L'Orfeo del Poliziano
Argomento
The Argomento from Agnolo Poliziano's Fabula di Orfeo (1480) is a 16-line summary in ottava rima of the key plot points of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, as influenced by Roman sources. It is delivered to the audience by the god Mercury in order to outline the sequence of events that will occur in the short, five-act play. The text below, taken from the Orfeo Tragedia, is a rifacimento which requires additional notation. A comparison between this and the critical edition of Poliziano is forthcoming.
My translation of the rifacimento Argomento into Modern English is provided below together with details about my objectives and the stages of translation.
Traduzione
Translation in Ottava Rima
translated by Maria Athena (May 2023)
MERCURY:
Hush. You there, listen. Once a shepherd was fashioned,
Sonny boy of Apollo, and he was named Aristaeus.
Oh, how he burned with such limitless passion
For Eurydice, the wife of Orpheús,
5 And one day, hot in pursuit for to take his heart’s ration,
Fortuned unwelcome fate by his love incautious,
Because bolting from him by the water she fled,
Where a snake bit her and she fell back dead.
Orpheús played, singing, made the Inferno a wager,
10 Then failed to keep their accord’s condition;
Those who’d leased Eurydice as quickly reclaimed her
And he lived on, bitter ripened, in desperation.
He swore, out of spite, to love no woman other
And was gifted due death at the Bacchantes’ frustration.
15 All of you pay attention to these five acts, each one.
The argument is over and the play’s just begun.
Testo originale dell'Argomento (rifacimento)
dell'Orfeo del Poliziano (1480)
MERCURIO:
Silenzio. Udite. E’ fu già un Pastore
Figliuol d’Apollo, nomato Aristeo.
Costui amò con sì sfrenato ardore
Euridice che fu moglie d’Orfeo,
5 Che seguendola un giorno per amore
Fu cagion del suo fato acerbo, e reo;
Perchè fuggendo lei vicino all’acque
Una serpe la morse, e morta giacque.
Orfeo cantando a lo Inferno la tolse,
10 Ma non potè servar la legge data,
E chi la diede ancor se la ritolse,
Ond’esso in vita acerba, e disperata
Per sdegno amar più mai donna non volse,
E da le donne morte gli fu data.
15 Or stia ciascuno a tutti gli Atti intento,
Che cinque sono, e questo è l’argomento.
Da Rime di Mr. Angelo Poliziano, Vol. 1: Con Illustrazioni Dell' Abate Vincenzo Nannucci e di Luigi Ciampolini, p. 113-144, 1814. (Link ↗)
A Note From the Translator
This translation is part of The Diana Project, a three-part mini-project I am working on in order to gain a sense of the rhythm inherent in Italian speech and develop an ear for the music, metre and vocal quality of Italian poetry in performance with particular emphasis on select poets, translators and other authors whose works influenced the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, especially his Tales of Canterbury.
Unfortunately, Agnolo Poliziano (1454-1494), who was born a good half-century after the death of Chaucer, does not fit this last requirement; however, what he lacks in timeliness, he makes up for in both his status as a translator-poet-philosopher and his use of an eloquent vernacular in his works, traits which he shares with Chaucer. Moreover, their ‘contemporary’ Italian literary influences (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio) and greater Christian and revived Greco-Roman cultural influences strongly overlapped.
Although it is not my intention to write a full defence of why I have decided to explore the works of Poliziano to meet the language aims I have mentioned (The Diana Project is a sub-project of The Tales Project, a polyglot recitation of The General Prologue in Middle English for which a higher awareness of mediaeval Italian poetry is required), I find it nevertheless important to provide you with this background information so as to make my objectives in this translation more clear.
This translation is the end result of performance, and as such there were three aims I had when writing:
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Firstly, to focus on the sounds and flow of the original Italian and recreate the metre, rhyme scheme and alliterative quality when possible, but without shackling myself to the form.
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Secondly, to consider how the word choice of the translation would impact the reader similarly to how tone/delivery variations in performance would impact the listener, especially considering that the Orpheus myth itself takes different forms which can influence its reception and apparent themes.
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Thirdly, to clarify certain details referenced in the mythological content of the text for the Modern Reader, assuming that the average audience member viewing Poliziano’s Fabula di Orfeo as a live theatrical performance in the author’s time would have likely had a greater awareness of the myth as told by Virgil and Ovid than the modern individual.
Regarding the rhymes, alliteration, and general flow, it is important to note that I do not shy away from slant rhymes and that, having written most of this translation in Athens, Greece, the Greek and Italian pronunciation of Orpheus with stress on the ultimate syllable has been inadvertently retained and marked accordingly.
I would like to thank my Italian teacher Mirko Cerullo for supporting me in my understanding of Poliziano.
Stages of Translation with Notes on the Objectives
Stage 1 I initially sought to translate the Argomento as literally as possible in order to discuss the content with my Italian teacher. My aim was to better understand the grammatical and stylistic features present in the original Italian so that I could determine the most appropriate places to pause or introduce some other dramatic effect in the recitation I was preparing. My Italian teacher corrected my translation where the verbatim rendering was imprecise and provided feedback on my pronunciation.
Follow-up Despite our detailed look at each line, several words and expressions remained unclear, especially in lines 10, 11 and 14, and the use of the words acerbo/a and reo. Considering that Poliziano’s audiences would likely have been at least generally aware of the contents of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth before attending the play, I consulted with various accounts of the myth in order to identify which particular parts Poliziano was referring to in each line of the Argomento. Primary accounts consulted include: Virgil’s Georgics, Book IV, 453-527 and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book X, 1-85 and Book XI, 1-66 in English translation, with the occasional glance at the Latin texts; secondary accounts consulted were: Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes and Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s De Griekse Mythen. Meanwhile, my Italian teacher was able to do some additional research into Antonia Tissoni Benvenuti’s L’Orfeo del Poliziano con il testo critico dell’originale e delle successive forme teatrali, an annotated critical version of the text with detailed footnotes including corresponding references to the Latin influences, which we then compared to the 1814 version of the text which we had begun with, limited to the 16 lines of the Argomento.
Stage 2 The literal translation was adjusted for accuracy and further clarification post-refamiliarisation with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and considering the critical version of the text.
Follow-up Continuing my recitation work, I played around with the speed, tone, when to pause for effect, etc. given my improved understanding of the text. Here my aims shifted from general understanding to focusing on the metre and rhyme scheme of the original Italian. My teacher provided updated feedback on the new recitations, especially my pronunciation, enunciation and the general flow of my speech.
Stage 3 After some time spent focusing solely on the recitation (and months additionally spent steeping myself in English and German poetry written in ottava rima), I worked to translate the Argomento again, placing a larger focus on recreating the rhyme scheme with deference to the metre and original number of syllables per line when possible.