A selection of modern Italian poetry in translation 0-7735-2696-X, 9780773526969, 9780773571846, 0773571841, 0-7735-2697-8 [PDF]

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a s ele cti o n o f m o de r n i ta l ia n p o et ry i n t r a n s l at i o n

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A Selection of Modern Italian Poetry in Translation roberta l. pay n e

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2004 isbn 0-7735-2696-x (cloth) isbn 0-7735-2697-8 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 2004 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication A selection of modern Italian poetry in translation / Roberta L. Payne. Edited and translated by Roberta L. Payne. Includes bibliographical references. Poetry translated from Italian. isbn 0-7735-2696-x (bnd) isbn 0-7735-2697-8 (pbk) 1. Italian poetry – 19th century – Translations into English. 2. Italian poetry – 20th century – Translations into English. I. Payne, Roberta L., 1945– pq4225.e8p38 2004

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c2004-900708-4

Typeset in 10½/13 Minion by True to Type

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To Dolores Eddy, Joanne Rudoff, and John Scafe, my favourite Mensans

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Contents

Acknowledgments and Permissions / xiii Introduction / xv g iosuè carducci Pianto antico Antique Lament / 2 Alla Stazione in una mattina d’autunno Morning / 2

At the Station One Autumn

g iova nni pas coli Orfano Orphan / 8 Novembre November / 8 Ultimo sogno Final Dream / 10 Nebbia Fog / 10 La Tessitrice The Weaver / 12 Reditus (Catullus, attribut.) The Return / 14 Il Ritorno The Return / 16 ga br i ele d’ ann unz io Assisi Assisi / 18 La Pioggia nel pineto The Rain in the Pine Forest / 18 lui s a g iaco ni Dianora Dianora / 28 a da n e g r i La Follía Madness / 32 serg io cor azzini Desolazione del povero poeta sentimentale Sentimental Poet / 34 vii

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Desolation of the Poor

guid o gozzano L’Assenza Absence / 38 fi li pp o tommas o m ar inet t i Battaglia Peso + odore Battle Weight + Smell / 42 All’Automobile da corsa To the Racing Car / 46 Sí, sí, cosí, l’aurora sul mare Yes, Yes, Just Like That, Daybreak on the Sea / 50 luciano folgore L’Elettricità Electricity / 56 cor r ad o govoni Domenica Sunday / 60 Chimerica corriera The Chimerical Mail Coach / 60 al d o pa l a zze s ch i E Lasciatemi divertire! So Let Me Have My Fun! / 64 Novembre November / 70 ardengo soffici Firenze Florence / 72 Mattina Morning / 78 Ospedale da campo 026 Field Hospital 026 / 78 g iova nni pa p ini Quinta poesia Fifth Poem / 82 Solo Alone / 84 clemente re b or a Cuore Heart / 88 Serenata di grilli Cricket Serenade / 88 dino ca mpa na La Chimera The Chimera / 90 Firenze (Uffizi) Florence (The Uffizi) / 92 Lirica per S.A. Lyric for S.A. / 92 Lirica per S.A. Lyric for S.A. / 92 umberto saba Milano Milan / 96 A Mia moglie To My Wife / 96 Felicità Happiness / 100 Inverno Winter / 102 Sera di Febbraio February Evening / 102

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g ius eppe un g aret t i Attrito Wearing Down / 104 C’era Una Volta Once upon a Time / 104 I Fiumi The Rivers / 104 In Memoria In Memoriam / 110 Natale Christmas / 112 Allegria di naufragi Joy of Shipwrecks / 114 Soldati Soldiers / 114 Sentimento del tempo Time Feelings / 114 Non Gridate più Stop Yelling / 114 Tu ti spezzasti You Were Broken / 116 eugenio montale Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti Bring Me the Sunflower So I Can Transplant It / 120 Vasca Pool / 120 Arsenio Arsenio / 122 Meriggiare pallido e assorto To Rest at Noon, Pale and Absorbed / 124 Non chiederci la parola Don’t Ask Us for the Word / 126 La Casa dei doganieri The Tollhouse / 126 Dora Markus Dora Markus / 128 L’Anguilla The Eel / 132 La Bufera Storm / 134 salvatore quasimod o Antico inverno Long-Ago Winter / 138 Vento a Tíndari Wind at Tindari / 138 Del Mio odore di uomo For My Man Smell / 140 Tramontata è la luna: The Moon Has Waned / 142 Imitazione della gioia Imitation of Joy / 142 Ed è subito sera And Suddenly It’s Evening / 144 Alla Nuova luna To the New Moon / 144 alfonso g at to Vento sulla Giudecca

Wind over Giudecca / 146

s a ndro pen na Come è forte ... How Strong Is ... / 148 Forse invecchio ... Maybe I’m Getting Old ... / 148 La Veneta piazzetta The Little Venetian Piazza / 148 fr anco fortini Camposanto degli Inglesi

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The English Cemetery / 150

s ibill a a ler am o Son tanto brava I Am So Good at It / 154 La Piccina ch’io ero mi guarda The Little Girl That I Was Looks at Me / 154 at tili o bertolucch i Pensieri di casa Thoughts of Home / 158 ma r i o luzi Avorio Ivory / 160 Diana, risveglio Diana, Waking Up / 160 Marina Seashore / 162 ces a re paves e Semplicità Simplicity / 164 The Cats will know The Cats Will Know / 166 Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi Death Will Come, and She Will Have Your Eyes / 168 p ier paol o pas olini Vicina agli occhi ... Near My Eyes / 170 Alla Mia Nazione To My Nation / 170 andrea za nzot to Storie dell’arsura Stories of the Drought / 172 Esistere psichicamente To Exist Psychically / 174 ro cco scote l l aro Sempre nuova è l’alba Always New Is the Dawn / 176 c a r l o b eto c ch i Rovine Ruins / 178 Di Mattina In the Morning / 178 bartolo cat taf i Isole Islands / 180 a lda mer ini Il Gobbo The Hunchback / 182 mi chel e pier r i Se da lontano If from Far Away / 184 marg her ita guidacci La Conchiglia The Seashell / 186 Canzone d’un morto di sete Song of One Dead from Thirst / 186

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g ius eppe v i ll aro e l Padre Father / 188 Biographical Notes / 191 Bibliography / 201

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Acknowledgments and Permissions

Great thanks to the people who have truly made this book possible, including Michael Casey, Jr, Cletus Keating, Miriam Turri, John Scafe, Leland Chambers, Gaby Chiappi, Ilham Sifli, and – above all – Anna Kaiser of Florence.

per m i ssi on s I would like to express my thanks to the following publishing houses, other institutions, and individuals for granting me copyright permission: Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale, Rome, for the poems of Bartolo Cattafi and Andrea Zanzotto; All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, Milan, for “Marina” of Mario Luzi, the poem of Alda Merini, and “Novembre” of Aldo Palazzeschi; Einaudi, Turin, for the poems of Franco Fortini and Cesare Pavese; Fondazione Istituto Gramsci for the poems of Sibilla Aleramo; Garzanti, Milan, for the poems of Sandro Penna, Mario Luzi, Carlo Betocchi, and Attilio Bertolucci; Le Lettere, Florence, for the poems of Margherita Guidacci; and Mondadori, Milan, for the poems of Eugenio Montale, Aldo Palazzeschi, Salvatore Quasimodo, Umberto Saba, and Giuseppe Ungaretti. I am grateful to Dottor Flavio Andrea Govoni for the poems of Corrado Govoni and to Signora Anna Casini Paszkowski for the poems of Giovanni Papini. Of the poetry not included in the above list, there are two types, the ones whose copyrights have expired and those whose copyright holders I have not been able to locate. All attempts have been made to locate the copyright holder, and any omissions or corrections should be brought to my attention so that they can be corrected in future editions.

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I have used the word “Modern” in the title of this book historically. The Unification of Italy by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel ii in 1861 was of extraordinary importance to the Italian people. It affected every aspect of their lives, beginning with the political and economic and reaching into the everyday. On the way, it touched all cultural elements. Unification brought us the Italy we are familiar with today. I have translated poetry here from the time of Unification through approximately one hundred years to about 1960 (I have included a poem by Margherita Guidacci from 1961 and one by Bartolo Cattafi from 1964). Choosing to translate one hundred years, and these particular hundred years, is, I realize, in the end arbitrary. I begin with Giosuè Carducci, historically modern as “the” poet of the Risorgimento and Unification and poetically modern in the sense that he is consciously reacting against romanticism with classicism. He sees elements of classical Rome in the rise of the new Italy and a new place for the role of the vates (poetic seer). He is known for his classical motifs, metres, and old-fashioned language. Often, however, he steps out of this role; some of the resultant poetry remains surprisingly interesting today. For instance, look at “Alla Stazione in una mattina d’autunno” (“At the Station One Autumn Morning”), in which a huge black bellowing belching train is made the conveyor of death. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906. Giovanni Pascoli, Carducci’s finest student at the University of Bologna, wrote poetry that contrasted greatly with his mentor’s. Much of it is little views of everyday life, especially rural life, filled with touching nostalgia but no sentimentality. Pascoli had a lifelong love of the classics, in particular Latin, but his poetry lacked classical rhetoric of any kind. xv

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Opposite Pascoli stands the fully “decadent” Gabriele D’Annunzio. The flamboyance of D’Annunzio is legendary, as is his prolific output of novels, plays, and poetry. His overweening sense of aristocracy and his attempt to live the life of Nietzche’s superman are annoying. Some of his poetry, however, such as the selections presented here, display a passionate embrace of life. The century goes out in high gear with D’Annunzio and those influenced by him, some more and some less, such as Luisa Giaconi and Ada Negri. The Crepuscolari, or Poets of the Twilight, once again “wrote against” their immediate predecessors, this time with simple “dimmed” words and everyday scenarios. The first to speak of “Crepuscolar poetry” was the critic G.A. Borgese, in 1910. The Crepuscolari never amounted to a school or movement; what placed them together was simply their reactionism. They wrote of “buone cose di pessimo gusto” (“nice things of terrible taste”), of the antiquated and the dusty. I have included several poems by Sergio Corazzini and Guido Gozzano, of whom it can be said that they were the first poets of the new century. I would say that Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s invention of futurism was not so much a rebellion against all that had followed in the wake of Carducci as it was an attempt at a revolution towards the newness of twentieth-century technology (he did, after all, adopt D’Annunzio’s dramatic notion of the superman). I have included a great deal of futurist poetry and quasi-poetry, for two reasons. First, in its day, at the very least on the level of its much-publicized Manifesto theories, it was truly original, an effort to make new notions of word, line, sound, and phrase. Secondly, with its adolescent enthusiasm about the future, this early-twentieth-century poetry is to be contrasted with the later disillusioned poetry of the Dopoguerra and the rest of the first half of the century. All of the poetry I have included by Marinetti and much of the poetry by Luciano Folgore, Corrado Govoni, Aldo Palazzeschi, Ardengo Soffici, Giovanni Papini, and Clemente Rebora contain elements of futurism. It must be noted that this “movement” began and ended rather quickly and that many of its contributors – especially Govoni and Palazzeschi, also associated with the Crepuscolari – owed allegiance elsewhere. Likewise, Soffici and Papini must be remembered for their work in the hugely influential review La Voce, begun by Giuseppe Prezzolini in 1908 and published through 1916, featuring sociopolitical and literary coverage. Dino Campana is the great unknown in twentieth-century Italian poetry. Potentially, his was a huge step forward into the modern Italian poetry that we feel at home with today. Like Ungaretti and others to fol-

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low him, he was vastly influenced by French symbolism; he was fascinated by the exotic and the primordial. Campana was like Christopher Marlowe or John Keats in the sense that he was a stellar poet whose career was meaninglessly cut short. I have followed Campana’s with many selections of the great poets who succeeded him – Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, and Eugenio Montale and Salvatore Quasimodo, both Nobel laureates. They were all connected in varying degrees with the great Italian tradition of hermeticism. As with crepuscolarism, the term hermeticism was not invented by the poets themselves but rather by the great critic Francesco Flora. This poetry has for its main source French symbolism, or “pure poetry,” particularly evident in Ungaretti, especially the early Ungaretti. All the poets of this school seek rarefication of language, striving for maximum fidelity and immediacy to transform a personal, often seemingly mundane experience into a universal moment of sweeping clarity. Formal traditional poetry is nowhere to be found – for a stellar example see Quasimodo’s rendering of Sapphic fragments. The personal, the individual, whether in symbolism or vocabulary, is everywhere; the result was that, especially in its own time, this poetry was considered extremely difficult and abstruse, much as was the poetry of T.S. Eliot. I have tried to include as many of their “famous” poems – for example Saba’s “A Mia moglie” and Montale’s “Dora Markus” – as possible, space allowing. Except, of course, for Sandro Penna, Cesare Pavese, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, the remaining sixteen poets represented here, including three women, are less well known, especially to English-speaking audiences. I have chosen the poets themselves in four ways: from the advice of friends, professors of mine, and other experts; from Italian anthologies; with a nod towards winners of the Viareggio Prize; and through individual readings. They manifest an astonishing variety of experiences and poetics: they cannot be easily categorized from any direction. The poems themselves have been chosen not for their coherence to any objective checklist but rather by the way they stand out intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and aesthetically. They are thus, in my opinion, deeply enjoyable poems.

Modern Italian poetry is vast, exciting, touching, and diverse. When we have finished reading, even for the first time, through the lines, thoughts, and images of the men and women who wrote them, we are left with a quiet overview, a lasting impression. For me it has been a sense of Italy’s surviving, again.

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Only a moderate amount of modern Italian poetry is specifically about romantic love, and still less is about war, politics, or social justice. Instead there is much poetry about love of this little moment we have, the neartotal devastations of the first half of the twentieth century, and the search for any justice at all. It is a time – especially after D’Annunzio and Marinetti – largely concerned with the essential fragility of existence. So many of the poems, especially those of the two greatest – in my opinion, Ungaretti and Montale – seem just an image or an anecdote; sometimes those of the sparser Ungaretti seem even reminiscent of haiku: M’illumino d’immenso (which I have not attempted to translate). But like haiku, they really capture that essential moment and its lightness. A parallel theme that runs through modern Italian poetry is that the age of heroes (again, after D’Annunzio and Marinetti) is gone; survival is enough, as Maureen Howard says, paraphrasing Samuel Beckett (“Foreword,” xiv). We might add – think of Montale’s “Dora Markus” – the fundamentally Italian notion that it is only moral survival that is enough.

