Scendi dal paradiso, Venere,
e teco guida i pargoletti amor,
e le gratie e ‘l riso,
oltre l’usato rida,
in vista ‘l ciel sereno,
il Tebr’al mar Thirreno,
porti di perl’adorno
invece d’acqu’il corno,
e i vostri canti giungan’alle stelle,
poiche’ l’anime belle
d’Amarilli e di Tirsi son unite.
Al nodo sacro e santo,
com’all’olmo la vite,
o com’ al tronco l’heder’ o l’acanto.
Venus, come from the heavens,
and bring love along with you,
and grace, and laughter!
Give us new pleasure,
looking at the clear sky!
Let Tiber flow with pearls
instead of water,
through Rome, to the sea!
Let your songs reach to the stars,
now that these fair souls,
Amarillis and Thyrsis,
are tied in a holy knot,
like the elm and the vine,
the oak and the acanthus!
I came across this this poem, the text of a madrigal by Luca Marenzio, at a workshop where we were playing the madrigal with an instrumental consort. I do not know who wrote the text. Clearly, it is written for a wedding celebration for a couple who, in the poetic tradition, are here named for the characters of pastoral poetry. The reference to the Tiber is not simply to the river itself, but to the widespread depictions of Tiber as a hoary old god carrying a cornucopia, a “horn of plenty,” as in the Roman sculpture of Tiber with Romulus and Remus now in the Louvre.
The madrigal was published in Marenzio’s Fourth Book of Madrigals, 1584. From 1578 to 1586, Marenzio was primarily based in Rome, in the service of Cardinal Luigi d’Este. Marenzio apparently was a singer at the wedding of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and Margherita Farnese: perhaps they were the Thyrsis and Amaryllis of the madrigal (they were unable to have children, so Vincenzo divorced his wife and sent her to a convent).
