The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

(Cruel? O no, my dear. Too much it grieves me to withhold from you a joy that for a long time our soul desires. But, the world . . . O God! Do not weaken the constancy of my suffering heart. Sufficiently for you Love speaks to me.

Do not tell me, my dearest dear,

That I am cruel to you;

You know well how much I love you,

You know my fidelity,

Calm your torment

If you do not wish me to die of grief.

Perhaps, one day, Heaven Will take pity on me.

The aria is one of the most beautiful which Mozart ever wrote, but the words are of an appalling banality and make Donna Anna very unsympathetic, now leading poor Don Ottavio on, now repulsing him. We felt, therefore, that we must forget the orginal text entirely and write something quite new. In a coloratura aria of this kind, it is wise to start with translating or reinventing the cabaletta which, like a cadenza, is written to provide the singer with the opportunity to display her vocal virtuosity in runs and range of pitch. This means that, whatever lines one writes, the key syllables must contain long open vowels, preferably a, ex and ae. Ac­cordingly, the first line of the aria we composed was the last, after taking a hint from the cielo in the preceding line.

On my dark His light shall break.

We then wrote a line to precede it and complete the caba­letta:

God will surely wipe away thy tears, my daughter, On thy (my) dark His light shall break.

These lines suggested the idea that they might be some kind of message from Heaven, so that some lines, at least, of the cavatina would be concerned with where the message was coming from. We then remembered that, in the graveyard scene which immediately precedes it, Don Giovanni mentions that it is a cloudless night with a full moon, and that the supper scene which immediately follows it opens with the Don's hired musicians playing suitable supper music. These two facts suggested two ideas: a) that Donna Anna might be gazing at the full moon, from which, so to speak, the mes­sage of her cabaletta would emanate and b) effective use might be made of the Neoplatonic contrast between the music of the spheres which her "spiritual" ear catches from the moon and the carnal music of this world as represented by the supper music. The stage direction in the piano score we were using says A darkened chamber, but there seems to be nothing about the action which makes this necessary. WTiy shouldn't the chamber have an uncurtained open window through which the moon could be seen? Accordingly, we changed the stage direction and wrote the aria as follows:

recit: Disdain you, Hear me, my dearest! None

can foretell what the rising sun may bring, a day of sorrow or a day of rejoicing. But, hear me! Remember, when the jealous

misgivings of a lover beset you, all the stars shall fall down 'ere I forget you!

cavatina: Let yonder moon, chaste eye of heaven Cool desire and calm your soul; May the bright stars their patience lend you As their constellations roll, Turn, turn, turn about the Pole. Far, too far they seem from our dying, Cold we call them to our sighing; We, too, proud, too evil-minded, By sin are blinded.

See, how bright the moon shines yonder, Silent witness to all our wrong: Ah! but hearken! O blessed wonder! Out of silence comes a music, And I can hear her song.

cabaletta: "God will surely, surely, wipe away thy tears, my daughter, On thy dark His light shall break. God is watching thee, hath not forgotten thee,

On thy dark His light shall break." God will heed me, sustain me, console me. On my dark His light shall break.

Any one who attempts to translate from one tongue into another will know moods of despair when he feels he is wasting his time upon an impossible task but, irrespective of success or failure, the mere attempt can teach a writer much about his own language which he would find it hard to learn elsewhere. Nothing else can more naturally correct our ten­dency to take our own language for granted. Translating compels us to notice its idiosyncracies and limitations, it makes us more attentive to the sound of what we write and, at the same time, if we are inclined to fall into it, will cure us of the heresy that poetry is a kind of music in which the rela­tions of vowels and consonants have an absolute value, ir­respective of the meaning of the words.

MUSIC IN SHAKESPEARE

Mustek to heare, why hear'st thou musick sadly, Sweets with sweets warre not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receav'st not gladly,

Or else receav'st with pleasure thine annoy?

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