atto Quinto SCENA PRIMA MESSO, CORO

Messo Ohimè, lasso, infelice, Qual è del mar la più profonda terra Che mi s’apri o m’inghoi, o qual almeno

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Celinda, A Tragedy 301 But wretched us, where are we rushing? Where does too much affection move us? And who is so infirm in her mind that she does not understand the great decrees ordered by Heaven? And who does not see that by the just hand of highest Jove are set in motion all these actions of humans? Placidly the sirocco130 does not blow or furiously it does not make the waves shake, nor falls the leaf from its maternal stem, nor do scepters change, nor gold nor the royal purple, if first it is not permitted by the great Maker of the starry cloisters. To Him we send, with hearts devoted and pure, our prayers and entreaties that from the enemies’ weapons both harsh and ferocious He will return us our king safe; and that He will not wish, in the same fashion that the princely enemies came here as prisoners, to cause our king to lose his liberty and kingdom. And if by just wrath indeed He is moved, because of errors someone committed, humbly we pray Him that upon us He blast down and rain down His just wrath.

Act Five SCENE ONE LYDIAN MESSENGER, CHORUS OF LADIES

Lydian Messenger Ah me, wretched, unhappy me! Which is the sea’s deepest region? Let it open for me! Either let it swallow me up, or at least

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302 Celinda, A Tragedy Più riposta caverna oggi m’asconde D’Efeso antica! Ahi, cara e bella Cittade un tempo sì felice tanto, Qual mio fato crudel permette, ahi, lasso, Che ti pianga caduta e ruinata? Già il superbo Patol di sangue miste Ha l’onde che già fur sì cristalline Nel qual vi si scorgea l’arena d’oro, E dove furon prima Le coltivate terre, Corron di sangue i rivi, E dove fu bel piano S’ergono monti di morti infino al cielo. Insomma altro non sembra la campagna Ch’un oceano immenso In cui con strani modi, Con terror non creduto, Di sangue è l’onda e son di membra i scogli. Là vedi in varie guise Languir i semivivi Sotto pallor di morte E gl’insepolti corpi, Ch’a se stessi pietosi Son di se stessi in un feretro e tomba. Là vedi in varie forme Gir trionfando morte, E sol esser pietosa Ove maggior è l’impietate altrui. Miseri cittadini, Sfortunati pupilli, Vergini sconsolate, Povere madri afflitte, addolorate! Coro Amico? qual ria sorte Ti fa sì sconsolato?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 303 like the profoundest of caverns today let it hide me. Of Ephesus the ancient and dear—ah, most dear!—and beautiful city, at one time so happy, what cruel fate permits me, alas! to weep over you, fallen and ruined? Already the superb Patol has mixed with blood its waves, which formerly were so crystalline, where one used to descry the sand all golden.131 And where previously were cultivated lands, there run bloody streams; and where there used to be a fair plain, mountains of dead men rise up to the sky. In short, not otherwise does the countryside seem than an immense ocean where in strange ways, with unbelievable terror, bloody are the waves, and limbs form the cliffs. There you see in various fashions the half-alive, languishing under the pallor of death; and the unburied bodies that, toward themselves pitiful, are of themselves at the same time coffin and tomb. There you see in various forms Death going in triumph, and only being pitiful where greatest is the pitilessness of others. Wretched citizens, unfortunate wards, disconsolate virgins, poor mothers afflicted and grieving! Chorus of Ladies Friend? What evil fate makes you so disconsolate?

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304 Celinda, A Tragedy Non ti sia grave il dirci Di tanto tuo dolor l’alta cagione. Messo Donne, donne, fuggite, Fuggite di vedermi E schifate d’udirmi, Ché son furia d’inferno, orrido mostro, Che porto acceso in questi lumi il foco, E ne la lingua una tagliente spada.

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Coro Ha forse vinto l’inimico altero? Misere, qual soccorso Avrem per nostro scampo? Messo La principessa io cerco (Dove fia ’l consigliero?) Perché ne l’alta rocca Con le donne maggior de la cittade La riduca in sicuro Perch’il nemico ognor più divien forte, E ’l numero de’ nostri è giunto a tale Ch’in poco d’ora annoverar potrassi. Già caduta è Lucinia, Mortalmente ferita Per man del re de’ Persi, Ch’a guisa di Molosso il fine attende De la bramata preda, E di sbranarla vago, ormai non cessa Per farsela prigion, ma indarno tenta, Che ’l nostro re, di lei fido custode, Glielo divieta, e tiene in sua difesa Ben pochi sì, ma cavalier pregiati, Non poco avanzo d’infelice guerra.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 305 Let it not be too heavy a burden for you to tell us the momentous cause of your great grief. Lydian Messenger Ladies, ladies, flee! Flee the sight of me, and avoid hearing me, for I am a Fury from Hell, a horrid monster! I carry in these eyes a burning fire and in my tongue a sharp sword.

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Chorus of Ladies Has the proud enemy perhaps won? Wretched us! What help will we have for our safe escape? Lydian Messenger The princess I seek. Where might be the Counselor? So that in the high fortress with the greatest ladies of the city he may arrange for her safety, because the enemy constantly becomes stronger and the number of our people has reached the point where shortly one will be able to count them. Already fallen is Lucinia, mortally wounded by the hand of the king of the Persians, who in the fashion of a Molossian hound attends to the end of the desired prey.132 Desirous of tearing her to pieces, now he does not cease his efforts to take her prisoner. But in vain he attempts it, for our king, her loyal guardian, forbids it; and he keeps in her defense few men indeed, but they are esteemed knights, not an inconsiderable remnant of an unlucky war.

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306 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro O sfortunata terra, o infausto giorno, O misera Lucinia, O più misero il re, se vinto ei cade! Misere noi meschine, Povere cittadine! Messo Andrò dunque in palagio Per avvisar la principessa nostra Di quanto è succeduto, e ’l consigliero.

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SCENA SECONDA CELINDA, CORO, NUTRICE

Celinda Dove mi guida il pianto? Ove il dolore? Quivi afflitta la madre Del già morto fanciul veder mi sembra, Di là le gran ruine Del caduto colosso De’ miei futuri danni infausti messi; Né perché quinci io già venuta sia Veggo alcun che m’apporti Qualche nova del campo. Coro Signora, con gran fretta Poco anzi fa dal campo a voi sen venne Tutto anelante in vista un messaggiero. Celinda De’ nostri oppur nemico? Coro Era amico e de’ nostri.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 307 Chorus of Ladies Oh unfortunate land, oh ill-omened day! Oh wretched Lucinia, oh even more wretched the king if defeated he falls! Wretched us, puny poor citizens! Lydian Messenger I shall go therefore to the palace to inform our princess of what has happened, and also the Counselor.

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SCENE TWO CELINDA, CHORUS OF LADIES, NURSE

Celinda Where does weeping lead me? Where grief? Over here the afflicted mother of the already dead boy I seem to see; over there the great ruins of the fallen Colossus; of my future harm the ill-omened messengers. Although I have indeed come here, I see no one who might bring me any news of the battlefield. Chorus of Ladies Lady, with great hurry a short time ago from the field to you came, apparently exhausted, a messenger. Celinda One of ours, or an enemy? Chorus of Ladies He was a friend, and one of ours.

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308 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Non più; ché ’l vostro pianto, Fide mie cittadine, M’ha fatto noto l’ultime ruine. Che s’è inteso del padre? Morte forse o prigion? Ch’è di Lucinia? Coro Ha rotto Fulco il campo, Ma vivo il nostro re, il tuo gran padre, Combatte in dubbio marte E Lucinia ferita ancor difende. Celinda Quest’è del mio dolor l’ultima meta! O caro, o caro sposo, Almen prima ch’io mora Fa ch’esangue ti miri e teco io mora! Debbo girmene al campo Per vederlo dolente Fin che avviva mortale il suo bel spirto, E sovra il caro e delicato corpo Farle di questo mio l’esequie meste?

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Nutrice Ohimè, qual cose mai Direte figlia e mia signora amata?

SCENA TERZA SOLDATI CHE PORTANO LUCINIA, CELINDA, NUTRICE, CORO

Coro Ecco messi del campo Di nuovo, e nostra gente.

Celinda, A Tragedy 309 Celinda No more; for your weeping, my loyal citizens, has made known to me the ultimate ruin. What have you heard of my father? Death perhaps, or imprisonment? And what of Lucinia? Chorus of Ladies Fulco has broken the army, but our king is alive; your great father fights a battle of uncertain outcome, and the wounded Lucinia he still defends. Celinda This is my grief ’s final goal: O my dear, dear husband, at least before I die, make it so that I may see you bloodless, and with you I may die. Must I go to the battlefield to see him, suffering as long as his fair spirit enlivens his mortal body, and over the dear and delicate body perform for this my own body the sad funeral rites? Nurse Ah me, whatever will you say, my daughter and beloved lady?

SCENE THREE SOLDIERS BEARING LUCINIA, CELINDA, NURSE, CHORUS OF LADIES

Chorus of Ladies Here are messengers from the field again, and our people.

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310 Celinda, A Tragedy Soldato S’adagiato n’andrai Viva la condurrem dentro il palagio. Soldato Se più ordinata fosse Questa intricata barra D’intessuti tronconi e rotti fusti Senza incomodo alcun sarìa portata.

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Celinda Ohimè! Coro

Sosteniamola, nutrice!

Nutrice Ahi, lassa! Chi più mi tien in vita? O mia figliuola amata, O gran dolor che la conduce a morte.

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Coro Non disperar nutrice. Ecco che si risente. Celinda O spettacolo orrendo a gli occhi miei, O dolcissimo sposo, o cara vita, O mia gioia finita! Deh, fate, amiche donne, Al morto corpo del mio caro sposo Un feretro pietoso! 20 Lasciatelo, soldati, e ’n le lor braccia Abbi l’ultimo onore Che farle possi mai serva d’amore.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 311 Soldier 1 If slowly you go, we will conduct her alive into the palace. Soldier 2 If this bier, entangled with interwoven stumps and broken trunks, were more orderly, then without any difficulty she would be borne.

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Celinda Ah me! Chorus of Ladies Let us support her, Nurse. Nurse Alas! Who any longer keeps me alive? Oh my beloved little daughter, oh great sorrow that leads her to death!

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Chorus of Ladies Do not despair, Nurse. Look, she is coming to. Celinda Oh horrendous spectacle before my eyes! Oh most sweet husband, oh dear life! Oh my joy, ended! Please make, friendly ladies, for the dead body of my dear husband a pitiful coffin. Leave him, soldiers, and in their arms let him have the final honor that a servant of Love can ever do for him.

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312 Celinda, A Tragedy Soldato Io non credo che privo Sia questo corpo ancora Del generoso spirto, E sarà ben tornarlo Con rimedi opportuni a i primi uffici, Che ben lo merta quella Che ’n sì crudel battaglia Marte parve a la man, Venere al viso.

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Coro O dolorosa vista, o gran Lucinia, O lagrimevol peso a queste braccia, O dolorosa faccia! Celinda Che nova s’ha del padre? È anch’egli morto? Soldato Non è morto, ma pende Da debil fil sua vita, E la più vecchia figlia D’Erebo e de la notte Co’l coronato crin stagli vicina Onde possi a sua voglia A lui la vita, a noi toglier il duce. Ma andiam, che farem scudo De’ nostri al regio petto. Celinda Autilio, mio signor, è questo, ahi, lassa, Quel nodo, ohimè, quel nodo, Co’l qual ambi sperammo Esser uniti in compagnia di vita? Queste ferite, ohimè, son la corona Che superba sperai veder un tempo Cinger le chiome vostre? E questi rivi

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Celinda, A Tragedy 313 Soldier 1 I believe that not yet is this body deprived of its generous spirit, and it will be possible to return it with opportune remedies to its earlier duties. Certainly she deserves it, who in so cruel a battle seemed Mars in her hand, Venus in her visage.

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Chorus of Ladies Oh sorrowful sight, oh great Lucinia, oh tearful weight in these arms, oh sorrowful face. Celinda What news do you have of my father? Is he also dead? Soldier 2 He is not dead, but his life by a weak thread is hanging. The eldest daughter of Erebus and Night,133 with her crowned locks, stays nearby, so that she might at will remove from him life, from us our leader. But let us go, for we will shield his royal breast with our own. Celinda This is Autilio, my lord, wretched me! That knot, alas, that knot with which we both hoped to be united as companions for life? These wounds, alas, are the crown that I proudly hoped to see in time surround your locks? And these rivulets

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314 Celinda, A Tragedy Di sangue son le gemme ed i rubini Che fregiarla dovean? Son questi lumi Quei ch’aperti già furo emuli al sole? Son queste quelle labbra, Quelle che già mi dier sì dolci baci Ch’or mi porgon ferite? E sono queste Mani del proprio sangue E del nemico tinte, Queste che or son serrate Scarse a picciol favore? Son quelle, ohimè, che m’annodaro il core? O chiome, o fronte, o lumi, O labbra, o guancie, o mani, Care ministre già del mio gioire, Com’esser può ch’in disusate forme Siate cagion di pene e di martire? Nutrice Ecco che al suon de le dolenti note, Quasi nova Euridice, Risorge l’infelice. Lucinia Dove sono, in quai braccia? Vicino a la mia vita? O felice partita, O degna e nobil morte, Pomposo funeral, felice sorte Morrò dunque e ’l mio sole In bocca accoglierà l’anima mia? E mi chiuderan gli occh’ i bianchi avori, Troncheran le parole i dolci baci, E sia ver ch’or m’abbracci La mia sposa e signora? Deh, fa, deh, fa ch’io mora! Fallo, cara ferita, Che morte non mi sia, ma dolce vita!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 315 of blood are the gems and rubies that were supposed to decorate it? Are these eyes the ones which, when open, formerly emulated the sun? Are these those lips, the ones that formerly gave me such sweet kisses, which now offer me wounds? And are these hands, with their own blood and the enemy’s stained, these which now are clenched, reluctant with even a small favor? Are they those, alas, which knotted up my heart? Oh tresses, oh forehead, oh eyes, oh lips, oh cheeks, oh hands that were once the dear ministers of my rejoicing, how can it be that in unaccustomed forms you are now the cause of pains and torment? Nurse Behold, at the sound of these sorrowful notes,134 like a new Eurydice,135 the unhappy one stirs again. Lucinia Where am I, in what hands? Near to my life? Oh happy departure, oh worthy and noble death, magnificent funeral, happy fate! Therefore I shall die, and my sun into her mouth will welcome my soul. The white ivories136 will close my eyes; sweet kisses will cut short my words. And can it be true that now she embraces me, my wife and lady? Oh come, come make me die; do it, dear wound, for my death it will not be, but rather sweet life.

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316 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice Signora, a l’alta voce, Al fermo favellare Certo che non appare In lui segni di morte.

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Coro O ciel pietoso, Fa che quel colpo rio mortal non sia! Celinda Io dunque avrei creduto Ch’in alcun tempo mai Voi foste a gli occhi miei stato noioso? E che per non mirarvi Cieca m’avessi desiata? Ahi, lumi, O mio languido sol ch’ancor m’accende, U’ sono i raggi del sereno ciglio, Donde il vermiglio de le rosee labbra? Care labbra amorose Replicatemi un don anzi il morire. Ditemi: mori; e poi Morta mi vedrete a’ piedi suoi! Coro Egli è più soprapreso Da la stanchezza e da l’uscito sangue Che non è da le piaghe. A queste si rimedi, e adopriamsi Per trattenerli quello, Per ristorarlo insieme Fin che a perita cura egli si dia. Autilio Quanto istimo felice Oggi mia morte, o mia signora e sposa, Poscia che in braccio a voi

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Celinda, A Tragedy 317 Nurse Lady, from his strong voice, from his firm speech, there certainly do not appear in him signs of death.

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Chorus of Ladies O compassionate Heaven, make it so that that cruel blow be not mortal. Celinda How could I have believed that at any time ever to my eyes you would be bothersome? And in order not to look upon you, I would wish myself blind? Oh, suffering eyes! O my languid sun that still burns me, where are the rays of your serene brow? Where the vermilion of your rosy lips? Dear, loving lips, repeat to me a gift before dying. Tell me; let him die; and then you will see me dead at his feet. Chorus of Ladies He is more overcome by fatigue and lost blood than by his wounds. Let the latter be tended, and let us set to work to stanch the bleeding, to refresh him as well, until to an expert’s care he may be given. Autilio Today how happy do I judge my death, O my lady and wife, since in your arms,

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318 Celinda, A Tragedy Dentro de la cittade, Per man del proprio padre, Avrà il mio viver fine. Si mandi al campo frettoloso un messo Prima che altra sciagura Intendiamo, signora, Il qual al re, mio padre, Facci saper ch’è ritrovato il figlio, E che tantosto quinci Venga, se vivo il vuol ne le sue mani.

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Celinda Va tu, nutrice, e non badar. Nutrice Io vado.

SCENA QUARTA LUCINIA, CELINDA, CORO, MESSO

Messo Come d’un tanto regno appar fra l’altre Città questa superba? O come illustre D’architettura e de’ bei marmi è adorna Che s’io non erro a la superba reggia, Cui fan vaghezza quest’eccelse loggie, Le piramidi ancor ch’in alto s’ergon Sembran non lievi cose, Per cui sia ricco e di gran spoglie adorno Il gran trionfo del signor de’ Persi, E quel fiume, ch’ancor li smirnei campi Bagna, irrigando con arena d’oro Va in questa gran cittade. Ma per qual strada introdurrommi dentro A la magion regale Ove di pianto e sangue

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Celinda, A Tragedy 319 inside the city, by the hand of my own father, my life will come to its end. Send to the battlefield an urgent messenger, before, my lady, we hear of some other misfortune. Let him inform the king my father that his son has been found, and that immediately here he must come if he wants him living in his hands.

