Daily Archives: April 11, 2019
Mendicant Melody part 4
The exhausted and famished tenor sings to the capon hanging outside an upper window, as he inhales the appetizing aroma of the roast cooking in the kitchen on the ground floor, and while he...
Mendicant Melody part 3
What strange subterranean passages of sentiment and tone, from the lively airs of the opera-bouffe to the plaintive entreaties directed toward deserted windows!“Signori, something for charity`s sake! Take compassion on a poor unfortunate!”And what...
Mendicant Melody part 2
Evidences of poverty and misery and signs, of a life of hardship were manifested by the instruments themselves; the voice of weariness and anguish cried out in the squeaking violins, the discordant harps, the...
Mendicant Melody part 1
Edmondo De Amicis (1846— 1908)De Amicis is best known to the world as the author of the children`s classic, Cuore. De Amicis was a follower of the tradition of Manzoni, and wrote graceful travel...
He who Married a Dumb Wife
Frangois Rabelais (149-?-1553)Rabelais was born at Chinon in Touraine during the last years of the Fifteenth Century. He studied medicine at Montpellier and then went to Lyon, where he practised and began writing. It...
The Priest and the Mulberries part 2
“God!” said he, “if any one now should cry `Gee up!` ” He thought and spoke the words at the same moment, whereat the mare was sud¬denly frighted, and springing forward on the instant...
The Priest and the Mulberries part 1
The Priest and the MulberriesAnonymous: 12th or 13th CenturyPractically nothing is known of the author of this pleasant little Fabliau. Compared with the great majority of surviving stories of its kind, it is remarkably...
