'There Was Not One Lady Who Failed to Shed a Tear': Arianna's Lament and the Construction

of Modern Womanhood
Author(s): Suzanne G. Cusick
Source: Early Music, Vol. 22, No. 1, Monteverdi II (Feb., 1994), pp. 21-32+35-38+41-43
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3128481 .
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 Suzanne G. Cusick

'There was not one

lady
who failed to shed a tear'
Arianna'slamentand the construction
of modernwomanhood

Lamento d'Ariannais among the composer's most

Monteverdi's
famous works. Singled out for particularpraisein the first com-
..........: lii
mentarieson the opera of which it was the centrepiece,the lament was
quicklyacknowledgedas a masterpiece,circulatingfirstin manuscript
...
....
copies, in Monteverdi's own arrangements as a five-voice madrigal
.. .. . . .
and a sacred lament of the Madonna, and later, after 1623, in two
AM.s printed versions issued at Veniceand Orvieto.'By the time writerslike
Bonini and Doni were writing histories of the new music we now call
early Baroque, Monteverdi's lament had attained canonical status,
cited as the first genuinely moving example of the new art of recita-
tive.2 These discussions alone were enough to keep Monteverdi's
name alive among 17th- and 18th-centurywriters of music histories.3
That is, to a large extent Monteverdi'sfame and historicalstatus rested
for centuries on the universalappreciationof his achievement in the
celebrated lament. Furthermore,the Lamentod'Ariannawas among
the most emulated, and therefore influential, works of the early 17th
century, virtually creatingthe lament as a recognizablegenre of vocal
chamber music and as a standard scene in opera-a scene-type that
would become crucial, almost genre-defining,to the full-scale public
operas of 17th-centuryVenice.4
So famous and influential a work has inspired reams of descriptive,
analytical and critical writing. Everyone who has written on the
lament has acknowledged its rare beauty and emotional power, and
nearly every critical description has begun with Monteverdi's own
opinions on this, his most famous work. As outlined usuallyfrom two
letters, Monteverdi is known to have claimed inspiration from his
SuzanneG. Cusickteachesmusic
ability to identify with Arianna'shumanity ('Ariannamoved us be-
historyand criticismat the University cause she was a woman, Orfeo because he was a man ... Arianna
of Virginia.She is currentlyworking
on a bookaboutFrancescaCaccini brought me to a true lament, as Orfeo did to a true prayer'),and to
and representations of genderin early have consideredit the essentialpart of the opera.5RecentlyGaryTom-
modernmusic. linson has taken these two points as the springboardfor an insightful

EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1994 21

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analysis of Monteverdi'sbrilliant matching of the early modern royal weddings as highly elaborate
poet Ottavio Rinuccini'srhetorical and syntactical examplesof a now-forgotten genre of earlymodern
gestureswith musical ones;6and Eric Chafe,begin- literature, the marriage oration. According to an
ning from the same points, has analysed the com- Italian scholar of this genre, Daniela Frigo, mar-
poser's manipulation of mode and system to create riage orations became fashionable in 15th-century
what we would call tonal antitheses that match the Italy as a medium in which to resolve young men's
conflicts he perceivesin Arianna'scharacter.7 anxieties about choosing a life of civic virtue over a
Nearly every commentator,too, cites at least one life of contemplation.1o By the end of the 16th cen-
detail from FedericoFollino'seyewitnessaccount of tury marriage was represented in orations and in
the first performance-that 'therewas not one lady printed marriagetreatisesas worthy because it was
a symbolic imposition of order (in the form of mas-
who failed to shed a tear'.8Yet no critical essays on
the lament have yet considered the possible rela- culine reason and authority) on chaos (in the form
tionships among these tears of female reception, of feminine irrationality,imperfection and sensual-
Arianna'sgender (cited, perhaps unthinkingly,as a ity). Indeed, the Savoyardwriter Bernardo Trotti
defining feature by Monteverdi himself), and the argued that well regulated marriages were neces-
meaning and popularity of the lament in its own sary to a well regulatedstate."Thus, Frigo explains,
time. Why would the ladies of the first Mantuan for men marriageorations and their cognate genres
audience have wept? Might culturally prescribed were simultaneously about both private gender
notions of womanhood have affected their relations and public political ones.
response? For women, on the other hand, public discourse
This essay proposes a gynecentric reading of the about marriage was inextricable from another
Lamentod'Ariannaframed through tropes of con- relatively new genre of popular literature, advice
temporary gender and marriage ideology that manuals on the istitutione delle donne-the
would have been known to the women of the first construction of women. Both traditions entwined
Mantuanaudience, and recognizedby them as crit- around the goal of trainingyoung girls to be wives.
ical to their lives. The reading shows how Monte- For an early modern woman this training consti-
verdi manipulated musical rhetoric and structure tuted the passage to adulthood. Three recurring
to create a culturally comprehensible dramatiza- tropes in these parallel literatures respond to the
tion of an ideal early modern woman's passage to apparentlyuniversalview that women were chaos,
adulthood. It was the recognition that the self- material, imperfection, unreason-needing to be
transformations enacted by Arianna's lament contained within marriage if there were to be any
constituted their own life stories that caused the social order.
women in the first Mantuan audience to weep- The first and most startlingtrope, introduced on
that is, Arianna moved them because she was the second page of Lodovico Dolce'swidely reprint-
recognizableas an earlymodern woman. ed Della istitutione delle donne, is the notion that
training a girl to be a good wife was similar to the
The istitutione delle donne process of breakinga horse." Usually developed in
Reading the lament of Arianna through the tropes terms of training a girl to submit her will to that of
of gender and marriage ideology seems a natural her father and, later,her husband, this trope had a
critical strategy,given that L'Ariannawas commis- close subsidiarythat goes straightto the heart both
sioned to celebratea wedding, and that the opera's of Arianna's lament and of its reported female
plot is focused on the marriage prospects of the reception-the usefulness of girls'learning sadness
central character.9 Indeed, one might reasonably and tearswhile young, so that they might be happy
interpret all the entertainments commissioned for laterin life.13The various methods for teaching girls

