The daughter of Jorio : $b A pastoral tragedy

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

The Daughter of Jorio: A Pastoral Tragedy by Gabriele D'Annunzio is a verse pastoral tragedy written in the early 20th century. Set among the archaic customs of the Abruzzi, it centers on the shepherd-artist Aligi and the persecuted Mila di Codra, whose encounter tests clan loyalties, religious rites, and the sanctity of the hearth. The work blends folk belief, ritual, and lyric speech to explore love, honor, and communal judgment within a harsh pastoral world. The opening of the play frames its world through an introduction that situates the action in the Abruzzi, explains the folk rites (marriage, mourning, sanctuary at the hearth), and highlights the drama’s flexible, musical verse. Act I unfolds during Aligi’s espousal rites: his mother Candia and sisters conduct the traditional ceremony when a hunted woman rushes in to claim sanctuary. The reapers outside name her as Mila di Codra, “the daughter of Jorio,” revile her as an outcast, and demand she be handed over; the women waver, and Aligi at first tries to expel her. When Mila invokes the sacred fireplace and Aligi envisions her guardian angel weeping, he repents, places a blessed cross on the threshold, and sends the reapers away in peace, just as his father Lazaro returns wounded. At the start of Act II the scene shifts to Aligi’s mountain cave, where he carves an angel in walnut wood while Mila sits nearby and other mountain folk doze, signaling a new, quieter phase after the village tumult.