Coro d’Orbi— plate 44
The Arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia (1753, 1770, 1785, etc.), by Gaetano Zompini (1700–1778), contains sixty engravings of common, mostly poor people, peddling their trades on the streets of Venice in the mid-1700s.
Text
Orbi n’ha fato nassere el destin Cantemo l’orazion qua, e la sonando Chi chitara, chi basso, e chi violin.
Translation
The blind are born by destiny
We sing the prayers here, and play
One the guitar, one the bass, and one the violin.
Notes
Blind people singing and playing in return for some alms was a common sight in Venice, and probably elsewhere too.
Boerio (1829), entry ORBO, has the expression senza soldi l’orbo non canta — without money the blind doesn’t sing — meaning that you can’t get something for nothing. In modern terms, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
All images
Related articles
Bibliography
Boerio, Giuseppe. Dizionario del dialetto veneziano. Venezia : coi tipi di Andrea Santini e figlio, 1829.
Zompini, Gaetano. Le arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia inventate ed incise da Gaetano Zompini, Aggiuntavi una memoria di detto autore. Venezia, 1785.
Leave a Reply