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1 The sleeping Arianna-a
statue of Classicalantiquity
(Rome,MuseoVaticano)
the sadness that, to Dolce, presaged a mature
woman's self-effacingmodesty included restricting
her diet and her accessto such pleasuresas reading,
fine clothes, jewels and non-productive play. From
early childhood, he argued, girls should be taught
to work constantly at household tasks, avoiding
idleness, vanity, female company and sensory
pleasures wherever possible. Only girls who had
suffered the bending of their wills to the service of
others would grow up to be chaste.
The desiredresult of such trainingwas represent-
ed by the second and third tropes common to both
marriage orations and treatises on the istitutione
delledonne:that women fit to be wives were to be as
mirrorsto their husbands,reflectingtheir moods as
well as their social rank and eschewing all signs of
independent feeling;14and that, except for reflect-
ing their husbands'moods and attitudes,women fit
to be wives should be silent.15Both the mirroring
and the silence were understood to be the outward
and visible signs of chastity--a chastity taught by
the breakingof a young girl'swill. All three tropes
run through the libretto of L'Arianna,and particu-
larly through the famous lament, to representAri-
anna as a woman whose wilfulness and autonomy
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. ...... .....
*:,q,
Z: V
must be purged through suffering before she is
worthy to be taken as a wife.
Who is Arianna?
Most of us know Arianna (Greek:Ariadne) mainly
through Monteverdi'slament. The Mantuan audi-
ence of 1608, however, and the subsequent genera-
tions of Italiansamong whom the lament circulat-
ed as chamber music, would first have encountered
her through readingOvid'sMetamorphoses.In par-
ticular, the ladies in the Mantuan audience were
most likely to know her through the Italiantransla-
tion of Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara,reprinted
16 times from 1561to 1607, with moralizing com-
mentary by Gioseppe Orologgi.'6Women were the
primary market for such vernaculartranslationsof
classical literature, and women readers were the
most likely to take Orologgi's commentaries to
heart.17
What does one know about Arianna from
Anguillara'snarrative?That she was too trusting
in love; that she was swept away by the physical
beauty of Teseo (Theseus); that she provided him
with the means to succeed against the Minotaur;
EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1994 23
 ,LaJY-~
see~i; ~ 4~:~~ dcl SignorClaudioMonteunerde,
Lamento.dAriannaa

F-'L M E N ?
RE- Aiatemi:
=2
. mor, nrir laCiate-

Y A R.I AN A L
!
EL SIG 4OR
.D MONTEVE VR D E
cLAYDVD morinre volete: ml
MAESTRO
IO. DI CAPEL'LA 111h : vo: che:
.c:;chi
Scrcnisima Rcpublica.
Dclla
confor:e-
Sco e Lttere
Amoro
ingnere
aprcfentatiuo.

II -- -
to..-.
:73
IN
VEN ET RI I cEMxi III.
ih.
cofi
C-f~r
I~ii
c.~
dura-
fbrte:
?
in"cofi
i.
gran martire.pm* la-

IGS
lid"
.
catemn morir " l : date mim
. oririe.
B ingo ':
.agpieoBartolomfleo A
Sa M
fAl

2 Thetitle-pageand openingof the Lamento d'Arianna (Venice:B. Magni,1623)

thatshegaveherselfto himon the islandof Dia,but duced by the following annotation:

slept throughhis departure;that she tore at her
hair,beat her breastand criedout endlesslyupon
discoveringhis absence,eventuallyblamingTeseo,
the winds,theirconjugalbed anda foolishtrustin
men's promises for her horrible fate; that her
plaintsmovedthe god Bacco(Bacchus)to fall in
lovewithherto woo herto marriagewiththe aidof
gifts and his sister Venus'shealing of love's old
wounds.
Anguillara'sdescriptionof Arianna'sfateis com-
pelling in its vivid portrayalof an abandoned
womanwho becomesas a resultwhollyabandoned
to hergrief:thatis, it is a stunningrepresentation
of
a woman out of control.Orologgi'sannotations
promptreadersto drawa quite particularmoral
lesson from the describedspectacleof Arianna's
lament, and this moral is perhaps the most
pertinent aid to imagining how contemporary
audiences-women and men alike-might have
receivedArianna'slament.Forthe lamentis intro-
Siaquestocasod'Arianna perdocumentoalledonneincaute,
a non volercredereallepromessedi chi dimostraamarle,
perchecorronopericolodi gettarsinellebracciadi giovani
peril chene rimangono
ingrati,& infedeli, congrandissima
infamiaspessoruinate.18
Let this story of Ariannabe a documentto incautious
womenthattheyshouldnot wishto believethe promises
of thosewho appearto love them,becausethey run the
riskof throwingthemselvesinto the armsof faithlessand
ungratefulyoungmen, by whomthey are,with greatest
infamy,oftenruined.
That is, readers of Anguillara'swidely circulated
translation were preparedto know Arianna'sstory
as a warning to women against choosing their own
lovers. Because the very female readers toward
whom translations of classical literature were
aimed were constantly exhorted to limit their read-
ing to the morallybeneficial,the women of the 16o8
audience were particularly likely to know and to
have paid attention to this moral.

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Arianna's lament
Monteverdi'sLamentod'Ariannacan be heard and
understood as representing and ultimately recon-
ciling two tropes of contemporary marriage dis-
course discussed above. First, because women's
speech was ineluctably associated with sexual
expression, the very fact that Arianna was granted
such a long and self-expressivelament scene consti-
tuted a displayof her licentiousness. Her licentious-
ness is not simply representedby her words, how-
ever;the fact of her speech'smusical expressiveness,
which had the power to elicit tenderness from the
men in the audience, heightens her characteriza-
tion as not only incontinent but seductive.'9
Indeed, because this metaphorical display of her
active, seductive sexuality was performed before
strangers-the onstage fishermen as well as the off-
stage audience-Arianna's lament characterizesher
as promiscuous; for she is a woman whose
metaphorical sexuality is availableto many men.
Yet the very power of this representation
required a contrary and ameliorating one: because
Arianna is also meant to be perceived as a sympa-
thetic human being, ultimately worthy of the love
and the marriageproposal of Bacco, her promiscu-
ous speech-song had to be tempered. For Arianna
to be understood as marriageable,her lament had
to revealher capacityto submerge her identity into
that of her husband, and thus to submit to patriar-
chal authority.The challenge to Monteverdi,there-
fore, was to representin an exploration of musical
dualities the eventual triumph in Arianna'schar-
acter of female piety over promiscuous speech.
Arianna'sgradual loss of her passionate self in the
lament constitutes a public musical chastening of
this incautious woman who dared to choose her
own mate.
How does this public chastening work?The two
sides of Arianna'snature are musically represented
in the well known internal conflicts of the lament's
opening and oft-refrainingphrase.As this phrase is
subjected to both obvious and subtle reinterpreta-
tions in the course of the lament, the elements
that represented Arianna's passion are purged or
reinterpretedas inappropriate.
Most critics and analystsof Arianna'slament cite
as among its most striking features the composite
nature of the melodic line that sets the irregularly
recurring refrain 'Lasciatemi morire, lasciatemi
morire' (ex.1). GaryTomlinson has describedit as a
duality encompassing 'the hesitant rise of the
melody and its final collapse'.20 Peter Westergaard
has pointed out that the melody has, in effect, two
simultaneous but conflicting goals: a rise from 5 to
8, and a descent through 3_-1-.21 I would like
to suggest that the 'hesitant rise' from 5 to 8 can be

Ex.i

La-scia te-mi mo-ri - re, La-scia - te-mi mo - ri re.

