Ciao Tutti,
I know this is an old post but I think it's worthy of additional discussion because this duet is rich in Italian gammar. The whole first verse goes (by Don Giovanni) like this:
Là ci darem la mano,
Là mi dirai di sì;
vedi, non è lontano,
Patiam, ben mio, da qui.
The second verse (by Zerlinda) continues on:
Vorrei, e non Vorrei,
and it contiunes on like this with lots more rich Italian grammar but Forum rules prevent me from including more of the verse from this beautiful duet.
However, you can google the verse and find abundant Italian and English translations for this opera.
Carrickp has accurately translated the first verse in a literal sense but to grasp the real sense of the duet a more elequent English is needed, and I'm not being critical of Carrickp because I have seen some horrilble "literal translatons" but literal is a good starting point.
To put this in context, we all know the story of Don Giovanni (Don Juan in the popular Spanish version), Don Giovanni makes a game of the seduction of women and Zerlinda is his latest "toy". He's a wealthy playboy and just happens to be within sight of one of his villas.
In the first line of the first verse
"Là ci darem la mano". The opening
"Là" is of course the adverb there and is referring to his colse by villa and not the definite article
"la" as mistakenly translated by some. The next two words are
"ci darem" which is both reflexive and truncated. The reflexive accounts for carrickp's translation to
"we'll give each other". The truncation of the verb daremo is poetic license taken by Mozart's lbirettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, to keep in step with the meter (beat of the music).
The second line is much like the first, again referering to
"Là" as the place where Zerlinda will say yes to his proposal (probably fake) of marriage.
The rest of the 1st verse is pretty much straight foward with the exception of
"partiam" which again is truncated for meter's sake.
Then it goes on with Zerlinda's reply, which uses the conditional
"vorrei".
Putting this altogether in more elequent English we get:
There we will join hands in Marriage;
There you will say yes (or I do) to me,
See, it's not far from here,
Let's depart from here, my darling,.
I would like to but I dare not,
..........................
Well. anyhow that's my analysis . Anybody have a different analysis on this?
SN
