L'Eraclito amoroso, by Barbara Strozzi

Soprano Michele Kennedy performs Strozzi's extraordinary aria - L'Eraclito amoroso - at Amherst College with Nathan Whittacker (cello), Stephen Gamboa (harpsichord), and Michael Leopold (theorbo) in May 2025. Heraclitus in Love English translation by Dr. Richard Kolb Listen you lovers, to the cause, oh God, of my weeping: in my handsome and adored idol, whom I believed to be faithful, faith is dead. I have pleasure only in weeping, I nourish myself only with tears. Grief is my delight and moans are my joys. Every anguish gives me pleasure, every pain delights me, sobs heal me, sighs console me. But if that inconstant traitor denys me constancy, at least let my devotion serve me until death, o tears. Every saddness soothes me, every sorrow sustains itself, every ill afflicts me so much that it slays and buries me.