Italian version
Mia donna, mia donna bella,
Bell' ara della Diana,
La dea della luna,
La gioconda, la sacerdotisa,
Ti prego mi assengno il favore che chiedo,
Il favore che ora chiedo.
Se questa grazia mi farmi,
Sempre it vangelo della Aradia
Io asseriro.
copyright March 2005 Myth Woodling
Myth's Notes
This invocation or conjuration belongs to the cut and paste school of poetry. I got the idea to write this from skipping around in the new translation of Leland's Aradia or the Gospel of Witches by Mario Pazzaglini and Dina Pazzaglini. I must state here that I cannot speak Italian and don't really read it either. The Pazzaglinis have a line by line translation where they discuss words and such. It was by studying this section of their book that I began to have a rudimentary understanding of some of the Italian text quoted by Leland. On one page I stumbled across the lines:
Se questa grazia mi farmi
Sempre it vangelo della Streghe
Io asseriro
The Pazzaglinis translate these lines as:
If you grant me this favor
Always the Gospel of Witches
I will profess
I thought that was a particularly appropriate way to end a spell which requested Aradia's assistance. Thus I began mucking around with the Italian. I do mean mucking, because I had no clear idea what I was doing. I contacted Amra the Lion and bounced some of my wording off of him, and with his assistance came up with the above.
I've always written my invocations to any deity in free verse, using repetition of words and repetition of alliteration to create the flow. A famous English scholar once stated, "Translations of poetry from one language to another are like women. If they are faithful, they are never beautiful. If they are beautiful, they are never faithful." I am not interested in discussing the behavior of women, but rather the nature of poetry translated from one language to another. For example, the phrase, "Daughter of Diana," rolls trippingly off the tongue, repeating the "D" sound. The same phrase in Italian, "Figlia di Diana," doesn't have the alliteration of the "D" sound, because the word for daughter in Italian starts with an F. Still, I thought it would be fun to give this a whirl.
Once again I invite people to send me their comments on the above text, or to send me their own invocations or spells. If I am given permission to do so, I may add them to my web page.
Sincerest thanks to Amra the Lion. Ave, Amra!