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Celinda You go, Nurse, and do not delay. Nurse

I go.

SCENE FOUR LUCINIA, CELINDA, CHORUS OF LADIES, PERSIAN MESSENGER

Persian Messenger How does this superb city, of so great a kingdom, among the other cities compare? Oh, how illustrious with architecture and with lovely marbles it is adorned! If I do not err, compared to the superb royal palace, rendered charming by these outstanding loggias, 5 the pyramids, even though high they tower, seem not light things.137 For this the great triumph of the lord of the Persians will be rich and with great spoils adorned, and that river which still bathes the fields 10 of Smyrna138 is irrigating with sands of gold this great city. But by what street shall I enter into the royal dwelling? Where of tears and blood 15

320 Celinda, A Tragedy Devon correr i rivi, ov’al dolore Deve parer una novella Dite, Un Cocito Infernale, un Flegetonte? Ma non son quelle donne, Donne de la cittade e del palagio? O là, donne di Fulco, Non più di Cubo, prigioniere sete. Si rendi ognuna al nostro re vincente, Ed a quella Lucinia, che gran pezza Il campo ha sostenuto in armi avvolta Co ’l suo sovran valor, con la sua destra, A quella fate or or che sia introdotto.

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Coro Questa è colei che tu ricerchi. Messo Questa? Celinda Se questo sparso sangue, Questa aperta ferita Testimoni esser pon degni di fede, Eccola, che dimandi? Qual cosa vuoi da lei? Chi t’ha mandato? Messo L’ invincibile Perso, Fulco, il distruggitor di tanti regni, Il domator de’ barbari tiranni, A te mi manda con cotesto dono, Generosa guerriera. Celinda Ohimè, che sarà questo?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 321 must the streams run? Where for sorrow must there appear a new Dis,139 an infernal Cocytus, a Phlegethon?140 But aren’t those ladies, ladies of the city and of the palace? Ho, ladies of Fulco, no longer Cubo’s, you are prisoners. Let everyone surrender herself to our victorious king. And that Lucinia who for a good while upheld the field, in armor enveloped, with her supreme valor, with her right hand, before her immediately let me be brought.

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Chorus of Ladies This woman is the one you seek. Persian Messenger This woman? Celinda If this sprinkled blood, this open wound can be witnesses worthy of trust. Here she is; what do you ask? What do you want from her? Who sent you? Persian Messenger The invincible Persian, Fulco, destroyer of so many kingdoms, the subduer of barbarous tyrants, sends me to you with this gift, O brave woman warrior. Celinda Alas, what can this be?

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322 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro

Ohimè, infelice!

Lucinia Questo dono mi manda il re de’ Persi?

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Messo Questo, e prima che mori Saper desia come gradito l’hai. Lucinia Io non posso esplicar se pria no ’l miro Al tuo desir conforme altra risposta. Messo Eccolo. Lucinia Chi lo scopre?

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Celinda Par che ricusi il cor, neghi la mano Di far opra cotanta. Lucinia Figurate, signora, Veder cosa conforme A la gran crudeltà del fier nemico E a le sventure nostre anco conforme. Messo Figuratevi pur di veder cosa Degna del grand’ardir del cor di Fulco!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 323 Chorus of Ladies Ah me, what unhappiness! Lucinia This gift is sent me by the king of the Persians?

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Persian Messenger This; and before you die he wishes to know how you liked it. Lucinia I cannot elaborate on any answer in conformity with your desire, if first I do not see it. Persian Messenger Behold it. Lucinia Who will uncover it?

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Celinda It seems the heart refuses, the hand declines to do so momentous a deed. Lucinia Expect, my lady, to see something appropriate to the great cruelty of the fierce enemy, and to our misfortunes also appropriate. Persian Messenger Expect as well to see something worthy of the great boldness of the heart of Fulco.

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324 Celinda, A Tragedy Celinda Torna donde partisti, Messo, e non far che più dolente ancora Vadi quest’alma a ritrovar gli abissi.

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Lucinia Infelice signora, eccovi, ahi, lasso, Del padre vostro l’onorata testa! Celinda Di mio padre la testa Conviemmi anco mirar? O cara testa, O caro, o caro padre, Per cui tu generasti, Misero, dunque, sei di vita privo? O luci ingrate, luci Ché a vista così trista e miseranda Non vi chiudete in sempiterno sonno?

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Messo A voi manda la testa Il mio re vincitore, ed a costei Manda le mani e ’l core. Lucinia O generose mani, o invitto core! O d’inumanità doni ferigni!

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Celinda Mani infelici, mani Del mio gran genitor amate e care, Come di sangue tinte Chiaman sangue e vendetta! O troppo nobil core, e chi osò mai Sbranarti, ohimè, dal glorioso petto? O testa, o mani, o core Ministre sol di morte e di dolore!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 325 Celinda Go back where you came from, messenger, and do not make it so that more sorrowful yet this soul will go to find the Abyss.

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Lucinia Unhappy lady, behold, alas! your father’s honored head.141 Celinda My father’s head I must see also? O dear head, O dear, dear father. Because of the one you sired you are now wretchedly deprived of life? O ungrateful eyes, eyes that at a sight so sad and pitiable do not close in sempiternal sleep!

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Persian Messenger To you the head my king, the victor, sends; and to this woman he sends the hands and heart.142 Lucinia O generous hands, O indomitable heart, O bestial gifts of inhumanity!

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Celinda Unhappy hands, hands of my great father, hands beloved and dear, with blood stained, now do they call for blood and vengeance? O too-noble heart, and who dared ever to tear you, ah me! from his glorious breast? O head, O hands, O heart, ministers only of death and sorrow.143

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326 Celinda, A Tragedy Messo Questi ti manda Fulco, Perché sapendo quanto T’abbi già Cubo amata, E tu a vicenda abbi riamato lui, Vuol che queste reliquie Teco ne porti a li tartarei regni. Ed a voi questa testa Così troncata manda Perché v’andate disponendo in tutto Di non aver più padre e d’esser figlia Sol di Fulco istimate.

Celinda Queste sono le pompe Ch’a le mie nozze preparar veduto Ho da mille portenti? O padre, amato padre! O morta testa, o lacerata testa, O fronte, in cui splendeva Di gioie adorna una regal corona, Come oscurata sei di polve e sangue! Questa è la destra mano Che già ’l scettro solea stringere, questa Che aperta par che dica: “Figlia mia, cara figlia, ove ti lascio De l’inimico in preda?” No, ch’ io vengo, Padre, vengo a pagar co ’l mio morire L’ indegno tuo martire!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 327 Persian Messenger (to Celinda) These are sent you by Fulco because, knowing how much Cubo formerly loved you and you in return loved him back, he wants you to carry with you these relics to the Tartarean realms. (to Lucinia) And to you this head, cut off as it is, he sends so that you will dispose yourself completely to have no more father, and to deem yourself only Fulco’s daughter. Celinda These are the decorations that to prepare my nuptials I saw from a thousand portents? O father, beloved father, O dead head, O lacerated head, O forehead on which shone adorned with jewels a regal crown, how is it you are obscured with dust and blood? This is the right hand that formerly was accustomed to hold the scepter—this which, open, appears to say, “Daughter, my dear daughter, where do I leave you, in prey to the enemy?” No, for I am coming, father, I am coming, with my death to pay for your unworthy torment.

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328 Celinda, A Tragedy SCENA QUINTA FULCO, SOLDATI, CELINDA, LUCINIA, CORO, NUTRICE

Fulco Pur entro trionfante in la cittade De l’inimico re vinto e caduto, Il qual co ’l proprio sangue, ahi, folle e stolto, Ha soddisfatto al temerario ardire, Innalzando di Persia il nome e ’l vanto! Ma più mi fa gioir l’alta speranza Del sacrato responso, Mentre promette ch’oggi Mi sia dato goder l’amata vista Del perduto mio figlio (Cara memoria e dolce!) Che sol nel rammentarla Senton riposo i pensier miei dolenti. Ma qual nume del cielo in me ravviva La speranza e ’l vigor in modo appunto Se trovato l’avessi? Ma che resta? Chi più ostarà a le vittrici forze? Su dunque, o miei fedeli, Si spiani questa reggia, Si ruini e si spianti Infin a i fondamenti, E sian vostri i tesori, Vostre le donne, tralasciando in queste Sola del morto re l’altera figlia Che sovra ’l carro del trionfo in Persia, Prigioniera legata, Voglio che sia guidata. Ma pria con diligenza Sia cercato ’l mio figlio.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 329 SCENE FIVE FULCO, PERSIAN SOLDIERS, CELINDA, LUCINIA, CHORUS OF LADIES, NURSE

Fulco Indeed I enter in triumph the city of the enemy king. Defeated and fallen, with his own blood, ah! mad and foolish, he has paid for his reckless daring, raising up Persia’s name and vaunt. But more I rejoice at the high hope from the sacred pronouncement, which promises that today it will be given me to enjoy the beloved sight of my lost son— a dear memory, and sweet, such that merely in calling it to mind, my sorrowful thoughts feel repose. But which god in Heaven revives my hope and vigor? Precisely as if I had found him? But what is he waiting for? Who any longer will hinder my victorious forces? Onward then, O my faithful ones! Level this royal palace. Let it be ruined and razed all the way down to the foundations. And let the treasures be yours, yours the women, excepting only the dead king’s proud daughter, who upon the triumphal chariot in Persia I want led as a bound prisoner. But first diligently seek out my son.

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330 Celinda, A Tragedy Lucinia Senza spianar la reggia, I tesori predar o le ricchezze, Ed offerir le donne, Quasi innocenti agnelle, A le brame de’ lupi, Eccoti, o padre, l’infelice figlio! Se ’l bramasti trovar, pur l’hai trovato, Se li desti la vita Come padre pietoso, Come nemico fiero Gli hai donato la morte; Se vivo l’hai trovato, Se vivo l’hai veduto, Tu non goderai già di questa vista! E come in un sol dì rinasce e more Il portator del giorno, Cosi ’l bramato figlio Oggi trovato sia, oggi perduto. Per man de la tua mano Cado vinto e ferito, E sia mortal il colpo: Autilio sono, Figlio di Fulco e successor di Persia, Congiunto a Lidia, e insomma Di questa gran signora unico sposo.

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Celinda Ahi, padre amato! Ahi, mio signor e sposo! Fulco Si fermi ognun. Donne, chi sia costei? Non è donna e guerriera, Vagante e concubina Stata di Cubo? Il ver non mi si celi.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 331 Lucinia Without leveling the palace, pillaging the treasures or riches, and offering the women like innocent lambs to the hungers of wolves, behold, O father, your unhappy son. If you desired to find him, indeed you have found him. If you gave him life like a compassionate father, like a fierce enemy you have given him death. If alive you have found him, if alive you have seen him, you will certainly not enjoy this sight. And as the bringer of daylight in a single day is reborn and dies, just so your desired son today will be found, and today lost. By your very own hand I fall defeated and wounded, and the blow will be mortal. Autilio I am, the son of Fulco and the successor of Persia, united with Lydia, and in short, this great lady’s only husband.

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Celinda Ah, beloved father! Ah, my lord and husband! Fulco Everyone be still! Ladies, who is this woman? Is she not a woman and a wandering warrior, and the former concubine of Cubo? Let the truth not be concealed from me.

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332 Celinda, A Tragedy Nutrice Figlia, deh, cara figlia, Perché v’abbandonate? Ecco quì ’l vostro sposo Rivenuto; ecco, figlia, Ch’egli v’abbraccia e bacia! Lucinia Sposa e signora mia, Risorgete e mirate Autilio vostro, che dal rimirarvi Prendo spazio di vita!

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Celinda Ahi, caro padre! Ahi, mio signor e sposo! Ahi, ferita crudel che me lo toglie! Fulco Dove fia questo Autilio, Qual principe, qual sposo V’è congiunto, signora? Nutrice Questa guerriera, questa Creduta concubina e damigella Di Celinda, è di Persia Il successor, e insieme Di voi figlio e consorte Di questa principessa. Fulco E sien veri i tuoi detti? Nutrice Così fossero falsi.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 333 Nurse Daughter, come dear daughter, why do you abandon hope? Behold, here is your husband, he’s come back. Look, daughter, he embraces and kisses you. Lucinia My wife and lady, rise up and gaze at your Autilio, for from gazing back at you I gain an interval of life.

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Celinda Ah, dear father! Ah, my lord and husband! Ah, cruel wound that takes him from me! Fulco Where is this Autilio? What prince, what husband is united with you, lady? Nurse This woman warrior, this reputed concubine, and the maid of Celinda, is Persia’s successor, and at the same time your son and the consort of this princess. Fulco And are your statements true? Nurse If only they were false.

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334 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro Ahi, crudo e fiero Spettacolo inumano e miserando A che nacquero sol principi e regi! Fulco Ahi, cara, amata faccia, Ahi, dolci lineamenti, ahi, cara bocca! Ben ti conosco, misero infelice, Ben il figlio sei tu del re de’ Persi! Ahi, man, mano esecranda, Del filo di due vite, Ma che dico di due? Di tre, di mille Troncatrice inumana! Deh, figlio, eccoti ’l padre! Perdona, caro figlio, A la man che ministra Fu di tua cruda morte! Mano empia, fiera mano, Indegna parte del paterno corpo, T’armai per ritrovarlo, E tu me ’l dai perduto? Ahi, figlio, caro figlio, Perdona a la mia destra, Che questo grave errore Fu de la man e non error del core! E voi, mia cara nuora e principessa Di tanto regno, ohimè, in quai sciagure, In che stato infelice V’ha co ’l mio figlio oggi condotta Amore? Celinda Deh, dolce sposo mio, deh, mio signore, Non fia presto il partire, Che se pria vissi in voi Così, morendo voi, voglio morire!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 335 Chorus of Ladies Ah, cruel and fierce, spectacle inhuman and pitiable, for which were born only princes and kings. Fulco Ah dear and beloved face, ah sweet lineaments, ah dear mouth! Indeed I recognize you, unhappy wretch. Indeed you are the son of the king of the Persians. Ah, hand, execrable hand! Of the thread of two lives— but what am I saying, of two? of three, of a thousand, the inhuman cutter. Eh? Son, here is your father. Pardon, dear son, the hand that administered your cruel death. Wicked hand, fierce hand, unworthy part of the paternal body, I armed you to find him again, and you give him to me lost? Ah son, dear son, pardon my right hand, for this grave error was the hand’s, and not an error of the heart.144 And you my dear daughter-in-law, and princess of so great a kingdom, ah me, into what calamity, to what unhappy state has Love today conducted you along with my son? Celinda Come, my sweet husband; come, my lord. May your departure not be soon, for if previously I lived in you, just so, with you dying, I want to die.

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336 Celinda, A Tragedy Fulco E sarà vero dunque, Che una parola, un guardo Non impetri da te, figlio, al partire? E ’n segno di perdono Ed insieme di pace Non abbi a conseguir da queste labbra Sol un languido bacio? Ah, caro figlio, ah, spenta mia speranza, Già ferito ti miro E morto ti sospiro! Celinda Dolcissimo mio sposo, De’ tanti miei dolor ultimo oggetto, S’ancor l’orecchie vostre Non fa sorde la morte Udite: io vi prometto Qual fida sposa di morirvi a canto, E co ’l cader di Lidia Lasciar esempio a le future genti Del più fedel e più costante core Ch’abbi la face mai tocco d’Amore. Donimi queste labbra il dono estremo, E mi dia questa destra Di fé l’ultimo segno! O labbra, amate labbra, O mano, o cara mano, Voi ministre di gioie Mi foste, ed or di noie? Tu mano, che di fé fosti ministra Mentre in sì dolci modi Stringesti questa mia, Ed ora ancor ministra sii di fede Ch’ io giuro al mio signore D’essergli in ogni modo Come in vita le fui, compagna in morte.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 337 Fulco And is it true then, that a word, a look, I cannot beg from you, son, at our parting? And in a sign of pardon and at the same time of peace, shall I not obtain from these lips even a languid kiss? Ah, dear son! Ah, my extinguished hope! Already wounded do I see you, and as one dead I sigh for you. Celinda My most sweet husband, of my many griefs the final object, if not yet does Death deafen your ears, hear this: I promise you that like a faithful wife I will die beside you, and with the fall of Lydia I will leave an example to future peoples of the most faithful and most constant heart that was ever touched by the torch of Love. Let these lips give me the final gift, and let this right hand give me fidelity’s ultimate sign. O lips, beloved lips; O hand, O dear hand; the ministers of joys you were to me, and now of troubles? You, O hand, who were fidelity’s minister while in such sweet ways you squeezed this one of mine, be now still the minister of faithfulness, for I swear to my lord to be in every way, as I was in life, his companion in death.

