Tasso's AMINTA (AMYNTAS), Act I: Scene 1

Cast of Characters is found in the Prologue post. Click "Italian Plays in Translation" above for link. 

 

ACT ONE

 

SCENE 1

Daphne, Sylvia

 

DAPHNE     Then, Sylvia, you would not like to spend your youth in the delights of faraway Venus, nor heed your mother's sweet name, nor see yourself frolic among the young boys?

SYLVIA     Let others follow the delights of love, if indeed there is any delight in love. This life pleases me; and my amusement is to care for the bow and arrows, to chase the fleeing beasts, and to terrify the strong in battle. While my quiver has arrows and the woods have beasts, I will always have my sport.

DAPHNE     Truly a dull sport, and a dull life; and if you like it, it is only because you have not tried the other. People who lived before, in a world still simple and naïve, esteemed the sweet drink and food of water and acorns; but now, water and acorns are the food and drink of animal, since the grain and grape have been put to use. Perhaps if you enjoyed even once the tiniest part of the joys which a beloved heart enjoys by loving in return, you would say, repentant and sighing: "All time not spent in loving is lost. O my flown youth, how many widow nights and solitary days have I squandered, that could have been spent in this manner, which, the more repeated, becomes more sweet!" Change your ways, you foolish girl, for it does no good to be sorry in the end.

SYLVIA     When I say, repentant and sighing, these words that you present and embellish as you please, the rivers will return to their sources, the wolves will flee from the lambs, and the greyhounds from the timid rabbits; the bear will love the sea, and the dolphin the mountains.

 

DAPHNE    

I am acquainted with reluctant maidenhood. You are what I once was: in this same way did I lead my life and wear my face; my hair was blond, my lips scarlet, and the rose in my plump, soft cheeks blended with the whiteness. It was my highest pleasure (foolish pleasure, I now perceive) merely to tighten the nets, mix birdlime, sharpen my dart on the whetstone, and to search for the beasts' tracks and dens. And if at times I was eyed by a desirous lover, I lowered my rustic, woodland eyes, full of scorn and shame; for my charm was a displeasure to me, as displeasing to me as it was pleasing to others. It was even a sin, a shame, and an humiliation to be looked at, loved, and desired. But what can time not accomplish? What can a faithful entreating lover not accomplish by serving, meriting, and supplicating? I was conquered, I confess it; and the weapons of the conqueror were humility, suffering, tears, sighs, and pleas for mercy. The shadow of a brief night showed me then what the long light of a thousand days could not; I then recovered, my blindness was cleared, and I said sighing: "Here you are, Cynthia; here is my horn and my bow, for I renounce your arrows and your life."

So I hope also to see your Amyntas one day finally tame your rough savagery, and soften your heart of iron and stone. Is it not true that he is handsome and loves you? Is it not true that he is loved by another, yet is not swayed by her love, nor by your hate? And is it not true that he is inferior to you in nobility of birth? For you are the daughter of Cydippe, whose father was the god of this noble river; and he is the son of Sylvanus, whose father was Pan, the great god of the shepherds. The pale Amaryllis is no less beautiful than you, if you look at yourself in the mirror of any spring; yet he spurns her sweet flatteries to follow your spiteful barbs. Now you claim (and may God will this claim to be in vain) that he, angry with you, will certainly in the end like her as she likes him. How would you feel? And how would you regard him if he were another's, happy in another's arms and mocking you, laughing?

SYLVIA     Let Amyntas do as he likes with himself and his love; it means nothing to me. And since he is not mine, let him be hers who wants him. He cannot be mine if I do not want him, nor even if he were mine, would I be his.
DAPHNE     Whence is your hatred born?
SYLVIA     From his love.
DAPHNE     How could such a kind father have begotten so cruel a child? Were tigers ever born of meek lambs? Or ravens of beautiful swans? You are deceiving either me or yourself.
SYLVIA     I despise his love because it threatens my chastity. I did love him, when he felt for me only the same fraternal feelings I bore for him.
DAPHNE     You wanted only friendship; now he feels for you the same sort of love he wishes for himself.
SYLVIA     Daphne, be quiet, or speak of something else, if you want an answer.
DAPHNE     Such manners! Look what a peevish little girl! At least answer me this: if another loved you, would you repay his love in this manner?
SYLVIA     In this manner I would repay every seducer of my chastity. Whom you would call lover, I would call enemy.

