La calunnia, mio signore

Song Meaning

This Italian aria paints a chilling portrait of slander, personified as a destructive force. It begins with a direct address, posing a rhetorical question: "Slander, my lord, don't you know what it is?" The lyrics immediately establish its insidious nature, suggesting it’s the key to achieving great things, a disturbing proposition. The initial image is one of something low to the ground, starting subtly and then being picked up by the masses. The central tension lies in how this seemingly small whisper grows into an uncontrollable tempest. The lyrics describe slander as something that "starts slowly, skimming the ground," then is "gathered by the vast crowd of the common people." It gains momentum as it passes "from mouth to mouth," a process that feels like a viral spread. The devil himself is depicted as delivering it, emphasizing its malevolent origin and reach. The most striking craft element is the escalating imagery of a storm. Slander "grows," then "rises, whistles, swells visibly." It "flies in the air, whirls, flashes, screeches, and thunders." This powerful metaphor transforms abstract gossip into a tangible, destructive natural disaster. The final image of it becoming a "universal tumult" and a "general chorus" with "no remedy left" underscores its overwhelming and inescapable power.