Such poems, laden with often simple, often stark meaning in simple words, are a real challenge to translate, and the art and logical processes of translating them are worth looking at for a moment. Salvatore Quasimodo’s “Ed è subito sera” is arguably the best miniature poem in modern Italian poetry: Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra trafitto da un raggio di sole: ed è subito sera. What is the image on which all the other images depend, the central point of the poem from which Quasimodo seems to have begun? I suspect it is “trafitto,” the word that must be translated first. Allen Mandelbaum renders it as “impaled [upon a ray of sun].” He has chosen well in the sense that “impaled” conveys the sharpness of “trafitto,” one of the things that makes it different from the other, more muffled words of the poem. But to me “impaled upon” implies a fence, a pole, or a spear: it

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seems sinister rather than magical. Instead, I have chosen “pierced,” because a ray of sun does just that: Every man stands alone on the heart of the earth pierced by a ray of the sun: and suddenly it’s evening. The point is that neither translation of “trafitto” is perfect, nor is one better than the other. Actual mistakes aside, translation should not be competitive. Mandelbaum has simply made a personal decision, based on the images and words he considered; and that is what I have done. Presumably, another translator might decide on a third choice – what about “stabbed”? One of the problems in translating is to determine, word by word and line by line, how literal to be. Allen Mandelbaum has translated the first line as Each alone on the heart of the earth doing away with the verb “sta.” I prefer to leave it in, to show a person standing on his or her two feet, alone, dazzled and stunned by a ray of the sun. His word “Each” stands out rhythmically, all alone, which I suspect Quasimodo would have liked; whereas my translation, “Each man stands alone,” is more singsong. We translated the third line identically, both choosing to switch the order of “ed è subito sera” to “and suddenly,” making “suddenly” stand out more in position and rhythm, an interpretation of the original, as all translation is. Quasimodo seems to prefer here the singsong line. Rhythm is an essential element of poetry, even in its absences. Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Soldati” seems at first reading to have no particular rhythm: it seems to consist of suspended, entwined, incredibly delicate words forming only one image: Si sta come d’autunno sugli alberi le foglie It does have a sort of rhythm, however – three words alternate with two words. I could have translated the poem literally and in the process made the number of words alternate:

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We are like in autumn on the trees the leaves I chose instead to jiggle the definite articles, foregoing the rhythmic pattern in order to be truer to what I judged to be the “meaning” of the image itself: We are like in the autumn on trees leaves One might argue here that the freer word order of Italian, translated literally into English, without, say, commas, makes for an initially baffling new poem. I agree. However, I believe this translation is worth the effort of slow reading. Of the entire collection, the most challenging and rewarding poem to work on in terms of rhythm was Gabriele D’Annunzio’s “La Pioggia nel pineto.” Its lines tumble out, enchanted: Taci. Su le soglie del bosco non odo parole che dici umane; ma odo parole più nuove che parlano gocciole e foglie lontane. The poem is divided into four groups, each thirty-two lines long and each ending with the mythical name “Ermione.” The rhythm varies from some trimetres to many lines of nine syllables. D’Annunzio is to be praised as one of the originators of free verse in Italian poetry; indeed, much of his poetry is superior in every way to his often bombastic prose. (It is to be noted that he rhymes here when and where he pleases, and this adds to the sense of running or dancing freely and magically through the woods.) The lines in English almost automatically arranged themselves into, for the most part, hurried trochees and dactyls:

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Hush. On the edges of the woods I can’t hear words you say, human words; but I hear newer words, that drops of water and leaves speak far away. Rhyme, somewhat easier to achieve in Italian than in English, is the norm in nineteenth-century Italian poetry and lingers on in the twentieth century. I have not attempted it across the board in my translations, because translating the word itself and the rhythm was challenge enough. Rhyming poems tend to be tidy and compact in other ways too, such as rhythm, and translating that usually suffices. Instead of rhyming, or even when rhyming is not present, I have often employed alliteration, so pleasant to the ears of English speakers. For instance, I have rendered Mario Luzi’s “Che acque affaticate contro la fioca riva” with “What weary waters against the weak shore” (“Marina”). Mary Oliver (Poetry Handbook, 76) summarizes all these points: “For a poet, and indeed for any writer, diction has several components – the sound of the word; the accuracy of the word; and its connotation – the atmosphere, let us say, that is created by word choice.” Diction extends to the whole poem and, possibly, to the entire output of the poet and even to his or her age. What I have tried to do in translating is to present all at once, for instance, a “Dora Markus” in English that “sounds like” the original “Dora Markus”; a translation of Montale that “sounds like” Montale; and a hermetic poem that sounds hermetic. This brings me to my last point. How can we possibly know today the excitement Italians felt at the Risorgimento and Unification, hence their pleasure at Giosuè Carducci’s patriotic poetry (which seems to us a little quaint and simplistic); or the exhilaration of futurist experiments addressing a future that seemed to have limitless possibilities? What is most important to us, today, as English speakers is that, no matter how deeply we feel the legacy of the Holocaust, Hiroshima, or Leningrad, with the exception of the British we still cannot know what it felt like to be part of the European postwar period, called the Dopoguerra in Italy. Even to us, with our postmodern sensibilities, Italian poets of the second half of the twentieth century seem so tired. The poetry of modern Italy is a partly open door into other worlds.

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Paradoxically, it is sometimes easier to read some of the poetry of several decades ago. Stanley Burnshaw (The Poem Itself, xxxii)writes that in some ways the gap between “difficult” poetry, such as Hermetic poetry, and today’s readers lessens with time: “How else explain that the very same poems once thought of as ‘hard’ can be taken as ‘easy’ today?” For example, Ungaretti’s poetry is now very accessible; I suspect that even the poetry of the grand Hermetic himself, Montale, is easier to read in the twenty-first century than it originally was. The epoch I have translated from was itself one of translation. Perhaps a third of the poets whose works appear here have themselves translated, some at length and usually from French and English. Just as he wrote monumental poetry, Montale translated monumental foreign poets and prose writers: T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Corneille, and Melville. Much of the translation work accomplished by the poets in this book is indicated in the biography section at the end. Who do I hope will read these poems? Many of them, especially the famous ones, have been translated before, and with the original Italian on the facing page they will offer the reader who has experience of Italian poetry an opportunity to gain insight and pleasure in direct comparison with the original and possibly with other English versions. I hope that they will be well suited to the casual reader of poetry who seeks a window into another world, a particular Italian world. They should also be useful to students in an academic setting who are seeing that world for the first time. Finally, I offer them not as a definitive but as a pleasant anthology of some of the best that is Italian both in the original and in translation.

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a s ele cti o n o f m o de r n i ta l ia n p o et ry i n t r a n s l at i o n

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GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI [From r i me nuove ( 18 8 7) ] Pianto antico L’albero a cui tendevi La pargoletta mano, Il verde melograno Dà bei vermigli fior, Nel muto orto solingo Rinverdì tutto or ora E giugno lo ristora Di luce e di calor. Tu fior de la mia pianta Percossa e inaridita, Tu de l’inutil vita Estremo unico fior, Sei ne la terra fredda, Sei ne la terra negra; Nè il sol più ti rallegra Nè ti risveglia amor.

[From odi bar bare ( 18 7 7– 8 9 ) ] Alla Stazione in una mattina d’autunno Oh quei fanali come s’ inseguono accidïosi là dietro gli alberi, tra i rami stillanti di pioggia sbadigliando la luce su ’l fango! Flebile, acuta, stridula fischia la vaporiera da presso. Plumbeo il cielo e il mattino d’autunno come un grande fantasma n’è intorno.

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Antique Lament The tree to which you stretched your childish hand, the green pomegranate with its lovely ruby flowers, in the abandoned, mute courtyard has just now grown all green again and June is restoring it with light and warmth. You flower of my plant beaten and dried up, you very last, only flower of my useless life, you are in the cold earth, you are in the black earth; nor does the sun any longer gladden you nor love awaken you again.

At the Station One Autumn Morning Oh, those lamps, how they follow one beyond the other lazily there behind the trees, among the branches dripping with rain yawning their light on the mud! Mournful, sharp, strident whistles the train nearby. Leaden the sky, and the autumn morning like a great ghost is all around it.

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Dove e a che move questa, che affrettasi a’ carri fóschi, ravvolta e tacita gente? a che ignoti dolori o tormenti di speme lontana? Tu pur pensosa, Lidia, la tessera al secco taglio dài de la guardia, e al tempo incalzante i begli anni dài, gl’istanti gioiti e i ricordi. Van lungo il nero convoglio e vengono incappucciati di nero i vigili, com’ombre; una fioca lanterna hanno, e mazze di ferro: ed i ferrei freni tentati rendono un lugubre rintocco lungo: di fondo a l’anima un’eco di tedio risponde doloroso, che spasimo pare. E gli sportelli sbattuti al chiudere paion oltraggi: scherno par l’ultimo appello che rapido suona: grossa scroscia sù vetri la pioggia. Già il mostro, conscio di sua metallica anima, sbuffa, crolla, ansa, i fiammei occhi sbarra; immane pe ’l buio gitta il fischio che sfida lo spazio. Va 1’empio mostro; con traino orribile sbattendo l’ale gli amor miei portasi. Ahi, la bianca faccia e ’l bel velo salutando scompar ne la tènebra. O viso dolce di pallor roseo, o stellanti occhi di pace, o candida trà floridi ricci inchinata pura fronte con atto soave!

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Where and for what move these people, who are rushing to gloomy cars, wrapped up and silent? to what unknown griefs or torments of far-away hope? You, too, Lydia, so thoughtful, give your ticket to the dry clipping of the conductor; and you give your beautiful years, moments rejoiced in, and memories, to pursuing time. The guards come and go, up and down the black train, hooded in black, like darkness; they have a weak lamp, and iron clubs: and the iron brakes, when tested, produce a long funereal knell: from the depths of the soul an echo of tedium replies, grieving, that seems like a spasm of pain. And the carriage doors slammed shut seem outrages: mockery appears the last call that sounds rapidly: thick, the rain clatters on the windows. Already the monster, conscious of its metallic soul, snorts, shakes, pants, throws open its flaming eyes; huge through the darkness it throws down its whistle that challenges space. Thus goes the godless monster; with horrible dragging, beating its wings, it carries away my love. Ah, the white face and beautiful veil, taking her farewell, disappears in the shade. Oh, sweet face with rosy pallor, oh, sparkling eyes of peace, oh, white – bowed among florid curls – pure forehead with sweet gesture!

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Fremea la vita nel tepid’aere, fremea 1’estate quando mi arrisero; e il giovine sole di giugno si piacea di baciar luminoso in tra i riflessi del crin castanei la molle guancia: come un’aureola più belli del sole i miei sogni ricingean la persona gentile. Sotto la pioggia, tra la caligine torno ora, e ad esse vorrei confondermi; barcollo com’ebro, e mi tocco, non anch’io fossi dunque un fantasma. Oh qual caduta di foglie, gelida, continua, muta, greve, su l’anima! io credo che solo, che eterno, che per tutto nel mondo è novembre. Meglio a chi ’l senso smarrì de l’essere, meglio quest’ombra, questa caligine: io voglio io voglio adagiarmi in un tedio che duri infinito.

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Life quivered in the warm air, the summer quivered when they smiled on me; and the young sun of June full of light, was pleased to kiss among reflections of chestnut hair the soft cheek: like a halo more beautiful than the sun my dreams enclose her gentle person. In the rain, within the darkness I now return, and in them I would wish to be mixed; I stagger like a drunken man, and I touch myself, lest I, too, were then a phantom. Oh, such a falling of leaves, icy, continuous, mute, grievous, on the soul! I believe that alone, that eternal, that for everything in the world, it’s November. Better for him who’s lost his sense of being, better this dimness, this darkness: I want, I want to lie down into a tedium that lasts forever.

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at the stat ion

GIOVANNI PASCOLI [From my r i ca e ( 18 9 2 ) ] Orfano Lenta la neve fiocca, fiocca, fiocca. Senti: una zana dondola pian piano. Un bimbo piange, il piccol dito in bocca; canta una vecchia, il mento sulla mano. La vecchia canta: Intorno al tuo lettino c’è rose e gigli, tutto un bel giardino. Nel bel giardino il bimbo s’addormenta. La neve fiocca lenta, lenta, lenta ...

[From my r i c a e] Novembre Gemmea l’aria, il sole così chiaro che tu ricerchi gli albicocchi in fiore, e del prunalbo l’odorino amaro senti nel cuore ... Ma secco è il pruno, e le stecchite piante di nere trame segnano il sereno, e vuoto il cielo, e cavo al piè sonante sembra il terreno. Silenzio, intorno: solo, alle ventate, odi lontano, da giardini ed orti, di foglie un cader fragile. È l’estate, fredda, dei morti.

8

g i ova n n i pasco li

Orphan Slowly the snow flakes, flakes, flakes. Listen: a cradle rocks slow slowly. A child cries, little finger in mouth; There sings an old woman, chin on hand. The old woman sings: around your little bed there’s roses and lilies, all a sweet garden. In the sweet garden the child falls asleep. The snow flakes slow, slow, slow ...

November Gem-like the air, the sun so bright that you find yourself looking for apricots in flower, and you feel in your heart the bitter whiff of the hawthorn ... But dry is that thorn, and the stick-like plants of black woof mark that clear sky, and empty seems heaven, and earth hollow resounding to the footstep. Silence, all around: only, on the gusts of wind, do you hear faraway, from gardens and orchards, a fragile falling of leaves. It’s summer, the cold summer of the dead.

9

novembre

november

[From my r i c a e] Ultimo sogno Da un immoto fragor di carrïaggi ferrei, moventi verso l’infinito tra schiocchi acuti e fremiti selvaggi ... un silenzio improvviso. Ero guarito. Era spirato il nembo del mio male in un alito. Un muovere di ciglia; e vidi la mia madre al capezzale: io la guardava senza meraviglia. Libero! ... inerte sì, forse, quand’io le mani al petto sciogliere volessi: ma non volevo. Udivasi un fruscìo sottile, assiduo, quasi di cipressi; quasi d’un fiume che cercasse il mare inesistente, in un immenso piano: io ne seguiva il vano sussurrare, sempre lo stesso, sempre più lontano.

[From ca nti d i caste lve cch io ( 19 03 )] Nebbia Nascondi le cose lontane, tu nebbia impalpabile e scialba, tu fumo che ancora rampolli, su l’alba, dà lampi notturni e dà crolli d’aeree frane! Nascondi le cose lontane, nascondimi quello ch’è morto! Ch’io veda soltanto la siepe dell’orto,

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g i ovan n i pasco li

Final Dream From a motionless clanking of iron carriages, moving toward the infinite among sharp cracklings and wild quiverings ... a sudden silence. I was healed. The storm of my illness had been exhaled in a puff of wind. A flickering of eyelashes; and I saw my mother at my bedside: I was looking at her without wonder. Free! ... feeble yes, perhaps, had I wanted to unfold my hands at my chest: but I didn’t want to. You could hear a thin, relentless rustling as of cypresses; as of a river searching for the nonexistent sea, in an immense plain: I followed its futile whispering, always the same, always farther away.

Fog Hide the faraway, you fog impalpable and vague, you vapor that still gushes forth, at the dawn, give nighttime lightning and give crashings of aerial landslides! Hide the faraway, hide from me what is dead! May I see only the hedge of the vegetable garden,

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ne bbi a

fo g

la mura ch’ha piene le crepe di valerïane. Nascondi le cose lontane: le cose son ebbre di pianto! Ch’io veda i due peschi, i due meli, soltanto, che dànno i soavi lor mieli pel nero mio pane. Nascondi le cose lontane che vogliono ch’ami e che vada! Ch’io veda là solo quel bianco di strada, che un giorno ho da fare tra stanco don don di campane ... Nascondi le cose lontane, nascondile, involale al volo del cuore! Ch’io veda il cipresso là, solo, qui, solo quest’orto, cui presso sonnecchia il mio cane.

[From ca nti d i caste lve cch io] La Tessitrice Mi son seduto su la panchetta come una volta ... quanti anni fa? Ella, come una volta, s’è stretta su la panchetta. E non il suono d’una parola; solo un sorriso tutto pietà. La bianca mano lascia la spola. Piango, e le dico: Come ho potuto, dolce mio bene, partir da te?

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g i ova n n i pasco li

the wall that has its cracks full of valerian. Hide the faraway: things are drunken with crying! May I see the two peach trees, the two apple trees, just them, which give their sweet honeys for that black bread of mine. Hide the faraway which want me to love and to go! May I see there only that whiteness of road, that one day I must go down among tired clangings of church bells ... Hide the faraway, hide them, carry them off to the flight of the heart! May I see the cypress there, only it, there, only this vegetable garden, near which my dog naps.

The Weaver I sat myself down on the little bench as though before ... how many years has it been? She, like once upon a time, moved over to make room for me on the little bench. And not the sound of a word; only a smile all mercy. Her white hand leaves the shuttle. I cry and I tell her: How could I, my sweet goodness, have left you?

13

l a tessit r i ce

the we aver

Piange, e mi dice d’un cenno muto: Come hai potuto? Con un sospiro quindi la cassa tira del muto pettine a sè. Muta la spola passa e ripassa. Piango, e le chiedo: Perché non suona dunque l’arguto pettine più? Ella mi fissa timida e buona: Perchè non suona? E piange, e piange – Mio dolce amore, non t’hanno detto? non lo sai tu? Io non son viva che nel tuo cuore. Morta! Sì, morta! Se tesso, tesso per te soltanto; come, non so: in questa tela, sotto il cipresso, accanto alfine ti dormirò. –

[From “Catullocalvos”; Catullus, attribut.] Reditus Eamus: esse nuntium ferunt matri non belle. Eamus: hau piae malest matri, periculose cara mater aegrotat, exstinguitur. Citata me rapit raeda. Est foedus aer, stridulo natant imbri viae. Domum nanciscor. Adferunt: “Actum est. Iam nec potest videre nec potest fari; matrisque membra solvit ultimum frigus.” Accedo. At oculum mater adlevat: fatur: “Quin facitis ignem? pupulus meus friget.”