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338 Celinda, A Tragedy Ma, ohimè, come ti miro Del proprio sangue tinta, Non fia però ch’io non ne furi un bacio! Fulco A che si bada più? Ché non si chiama Quanti ha savi la Lidia, Quanti medici esperti Seguitaro Esculapio E Cirurgici insieme Ch’ubbedivano a Cubo, Con questi c’ho condotti anch’io di Persia Acciò procuri co ’l dar vita al figlio Vietar la morte al padre, Certi d’aver in premio Da me ricchezze tali Che siano a i regi eguali? Lucinia Principessa e signora Di Lidia, e cara sposa Del successor di Persia, De l’inumano Fulco infausta prole, Se mai valsero in voi miei prieghi umili Per quella fé che sì costante sempre È visciuta fra noi, per quell’amore Che sì concordi i nostri cori avvinse, Per quel pegno che dentro Al materno alvo vostro Si rinchiude e si serra, Vi prego e vi scongiuro Ch’in tante alte sciagure Mostrar vogliate quell’ardir che solo D’alme regali e generose è dote, E sopportando di Fortuna i colpi Che ne i sublimi più mostran sua forza, Vogliate star in vita,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 339 But, ah me! how stained with your own blood I see you! It shall not be, however, that I do not steal from you a kiss.145 Fulco Why are you all waiting around? Why doesn’t someone call all the wise men in Lydia, all the medical experts who followed Aesculapius, and surgeons as well who obeyed Cubo, with these whom I too have conducted from Persia? So that they by giving life to the son, may forbid death to the father, certain of having as a reward from me riches such that they would be of kings the equals. Lucinia Princess, and lady of Lydia, and dear wife of the successor of Persia, inhuman Fulco’s ill-omened offspring, if ever upon you my humble prayers availed, for that fidelity which so constant always has lived between us, for that love which in such harmony entwined our hearts, for that pledge which inside your maternal cavity is enclosed and locked, I pray you and implore you that in so many terrible calamities you be willing to show that daring which only of souls regal and generous is the endowment. Withstanding Fortune’s blows, which against preeminent people most show their strength, be willing to remain alive,

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340 Celinda, A Tragedy Che con la vita vostra Sorgerà Lidia ancora; ed io di novo Co ’l nascimento del mio caro figlio Al dispetto di morte avrò la vita! Né tanto avran potuto Co ’i vomeri importuni Questi aratori ingordi Danneggiar Lidia e insieme I suoi fertili campi, Ch’ad onta lor non sia rimasto in quella De la più nobil pianta il caro frutto, Sì che dolce mia speme, Pianta de l’alma mia, Restate illesa da i furori ostili, Credete che dal fiore De la vostra beltà, de l’ardor nostro Nascerà un tanto frutto Ch’a questo vostro regno E a quel di Persia ancora Toglierà ’l duolo ch’ora gli tormenta, E li darà di nuovo Titolo, nome, e vanto. E s’io morrò, felice Potrò dir la mia morte Di tal speme vestita. Celinda Ah, parlar che mi fere, Ah, lingua che m’ancide, Morte che mi divide Dal regno e da lo sposo! Da mondano riposo Vivrò, se voi viverete; Morirò, se morrete.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 341 for with your life Lydia will rise again, and I once again, with the birth of my dear son, in spite of death will have life. These greedy plowmen with their importunate plowshares will not have been able to damage Lydia and with it its fertile fields, for despite them there will remain in Lydia the noblest plant’s dear fruit. Accordingly, my sweet hope, plant of my soul, yet unharmed by hostile furors, believe that from the flower of your beauty, of our ardor, will be born so great a fruit that for this kingdom of yours, and for the Persian one as well, he will remove the grief that now torments them, and will give them once again a title, name, and vaunt. And if I die, happy I will be able to call my death, when with such a hope it is arrayed. Celinda Ah, speech that wounds me! Ah, tongue that slays me! Death that divides me from my kingdom and from my husband, from earthly rest. I will live if you live; I will die if you die.

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342 Celinda, A Tragedy Fulco Figli miei, cari figli, Perchè non posso avervi Mai sempre meco uniti? Perché trovando l’uno, Misero, l’altro perdo? Dunque, mio figlio amato, Dunque, mia cara speme Riconoscer non vuoi tuo padre? E solo Come nemico mi rimiri e taci? Sol desio di trovarti Mi pose l’armi in mano, L’armi che fur crudeli Ministre poscia di tua acerba morte. Io farò sorger Lidia Di novo altera e grande, E darò ’l scettro e la corona regia A la tua cara sposa, Che mi sarà figlia e signora insieme; Dominerà tua prole A Persi, a Lidi, e sempre Sarà de gli occhi miei gradito oggetto. Baciami, caro figlio, Porgimi la tua destra, Dimmi: “Padre,” ubbidisci A quanto è mio volere! Perdona, figlio amato Al padre addolorato! Non rivolger la faccia Altrove, o caro figlio! Celinda Ecco nova agonia Che i sensi li ritoglie, Ahi, crude e empie doglie, O mio sposo e signore! Ohimè infelice, Eccolo giunto a morte!

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Celinda, A Tragedy 343 Fulco My children, dear children, why can I not have you both forever with me united? Why upon finding the one, wretched me! the other do I lose? So, my beloved son, so my dear hope, you do not intend to recognize your father? And only as an enemy you gaze at me, and are silent? Solely the desire to find you placed weapons in my hand, the weapons that were the cruel ministers thereafter of your bitter death. I will make Lydia rise up, once again proud and grand, and I will give the scepter and the royal crown to your dear wife, who will be both my daughter and my liege lady. Your offspring will rule over Persians, over Lydians; and always he will be to my eyes a welcome object. Kiss me, dear son. Reach out to me your right hand. Call me “father”; obey my will. Pardon, beloved son, your sorrowful father. Don’t turn your face elsewhere, O dear son. Celinda Upon him comes a new agony, that again leaves him senseless. Aiee, cruel and wicked pains! O my husband and lord? Oh, unhappy me! Here he is, arrived at death.

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344 Celinda, A Tragedy Ecco la bella faccia D’altro pallor dipinta! Sostenetelo, donne, Ch’io cado!

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Nutrice Ohimè, infelice! Coro O crudo, empio dolore, Che ad ambi passa in un sol punto il core! Nutrice O figlia, o cara figlia, O mia signora amata, o mia regina, Non mi lasciate! Coro

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Ecco ch’ancor riviene!

Celinda Ancor non moro? Ancor non può ’l dolore Chiudermi a sì dolente vista? Come mirar poss’io In questa vaga fronte Dove scherzava amore Gir scherzando la morte? Come mirar poss’io Il perduto seren del suo bel ciglio? E come, ahi, lassa, e come potrò mai Patir di rimirar foschi quei lumi Ove splendea per me continuo ’l giorno? E voi, mie care labbra, Rubini un tempo ardenti Ora smorti zaffiri, Già colorite rose Or pallide viole,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 345 Here is his comely face, with a different pallor painted. Hold him up, ladies, for I am falling. Nurse

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Chorus of Ladies Oh cruel, wicked pain, that in a single stroke pierces both their hearts! Nurse O daughter, O dear daughter, O my beloved lady, O my queen, don’t leave me.

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Chorus of Ladies Behold, again she’s coming to. Celinda I’m still not dying? Sorrow still cannot close me off from such a dolorous sight? How can I gaze upon this lovely forehead, where Love used to frolic, when now there frolics Death? How can I gaze upon the lost serenity of his fair brow? And how—alas!—how can I ever bear to gaze back at those darkened eyes, where for me the daylight used to shine continuously? And you, my dear lips, rubies at one time fiery, now faded sapphires, formerly colorful roses, now pallid violets,

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346 Celinda, A Tragedy Lasciate ch’io vi baci; E se mi desti già vivi la vita, Or moribondi mi donate morte! O maraviglie inaudite e nove, Giocan Cupido e Morte Ne’ labbri del mio bene! Sostenetemi, donne, ohimè, ch’io spiro!

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Nutrice Tornata è ancor a tramortir mia figlia? Fulco O che miseria estrema, Pianger conviemmi le vittorie mie! Con destrezza portati Siano dentro al palagio E procurate di tornarli in vita.

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Nutrice O figlia, o cara figlia, O mia signora amata, o mia regina, O amato peso a queste stanche membra!

SCENA SESTA FULCO SOLO

Fulco Così mi promettesti, Empio nume spergiuro, Darmi il mio figlio entro l’armato campo? O quanto vari sono I pensier da gli effetti, Come del più felice Re che fosse nel mondo Precipitato son nel vasto abisso De le maggior miserie,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 347 allow me to kiss you, and if formerly, alive, you gave me life, now moribund you give me death. Oh, marvels unprecedented and new! Cupid and Death are playing in the lips of my darling. Hold me up, ladies, ah me, for I am failing.146

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Nurse Has my daughter fainted again? Fulco Oh, what extreme wretchedness! I must weep for my victories. Dexterously let them be carried inside the palace, and attempt to bring them back to life.

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Nurse O daughter, O dear daughter, O my beloved lady, O my queen, O beloved weight for these tired limbs.

SCENE SIX FULCO ALONE

Fulco This is how you promised me, wicked perjured god, to give me my son on the battlefield? Oh, how different are the expectations from the outcome! From the happiest king there was in the world, I am cast headlong into the vast abyss of the greatest miseries.

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348 Celinda, A Tragedy E ho trovato morto Quello per cui posposi Co ’l regno anco la vita; E quel che è peggio (ah, rimembranza amara) Son stato del figliol empio omicida! E mi convien de lo nemico stesso Pianger la dura sorte, Sorte spietata e fiera, Ch’a l’unico mio figlio Fosti ministra d’immatura morte! O Cubo, perché quando Cadesti mio prigion non ti rendesti, Acciò con tante morti Più dogliosa non fosse la mia vita? E tu, mio caro figlio, Perché non iscoprirti Al tuo misero padre Allor che t’opponesti Per la vita di Cubo Contro me stesso, contro tante forze? Ma s’era pur ne’ fati ch’ io dovessi Esser del proprio figlio Innocente omicida, E se volesti pur aver la morte, Fa ch’ancora la provi Chi non volendo ti privò di vita, E a chi t’ha dato al mondo Ed al mondo ritolto Co ’l coltello del duol togli la vita! Togli, morte, ti prego Questo misero padre Da questo mondo iniquo! Di quanto egli promette Al misero mortale, Mentitor disleale, Ecco poc’anzi egli promise darmi Novo scettro e corona

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Celinda, A Tragedy 349 I have found dead that one to whom I subordinated, along with my kingdom, also my life. And what’s worse—oh, bitter to recall!— I have been my dear son’s cruel murderer, and I must of the enemy himself mourn the hard fate. Fate pitiless and fierce, for to my only son you were the minister of an immature death. O Cubo, why when you fell as my prisoner did you not surrender? So that with so many deaths my life would not be more sorrowful? And you, my dear son, why not reveal yourself to your wretched father, when you took your stand for the life of Cubo against myself, against so many forces? But even if it was fated that I must be my own son’s innocent murderer, and if you truly wanted death, make me too experience it, I who unwillingly deprived you of life. With the knife of grief take away the life of the one who gave you to the world, and who from the world took you back. Take away, Death, I pray you, this wretched father from this iniquitous world, which in everything it promises to a miserable mortal is a faithless liar. See here: a little while ago it promised to give me a new scepter and crown

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350 Celinda, A Tragedy E nova monarchia, Ed ora in picciol tempo Volgendo in pene e ’n duolo Tante pompe e ricchezze Fa che sol morte apprezze. O me, padre infelice, O ruinata Persia, Del tuo gran successor orbata e priva, Misera che t’armasti Solo a danni di lui, O con Lidia caduta Caro figlio caduto, O quanto invan ti piango e ti sospiro! Abbia con la tua morte Fine le mie vittorie E i miei trionfi e vanti; Abbi tra fidi amanti Il primo loco il tuo bel nome amato, Ed abbia con la tua Fine questa mia vita. Ma il dovuto sepolcro Prima da queste mani Si prepari al tuo corpo. Si cangino i trofei De l’avuta vittoria In funerali pompe, Ed invece di trombe S’oda de’ gridi un lagrimoso suono. Lugubre insegna oggi si spieghi al vento Non più d’arme, o soldati, Ma di nero ammantati Siano i destrieri, e voce Sol di pianto si sparga Da tutti i miei soldati.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 351 and a new monarchy, and now in a short time, by turning into pains and grief so many pomps and riches, it makes it so that only death do I prize. Ah me, an unhappy father! O ruined Persia, of your great successor left bereaved and deprived! Wretched Persia, for you armed yourself only to his harm. O with fallen Lydia, dear, fallen son, oh how much, but in vain, do I weep and sigh for you! With your death let end my victories, and my triumphs and vaunts. Among faithful lovers let your fair beloved name hold the first place. Along with yours, let end this my life. But let the due sepulcher first by these hands be prepared for your body. Let the trophies of the attained victory change into funereal decorations, and instead of trumpets let be heard of screams a tearful sound. Let a lugubrious flag today be unfurled in the wind. No more with armaments, O soldiers, but let the destriers be mantled with black, and let utterances only of mourning be voiced by all my soldiers.

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352 Celinda, A Tragedy SCENA ULTIMA CORIMBO, CORO

Corimbo Perché in corpo a la madre Anzi che questa luce Vedesser gli occhi miei Io non rimasi estinto, O almen uscito in questo Carcere de’ mortali, Sol ricetto de mali, Non furmi in fascie le materne braccia Culla e feretro insieme? O almen, spietato cielo, Perché non m’insegnasti Volger i piedi a i più diserti orrori, Tra le più fosche selve Ov’han stanza le belve pria ch’in Lidia Volgessi queste piante, Perché fra tigri ed orsi, Draghi, pantere e lupi In luoghi oscuri e cupi Tanti non avrei forse Visti di crudeltà spietati scempi!

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Coro Non hanno avuto dunque Tante sciagure nostre ancora fine? Corimbo Sorde vi bramarete, Cieche vi fingerete Pietose donne, al miserando caso! Coro Se siamo degne, amico, D’udir quanto di fiero è ancor successo

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Celinda, A Tragedy 353 FINAL SCENE CORIMBO, CHORUS OF LADIES

Corimbo Why in the body of my mother, before my eyes saw this light, did I not expire? Or why at least, once come out into this prison for mortals, solely a refuge for evils, in my swaddling clothes were my mother’s arms not cradle and coffin together? Or at least, pitiless Heaven, why did you not teach me to direct my course to the most horrible deserts, among the gloomiest forests where beasts have their lairs, before to Lydia I directed these feet? Because among tigers and bears, dragons, panthers, and wolves, in places obscure and dark I would not have seen perhaps of cruelty so many pitiless, shameful examples.

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Chorus of Ladies Our so many calamities, then, have not yet come to an end? Corimbo You will wish you were deaf, you will pretend to be blind, O compassionate ladies, at the pitiable circumstance. Chorus of Ladies If we are worthy, friend, to hear whatever harsh new thing has happened,

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354 Celinda, A Tragedy Per poter teco aver comune il duolo, Ti preghiam raccontarlo. Corimbo Qual mai spetie inumana Tolse al figlio la vita? Qual mai di rabbia insana, Sol di sè incrudelita, S’ha visto fera del suo proprio sangue Sitibonda e esangue Farsi co’ i propri artigli? Chi mai non nati i figli Ha destinati al ferro? O Persi, o Lidi, o fieri, Qual procelloso porto De le vostre miserie, Qual orrendo flagello V’ha preparato il cielo? Coro Che non fuggi Corimbo, Che non fuggiam, che non fuggiamo tutti Questa cittade afflitta e ruinata? Corimbo E dove ricovrarmi oggi degg’io Se la reggia è un inferno, La cittade un orrore? Forse ch’entro la reggia Di ricovrarmi tenti, Ch’una furia d’Averno, Un ministro di Pluto Non speri di venire fra morte e pianti? Se ’n la cittade d’alloggiar disegno Misero, non son degno Promettermi sicuro un picciol spazio Di terren che non tema o ferro o laccio.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 355 in order to have in common with you our grief, we pray you to narrate it. Corimbo What inhuman species ever from its child took life? What wild beast ever by rage maddened, by itself alone become cruel, has been seen for its own blood thirsting? And it bleeds itself out with its own claws? Who ever has destined to the blade his unborn children? O Persians, O Lydians, O fierce ones, what stormy port for your miseries, what horrendous scourge has Heaven prepared for you? Chorus of Ladies Why do you not flee, Corimbo? Why do we not flee? Why don’t we all flee from this afflicted and ruined city? Corimbo And where today must I take shelter, if the royal palace is an inferno, the city a horror? Perhaps within the royal palace I might try to take shelter, but would a Fury from Avernus,147 a minister of Pluto,148 not hope to come among deaths and weeping? If in the city I plan to lodge, wretched me, I am not worthy to promise myself a small, safe space of ground that does not fear either the iron blade or the rope.

