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Re: Natlang (Italian) Translation Question Help?

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Sunday, July 6, 2003, 19:44
Steg Belsky wrote:
 i'm reading the book _Watership Down_ by Richard Adams, and it's pretty cool
and even conlangiriffic, with lots of use of "Lapine" terms and even a full
sentence or two (but i wish there were a pronounciation guide!), BUT every
chapter begins with a quote from somewhere, and a few of them are not in
English.

 RM-- I heard Watership Down years ago, read masterfully in 15 min. bits over
several weeks on my Univ. radio station; the reader glided thru the names with
no trouble at all; I recall lots of f's and [T]s. I quite like the sea-gull Pig
Poy :-) What a pity such independently produced programs are no more, usurped
by the news junkies at NPR.

 So would anyone be able to translate this Italian (at least it looks like
Italian to me) quote for me?
  it's the intro to chapter 15.

  Don Alfonso: "Eccovi il medico, signore belle."
  Ferrando and Guglielmo: "Despina in maschera, che triste pelle!"
        - Lorenzo da Ponte, Così fan Tutte

  RM-- Is that from the libretto to the opera? Probably a good translation there.  My attempt---

  Don A.:  Here's (Here comes, Behold) the doctor, lovely ladies.
 F & G: (It's) Despina in disguise (in a mask), what sad skin. (That last
phrase is literal and perhaps has some idiomatic meaning, like 'What an ugly
mug' ???)