If Monteverdi, like his contemporaries and predecessors, was drawing as much inspiration as possible from the text, he is distinct from them in at least one crucial way. Other composers were normally expecting that the audience's appreciation of the text will form part of its experience of the madrigal. In Monteverdi, however, we are dealing with a purely musical conception. The words inspire him, yes, but they are only important to that degree. Unlike the work of other madrigalists, the musical forms he constructs on words can afterwards stand entirely without them.

So, the surreal, strange conceit of Girolano Casone's poem here inspires some eccentric, mysterious music, unlike anything else in Monteverdi's second book of madrigals. Casone presents a situation in which the lover wishes he were the shadow of the beloved, so as to be always near her, but in a poetic twist exclaims that instead, because he cannot be near her, his is but the shadow of a man. Monteverdi appropriately sets the music low in the vocal register; a soprano voice isn't even needed for the upper part, which floats around, at its highest, in the upper part of the alto range.

From a relatively bright beginning, the piece is a downward journey in mood and register, mimicking the progress of the text. Around m'asconderei it strikes bottom. Even the slight candle of hopeful, upper range notes is snuffed out as the whole becomes swamped in the darkness of heavy bass sonorities. After a slight pause, the piece seems to begin again, now with the strained effort of the depressed or heartbroken working against their oppressive mood. Lasso initiates a series of slow and painful mid-register suspensions, deep, dark, and harsh that don't let up until the inspiration of the word "Love" gives a boost back into the light. It finally ends in a medium place, about as level as the beginning; formal balance is struck, but the dark overall impression isn't reversed by that artificial glow of safety. No reading of Casone's poem is necessary to feel the force of this somber musical tale.

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