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356 Celinda, A Tragedy Se di fuggire io penso M’è intercetto il cammin. Quivi rimiro Morir il padre, il figlio, Languir su ’l frate il misero germano, Scapigliata la moglie D’un monte d’insepolti Tronco d’un braccio il misero marito Strascinar al sepolcro; S’inanti volgo i passi Quel veggio sospirar, questo languire. Sotto i morti destrieri ha sorte uguale Il misero mortale. Fuggiam, fuggiamo donne, Fuggi, tristo Corimbo, Fuggi per l’aria co ’l pensier volante! Fermati in qualche scoglio, E l’Alcioni imitando, Lagnati, stride e plora, E quì questa mortal misera salma Lascia priva de l’alma. Taccio che ’l proprio padre Del caro figlio l’uccisor sia stato, Perch’incognito Amore Abbi a gli amanti estinti Ferito il petto e ’l core, Taccio che ’l crudo Fulco, Qual fiero augel di Giove, Co’ suoi potenti artigli Abbia di vita privo il re di Lidia, Spalancatogli il petto, Trattone fuori il core, Troncata con la man la regia testa, Cose che aspiran sempre Gli nimici da gli altri. Ma quell’aver mandato Del padre i tronchi membri A la figliola in dono,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 357 If I think to flee, my road is blocked: here I see dying a father and son, a wretched brother languishing upon his brother, a disheveled wife from a mountain of the unburied dragging to the sepulcher her wretched husband with one of his arms lopped off. If forward I turn my steps, I see that man sigh, this one languish. Underneath the dead destriers the wretched mortal shares the same fate. Let us flee, let us flee, ladies! Flee, poor Corimbo, flee through the air with your thoughts, flying. Settle on some cliff-side, and the halcyons149 imitate: lament, scream, and mourn, and leave here deprived of its soul this wretched mortal corpse. I shall be silent about how his own father the dear son’s killer was, because incognito Love wounded the deceased lovers’ chests and hearts. I shall be silent about how the cruel Fulco, like a fierce bird of Jove with its powerful claws,150 deprived of life the king of Lydia, opened up wide his breast, drew out his heart, chopped off with his hand the royal head— things which enemies always hope for from others. But having sent the father’s chopped-off limbs to his daughter as a gift—

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358 Celinda, A Tragedy Oh, questo sì di crudeltate avanza Ogni fera, ogni mostro! Cara Lidia caduta, Misero Cubo del tuo regno privo E de la vita insieme! Misera principessa, Ben a ragion chiamasti Di Niobe infelice L’ incomparabil tue misere doglie! Coro V’è peggio che la morte Di Cubo e di Lucinia? Sperar non debbiam dunque In quella speme che ci è ancor rimasa Qualche picciol conforto? Non sarà dunque a noi cara regina La principessa nostra? Porti forse di lei qualche sciagura? Corimbo Quando portata fu dentro ’l palagio Da la mesta nutrice e da le donne, E benché viva come morta pianta, Tutta la corte se le fece inante, Andovvi ’l consiglier, v’accorse ognuno, Coronato di donne e gente intorno Era il suo letto. Quando, rivenuta, Volse le spalle a tutti, il caro sposo, Ch’appresso lei giacea, vide attorniato Da medici periti Che gli facean intorno Pietosa cura, e mentre disarmarlo Procuravano insieme, ecco iscoprirsi Nova ferita nel suo destro fianco Che nel vederla ognuno Inarcaro le ciglia,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 359 this, oh yes, in cruelty outdoes every beast, every monster. Dear, fallen Lydia! Wretched Cubo, of your kingdom deprived and of life as well! Wretched princess, indeed rightly did you call worthy of unhappy Niobe151 your incomparable, wretched pains. Chorus of Ladies Is there worse news than the death of Cubo and Lucinia? Must we not hope, then, in that hope which yet to us remained as some small comfort? Our princess will not therefore be our dear queen? Do you perhaps bring word of her, of some calamity? Corimbo When she was carried into the palace by the sad Nurse and by the ladies (and though living, as one dead she was mourned), all the court came before her. The Counselor went there, everyone rushed there. Crowned with ladies and people all around was her bed, when she came to. Turning her back on everyone, she saw her dear husband, who near her was lying, surrounded by expert doctors who around him took pitiful care. While in disarming him they were all engaged, there was revealed a new wound in his right side. Upon seeing it they all raised their eyebrows,

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360 Celinda, A Tragedy E di sua vita disperaro in tutto. S’avvide, ohimè, la principessa allora Che da l’aspra ferita Con quella del suo sposo Pendea di lei la morte, E de le braccia sue fatto catena Al collo de l’amante, a cui simile Non fece edera mai ne gli orti esperi A lascivetto ed amoroso tronco, Mentre stavan languendo Sovra ’l collo di latte i biondi crini, In guisa tal che quivi Si vedeva nuotar tra ’l sangue Amore, Stringendolo, gli disse: “O caro sposo, Dunque una sol ferita Non bastava a fregiar d’eterno duolo Ad ambi noi la vita?” Ed ei languidamente aperti i lumi, Disse: “Ormai giunta è alfine Questa misera vita, Ormai l’ore vicine Sento del mio morire. Ma fra tante miserie M’è ben di qualche gioia Ch’altri non abbin di mia morte il vanto Fuori ch’il proprio padre.” Coro Parole d’ammollir un ghiaccio, un monte! Corimbo Soggiunse: “Io gli perdono, e voi mia sposa, A perdonargli prego, E restar seco unita Co ’l mio figlio e ’l mio regno. Ma perch’è giusto ben che nel sepolcro Ciò ch’è d’altrui non porti,

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Celinda, A Tragedy 361 and of his life they despaired completely. Alas, the princess noticed them, for on the harsh wound was hanging her death along with her husband’s. And with her arms she made a chain round the neck of her lover; in the gardens of the Hesperides152 never did Ivy hold as tightly to a lascivious and loving tree trunk. While her blonde tresses over her milky neck were languishing, in such a fashion that there among the blood one saw Love swim, clutching him, she said to him, “O dear husband, therefore a single wound did not suffice to decorate with eternal grief both of our lives?” He languidly opened his eyes, and said, “Now this wretched life has reached its end. Now of my death I feel the hour near. But amid so many miseries, indeed it gives me some joy that of my death no one can brag, except my own father.” Chorus of Ladies Words to soften a block of ice, a mountain. Corimbo He added, “I forgive him; and you my wife, forgive him, I pray, and stay with him united, along with my son and my kingdom. But, because it is certainly just that into the sepulcher I not carry what belongs to another,

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362 Celinda, A Tragedy Dopo ’l mortal sospiro Vi prego aprirmi il petto E trarne fuor quel core Ch’a voi primerio offersi Mentr’arsi al lume de’ vostri occhi amati.”

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Coro O parole d’amante Più che mai nel morir fido e constante! Corimbo Poi con flebile moto alzando il braccio De la marca regal fece a ognun mostra (Di quella regal marca Ch’a nascenti fanciulli Segnan su ’l destro braccio i re di Persia) E disse: “I’ moro, o popolo diletto, Congiunto a Lidia e genero di Cubo, Per stato non indegno Sposo, ma ben per merti Di questa principessa indegno servo.” E mirandola poi, languidamente Co ’l destro braccio, il qual lasciò cadersi Sovra ’l fianco di lei, cadde e morìo. Baciandola, e co ’l sangue Ch’uscia da l’ostinata sua ferita Uscì l’alma reale. Ella, che sin allor quasi di marmo Immobile era stata, Preso vigor con la sua propria destra Gli chiuse gli occhi, e con un certo ferro, Stromento militare, Che sovra ’l letto ritrovò del morto, Non veduta da alcuno Il petto si trafisse.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 363 after my final breath, I beseech you to open up my breast and draw forth that heart which, pristine, to you I offered, when I burned in the light of your beloved eyes.”

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364 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro Ohimè, ch’intendo, morta Dunque è la principessa? Corimbo È morta, ma pria disse A noi queste parole (A noi, ch’ ivi d’intorno Aveam conversi i nostri lumi in fonti): “Amati cittadini, Servi miei, care donne, E tu, nutrice e madre, Credete ch’a me pesa Il non poter secondo i vostri merti, La fede e l’amor vostro Riconoscervi tutti; Ma supplirà ’n mia vece il re de’ Persi, Al qual vi prego far sapere che morto È ’l principe, suo figlio, E che gli ha perdonato Il suo fallace errore, Com’anch’io gli perdono, Pregandolo che regga Il mio regno e conosca Voi per miei cari e miei graditi servi. Ma sovra ogn’altra a me sia cara grazia Ch’ in un avello stesso Rinchiuda i nostri corpi, Com’un stesso dolore Ad ambi troncò ’l fil di nostre vite. Ed avverrà così ch’egli conceda A l’ossa morte ciò ch’al viver tolse.” E congiungendo allora il bianco seno Al petto de l’amante Spirò in bocca di lui, Che pur tepida e aperta Per ricever quell’alma anco si stava.

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Celinda, A Tragedy 365 Chorus of Ladies Alas, what do I hear? Dead then is the princess? Corimbo She is dead. But first she said to us these words (to us who there all around had converted our eyes into fountains): “Beloved citizens, my servants, dear ladies, and you my Nurse and mother, believe that upon me it weighs not to be able to recognize you all for your faithfulness and love according to your merits. But the king of the Persians will make up for it in my stead. I pray you make known to him that dead is the prince his son, and that he forgave him his fallacious error, just as I too forgive him and beseech him to rule my kingdom and to know you for my dear and cherished servants. But for me, more than any other it would be a dear favor if in one same tomb he would enclose our bodies,153 just as one same anguish cut short the thread of both our lives. And so it will happen that he concedes to our dead bones what during our lives he took away.” And joining then her white breast to the chest of her lover, she expired into his mouth, which yet warm and open to receive that soul still remained.

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366 Celinda, A Tragedy Allor la troppo credula nutrice, Credendola isvenuta, di fresch’onde De la real fontana Spruzzatoli il bel volto Tentò di ravvivarla, e mentre l’altre Donne faceano ogn’opra Per sostenerla e aitarla, Vider, misere, il ferro Fitto starle nel petto E del suo proprio sangue Misto con quel del suo diletto sposo Inondar d’ogn’ intorno il regio letto, Quel letto, ohimè, quel letto, Che fu già testimon de’ suoi contenti. Allora rinforzar sentissi i gridi, I lamenti, i stridor, l’angoscie, i pianti.

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Coro O perdita infelice Non a bastanza mai pianta e doluta! Corimbo Ma se vedrete, donne, In che leggiadra guisa Quegli due cari sposi Fra quegli orror di morte Spiran non meno ancor pietà che amore, Certo voi pensarete O ch’Amor abbi presa La falce de la morte O che lo stral d’Amor vibri la morte. Ma che bado, infelice, Che non vado a onorar l’esequie loro Come conviensi al mio fedel servire, Ed offerirmi poi Cibo a l’ira di Fulco?

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Celinda, A Tragedy 367 Then the too credulous Nurse, believing she had fainted, cool waves from the royal fountain sprinkled on her fair visage, trying to revive her. While the other ladies were doing everything to support her and help her, the poor wretches saw the blade fixed in her breast. With her own blood, mixed with that of her beloved husband, she inundated on all sides the royal bed— that bed, ah me! that bed which was formerly the witness of her joys. Then I heard increase the shouts, laments, shrieks, anguish, and weeping.

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Chorus of Ladies Oh unhappy loss, never to be sufficiently mourned and grieved over! Corimbo But if you see, ladies, in how lovely a fashion those two dear spouses, among those horrors of death, still inspire no less pity than love, certainly you will think either that Love has taken up the scythe of Death, or that Death shoots Love’s arrow. But what am I waiting for, woe is me? Why don’t I go honor their obsequies, as is appropriate to my faithful service, and offer myself then as food to the wrath of Fulco?

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368 Celinda, A Tragedy Coro Questi doni promette Il mondo a noi mortali! E chi per esser grande Crede fuggir i colpi Di nemica fortuna, E chi per esser caro A gran regi si stima Fuggir miserie e mali E si presume conseguirne merti, Qual folle indarno spera Perché com’un baleno, Com’il sereno in pioggia Si cangia il ben in male Del misero mortale. Perciò deggiam pensar vivendo come Non è qui cosa alcuna In cui sperar possiam fermezza eterna, E sol fissando i pensier nostri al cielo Deggiam con puro zelo Sperar da la sua mano eterno il bene. Il fine

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Celinda, A Tragedy 369 Chorus of Ladies The world promises these gifts to us mortals; and he who for his greatness believes he will escape the blows of inimical Fortune, and he who for being dear to great kings fancies he will escape miseries and evils, and presumes that from them he will obtain his just deserts— like a madman in vain he hopes, because like a lightning bolt, just as clear weather changes to rain, the miserable mortal’s good changes to evil. For this reason we must think while living about how here there is nothing whatsoever in which we can hope for eternal stability; and only in fixing our thoughts on Heaven must we with pure zeal hope for, from His hand, eternal good. The end

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Endnotes to the Translation 1. Nothing is known about this occasional poet today. Given that his tetrastiches open the encomiastic section of Celinda, his laudatory words may have been particularly important to Miani. 2. After their battle with the Lapiths, the Centaurs took refuge on Mount Pindus; the Centaurs were on other occasions depicted as wise, masters especially of the art of divination. The Centaur Cheiron educated Achilles. Mount Helicon was the home of the Muses; people who drank from the sacred springs there received poetic inspiration. For this and other historical and mythological information given throughout the notes, we have followed a variety of sources, such as Michael Grant, A Guide to the Ancient World: A Dictionary of Classical Place Names, (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1997), ad vocem; An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, ed. H. G. Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), ad vocem; Herodotus, The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories, ed. Robert Strassler (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007); Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (New York: Penguin, 1993), ad vocem; Richard Buxton, The Complete World of Greek Mythology (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004); The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, ed. Simon Price and Emily Kearns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), ad vocem; Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopedia of the Ancient World: Antiquity, ed. Hubert Cancik et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), ad vocem; and Giovanni Boccaccio, Famous Women, ed. and trans. Virginia Brown (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), ad vocem. 3. As god of the sun, Apollo drove his chariot across the sky each day. He was also the god of poetry. 4. The Greek Aphrodite (Roman Venus) was the mother of Eros (Cupid), the god of love. Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom, was virginal. 5. Cavalier Francesco Vanni (1565–1610) was a painter from Siena belonging to the Eclectic School of painting. Pope Clement VIII commissioned him to paint the great altar picture for St. Peter, “Simon Magus rebuked by Saint Peter,” and made him a Knight of Christ soon after. He was well known among intellectuals and particularly influential in his opinions. 6. Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy. The buskin was a special boot worn by ancient tragic actors. 7. Elysium was the pleasant region of the underworld where the blessed shades dwelt. The horrors refer to the underworld’s regions where the wicked were punished. Theseus’s wife, Phaedra, fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus, resulting in both their deaths. When Jason set aside Medea for a younger wife, she murdered her rival, her rival’s father, and her own children by Jason.

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Endnotes to the Translation 371 8. These verses seem to confirm that Celinda was effectively staged with success, as was the case with Amorosa speranza, and that Miani, stereotypically or mimetically referred to as having blond tresses, received the traditional laurel crown of poets. The staging, Cavalier Vanni states, is outside Padua in the Euganean hills mentioned above, where rich Venetian and Paduan noblemen built their country houses and where they moved for months in the summer to enjoy the cool air while also supervising the agricultural harvest. 9. Arrigo Falconio belonged to the Accademia degli Umoristi in Rome, together with Fabio Leonida, another friend of Miani. He was a correspondent of Giambattista Marino, who sent him a famous burlesque letter in 1615 on his sojourn in a filthy inn during a journey from Turin to Paris. See Giambattista Marino, Lettere, ed. Marziano Guglielminetti (Turin: Einaudi, 1966), 548. 10. The Greek city of Thebes was the setting for several classical tragedies. In contemporary poetry the beloved lady’s eyes are often described as shining with light. 11. Ercole Manzoni, misspelled here as Monzani, was a well known poet, philosopher and doctor from Este, a town south of Padua. He published a poem in ottava rima, Il Tirsi (Venice: Moretti, 1598) and Amorosi spirti, as well as a collection of madrigals, Selva amorosa (Venice: Moretti 1600), and a Latin treatise on poetry, In Q. Horacii Flacci de arte poetica librum (Bergamo: Comini Venturae, 1604). 12. Laertes was the father of Ulysses, whose adventures are the subject of Homer’s Odyssey. It is possible that the goddess in question is Ulysses’s mother, Anticleia, the daughter of Autolycus, who claimed Hermes as his father. However, the references to wars suggest that more likely here Manzoni is thinking of Venus and her son Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid. 13. Boreas was the North wind. 14. Fabio Leonida published psalms, mostly in Latin, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII and Cardinal Barberini, such as Cantica graduum lyrica paraphrasi expressa et illustrata (Rome: Corbelletti, 1629), and Gemitus Poenitenti in septem odas (Rome: Phaei, 1628). He belonged to the circle of Giambattista Marino, like Gaspare Murtola. Today he is mostly known for a remarkable poem celebrating beauty in older women, “Bellezza al tramonto.” In Benedetto Croce, Lirici marinisti (Bari: Laterza, 1910), 204. 15. The Muses inspired poetry. The Graces were goddesses of the gracefulness and charms of beauty. 16. There is only one phoenix, which periodically is burned to ashes and then regenerated in the same fire.

372 Endnotes to the Translation 17. Gasparo [Gaspare] Murtola (c. 1570–1624), poet and secretary at the court of Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy in Turin is often remembered today for his rivalry with Giambattista Marino against whom he wrote satirical sonnets and the violently accusatory Marineide. Marino responded with the equally accusatory Murtoleide—both now in Marino, La Murtoleide, fischiate del cavalier Marino con la Marineide risate del Murtola (Frankfurt: Beyer, 1626). A true representative of the confrontational early 17th century society, Murtola even tried to kill Marino in 1609. He wrote Rime (Venice: Meghetti, 1604), and Della creatione del mondo, poema sacro (Venice: Deuchino, 1608). 18. This must be a funerary urn. 19. Marcantonio Balcianelli was a doctor and poet. As poet he wrote La Fama. Epithalamio per lo felicissimo accasamento delli nobili signori Rolandino Maffei et Isabella Salerna (Verona: Merlo, 1618) and idylls along the lines of Marinisti poets. As a physician, he wrote Trattato sull’ uso della cassia purgante (Vicenza: no printer, 1599). He is also present in the collection Polinnia, together with Miani and Murtola. 20. The winged singers are angels. 21. Delos was an important center of the worship of Apollo, the god of poetry. 22. Here Miani describes the Greco-Roman underworld where wicked souls are punished. She follows Dante in portraying the Acheron, Phlegethon, and Styx as the three infernal rivers. See Inferno 14.112–16, in Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, ed. and trans. John Singleton, 3 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). The three-headed dog Cerberus guarded the entrance to the underworld kingdom. One of the reputed entrances to the underworld was at Lake Avernus in Campania. 23. These sisters are the Furies, who pursue and punish evildoers. The ruler of the underworld was Hades (in Greek mythology) or Pluto (Roman). 24. Lydia was in the western part of Turkey. According to Herodotus, it took its name from Lydus at the time of the fall of Troy. A mythic ruler of Lydia was Tantalus, whose daughter Niobe was known for being proud of her fourteen children. She was punished for her boasts: her seven sons were killed by Apollo and her seven daughters by Artemis. Lydia was also where Queen Omphale ruled as well as King Croesus, whose court was known for being extremely luxurious. Croesus was defeated by Cyrus, King of Persia, around 547 BCE, an event that Miani knew well, for the defeat of King Cubo by the Persian King Fulco is at the center of Celinda. When the Romans got Lydia in 133 BCE, they made it a rich province. The region then became part of the Byzantine Empire and was conquered by the Ottomans in 1390.

