Per tropo fede talor se perigola
anonymous ballata

Sources

Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossi 215, fol. 19 (1/1).

Facsimiles

1. Il canzoniere musicale del codice vaticano Rossi 215 con uno studio sulla melica italiana del Trecento, facsimile edition by Giuseppe Vecchi, Bologna: Università degli studi di Bologna, 1966. Monumenta lyrica medii aevi italica, III/2.
2. Il Codice Rossi, edited by Nino PIRROTTA, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1960. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/II, p. 36.
2. Italian Secular Music, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1978. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century XI, p. 119.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 355.

Literature

1. SESINI, Ugo. 'Il canzoniero musicale trecentesco del cod. Vat. Rossiano 215', Studi medievali (N.S.), XVI (1943-1950), p. 229.
2. WILKINS, Nigel. Music in the Age of Chaucer, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1979. Chaucer Studies I, pp. 45-46.
3. FISCHER, Kurt von. 'Ballata', The New Grove, II (1980): 86-88.
4. YUDKIN, Jeremy. Music in Medieval Europe, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989, pp. 524-525.

Recordings

1. Decameron: Ballate Monodiques de L'Ars Nova Florentine, Esther Lamandier (voice, portative organ, harp, vielle, lut (1980): Astrée AS 56 (FRA).
2. Every Delight and Fair Pleasure, Hartley Newnham (1991): Move Move MD 3092.

Text

Per tropo fede talor se perigola.

Non è dolor né più mortale spasemo
come, senza falir, cader in biasemo:
el ben se tacie e lo mal pur se cigola.

Lasso colui che mai se fidò in femena.
ché l'amor so veneno amaro semena.
onde la morte speso se ne spigola!

Oimè, ch'Amor m'ha posto in cotal arzere.
onde convienme ognor lagreme sparzere.
sì che de doglia lo mio cor formigola.

Translation

Too much trust may place one in jeopardy.

There is no pain, nor deadlier torment.
than to be disgraced without fault.
The good one has done is passed over in silence.
whereas the bad is gossiped about.

Unlucky he who ever trusted a female.
because Love sows its bitter poison
from which often death is reaped.

Alas! Love has placed me in such burning torment
that I must always shed tears.
so that pain is crawling all over my heart.
Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga