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Medieval Music Database

Dal traditor non si pu= l'uom guardare

canonic ballata by Andrea da Firenze

Sources

Florence: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Palatino 87 (Squarcialupi Codex), fol. 185v (3/2).

Facsimiles

Il Codice Squarcialupi edited by F. Alberto GALLO, Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1992.

Editions

1. TAUCCI, Raffaello. 'Fra Andrea dei Servi, organista e compositore del Trecento', Rivista di studi storia sull'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, II (1935), p. 35.
2. MARROCCO, W. Thomas. Fourteenth-Century Italian Cacce, Cambridge/Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1942, p. 28.
3. Der Squarcialupi-Codex Pal. 87 der Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana zu Florenz, edited by Johannes Wolf and H. Albrecht, Lippstadt: Kistner and Siegel, 1955, p. 339.
4. The Music of Fourteenth Century Italy, edited by Nino Pirrotta, [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1964. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 8/V, p. 4.
5. Italian Secular Music, edited by W. Thomas Marrocco, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1977. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century X, p. 7.

Text Editions

CORSI, Giuseppe. Poesie musicali del Trecento, Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1970, p. 292.

Literature

1. TAUCCI, Raffaello. 'Fra Andrea dei Servi, organista e compositore del Trecento', Rivista di studi storia sull'Ordine dei Servi di Maria, II (1935), pp. 89-90.
2. REANEY, Gilbert. 'The Middle Ages', [in] A History of Song, edited by Denis Stevens, 2nd edition, New York: W. W. Norton, 1970, p. 59.
3. BAUMANN, Dorothea. Die dreistimmige italienische Lied-Satztechnik im Trecento, Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1979. Sammlung musikwissenschaftlicher Abhandlung no. 64, passim.

Text

Dal traditor non si pu= l'uom guardare
che mostri buona faccia
con sagaci costumi e falsa traccia.

Pessima pestilenza certamente
familiar nimico
F sopra tutte l'altr'aspr'e mortale.
Questa malvagia torma frodolente
fece gia per antico
a molti buoni non pensato male.
Simile a Giuda un traditor cotale
pien d'infinita laccia
tradito m'ha con dimostrar bonaccia.

Per= si guardi ciascun con si fida
e come crede altrui.
bench'altri el parlar abbia pien di mFle:
chT tal si finge amico e par che rida.
dicendo: - I' sono e fui
e sar= sempre servidor fedele -.
ch'F poi ascoso vento a le suo vele
e con inganni allaccia
chi pi· sicuro dorme in le suo braccia.

Translation

A man cannot protect himself from traitors
who display goodly faces
and hide under wise habits their false traces.

Assuredly they are familiar enemies
as bad as the worst plague.
above all others hard to bear and deadly.
This evil fraudulent mob
did already in the past
untold harm to many good people.
One of those traitors, not unlike Judas.
full of inifinite snares
betrayed me by pretending benevolence.

Let each one, then, be wary of how he trusts
or believes other people.
however honeyed their tongues may be.
Some pretend to be friendly, and smilingly
say: "I am and was
and ever shall be your faithful servant"
who then are like an unforeseen storm to one's sails
and ensnare with deceptions
those who safely sleep in their arms.

Text revision and translation © Giovanni Carsaniga



Content Approved by: MMDB Director
Last updated: Wednesday, 19 March 2003


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