Endnotes to the Translation 373 25. Thrace occupied European Turkey and a varying amount of territory in the north, such as southern Bulgaria and northeastern Greece. The Thracians had a warlike reputation and were often used as mercenaries. Around 513 BCE the Persian King Cyrus the Great captured its southern part; the entire land was conquered half a century later by Philip II of Macedonia. His son, Alexander the Great, later used an army of Thracian soldiers to cross the Hellespont and conquer the Persian empire. In Homer’s Iliad, Diomedes was the most fierce Thracian. In the early modern period Thrace was firmly under the Ottoman Turks. Given the area’s proximity to Persia, it makes sense that a princess of Thrace, Eusina, could be promised to a prince of Persia, as in Miani’s marriage plot. 26. Miani personifies Love (“Amor”) as Cupid throughout Celinda and therefore we made the choice of capitalizing it. 27. Aquilone is a cold wind from the north. In Book X of Homer’s The Odyssey all the adverse winds were imprisoned to facilitate Ulysses’s return home. When his crewmen mistakenly released them, the winds caused a storm that blew the sailors further off course. See The Odyssey, ed. Bernard Knox, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin, 2006). 28. “Altrui” is translated as plural “others”; it could also mean singular “another.” 29. Ephesus was the capital of Lydia on the river Castro. It was one of the richest cities of the ancient world, full of lavish monuments. It rebelled against Rome many times, as in the Ephesian vespers of 88 BCE. Among its remarkable beauties, Ephesus boasted the temple of Artemis, which was considered one of the marvels of the world. Some also claimed that the Virgin Mary took refuge in the city at the end of her life, ca. 37–45 CE. Also St. John was rumored to have lived in Ephesus. 30. Thetis is a sea goddess who could change her shape at will. For some Thetis was the creator of the universe. She is mostly known as Achilles’s mother in Homer’s Iliad. 31. For a time Hercules (Heracles in Greek mythology) was a slave servant of Omphale, queen of Lydia, who had him dress as a woman and spin wool as punishment for killing Iphicles and stealing the Delphic oracle’s tripod. Omphale, the widow of King Tmolus, who had been gored to death by a bull, had bought Hercules from the god Hermes, who sold him because he was told that Hercules had to expiate his murders for three years. Omphale eventually fell in love with Hercules and had a son by him, Lamus, according to Ovid—exactly as in the story of Celinda and Autilio, with the significant difference that Autilio, unlike Hercules, willingly chooses to be a slave and to cross-dress. 32. The king of the gods, Zeus/Jove, took many mortal lovers, as when he changed into a bull to seduce Europa, but he always had to watch out for his jealous wife Juno (Greek Hera). 33. On Avernus, see above.

374 Endnotes to the Translation 34. This dream is of the epic type, namely, a visitation by a ghost, and it is treated over the course of two scenes. The spirit in question, Eusina, told the audience her plans in the Prologue: the god of the underworld had given her permission to return to the daylight long enough to set in motion her vengeance against Autilio. In Lucan’s Pharsalia, to cite a well known source, the vengeful ghost of Julia had limited herself to predicting disaster and threatening to continue disturbing her former husband’s sleep. See Lucan, Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 3.9–34. Eusina, however, has greater ambitions and aims at Autilio’s death. For the distinction between the epic and the tragic dream (the latter will be retold in Act 2.2), see Paola Cosentino, “Sogni tragici/ Sogni epici: per uno studio del sogno nella tragedia cinquecentesca (primi sondaggi),” in Le metamorfosi del sogno nei generi letterari, ed. Silvia Volterrani (Florence: Le Monnier, 2003), 96–111. 35. The words “e guerra e morte” foretelling the killing of a beloved are the famous response of the cross-dressed Clorinda to the Christian hero Tancredi when he catches her outside the walls of Jerusalem without recognizing her. A combat ensues and Tancredi kills Clorinda, whom he dearly loved. See Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) (1581; Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961), Canto 12.52. In Tasso’s case Clorinda later appears in a dream to the desperate Tancredi and forgives him for having killed her—the exact opposite of the once loving but now vengeful Eusina in Miani, who in a similar dream forecasts instead the death of her beloved Autilio as retribution for his abandonment of her. 36. The Styx was one of the rivers in the Greco-Roman underworld, which marked the boundary between Earth and Hades. 37. Dis is a fictional city in Dante’s Divine Comedy which contains the lower circles of the underworld. Also Dante uses it as another name for Lucifer. 38. Medieval science held that fire naturally strove to reach its proper place in the Sphere of Fire, located just below that of the moon. 39. The status of being seen as effeminate and quietly living in peace in the Lydian court harks back to a story told by Herodotus about the advice that Croesus, King of Lydia, gave to the Persian King Cyrus, who had conquered Lydia and was using its former shrewd ruler as his counselor. To assure himself that the Lydian people would not rebel, Croesus advised Cyrus to impose some effeminacy “by ordering the following steps: prohibit them from possessing weapons of war, order them to wear tunics under their cloaks and soft boots, instruct them to play the lyre and the harp, and tell them to educate their sons to be shopkeepers. If you do this, sire,” he continued, “you will soon see that they will become women instead of men and thus will then pose no danger or threat to you of any future rebellion” (The Histories, 1.155). Croesus’s aim was to prevent Lydian men from being enslaved or sold, but the link between effeminacy as the status of a slave, that is, docile and servile, and the Lydian people may have stuck in culture. Moreover, the King of Lydia, Andramytis, is said to

Endnotes to the Translation 375 have enforced castration of both men and women for social reasons. In fact he used female eunuchs (women who had their ovaries removed) in the palaces of Lydia. See A System of Gynecology, ed. Matthew D. Mann (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1888), 837. 40. Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, married the mortal Tithonus, and Italian literature often refers to her reluctance to leave him each day to perform her duties. 41. The Greeks and Romans granted a palm branch to the victors of battles and competitions. 42. In tune with the characterization of the pair Celinda/Autilio as a new Omphale/Hercules couple in Lydia, Cubo is characterized as King Croesus of the dynasty of the Mermnades. Croesus was the last king of Lydia (560–546 BCE) and was defeated by the Persian Cyrus in ca. 548 BCE. Lydia’s capital, Sardis, had been put under siege and was eventually taken and partly sacked—exactly as happens in Celinda for Ephesus. Croesus was taken prisoner, but there is a telling anecdote on why his life, unlike that of Cubo in Celinda, was spared. According to Herodotus, Croesus had earlier shown all his riches to the law-giver of the Greeks, Solon, who at the question of what makes a man happy had replied that it was to treasure the good things in life until a peaceful death, since no man can know what the gods have in store. Realizing the truth of that judgment, as he was put on the pyre to be burned alive Croesus exclaimed: “Ah, Solon, Solon!” King Cyrus, who knew Solon the Athenian, thus spared his life. Croesus was immensely rich because of the gold which naturally enriched Lydia and the money coming from the tributes paid to him by the people he conquered. Even in antiquity his name was connected with untold riches; Lydia also became quite prosperous under his leadership. Croesus spent lavishly on the arts and rebuilt the splendid temple of Artemis in Ephesus. As a ruler he also introduced the use of silver and gold in coinage. As a military man he was considered one of the best generals who ever lived and his army was known as the best in Asia. Croesus ended up controlling all the territory between the Aegean coast of Asia Minor to the west and the river Halys to the East and for the first time many parts of Greece were made to pay tributes to Lydia. Of his many sons and daughters, the most cherished was the son, Atys, who was accidentally murdered. Croesus’ wife committed suicide after Sardis fell. Much of what we know about Croesus comes from Herodotus and Xenophon, although the myth of his personal wealth and the historical chronology of his defeat do not necessarily match. Also in some sources King Croesus descends from the son of Hercules and Omphale, Agelaus (but we also know of a son of Hercules named Lamus, who might or might not be the same). 43. On Aquilone, see above. 44. The good counselor here is modeled after Croesus’s counselor, Sandanis. According to Herodotus, Sandanis advised Croesus against any rash judgment regarding Lydia’s enemies, the Persians, for the Persians had little, he stated: no good land, no figs, and no wine. Thus

376 Endnotes to the Translation conquering them would give Lydia little, while losing a war against them would make Lydia and its king lose aplenty. His advice was not taken, as is the case in Celinda. 45. Vulcan, the blacksmith god, had a forge on Lemnos and cast the shield of Aeneas, son of Venus, the Trojan who tamed Italy. See Virgil, The Aeneid of Virgil, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Bantam, 1981), Bk 8, 626–728. The shield shows the most remarkable moments in the future of Rome. 46. Apollo was the god of oracles. Herodotus tells a story that when Croesus was searching for the best oracle, he was told to trust the one at Delphi, Pythian Apollo. Croesus asked Apollo whether he should attack Cyrus. The response was characteristically enigmatic: the crossing of the river Halys, and thus the encounter between the two armies, meant that a great empire would fall. Croesus understood the answer as meaning that he would defeat the Persians, but he lost. Thus he had a last request from Cyrus after he was taken prisoner, that the oracle be rebuked for accepting so many presents for the temple and still giving a wrong answer. But the oracle replied that the problem was with Croesus: the king had not asked which empire would be defeated. The story is well known and Miani must have had it in mind in this instance. 47. At Delphi the priestess Pythia breathed fumes rising from a chasm, which drove her to a frenzy. Priests then interpreted her pronouncements for the questioner. When spirits of the dead drank from the underworld river Lethe they forgot all the sorrows of their life. 48. The giants battled against the Olympian gods at the plain of Phlegra to the east of Mount Olympus, and were defeated. 49. Hymen was the Greek god of weddings, usually represented as a winged child carrying a bridal torch in his hands as he was leading the bride to the groom’s house. He is taller and more serious than Eros. 50. The rose has been consistently used in poetry as a metonym for the female pudenda. Here the verses recall the knight Sacripante’s decision to have the most beautiful Angelica: “I shall pluck the morning-fresh rose which I might lose were I to delay.” In Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando furioso, Canto 1.58. 51. After raping the mortal Io, Zeus transformed her into a cow. Hera claimed the cow and set the hundred-eyed watchman Argus to tend her. 52. The name “Celinda” etymologically derives from “cielo,” that is, “sky” or “heaven.” 53. In describing Autilio as faithful and steady, Miani may have had in mind a well known story in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso involving also the young daughter of the King of Lydia, named Lydia, who was too narcissistic herself to appreciate a man’s faithfulness. The Thra-

Endnotes to the Translation 377 cian knight Alcestes, Ariosto writes, fell in love with Lydia. He was refused by her father when he asked permission to marry her, even though he had conquered many territories for the king’s sake. Alcestes thus allied himself with the King of Armenia with the purpose of conquering Lydia and bringing about an alliance by force. Faced with the total loss of his kingdom, Lydia’s father relented and sent his daughter to her suitor. But in seeing Alcestes very much in love with her, Lydia felt emboldened and told him that she would give herself to him only after he had re-conquered all her father’s land and then some. In the end, although he did exactly as she wanted, Lydia was so ungrateful that Alcestes fell ill and died. Ariosto puts Lydia in Hell where she tells her story to the knight Astolfo: “‘I am Lydia,’ she began, ‘daughter of the King of Lydia and born to eminence, but condemned to this eternal smoke by the supreme justice of God for having been obnoxious and spiteful to my faithful suitor while I lived’” (Canto 34.11). It goes without saying that in re-elaborating the Ariostan episode, Miani chooses to characterize the daughter of the King of Lydia in a much more positive light. 54. The titillations of lesbian love are often present in Baroque drama, but its most fruitful expression is in the comedy by Giovanni Battista Andreini, Amor nello specchio (Paris: Della Vigna, 1622), forthcoming in this series. 55. The motive of the stolen kiss, famously elaborated in the poetry of Giambattista Guarini, became central to a number of madrigals by, among others, Claudio Monteverdi. 56. Phoebus Apollo, the sun god, drove his solar chariot each evening to the sea. As mentioned, Thetis is a sea goddess. 57. For the ancient Greeks, the Cimmerians dwelt beyond the ocean in perpetual darkness; later they were localized in the Crimea. Originally equestrian nomads who, according to Herodotus, inhabited the Black Sea, the Cimmerians briefly conquered Lydia in the 650s BCE by attacking it twice and killing King Gyges the first time, and his son, Ardys II, the second. Also the capital city of Sardis was laid to ruin. But the Lydians were able to reconquer their land twenty years later under King Alyattes II and end the power of the Cimmerians for good. In more modern times the strength and nobility of the Cimmerians have been evoked in a popular comic-book icon, Conan the Cimmerian, created by Robert E. Howard and played on the screen with bravado by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The continuous references in Celinda to mythology and history connected with Lydia show that Miani read widely on the subject once she had settled on an exotic locale for her play. 58. This is a clear echo of one of Tasso’s love lyrics (“tu d’ ardor ripiena / al collo gli facei stretta catena”). Tasso’s episode centers on the goddess Diana embracing Actaeon, who tries instead to disentangle himself from her grasp—a situation similar to this one in Miani, in which the cross-dressed Lucinia/Autilio reacts for a moment like the emasculated Actaeon. See Torquato Tasso, Le rime di Torquato Tasso, ed. Angelo Solerti (Bologna: Romagnoli dell’Acqua 1898–1902), 422.

378 Endnotes to the Translation 59. In all Petrarchist and Baroque poetry, especially that of Miani’s contemporary Marino, rubies refer to women’s lips. Here in fact the entire characterization of Autilio recalls more than once that of the effeminate and languid Adone. See Giambattista Marino (1569–1625), L’Adone (Bari: Laterza, 1975–77). 60. Diana (Artemis), twin sister of Apollo, was not only the goddess of the hunt but also of the moon. She is associated with chastity. 61. Although the cast list includes three Choruses, nowhere in the text does Miani specify which Chorus has which lines. In many cases internal clues, such as feminine adjective endings, make the identification clear. 62. The goddess Peace (Eirene or Irene) was the daughter of Zeus and Themis. Her sisters were Eunomia (Lawfulness) and Dike (Justice). She usually appears bearing the fruits of the seasons. With her sisters she is also the keeper of the gates of heaven. The Romans worshipped her as Pax. 63. Venus, Love’s star, is both the morning and the evening star. A dream in the early hours of the morning was considered prophetic and similar scenes are present in most tragedies. 64. I.e. the sunrise. The Ganges River is to the east of Italy. 65. In this line and in the almost identical 2.3, 63, Miani employs the verb “mercar,” explicitly meaning to make something an object of mercantile exchange, sometimes with the implication of banal venality. 66. These are the two gates described at the end of Book VI of the Aeneid by the ghost of Anchises when Aeneas visits the underworld. 67. In “Si scema il duol e ’l cor si disacerba” Miani echoes a well known Petrarchan verse, “perché cantando il duol si disacerba.” See Francesco Petrarca, “In the Sweet Season of Our Spring,” in Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The Rime sparse and Other Lyrics, ed. and trans. Robert Durling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 23.4. This was Petrarch’s song of metamorphosis, and Miani is consciously imitating it in the detailed story of transformation embedded in Lucinia’s frightful dream that follows and which precisely forecasts the events that will take place later in the play. 68. Horns are a Biblical metaphor for strength, for example I Samuel 2.1. 69. Not the message from beyond the grave as in the first epic dream of Act1.1, this time we hear of a symbolic dream of the type Cosentino denotes as tragic. A thousand species of male beasts, led by a fierce lion, attack the kingdom of Lydia. Celinda’s prayers that the gods pacify this lion are unavailing. The royal Lydian lion leads forth his own soldiers, including

Endnotes to the Translation 379 Lucinia herself. When the Lydian lion is captured and killed, Lucinia offers her own life in exchange for his, but after the foreign lion draws her blood she flees. She encounters a white doe who is also fleeing the battle, and they rest together. The dream ends when the doe laps up Lucinia’s blood, and then impales herself on the sword Lucinia is holding. On the Neoplatonic explanation of the symbolic dream as the divine soul’s clear vision (Autilio cannot very well tell Armilla about his dead ex-fiancée so he has to come up with a philosophical explanation), see Fabio Ruggirello, “Strutture immaginative nella tragedia del Cinquecento: Il topos del sogno premonitore,” Forum Italicum 39 (2005), 378–97. 70. Again, these are the lady’s eyes. 71. Lucinia/Autilio appears to be addressing Celinda’s wedding ring, but it is possible that the “pledge” is their unborn child, whom later Celinda addresses in a similar manner. 72. A mixture of tallow, pitch, and fish oil used to be smeared on the wooden bottoms of ships. 73. For the ancient Greeks, a holocaust was a sacrifice to a deity in which the victim was completely burned up. 74. In showing Autilio’s “bad” side (he claims that he will bring his father prisoner into the royal palace of Ephesus) next to the good one (he is declaring his love and devotion in the same breath), Miani is following Giraldi Cinzio’s outline on how to characterize truly tragic characters so that at the end the inevitable cathartic punishment can be understood by the audience as, all considered, necessary. 75. These verses (se voi pur sete, / Mal grado del destin, che vuol partirne, / L’ alma del corpo mio) could be translated: “if you nonetheless are, / despite destiny, the one who wants to depart from here, / you, the soul of my body”. 76. These Petrarchan laments recall Gaspara Stampa’s verses to Collaltino da Collalto in her Rime and are present in much contemporary poetry. 77. The tales of these three infamous lovers come from Ovid. Myrrha fell in love with her father Cinyras (Metamorphoses, Book X), Byblis with her twin brother Caunus (Metamorphoses, Book IX), and Canace with her brother Macareus (Heroides XI). See Ovid, Heroides, ed. and trans. Harold Isbell (New York: Penguin, 1990); and Metamorphoses, ed. Bernard Knox and trans. Charles Martin (New York: Norton and Company, 2005). Canace was also the topic of Sperone Speroni’s eponymous and much studied tragedy. 78. In the absence of more scientific objective tools, the initial motion of a fetus in the uterus was the confirmation in the early modern period both that the woman was pregnant and that the fetus was alive. Thus the announcement of a queen’s pregnancy was

