Carlo Goldoni

Excerpt from La Donna di Governo: Commedia in 5 Atti in Versi Martelliani Che abbia a rendervi conto di tutto quel ch' io sponde, Li ho sposi e tanto basta. Vado di giorno in giorno Provvedendo la casa, e me li metto intorno. Ho comperato un letto, due quadri ed uno specchio. Due dozzine di tondi, un caldaio, un secchio. Comprato ho un fornimento par ammannire il foco (guai a me se sapesse, che li ho perduto al gioco.) (da s ) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Commedia con cui il Goldoni dovette pagare il suo tributo al pubblico veneziano nello sforzo di emulare l'abate Chiari, il quale andava raccogliendo i piu larghi consensi al teatro Sant'Angelo con le sue tragicommedie in versi martelliani. Tre anni dopo il Moliere, il Goldoni porto quindi sulla scena un altro commediografo, Terenzio, alle prese con l'amore per una schiava, contesagli contemporaneamente da un senatore. La commedia in versi, rappresentata nell'autunno del 1754, costruita con sapienza narrativa, procuro un certo successo al Goldoni.

THE historian of human life finds less of difficulty and of intricacy to develop, in its accidents and adventures, than the investigator of the human heart in its feelings and its changes. In vain may Fortune wave her many-coloured banner, alternately regaling and dismaying, with hues that seem glowing with all the creation's felicities, or with tints that appear stained with ingredients of unmixt horrors; her most rapid vicissitudes, her most unassimilating eccentricities, are mocked, laughed at, and distanced by the wilder wonders of the Heart of man; that amazing assemblage of all possible contrarieties, in which one thing alone is steady-the perverseness of spirit which grafts desire on what is denied. Its qualities are indefinable, its resources unfathomable, its weaknesses indefensible. In our neighbours we cannot judge, in ourselves we dare not trust it. We lose ere we learn to appreciate, and ere we can comprehend it we must be born again. Its capacity o'er-leaps all limit, while its futility includes every absurdity. It lives its own surprise-it ceases to beat-and the void is inscrutable In one grand and general view, who can display such a portrait? Fairly, however faintly, to delineate some of its features, is the sole and discriminate province of the pen which would trace nature, yet blot out personality. Chapter 1 A Family Scene REPOSE is not more welcome to the worn and to the aged, to the sick and to the unhappy, than danger, difficulty, and toil to the young and adventurous. Danger they encounter but as the forerunner of success; difficulty, as the spur of ingenuity; and toil, as the herald of honour.