Se Tu m'Ami Translation

If you love me, if you sigh For me, gentle shepherd, I have pain of your suffering, I have delight of your love. But if you think that I alone Should love again, Sweet shepherd, you are subject To easily be deceived. Beautiful red rose Today Silvia will choose With the excuse of thorn, Tomorrow will then be despised. But from the advice of men, I myself will not follow Not because I like the lily, Will I despise other flowers. Se tu m’ami is a secular art song that was composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). The first publication however, was in 1885 by Alessandro Parisotti. Some believe Parisotti to have composed the song himself since no early manuscripts have been located, but Parisotti did indeed attribute the song to Pergolesi. Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist but was most famous for his opera buffa and opera seria styles. One of his most famous vocal works was the intermezzo La serva padrona, or “The Maid Turned Mistress”. He was also prolific in his work of church masses and secular instrumental works. Pergolesi studied in Naples and died at the age of 26 of tuberculosis. The text to the song was written by Paolo Antonio Rolli, who published the text in London in 1727 in a collection titled “Di canzonette e di cantata librue due”. Rolli was an Italian librettist and poet who worked in London during the peak of his career. In London he became an Italian tutor for the Prince of Wales and the Royal Princesses and other members of the royal family, for 30 years. Some of his librettist work includes Floridante, Muzio Scevola, Riccardo Primo and Deidamia. Rolli is also responsible for the first Shakespearean

translation into Italian, as he translated Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.