380 Endnotes to the Translation traditionally given only after the moment of quickening. Abortion after quickening was considered a crime because it was understood as taking place after a fetus got an individual life. For Celinda it means of course that she cannot hide her pregnancy much longer. 79. In Roman mythology Juno was the goddess of marriage, home, and childbirth. 80. The Goddess Rumor (or Fama) was said to be the messenger of Zeus, for her news could never be traced back to a specific source. She had also a negative reputation as a goddess who never slept and was always on the ready to spread gossip and slander. 81. Aeson was the king of Iolkos and the father of Jason. His stepbrother, Pelias, usurped his throne, leading in time to Jason’s voyage with the Argonauts. 82. A lustrum is a period of five years. 83. The Italian “pudicizia” could also be translated as “modesty” or “purity.” 84. In Italian, “donna” “woman” is often paired with “danno” “harm” or “damage” in early modern misogynist literature, which had a resurgence in Padua sometime after 1586. A not yet identified author taking the pseudonym of Onofrio Filarco fired the local academies then with his Vera narratione delle operationi delle donne (no copy is extant), to which the playwright Giacomo Guidoccio responded in defense of Paduan women in Difesa delle donne contra la falsa narratione di Onofrio Filiriaco [sic] intorno l’ operationi loro (Padua: Meietti, 1588). Other misogynist texts of those very years published locally were Cipriano Giambelli’s Discorso intorno alla maggioranza dell’huomo, e della donna (Treviso: Mazzolini, 1589), and the most influential, Giuseppe Passi’s I donneschi difetti (Venice: Somasco, 1599). Passi infuriated women writers so much that some immediately published a response, including Lucrezia Marinella in Le nobiltà et eccellenze delle donne, et i diffetti e mancamenti de gli huomini (Venice: Ciotti, 1600), now available in English as The Nobility and Excellence of Women), and Moderata Fonte in her posthumous Il merito delle donne (Venice: Imberti, 1600), now in English as The Worth of Women. A response to Passi is also in a newly recovered treatise published in Venice and dedicated to a Paduan noblewoman, Laura Obizzi Pepoli, by a Sicilian lady, Bianca Naldi, entitled Risposta della signora Bianca Naldi da Palermo…per averle mandato I donneschi diffetti di Giuseppe Passi (Vicenza: Violati, 1614). On the issue see Giovanni Battista Marchesi, “Le polemiche sul sesso femminile ne’ secoli 16 e 17,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 74–75 (1895), 362–69; Kolsky, “Moderata Fonte”; and Cox, Women’s Writing in Italy, 172–75. 85. It could be said that in women’s narrative it is a hallmark for men, even kings, to proffer marriage to the women they desire rather than to offer the usual concubinage, but it is also true that women writers knew only too well the social boundaries of the world in which they lived. So it is left to a “slave girl” to show the inappropriateness of a king’s proposal, knowing that in due time she will be punished with death for his foolishness. And indeed a

Endnotes to the Translation 381 few lines further on, when Lucinia refuses him, King Cubo threatens to give her, naked, to all the soldiers of Lydia to rape. 86. In Greek mythology the Hydra possessed an array of heads. Poison also came out of its eyes. Hercules killed the Hydra of Lerna, a serpentine water beast, as the second of his twelve labors, by burning each head. He did not stay out of trouble for long after those tasks and again committed a murder. To purge himself this time he had to spend three years as a cross-dressed slave to Omphale, as mentioned. Miani’s use of the word “invincible” with reference to a cross-dressed Autilio shows that she was well aware of the myth of the “feminized” Hercules in Lydia upon whom she modeled Autilio. 87. Throughout the text of Celinda it has often been necessary to modify Miani’s early modern punctuation for the sake of clarity. In this case, these verses (non mai l’Egitto / Veder, e Cleopatra. Anco il suo nome. / Bello forse vivrebbe …) could be translated “never Egypt / to see, and Cleopatra. And perhaps his good / name would live on …” A reference to the love story of Antony and Cleopatra was de rigueur at this point but it pays to mention that their tragedy had also been revived a number of times in the early modern period. Printed local examples are Alessandro Spinello’s Cleopatra, tragedia (Venice: Nicolini da Sabbio, 1550), and Celso Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, tragedia (Verona: Sebastiano dalle Donne, 1576). The most famous revival was by Giraldi Cinzio, Cleopatra (Venice: Cagnacini, 1583), in which Marc’Antonio is described like Autilio: “having made himself a servant to Cleopatra / he became so effeminate and soft / that out of himself, he let go / to nothing what he had put in order / to become the only master of the world” (2.4). 88. Sophonisba was a Carthaginian noblewoman, daughter of Hasdrubal, promised to Massinissa. When the Roman Scipio Africanus, with whom Massinissa had allied himself to defeat Hasdrubal, heard that Massinissa had married her out of love after the battle, he urged him to surrender her so that she could be brought to Rome and appear in the triumphal parade of Carthaginian prisoners. Instead, Massinissa proposed to Sophonisba that she commit suicide. She indeed poisoned herself with a cup of poison that Massinissa gave her. On stage the best known revival at the time of the Sophonisba/ Massinissa story was by Gian Giorgio Trissino in La Sofonisba, tragedia (Venice: Salicato, 1582), but other well known poetic treatments of this doleful story of imperial prerogatives are in Petrarch’s Africa and Triumphi. As with Cleopatra and Antony above, in this case as well the mixture of love and war brings only ruin. But Miani confuses Massinissa with Mithridates VI of Pontus, a king who claimed to be the descendant of Alexander the Great and of Cyrus and who conquered western Anatolia, which is the territory of Lydia in the fictional history of Celinda. After his conquest in 88 BCE, Mithridates reportedly ordered the killing of all 80,000 residents of Roman origin in the area. Rome reacted swiftly and three Mithridatic wars followed in which the king was defeated first by Sulla and more decidedly later by Pompey in 65 BCE. Mithridates tried to commit suicide in order not to be captured by the Romans.

382 Endnotes to the Translation 89. Chivalric literature, which was the most popular vernacular genre in the early modern period, had accustomed readers to stories of women warriors fighting in battle like men, as in the cases of Bradamante and Marfisa in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and of Clorinda in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata. At the time of Miani’s writing, women too had started to experiment with the genre as in Moderata Fonte’s Floridoro. 90. The irresistible Cupid (or Amor) delineated by Miani is often represented in Renaissance painting as a mischievous, blindfolded, sometime also perverse child with wings, carrying bows and arrows, the son of Venus and of either Mars or Mercury. But this God also has elements of the Greek Eros and of his terrible, destructive other side, Anteros. In some renditions of the myth to which Miani seems to refer, Venus was Cupid’s first victim when by chance he scratched her lightly with his arrow and she fell in love with the first person she saw, Adonis. 91. Zenobia is a third-century queen of Palmyra, in Syria, known for being absolutely virtuous. According to Boccaccio (Famous Women), when she was a child she spurned womanly tasks, practiced hunting and killed lions and leopards. She also toughened her body to the point that she could best all men in wrestling and gymnastics. Beautiful and dark, she wore armor, went on horseback, and put on a helmet every time she addressed her troops. When, after the death of her husband, she became the ruler, she was able to conquer Egypt and expel the Romans. She ruled until 274, when Aurelian conquered her land and brought her, together with her children, to Rome to march in chains in the triumphal procession. Impressed by her, Aurelian later freed the former queen and gave her an estate outside Rome. Famous for speaking many foreign languages and for being a voracious reader, Zenobia became known as a philosopher. 92. This unnamed woman is Semiramis, a legendary warlike empress of Assyria or as Dante wrote, the woman who “held the land where now the Sultan rules” (Inferno 5.60). Abandoned by her father, she was fed by doves and raised by a shepherd. She was strong and courageous in the battlefield and proved herself such a force in the battle of Bactria that King Ninus married her. After his death she ruled in his stead and conquered much of Asia as well as Ethiopia. A story goes that she was at her toilette when she was told that Babylon had revolted. To quell the mayhem, she ran to reassert control the way she was, with her hair in disarray. Semiramis fortified Babylon with strong walls and ruled as regent of her son for many years. Under her Babylon became the most splendid city in the known world. Upon coming of age, her son killed his mother, fearful that she was plotting to kill him. Although credited for having invented the chastity belt, Semiramis also had a reputation for being sexually insatiable, perhaps because she was very beautiful and very potent, and was accused of killing the men with whom she had made love so that they would not expose her. Accordingly, Dante put Semiramis amid the lustful in the second circle of Hell. To showcase her degenerate mind, in his tragedy La Semiramis (1593) Muzio Manfredi added a fictional character, Dirce, wife of Semiramis’s son, Ninyas, whom Semiramis ordered to have killed, although, as we learn later, Dirce was her own daughter.

Endnotes to the Translation 383 93. Sparta was a military state and its men were considered disciplined, tough and most efficient militarily. Thus Celinda’s suitor, Attamante, is cast as a warrior who feels diminished when called upon to combat not against women warriors and queens, such as Zenobia and Semiramis, but against a slave woman. Historically, Croesus allied himself with the Spartans before going to war with Cyrus, thus there is a plausible reason for Attamante to be at Cubo’s court. 94. Lydia may not be well delineated in the fiction of the text, but in these poetic lines we are definitely in the Renaissance as Attamante speaks in the Petrarchan and chivalric vocabulary that any member of the audience on the stage as well as any reader would have easily understood and perhaps even personally used. 95. The Thermodon was a river issuing into the Black Sea in Northern Turkey along which was founded the capital of the Amazons, Thermiskyra. 96. Bellona is the Roman goddess of war. In the Renaissance she was portrayed as a woman warrior wearing a helmet, a coat of mail, a spear and a torch. 97. In Italian Miani uses the word “Alcide,” meaning “ the strong,” for Hercules. This was Hercules’ first name until he was renamed Heracles (“the glory of Hera”) after he had successfully met the first trials Hera had assigned him. 98. This warrior goddess is Bellona, variously identified as the wife, sister or daughter of Mars. She prepared Mars’ chariot when he went to battle. Roman senators used her temple to declare wars. 99. Venus is the evening star, thus its appearance (it is the most brilliant planet at sunset) marks the end of the day. 100. In Roman mythology, Vulcan was the blacksmith god who made weapons and armor in his forge. His symbols are the anvil and the forge. If weapons here are a metonym for battle, Lucinia could be speaking of Mars, the god of war. 101. There is no internal clue about which Chorus speaks these lines, as there are in the preceding and following speeches. 102. The reference is to a story in Homer’s Iliad, when Achilles routed the Trojan army by chasing half the soldiers back into Troy and the other half into the river Xanthus, where he started to kill them all. The river complained because the corpses were disrupting its flow, but Achilles could not stop until he had completed the carnage. The river thus rebelled and threw the corpses back out onto the shores and also sent huge waves to drown the Greek hero. Almost overcome and fearing his loss of honor at so ignominious a death, Achilles asked then for Zeus’ intervention. Through Athena’s aid he was able to outrun the waves; at

384 Endnotes to the Translation the same time Hephaestus, the god of fire, started a blaze that burned all bodies and animals in the river. See The Iliad (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), Bk 21. It pays to notice that in his youth Achilles too, like Autilio, was dressed as a girl. Renamed Pyrrha, he hid on Skyros among the king’s daughters until Ulysses unmasked him and persuaded him to accompany the Greek army to Troy. As in the case of Hercules, feminine clothes turned out to reinforce Achilles’s masculinity by incorporating feminine elements in his construction of manhood. 103. Ibla was an ancient Siculan city famous for flowers and bees. It is now called Ragusa. 104. The son of Latona, mistress of Zeus, is Apollo, the sun god. 105. The reference is to the lady’s lips, as in the love poetry of the time. Indeed the whole scene up to the very last line is full of Petrarchan, even Marinist, conceits. 106. In addition to being a sun god, Apollo was a shepherd god who protected the flocks; his attributes include a shepherd’s crook. In Lope de Vega’s pastoral Arcadia, Anfriso was a young shepherd loved by Belisarda. Since she had been promised by her parents to Salicio, a rich but uncouth man, Anfriso was sent with his flock to a faraway pasture. See Arcadia (1598; Madrid: Castalia, 1575). 107. In his forge in Mt. Etna on the eastern end of Sicily, the blacksmith god, Vulcan, and his giant, one-eyed assistants, the Cyclopes (singular: Cyclops), crafted the lightning bolts Jove used as weapons, the helm of invisibility of Hades, and the trident of Poseidon to defeat the Titans. 108. It is unclear what conflict precisely Miani has in mind here. There were no Ottomans in Lydia until the eleventh century. The tribe known as the Ottomans established itself in Western Anatolia after 1071. The dynasty was named after Osman, who expanded his kingdom into the former Byzantine empire and in Asia Minor and moved the capital to Bursa in 1326. Historically speaking, there was a major battle between the Ottomans and the Safavid Persians in the fields of Chaldran in 1514, in which the Ottomans won as a result of their superior use of gunpowder. Miani may use the word “Ottoman” to mean more generally “Turk.” In this case she may very well have in mind the famous victory of Cyrus over Croesus in Turkey, which indeed replenished the Persian coffers. 109. In the early modern period the divisions between social classes were so naturalized as to be almost impossible to overcome, even rhetorically, as in this speech by Celinda. 110. Celinda was thus fifteen years old.

Endnotes to the Translation 385 111. As Celinda rightly observes, tragedy is reserved only to the nobility. Poor people are at most objects of pity, and are usually portrayed in plays, if at all, only comically. Even in the pastoral genre shepherds are not uncouth peasants. 112. In calling her pregnancy “dishonorable” Miani is fully aware that in early modern Italy her character’s transgression needs to be punished, unlike Omphale’s pregnancy by Hercules in the realm of myth. 113. To enter the Greco-Roman underworld, the dead shade had to pay Charon his boatsman’s fee to cross the River Styx. Virtuous shades would cross the River Lethe and forget their earthly cares. 114. The adjective in Italian is “pregno” (pregnant), alluding to Celinda’s pregnancy. 115. The Chorus’s lines in this scene provide no decisive clues; it could reasonably be the Chorus of Lydian Soldiers instead. 116. Zeeland is Modern Sjaelland, a Danish island. It is also the birthplace of Bireno, the unfaithful lover of Olimpia, in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (Canto 10), a well known episode of bereaved love. A familiarity with this text could be a plausible explanation for Miani’s choosing such an unlikely alliance between a Dane and a Persian. 117. The Medes were an ancient Persian people who lived in what is now northwestern Iran. They established the first Iranian empire until Cyrus the Great conquered their territory and absorbed it into the Achaemenid Persian empire. 118. Medieval bestiaries described the pelican’s custom of piercing its own breast to feed the blood to its hatchlings. The simile was often used in poetry, most famously in a romantic poem by Alphonse de Lamartine. 119. This appears to be the Chorus of Soldiers, since lines are spoken by a Chorus and soldiers are listed. 120. Shifts between past and present verb tenses are not uncommon in the chivalric literature of the period. 121. This line (“Mirava ella ammirata”) is ambiguous, and could also be translated as “she was filled with wonder, herself wondrous” or “he [Cubo] gazed at her, wondrous.” 122. Bards were horse armor, generally made of leather studded with metal points. 123. Descriptions of chivalric combats such as this were easily available to women writers in the numberless romance epics published in the wake of the success of Matteo Maria Boi-

386 Endnotes to the Translation ardo’s Orlando Innamorato and Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. These epics all included women warriors in armor proudly challenging their enemies, until at the end of their successful combat, they would take off their helmets and reveal their long blond hair. Occasionally their enemies knew that they were being defeated by a woman and resented aloud its implication for their manly honor, as in this case. Passages like the above can be found also in Fonte’s Floridoro, in which the woman warrior Risamante fights for her right to half of her father’s kingdom of Armenia. A man dressed as a woman in the battlefield is quite unusual, although some authors have used the masquerade. There were also numberless dueling manuals flooding the market, in fact at least forty-six how-to fencing books. See Francesco Erspamer, La biblioteca di Don Ferrante: Duello e onore nella cultura del Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1987), 58–61. 124. Iris was the Greek goddess of the rainbow, which in the Bible (Genesis 9) God makes the sign of his covenant not to send another flood. 125. Miani makes clear that a king derives a good part of his power from his closeness to a wife who can restrain his more bellicose and impulsive side with wise counsel. In fact, Miani seems to suggest that the current disorder at the Lydian court is the direct result of the queen mother’s death, for not only would Cubo not have fallen in love with a slave girl at his late age, but Celinda herself would have had more supervision in her rooms and more restraint in her impulses. 126. Miani once again returns to the story of Hercules. Here the reference is to three of Hercules’ twelve labors. The hero first captured the fire-breathing Cretan bull single-handly. Then the enormous Nemean lion could not be harmed by weapons, so Hercules strangled it. As for the Lernaean Hydra, he killed it with the help of Iolaus, who burned the stumps of its severed heads to prevent more from sprouting. 127. Court life now is described as the place of assent rather than dissent. The king may be wrong but the courtiers know where they belong, and rather than plot against the sovereign they accept the inevitable, whatever that turns out to be. We have moved fully away from the court life described by Baldassare Castiglione’s Courtier into Torquato Tasso’s “Il Malpiglio, overo de la corte,” in Dialoghi (Milan: Mursia, 1991), 158–81. More generally on the shift, see Valeria Finucci, “L’ educazione dei fratelli: Legge del padre e sua riscrittura nel Libro del Cortegiano,” in Educare il corpo, educare la parola nella trattatistica del Rinascimento, ed. Giorgio Patrizi and Amedeo Quondam (Rome: Bulzoni, 1998), 367–91. 128. According to Herodotus, there were portents announcing the upcoming defeat of Croesus by Cyrus. Horses started to devour snakes and this was read by the Telmesian seers as meaning that the Persian army was coming to devour the Lydian people (identified as the children of the earth, like the snakes). Historically speaking Miani is correct in identifying Ephesus as a city with a colossus, that is, the colossal temple of Artemis, whose construction took one hundred twenty years. Nothing remains today of this temple. The story goes that

