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Programme Note

Se lamenter augelli was commissioned by the Harvard Glee Club Foundation for the Harvard Glee Club, on the occasion of the anniversary of the 30th anniversary of Dr Jameson N. Marvin as Director of Choral Activities at Harvard University.

Tarik O’Regan
New York, December 2008


Text

Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde
mover soavemente a l'aura estiva,
o roco mormorar di lucide onde
s'ode d'una fiorita et fresca riva,

là 'v'io seggia d'amor pensoso et scriva;
lei che 'l ciel ne mostrò, terra n'asconde,
veggio et odo et intendo, ch'ancor viva
di sì lontano a' sospir' miei risponde:

«Deh, perché inanzi 'l tempo ti consume?»
- mi dice con pietate - «a che pur versi
degli occhi tristi un doloroso fiume?

Di me non pianger tu, ché' miei dì fersi,
morendo, eterni, et ne l'interno lume,
quando mostrai de chiuder, gli occhi apersi».

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) [1304-1374]
Canzionere [297], ed. Marco Santagata, (Mondadori: Milan, 1996)
If I hear birds lamenting, or green leaves
that summer breeze is stirring very softly,
or the faint murmur of the lucid waters
that run along beside a flowery bank

where I am sitting, lost in thought and writing,
I see her, then, whom Heaven reveals, earth hides,
I see her and I hear and understand her,
as from afar she answers to my sighing:

“Why do you waste yourself before your time?”
she asks me, full of pity. “Why pour out
this river of affliction from your eyes?

“Don’t weep for me, for dying made my day
an endless one, and when I closed my eyes
I opened them to one great inner light.”

Translated by David Young
The Poetry Petrarch
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 2004)