Perfidy

I was intrigued when I saw on the television last night that the song playing on the Big Band channel was called Perfidia, which is a Latin word meaning “faithlessness, treachery.” Tommy Dorsey and his band were credited as the artists, so I did a little search to find out the history of Perfidia, and learned that perfidia is actually the Spanish word for faithlessness and, according to Wikipedia, the tune was written by a Mexican composer, Alberto Dominguez. Most interestingly, however, Alberto Dominguez was born on 21 April 1913, a century ago on Rome’s traditional birthday! So although I thought the title might be Latin, in fact, it is not, but there is a slight classical connection. You can hear an early version of the song with Spanish lyrics here. In Book Four of Vergil’s Aeneid, Dido twice reproaches Aeneas with the term perfide, faithless one, treacherous one. No dancing matter in the Aeneid, but two millennia later, Perfidia the dance melody is featured in two classic movies, Casablanca and Now, Voyager. Both movies star Paul Henreid; in Casablanca his wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, is having an affair with Humphrey Bogart; they dance to Perfidia in the flashback scene in a Paris nightclub. In Now, Voyager, Paul Henreid is having an affair with Bette Davis, and they dance to Perfidia in a Rio de Janeiro nightclub. Perfidia, the Latin word, also gives us English perfidy (treachery) and perfidious (full of treachery, faithless, treacherous).