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MUSICA TRANSALPINA: BOOK II.

XLVII.

In flower of April springing,

When pleasant birds to sport them,

Among the woods consort them;

Warbling with cheerful notes and sweetly singing,
For joy Clora the fair her song was chaunting,
Of her, and her Elpine, the sweet loves vaunting.
Music by A. Ferabosco, 1580.

Original Italian.

"Nel piu fiorit' Aprile,

"All hor che i vaghi augelli,

"Di sopra gl' arboscelli;

"Cantano in vario suon dolce e gentile.

"A gara ancor con lor cantava Clori,
"Di lei e del suo Elpin i dolci amori."

Luca Marenzio has composed beautiful music to these words, a paraphrase of which by the Editor of this work will be found in the Appendix.

XLVIII.

Now springs each plant to Heav'n aloft aspiring,
And in fair fields of violets and roses,

Cheerfully sport them wanton loves with gladness:
Since she whose sacred breast my life incloses,
After so long distress, great grief, and sadness,
Doth make me blest above all heart's desiring.

Music by L. Quintiani, 1580.

XLIX.

Dainty white pearl, and you fresh smiling roses,

The nectar sweet distilling:

O why are you unwilling

Of my sighs inly firing?

Oh! yet my heart herself in them discloses :

Some relief thence desiring.

Music by A. Bicci, 1570.

Without the original words, the reader would scarcely discover the above to be an address to a fair lady's mouth.

"Candide perle, e voi labbra ridenti,

"Che nettare spargete;

"Deh! perche non volete

"Questi sospiri ardenti?

"Ahi! che tra loro è pur

l'anima mia,

"Che baciar vi desia."

L.

So saith my fair and beautiful Lycoris,

When now and then she talketh

With me of love,

Love is a sprite that walketh,

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* "Love in her sunny eyes does basking play.

"Love does on both her lips for ever stray."-Cowley.

In her eyes there he flies,
But none can catch him,

Till from her lips he fetch him.

Music by Luca Marenzio, 1580.

"Thus saith my Cloris bright," vide No. CLXXXIV., is another version of the same original:

"Dice la mia bellissima Lycori,
"Quando tal' hor favello

"Seco d'amor, ch' amor è un spiritello,

"Che vaga e vola, e non si può tenére,
"Nè toccar nè vedere.

"E pur se gl' occhi giro,

"Nei suoi begl' occhi il miro;

"Ma nol posso toccar, che sol si tocca

"In quella bella bocca."

46

WATSON'S SELECTION.

This work was published under the quaint title of "Italian Madrigals* Englished, not to the sense of the Original Ditty, but after the affection of the note.

"There are also here inserted two excellent Madrigals "of Master William Byrd's, composed after the Italian "vaine, at the request of the said Thomas Watson.

"Imprinted at London, by Thomas Este, the assigné of "William Byrd, and are to be sold at the house of the said "T. Este, being in Aldersgate Street, at the sign of the "Black Horse, 1590."

* Twenty-eight in Number.

Thomas Watson, a native of London, was educated at Oxford, and afterwards studied the law. He was a man of very considerable scholastic acquirements, and moreover seemed fond of displaying them, as the dedication of this work to the Earl of Essex, and an accompanying eulogium on the great musician Luca Marenzio, are both in Latin verse. His Hecatompathia, or Passionate Century of Love, contains a hundred Sonnets, which exhibit very little of the real spirit of poetry, but a great deal of pedantry. He at one time formed an idea of translating Petrarch into Latin verse, (vide Dr. Nott's edit. of the Earl of Surrey's Poems, note, vol. i. 288.) but never seems to have put it in execution. He is supposed to have died about 1593. Next to Morley's adaptations of English words to Italian music, these of Mr. Watson are the worst (I speak of the 15th century) with which I am acquainted. The annals of the modern stage could furnish examples of much greater barbarities committed upon the language which a Shakspeare has immortalized; in the shape of foreign operas adapted to English words, by those who it would appear scarcely know a substantive from an adjective, or a verb from its nominative case.

LI.

O merry
world! when ev'ry lover with his mate,
Might walk from mead to mead, and cheerfully relate
Sour pleasures, and sweet griefs; following a wanton state.
Those days knew no suspect; each one might freely prate,

And dance and sing and play with his consociate.
Then lovers used like turtles kiss full lovingly.

O honey days and customs of antiquity!

But now the world so full is of fond jealousy,
That charity we term wanton iniquity.

Music by Luca Marenzio, 1570.

Although I have spoken harshly of Mr. Watson in the preceding page, this Madrigal is not bad. Here does he, two centuries and a half ago, complain of the artificial state of society, and regrets the golden days of a bygone age; perhaps as many years hereafter, our posterity may look back upon us as having lived in a happy state of Utopian innocence. My conscience!

The same lines are set by Thos. Vautor, 1619.

LII.

Fair shepherd's Queen!

Let's hand in hand enchained,

Dance up and down the green

Like friends unfeigned;

And merrily recount

Our happy days,

While climbing up the mount,

My tender flock unheeded strays.

Come, shepherds, follow me,

Praising sweet Amarillis:

All but Amyntas,

Whose only joy is Phillis.

Music by Luca Marenzio, 1570.

I have made some trifling alterations here, for the sake both of sound and sense, to fit the Madrigal for public

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