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g i ova n ni pasco li

She cries, and she tells me with a mute nod: How could you? With a sigh then she pulls to herself the form of the mute comb. Silent the shuttle passes and passes again. I cry, and I ask her: why doesn’t it sound, then, the coquettish comb, any more? Timid and good, she stares at me: Why doesn’t it sound? And she cries, and she cries – My sweet love, haven’t they told you? Don’t you know? I am not alive except in your heart. Dead! Yes, dead! If I weave, I weave for you alone; how I don’t know: in this linen, under the cypress, in the end, near you, I will sleep.

The Return We must go: they bring a message that my mother is not well. We must go: alas, it does not go well for my devoted mother; my dear mother is dangerously sick, she is dying. A carriage drawn at full gallop hastens me away. The air is foul, the roads swim with hissing pelting rain. I arrive home. They give this news: “It is done. No longer can she see or speak; and the last cold loosens the limbs of your mother.” I draw near. But my mother opens her eyes: she speaks: “Oh, why don’t you make a fire? My little boy is cold.”

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re d i t us

the retur n

[From “Catullocalvos”] Il Ritorno “Tua madre – mi scrivono un giorno – sta male ... sta peggio” poi ... “muore.” Su rapide rote io ritorno. È pallida l’aria; ne cade la pioggia con stroscie sonore: son tutta una pozza le strade. “Non parla, non vede – a la porta mi dicono – più! nè baciarla puoi più che in un viso di morta già freddo!” M’accosto al suo letto: ella un poco li occhi alza: ella vede, ella parla: “Oh, povero bimbo! ... del fuoco, che ha freddo!”

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g i ova n ni pasco li

The Return “Your mother” – They write me one day – “is ill ... is worse” then ... “is dying.” On fast whirling wheels I return. The air is pale; rain falls from it with thunderous downpourings; the streets are all a pool. “She can’t speak, she can’t see any more!” – they tell me at the door – “and you cannot kiss her any more, save on a face of a dead woman, a face that’s already cold!” I go up to her bed: she opens her eyes a little: she can see, she can speak: “Oh, poor child ... make a fire, can’t you see that he’s cold!”

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i l r i tor n o

the retur n

GABRIE L E D’ANNUNZIO [From l audi: e let t r a ( 19 03 ) ] Assisi Assisi, nella tua pace profonda l’anima sempre intesa alle sue mire non s’allentò; ma sol si finse l’ire del Tescio quando il greto aspro s’inonda. Torcesi la riviera sitibonda che è bianca del furor del suo sitire. Come fiamme anelanti di salire sorgon gli ulivi dalla tòrta sponda. A lungo biancheggiar vidi, nel fresco fiato della preghiera vesperale, le tortuosità desiderose. Anche vidi la carne di Francesco, affocata dal dèmone carnale, sanguinar su le spine delle rose.

[From l audi: alcyone ( 19 04 ) ] La Pioggia nel pineto Taci. Su le soglie del bosco non odo parole che dici umane; ma odo parole più nuove che parlano gocciole e foglie lontane. Ascolta. Piove dalle nuvole sparse. Piove su le tamerici salmastre ed arse, piove su i pini

18

g a b r i el e d’ a n n un zio

Assisi Assisi, in your profound peace the soul always intent on its own objects did not slack; but the flow of the Tescio when its rough bed floods was only imagined. The parched shore white from the rage of that thirst twists itself. Like flames panting to rise olive trees spring forth from the twisted bank. For a long while I saw whiten, in the fresh breath of evensong, desirous tortuosities. And I saw the flesh of Francis flushed with frenzy by the carnal demon pour blood on the thorns of roses.

The Rain in the Pine Forest Hush. On the edges of the woods I can’t hear words you say, human words; but I hear newer words, that drops of water and leaves speak far away. Listen. It’s raining from the scattering clouds. It’s raining on the brackish, burnt-up tamarisks, it’s raining on the

19

l a p i o gg ia n e l p in eto

the r a in in the pine forest

scagliosi ed irti, piove su i mirti divini, su le ginestre fulgenti di fiori accolti, su i ginepri folti di coccole aulenti piove su i nostri volti silvani, piove su le nostre mani ignude, su i nostri vestimenti leggieri, su i freschi pensieri che l’anima schiude novella, su la favola bella che ieri t’illuse, che oggi m’illude, o Ermïone. Odi? La pioggia cade su la solitaria verdura con un crepitìo che dura e varia nell’aria secondo le fronde più rade, men rade. Ascolta. Risponde al pianto il canto delle cicale che il pianto australe non impaura, nè il ciel cinerino. E il pino ha un suono, e il mirto altro suono, e il ginepro altro ancòra, stromenti diversi

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g ab r i el e d’ a n n un zio

scaly, bristling pines, it’s raining on the divine myrtles, on the broom trees gleaming with their clumps of flowers, on the matty junipers and their sweet-smelling pips, it’s raining on our sylvan faces, it’s raining on our bare hands, on our thin clothes, on the fresh thoughts which the mind uncovers in her new freshness, on the lovely fable that yesterday enchanted you, and today enchants me, O Hermione. Can you hear? The rain is falling on the solitary greenness with a crackling that hangs and varies in the air with the thickness and the sparseness of the greening. Listen. In reply to the crying, the song of cicadas which the south-wind crying cannot frighten; nor can the ashy sky. And the pine tree has its sound, and the myrtle has its sound, the juniper has still another, diverse

21

l a p i o gg ia n e l p in eto

the r a in in the pine forest

sotto innumerevoli dita. E immersi noi siam nello spirto silvestre, d’arborëa vita viventi; e il tuo volto ebro è molle di pioggia come una foglia, e le tue chiome auliscono come le chiare ginestre, o creatura terrestre che hai nome Ermïone.

Ascolta, ascolta. L’accordo delle aeree cicale a poco a poco più sordo si fa sotto il pianto che cresce; ma un canto vi si mesce più roco che di laggiù sale, dall’umida ombra remota. Più sordo e più fioco s’allenta, si spegne. Sola una nota ancora trema, si spegne, risorge, trema, si spegne. Non s’ode voce del mare. Or s’ode su tutta la fronda crosciare l’argentëa pioggia che monda, il croscio che varia secondo la fronda

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g a b r i el e d’ a n n un zio

instruments under fingers without number. And we are immersed in forest spirit, living of wood livingness; and your longing face is wet with rain like a leaf, and your hair smells like shining broom flowers, O earthly creature name Hermione. Listen, listen. The chord of airy cicadas little by little hushes under the growing cry; but now a song mixes in, more raucous than what rises from below, from wet, distant shade. Hollower and hoarser it grows weak, it dies. Alone one note still trembles, dies, rises, trembles, dies. The voice of the sea cannot be heard. And now on all the leafy branches is heard to stream in torrents the silver rain that cleans, the vast outpouring that varies with the thickness and the sparseness

23

l a p i o gg ia n e l p in eto

the r a in in the pine forest

più folta, men folta. Ascolta. La figlia dell’aria è muta; ma la figlia del limo lontana, la rana, canta nell’ombra più fonda, chi sa dove, chi sa dove! E piove su le tue ciglia, Ermïone. Piove su le tue ciglia nere sì che par tu pianga ma di piacere; non bianca ma quasi fatta virente, par da scorza tu esca. E tutta la vita è in noi fresca aulente, il cuor nel petto è come pèsca intatta, tra le pàlpebre gli occhi son come polle tra l’erbe, i denti negli alvèoli son come mandorle acerbe. E andiam di fratta in fratta, or congiunti or disciolti (e il verde vigor rude ci allaccia i mallèoli c’intrica i ginocchi) chi sa dove, chi sa dove! E piove su i nostri volti silvani, piove su le nostre mani ignude, su i nostri vestimenti leggieri su i freschi pensieri che l’anima schiude novella, su la favola bella

24

g ab r i el e d’ a n n un zio

of the greening. Listen. Air’s daughter is silent; but the distant daughter of the mud, the frog, is singing from the deepest shadows, who knows where, who knows where! And it’s raining on your lashes, Hermione. It’s raining on your black lashes as if you were crying but with joy; not white but almost become green you seem to grow out from bark. And all of life in us is freshsmelling, our hearts within us like an untouched peach, between their lids our eyes like little springs beneath the grass, our teeth within their gums like unripe almonds. And we go through thickets of brake, now joined together and now apart (and the rude green vigor twines around our ankle bones twines around our knees), who knows where, who knows where! And it’s raining on our sylvan faces, it’s raining on our bare hands, on our thin clothes, on the fresh thoughts which the mind uncovers in her newness, freshness, on the lovely fable

25

l a p i o gg ia n e l p in eto

the r a in in the pine forest

che ieri m’illuse, che oggi t’illude, o Ermïone.

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g a b r i el e d’ a n n un zio

that yesterday enchanted me, and today enchants you, O Hermione.

27

l a p i o gg ia n e l p in eto

the r a in in the pine forest

L UISA GIACONI [From te ba ide ( 19 0 9 ) ] Dianora Ritorna lontano. La tua giornata d’amore passò, la tua ora di sole si spense, Dianora; la soglia che un giorno segreta al tuo piede errante fu mèta, si chiuse; il tuo regno d’amore finì. Chi mai in silenzio ora accende la lampada ai vespri muti del Poeta, sorride alle sue notti bianche, bacia le sue palpebre stanche, chi mai, Dianora? Chi al suo sogno eterno sorrise con un’altra aurora d’amore? e ti spense, vago astro sparito non anche, o Dianora? Col fascino eterno ella avvince or l’uomo che sogna, le sue febbri eterne ella placa come te, Dianora. Ella siede al suo focolare, e ascoltano il vento portare da i poggi un suono di sampogna, e guardan lontano se ancora scintilla la luna falcata sul tremulo mare. E il cuore le splende nell’ombra nè ancora di dubbi s’adombra come a te, Dianora. Non sa che è qual fiato di vento su cetra sonora Amore, e le vie della gloria non chiude nè ingombra, o Dianora?

Ritorna, ritorna lontano; pel lungo cammino ritrova i silenzi tuoi non i tuoi sogni, Dianora; o lampa che dette chiarori, o zolla che dette i suoi fiori, cuore che dette il suo destino, occhi che piansero, o Dianora.

28

lui s a g iaco n i

Dianora Look back. Your day of love has passed, your hour in the sun is over, Dianora; the threshold that once – the secret threshold – was purpose to your wandering foot, is barred; your reign of love has ended. Who indeed in silence – now – lights the lamp against the mute evenings of the Poet, smiles at his sleepless nights, kisses his weary lids, who indeed, Dianora? Who has smiled at his eternal dream with another dawn of love? and quenched you, dim star not quite snuffed out, O Dianora? Now with the eternal charm she captivates the man who dreams, his eternal fevers she soothes, just like you, Dianora. She sits at his hearth, and they listen to the wind carry from the hills a sound of pipe, and they search the distance if still the sickle moon sparkles on the quivering sea. And her heart glistens in the darkness nor does it yet darken it with doubts like yours does, Dianora. For doesn’t she know that Love is like a breath of breeze on a sonorous lyre, and does not close or block the roads of glory, O Dianora? Look back, look back; over the long highway find your silences not your dreams, Dianora; O lamp which gave off its brightness, O soil which gave its flowers, heart that gave its destiny, eyes that wept, O Dianora.

29

dianora

Avvìati per qualche deserto sentiero che ignori, per la landa tacita e brulla dove l’ultima pace culla chi pianse ed amò, Dianora. Ripòsati a qualche cipresso, attèndivi l’ora che tutto ti sembri un immenso ed inutile nulla, o Dianora.

30

luisa g i aconi

Set out for some deserted, unknown path, through the silent and barren waste where the last peace cradles those who have wept and loved, Dianora. Rest by some cypress, there await the hour when everything will seem to you a vast and useless nothingness, O Dianora.

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dianora

ADA NE GRI [From il l ibro d i m ar a ( 19 19 ) ] La Follìa Una foglia cadde dal platano, un fruscìo scosse il cuore del cipresso, sei tu che mi chiami. Occhi invisibili succhiellano l’ombra, s’infiggono in me come chiodi in un muro, sei tu che mi guardi. Mani invisibili le spalle mi toccano, verso l’acque dormenti del pozzo mi attirano, sei tu che mi vuoi. Su su dalle vertebre diacce con pallidi taciti brividi la follìa sale al cervello, sei tu che mi penetri. Più non sfiorano i piedi la terra, più non pesa il corpo nell’aria, via lo porta l’oscura vertigine, sei tu che mi travolgi, sei tu.

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a da n e g r i

Madness A leaf fell from the sycamore, a rustling shook the heart of the cypress, it’s you who call me. Invisible eyes make holes in the darkness, they nail themselves into me like nails into a wall, it’s you who look at me. Invisible hands touch my shoulders, toward the sleeping waters of the well they draw me, it’s you who want me. Up, up from my icy vertebrae with pale silent shivers, madness rises to my brain, it’s you who penetrate me. No longer do my feet brush upon the earth, no longer does my body have weight in the air, dark dizziness carries it away, it’s you who overthrow me, it’s you.

33

l a f o l lía

m a d n e ss

SE RGIO CORAZZINI [From li r i che ( 19 0 9 ) ] Desolazione del povero poeta sentimentale 1 Perché tu mi dici: poeta? Io non sono un poeta. Io non sono che un piccolo fanciullo che piange. Vedi: non ho che le lagrime da offrire al Silenzio. Perchè tu mi dici: poeta? 2 Le mie tristezze sono povere tristezze comuni. Le mie gioie furono semplici, semplici così, che se io dovessi confessarle a te arrossirei. Oggi io penso a morire.

3 Io voglio morire, solamente, perchè sono stanco; solamente perché i grandi angioli su le vetrate delle cattedrali mi fanno tremare d’amore e di angoscia; solamente perché, io sono, oramai, rassegnato come uno specchio, come un povero specchio melanconico. Vedi che io non sono un poeta: sono un fanciullo triste che ha voglia di morire. 4 Oh, non maravigliarti della mia tristezza! E non domandarmi; io non saprei dirti che parole così vane, Dio mio, così vane, che mi verrebbe di piangere come se fossi per morire. Le mie lagrime avrebbero l’aria di sgranare un rosario di tristezza davanti alla mia anima sette volte dolente

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serg io cor azzini

Desolation of the Poor Sentimental Poet 1 Why do you call me a poet? I am not a poet. I am nothing but a little boy who is crying. Look: I have nothing to offer Silence but tears. Why do you call me a poet? 2 My sadnesses are poor common sadnesses. My joys were simple, simple, just like that, so that if I had to confess them to you I would blush. Today I am thinking about dying. 3 I want to die, only that, because I am tired; only because the great angels on the stained-glass windows of the cathedrals make me tremble with love and with anguish; only because I am, by now, resigned like a mirror, like a poor melancholy mirror. See now that I am not a poet: I am a sad boy who wants to die. 4 Oh, don’t marvel at my sadness! And don’t ask me questions; I wouldn’t know how to say anything but empty words, my God, so empty, that I would end up crying as if I were about to die. My tears would give the air of saying a rosary of sadness in front of my soul seven times grieving,

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desol azione

desol at ion

ma io non sarei un poeta; sarei, semplicemente, un dolce e pensoso fanciullo cui avvenisse di pregare, così, come canta e come dorme. 5 Io mi comunico del silenzio, cotidianamente, come di Gesù. E i sacerdoti del silenzio sono i romori, poi che senza di essi io non avrei cercato e trovato il Dio. 6 Questa notte ho dormito con le mani in croce. Mi sembrò di essere un piccolo e dolce fanciullo dimenticato da tutti gli umani, povera tenera preda del primo venuto; e desiderai di essere venduto, di essere battuto di essere costretto a digiunare per potermi mettere a piangere tutto solo, disperatamente triste, in un angolo oscuro. 7 Io amo la vita semplice delle cose. Quante passioni vidi sfogliarsi, a poco a poco, per ogni cosa che se ne andava! Ma tu non mi comprendi e sorridi. E pensi che io sia malato. 8 Oh, io sono, veramente malato! E muoio, un poco, ogni giorno. Vedi: come le cose. Non sono, dunque, un poeta: io so che per esser detto: poeta, conviene viver ben altra vita! Io non so, Dio mio, che morire. Amen.