Endnotes to the Translation 387 it was destroyed by a suspicious fire the night Alexander the Great was born. Croesus also built a colossus to Alyattes and parts of this monument still exist along the river Hermus, outside the capital city of Lydia at the time, Sardis. 129. Hecuba was the wife of King Priam of Troy. Her numerous children, including Paris and Hector, were all killed or enslaved in the sack of Troy. She too was enslaved by the Achaeans. 130. The sirocco or scirocco (in Italian also “Euro”) is a southern Mediterranean hot wind coming from the Sahara. People attributed a number of diseases to it when it blew because it caused dust or dampness. 131. Ephesus was built on a bend of the river called today Cayster, which flows into the Aegean sea. The sand in its banks was said to be full of gold. 132. The dogs of Molossus were both hunting and guard dogs often mentioned in Greek and Roman literature. They also protected livestock. See Virgil, The Georgics of Virgil: Bilingual Edition, trans. David Ferry (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2006), 3.404–13. 133. The Greek deities Erebus (Darkness) and Night had numerous progeny. This figure could be Fate, but the crown indicates that she is more probably Nemesis, whose function is to punish offenders of the moral law as well as mortals who attain too much happiness. 134. There is a Dantean echo to these words, for when Dante meets the souls of those who sinned for love and lust, he hears the same “dolenti note”: “Now sorrowful notes have begun to overtake my hearing: now I come where mighty lamentation beats against me” (Inferno 5.25). Here Dante meets Semiramis, Helen of Troy with Paris, Dido, Achilles and Tristan, and most famously, the couple of Paolo and Francesca. 135. The mythical musician Orpheus descended into the underworld to regain his dead wife, Eurydice. Her shade followed his music upwards until at the last moment he turned to see if she was there, thus violating the god Hades’s condition for her release. Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo, with libretto by Alessandro Striggio, the second opera ever written, was performed with great success in Mantua in 1608 and was published in Venice by Ricciardo Amadino in 1609. Miani certainly knew it. 136. The reference here is to Celinda’s hands. 137. Ephesus not only had been enriched by its gold sand at the time of Croesus, but after Augustus became emperor the city was made the capital of proconsular Asia and became second only to Rome in importance and size (its population swelled to 600,000 people). Beside the marvel of the Temple of Artemis mentioned earlier, the city boasted the Library of Celsus, an immense open air theater which could seat 25,000 spectators, the most capacious

388 Endnotes to the Translation aqueduct of the ancient world, a small round theater—the Odeon for concerts (which could seat up to 2,500 people)—a set of baths, and a number of Roman temples, such as that of Hadrian, Domitian, and Pollio. Also Ephesus had St. John Basilica, named after the apostle, and built by Justinian. Even today Ephesus has the largest collection of Roman artifacts outside Rome, although more than two-thirds have still to be unearthed. Ephesus was also the place where the painter Zeuxis resided. 138. Smyrna (modern Izmir) was a Greek city in western Asia Minor about 40 miles north of Ephesus, at the head of a gulf into which flowed the river Hermus. 139. Originally another name for Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, Miani uses it as Dante did (Inferno 8.68–75) for the name of Lucifer’s fiery city in hell. 140. For the ancient Greeks these were two rivers in the underworld. Dante portrays the Phlegethon as a river of boiling blood (Inferno 12.47–48) and Cocytus as a frozen pool (Inferno 31–34). 141. If Fulco is modeled on Cyrus the Great, historically we know that the beheaded head that in the fiction of Celinda belongs to Cubo actually is Cyrus’s own. According to Herodotus, in his campaign to conquer the Massagetae in 530 BCE, Cyrus first extended an offer of marriage to the widowed queen, Tomyris, who refused it. She then offered for the two armies to meet on a specific field and sent her son, Spargapises, at the head of her army. But Cyrus chose to ride away with his best men in order to ambush the Massagetae and left in the camp only a few soldiers and, strategically, plenty of wine. Spargapises overcame the Persians in the encampment but then his troops got drunk and thus were less able to sustain Cyrus’s unexpected attack which came next. Upon hearing what had happened— her son committed suicide, having realized the gravity of the events—Tomyris led her own army into battle and decimated the Persians. Cyrus was killed and his decapitated head was brought to the queen who immersed it in a vessel containing blood to avenge the death of her son. Although there are many versions of Cyrus’s death, this grossly horrific one was well known in Italy in the period. Angelo Ingegneri staged Tomiri in 1607 in a version that Miani must have known since the two of them belonged to the same circle of intellectuals. 142. The messenger addresses the supposed slave girl Lucinia with the respectful “voi,” but refers to princess Celinda with the familiar “tu” and the disrespectful “costei.” 143. On stage the severed hands and head would have added graphic pathos. Giraldi Cinzio recounted that at the showing of his Orbecche a lady in the audience fainted when she saw Oronte’s and the children’s severed heads and hands offered on a silver plate. See “Discorso intorno al comporre de i romanzi, delle comedie, e de 144. The tone of invocation here recalls that of Iacopone da Todi, a Franciscan medieval friar who wrote a number of well known, and often dramatized, laudi (religious songs). 145. A similar situation and statement is in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Endnotes to the Translation 389

146. This extended lament with all its similes echoes similar ones in both the poetry of Giambattista Marino and the madrigals of Monteverdi. The vocabulary is Petrarchist but the languid development is more in tune with the Baroque poetry of the time. 147. The Furies were attendants of the rulers of the underworld; their duties were to pursue and punish criminals. As mentioned earlier, Lake Avernus at Cumae in Italy was considered one of the access points to the underworld. 148. Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld. 149. A bird identified with the kingfisher. Alcyone was so deeply in love with her husband Ceyx that when he drowned she threw herself into the sea; both of them were transformed into kingfishers. 150. Jove’s birds were eagles. 151. Niobe was so proud of her numerous sons and daughters that she disparaged Leto for having only two children. These two, Apollo and Artemis, punished her presumption by killing all Niobe’s offspring, as mentioned earlier. In grief, the mother turned to stone. 152. The goddess Hera set Atlas’s daughters, the Hesperides, to tend her garden in the far west. 153. This common burial is famously present in Boccaccio’s story of Ghismonda and Guiscardo. “If anything remains in the love that you [Tancredi] used to feel for me,” asks Ghismonda, “make me one last gift: as you could not brook my living secretly with Guiscardo, let my body lie next to him, wherever you’ve had it thrown, for everyone to see.” In Decameron 4. 1, 264. Most famously it is also in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and in its sources, such as in Matteo Bandello and Luigi da Porto. All in all, however, a request for a double burial was not so unusual at the time. The renowned anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, for example, asked to share the same tomb with his student, the botanist Melchior Guilandinus, who died 27 years later, but was still buried with him.

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Bibliography 403 Javitch, Daniel. “The Emergence of Poetic Genre Theory in the Cinquecento.” Modern Language Quarterly 59 (1998), 139–69. Johnson, Eugene J. “The Short, Lascivious Lives of Two Venetian Theaters, 1580–85.” Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002), 936–68. Kelly, Henry Ansgar. “Background: Boccaccio’s Non-Tragedies.” In Henry Ansgar Kelly, Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages, 11–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Kirkendale, Warren. “L’ opera in musica prima del Peri: Le pastorali perdute di Laura Guidiccioni ed Emilio de’ Cavalieri.” In Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’ Europa del Cinquecento, ed. Giancarlo Garfagnini et al., 3 vols. Florence: Olschki, 1982–83. Kolsky, Stephen. “Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, Giuseppe Passi: An Early Seventeenth Century Feminist Controversy.” Modern Language Review 96 (2001), 973–89. Liddell, H. G., and Robert Scott, eds. An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. MacNeil, Anne. “The Divine Madness of Isabella Andreini.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 120 (1995), 193–215. Maggiolo, Attilio. I soci dell’ accademia patavina dalla sua fondazione (1599). Padua: Accademia Patavina di Lettere, Scienze ed Arti, 1983. Magliani, Mariella. “Giulia, Lucia e Valeria: Tre donne così poco ‘comuni’.” In Tracciati del femminile a Padova: Immagini e storie di donne, ed. Caterina Limentani Virdis and Mirella Cisotto Nalon, 64–69. Padua: Il Poligrafo, 1995. Majorana, Bernadette. “Finzioni, imitazioni, azioni: Donne e teatro.” In Donna, disciplina, creanza cristiana dal XV al XVII secolo: Studi e testi a stampa, ed. Gabriella Zarri, 121–39. Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1996. Mancini, Franco, Maria Teresa Muraro, and Elena Povoledo. I teatri del Veneto: Padova, Rovigo e il loro territorio, 5 vols. 3:3–192. Venice: Corbo e Fiore, 1988. Mangini, Nicola. “La situazione teatrale a Padova al tempo di Carlo de’ Dottori.” Quaderni Veneti 8 (1988), 131–46. _____. I teatri di Venezia. Milan: Mursia, 1974.

404 Bibliography _____. “La tragedia e la commedia.” In Storia della cultura veneta: Dalla Controriforma alla fine della Repubblica. Il Seicento, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi. 6 vols. 4/1:297– 326. Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1983. Mann, D. Matthew, ed. A System of Gynecology. Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1888. Marchesi, Giovanni Battista. “Le polemiche sul sesso femminile ne’ secoli 16 e 17.” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 74–75 (1895), 362–69. Marotti Ferruccio, ed. Storia documentaria del teatro italiano. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974. _____ and Giovanna Romei, eds. La Commedia dell’ Arte e la società barocca: La professione. Roma: Bulzoni, 1991. Maylander, Michele. Storia delle Accademie d’Italia. 5 vols. Bologna: Licinio Capelli, 1926–30. Milani, Marisa. “Quattro donne fra i pavani.” Museum Patavinum 1 (1983), 387–412. Mometto, Piergiovanni. L’azienda agricola Barbarigo a Carpi. Venice: Il Cardo, 1992. Montesquieu, (de) Charles. Viaggio in Italia. Ed. Giovanni Macchia and Massimo Colesanti. Bari: Laterza, 1995. Neri, Ferdinando. La tragedia italiana del Cinquecento. Florence: Galletti e Cocci, 1904. Nicholson, Eric. “Romance as Role Model: Early Female Performances of Orlando furioso and Gerusalemme liberata.” In Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and Tasso, ed. Valeria Finucci, 246–69. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Nuttall, A. D. Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure? New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pastorello, Ester. Tipografi, editori, librai a Venezia nel secolo XVI. Florence: Olschki, 1924. Pertusi, Agostino. “Il ritorno alle fonti del teatro greco classico: Euripide nell’Umanesimo e nel Rinascimento.” In Venezia e l’ Oriente tra tardo Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. Agostino Pertusi, 205–24. Florence: Sansoni, 1966.

Bibliography 405 Pesenti, Tiziana. “Stampatori e letterati nell’industria editoriale a Venezia e in terraferma.” In Storia della cultura veneta 4, 93–129, ed. Girolamo Arnaldi and Gianfranco Folena, 6 vols. Vicenza: Pozza, 1976–. Pieri, Marzia. La scena boschereccia nel Rinascimento italiano. Padua: Liviana, 1983. Pomata, Gianna. “Family and Gender.” In Early Modern Italy, ed. John Marino, 69–86. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Price, Simon, and Emily Kearns, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ray, Meredith. “La castità conquistata: The Function of the Satyr in Pastoral Drama.” Romance Languages Annual 9 (1998), 316–20. Rees, Katie. “Female-Authored Drama in Early Modern Padua: Valeria Miani Negri.” Italian Studies 63:1 (2008), 41–61. Riondato, Ezio, ed. Dall’ Accademia dei Ricovrati all’ Accademia Galileiana. Padua: Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2001. Ruggirello, Fabio. “Strutture immaginative nella tragedia del Cinquecento: Il topos del sogno premonitore.” Forum Italicum 39 (2005), 378–97. Russo, Vittorio. “Il senso del tragico nel Decameron.” Filologia e letteratura 11 (1965), 29–84. Saggioli, Giovanni. Padova nella storia delle sue strade. Padua: Piazzon, 1972. Salvi, Marcella. “‘Il solito è sempre quello, l’insolito è più nuovo’: Li Buffoni e le prostitute di Margherita Costa tra tradizione e innovazione.” Forum Italicum 38.2 (2004), 376–99. Salvioli, Giovanni, and Carlo Salvioli, eds. Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano con particolare riguardo alla storia della musica italiana. Venice: Ferrari, 1903. Sampson, Lisa. “‘Dramatica secreta’: Barbara Torelli’s Partenia (c. 1587) and Women in Late­Sixteenth-Century Theatre.” In Theatre, Opera, and Performance in Italy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present, ed. Brian Richardson et al., 99–115. Leeds: Society for Italian Studies, 2004. _____. Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: The Making of a New Genre. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2006.

406 Bibliography Stewart, Pamela. “Eroine della dissimulazione: Il teatro di Luisa Bergalli.” Quaderni Veneti 19 (1994), 73–92. Strachan, Michael. The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Taviani, Ferdinando, ed. La commedia dell’arte e la società barocca: La fascinazione del teatro. Rome: Bulzoni, 1969. Tylus, Jane. “Women at the Windows: Commedia dell’ Arte and Theatrical Practice in Early Modern Italy.” Theatre Journal 49:3 (1997), 323–42. Weaver, Elissa. Convent Theater in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Weinberg, Bernard. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. Wynne-Davies, Marion. “‘My Seeled Chamber and Dark Parlor Room’: The English Country House and Renaissance Women Dramatists.” In Readings in Renaissance Women’s Drama: Criticism, History and Performance, 1594–1909, ed. S. P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies, 60–69. London: Routledge, 1998. Zonta, Giuseppe. “La Partenia di Barbara Torelli Benedetti.” RBLI 14 (1906): 206–10.

Index

Academies, 5, 6, 11n, 371; dramatic performances in, 27, 34 Achilles, 98–99, 232–33, 370 Aesculapius, 338–39 Aeson, 182–83 Alighieri, Dante (Divine Comedy), 372, 374, 382, 387, 388 Alpini, Prospero, 5n Altobello, Renato, 13n Andreini, Giovanni Battista, 377 Andreini, Isabella, 3, 4, 5n, 20, 21, 22n, 23, 33, 44, 50n Andreini, Virginia, 44 Andrews, Richard, 15n Anon, 8 Antony, 198–99 Apollo (Phoebus), 130–131, 234–35, 370 Argus, 116–117 Ariani, Marco, 27n, 46n Ariosto, Ludovico, 15; and Orlando furioso, 26, 376, 377, 382, 385, 386 Aristotle (Aristotelian), 6n, 26 Armani, Vincenza, 15, 16, 18n, 33 Armentano, Lucia, 13n Athena (Pallas), 62–63, 370 Augustus, 198–99 Aurispa, Giovanni, 25n Aurora, 94–95, 236–37 Balcianelli, Marcantonio, 52, 70–71, 372

Bandello, Matteo, 389 Bandini Buti, Maria, 50n Barasch, Frances, 23n Barbaro, Marco, 8n Barbieri, Nicolò, 16 Barish, Jonas, 32n Battiferra, Laura, 5n Bellona, 220–21, 226–27 Bergalli, Luisa, 19, 49 Bernardi Bellati, Eleonora, 20 Bertana, Emilio, 28n, 35n, 36n, 50 Berzaghi, Renato, 47n Bianchi, Alessandro, 29n Bigolina, Giulia, 2n, 3, 23n, 39, 40n Boccaccio, Giovanni: Decameron, 26, 31, 37, 42, 43, 45, 389; Famous Women, 370, 382 Boccalini, Traiano, 42 Böhm, Anna, 32n, 33n, 50 Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 386 Bolzetta, Francesco, 5, 23, 24n, 47, 51 Bookshops, 4, 5 Boreas, 66–67 Bragadin, Marcantonio, 36 Bragadin, Veneranda, 3 Brescianini, Ottaviano, 32 Brown, Pamela, 15n Brunelli, Bruno, 32n, 33n, 50n Bruscagli, Riccardo, 27n Burattelli, Claudia, 11n Buxton, Richard, 370 Buzzacarini, Antonio, 29n, 32, 38

407

408 Index

Byblis, 172–73 Callegari, Marco, 1n, 5n, 7n, 12n Calzavara, Antonella, 18n Campiglia, Maddalena, 3, 4, 50n; and Flori, 20, 40 Cancik, Hubert, 370 Canonici–Fachini, Ginevra, 50 Carpi Veneziana, 12, 25 Carter, Tim, 44 Castigliona, Camilla, 18n Castiglione, Baldassarre, 386 Cavazzini, Giancarlo, 7n Ceba, Ansaldo, 29n Cecchini, Pier Maria, 33 Chartier, Roger, 25n Chorus, of ladies, 142–43, 182–83, 204–05, 226–27, 230–31, 240– 41, 244–51, 266–69, 298–99, 302–13, 316–17, 320–21, 322– 23, 334–35, 344–45, 352–55, 358–69; of Lydian soldiers, 232–33, 284–85 Cleopatra, 198–99 Clubb, Louise George, 23n Collier, Alexandra, 45n Commedia dell’ arte (Compagnie dell’Arte), 11n, 15, 16, 17, 33; and actresses, 15, 16, 17, 18n Confuso Accademico Ordito, 1n Conservi, Gratiadio, 52, 60–62 Contarini, Francesco, 6n, 28n, 32n, 35, 38 Contarini, Tommaso, 6n Copio Sullam, Sara, 3 Coreglia, Isabella, 20 Cornaro Piscopia, Elena, 6n

