Signora Dorabella

English Libretto or Translation:

Recitative

DESPINA
My lady Dorabella,
My lady Fiordiligi,
Tell me: what has happened?

DORABELLA
O dreadful disaster!

DESPINA
Get on with it!

FIORDILIGI
Our lovers
Have left Naples.

DESPINA
laughing
Is that all?
They'll be back.

DORABELLA
Who knows!

DESPINA
What do you mean, who knows?
Where have they gone?

DORABELLA
To the field of battle!

DESPINA
So much the better for them:
You'll see them return crowned with laurel.

FIORDILIGI
But they might be killed!

DESPINA
Why then,
So much the better for you.

FIORDILIG
rises angrily
Fool, what are you saying?

DESPINA
The simple truth: you lose these two
But all the rest are left.

FIORDILIGI
Ah, without Guglielmo,
I think I'd die!

DORABELLA
Ah, without Ferrando
I think I'd bury myself alive!

DESPINA
Splendid! That's what you think, but you wouldn't;
No woman yet has ever died for love.
Die for a man? There's lots more
Where he came from.

DORABELLA
And do you believe anyone could love
Another man who once had had
A Guglielmo, a Ferrando for lover?

DESPINA
The others have everything
That these have.
You love this man now;
So you'd love another:
One's as good as the other
Since neither's worth a thing.
But we won't go into that;
They're still alive
And will come back alive;
But they're far away,
And rather than
Waste time in idle tears,
Think about enjoying yourselves.

FIORDILIGI
Enjoying ourselves?

DESPINA
Certainly! And what's more,
Making love furiously, as your
Dear gentlemen will be doing on active service!

DORABELLA
Don't insult those pure souls like this,
Those models of fidelity and perfect love.

DESPINA
Go on with you! The times are past
For spinning such tales even to babies!