Weberiana: -- the mole in the form of a violet under Euriante's left breast.

Speranza

In "Euryanthe," as in the old story of Gherardo di Nevers, in the tale told by Boccaccio, and in "Cymbeline," a wager is made over a woman's chastity, and in each story the boasting lover is easily persuaded to jealousy and revenge by the villain boasting, in his turn, of favours granted to him

In Boccaccio's story Ambrose of Piacenza bribes a poor woman who frequents the house of Bernard Lomellin's wife to bring it about that a chest in which he hides himself is taken into the wife's bed chamber to be left for some days "for the greater security, as if the good woman was going abroad."

At night Ambrogio di Piacenza comes out of the chest, observes the pictures and everything remarkable in the room, for a light is burning, sees the wife and a little girl fast asleep, notices a MOLE on the wife's left breast, takes a purse, a gown, a ring, and a girdle, returns to the chest, and at the end of two days is carried out in it.

He goes back to Paris, summons the merchants who were present when the wager was laid, describes the bedchamber, and finally convinces the husband by telling him of the mole.

So in Shakespeare's tragedy Iachimo, looking at Imogen asleep, sees "on her left breast a mole cinque-spotted."

In "Gherardo di Nevers" or "Il romanzo della violetta", the villain Lisiarte goes as a pilgrim to the castle where Euriante, the princess of Savoia, lives in Nevers.

Lisiarte makes love to Euriante and is spurned.

Lisiart then gains the help of a woman attendant.

Euryante never allows her attendant to undress her wholly.

Asked by her attendant the reason of this, Euriante tells her that she has a mole in the form of a violet under her left breast and she has promised Gherardo that no one (except him) will ever know of it.

The attendant sees her way.

She prepares a bath for Euriante after she has bored a hole in the door, and she stations Lisiart without.

This scene would hardly do for the operatic stage, and therefore, on request by Weber, Chezy invented the melodramatic business of Emma's sepulchre, but in her first scenario the thing that convinced the lover of Euriante's unfaithfulness was a blood-stained dagger, not the ring that contained the poison that killed Emma. 

 

The first scenario was a mass of absurdities, and von Weber with all his changes did not succeed in obtaining a dramatic and engrossing libretto.