On a ‘guessing song’ sung by Cherubino in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro
2018.10.04 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The devinalh, or ‘guessing song’, was a special kind of love song composed by troubadours in the song culture of medieval Provence and later adapted by master poets of the Renaissance, most notably by Petrarch. The devinalh is specially coded, so that only the one who is loved will understand—supposedly—the words of the lover who composes and then sings the song. The problem is,… Read more