A A A A
5 8
7

A
3 A
2 A
3 A
2 A
1

5 (4) 5 1 1
(4) 5

EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1994 25

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understood as representing Arianna's uncontrol- intervalcontemporarytheory identified as particu-
lable passion, while the 'collapse' through 3-2-1 larly pathos-laden.24 It is as though this part of
represents the means by which Arianna's public Arianna'srange, and thus of her song and her char-
struggle and castigation returnsher to appropriate acter, is alreadyseparatedfrom the prior relation-
female piety. ship with Teseo and from the passionatepart of her
The opening phrases can be taken to represent characterthat could have entered such a relation-
both Teseo's actual departure and the conflict ship. The emotional work of her ensuing lament
within Arianna'scharacter:in the first statement of will be to accommodate herself to this internal
'Lasciatemi morire' the famous _- inflection rupture.
indicates grief, and the downward leap of a 4th to But if it is relativelyeasy to assign meaning to the
3-2 implies the registerbreak that is to come. But A-_A-(A)-_A-_-A 'Lasciatemi'motive and to its fate-
it is the second 'Lasciatemimorire' which explains ful separationfrom the 3-2-1 'morire'motive, it is
the first and prophesies the tensions of the lament not so easy to assign a meaning to the latter motive
as a whole. First,the contour of this phrase rereads itself. Does this 3-2-1 'morire' idea stand for the
the line 'Lasciatemimorire' ('Youleave me to die') collapse of Arianna'slife without Teseo?Surelythis
so as fully to separate the accusation directed 'death'is meant to be heard as a logical if embattled
at Teseo-'Lasciatemi' ('You leave me'), leading consequence of 'Lasciatemi';just as surely it can be
Arianna's melody up to d"-from the apparent heard as leading Arianna'svoice awayfrom the iras-
consequence of Teseo'saction-Arianna's death as cible tendencies of her response to Teseo'sdepar-
predicted in the infinitive 'morire' ('to die').22 ture, pulling her firmly towardthe lower tonic, and
The rupture between them is here represented as thus towardthe registerof sleep, death and silence.
alreadywell advancedbeyond the conditions repre- The death caused by 'Lasciatemi'is the death of
sented in the first phrase, for Monteverdi'smusic Arianna'spassionate self, a self that leaves her as
represents the respective actions of Teseo and graduallyas Teseo'sphysicalself leaves her sight, as
Arianna as directed toward opposite ends of the he sails beyond the horizon. Her pious wifely self
octave species that defines the d-Dorian mode. survives, oxymoronically, precisely because this
Thus, Teseo'saction, representedby a durus ascent passionate, independent self dies. The 'morire'
to the tonic, leads Arianna'svoice up 6-7-8 into a motive that initially stands for her fate comes even-
register Monteverdi himself would later associate tually to be a musical space that is verbally filled
with 'ira'-excitability, instability,rage.23Through- with Teseo,with her father,with the triumph of her
out the lament her response to his physical action soul over her body, and with her own delivery of
of abandonment will be parallel musical action, the Orloggian moralizing conclusion 'Cosi va chi
successive exclamations of anger and outrage that tropp'ama e troppo crede' ('So it goes with those
variously paraphrase the ascent first assigned to who love and trust too much')-all signalling her
representthe words 'you leave me'.Takenas a flash willingness to surrender herself to patriarchal
of the intemperatepassion that causedher relation- control.
ship with Teseo and her resulting predicament, it This drama of psychological development
representsexactlythe element of her character that through self-chastening is played out in Arianna's
must be chastened, the part of her from which she lament through a complex process of motivic
must be separated. transformation that depends on listeners' abilities
Arianna'spredicted death, the 'collapse' of her to remember the verbal associations that build up
melody toward a register Monteverdi associated around motives from the 'Lasciatemi'phrases.
with 'humiltt, o supplicatione',is reached after a The lament's second section, beginning with the
rest and a descending major 6th leap, the latter an famously repeatedcall 'O Teseo,o Teseomio',is well

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known for creatinga network of motivic references
to Teseo'sname that seems to be among the most
integrativefeaturesof the lament as a whole: for it is
the 'O Teseo' music which is most recognizable
upon casual listening by modern ears. Far less
noticeable is the close derivation of the entire
section from 'Lasciatemimorire',a derivation that
inscribes Arianna'sfailing efforts to re-establish a
love relationship with the departing Teseo, repre-
sents his departure,and reconfiguresher struggleas
an internal one.
Each of the three 'O Teseo'statements that open
section 2 begins above a harmonic pattern that
constitutes a transposition down a 5th of the first
'Lasciatemimorire' phrase (ex.2a). To Monteverdi
and his contemporaries this was a transposition in
the mollis direction, thus capable of representing
both the collapse of which Tomlinson writes and a
softening of the emotional tone toward piety.25Its
effect is to transform the tonic of the lament's first
section into the dominant of g/G-the one pitch of
Ex.2
d-Dorian missing from the melody (although not
the bass line) of both 'Lasciatemimorire' phrases.
Thus, the tonic of Arianna'slament-of both her
passionate self and her pious self-is reinterpreted
as subordinateto another,largelyabsent tonic. The
idea that this reinterpretationmight be heard as an
effort to submergeArianna'sidentity and destiny in
Teseo's is supported by the relationship of the 'O
Teseo' motive itself to the second 'Lasciatemi
morire' phrase. For the first 'O Teseo' in each of
the three subsections addressed directly to him is
highly evocative of the 'morire' motive: 3--i is
simply replaced by the minor 3rd 3-1. That is, the
musical space that had at first seemed to define
Arianna's death is now wholly filled with the
name of her beloved. Furthermore,each 'O Teseo'
invocation can be easily heard as outlining the
arpeggiationf '-a'-d", as if to reverse the pathetic
downwardleap d"-f' that markedthe separationof
'Lasciatemi'from 'morire' (ex.2b).
Yet, in the main, the melodic reminiscences of

(a) [mo - (ri) - re]

0 Te - seo, o Te -seo mi - o, si che mio ti v6dir chemio pur se- i

I I I I

in g: 5 4 5 1 4

(b)

Vol - gi -ti Te - seo mi - o, Vol - gi- ti Te -seo o Di - o

O Te - seo, o Te - seo mi - o, se tu sa-pes-sio Di - o

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 'Lasciatemi'in this section are not transposed to
the pious, subordinate g/G world suggested by the
harmony. Instead, Arianna's melody remains
centred in d-Dorian, as if she cannot make her
speech submit to the mollis world of wifely piety
her harmony implies. The straining of melodic
implications against harmonic ones leads to a new
representation of rupture: each '0 Teseo' phrase
ultimately veers away from the mollis harmonic
world of its beginning toward the durus cadences
implied by Arianna's melody, cadences affirming
d-Dorian (on d', bar 27; a', bar 35;and d",bar 44).
Thus, each of Arianna's calls to Teseo has failed,
her failure fore-ordainedby her melodic failure to
subordinateher speech to his identity.
The second half of 'O Teseo'representsthe rup-
ture of Arianna'sfantasyof reconnection through a
combination of rhetorical, harmonic and motivic
ruptures. Three parallel statements comparing
Teseo'sfuture to her own formally and rhetorically
refute the three exhortations to Teseo'sreturn. In
none of these comparisons can Arianna even utter
his whole name: only its first syllable, 'te' ('you')
remains to mark his presence in the antecedent
phrases. Rinuccini's manipulation of enjambment
vividly evokes the increasing strain of Arianna's
effort to sustain relatedness by an increasingly
awkward relationship between poetic form and
syntax caused by the effort to keep 'io' in the same
line with the world of 'te':
Maconl'aureserene
tu tenevaifeliceet io quipiango;
a teprepareAtene
lietepompesuperbe, et io rimango
cibodiferein solitariearene.
Te l'unoe l'altrotuo vecchioparente
lieto,et io
stringeria
o madre,o padremio.
piitnonvedrovvi,
Butwiththecalmbreezes
yougo offhappyandI hereweep;
foryouAthensprepares
joyousandproudfestivities,andI remain
foodforwildbeastsin desertedplaces.
Bothyouragedparents
willhappilyembraceyou,andI
neveragainwillseeyou,O mother,O fathermine.
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Monteverdi's settingof these lines followstheir
syntax, not their form: thus, he rupturesthe
previouslyclose relationshipbetween his music
and Rinuccini'spoetry.Eachstatementdescribing
Teseo'simagined future happinessis set above
natural-system harmoniesthat cadenceon G, re-
inforcingthat sonority'sidentificationwith Teseo.
Each is sung to melodies that bear no obvious
relationshipto anythingthathascomebefore.And
each is separatedfrom the comparative'et io' by
a rest that rupturesthe connection Rinuccini's
poetrystrivesto maintain.
The 'etio' statementscontrastwith the 'te'state-
mentsbothharmonically andmelodically, andlink
Arianna's conditionto herimmediatemusicalpast.
Although the first two 'et io' statementsbegin
abovethe G harmonyto whichthe 'te' statements
havecadenced,eachwandersbackto cadencein the
durussystem,cadencesthat affirmD as a tonic
ratherthan a subordinatedominant(E at bar 47,
d/D atbar51andd atbar55).Andeachparaphrases
melodicmotivespreviouslyheard:ex.3showsthree
such paraphrases, whichreworkthe ideas 'Lascia',
'O Teseo'and 'morire'into new harmonicframe-
worksas Arianna'swordsassignto themnew asso-
ciationswith grief,abandonmentandfailure.
The 'Lascia'motiveis twicetransposedup a step,
so as to enterthe naturalsystemassignedby Ari-
anna'simaginationto Teseo'sworld,and sung to
the words'et io',emphasizingthe superimposition
of Arianna'sidentityon the patheticminor2ndin-
flection.'O Teseo'is at firsttransposedup a stepas
well, andsungto the words'quipiango'as it lands
on a 'wrong'note,g#',insteadof on theg' associated
withTeseo(ex.3a).26Thenthe samemotive,sungto
'rimango', is hearduntransposed, leadingto a para-
phrase of the first 'Lasciatemimorire' that now
bearsthewords'solitariearene'(ex.3b).Thesumof
these referencesis to reconfigurethe rupturebe-
tweenTeseoand Ariannaas a rupturewithin her:
her effort to insert 'Lascia/etio' into the naturalsys-
tem can be heard as failing precisely because
'O Teseo' drops away from it-leaving Arianna to
remain, to die in deserted places.
 The third and final 'et io' statement (ex.3c)
amounts to an admission of Arianna's failure to
reconnect. Harmonically, it begins with a new
paraphraseof the second 'Lasciatemi'phrase, still
transposed to g; it ends reaffirming d-Dorian as
tonic. Melodically, it consists of a compression of
the two 'Lasciatemi'phraseswhich had opened the
lament, above a stepwise descent in the bass that
simultaneously articulates the descending tetra-
chord that would come to be emblematic of
laments (bracketed) and fills in the major 6th leap
d"to f' that in the lament'smelody had markedthe
initial rupture (dotted brackets).Thus melodic and
harmonic reminiscence in the 'et io' phrases and
the absence of such reminiscencesin the 'te' phrases
combine to represent Teseo as having fully separ-
ated from Arianna. As his music separates from
Ex.3
(a) [La-scia...] [O Te - seo]
et i - o qui pian - go
(and I here weep)
Arianna's,both verbal content and motivic remi-
niscence move our attention to Arianna herself. As
Arianna now understands that her effort at wifely
piety toward Teseo has failed to restore their rela-
tionship, her music fills the space of 'morire'with
the name of another male authority,her father.
The two most striking features of the lament's
next section, 'Dove, dov'e la fede' are its notated
shifts from mollis to durus and back again, and
Arianna'sinsistent questioning of Teseo'sgood will
on the pitch d" in the durus section. Here Monte-
verdi takes two elements-the register split from
'Lasciatemi'and the mollisidurusharmonic ambi-
guities from 'O Teseo'-previously used separately
to represent separation and duality, and combines
them to revealthe dangerousand unappealingside
of Arianna'spassionate self. Both the mollis-durus-
mollisalternationand the use of registermatch Ari-
anna's emotional state. She begins with a quatrain
remembering Teseo's sworn fidelity, a memory
Monteverdi constructs musically by placing these
words above slowly alternatingd and g sonorities,
the sonorities through which Arianna had tried to
re-establishher own wifely, pious relation to Teseo
in 'O Teseo'.Arianna'sregister hovers around the

(b) [La-scia...] [O Te - seo] [La- scia... (mo) - ri - re]

o *&"I
. et i - o ri-man - go ci - bo.o di fe re in so-li -ta - riea -re - ne
- .

S [La scia...] [La- scia-te mi mo ri-re]

1 I
I I
L------------J

at g/G:

55 11
at d:

1 4 5 1

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Ex.4
Son que - ste le co - ro - ne On
no, que- ste le gem- me e glo - ri?
-zie mi di -vo - ri?
,?f
middle of the mode's octave, twice leaping sudden-
ly up to 8 ((on the words 'dov'&'and 'tu') but nev-
er moving downward3-_-1. The dangerimplicit in
her upward 5 to 8 leaps suddenly erupts into the
famous series of accusatory questions relentlessly
sung on 8 (d") above harmonies reminiscentof the
durus-tendingphrase endings of 'O Teseo'(ex.4).
At Arianna's final accusation, 'Lasciarmi in
abbandono ...' her melodic line tracesthe octave e"
to e' while paraphrasinganew the opening 'Lascia-
temi morire' ideas, at once confirming the in-
exorable durus tendencies of her harmonies and
exceeding the upper boundary of even her passion-
ate self. Here for the first time Arianna'spassionate
fondness for the upper registeris explicitly associ-
ated with anger and with the very harmonies that
had led her efforts to restore a wifely relationship
awry. The attentive listener might remember that
Arianna had but seldom touched on this registerin
'O Teseo',and then uttering either exclamations('O
Dio', 'o madre, o padre','ohime') or enumerations
of what she had lost when losing Teseo ('liete
pompe superbe', lost glory; 'stringerai',lost em-
braces). Further, such a listener might remember
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- de m'a - dor - n'il cri - ne? Que - sti gli scet - tri so
[La-scia - - te - mi mo - ri...]
La- sciar - m'in ab-ban -do - no A fe - ra chemi stra-
I TI
that in 'Lasciatemi'the very pitch (d") of Arianna's
anger had been sung to the syllable mi, suggesting
that Arianna's passion was all along more self-
centred than centred on Teseo. Such reminiscences
would be all the more chilling to a listener attuned
to the losses Ariannaenumerateson the obsessively
repeated d"-crowns, sceptres, gems and glory.
That is, the eruption of her anger springs not from
love, but from a longing for the signs of power.
Here, to an earlymodern listener,was musical con-
firmation of still another common trope about
women's passion-that it symbolized the female
lust for power.27By thus associating anger, self-
centredness, the lust for power and modal excess
with the passionate part of Arianna that had
indulged in an illicit relationship with Teseo,
Monteverdiallowed his audience to witness all that
was horrifying, blameworthy and needing castiga-
tion in uncontrolled female passion.
The castigation comes at the simultaneous
return of the mollissystem, of closer paraphrasesof
the 'Lasciatemi'phrases, and of Teseo'sname. First
sung on the once-missing note g', harmonized by a
properly pious g sonority, then on the descending
major 6th leap that had been the most striking
representation of separation and rupture, Teseo's
name is thus repositioned in Arianna'simagination
(ex.5). He moves from a pitch position that allowed
Arianna to function as his dominant to one that
conflates his name with a motive to which Arianna
Ex.5
[0 pa - dre mi - o]
[mi mo-ri - re]
Ah Te-seo Ah Te -seo mi - o
has most recentlysung the words 'o padremio'. The
latter connection creates a nexus of associations
confirming that the musical space 'morire'must be
filled with the name of one or the other of these
men; confirming, that is, the necessity of filling this
space with a sign of patriarchalauthority.
Two important bits of ideological work can be
detected in this nexus of associations. First, a lis-
tener can be reminded that Arianna's condition
resulted from a conflict between her passion for
Teseo and the filial love/piety she owed her father.
In effect she had erredby putting the wrong man in
the position of patriarchalauthority.Likethe previ-
ous association of Arianna's passion with anger,
self-centredness,power-lust and excess, this associ-
ation contributesto a musical assignment of blame.
Second, a listener aware of early modern gender
ideology would have known that for a woman who
thought she had made a marriage promise, the
husband becomes as the father.28Thus, from a
perspectivethat might see Arianna as more gullible
than wicked, deferringto either man might seem to
be good behaviour; so to Arianna they might have
Ex.6
[La - scia ...] [La -
seemed interchangeable,equally acceptable means
by which to return to a submissive registerand the
implied piety of the mollissystem. This perspective,
of course, is the one that had led Arianna to her
fateful error.
The beginning of a final submission constitutes
the work of this section's concluding phrase. For,
having invoked Teseo'sname as patriarch,she sings
yet another paraphraseof the 'Lasciatemi'phrase,
one now dense with allusions to its previous incar-
nations (ex.6).
As Ariannaexplicitlyacknowledgesthe futility of
her pleas, the listener'smemory contrastswhat she
says with what she leaves unsaid: thus, at 'ch'ate
fidossi e te die gloria' ('that I trusted you and gave
you glory'), an attentive listener might remember
the result of Arianna's gifts, for her music
transposes-down a 5th-exactly the phrase
'Lasciarm'in abbandono' from seconds before.
Hence, even more strikingly,the listenermight hear
the words 'gloria ... e vita' as an ironic, contrasting
echo of Arianna'sfate, 'morire'.That Monteverdi's
music allows Arianna to speak of her gifts to Teseo
while consigning her fate to the silent world of
memory is a masterful stroke of characterization
and castigation. Arianna here has no self (and
hence no fate), for she is defined in her own words
solely in terms of her usefulness to Teseo. This
moment representsthe turning point of her devel-
opment into a 'good' early modern woman, the
- sciar - te - - mi] [ahi-me]

In- van pian-gen - do, in van gri- dan - do a - i - ta la mi - se-

[mo-ri - re] [mo - - ri - re]

[?La-scia...] [La - scia - m'in ab - ban - - do-no]

ra A- rian - na, ch'a te fi - dos - si e ti die glo- ria e vi - ta?

00 Ij "

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Ex.7
(a)

Ahi che non pur ri- spon - di, Ahi che piti d'as - sor - do a miei la - men - ti

[mo - - ri - [mo pe, ri - -

re] re]

# #

(b) [O Te - seo]

rI7/v
-
r vv -
r

O nem bi o tur bi o ven - ti som-mer-ge -te-lo voi den tr'a quell' on - de, cor-

[mo - ri - - re]

re - te or - che e ba - le - nee del- le mem - bra im-mon - de em - pie- te le vo-ra- gi-ni pro - fon - de

[mo - ri - - re]

moment of self-silencing. into harmonic sequences: this motive, variously

But it is not yet a convincing self-silencing.For in c-B-A and d-c#-B, can be heard as a reminiscence
the very next instant, at the beginning of the of the 3-2-1 motive originally sung to the word
lament's fourth section, 'Ahiche non pur rispondi', 'morire'.Thus, one can hear the outburst as in some
Arianna's anger erupts yet again, in a suddenly way resulting from Arianna's self-silencing, the
durus melodic paraphraseof the 5 to 8 ascent of submergingof her fate. But placing the 5 to 8 ascent
'Lasciatemi' (ex.7a) that reaches its peak only to and the 3-2-1 descent in this polyphonic balance
wobble uncontrollably around the presumed goal with each other seems to be no solution at all to the
of d" (ex.7b). duality in Arianna'scharacter.Instead,it is the most
This explosion of Arianna's anger is musically dangerous combination of these two motives yet,
irrationalin every possible way:her word rhythm is and so the most compelling evidence that it is
unpredictable;her phrasingloses all sense of poetic the 5 to 8 ascent, and all it representsin Arianna's
lines;'thefalling minor 3rd motive on which she has character,that must be submerged and chastened.
called Teseo'sname becomes the motive by which This outburst of vengeance-seekingrage is chas-
she calls on storms and tempests to drown him; tened, of course, by the famous return of music
nonsensically her melody peaks at the image associated with 'O Teseo'.Nearly every note of the
'voragini profonde' ('deep caverns'), contradicting remainderof this section can be heard as part of the
the conventions of word-painting. Yet even as now familiar process of reworking and recombin-
Arianna'smelody thus runs amok, a motive previ- ing motives first associatedwith 'morire','0 Teseo',
ously unheard in the bass part organizesher speech or 'Lasciatemi',all above a harmony that continues

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Ex.8
[?O Te - seo] (#) [mo -

Che par - lo, ahi che va - neg - gio? mi - se - ra oi m-m che chieg - gio?, O

-ri - re] (#) [?La - - -

J
' Te I
- seo,
II
O
/T"T
Te - seo mi - o,
" non son I
non son quel -l'i -o, Non son quel -l'io che i fe
I -
I

- scia...] [La- scia...] [mo -ri-re] [O Te - seo]

(#)

- ri det- ti sciol - se; par - 16 l'af- fan- no mi - o, par- do - lo - re,

b16il

[La - - scia - - te - - mi

[O pa - dre mi - o]
[O Te - seo mi - o]
91 [La- (scia- te -) mi mo - ri - - re]

par-16 la lin-gua si ma non giatjl co - re

to struggle with the relation of d/D to g/G. As Ari-
anna's words seek fully to dissociate her self from
her angry (and licentious) speech, naming the
speakeras, variously,her sadness, her pain and her
tongue, the second 'Lasciatemi'phrase, ascending
B-c-c#-d, is heard one last time (ex.8).
It has become a bass line, existing in a different
realm from Arianna and her utterance and thus as
fully separated from them as Teseo has become.
And it leads inexorablyfrom the troublesome durus
harmonies to the section's final phrase, the climac-
tic moment of the entire lament harmonically,
motivically and ideologically (ex.8, bars 91-2). Here
the material of the opening 'Lasciatemi'phrases is
compressed into one subdivided phrase:above the
wifely D-g harmony of 'O Teseo',Ariannaidentifies
her angry speech as that of her tongue, leaping 5 to
8 on the affirming 'si' as if to confirm this associa-
tion of her body's speech with the uncontrollable
passion from which her relationshipwith Teseohad
sprung.29The rest and the descending major 6th
leap representativeof painful rupturereturnsto in-
terrupt the phrase and to sharpen the distinction
Arianna'swords draw between the speech of the
body-passionate, uncontrollable, promiscuous-
and the speech of the heart, which leads directly to
the tonic d', above the A-d harmonies previously
associated with the exactly quoted 'morire' and
'o padremio'.Finally,Ariannacan be heard as ready
to renounce the promiscuous, passionate body-
and with it to renounce self-centredness, power-
lust and excess. She is a woman readyfor the death