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serg io cor azzini

but I would not be a poet; I would be only a sweet and pensive lad who chanced to pray, just so, just like he would sing and would sleep. 5 I take Communion of the silence, daily as of Jesus: And the priests of the silence are noises, since without them I would not have searched for and found God. 6 This night I have slept with my hands in a cross. I felt like a small, sweet boy forgotten by all humankind, poor tender prey of the first comer; and I would want to be sold, to be beaten to be forced to fast so I could set myself to crying all alone, desperately sad, in a dark corner. 7 I love the simple life of things. How many passions have I seen shed themselves, little by little, for every thing that was going by! But you do not understand me, and you smile and think that I am sick. 8 Oh, I am, indeed, sick! And I am dying, a little bit, each day. Look: like things. I am not, in the end, a poet: I know that, to be called a poet, you have to live a truly other life! I do not know, my God, how to do anything but die. Amen.

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desol azione

desol at ion

GUIDO GOZ ZANO [From coll o qui ( 19 11) ] L’Assenza Un bacio. Ed è lungi. Dispare giù in fondo, là dove si perde la strada boschiva, che pare un gran corridoio nel verde. Risalgo qui dove dianzi vestiva il bell’abito grigio: rivedo l’uncino, i romanzi ed ogni sottile vestigio ... Mi piego al balcone. Abbandono la gota sopra la ringhiera. E non sono triste. Non sono più triste. Ritorna stasera. E intorno declina l’estate. E sopra un geranio vermiglio, fremendo le ali caudate Si libra un enorme Papilio ... L’azzurro infinito del giorno è come una seta ben tesa; ma sulla serena distesa la luna già pensa al ritorno. Lo stagno risplende. Si tace la rana. Ma guizza un bagliore d’acceso smeraldo, di brace azzurra: il martin pescatore ... E non sono triste. Ma sono stupito se guardo il giardino ... stupito di che? non mi sono sentito mai tanto bambino ...

38

guid o gozzano

Absence A kiss. And she’s far off. She disappears down there, where the wooded road, which seems to be a great corridor in the green, is lost. I go back there again, where before she wore her beautiful grey dress: I see her crochet needle again, her novels and every subtle trace ... I lean on the edge of my balcony. I abandon my face over the railing. I am not sad. I am not sad any more. She’s coming back tonight. And all around the summer is declining. And above a scarlet geranium, its quivering wing tips, shaped like tails, an enormous Butterfly flutters in the air ... The infinite blue of the day is like a well-stretched silk; but on the serene expanse the moon is already thinking about its return. The pool is shining. The frog is hushed. But a flash of fiery emerald, flickers of blue embers: the kingfisher. And I am not sad. But I am astonished if I look at the garden ... astonished at what? I have never felt so much like a child ...

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l’ assenza

absence

Stupito di che? Delle cose. I fiori mi paiono strani: ci sono pur sempre le rose, ci sono pur sempre i gerani ...

40

guid o gozzano

Astonished at what? At things. The flowers appear strange to me: the roses are still here, the geraniums are still there ...

41

l’ assenza

absence

F IL IP P O TOMMASO MAR INETTI [From supplemento, manifesto te cnico dell a let ter atur a fu tur ista (1912)] Battaglia Peso + odore Mezzogiorno 3/4 flauti gemiti solleone tumbtumb allarme Gargaresch schiantarsi crepitazione marcia Tintinnìo zaini fucili zoccoli chiodi cannoni criniere ruote cassoni ebrei frittelle pani-all’olio cantilene bottegucce zaffate lustreggìo cispa puzzo cannella muffa flusso riflusso pepe rissa sudiciume turbine aranci-in-fiore filigrana miseria dadi scacchi carte gelsomino + nocemoscata + rosa arabesco mosaico carogna pungiglioni acciabattìo mitragliatrici = ghiaia + risacca + rane Tintinnìo zaini fucili cannoni ferraglia atmosfera = piombo + lava + 300 fetori + 50 profumi selciato-materasso detriti sterco-di-cavallo carogne flic-flac ammassarsi cammelli asini frastuono cloaca Souk-degli-argentieri dedalo seta azzurro galabieh porpora aranci moucharabieh archi scavalcare biforcazione piazzetta pullulìo concerìa lustrascarpe gandouras burnous formicolìo colare trasudare policromia avviluppamento escrescenze fessure tane calcinacci demolizione acido-fenico calce pidocchiume Tintinnìo zaini fucili zoccoli chiodi cannoni cassoni frustate panno-da-uniforme lezzod’agnelli via-senza-uscita a-sinistra imbuto a-destra quadrivio chiaroscuro bagno-turco fritture muschio giunchiglie fiore-d’arancio nausea essenzadi-rosa-insidia ammoniaca-artigli escrementi-morsi carne + 1000 mosche fruttisecchi carrube ceci pistacchi mandorle regimi-banani datteri tumbtumb caprone cusscuss-ammuffito aromi zafferano catrame uovofradicio cane-bagnato gelsomino gaggìa sandalo garofani maturare intensità ribollimento fermentare tuberosa Imputridire sparpagliarsi furia morire disgregarsi pezzi briciole polvere eroismo elminti fuoco-difucileria pic pac pun pan pan mandarino lana-fulva mitragliatriciraganelle- ricovero-di-lebbrosi piaghe avanti carne-madida sporcizia soavità etere Tintinnìo zaini fucili cannoni cassoni ruote benzoino tabacco incenso anice villaggio rovine bruciato ambra gelsomino case-sventramenti abbandono giarra-di-terracotta tumbtumb violette, ombrie pozzi asinello asina cadavere-sfracellamento-sesso-esibizione aglio bromi anice brezza pesce abete-nuovo rosmarino pizzicherie palme sabbia cannella Sole oro bilancia piatti piombo cielo seta calore imbottitura porpora azzurro torrefazione Sole = vulcano + 3000 bandiere atmosferaprecisione corrida furia chirurgia lampade raggi-bisturí

42

f i l i p p o tom ma so ma r in et t i

Battle Weight + Smell Noon 3/4 flutes moans dog-days tumbtumb alarm Gargaresch tearing crackling march Clanging backpacks guns horseshoes nails cannons horse-manes wheels ammunition wagons Jews fritters breads-with-oil lullabies ugly-stores stenches lustrousness rheum stench waterpipes mold flux reflux pepper fights filth whirlwind oranges-in-flower filigree misery dice chess-pieces maps jasmine+nutmeg+rose arabesque mosaic carrion stings haphazard-work machine-guns = gravel+surf+frogs Clanging backpacks guns cannons scorpion atmosphere = lead+lava+300 stenches+50 perfumes paved-roads-mattress debris horse-dung carrions flic-flac coming-together camels asses din sewer Souk-of-the-silversmiths labyrinth silk blue tunic purple orange-trees wooden-railings arches dismounting branching off little-piazza swarming tannery shoe-black gandouras burnouses swarming leaking sweating polychromy entanglement outgrowths crevices tawny old mortar demolition carbolic-acid lime lice Clanging backpacks guns horseshoes nails cannons ammunition wagons lashings uniform-cloth lamb-stench dead-end-road to-theleft funnel to-the-right cross-roads chiaroscuro Turkish-bath fritters moss daffodils orange-flower nausea essence-of-rose-snares ammoniac-claws morsels-of-excrement meat+1000 flies dried-fruit carobs chickpeas pistachios almonds banana-diets dates tumbtumb big-goat moldy-cusscuss aromas saffron tar putrid-egg wet-dog jasmine acacias sandal carnations ripening intensity effervence fermenting tuberous Rotting being scattered fury dying disintegrating pieces crumbs dust heroism tapeworms gun-firing pic pac pun pan pan mandarin tawny-wool machinegun-rattles-retreat-of-leprose wounds forward moist-meat filth sweetness ether Clanging backpacks guns cannons ammunition wagons wheels gum-benzoin tobacco incense anise village ruins burned amber jasmine house-demolition abandon terracotta-jar tumbtumb violets shadows wells ass-foal she-ass cadavers-smashing-sex-exhibition garlic bromines anise breeze fish new-fir rosemary delicatessen palms sand cinnamons Sun gold scales plates lead sky silk heat stuffing purple blue scorching Sun = volcano+3000 flags atmosphere-precision bull-fight fury surgery lamps rays-of-light-bistouri sparkling-whitegoods desert-clinic

43

bat tag lia pe so + o d o re

bat tle weig ht + smell

scintillìo-biancherie deserto-clinica x 20 000 braccia 20 000 piedi 10 000 occhimirini scintillazione attesa operazione sabbie-forni-di-navi Italiani Arabi: 4000 metri battaglioni-caldaie comandi-stantuffi sudore bocchefornaci perdìo avanti olio vapore ammoniaca > gaggìe viole sterchi rose sabbie barbaglio-dispecchi tutto camminare aritmetica tracce obbedire ironia entusiasmo ronzìo cucire dune-guanciali zigzags rammendare piedi-mole-scricchiolìo sabbia inutilità mitragliatrici = ghiaia + risacca + rane Avanguardie: 200 metri caricate-alla-baionetta avanti Arterie rigonfiamento caldo fermentazione-capelli-ascelle-rocchio fulvore biondezza aliti + zaino 18 chili prudenza = altalena ferraglie salvadanaio mollezza: 3 brividi comandi-sassi rabbia nemico-calamita leggerezza gloria eroismo Avanguardie: 100 metri mitragliatrici fucilate eruzione violini ottone pim pum pac pac tim tum mitragliatrici tataratatarata Avanguardie: 20 metri battaglioni-formiche cavalleria-ragni strade-guadi generale-isolotto staffette-cavallette sabbie-rivoluzione obici-tribuni nuvolegraticole fucili-martiri shrapnels-aureole moltiplicazione addizione divisione obici-sottrazione granata-cancellatura grondare colare frana blocchi valanga Avanguardie : 3 metri miscuglio andirivieni incollarsi scollarsi lacerazione fuoco sradicare cantieri frana cave incendio pànico acciecamento schiacciare entrare uscire correre zacchere Viterazzi cuori-ghiottonerie baionette-forchette mordere trinciare puzzare ballare saltare rabbia cani esplosione obici-ginnasti fragori-trapezi esplosione rosa gioia ventri-inaffiatoi teste-foot-ball sparpagliamento Cannone149-elefante artiglieri-cornacs issa-oh collera leve lentezza pesan tezza centro carica-fantino metodo monotonìa allenatori distanza gran-premio parabola x luce tuono mazza infinito Mare = merletti-smeraldi-freschezzaelasticità-abbandono mollezza corazzate-acciaio-concisione-ordine Bandiera-di-combattimento-(prati cielo-bianco-di-caldo sangue) = Italia forza orgoglio-italiano fratelli mogli madre insonnia gridìo-di-strilloni gloria dominazione caffè racconti-di-guerra Torri cannoni-virilitàvolate erezione telemetro estasi tumb-tumb 3 secondi tumbtumb onde sorrisi risate cic ciac plaff pluff gluglugluglu giocare-a-rimpiattino cristalli vergini carne gioielli perle iodio sali bromi gonnelline gas liquori bolle 3 secondi tumbtumb ufficiale bianchezza telemetro croce fuoco drindrin megafono alzo-4-mila-metri tutti-a-sinistra basta fermi-tutti sbandamento-7-gradi erezione splendore getto forare immensità azzurro-femmina sverginamento accanimento corridoi grida labirinto materassi singhiozzi sfondamento deserto letto precisione telemetro monoplane loggione-applausi monoplano = balcone-rosa-ruota-tamburo trapanotafano > disfatta-araba bue sanguinolenza macello ferite rifugio oasi umidità ventaglio freschezza siesta strisciamento germinazione sforzo 44

f i l i p p o tomma so ma r in et t i

x 20000 arms 20000 feet 10000 eye-sights scintillation waiting operation sands-ships’ ovens Italians Arabs: 4000 meters battalion-boilers pistoncommands sweat furnaces-mouths by-God forward oil vapor ammonaic>acacias violets excrements roses sands dazzle-of-mirrors all walking arithmetic footsteps obeying irony enthusiasm buzzing sewing dunes-pillows zigzags mending feet-moss-creaking sand uselessness machine-guns = gravel+surf+frogs Advance-guards: 200 meters bayonet-holders forward Arteries swelling head fermentation-hairarmpits-sausage tawniness blondness breaths+backpack 18 kilos prudence = see-saw scrap-iron money-box softness: 3 shudders commandsrocks rage enemy-magnet lightness glory heroism Advance-guards: 100 meters machine-guns shots eruptions violins brass pim pum pac pac time tum machine-guns tataratatarata Advance-guards: 20 meters ant-battalions spiders-cavalry streets-fords general-island grasshoppersmessengers sands-revolution howitzer-tribunes clouds-grills guns-martyrs shrapnel-haloes multiplication addition division howitzers-subtraction grenade-deletion dripping dropping landslide blocks avalanche Advance-guards: 3 meters mixture coming-and-going putting-on-theneck taking-off-the-neck laceration fire eradicating shipyards landscape mines fire panic blinding crushing entering leaving running splashes-of-mud Rockets hearts-gluttons bayonets-blades biting carvingup stinking dancing leaping wrath dogs explosion howitzers-athletes dins-trapezes explosion rose joy belly-watering-cans heads-foot-ball diffusion Cannon-149-elephant gunners-elephant-trainers issa-oh anger light slowness heaviness center infantry-charge method monotony trainers distance grand-prix parabola x light thunder walking-stick infinite Sea = lace-emerald-freshness-elasticity-abandon softness battleships-steelconciseness-order Flag-of-combat-(fields sky-white-with-hot blood) = Italy force pride-Italian brothers wives mother insomnia crying-of-newsboys glory domination caffe`war-tales Towers cannons-virility-gunchases erection range-finder ecstasy tumb-tumb 3 seconds tumbtumb waves smiles laughter cic ciac plaff pluff gluglugluglu hide-and-seek crystals virgins meat jewels pearls iodine salts bromines little-skirts gas liquors boils 3 seconds tumbtumb official whiteness range-finder cross fire drindrin megaphone rifle-sight-4-thousand-meters all-to-the-left enough still-all disbanding-7-grades erection splendor throw piercing immensity blue-woman rape obstinant-anger corridors proclamation labyrinth mattresses sobs breaking-through desert bed precision range-finder monoplane loggioapplauses monoplane = balcony-rose-wheel-drums horsefly-sting>defeat-Arab ouches bloodiness slaughter-house wounds refuge oasis humidity fan freshness siesta crawling germination force 45

bat tag lia pe so + o d o re

bat tle weig ht + smel l

dilatazione-vegetale sarò-più-verde-domani restiamo bagnati serbaquesta-goccia-d’acqua bisogna-arrampicarsi-3-centimetri-per-resistere-a20-grammi- di-sabbia-e-3000-grammi-di-tenebre via-lattea- albero-dicocco stelle-noci-di-cocco latte grondare succo delizia.

[From lus s ur ia-ve lo cit à ( 19 2 1) ] All’Automobile da corsa Veemente dio d’una razza d’acciaio, Automobile ebbrrra di spazio, che scalpiti e frrremi d’angoscia rodendo il morso con striduli denti ... Formidabile mostro giapponese, dagli occhi di fucina, nutrito di fiamma e d’olî minerali, avido d’orizzonti e di prede siderali ... io scateno il tuo cuore che tonfa diabolicamente, scateno i tuoi giganteschi pneumatici, per la danza che tu sai danzare via per le bianche strade di tutto il mondo! ... Allento finalmente le tue metalliche redini, e tu con voluttà ti slanci nell’Infinito liberatore! All’abbaiare della tua grande voce ecco il sol che tramonta inseguirti veloce accelerando il suo sanguinolento palpito, all’orizzonte ... Guarda, come galoppa, in fondo ai boschi, laggiù! ... Che importa, mio dèmone bello? Io sono in tua balìa! ... Prrrendimi! ... Prrrendimi! ... Sulla terra assordata, benché tutta vibri d’echi loquaci; sotto il cielo accecato, benché folto di stelle, io vado esasperando la mia febbre

46

f i l i p p o tom ma so ma r in et t i

vegetable-expansion I-will-be-more-green-tomorrow let-us-rest bathed keep-this-drop-of-water one-must-climb-3-centimeters-to-resist-20grams-of-sand-and-3000-grams of darkness Milky-Way-coconut-treecoconuts milk dripping juice delight.

