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Updated: June 10, 2025
"Yea, truly, signorini miei. This fellow-captive of mine was a cavaliere in his own land, but he had been betrayed and sold by his enemies, and he mourned piteously for la sposa sua his bride, as they say here. A goodly man and a tall, piteously cramped in the narrow deck, I grieved to leave him there when the good confraternita at Genoa paid my ransom.
Il mio complimento al Sign., suo padre e madre, sorelle, fratelli, e a tutti i miei amici ed amiche. Addio! I write this in the house of Signor Wider, who is an excellent man and exactly what you wrote to me, yesterday we finished the Carnival in his house. We supped there and then danced, and went afterwards, in company with the 'pearls, to the new masquerade, which amused me immensely.
Such a sentiment, so expressed by a footman, would set a plain man in London a laughing, and make a fanciful Lady imagine he was a nobleman disguised. Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences as themselves. Their cold answer to my amazement is as comical as the fellow's fine style è battizzato[Footnote: He has been baptized.], say they, come noi altri[Footnote: As well as we.]. But we are called away to hear the fair Fantastici, a young woman who makes improviso verses, and sings them, as they tell me, with infinite learning and taste. She is successor to the celebrated Corilla, who no longer exhibits the power she once held without a rival: yet to her conversations every one still strives for admittance, though she is now ill, and old, and hoarse with repeated colds. She spares, however, now by no labour or fatigue to obtain and keep that superiority and admiration which one day perhaps gave her almost equal trouble to receive and to repay. But who can bear to lay their laurels by? Corilla is gay by nature, and witty, if I may say so, by habit; replete with fancy, and powerful to combine images apparently distant. Mankind is at last more just to people of talents than is universally allowed, I think. Corilla, without pretensions either to immaculate character (in the English sense), deep erudition, or high birth, which an Italian esteems above all earthly things, has so made her way in the world, that all the nobility of both sexes crowd to her house; that no Prince passes through Florence without waiting on Corilla; that the Capitol will long recollect her being crowned there, and that many sovereigns have not only sought her company, but have been obliged to put up with slights from her independent spirit, and from her airy, rather than haughty behaviour. She is, however, (I cannot guess why) not rich, and keeps no carriage; but enjoying all the effect of money, convenience, company, and general attention, is probably very happy; as she does not much suffer her thoughts of the next world to disturb her felicity in this, I believe, while willing to turn every thing into mirth, and make all admire her wit, even at the expence of their own virtue. The following Epigram, made by her, will explain my meaning, and give a specimen of her present powers of improvisation, undecayed by ill health; and I might add, undismayed by it. An old gentleman here, one Gaetano Testa Grossa had a young wife, whose name was Mary, and who brought him a son when he was more than seventy years old. Corilla led him gaily into the circle of company with these words: "Miei Signori Io vi presento Il buon Uomo Gaetano; Che non s
It was a late hour, before Delme ventured to remind the songstress, that they must prosecute their journey early on the following morning. "I will take your hint," said Acme, as she shook his hand, and tripped out of the room; "buona sera! miei Signori." "She is a dear creature!" said Delme, "She is indeed!" replied his brother, "and I am a fortunate man. Henry!
"Were it not for the necessity of protecting the innocent, Signori, God knows how much I should prefer to carry my terrible secret with me to the grave. Signori miei, these eyes SAW the deed done, that put the sleeping woman to death. Only God and I, the lowest of his servants! God and I saw the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare do that deed!"
Why do you stand there? Oh, my daughter! my daughter! I have so often told you to be careful, Guendalina move, in the name of God the child is lost, lost, I tell you! Have you no heart? no feeling? Are you a mother? Signori miei, I am desperate!"
It is a striking introduction to what follows, the exquisite duet between Marcel and Valentin, the great septet of the duel scene, beginning, "De dritti miei ho l'alma accesa," with the tremendous double chorus which follows as the two bands rush upon the scene.
Indeed, the stanza itself, as used by our earliest poets, may be found in Guido Cavalcanti's 'Ballatetta, beginning, Posso degli occhi miei. Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when in the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was as a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and essayed fresh metres.
Such as these must Guarini have apostrophised, as he looked at his slumbering love. "Occhi! stelle mortale! Ministri de miei mali! Se chiusi m'uccidete, Aperti, che farete?" Or, as Clarendon Gage translated it. "Ye mortal stars! ye eyes that, e'en in sleep, Can thus my senses chain'd in wonder keep, Say, if when closed, your beauties thus I feel, Oh, what when open, would ye not reveal?"
A volcano, signori miei, a volcano, un Vesuvio! I had the honour and the happiness of singing with him in the opera dell' illustrissimo maestro Rossini in Otello!
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