Ah, no, che non m'inganna

English Libretto or Translation:

Bertarido
(re-entering)
With hoarse, rough murm`ring streams etc.

Eduig
Ah no! impossible! – I `m not deceived,
his voice, face, air, they
cannot, all, deceive me.
It’s he – my brother lives – and, tho` disguis`d
in foreign garb, I know him well - `tis he.

Bertarido
I am discover`d

Eduig
Brother! Or
don’t or do my eyes behold alright!
and art thou living still!

Bertarido
What, is my life then worth one sigh of yours,
and did it coast that groan?
O no! I pry` thee now for bear thy sighing`,
I am not he that you mistook me for –
Bertarido had a throne – he, he had friends,
had vassals, that, depending, watched his nod,
had princes, join`d to him in closed alliance,
he had a wife too – gracious heavens! - he had
a seeming faithful and a constant wife! –
but ah! for me – I’m not that happy man –
I am weight`d down with woes, and to
increase them, nought, but the memory of blessings lost,
fills my dark soul and surely haunts reflection.

Eduig
Some causal heat – some rage by accident
may flacken for a while the ties between us,
but nought can quite dissolve those bands of union,
which nature tasten`d with her utmost strength,
and joined so close together. – If I, your sister,
if I have help ́d to wrest a Kingdom from you,
there’s Rodelinda has reveng`d your wrongs.

Bertarido
́T was not, believe me sister, not a kingdom,
that was so much the object of my wishes,
to draw me hither - ́t was not that, which
made me, or put on this disguise, or form the
project of my pretended death – no, no, it was not
that, my whole design center`d in this alone,
that I might steal my wife and only son,
these dearest pledges,
from the tyrant’s hands,
and bear, o far away, to share my exile,
Those precious remnants of my shipwreck`d
fortunes.

Unulfo
(So then – at last I’ve found him – but who’s
there? The secret is all out, and he discover`d.)

Bertarido
And yet this one, this sole content,
which fate might sure,
methinks, have lent,
invidious fate denies;
for when I turn my wretched eyes,
those wretched eyes, so turned, survey,
a wife, that does her vows betray.

Unulfo
That is, of all your late mistakes, the greatest,
your Rodelinda is most faithful to you.

Bertarido
What say`st thou, my Unulfo,
is that most certain truth?

Unulfo
A wife, more true, more faithful and more
constant, no heart, that fed on fondness, e`er
could wish for.

Eduig
To free your Rodelinda and young Flavio
is then, it seems, the sum of all your wishes?

Bertarido
I’ve not a wish beyond it.

Eduig
Then I’ll be bound to give your heart full ease,
and, setting yours, I set my own at peace.
(Exit)

Unulfo
Come, my good lord, `tis now no longer needful
to keep it as a secret from your wife
that you are living.