To the Racing Car Veeeeeehemently god of a race of steel, Car drrrunken on space, that paws the ground and trembles with anguish seizing the bit with shrill teeth ... Formidable Japanese monster, with the eyes of a forge, nourished on flame and mineral oils, eager for horizons and for sidereal prey ... I unchain your heart that pulsates diabolically, I unchain your gigantic tires, for the dance that you know how to dance away through the white streets of the whole world! ... Finally I slacken your metallic reins, and you hurl yourself on with voluptuousness into liberating Infinity! At the baying of your great voice behold the setting sun that pursues you swift accelerating its dripping-with-blood heartbeat, to the horizon ... Look, how it gallops, at the bottom of the woods, down there! ... What does it matter, my beautiful demon? I am in your power! ... Taaaaake me !... Taaaaake me! ... On the deafened earth, although it completely vibrates with loquacious echoes, under the blinded sky, though thick with stars, I go, exasperating my fever

47

al l’ au tomo b ile da co r sa

to the r ac ing c ar

ed il mio desiderio, scudisciandoli a gran colpi di spada. E a quando a quando alzo il capo per sentirmi sul collo in soffice stretta le braccia folli del vento, vellutate e freschissime ... Sono tue quelle braccia ammalianti e lontane che mi attirano, e il vento non è che il tuo alito d’abisso, o Infinito senza fondo che con gioia m’assorbi! ... Ah! ah! vedo a un tratto mulini neri, dinoccolati, che sembran correr su l’ali di tela vertebrata come su gambe prolisse ... Ora le montagne già stanno per gettare sulla mia fuga mantelli di sonnolenta frescura, là, a quella svolta bieca. Montagne! Mammut, in mostruosa mandra, che pesanti trottate, inarcando le vostre immense groppe, eccovi superate, eccovi avvolte dalla grigia matassa delle nebbie! ... E odo il vago echeggiante rumore che sulle strade stampano i favolosi stivali da sette leghe dei vostri piedi colossali ... O montagne dai freschi mantelli turchini! ... O bei fiumi che respirate beatamente al chiaro di luna! O tenebrose pianure! ... Io vi sorpasso a galoppo su questo mio mostro impazzito! ... Stelle! mie stelle! l’udite il precipitar dei suoi passi? ... Udite voi la sua voce, cui la collera spacca ... la sua voce scoppiante, che abbaia, che abbaia ... e il tuonar dè suoi ferrei polmoni 48

f i l i p p o tomma so ma r in et t i

and my desire, lashing them with great blows of the sword. And now and again I raise my head to feel on my throat, in tender grip, arms insane with wind, velvety and so fresh ... It is those arms of yours bewitching and far away that draw me, and the wind is nothing but your breath from the abyss, O Infinite without depth that absorbs me with joy! ... Oh! oh! I see all of a sudden windmills black, awkward, that seem to run on the wings of vertebrate canvass as though on legs that go on and on ... Now the mountains are right on the verge of throwing over my flight mantles of sleepy cool air, there, at that slanting bend. Mountains! Mammoths in monstrous masses, you that trot heavily, arching your immense shoulders, behold yourselves overcome, behold yourselves enveloped by the grey tangle of the clouds! ... And I hear the vague echoing sound that on the streets stamp the fabulous seven-league boots of your colossal feet ... O mountains with fresh blue mantles! ... O beautiful rivers that breathe blessedly in the moonlight! O somber plains! ... I surpass you, galloping on this my crazed monster! ... Stars! my stars! do you hear the rushing onward of its march? ... Do you hear its voice, which cleaves the rage ... its voice bursting, that bays, that bays ... and the thunder of its iron lungs 49

al l’ au tom o b ile da co r sa

to the r ac ing c ar

crrrrollanti a prrrrecipizio interrrrrminabilmente? ... Accetto la sfida, o mie stelle! ... Più presto! ... Ancora più presto! ... E senza posa, nè riposo! ... Molla i freni! Non puoi? Schiàntali, dunque, che il polso del motore centuplichi i suoi slanci!

Urrrrà! Non più contatti con questa terra immonda! Io me ne stacco alfine, ed agilmente volo sull’inebriante fiume degli astri che si gonfia in piena nel gran letto celeste!

[From i n u ov i p o et i f u t u r ist i ( 1 9 2 5 ) ] “Sì, sì, così, l’aurora sul mare” 3 ombre corrosive contro l’ALBA i venti via via lavorando impastando il mare così muscoli e sangue per l’Aurora

EST

luce gialla sghimbescia

Poi un verde diaccio slittante

Poi NORD

un rosso strafottente rumore duro vitreo

Poi un grigio stupefatto Le nuvole rosee sono delizie lontane fanfare di carminio scoppi di scarlatto

50

f i l i p p o tom ma so ma r in et t i

crrrrashing heeeeadlong interrrrrminably? ... I accept the challenge, O my stars! ... Sooner! ... And yet sooner! ... And without rest, nor pause! ... Let go the brakes! Or can’t you? wrench them away, then, so that the pulsation of the motor may multiply its bounding a hundredfold! Hoorrrrray! No more contacts with this unclean earth! I pull myself away at last, and with agility I fly on the inebriating river of the stars which swells into its fullness in the great celestial bed!

“Yes, Yes, Just Like That, Daybreak on the Sea” 3 corrosive shades against

THE DAWN the winds away and away working kneading the sea just like that muscles and blood for the Daybreak

EAST

yellow slanted light

Then a frozen green slithering

Then NORTH

an indifferent red glassy hard din

Then an astonished grey The rosy clouds are far-away delights fanfares of carmine outbreaks of scarlet

51

s í , s í , co sí

ye s, ye s, j ust like that

fievole no grigio No Sì NO

tamtam di azzurro

SÌ sì sì

sì

SÌ

Sì giallo reboante Meraviglia dei grigi

SÌ

Tutte le perle dicono

Ragionamenti persuasive verdazzurri delle rade adescanti I Lastroni lisci violacei del mare tremano di entusiasmo Un raggio Rimbalza di roccia in roccia La meraviglia si mette a ridere nelle vene del mare Rischio di una nuvola blu a perpendicolo sul mio capo Tutti i prismatismi aguzzi delle onde impazziscono Calamitazioni di rossi no no no

SÌ SÌ SÌ altalena soffice dei chiaroscuri Puramente Riposo al largo penombra insoddisfatta Una vela accesa scollina all’orizzonte che trema

ROMBO D’ORO risucchio di tre ombre in quella rada mangiata dal Sole – bocca denti sanguigni bave lunghe d’oro che beve il mare e addenta roccee

52

f i l i p p o tomma so ma r in et t i

feeble no grey No Yes NO

tom-toms of blue

YES yes yes

yes

YES

YES bombastic yellow

All the pearls say

Wonder of the greys YES

Persuasive green-blue arguments of the enticing anchorages The glassy violet Slabs of the sea tremble with enthusiasm A ray Rebounds from rock to rock The wonder sets itself to laughing in the veins of the sea Risk of a dark-blue cloud perpendicular on my head All the sharp prismatisms of the waves get crazy Calamities of reds no no no

YES YES YES soft see-saw of the chiaroscuri Purely repose off-shore unsatisfied half-light A lighted sail passes through at the horizon that trembles

RUMBLE OF GOLD whirlpool of three shades on that road eaten by the Sun – mouth teeth full-blooded long slavers of gold that drinks the sea and bites cliffs

53

s í , s í , c o sí

ye s, ye s, j ust like that

SÌ

semplicemente SÌ elasticamente

pacatamente COSÌ ancora ANCORA

ANCORA MEGLIO COSÌ

54

f i l i p p o tom ma so ma r in et t i

YES

simply

YES elastically calmly

JUST LIKE THAT yet YET

YET BETTER JUST LIKE THAT

55

s í , s í , co sí

ye s, ye s, j ust like that

L UCIANO F OLGOR E [From il ca nto d e i m otor i ( 19 12 ) ] L’Elettricità a Decio Cinti

Festoni di sole polverizzanti le ombre. Tentacoli violetti solcanti il catrame dei cieli. Corone di garrule faville glorianti le dinamo oblunghe. Canzoni e fragori dei larghi motori. Torrenti di forze remote nel vortice delle ruote. L’acqua sciorina un mantello sonoro sopra i muscosi gesti della pietra, e chiude nei fili balenanti gli spruzzi dell’oro, te, o volontà fulminea, o libera Elettricità. Sui ponti del mare, negli archi del cielo, scatta la tua parola rappresa nel cerchio delle correnti, e si tendono i continenti bramosi di quella che giunge da molto lunge, di quella che nel varcare ha rubato i segreti nel cuore dell’uomo, e nei cristallini palazzi del mare. Antenne sfornite di vele, ma veleggianti ovunque, antenne ascese in cima alla nave invisibile, che non conosce confini, che lancerebbe ad una nave sorella

56

luciano folgore

Electricity to Decio Cinti

Festoons of sun pulverizing the shadows. Violet tentacles ploughing the tar of the skies. Crowns of garrulous sparks glorying in the oblong dynamos. Songs and roarings of the wide motors. Torrents of remote forces in the vortex of the wheels. The water airs out a sonorous mantle above the mossy gestures of the stone, and closes in the lightning wires the sprayings of gold, you, O flashing will, O free Electricity. On the bridges of the sea, in the arches of the sky, your word springs out curdled in the circle of the currents, and the continents strain toward each other longing for that which joins from afar, for that which in the crossing has stolen the secrets in the heart of man, and in the crystal palaces of the sea. Antennas lacking sails, but sailing everywhere, antennas risen up on top of the invisible ship, that knows no boundaries, that would hurl to a sister ship

57

l’ e l et t r i c i t à

electricity

i suoi destini oltre ogni luce di stella. Voci intricate nei rettangoli grigi, coronanti con ferrei fastigi le case chiostrate di cappe, voci oscure e diverse, lanciate così nel metallico mistero, che vanno pel tramite ignoto a modulare un pensiero, nel cuore di un uomo remoto. Strumenti di forza, arnesi di lavoro, manovrati da questa volontà, traini pesanti, divoranti con bramosia lo spazio, il tempo, e la velocità, o braccia dell’Elettrico distese in ogni luogo, a prendere la vita, a trasformarla, ad impastarla, con rapidi elementi, o ingranaggi potenti, superbi figli dell’Elettrico che stritolate il sogno e la materia, odo le vostre sibilanti note concorrere da tutte le fabbriche, da tutti i cantieri, per le strade robuste di suoni, con l’inno dei carrozzoni, e magnificare divinamente la volontà che ogni prodigio fa la libera Elettricità.

58

luciano folgore

its destinies beyond every light of a star. Voices entangled in grey rectangles, crowned with robust ridges the houses ringed with mantles, voices obscure and diverse, hurled like that into the metallic mystery, which go through the unknown channel to modulate a thought, in the heart of a remote man. Instruments of force, implements of work, controlled by this will, heavy haulage, devouring with longing space, time, and velocity, O arm of the Electric extended in every place, to seize life, to transform it, to knead it, with rapid elements, O powerful gears, proud sons of the Electric that grind up dream and matter, I hear your whistling notes assemble from every factory, from every shipyard, through the streets robust with sounds, with the hymn of the heavy trucks, and magnify divinely the will that every marvel makes free Electricity.

59

l’ e l et t r i c i t à

electricity

CORRADO GOVONI [From pe ll eg r in o d’ am ore ( 19 4 1) ] Domenica Brevemente eccitate dal crepuscolo abbandonan le coppie l’erba amica stupite e un pò confuse di quello che la luna e i treni fanno tutta la notte alla stanca città.

[From a ntol o g ia p o et ica ( 19 5 3 ) ] Chimerica corriera Mi sfiorò la corriera all’improvviso; e prima che pensassi di gridare: ‘Ferma! vengo pure io oltre frontiera!’, era passata a volo, sollevando un turbine di opaco polverone, scomparendo alla vista: belle ignote, contro i vetri di bambole le gote, e il postiglione con la lunga frusta che fulminava a fuoco la quadriglia ... Passò ancora in un vortice di neve, e passò nell’estivo polverone. Poi si fece vedere sempre più raramente, con i cavalli alati e il postiglione un’ombra con la frusta alta nel cielo; e quando la mia voce fu così forte da coprir le ruote la frusta e le cantanti sonagliere, non passò più nè lenta nè veloce ... Eppure certe sere, quando sono più stanco e ancora più bianco e l’antica ferita mi si torna ad aprire ed a dolere; se aguzzo un pò le orecchie

60

cor r a d o govoni

Sunday Briefly stirred by the dusk the couples abandon the friendly grass astonished and a bit confused about what the moon and the trains do all night long to the tired city.

The Chimerical Mail Coach The mail coach ran right by me out of the blue; and before I thought to yell: “Stop! me, too, I’m going past the border!” it had gone by in a rush, raising a whirlwind of opaque dust cloud, disappearing from view: beautiful unknown, against the glass panes the cheeks of dolls, and the postillion with his long whip which struck his quadrille like lightning ... It went by again in a whirlpool of snow, and it went by in the summer cloud of dust. Then it became even less frequent, with its winged horses and the postillion a shadow with his whip high in the sky; and when my voice was so strong that it drowned out the wheels the whip and the singing harness bells, it did not go by any more, neither slow nor fast ... And yet certain evenings, when I am more tired and still more white and the ancient wound opens again and aches; if I perk my ears a little

61

chimer ica cor r i er a

chimer ical mail coach

odo ancora venire da lontano, ma è un sussulto del sangue o forse il tuono, come un fievole suono, dal fondo della via o della mia vita che senza averla mai raggiunta ho per sempre smarrita: non può esser che il vostro, sonagliere, in viaggio per chimeriche frontiere.

62

cor r a d o govoni

I hear again something coming from a distance but it is a trembling of the blood or perhaps the thunder like a feeble sound, from the depths of the road or of my life that without having ever reached it I have always lost: it can be only yours, harness bells, en route to chimerical borders.

63

chimer ica cor r i er a

chimer ical mail coach

AL DO PAL AZZESCHI [From p o es i e ( 193 0 ) ] E Lasciatemi divertire! (Canzonetta) Tri tri tri, fru fru fru, uhi uhi uhi. ihu, ihu ihu, Il poeta si diverte, pazzamente, smisuratamente! Non lo state a insolentire, lasciatelo divertire poveretto, queste piccole corbellerie sono il suo diletto. Cucù rurù, rurù cucù cuccuccurucù! Cosa sono queste indecenze? Queste strofe bisbetiche? Licenze, licenze, licenze poetiche! Sono la mia passione. Farafarafarafa, tarataratarata, paraparaparapa, laralaralarala! Sapete cosa sono? Sono robe avanzate, non sono grullerie, sono la ... spazzatura delle altre poesie.

64

a l d o pal a zze schi

So Let Me Have My Fun! (Pop Song) Tri tri tri, fru fru fru, uhi uhi uhi ihu, ihu ihu, The poet has fun, crazily, beyond measure! Don’t insult him, let him have fun poor thing these little nonsenses are his delight. Cucú rurú rurú cucú cuccuccurucú! What are these indecencies? These unpronounceable strophes? licenses, licenses, poetic licenses! They are my passion. Farafarafarafa, tarataratarata, paraparaparapa, laralaralarala! Do you know what they are? They are stuff left over, they are not silly they are the ... refuse of the other poems.

65

e l as c iatem i d ivert ire !

so let me have my fun!

Bubububu, fufufufu. Friù! Friù! Ma se d’un qualunque nesso son prive, perchè le scrive quel fesso? Bilobilobilobilo blum! Filofilofilofilofilo flum! Bilolù, Filolù U. Non è vero che non voglion dire, vogliono dire qualcosa. Voglion dire ... come quando uno si mette a cantare senza saper le parole. Una cosa molto volgare. Ebbene, così mi piace di fare. Aaaaa! Eeeee! iiiii! Ooooo! UUUUU! A! E! I! O! U! Ma giovinotto, diteci un poco una cosa, non è la vostra una posa, di voler con così poco tenere alimentato un sì gran foco?

