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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?"
Perdona Tu ancora, al corpo no che nulla pave All'alma si: deh per lei prega; e dona Battesme a me, ch'ogni mia colpa lave; In queste voci languide risuona Un non so che di flebile e soave Ch'al cor gli scende, ed ogni sdegno ammorza, Egli occhi a lagrimar gl'invoglia e sforza.
They were the largest eyes; and their motion reminded one of those of Sordello in the Purgatorio: E nel muover degli occhi onesta e tarda: they seemed too large to move otherwise than with a slow turning like that of the heavens. At first they looked black, but if one ventured inquiry, which was as dangerous as to gaze from the battlements of Elsinore, he found them a not very dark brown.
Le veggio in fronte amor come in suo seggio Sul crin, negli occhi su le labra amore Sol d'intorno al suo cuore amor non veggio. I have been twice to her house since my first admission there. I love to listen to that soft and enchanting voice, and to escape from the gloom of my own reflections to the brightness, yet simplicity, of hers.
Parsons, by taking further liberty with the original, has not surpassed it: "And she to me: The mightiest of all woes Is in the midst of misery to be cursed With bliss remembered." "Ond' ella, appresso d'un pio sospiro, Gli occhi drizzo ver me con quel sembiante, Che madre fa sopra figlinol deliro." And, finally, the beginning of the eighth canto of the "Purgatorio":
Then she put out the light, and lay awake so long that when a boat came round the cliff from the Saint's Pool to the open sea, in the hour before the dawn, she heard the soft splash of the oars in the water and the sound of a boy's voice singing. "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
Old Charon, in his boat, "with eyes of brass, who beats the delaying souls with uplifted oar," is taken directly from Dante:— Caron demonio con occhi di bragia Loro accenando, tutte le raccoglie, Batte col remo qualunque si adagia. Those portions of the fresco in the semicircular spaces at the top, angels bearing implements of the Passion, appear to have been painted the last.
He rails against the whole sex in the air, beginning: "Aprite un po' quegl' occhi?" in the last act. The orchestra stops, all but the horns, which with the phrase It is a pity that the air is often omitted, for it is eloquent in the exposition of the spirit of the comedy. The merriest of opera overtures introduces "Le Nozze di Figaro," and puts the listener at once into a frolicsome mood.
The boat to which Ruffo belonged, going out of the Pool to the fishing, passed at this moment slowly upon the sea beneath the terrace, and from the misty darkness his happy voice came up to them in the song of Mergellina which he loved: "Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."
And then, who knows what awaits one on the way? "E quando ti riscontro per la via Abbassi gli occhi e rassembri una dea, E la fai consumar la vita mia."
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