Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T13:46:34.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

INTERMEDIO II - ‘Ahi, come a un vago sol cortese giro’ (1605)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2011

John Whenham
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Richard Wistreich
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Get access

Summary

This is the opening piece of the cycle of five continuo madrigals that Monteverdi placed at the end of the Fifth Book. As I argued in the preceding chapter, these madrigals, all but one of which are taken from Battista Guarini's Rime, are arranged to form a kind of narrative. Beginning with ‘Ahi, come a un vago sol’ we are introduced to the opening stages of an amorous infatuation – brought on by the glance of a woman's beautiful eyes – into which the poet allows himself to be drawn in spite of his better judgement. His ambivalent attitude is made clear in this poem, in which he laments that ‘it does no good to hide’ even if, because he has been in love before, he knows that he will be hurt again. In the next poem, ‘Troppo ben puòquesto tiranno Amore’, his ambivalence is the focus, as fear and temptation compete, but by the third madrigal, ‘Amor, se giusto sei’, it is clear that the lover has given in, and he begs Love to be just and make his beloved as receptive to him as he is to her. By the fourth poem – “‘T'amo, mia vita’”, la mia cara vita’ – he wallows in the sound of his beloved's words (‘I love you, my life’), and in the fifth – ‘E così poco a poco’ – he is consumed by the affair, ‘like a moth to the flame’, conscious that to try to put out the blaze merely makes it worse.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×