66

a l d o pal a zze schi

Bubububu, fufufufu. Friú! Friú! But if they lack some nexus, why does that fool write them? Bilobilobilobilobilo blum! Filofilofilofilo flum! Bilolú. Filolú. U. It’s not true that they have no meaning, they mean something. They mean ... like when a person sets himself to sing without knowing the words. A very vulgar thing. Well then, I like to do it. Aaaaa! Eeeee! iiiii! Ooooo! Uuuuu! A!E!I!O!U! But young man, tell us a little something, isn’t this thing of yours a pose, wishing with so little to keep fed such a grand fire?

67

e l as ciatemi d ivert ire !

so let me have my fun!

Huisc ... Huisc ... Huisciu ... sciu sciu, Sciokoku ... koku koku, Sciu ko ku. Come si deve fare a capire? Avete delle belle pretese, sembra ormai che scriviate in giapponese. Abì, alì, alarì. Riririri! Ri. Lasciate pure che si sbizzarisca, anzi è bene che non lo finisca, il divertimento gli costerà caro: gli daranno del somaro. Labala falala falala ... eppoi lala ... e lalala lalalala laiala. Certo è un azzardo un pò forte, scrivere delle cose così, che ci son professori oggidì a tutte le porte. Ahahahahahahah! Ahahahahahahah! Ahahahahahahah! Infine io ho pienamente ragione, i tempi sono cambiati, gli uomini non domandano più nulla dai poeti: e lasciatemi divertire!

68

a l d o pal a zze schi

Whish ... Whish Whish ... shoo shoo, Sciokoku ... koku koku, Shoo ko ku. What does one have to do to understand? You have some fine pretenses, it seems by now that you’re writing in Japanese. Abí, alí, alarí. Riririri! Ri. So leave it be that he indulges his whims, indeed it’s good that he doesn’t finish it, the fun will cost him plenty: they’ll call him an ass. Labala falala falala ... and then lala ... and lalaia latalaia lalala. Certainly it’s a rather strong risk, writing about things like that, because there are professors right today at every door. Ahahahahahahah! Ahahahahahahah! Ahahahahahahah! In the end I am plenty right, times have changed, men don’t ask anything anymore from poets: so let me have my fun!

69

e l as ciatem i d ivert ire !

so let me have my fun!

[From v i ag g io s e nt im e ntale ( 19 5 5 ) ] Novembre Dei giovani e dei vecchi si raggruppano fra le rovine calde di Roma, su cui i platani lasciano cadere con rumore di carta le loro foglie dorate. I giovani fanno sapere ai vecchi quello che a loro piace, e i vecchi fanno finta di non sentire.

70

a l d o pal a zze schi

November Young folks and old folks form their little groups among the hot ruins of Rome, on which the plane-trees drop with paper sounds their golden leaves. The young let the old know just what they like and the old pretend that they don’t hear.

71

novembre

november

ARDENGO SOFFICI [From s imultan e it à e ch im is m i lir ic i ( 1 9 1 5 ) ] Firenze A Firenze, in Via Tornabuoni Una fuciacca di cielo è tesa Sui fili Del telefono 8-85. L’altro emisfero si rinfresca Da Doney e Nipoti, Con una penna di paradiso Al cappello, E fra le trine un profumo Di Floride e di Splendid Hôtels. Un vecchio affogato nella primavera Trascina un paniere d’iride sul marciapiede Lungo le vetrine infocate Di cravatte, di fogli da mille e di liquor; “Due soldi il mazzo le violette, I narcisi e gli anemoni.” La collina di San Miniato Sciacqua nell’Arno i suoi ori di Bisanzio, I suoi cipressi, E le ville; II Ponte vecchio incrostato di gemme, I campanili, I tea rooms, Coll’acqua verde Partono fra due argini felici di sole. Non si può vivere in questa pace D’azzurri viali Dove non c’è che un tranvai Ogni venti minuti, Candele steariche e buste fiorite Nelle vetrine, E visi di spose e di bimbi

72

ardengo soffici

Florence In Florence, on Via Tornabuoni A sash of sky is stretched On the wires of telephone 8-85. The other half of the world refreshes At Doney and Sons, With a bird-of-paradise feather In his hat, And among the laces a perfume Of Floride and Splendid Hotels. An old man, drowned in the springtime, Drags a basket of irises on the sidewalk, Past the windows blazing With cravats, bank notes and liquors: “Two pennies a bunch, violets, narcissus and anemoni.” The hill of San Miniato Rinses in the Arno its Byzantine gold, Its cypresses, And the villas; The Ponte Vecchio encrusted with gems, The bell towers, The tea rooms, With the green water Move between two banks happy with sun. You can’t live in this peace Of blue avenues Where there’s nothing but a tram Every twenty minutes, Tallow candles and flowery envelopes In the shop-windows, And faces of wives and of babes

73

f i ren ze

f lo ren ce

Soffocati di calda noia Alle finestre Spalancate sul nulla di mezzogiorno. Un affisso delle Folies Bergères O dello Splendor È più emozionante Di tutta la storia Rassegnata in fronte alle torri E alle cupole senza Dio nè colombe. (I piccioni del Duomo Li mangia tutti il Priore Della Misercordia). La notte si scrive col fuoco Sui muri del Centro “A nuova vita restituito”; Nomi e orari: Attimi vibrati nell’eternità, Come questa sigaretta che accendo In un caffè d’Europa, La Rosa, Il 6 marzo 1915. Su tutte le case degli stranieri C’è l’appigionasi; Le Family pensions Non hanno più amori Dietro le bianche cortine, Non più yes, da, oui, ja: Non c’è più un fiaccheraio al passo per le Cascine, Non più serenate di parrucchieri: II lume di luna è tutto alla guerra. Non ci siam più che noi a cantare Di disperazione Per i vicoli morti, Oltr’Arno, A San Frediano Al Canto alla Briga; Si cammina sulle immondizie

74

ardengo soffici

Suffocated with hot tedium In the windows Thrown open on the nothingness of midday. A poster of the Folies Bergère Or of Splendor Stirs you more Than all the resigned history On the fronts of the towers And the domes without God or doves. (The pigeons of the Duomo – The Prior of Misercordia Eats them all.) “At night, restored to new life” is written with fire On the walls of the Centro; Names and time-tables Moments hurled into eternity, Like this cigarette that I light In a cafe in Europe, The Rosa, March 6, 1915. On all the houses of the foreigners There’s a “For Rent” sign; The Family Pensions No longer have love Behind the white curtains, There’s no more yes, da, oui, ja: No more a cabby crawling along through the Cascine, No more hairdressers’ serenades: The light of the moon is all for the war. There’s no one else but us to sing About despair Through the dead alleys, On the other side of the Arno, In San Frediano, At the Canto alla Briga; You walk on the garbage,

75

f i ren ze

f lo ren ce

Sui gatti assassinati E i capelli, Accanto alle porte inchiodate dei bordelli. Appena un lampione e qualche stella appesa ai rami in amore Ci fan ricordare che la vita Ricomincia tutte le mattine. Voglio scurdamme ’o cielo Tutte ’e canzone e ’o mare. Nelle botteghe fuori la legge La teppa ride e bestemmia In chiave d’organino e di coltello, Confitta nel fumo E nell’afrore del vino bianco e nero; La prostituzione Imbelletta le cantonate; Sul fondo di vecchie rèclames Ogni donna è un fiore Caduto da questi giardini sepolti di tenebra, Inzuppato di menta glaciale E impolverato di minio Come l’aurora. A Firenze per tutte le vie, A tutte le ore S’incrociano le avventure del mondo: Il “Messaggero” di Roma arrivato ora Ed il vento Che batte l’occhio giallo dell’orologio della stazione, Entrano dalle persiane aperte E gonfiano tutti gli hangars multicolori Della poesia.

76

ardengo soffici

On the dead cats And the hair, Near the nailed-up doors of the bordellos. As soon as a street lamp and a few stars hung on the branches in love Make us remember that life Begins again every morning. I want to forget the heavens All the songs and the sea. In the shops outside the law The mob laughs and curses At the sound of hand organ and knife, Nailed in the smoke And in the smell of the white wine and the red; Prostitution is makeup on street corners; On the background of old ads Every woman is a flower Fallen from these gardens buried in darkness, Soaked in glacial mint And dusted with red lead Like the daybreak. In Florence through all the streets, At all the hours The adventures of the world cross each other: The Messaggero of Rome just arrived And the wind Which batters the yellow eye of the station’s clock, Enter from the open shutters And swell all the multicolored hangars Of poetry.

77

firenze

florence

[From ma rs ia e ap o l lo ( 193 8 ) ] Mattina La luce non è che un mazzolino di fiori più sottili; Un ronzìo di mosche d’oro e verdi il cielo. Senza questo pardessus parigino si potrebbe ballare; A tutti i piani c’è la musica, come in paradiso. Una signora vestita del tricolor dell’Italia nelle cromolitografie patriottiche Evade verso l’oriente: Jamais je ne voudrais être son chien! Piuttosto piangere di tenerezza Sul miracolo della gente che risuscita ogni giorno In questo enigma universale, che piglia per un almanacco E passa; E passa con la tranquillità dei giovenchi. Ah! noi moriremo per aver troppo adorato le cose da nulla. L’aria d’anilina mi bagna come una camicia tuffata nel turchinetto. Vedo tutto: Il baccalà che sperimenta il Nirvana fiorito di pomodori nelle zangole azzurre; L’ombre delle grondaie abbassate sugli occhi glauchi delle persiane; Le ombre degli uomini che si profondano Nella terra trasparente. E a un tratto capisco questo assioma: Ogni nuova civiltà nasce dal riso dei bambini. Il timpano del sole batte sullo specchio del parrucchiere Per farmi sorridere; Ma non si può che seguire in silenzio la freschezza delle ore. (I miei capelli sono sinistri!)

[From ma rs ia e ap o l lo] Ospedale da campo 026 Ozio dolce dell’ospedale! Si dorme a settimane intere; il corpo che avevamo congedato non sa credere ancora a questa felicità: vivere. 78

ardengo soffici

Morning Light is nothing but a little bunch of rather fine flowers; The sky a buzzing of gold and green flies. Without this Parisian overcoat we could dance; On every floor there’s music as in paradise. A lady dressed in the tricolor of Italy in patriotic chromolithographies Escapes toward the orient: Never would I want to be her dog! Rather to weep with tenderness Over the miracle of the folk who resuscitate every day In this universal enigma, who leaf through a calendar And move on; And move on with the tranquillity of cattle. Oh! we will die for having too much loved things of little value. The air of aniline bathes me like a shirt dipped in washerwoman’s bluing. I see everything: The fool who experiences Nirvana flowered with tomatoes in the blue churns The darkness of the gutters lowered onto the sea-green eyes of the shutters; The darkness of the men who sink Into the transparent earth. And all of a sudden I understand this axiom: Every new civilization is born of the laughter of babes The tympanum of the sun beats down on the mirror of the hairdresser To make me smile; But we can’t do anything but follow in silence the freshness of the hours. (My hair looks terrible!)

Field Hospital 026 Sweet idleness of the hospital! You can sleep entire weeks; the body that we had given leave to cannot yet believe this happiness: to be alive. 79

o s peda le da ca mp o 02 6

f ie ld h ospital 026

Le bianche pareti della camera son come parentesi quadre, lo spirito vi si riposa fra l’ardente furore della battaglia di ieri e l’enigma fiorito che domani ricomincerà. Sosta chiara, crogiuolo di sensi multipli, qui tutto converge in un’unità indicibile; misteriosamente sento fluire un tempo d’oro dove tutto è uguale: i boschi, le quote della vittoria, gli urli, il sole, il sangue dei morti, io stesso, il mondo, e questi gialli limoni che guardo amorosamente risplendere sul mio nero comodino di ferro, vicino al guanciale.

80

ardengo soffici

The white walls of the room are like brackets; the spirit rests here between the burning fury of yesterday’s battle and the flowery enigma that will commence again tomorrow. Bright shining pause, simmering of multiple senses, here all converges into an inexpressible unity; mysteriously I feel flowing a time of gold where everything is equal: the fields, the highs of victory, the howlings, the sun, the blood of the dead, I myself, the world, and these yellow lemons that I gaze at, amorously resplendent on my black iron nightstand, near the pillow.

81

o s peda l e da ca m p o 02 6

f ie ld h ospital 026

GIOVANNI PAPINI [From oper a pr ima (1917)] Quinta poesia Al freddo sapore di mela renetta, in lingua, per tutta la bocca che succhia ed aspetta, ritorna negli occhi la ciocca immobile al dolco d’autunno, sospesa alla voglia – una frasca di verde cognato a Vertunno distesa nel latte di vasca. Mela renetta che mordo, in questo riposo di festa, adagio, come un ricordo di dolcezza manifesta. Una mi basta: nel gusto di quell’istante, di quel morso, rivedo all’ombra obliqua del fusto passare il blù come un chiaro discorso. Tutto abbandono in disparte. Figliolo di terra ed erede d’incontrastabile parte il Dio mal creduto mi vede. Mia la foglia che strappo odorando le dita – ma più la discesa che rifarò, tra poco, pensando a me, sotto l’aria che pesa. Mia tutta, la campagna, in quel sapore che maturamente si distrugge e si disfa, mio l’odore, l’afrore dell’imprecisa immensità.

82

g i ova n ni pa p in i

Fifth Poem At the cold taste of rennet apple on my tongue, through my whole mouth that sucks and waits, the bunch of flowers returns to my eyes motionless at the damp weather of autumn, suspended at my longing – a leafy bough of green dear to Vortumnus spread out in a milk basin. Rennet apple that I bite in this festival rest, adagio, like a memory of manifest sweetness. One is enough for me: in the taste of that instant, of that bite, I see again in the oblique shade of the trunk the blue pass like a bright discourse. I abandon all on one side. As son of earth and heir of indisputable part, the God poorly believed in sees me. Mine the leaf I pull away scenting my fingers – but more the descent that I will remake, in a little while, thinking about myself, under the hanging air. Mine all the fields, in that taste that at its height destroys and unmakes itself, mine the odor, the stench of the indefinite immensity.

83

q ui n ta p o e sia

f if th p o e m

Nessuno godrà quel che presi con la docile calma dè minuti, masticando le frutta di tanti paesi ricchi al sole e da me conosciuti. Ma nel termine d’ogni dolcezza, nella più persa dimenticanza, un’acida puntura d’amarezza, rompe ogni sacra alleanza. Io e me, nati al medesimo istante, consegnati ad una sorte, ritroviamo, in un ritmo andante, passi e sussurri di morte. Al largo, nell’ombra dell’acqua più zitta, ove il colpo del remo l’erba marina risciacqua, stretti assieme affonderemo. Ma oggi, nell’ansia tranquilla di questa giornata che affretta la sera, non lascio una stilla del sugo di sole di mela renetta.

[From pa ne e v ino ( 19 2 1– 26 ) ] Solo O solitarie estati rivinte sopra il male quando, posato il corpo sulla greppa ventosa, ascoltavo, tra i soffi del vento occidentale, i sonori silenzi della terra armoniosa. Ora mi sento lontano da tutti, senza passioni nè umani rapporti, ed affacciato sugli anni distrutti, seguo, paziente, la morte dei morti.

84

g i ova n ni pa p in i

No one will enjoy what I took with the docile calm of the minutes, chewing the fruits of so many countries rich to the sun and known by me. But in the ending of every sweetness, in the most lost forgetting, an acid sting of bitterness, breaks every sacred alliance. Myself and I, born in the same instant, consigned to one fate, will find again, in an andante rhythm, steps and whispers of death. Away from the shore, in the shade of the most hushed-up water, where the stroke of the oar rinses the sea plant, hugging together we will sink to the bottom. But right now, in the tranquil anxiety of this daytime that hastens on the evening, I do not leave a drop of the juice of the sun of the rennet apple.

Alone O solitary summers reconquered from evil when, my body lying on the windy steep slope, I listened, among the blasts of the western wind, to the sonorous silences of the harmonious earth. Now I feel far away from everyone, without passions or human rapports, and calling to mind the destroyed years, I follow, patiently, the death of the dead.