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to the self that was her proper destiny in the
marriageideology of earlymodern Europe.
The whole lament culminates in this moment. It
has been a symbolic struggle to submit the female
self to the power of husbands and fathers-and, in
its angry and strainingmoments, it has been a sim-
ultaneous struggle against such submission. Thus,
the Lamento d'Arianna dramatizes the struggle
to die to the self, and to all within the self that could
be considered incontinent because improperly
controlled, that was required of every woman by
contemporary marriage manuals. For an early
modern woman-for the newly arrived bride of
Francesco Gonzaga and for every court lady who
wept in 16o8-this was as criticala passageto adult-
hood as Orpheus'sjourney to the underworld or
Rinaldo'srenunciation of sensual love for military
duty in more androcentric cultural texts. That is,
for every woman who would marry, or who had
married, Arianna's struggle was her own. Thus,
while the men in the audience had tender feelings
for Arianna'splight, 'there was not one lady who
failed to shed a tear'.
The epilogue
But what are we to make of the lament's fifth and
final section-the section silenced in Monteverdi's
own arrangementof the lament as a madrigalcycle,
and thus usuallysilenced in the criticalliteratureon
this piece?
I suggest that it can be heard as that oxymoron of
operatic representation, a speech that signifies
silence. For in this section Arianna's'voice' is not
her own. Rather,the text Rinuccini assigns to her is
the text of Orologgi's moralizing voice. Arianna
summarizes the moral view of her condition: she
lists as her real losses not Teseo but all future rela-
tionships with her mother, her father, their king-
dom's superb palaces, her servants and her friend.
And she calls on witnesses to see what wicked fate
and her own love and gullibilityhave wrought. So it
goes, she concludes, with those who love and trust
too much.
What of Monteverdi'smusic for this section? It
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continues loosely to paraphrasemotives from 'La-
sciatemi' in harmonic contexts that no longer
strugglevainly towardthe mollis-implyingg/G, and
in which nearly all dissonances are prepared and
reasonable.It is music that seems suddenly aimless,
without power over our ears, much like Euridice's
response to Orfeo's'Rosadel ciel'.30The descending
minor 3rd that had once called Teseo'sname, now
reversed to ascend, calls Arianna'smother, father
and friends to witness her fate: ascending, this
motive lacksits formerharmony-definingforce.Yet
it can be heard as representinga reversalof 'morire',
a kind of rebirth into musical ineffectualness.The
exceptional last line, in which Arianna utters the
moral of her own tale, is one last reworkingof the
second 'Lasciatemi'phrase, a reworking that links
the 3-2-1 'morire' descent to those who love and
trust too much, and punningly identifies the pitch
g' with the one or the thing that 'goes' (ex.9).
Monteverdi's music for the chastened Arianna
is a song of silenced speech, a song dead to passion
and reborn to filial piety and conventional
morality.
Arianna twice betrayed
The culturalwork we might ascribeto Monteverdi's
opera L'Ariannais obvious. Along with its com-
panion pieces for the 16o8 Gonzaga wedding,
GiambattistaGuarini'splay L'idropicaand the Ballo
delle ingrate,it served to articulatesymbolicallythe
permissible limits of female sexual choice. The
famous lament was initially but one piece of the
larger ideological programme aimed at solidifying
a shaky political marriage.
Loosed from its moorings, the Lamento
d'Ariannacontinued to perform the cultural work
of affirming the institution of arrangedmarriages,
serving as a floating cautionary to all women
tempted to choose their own partners. If Bonini is
to be believed, by the 1640sthere was not a home in
Italy with a theorbo or harpsichordthat was with-
out a copy of the lament.31Arguably,in this later
stage of its popularity the lament acquirednew so-
cial meaning, and began to do a different kind of
cultural work as well: as a much loved image of womanhood, it
encouragedyoung women to emulate its heroine's delicate balance of
passion and piteousness, speech and silence, agency and submission.
Further,with the growing popularity of laments, these very young
women would understand that their suffering on the way to wife-
liness, whether deservedor not, was consideredbeautiful. Femalesuf-
fering-female castigation-thus became beautiful, even as male
heroism did in 17th-centuryromances. Further,as it was gradually
gendered feminine, the musical (and the literary)genre of the lament
allowed the whole of early modern society to displace the suffering of
forced submission onto women.32The female expression of sorrow
became the binary opposite of its male repression into melancholia,
the source of masculine genius.33Women themselves-real women
who impersonated Arianna and her sisters in chamber music, and
who witnessed Ariannaand her sistersreceivedwith ecstasyas models
of desirablewomanhood-learned to repressthe flashesof angerthey
might feel, to stylize their responses to life's griefs into laments.
Finally,they learned to understandtheir femaleness and their beauty
as inextricable from, even dependent on, their ability to lament, to
'not fail to shed a tear.
Arianna, who inspired from her musical creator such a lament as
would make him famous, is thus a figure twice betrayed-once by
Teseowithin the opera, and once (even if unwittingly) by Monteverdi.
Arianna moved him, he wrote, because she was a woman; yet his
sympathy for her plight generatedmusic of such beauty that it could
serve fundamentally misogynist ends. Arianna gave Monteverdi
exactly what she gave Teseo in the Metamorphoses-the ideas and the
tools by which to triumph in his profession.Arguably,Monteverdidid
not abandon Ariannaas Teseodid; but ultimatelythe result of Monte-
verdi's collaboration with Arianna was an icon of modern woman-
hood as most beautiful when enduring the suffering that results from
sacrificing an autonomous, passionate female self to the powers that
govern patriarchalmarriage.
Ex.9
[mo- ri - re]
Co - si va chi trop -p'a - mae trop - po cre
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The researchfor this essaywas supported
in part by a National Endowmentfor the
Humanities Fellowshipfor Independent
Scholarsin 199o-91. I would like to thank
YvetteCarter,RebeccaHulsing and
VirginiaMartin, studentsin a Monte-
verdiseminar in the springof 1993, for
their helpfulresponsesto the ideas in this
essay. Conversationswith FredEverett
Maus, EllenRosand and Howard
Smitherhelpedfocus my ideas.
Special thanksgo to BridgetKellyBlack,
FrancescaKatchiniand Margaret
McFadden.
1 Monteverdi's arrangement as a series