Cortese, Isabella, 3–4 Coryate, Thomas, 5 Cosentino, Paola, 374, 379 Costa, Margherita, 17 Counter–Reformation, 16, 46 Cox, Virginia, 3n, 17n, 20n, 21n, 47n, 49n, 380 Cremonini, Cesare, 33 Crescimbeni, Giovan Maria, 2, 49 Croesus, king of Lydia, 372, 374, 375, 376, 383, 384, 386, 387, 388 Crossdressing, 15, 25, 35, 38, 41, 68–69, 72–73, 76–77, 84–87, 90–91, 126–37, 140–41, 158–59, 168–69, 280–81, 374, 377, 384 Cusick, Suzanne, 45n Cyprus, 36 Cyrus, king of Persia, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 381, 386, 388 Da Porto, Luigi, 389 Da Todi, Jacopone, 388 De Blasi, Jolanda, 17n Decio da Horte, Antonio, 29n, 37 Decroisette, Françoise, 21n, 22n, 50, 51n Deli Amorevoli, Battista, 33 Della Chiesa, Agostino, 49 Della Valle, Federico, 29n Del Sera, Beatrice, 17 De’ Medici, Eleonora. See Gonzaga, Eleonora De’ Medici, Ferdinando, 17, 21n, 47n Descalzi, Ottonello, 6n Descalzi Uberti, Marietta, 23, 24n, 47

Index 409

De Scudery, Madeleine, 6n DeVere, Edward, 5 Di Crollalanza, Giovanni Battista, 11n Di Maria, Salvatore, 27n, 32n Dimock, Wai Chee, 14n Dolce, Lodovico, 26n Doni, Anton Francesco, 25n Dosi–Grati, Maria Isabella, 18n Echo, 278–79 Ephesus, 30, 74–75, 294–95, 302–03, 318–19, 328–29, 354–55, 373, 375, 386, 387 Erspamer, Francesco, 386 Euganea (region), 13, 34, 62–63, 371 Eurydice, 314–15 Fabrici d’Acquapendente, Girolamo, 4, 5n Fagiolo, Marcello, 25n Fahy, Conor, 5n Falconio, Arrigo, 52, 64–65, 371 Falloppio, Gabriele, 389 Fantuzzi, Giovanni, 9n Fate, 86–87, 106–107, 208–09, 242– 43, 302–03, 348–49 Fedele, Cassandra, 8n Ferri, Leopoldo, 18n, 19n, 49, 50n Filarco, Onofrio, 380 Finucci, Valeria, 5n, 386 Fonte, Moderata, 3; Worth of Women, 4n, 380; Le feste, 8n; La passione di Cristo, 17n; Floridoro, 23n, 382, 386 Forti, Delfina, 50n Fortuna, Maria, 19

Forzatè, Claudio, 38 Franciotti, Cesare, 16 Franco, Veronica, 3, 5n Fuligni, Valerio, 28n, 38 Galilei, Galileo, 4, 6, 10 Garin, Eugenio, 25n Gentildonna lucchese, 21 Gerbino, Giuseppe, 25 Giambelli, Cipriano, 380 Giraldi Cinzio, Giambattista, 19n, 26, 27, 28, 29n, 30n, 31, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46n, 379, 381, 388 Giusti, Vincenzo, 36, 37n Giustiniano, Orsatto, 28n Goldoni, Carlo, 13n Gonzaga, Eleonora (de’ Medici), 4, 45; as dedicatee of Celinda, 11n, 35n, 45, 46, 47, 51, 56–59 Gonzaga, Ferdinando, 35n Gonzaga, Francesco, 35n Gonzaga, Vincenzo, 28n, 47n, 48 Gori, Domenico, 16n Grant, Michael, 370 Graves, Robert, 370 Groto, Luigi, 18n, 29n, 31, 37, 38 Guarini, Giambattista (Il pastor fido), 6, 22, 377 Guidiccioni Lucchesini, Laura, 19n Guidoccio, Giacomo, 35, 36n, 380 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 9n Handley, Diana, 46n Hannibal, 198–99 Haskins, Susan, 4n Hecuba, 298–99

410 Index

Henke, Robert, 15n Henry III (de Valois), king of France, 17 Hercules (Heracles), 41, 222–24, 294–95; as crossdressed, 41, 86–87, 381; as slave, 41, 373, 375, 383, 385, 386 Herculiana, Camilla, 3, 4n Herodotus, 370, 372, 374, 376, 386, 388 Herrick, Marvin, 27n Homer, 371, 373, 383, 384 Horace, 26, 371 Howard, Robert H., 377 Hymen, 150–51, 188–89, 220–21 Ingegneri, Angelo, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29n, 36–37, 388 Iris, 288–89 Javitch, Daniel, 7n Jesuits, 32 Johnson, Eugene J., 32n, 34n Jove, 86–87, 106–109, 142–43, 150–51, 158–59, 206–07, 214– 15, 228–29, 236–39, 300–01, 356–57 Juno, 174–75 Kelly, Henry Ansgar, 26n Kirkendale, Warren, 19n Kolsky, Stephen, 5n, 380 Laertes, 64–65 Lamartine (de), Alphonse, 385 Lavocat, Françoise, 47n Leonida, Fabio, 52, 66–67, 371

Liceti, Fortunio, 5n Liddell, H. G. 370 Love: Cupid (god of love), 56, 57, 68–69, 84–87, 92–93, 116–21, 126–27, 136–37, 166–77, 190– 91, 200–07, 214–15, 220–21, 230–31, 234–37, 246–49, 256–57, 310–11, 336–37, 344–47, 366–67, 370, 373, 382; and deception, 70–71, 86–87, 96–97, 116–119, 126–27, 130– 31, 136–37, 202–05, 222–23, 236–37; and madness, 196–97, 206–07, 214–15, 294–95; and marriage, 72–73, 78–79, 84–85, 62–63, 124–25, 136–37, 164–65, 168–71, 198–99, 312–13; as powerful, 78–79, 84–85, 116– 117, 126–29, 138–39, 164–65, 170–73, 176–77, 192–93, 200– 01, 206–09, 214–15, 218–19, 248–49; and sex, 72–73, 76–77, 84–87, 116–117, 122–23, 136– 37, 150–55, 166–67, 176–77, 186–91, 194–95, 198–205, 210– 11, 216–17, 222–23, 226–27, 230–31, 340–41 Lucan, 374 Lydia (Turkey), 30, 35, 38n, 68–69, 72–77, 80–81, 92–93, 96–101, 104–105, 122–23, 148–53, 160– 61, 182–83, 198–201, 214–15, 230–31, 238–39, 292–95, 298– 99, 318–19, 330–31, 336–43, 350–59, 362–63, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 381, 383, 387

Index 411

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 15n MacNeil, Anne, 20n, 44n Maggi, Biagio, 32n Maggiolo, Attilio, 6n Magliani, Mariella, 34n, 50, 51n Majorana, Bernadette, 15n Malfatti, Cesare, 8n Malmignati, Giulio, 35 Mancini, Franco, 33n Manfredi, Muzio, 29n, 38, 47n, 382 Mangini, Nicola, 18n, 33n, 34n, 50 Mann, Matthew, 375 Manzoni, Ercole, 1, 52, 64–67, 371 Manzoni Giusti, Francesca, 19n Marchesi, Giovanni Battista, 380 Marinella, Lucrezia, 3, 5n; and Arcadia felice, 23n, 39, 47; and The Nobility and Excellence of Women, 23n, 380 Marino, Giambattista, and Marinist poetics, 371, 372, 378, 384, 389 Marlowe, Christopher, 37 Marotti, Ferruccio, 28n Marriage, 114–115, 136–37, 138–39, 148–49, 162–63, 182–83, 190–91, 196–97, 326–27; plot in comedy, 14; usual age for, 10n Mars, 86–87, 90–91, 96–97, 104– 105, 158–59, 166–67, 184–85, 202–03, 208–09, 220–21, 226– 31, 238–39, 242–45, 274–75, 284–87, 312–13 Maylander, Michele, 5n Medea, 62–63 Melpomene, 62–63, 370 Men: and beauty, 72–73, 120–21, 128–31, 133–34, 144–47, 148–

53, 170–71, 206–07, 210–13, 218–19, 230–31, 236–37, 276–77, 344–45; as faithful, 100–103, 124–25, 136–37, 150–51, 230–31, 244–45, 254– 55, 286–87, 290–93, 296–97, 336–39, 350–51, 362–63, 366–67; as fathers, 68–73, 72–73, 82–87, 90–95, 98–107, 114–115, 118–19, 126–29, 135–36, 138–41, 168–69, 174– 79, 182–87, 208–09, 222–25, 230–31, 238–39, 246–47, 252– 59, 262–63, 284–85, 292–93, 308–09, 318–19, 324–27, 330– 35, 338–39, 342–43, 348–51, 356–57, 360–61; as feminized, 92–93, 208–09, 216–17; and friendship, 100–101, 244–45; of good habits and learned, 56–67, 96–97, 100–101, 108–9, 152–53, 182–83, 188–89, 204–11, 215– 16, 238–39, 242–47, 290–91, 338–39, 358–59; and power, 94–97, 100–101, 106–107, 180–81, 186–91, 192–93, 196– 97, 200–01, 214–15, 246–47, 258–59, 320–31, 328–29 Miani, Giovanni Alvise, 10 Miani, Giovanni Luigi, 10 Miani, Valeria: Life: authorial self–presentation, 48, 56–59; birth, 7; as enfant prodige, 7; family, 3, 8–12; literary reputation 49–51, 60– 71; marriage, 10; other works, 1,

412 Index

2, 6n, 372 Amorosa speranza: 1, 20, 48; autobiographical allusions, 21, 22n, 370; composition, 20, 23; music and dance, 25; plot, 20–21; publisher, 23–24, 47, 51; staging, 13, 24–25, 371 Celinda: literary influences, 36, 37, 388; chivalric/epic elements, 38, 374, 376, 377, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386; novelistic/romance elements, 31, 38, 42, 50, 389; performances, 13, 31, 34, 371; plot, 30–31, 37; Petrarchan echoes, 44, 378, 384, 389; publication, 46, 47, 51; praised as tragedy, 56–71; similarity with other tragedies/plays, 31, 32, 37, 45, 377, 379, 381, 382, 388, 389 Milani, Marisa, 4n Misogyny, 190–91 Mithridates, 198–99 Molza, Tarquinia, 5n Mometto, Piergiovanni, 13n Mondella, Francesco, 29n, 37, 38 Monte, Issicratea, 3, 4, 8 Montesquieu (de), Charles, 18n Monteverdi, Claudio, 49, 377, 387 Motherhood, 56–67, 60–61, 82–83, 109–11, 142–47, 174–75, 186– 87, 206–07, 296–98, 302–03, 306–07, 352–53 Murtola, Gaspare, 52, 68–70, 371, 372 Myrrha, 172–73

Naldi, Bianca, 380 Nashe, Thomas, 16n Negri, Domenico, 10, 11 Negro, Antonio, 11n Negro, Gasparo, 11n Negro, Marin, 11 Neri, Ferdinando, 27n Nicholson, Eric, 15n Niobe, 358–59 Nuttall, A. D., 45n Omphale, 41, 372, 373, 375, 385 Oracle, prediction of, 72–73, 98–99, 102–105 Orientalism, 38 Orlandi, Antonio, 9n Orlando furioso. See Ariosto, Orlando furioso Ottomans, 36, 246–47, 372, 384 Ottonelli, Giovan Domenico, 16, 32 Ovid, 379 Padoano, Cesare, 8, 9, 10n, 12, 23, 49n Padua, 2, 7, 9, 10, 24, 34, 42, 371; actors and actresses in, 27, 33; literary debates in, 6, 380; performances of play, 32, 33, 34, 35; publishing, 7, 51; sponsorship of educated women, 7, 8; university culture, 4–5, 33; women writers from, 3, 4, 7, 50 Passi, Giuseppe, 380 Pastoral play, 19–25; and female singers, 19; love and marriage,

Index 413

22; nymphs and satyr, 21–22 Pastorello, Ester, 7n Pastor Fido. See Guarini Pellegrini, Orsetta, 18 Pertusi, Agostino, 25n Pesenti, Tiziana, 23n Petracci, Pietro, 49 Petrarch, 378, 381; echoes in Miani’s writings 44, 378, 389 Petrocini, Marco, 35 Phaedra, 62–63, 370 Pieri, Marzia, 20n Pietrucci, Napoleone, 50n Piissimi, Vittoria, 17, 33 Pistorelli, Celso, 381 Pluto, 354–55 Pomata, Gianna, 46n Portenari, Angelo, 11n Pregnancy, 136–37, 174–75, 258–59, 338–39, 354–55 Price, Simon, 370 Printers, 7 Publishers, 7, 23 Pulci, Antonia, 17 Quadrio, Francesco Saverio, 12, 13n, 49 Ray, Meredith, 22 Rees, Katie, 10n, 11n, 12n, 21n, 22n, 50, 51 Reformers of the Studio (Padua), 46, 47n, 51, 52 Ribera, Pietro Paolo, 2n, 7n, 9n, 24, 49 Rinuccini, Ottavio, 14n Riondato, Ezio, 6n

Robusti, Marietta, 4n Romana, Flaminia, 15 Rotari, Virginia, 11n Rucellai, Giovanni, 32n Ruggirello, Fabio, 379 Russo, Vittorio, 26n Ruzante (Angelo Beolco), 27 Saggioli, Giovanni, 11n Salvi, Marcella, 17n Salvioli, Giovanni, and Carlo, 20n, 35n Sampson, Lisa, 7n, 14n, 20n, 21n, 47n Sandelli, Martino, 1n Sanudo, Leonardo, 2 Sberti, Anton Bonaventura, 7n, 32n Scaramuccia, Angelita, 18n Seneca, and Senecan tragedy, 6, 25, 26, 36, 44 Sforza, Bona, queen of Poland, 8n Shakespeare, William, 23, 31, 37, 389 Sophonisba, 198–99 Speroni, Sperone, 6, 27, 29n, 43n, 379 Spinello, Alessandro, 381 Stampa, Gaspara, 3, 5n, 22n, 379 Stewart, Pamela, 19n Strachan, Michael, 5n Striggio, Alessandro, 28 Studio (University) of Padua, 10, 33 Suicide, 68–69, 72–73,78–79, 114– 121, 124–25, 134–37, 160–61, 176–77, 250–51, 260–63, 354– 55, 362–63 Summo, Faustino, 6n

414 Index

Sydney, Philip, 5 Tasso, Torquato, 5n, 22, 47; Aminta, 19n, 21, 23; Gerusalemme liberata, 374, 382; “Il Malpiglio,” 386; Il Re Torrismondo, 28n, 38; Rime, 377 Theater, disputes, 13, 16 Thebes, 371 Thetis, 84–85, 130–31 Tithonus, 94–95 Tomasi, Valeria, 13n Torelli Benedetti, Barbara, 20, 21n, 47 Tornini (Fra’), Luca, 13n Tragedy, 18; appeal to women and women writers, 28–31, 40; closet drama, 32; form, 25–29, 36, 40; erotic elements, 39, 40, 42, 44; horror, 36, 37, 40; performances of, 34; performances by women, 18n; resolution of tragic plots, 29, 40; tragic lament, 44, 45, 46; tragedy with a happy ending, 27, 45 Trissino, Gian Giorgio, 381 Turra, Elisabetta Caminer, 19n Tylus, Jane, 15n Valerini, Adriano, 16n, 18n Vanni, Francesco (Cavalier), 34, 52, 62–65, 370, 371 Varano, Costanza, 8n Varotari, Chiara, 4n Vedova, Giuseppe, 10, 50n Vega, Lope de, 384 Veneto, 7; 13, 27n; actors and actresses in, 16; theatrical

performances, 32, 33, 34n Venice, 4, 7, 17, 25, 27n, 28, 32 Venier, Domenico, 5n Venier, Maffio, 38 Venus (Aphrodite), 56–57, 62–65, 146–47, 204–07, 276–77, 312– 13, 370 Verlato, Leonoro, 36 Vicenza, 28, 36 Vinta, Francesco, 29n Virgil, 376, 378, 387 Virginity, 116–17, 122–23, 138–39, 154–55, 200–01, 256–57, 266– 67, 302–03 Visconti, Bianca Maria, 8n Von Hapsburg, Maria, Empress, 7 Weaver, Elissa, 17n Weinberg, Bernard, 14n Women: as actresses, 15, 16; allegorical representation, 160– 61; and beauty, 60–61, 66–67, 76–79, 84–85, 90–91, 94–95, 108–13, 118–19, 164–69, 182– 83, 186–87, 208–09, 218–221, 232–37, 248–49, 340–41; as chaste, 64–65, 78–79, 116–119, 188–89, 258–59; as constant, 170–71, 336–39; as courageous, 138–39, 144–45, 178–85, 228–29, 250–51, 252–55, 260–61, 338–39; as daughters, 76–77, 82–83, 100–101, 108–13, 124–27, 134–35, 144–49, 154– 55, 178–81, 184–87, 190–91, 200–01, 204–05, 216–17, 224–25, 242–49, 252–53, 298–

Index 415

99, 308–11, 324–29, 332–33, 342–47, 356–57; and female relationships, 56–59, 108–15, 118–21, 124–25, 128–31, 138– 39; and punishment, 258–59; as wives 134–35, 150–53, 174–77, 188–89, 198–99, 220–21, 226– 27, 238–39, 292–95, 314–17, 332–33, 336–39, 342–43, 356– 57, 360–61; as writers, 2–6, 14, 15, 20, 56–71 Wynne–Davies, Marion, 13n Zenobia, 208–09 Zonta, Giuseppe, 20n