85

solo

alone

Tutti gli amori alla fine finiti son l’inventario de’ cuori disfatti, brevi ferocie, rimorsi aboliti, insurrezioni d’automi distratti. Reminiscenza m’appare il futuro mal disegnato su tracce sanguigne, come un ferito che va malsicuro di prima notte tra l’ombre maligne. Un continente di nuvole molli appena spinto da rèfoli pigri naviga sopra la cima dei colli come un paese morto che migri. Ansia bramosa del cielo promesso dove non vige l’antico interdetto! Un’alba sola mi fosse concesso come al colombo fuggire il mio tetto.

86

g i ova n ni pa p in i

All the loves in the end ended are the stocktaking of undone hearts, brief savagery, abolished remorses, insurrections of distracted robots. The future appears to me like reminiscence poorly designed on bloody footprints, like someone wounded who goes unsure in the early night among the malevolent shadows. A continent of soft clouds just pushed by lazy puffs sails over the top of the hills like a dead country that migrates. Greedy desire for the promised heaven where the ancient interdict does not hold weight! Would that just one dawn were given to me to fly from my roof like a dove!

87

solo

a lo n e

CL EME NTE REBORA [From fr a mmen t i lir ici ( 19 13 ) ] Cuore O sciolta alla montagna Lucente verità, O beata dei bimbi Sagace ingenuità, O vogliosa amicizia Che cresce, se più dà! Quando si nutre il cuore Un nulla è riso pieno, Quando s’accende il cuore Un nulla è ciel sereno: Quando s’eleva il cuore All’amoroso dono, Non più s’inventan gli uomini, ma sono.

[From fr a mmen t i lir ici] Serenata di grilli O dei grilli in cadenza solitaria ai poggi senza stelle dentro il bagnato alitare dell’aria tenui serenatelle! Cos’è la vita con sue rabbie a voi persi nei solchi fuori all’ombra inerte, o di silenzi a noi dolcissimi cantori? Anima, intona la tua voce e nulla non domandare più: càntati la canzone della culla mentre declini giù.

88

cl emente re b or a

Heart O loosened on the mountain Bright-shining verity, O blessed of the babes Wise ingenuity, O wishful friendship Which grows the more it gives! When the heart is fed A nothing is deep laughter, When the heart is stirred A nothing is clear sky: When the heart’s lit up To its loving gift, No more do men contrive: they simply are.

Cricket Serenade O of crickets in solitary cadence on starless knolls inside the air’s wet breath thin little serenades! What’s life with its fury to you, lost in the furrows outside in the lifeless darkness, O to us sweetest singers of silences? Soul, intone your voice and ask for nothing more: sing the song of the cradle while you lie down.

89

serenata di g r i lli

cr i cket serena de

DIN O CAMPANA [From ca nti or f ici ( 19 1 4 ) ] La Chimera Non so se tra roccie il tuo pallido Viso m’apparve, o sorriso Di lontananze ignote Fosti, la china eburnea Fronte fulgente o giovine Suora de la Gioconda: O delle primavere Spente, per i tuoi mitici pallori O Regina o Regina adolescente: Ma per il tuo ignoto poema Di voluttà e di dolore Musica fanciulla esangue, Segnato di linea di sangue Nel cerchio delle labbra sinuose, Regina de la melodia: Ma per il vergine capo Reclino, io poeta notturno Vegliai le stelle vivide nei pelaghi del cielo, Io per il tuo dolce mistero Io per il tuo divenir taciturno. Non so se la fiamma pallida Fu dei capelli il vivente Segno del suo pallore, Non so se fu un dolce vapore, Dolce sul mio dolore, Sorriso di un volto notturno: Guardo le bianche rocce le mute fonti dei venti E l’immobilità dei firmamenti E i gonfii rivi che vanno piangenti E l’ombre del lavoro umano curve là sui poggi algenti E ancora per teneri cieli lontane chiare ombre correnti E ancora ti chiamo ti chiamo Chimera.

90

d i n o ca mpa na

The Chimera I do not know if among rocks your pallid face appeared to me, or if you were a smile of unknown distances, your bowed ivory forehead gleaming O young sister of the Mona Lisa: O of spent springtimes, for your mythic pallors O Queen O child Queen: but for your unknown poem of voluptuousness and of grief music bloodless girl, marked with a line of blood in the circle of your sinuous lips Queen of the melody: but for your virgin head bent down, I poet of the night kept watch over the vivid stars in the high seas of heaven, I for your sweet mystery I for your silent becoming. I do not know if the pallid flame was of her hair the living sign of her pallor, I do not know if it was a sweet vapor, sweet on my grief, smile of a night face: I look at the white rocks the mute fonts of the winds and the immutability of the firmaments and the swollen streams that push on weeping and the shadows of human labor curved there on the frozen hilltops and still through tender heavens for clear running shadows and still I call you I call you Chimera.

91

l a chi me r a

the chime r a

[From ca nti or f ici ( 19 1 4 ) ] Firenze (Uffizi) Entro dei ponti tuoi multicolori L’Arno presago quietamente arena E in riflessi tranquilli frange appena Archi severi tra sfiorir di fiori. ..................................... Azzurro l’arco dell’intercolonno Trema rigato tra i palazzi eccelsi Candide righe nell’azzurro: persi Voli: su bianca gioventù in colonne.

[From inediti ( 19 4 2 ) ] Lirica per S. A. Vi amai nella città dove per sole Strade si posa il passo illanguidito Dove una pace tenera che piove A sera il cuor non sazio e non pentito Volge a un’ambigua primavera in viole Lontane sopra il cielo impallidito.

[From i n e d i t i ] Lirica per S. A. In un momento Sono sfiorite le rose I petali caduti Perchè io non potevo dimenticare le rose Le cercavamo insieme Abbiamo trovato delle rose Erano le sue rose erano le mie rose

92

d i n o c a mpa na

Florence (The Uffizi) Between your variously colored bridges The foreknowing Arno quietly shifts the sand And in her tranquil reflections barely shatters Severe arches among fading flowers. ..................................... Blue the arch of the intercolumnium Trembles lined between the lofty palaces White lines in the blue: lost Flights: over white youth in columns.

Lyric for S.A. I loved you in the city where in solitary streets one pauses wearied to stand where a tender peace that rains at evening turns the heart unsatisfied and unrepentant to an ambiguous spring in distant violets above the waning sky.

Lyric for S. A. In one moment the roses withered their petals fell because I could not forget the roses we searched them out together we found some roses they were her roses they were my roses

93

l i r i ca per s.a .

ly r ic f o r s.a .

Questo viaggio chiamavamo amore Col nostro sangue e colle nostre lacrime facevamo le rose Che brillavano un momento al sole del mattino Le abbiamo sfiorite sotto il sole tra i rovi Le rose che non erano le nostre rose Le mie rose le sue rose. P.S. E così dimenticammo le rose.

94

d i n o c a mpa na

this journey we called love with our blood and with our tears we made roses which gloried for one moment with the morning sun we withered them under the sun among the briars the roses that were not our roses my roses her roses. P.S. And that’s how we forgot the roses.

95

l i r i c a per s.a .

ly r ic f o r s.a .

UMB ERTO SABA [From parole ( 193 4 ) ] Milano Fra le tue pietre e le tue nebbie faccio villeggiatura. Mi riposo in Piazza del Duomo. Invece di stelle ogni sera si accendono parole. Nulla riposa della vita come la vita.

[From il ca nzonie re ( 19 4 5 ) ] A Mia moglie Tu sei come una giovane, una bianca pollastra. Le si arruffano al vento le piume, il collo inclina per bere, e in terra raspa; ma nell’andare ha il lento tuo passo di regina, ed incede sull’erba pettoruta e superba. È migliore del maschio. È come sono tutte le femmine di tutti i sereni animali che avvicinano a Dio. Così se l’occhio, se il giudizio mio non m’ inganna, fra queste hai le tue uguali e in nessun’altra donna. Quando la sera assonna le gallinelle, mettono voci che ricordan quelle

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Milan Among your stones and your fumes I’ve gone away for vacation. I rest in Piazza del Duomo. Instead of stars every evening voices appear. No rest from life like life itself.

To My Wife You are like a young, a young white hen. Her hair ruffles in the wind, her neck bends down to drink, and she scratches in the earth; but in going forth she has your slow, queenly step, and she struts on the grass full-breasted and proud. She is better than the male. She is as are all the females of all the serene animals that draw close to God. So that if my eye, if my judgment does not fool me, among these you have your equals, and in no other woman. When the evening makes them sleepy, the pullets utter voices that remind me of yours,

97

a m i a mo g lie

to my w if e

dolcissime, onde a volte dei tuoi mali ti quereli, e non sai che la tua voce ha la soave e triste musica dei pollai. Tu sei come una gravida giovenca; lieta ancora e senza gravezza, anzi festosa che, se la lisci, il collo volge, ove tinge un rosa tenero la sua carne. Se l’incontri, e muggire l’odi, tanto è quel suono lamentoso, che l’erba strappi, per farle un dono. È così che il mio dono t’offro quando sei triste. Tu sei come una lunga cagna, che sempre tanta dolcezza ha negli occhi, e ferocia nel cuore. Ai tuoi piedi una santa sembra, che d’un fervore indomabile arda, e così ti riguarda come suo Dio e Signore. Quando in casa o per via segue, a chi solo tenti d’avvicinarsi, i denti candidissimi scopre. Ed il suo amore soffre di gelosia. Tu sei come la pavida coniglia. Entro l’angusta gabbia ritta al vederti s’alza; e verso te gli orecchi

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those sweetest, whence sometimes you complain about your ills, and you do not know that your voice has the sweet and sad music of the chicken coops. You are like a pregnant heifer; still happy and without heaviness, instead festive; so that, if you stroke her, she turns her neck, where a delicate pink colors her flesh. If you meet her, and hear her moo, so lamentable is that sound that you tear up grass, to give her a gift. And thus I offer you my gift when you are sad. You are like a long bitch, which always has so much sweetness in her eyes, and fierceness in her heart. At your feet she seems a saint, who burns with an indomitable fervor, and thus she regards you like her God and Lord. When she follows you around inside the house or on the street, to those who only try to approach, she shows the whitest teeth. And her love suffers from jealousy. You are like the timid rabbit. Within her narrow cage she gets up when she sees you; and she extends toward you

99

a m i a m o g lie

to my w if e

alti protende e fermi; che la crusca e i radicchi tu le porti, di cui priva, in sè si rannicchia, cerca gli angoli bui. Chi potrebbe quel cibo ritoglierle? chi il pelo che si strappa di dosso, per aggiungerlo al nido dove poi partorire? Chi mai farti soffrire? Tu sei come la rondine che torna in primavera. Ma in autunno riparte; e tu non hai quest’arte. Tu questo hai della rondine: le movenze leggere; questo che a me, che mi sentiva ed era vecchio, annunziasti un’altra primavera. Tu sei come la provvida formica. Di lei, quando escono alla campagna, parla al bimbo la nonna che l’accompagna. E così nella pecchia ti ritrovo, ed in tutte le femmine di tutti i sereni animali che avvicinano a Dio; e in nessun’altra donna.

[From il canzoniere ] Felicità La giovanezza cupida di pesi porge spontanea al carico le spalle. Non regge. Piange di malinconia. 100

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her long and firm ears; for you bring her bran and chicory (deprived of which she curls herself up, she searches out the dark corners). Who could take back that food from her? Who the fur that she tears from her back, to add to her nest where then she will give birth? Who ever could make you suffer? You are like the swallow that returns in springtime. But in autumn she leaves again; you do not have this art. This you have from the swallow: her lightly graceful movements, this which to me, who felt and was old, you announced another spring. You are like the provident ant. About her, when they leave for the countryside, the grandmother who accompanies him talks to the child. And in the same way I find you in the bee, and in all the females of all the serene animals that draw close to God; and in no other woman.

Happiness Youth, which desires the weighty, without a thought presents its shoulder to the burden. It does not hold up. Youth weeps with gloom. 101

f el i ci tà

ha p p in e ss

Vagabondaggio, evasione, poesia, cari prodigi sul tardi! Sul tardi l’aria si affina ed i passi si fanno leggeri. Oggi è il meglio di ieri, se non è ancora la felicità. Assumeremo un giorno la bontà del suo volto, vedremo alcuno sciogliere come un fumo il suo inutile dolore.

[From il canzoniere ] Inverno È notte, inverno rovinoso. Un poco sollevi le tendine, e guardi. Vibrano i tuoi capelli selvaggi, la gioia ti dilata improvvisa l’occhio nero; che quello che hai veduto – era un’immagine della fine del mondo – ti conforta l’intimo cuore, lo fa caldo e pago. Un uomo si avventura per un lago di ghiaccio, sotto una lampada storta.

[From il canzoniere ] Sera di Febbraio Spunta la luna. Nel viale è ancora giorno, una sera che rapida cala. Indifferente gioventù s’allaccia; sbanda a povere mète. Ed è il pensiero della morte che, in fine, aiuta a vivere.

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Wandering, escape, poetry – dear marvels late in the evening! Late in the evening the air becomes refined and footsteps are made lightly. Today is the best of yesterday, even if it’s not yet happiness. One day we will rise to the goodness of its face, we will see someone release like a whiff of smoke his useless grief.

Winter It’s night – ruinous winter. A little you raise the blinds, and you look. Your wild hair quivers, unexpected joy widens your dark eyes; since what you have seen – it was an image of the end of the world – comforts the deepest part of your heart, makes it hot and pleased. A man is venturing over a lake of ice under a twisted lantern.

February Evening The moon is rising. In the avenue it’s still day, an evening that is falling fast. Indifferent youth links up; disbands to poor purposes. And it’s the thought of death that, in the end, helps us live.

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ser a de febbr aio

februa ry evening

GIUSE P P E UNG AR ET T I [From l’ a l l e g r i a ( 1 93 1 ) ] Attrito Con la mia fame di lupo ammaino il mio corpo di pecorella Sono come la misera barca e come l’oceano libidinoso

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] C’era Una Volta Bosco Cappuccio ha un declivio di velluto verde come una dolce poltrona Appisolarmi là solo in un caffè remoto con una luce fievole come questa di questa luna

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] I Fiumi Mi tengo a quest’albero mutilato abbandonato in questa dolina che ha il languore di un circo

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Wearing Down With my wolf hunger I pull down my lamb body I am like the wretched boat and the libidinous ocean

Once Upon a Time Cappuccio Forest has a slope of green velvet like a sweet armchair to doze off there alone in a backwoods café under a dim light like the light of this moon

The Rivers I hold myself to this mutilated tree abandoned in this depression that has the languor of a circus

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the r ivers

prima o dopo lo spettacolo e guardo il passaggio quieto delle nuvole sulla luna Stamani mi sono disteso in un’urna d’acqua e come una reliquia ho riposato L’Isonzo scorrendo mi levigava come un suo sasso Ho tirato su le mie quattr’ossa e me ne sono andato come un acrobata sull’acqua Mi sono accoccolato vicino ai miei panni sudici di guerra come un beduino mi sono chinato a ricevere il sole Questo è l’Isonzo e qui meglio mi sono riconosciuto una docile fibra dell’universo Il mio supplizio è quando non mi credo in armonia Ma quelle occulte mani

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before and after the show and I look at the quiet passing of the clouds over the moon This morning I stretched myself out in an urn of water and like a relic lay back The Isonzo, running on, polished me like one of its stones I pulled up my four limbs and I flew like an acrobat over the water I crouched down by my clothes filthy with war and like a bedouin I bent to receive the sun This is the Isonzo and here have I better recognized myself as an obedient fiber of the universe My torment is when I do not believe myself in harmony But those hidden hands

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i fiumi

the r ivers

che m’intridono mi regalano la rara felicità Ho ripassato le epoche della mia vita Questi sono i miei fiumi Questo è il Serchio al quale hanno attinto duemil’anni forse di gente mia campagnola e mio padre e mia madre Questo è il Nilo che mi ha visto nascere e crescere e ardere d’inconsapevolezza nelle estese pianure Questa è la Senna e in quel suo torbido mi sono rimescolato e mi sono conosciuto Questi sono i miei fiumi contati nell’Isonzo Questa è la mia nostalgia che in ognuno mi traspare ora ch’è notte che la mia vita mi pare una corolla di tenebre

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that knead me give me as a gift the rare happiness I have gone over the epochs of my life These are my rivers This is the Serchio from which have drawn perhaps two thousand years of my rustic people, both my father and my mother This is the Nile which has seen me be born and grow and burn with unknowingness in the stretching plains This is the Seine and in its muddiness I have wallowed and have known myself These are my rivers counted in the Isonzo This is my nostalgia which in each of them shines through to me now that it is night, that my life appears to me a corolla of shadows