of five-voice madrigals opens his II sesto
librode madrigalia cinque voci (Venice:
Ricciardo Amadino, 1614).This collec-
tion was reprinted by Amadino in 1620,
and by the heirs of Pierre Phalksein
Antwerp in 1639.The monodic version
was published twice in 1623,in Lamento
d'Arianna del signor ClaudioMonte-
verde ... Et con due lettereamorosein
genere rappresentativo(Venice: B.
Magni [Stampa del Gardano], 1623),
and in II maggiofiorito:arie, sonetti, e
madrigali,a 1.2.3.de diversiautori:posta
in luce da Gio. Battista Rocchigianiorvi-
etano, musico nel Duomo d'Orvieto:libro
primo: opera terza (Orvieto: Michelan-
gelo Fei et Rinaldo Riuli, 1623).Manu-
script copies of the monodic version
exist, at I-Fn: Banco Rari238;I-MOe:
MS Mus. G239;I-Vc: Fondo Fausto Tor-
refranca,MS 286oo; and at GB-Lbm:
Add. 30491 (in the hand of Luigi Rossi).
Monteverdi's sacred contrafactum of
the lament, the Pianto della Madonna,
first appeared in his Selva morale e spiri-
tuale (Venice, 1641).Gian Francesco
Malipiero's edition of the lament in
Claudio Monteverdi:Tutte le opere,xi,
ed. G. F. Malipiero (Asolo, 1930) repre-
sents a collation of manuscript variants
with the 1623Venetian edition. All
examples in this article are taken from
Malipiero's edition.
2 Severo Bonini, Discorsi e regolesovra
la musica et il contrappunto(I-Fr, Ms
2218),f.87. In the excerpt of Bonini's
tract published in A. Solerti, Le origini
del melodramma(Turin, 1903), com-
ments on the lament can be found on
p.139.Doni's remarks on the lament can
- de.
be found in Giovan Battista Doni,
'Trattato della musica scenica', Lyra
Barberinaamphichordos:accedunt
eiusdem opera,ed. A. F. Gori and G. B.
EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1994 37
Passeri (Florence, 1763),ii, PP-34,35, 65.
3 The lament is discussed in Charles
Burney, A general historyofmusic, from
the earliesttimes to thepresentperiod
(London, 1776-89), ii, p.312,and Sir
John Hawkins, A general historyof the
scienceand practiceofmusic (London,
1776),p.524.
4 The opera itself was successful
enough to have been scheduled for a
repeat performance in Mantua in 1620;
though this never took place, the opera
was performed again in Venice in 1640.
No performing parts or scores survive
from any performance. On the impor-
tance of the lament to the development
of 17th-centuryopera, see E. Rosand,
Operain seventeenthcenturyVenice:the
creationofa genre (Berkeley, CA, 1991),
pp.361-86. The chamber version of
Arianna's lament seems to have in-
spired many similar works, including at
least three settings of the Rinuccini text,
by Severo Bonini (Venice: Bartolomeo
Magni, 1613),Antonio Il Verso
(Palermo: Giovan BattistaMaringo,
1619),and Francesco Costa (Venice:
Alessandro Vincenti, 1626).
5 Lettersnos.21 (9 December 1616)and
50 (20 or 21March 1620) in Claudio
Monteverdi:Lettere,dedicheeprefazioni,
ed. D. de' Paoli (Rome, 1973),pp.85-9,
157-8. The relevant passage from letter
21reads:'Mosse l'Arianna per esser
donna, e mosse parimente Orfeo per
essere homo ... l'Arianna mi porta ad
un giusto lamento; et l'Orfeo ad una
giusta preghiera'.That from letter 50
reads:'Mando anco il principio del'
lamento ... essendo la piii essential
parte dell'opera.' All translations from
the Italian are my own.
6 For Tomlinson's readings of the
lament, see his Monteverdiand the end
of the Renaissance(Berkeley,CA, 1987),
pp.119-31;and 'Madrigal,monody, and
Monteverdi's via naturalealla imita-
tione',Journalof theAmericanMusico-
logicalSociety,xxxiv (1981),pp.6o-lo8.
The latter includes a thorough survey of
the critical literature on the lament up
to 1981.
7 E. Chafe, Monteverdi'stonal language
(New York, 1992), pp.164-85.
8 Federico Follino, Compendiodelle
sontuosefestefatte l'anno MDCVIII nella
cittc di Mantova, as cited in A. Solerti,
38 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY
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Gli alboridel melodramma(Milan,
1905), ii, p.145:'... ne fu pur una Dama
che non versasse qualche lagrimetta al
suo pianto'.
9 On the particularlytroubled circum-
stances of the marriagefor which
L'Ariannawas commissioned, see S.
Reiner, 'Lavaga Angioletta (and
others)', i, Analecta musicologica,xiv
(1974),pp.26-88. On the long tradition
associating Arianna's story with cele-
brations of marriage,see B. Arkins, Sex-
uality in Catullus (Hildesheim, 1982),
PP-133-52,esp. 146-52.
10 D. Frigo,'Dal caos all'ordine: sulla
questione del "prendermoglie" nella
trattatisticadel sedicesimo secolo', Nel
cerchiodella luna:figura di donna in
alcuni testi delXVI secolo, ed. M. Zancan
(Venice, 1983),PP.57-94.
11 BernardoTrotti, Dialoghi del matri-
monio e vita vedovile(Turin, 1578),f.4r:
'le regole Matrimoniali sono anco
utilissime legge, e necessarie quanto
altre al governo della Republica'.
12 Lodovico Dolce, Dialogo:Della
istitutionedelle donne (Venice: Giolito,
1560), f.2r.
13 Dolce, Della istitutione..., f.lov:
'Adunque e utile, che la fanciulla spesso
pianga, & s'attristi essendo fanciulla,
perche ella possa ridere and viver lieta
quando sara attempata.' ('Thus it is
useful that a girl weep often, and be sad
while still a girl, so she can laugh and
live happily when she is older.')
14 Thus, Pietro Belmonte wrote in a
marriagemanual for his daughter,
Istitutionedella sposa (Rome: Heredi di
Giovanni Osmarino Gigliotto, 1587),
p.lo: 'Si come lo specchio niuna utilita'
rende per esser ornato di oro, e di
gemme, se non rappresentala pura
forma, cosi della donna non si trae
frutto niuno, se non dimostra vita, e
costumi simili alla vita, e i costumi del
marito: si che convien che tu rida al suo
riso, ti attristi al suo scontento, posi al
suo posare, camini al suo andare, taccia
al suo tacere, e favelli al suo parlare; ...
('Justas it is useless for a mirror to be
decorated with gold and jewels if it does
not represent pure form, so for a
woman there is nothing to be gained if
she does not manifest a life and lifestyle
similar to the life and lifestyle of her
husband: it will be appropriate that you
1994
laugh with his laughter, [you] become
sad with his discontents, rest with his
resting, walk with his walking, be silent
with his silence, and speak with his
speaking...') Trotti, Dialoghi, pp.7-8,
uses the same trope, and adds the simi-
lar image that women's soft bodies and
malleable hearts made them resemble
soft wax on which men, 'made in the
divine likeness', could stamp their
images.
15 For example, Trotti, Dialoghi, p.157,
tells the story of Alexander the Great
having brought before him captive
women from whom he meant to choose
a wife. To test their virtue, he asked the
women to sing. The one woman who
was too shy to sing was revealed to be
the highest-born of all, and a woman
renowned for her prudence. On the
near ubiquity of the notion that female
silence signalled chastity, and public
