If you love me

This is the English translation of the Italian song, Se tu m'ami, that I will be singing for the Stillwater music festival this year.

The setting is between a shepherd and shepherdess (that's me. I'm singing to the shepherd). Usually, as in this case, the shepherdess is flirtatious and fickle. She teases the shepherd who loves her, though she feels a bit sorry for him. She declares that she doesn't want to belong to any one suitor. Using the simile of a rose, she describes how a man, Silvio, for instance, likes a girl one day, then finds an excuse tomorrow to reject her. She wants that kind of freedom, but she doesn't want to be like a man. Instead, she implies that just because she likes one fellow, it doesn't mean she can't like another as well. Though the song is in a minor key, it is certainly not at all sad. It is playful and should be sung that way.

If you love me

if you love me,

if you sigh only for me, gentle shepherd,

I am sorry for your suffering.

I take pleasure in your love.

But if you think that you alone I should love in return,

little shepherd, you are subject easily fooling yourself.

A beautiful red rose

today Silvio will choose,

with the excuse of its thorn tomorrow, then he will reject it.

But the advice of men I, myself, will not follow.

Just because the lily pleases me,

I will not reject the other flowers.