Donde Lieta Usci (Whence Happy Leaving)- La Boheme

[jsipe9]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzdbbuqpsRY

Donde lieta uscì, Mimi's aria from La Bohème

Donde lieta uscì
al tuo grido d'amore,
torna sola Mimì
al solitario nido.
Ritorna un'altra volta
a intesser finti fior.
Addio, senza rancor.

Ascolta, ascolta.
Le poche robe aduna
che lasciai sparse.
Nel mio cassetto
stan chiusi quel cerchietto d'or
e il libro di preghiere.
Involgi tutto quanto in un grembiale
e manderò il portiere...

Bada, sotto il guanciale
c'è la cuffietta rosa.
Se vuoi serbarla a ricordo d'amor!
Addio, senza rancor.



Whence happy leaving
To your cry of love,
Returns alone Mimi
To solitary nest.
Returns another time
To weave together false flowers.
Goodbye, without resentment.

Listen, listen.
The little things gather
That I have left scattered about
In my drawer
Are enclosed that gold band
And a book of prayers.
Wrap everything much in a smock
And I will send the concierge...

Pay attention, on the pillow
There is a pink bonnet
If you want, keep a memory of love!
Goodbye, without resentment

[jsipe9]

Mimi's aria "Donde lieta usci" from the opera La Boheme relates to the morphine induced flashbacks Mary Tyrone has within Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night. Within the first verse of the song, Mimi states that she is returning "alone to solitary nest," a feeling which Mary is used to. Mary explains that her house "was never a home" and that even so she cannot leave it because "there is nowhere [she] could go" since there "never has been...a friend's house where [she] could drop in and laugh and gossip awhile" (O'Neill 83,86). She lives in a house full of her family, yet without any real companionship she feels utterly alone and trapped. Mary takes solace in morphine which allows her "to weave together false flowers" time and time again. The morphine lets her relive her past memories time and time again, though those fleeting moments of happiness for her will never be reality again. Once under the influence of the morphine, her "solitary nest," Mary is able to recall "the happy part of the past" (114). Mary found her wedding dress "in the attic hidden in a trunk" and begins to piece together her memory of life in the convent and with her father, before she met Tyrone, just as Mimi sings "the little things gather that I have left scattered about" (172). Both Mary and Mimi are drawn to the past and their dull memories of what once was begin to reform as they gather items that "keep a memory of love" with them.