female speech signalled its opposite,
see A. R. Jones, The currencyofEros:
women's love lyricin Europe,
1540-1620(Bloomington, IN, 199o),
esp. pp.20-24.
16 Le metamorfosidi Ovidio:ridotteda
Gio. Andrea dell'Anguillarain ottava
rima con le Annotationi di M. Gioseppe
Horologgi,e gli argomenti & postille di
M. FrancescoTurchi(Venice: Francesco
de Franceschini, 1568).Anguillara's
translation had been first published
without annotations by Gio. Griffico in
Venice in 1561.It was the annotated ver-
sion, however, that was destined to be
reprinted at least 15times before 16o8.
17 On the relation of vernacular trans-
lations of Classical literature to expand-
ing female readership in the late 16th
and early 17th centuries, see L. Borsetto,
'Narciso ed Eco: figure e scritturanella
lirica femminile del Cinquecento:
esemplificazione ed appunti', Nel
cerchiodella luna, pp.171-235,esp. 179-
81. On the role of vernacular literature
in early modern ideas of female educa-
tion, see M. L. King, Women of the
Renaissance(Chicago, 1991).Dolce,
Della istitutione..., ff.14-21, discusses
proper female reading habits immedi-
ately before dealing with what he con-
structs as the result of improper read-
ing, the premature loss of virginity.
18 Anguillara, Le metamorfosi,p.280.
Anguillara, following Catullus's
recounting of the same story in the
miniature epic known as poem 64,
develops the character of Arianna
out of details of Scylla'sstory and
out of Ovid's own alternate telling
of Arianna's story in letter to of the
Heroides.Arianna's lament at her
abandonment takes up fully 34 of the
16o stanzas of ottava rima devoted to
this story, 25 of them direct quotations
of Arianna's speech (these stanzas very
closely follow the Heroideslament).
19 Follino in Solerti, Gli albori del melo-
dramma, p.145:'non si trovo ascoltante
alcuno che non s'intenerisse, ...' ('there
was not a single listener who did not
grow tender').
20 Tomlinson, Monteverdiand the end
of the Renaissance,pp.128-9. Tomlin-
son's eloquent description of the 'lasci-
atemi' phrase is not written about this,
its first appearance, but rather about its
transformation at bars 53-5; I intend no
disrespect to Prof. Tomlinson's reading
of the latter passage by the somewhat
different reading I offer of the phrase's
first appearance.
21 P. Westergaard, 'Toward a twelve-
tone polyphony', Perspectiveson con-
temporarymusic theory,ed. B. Boretz
and E. T. Cone (New York, 1972),
pp.239-41. I am grateful to Fred Everett
Maus for directing me to this source.
22 Arguably, the words 'lasciatemi
morire' are repeated in Rinuccini's
poem because they can mean two quite
different things: 'let me die', a suicidal
imperative directed (presumably) at the
Fates;or 'you leave me to die', an
accusation directed at Teseo. Often
the lament is translated so that the first
meaning is repeated. Yet in the light of
Arianna's immediate continuation
using the 'voi' form of address to the
absent Teseo, as well as in the light of
Monteverdi's very different settings of
the two phrases, I prefer to think that
both meanings were intended. Thus
there is yet another level of duality rep-
resented in Arianna's character.Both
Arianna's anger at Teseo's departure
and her submission to a fate of partial
suicide are fully explored by the end of
the lament.
23 Monteverdi identifies the upper
register with 'ira' and the lower with
'humilth o supplicatione' in the preface
to his Madrigaliguerrieri,et amorosi ...
Libroottavo (Venice: Alessandro
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Vincenti, 1638);Eng. trans. in Source woman. See her 'Constructions of
readingsin music history,ed. O. Strunk gender in Monteverdi's dramatic
(New York, 1950), pp.413-15.Monte- music', Cambridgeoperajournal, i
verdi's theories about the relationship (1989), pp.202-23.
of musical styles to affect are placed
31 Bonini, Discorsi e regole:'Fu tanto
in historical context in B. Russano
gradita che non e stata casa, la quale,
Hanning, 'Monteverdi's three genera', avendo cembali o tiorbe in casa, non
Musical humanism and its legacy:essays avesse il lamento di quella'.
in honor of Claude V. Palisca, ed. N.
Kovaleff Bakerand B. Russano 32 This progression in early modern
literature is traced in L. Lipking, The
Hanning (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992),
abandoned woman andpoetic tradition
PP-145-70.Interestingly, Doni,
'Trattato della musica scenica', P.54, (Chicago, 1988), and J. DeJean, Fictions
of Sappho,1546-1937(Chicago, 1989).
cites the to 8 ascent in d-Dorian as an
example of an inappropriate cadence. 33 For a skilful tracing of this process,
see J. Schiesari, Thegenderingof melan-
24 Doni, 'Trattato della musica
cholia:feminism, psychoanalysis,and the
scenica', P.34, cites the downward leap
of a 6th in Arianna's lament as an symbolicsof loss in Renaissanceliterature
(Ithaca, NY, 1992).
example of the rhetorical device of
parenthesis, intended to break the flow
of the melody, signal a change of affect
and possibly alter the melody's tonal
direction. In this instance the leap
brings Arianna's melody into position
to cadence correctly (according to Doni
himself) in d-Dorian.
25 See Chafe, Monteverdi'stonal
language,ch.4, passim, for hypotheses
about the meaning of mollis motion in
Monteverdi's music.
26 In fact, the minor 3rd cannot end on
the diatonic note G. 'O Teseo' as a
minor 3rd is possible in the natural sys-
tem only between F and D or D and B. THE
Thus, the transposition Arianna UNIVERSITY
attempts is unnatural within the pitch
system available to her, as a relationship
OF
with Teseo is unnatural within the pa- SOUTH
triarchal system available to her.
DAKOTA
27 This point is made by Belmonte,
pp.19, 22, as it is in common allegorical offersthe Master of Music
readings of the characterof Alcina in degreewith a concentration in
Ariosto's Orlandofurioso. See, for the history of musical
example, Simone Fornari'sDelle instruments, utilizingthe staff,
collections,and facilitiesof The
espositionesopra l'Orlandofurioso. Shrine to Music Museum&
Parte seconda (Florence, 1550),p.43.
Center for Study of the Historyof
28 Dolce, Della istitutione..., f.39r-v. MusicalInstruments.Enrollment
limited to 6 studentsa year;tuition
29 Dolce, Della istitutione..., f.51v, assistanceavailable;fully
suggests that a quite specific cultural accredited.
reference is being made here when he
cites as a popular saying 'L'armedella
femina c si la lingua' ('The weapon of For information, write:
the female is her tongue'). Dr. Andre P. Larson,Director
The Shrine to Music Museum
30 Susan McClary has argued that the 414 East Clark Street
aimlessness of Euridice's melody in this Vermillion,SD 57069-2390USA
passage is precisely what constitutes the
nymph's characterizationas a chaste
EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1994 41