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Below I have included both the Italian poem and my English translation:
- Morte
o Che vôi?
- Te chiamo. Eccom’appresso
- Prendi m’e fa che manch’il mio dolore
o Non posso
- Non pôi?
o Non. Perch’in te non regna’il core
- Sì fa!
o Non fa!
o Fatte’l restituire, ché chi vita non ha non può morire. 76
- Death
o What do you wish?
- I call you, behold, for I draw near
- Take me and complete all that remains of my sorrow
o I cannot
- You cannot do so? Why?
o Because, in you, the heart does not reign
- Yes it does!
o No it does not!
o (Done.) Make the return, because those without life cannot die (again).
As a quick explanation of the differences between the two translations, I would like to
note that I have included the text as it appears in all voices. Pescerelli and Briscoe’s translation
does not include the dialogue; for example, their translation does not include the place where the
alto speaks, “Che vôi?” (What do you wish?) in m. 2, in response to the canto and tenor voices
which call out to Death. I found these interjections (which are mostly in the form of questions) to
be intrinsic to understanding the plot of the narrative and have included them in my translation. I
have also altered, as I have mentioned, verb tenses and sentence structure from what is found in
Pescerelli and Briscoe’s translation to provide a more literal translation of Aquilano’s text.
76 Beatrice Pescerelli, I madrigali di Maddalena Casulana (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1979), 22.
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