EX. 17-14B Jacques Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno, mm. 34–46Musical descriptions like these, as observed in the previous chapter, usually depend on the
uncovering of unsuspected correspondences and are basically humorous no matter what is actually
described. That is why the middle section (Ex. 17-15), with its serious content and agonized mood,
adopts a wholly different approach to the task of “imitating nature.” Here the imitation is no easy matter of
analogy or metaphor: what is imitated is the actual speech of the disconsolate lady, replete with sniffles
and sobs, especially poignant when, after an unexpected rest representing a sigh, she blurts out her
harmonically wayward, syncopated curse upon Eros (“Ahi, crudo Amor”). In keeping with the agonized
mood, the soprano part (corresponding in range to the lady’s voice) makes a direct “forbidden”
progression through a “minor semitone” from C-sharp (as third of an A major triad) to C-natural (as root
of a C minor triad). It is a supremely calculated effect, needless to say, but it is fashioned to resemble a
spontaneous ejaculation, following an old theory of Aristotle’s that, speech being the outward expression
of emotion, imitation of speech is tantamount to the direct imitation of emotion.