DAPHNE

Do you then regard the ram as enemy of the ewe? the bull of the heifer? the dove of its faithful turtledove? Do you then regard the spring as the season of hostility and anger, that happy and laughing spring that now advises the world and the beasts and men and women to love? Do you not see how all things are now lovesome with a love full of joy and health? Look there at that dove—with what sweet murmurings and enticements he kisses his companion. Listen to that nightingale that goes from branch to branch singing, "I love you, I love you!" Though you do not know it, the blood leaves his veins and runs with desire to his beloved. The tigers go about in love, the mighty lion loves. Only you, prouder than all the beasts, harbor denial in your breast. But why do I say that only lions and tigers and serpents have feelings? The trees love, too. You can see with how much affection and with how many repeated embraces the vine twists round her mate; the fir loves the fir, the pine the pine, the ash loves the ash, willow the willow, and the beeches burn and sigh for one another. That oak which looks so rough and savage also feels the power of amorous fire; and if you had the spirit and sense of love, you would hear its silent sighs. Now do you want to be less than the plants by not being a lover? Change your ways, you foolish girl.

SYLVIA     Come now! When I hear the sighs of plants I shall be a lover!

DAPHNE

You take my faithful counsel lightly and laugh at my arguments? Oh, a girl deaf to love is no less than stupid! But go ahead, for there will come a time when you will repent not having heeded them. Yet I shall not say that you will then flee the springs where you now often look at and admire yourself; or that you will flee the springs only for fear of seeing yourself wrinkled and ugly. This will indeed happen to you; for though it is a great misfortune, it is, however, a common one. Do you not recall what the wise Elpinus day before yesterday, said to Lycoris, who can obtain with her eyes what he would have to obtain with song? He said it in the presence of Battus and Tyrsis, those great master of love, and he said it in the cave of Aurora where above the entrance is written: "Go, ah, go far away, blasphemers!" He said this was told him by that great one who sang of weapons and love, who left him the syrinx as he died: "Down there in hell is a dark cavern whence arises smoke full of stench from the furnaces of Acheron. There, forever punished in torments of shadows and tears, are all the ungrateful and ignorant women. There Acheron awaits the lodging of your wounds to be prepared. Right and just is the edict that the smoke should forever draw tears from those eyes, whence it could never draw pity." Change your ways, you obstinate girl! 

SYLVIA     But what then did Lycoris do? And how did she respond to these things?
DAPHNE     You care nothing of your own deeds, yet want to hear of others'. She responded with her eyes.
SYLVIA     How could she respond only with her eyes?
DAPHNE     They answered, smiling sweetly to Elpinus: "We and the heart are yours. No longer must you yearn; we cannot give you more." And it would have been enough to grant complete mercy on the chaste lover, if he judged those eyes to be truthful as well as beautiful, and if he placed all his faith in them.
SYLVIA     Why didn't he believe them?
DAPHNE     You do not know then what Tyrsis wrote of them when, raging and out of his mind, he wandered through the forest so that he aroused both pity and laughter in the nymphs and shepherds? Though he has done things worthy of laughter, he has never written things worthy of laughter. He wrote on a thousand trees, and his verses grew with the trees; and so it is read on one: "Mirrors of the heart, lying, unfaithful eyes, I discern well in you your wiles. But what advantage does that give me, if love prevents me from evading them?"
SYLVIA     I spend time here talking; I have forgot that today is the appointed day that we must go on the organized hunt in the ilex wood. If you like, wait for me to remove first in the usual spring the sweat and dust with which I covered myself yesterday hunting a last doe that in the end I caught and killed.
DAPHNE     I shall wait for you; and perhaps I too shall bathe in the spring. But first I want to go to my swellings, for it is still early, as you see. Wait for me at your place for me to come to you, and think meanwhile of what is more important than the hunt and the spring. And if you do not know, then admit you do not, and believe those who do.

To be continued.