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the r ivers

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] In Memoria Si chiamava Moammed Sceab Discendente di emiri di nomadi suicida perchè non aveva più Patria Amò la Francia e mutò nome Fu Marcel ma non era Francese e non sapeva più vivere nella tenda dei suoi dove si ascolta la cantilena del Corano gustando un caffè E non sapeva sciogliere il canto del suo abbandono L’ho accompagnato insieme alla padrona dell’albergo dove abitavamo a Parigi dal numero 5 della rue des Carmes appassito vicolo in discesa Riposa nel camposanto d’Ivry sobborgo che pare

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In Memoriam His name was Mohammed Scheab Descendant of emirs of nomads a suicide because he no longer had a country He loved France and changed his name He became Marcel but he was not French and he no longer knew how to live in the tent of his people where they listen to the monotonous-sounding song of the Koran while sipping coffee And he did not know how to shake the chant of his forsaking I was his retinue along with the concierge of the hotel where we lived in Paris from Number 5, rue des Carmes a faded, downhill side street He rests in the cemetery of Ivry a suburb that seems

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in memor i a

in memor iam

sempre in una giornata di una decomposta fiera E forse io solo so ancora che visse

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] Natale Non ho voglia di tuffarmi in un gomitolo di strade Ho tanta stanchezza sulle spalle Lasciatemi così come una cosa posata in un angolo e dimenticata Qui non si sente altro che il caldo buono Sto con le quattro capriole di fumo del focolare 112

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always like the day of a fair dismantled And it could be that only I still know he lived

Christmas I’ve no desire to dive into a string-ball of streets I am carrying so much tiredness Leave me just as I am like a thing put down in a corner and forgotten Here you can’t feel anything but the good warmth I’m staying with the four flickers of smoke of the hearth 113

nata l e

chr ist mas

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] Allegria di naufragi E subito riprende il viaggio come dopo il naufragio un superstite lupo di mare

[From l’ a l l e g r i a ] Soldati Si sta come d’autunno sugli alberi le foglie

[From s enti m e n to d e l tem p o ( 193 3 ) ] Sentimento del tempo E per la luce giusta, Cadendo solo un’ombra viola Sopra il giogo meno alto, La lontananza aperta alla misura, Ogni mio palpito, come usa il cuore, Ma ora l’ascolto, T’affretta, tempo, a pormi sulle labbra Le tue labbra ultime.

[From il d ol o re ( 19 4 7) ] Non Gridate più Cessate d’uccidere i morti, Non gridate più, non gridate 114

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Joy of Shipwrecks And he immediately takes up the journey again as will, after the shipwreck, a surviving old salt

Soldiers We are like in the autumn on trees leaves

Time Feelings And through the just light, Only a violet shadow falling Over the least of the ridges, The distance open to measure, My every beating, the heartbeat kind, But now I hear it, Hurry up, time, and press on my lips Your final lips.

Stop Yelling Stop killing the dead, Stop yelling, don’t yell 115

non g r idate più

stop ye l ling

Se li volete ancora udire, Se sperate di non perire. Hanno l’impercettibile sussurro, Non fanno più rumore Del crescere dell’erba, Lieta dove non passa l’uomo. [From il d ol o re ] Tu ti spezzasti 1 I molti, immani, sparsi, grigi sassi Frementi ancora alle segrete fionde Di originarie fiamme soffocate Od ai terrori di fiumane vergini Ruinanti in implacabili carezze, – Sopra l’abbaglio della sabbia rigidi In un vuoto orizzonte, non rammenti? E la recline, che s’apriva all’unico Raccogliersi dell’ombra nella valle, Araucaria, anelando ingigantita, Volta nell’ardua selce d’erme fibre Più delle altre dannate refrattaria, Fresca la bocca di farfalle e d’erbe Dove dalle radici si tagliava, – Non la rammenti delirante muta Sopra tre palmi d’un rotondo ciottolo In un perfetto bilico Magicamente apparsa? Di ramo in ramo fiorrancino lieve, Ebbri di meraviglia gli avidi occhi Ne conquistavi la screziata cima, Temerario, musico bimbo, Solo per rivedere all’ imo lucido D’un fondo e quieto baratro di mare

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If you still want to hear them, If you hope not to die. Theirs is the imperceptible murmur, They make no more noise Than the growing of the grass, Glad where man does not walk.

You Were Broken 1 The many huge strewn grey rocks Still trembling at the secret catapults Proceeding from suffocated flames Or at the terrors of swollen virgin rivers Falling into ruin in implacable caresses; – Rocks rigid over the dazzling of the sand On an empty horizon, don’t you remember? And the reclining huge pine tree that opens up to the only Gathering of shade in the valley, Panting like a giant, Twisted into the arduous flint of solitary fibers More resistant than the others (which were damned) Its mouth fresh with butterflies and grasses Where it’s been torn from the roots: – Don’t you remember it, delirious mute Three spans over a rotund rock In a perfect equilibrium Having magically appeared? From branch to branch the glad wren, Avid eyes drunk with joy You conquered the dappled tree top, Reckless musical child Only to see again at the bottommost brilliance Of a deep and quiet sea abyss

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tu t i spezzast i

you were broken

Favolose testuggini Ridestarsi fra le alghe. Della natura estrema la tensione E le subacquee pompe, Funebri moniti. 2 Alzavi le braccia come ali E ridavi nascita al vento Correndo nel peso dell’aria immota. Nessuno mai vide posare Il tuo lieve piede di danza. 3 Grazia felice, Non avresti potuto non spezzarti In una cecità tanto indurita Tu semplice soffio e cristallo, Troppo umano lampo per l’empio, Selvoso, accanito, ronzante Ruggito d’un sole ignudo.

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Fabulous tortoises Reawaken among the algae. Exreme the strain of nature And the underwater pomp, Funeral warnings. 2 You raised your arms like wings And gave back birth to the wind Running in the weight of the motionless air. No one ever saw your light foot Rest from the dance. 3 Happy grace, You could not but break In such a hardened blindness You, simple breath and crystal. Too human lightning for the pitiless Forest fierce hissing Roar of a naked sun.

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tu ti spezzasti

you were broken

E UGENIO MONTALE [From os s i di s e p p ia ( 19 2 5 ) ] Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti nel mio terreno bruciato dal salino, e mostri tutto il giorno agli azzurri specchianti del cielo l’ansietà del suo volto giallino. Tendono alla chiarità le cose oscure, si esauriscono i corpi in un fluire di tinte: queste in musiche. Svanire è dunque la ventura delle venture. Portami tu la pianta che conduce dove sorgono bionde trasparenze e vapora la vita quale essenza; portami il girasole impazzito di luce.

[From os s i di s e p p ia] Vasca Passò sul tremulo vetro un riso di belladonna fiorita, di tra le rame urgevano le nuvole, dal fondo ne riassommava la vista fioccosa e sbiadita. Alcuno di noi tirò un ciottolo che ruppe la tesa lucente: le molli parvenze s’infransero. Ma ecco, c’è altro che striscia a fior della spera rifatta liscia: di erompere non ha virtù, vuol vivere e non sa come; se lo guardi si stacca, torna in giù: è nato e morto, e non ha avuto un nome.

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Bring Me the Sunflower So I Can Transplant It Bring me the sunflower so I can transplant it in my ground burned by sea-salt, and show the anxiety of its yellow face all day to the reflecting blues of the sky. Obscure things reach out to clarity, bodies exhaust themselves in a flow of colors: these in music. To disappear is, then, the fortune of fortunes. Bring me, you yourself, the plant that leads to where fair transparencies arise and life evaporates like essence; bring me the sunflower gone mad with light.

Pool Over the tremulous glass a smile of flowering belladonna floated, the clouds pressed through from among the branches, the fleecy, washed scene resurfaced from the bottom. One of us tossed a pebble, which broke the taut sheen: the delicate images fell apart. But look, there’s something else that creeps at the surface of the mirror, now smooth again: without the power to break through, it wants to live, but how it doesn’t know; if you look, it slips away, returns below: once born, it dies, and hasn’t had a name.

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vas c a

p o ol

[From os s i di s e p p ia] Arsenio I turbini sollevano la polvere sui tetti, a mulinelli, e sugli spiazzi deserti, ove i cavalli incappucciati annusano la terra, fermi innanzi ai vetri luccicanti degli alberghi. Sul corso, in faccia al mare, tu discendi in questo giorno or piovorno ora acceso, in cui par scatti a sconvolgerne l’ore uguali, strette in trama, un ritornello di castagnette. È il segno d’un’altra orbita: tu seguilo. Discendi all’orizzonte che sovrasta una tromba di piombo, alta sui gorghi, più d’essi vagabonda: salso nembo vorticante, soffiato dal ribelle elemento alle nubi; fa che il passo su la ghiaia ti scricchioli e t’inciampi il viluppo dell’alghe: quell’ istante è forse, molto atteso, che ti scampi dal finire il tuo viaggio, anello d’una catena, immoto andare, oh troppo noto delirio, Arsenio, d’immobilità ... Ascolta tra i palmizi il getto tremulo dei violini, spento quando rotola il tuono con un fremer di lamiera percossa; la tempesta è dolce quando sgorga bianca la stella di Canicola nel cielo azzurro e lunge par la sera ch’è prossima: se il fulmine la incide dirama come un albero prezioso entro la luce che s’arrosa: e il timpano degli tzigani è il rombo silenzioso.

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Arsenio The whirlwinds raise the dust over the roofs, in little eddies, and over the deserted open ground, where the hooded horses smell the earth, standing still in front of the glittering windows of the hotels. Onto the promenade, in front of the sea, you descend on this day now rainy now clear, in which a refrain of castanets seems to burst out to upset its equal hours, tight on the loom. It’s the sign of another orbit: follow it. Come down to the horizon that a water-spout of lead stands over, high over the whirlpools, more vagabond than they: briny whirling rain-cloud, blown by the rebel element to the clouds; let your step grate on the gravel and the tangle of the algae trip you up: that instant is perhaps, much awaited; may it save you from finishing your voyage, link of a chain, motionless moving, oh too-well-known delirium, Arsenio, of immobility ... Listen among the palm trees to the tremulous outpouring of the violins, extinguished when the thunder rolls with a quivering of sheet iron struck; the storm is sweet when the Dog Star springs out white in the deep blue sky and far off appears the evening which is close by: if the lightning carves it, it branches out like a precious tree inside the light that reddens and the drum of the gypsies is the silent roar.

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Discendi in mezzo al buio che precipita e muta il mezzogiorno in una notte di globi accesi, dondolanti a riva, – e fuori, dove un’ombra sola tiene mare e cielo, dai gozzi sparsi palpita l’acetilene – finché goccia trepido il cielo, fuma il suolo che s’abbevera, tutto d’accanto ti sciaborda, sbattono le tende molli, un frùscio immenso rade la terra, giù s’afflosciano stridendo le lanterne di carta sulle strade. Così sperso tra i vimini e le stuoie grondanti, giunco tu che le radici con sè trascina, viscide, non mai svelte, tremi di vita e ti protendi a un vuoto risonante di lamenti soffocati, la tesa ti ringhiotte dell’onda antica che ti volge; e ancora tutto che ti riprende, strada portico mura specchi ti figge in una sola ghiacciata moltitudine di morti, e se un gesto ti sfiora, una parola ti cade accanto, quello è forse, Arsenio, nell’ora che si scioglie, il cenno d’una vita strozzata per te sorta, e il vento la porta con la cenere degli astri.

[From os s i di s e p p ia] Meriggiare pallido e assorto Meriggiare pallido e assorto presso un rovente muro d’orto, ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpi schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi. Nelle crepe del suolo o su la veccia spiar le file di rosse formiche 124

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Go down in the midst of the dark that falls and changes noontime into a night of lit-up globes, swaying on the beach, – and outside, where a solitary shadow holds sea and sky, from the scattered fishing boats throbs the acetylene – until the sky trickles trembling, the ground which drinks it in is steamy, everything nearby shakes you, the loose awnings flap around, an immense rustling razes the earth, the clashing paper lanterns flop down in the streets. Thus lost among the wicker and the dripping straw mats, you, – a reed that drags with it its roots, slimy, not ever nimble – you tremble with life and stretch toward an emptiness resounding with suffocated laments, the crest of the ancient wave which rolls you swallows you up again; and still everything which calls you back, street arcade walls mirrors fixes you into a single frozen multitude of dead, and if a gesture touches you lightly, a word falls beside you, that is perhaps, Arsenio, in the dissolving hour, the sign of a strangled life risen for you, and the wind carries it with the ashes of the stars.

To Rest at Noon, Pale and Absorbed To rest at noon, pale and absorbed by a scorching garden wall, to listen among thorns and brushwood to snappings of blackbirds, rustlings of snakes. In the cracks of the ground or on the vetch to spy out the lines of red ants 125

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to re st at no on

ch’ora si rompono ed ora s’intrecciano a sommo di minuscole biche. Osservare tra frondi il palpitare lontano di scaglie di mare mentre si levano tremuli scricchi di cicale dai calvi picchi. E andando nel sole che abbaglia sentire con triste meraviglia com’è tutta la vita e il suo travaglio in questo seguitare una muraglia che ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia.

[From os s i di s e p p ia] Non chiederci la parola Non chiederci la parola che squadri da ogni lato l’animo nostro informe, e a lettere di fuoco lo dichiari e risplenda come un croco perduto in mezzo a un polveroso prato. Ah l’uomo che se ne va sicuro, agli altri e a se stesso amico, e l’ombra sua non cura che la canicola stampa sopra uno scalcinato muro! Non domandarci la formula che mondi possa aprirti, sì qualche storta sillaba e secca come un ramo. Codesto solo oggi possiamo dirti, ciò che non siamo, ciò che non vogliamo.

[From le o cca s ioni ( 193 9 ) ] La Casa dei doganieri Tu non ricordi la casa dei doganieri sul rialzo a strapiombo sulla scogliera: 126

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that now break apart and now interweave on the tops of their tiny heaps. To observe through thick fronds the far-off throbbing of sea scales while tremulous screeches of cicadas rise up from the bald peaks. And passing into the sun which dazzles to feel with sad wonder how all life and its travail is in this following a high wall which has on its top sharp shards of bottles.

Don’t Ask Us for the Word Don’t ask us for the word that squares on every side our formless soul, and in letters of fire declares it and shines forth like crocus lost in the middle of a dusty meadow. Ah, the man who goes on his way secure, to others and to himself a friend, and does not care that the Dog Star stamps its shadow on a crumbling wall! Don’t require from us the formula that can open worlds for you, rather some syllable crooked and dry like a branch. This alone today we can tell you, what we are not, what we don’t want.

The Tollhouse You don’t recall the tollhouse on the rise jutting out over the cliff: 127

l a c a s a d e i d o g a n ie r i

the tollhouse

desolata t’attende dalla sera in cui v’entrò lo sciame dei tuoi pensieri e vi sostò irrequieto. Libeccio sferza da anni le vecchie mura e il suono del tuo riso non è più lieto: la bussola va impazzita all’avventura e il calcolo dei dadi più non torna. Tu non ricordi; altro tempo frastorna la tua memoria; un filo s’addipana. Ne tengo ancora un capo; ma s’allontana la casa e in cima al tetto la banderuola affumicata gira senza pietà. Ne tengo un capo; ma tu resti sola nè qui respiri nell’oscurità. Oh l’orizzonte in fuga, dove s’accende rara la luce della petroliera! Il varco è qui? (Ripullula il frangente ancora sulla balza che scoscende ...) Tu non ricordi la casa di questa mia sera. Ed io non so chi va e chi resta.

[From le o ccasioni] Dora Markus 1 Fu dove il ponte di legno mette a Porto Corsini sul mare alto e rari uomini, quasi immoti, affondano o salpano le reti. Con un segno della mano additavi all’altra sponda invisibile la tua patria vera. Poi seguimmo il canale fino alla darsena della città, lucida di fuliggine, nella bassura dove s’affondava una primavera inerte, senza memoria.

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desolate, it has awaited you since the evening in which the swarm of your thoughts went and stopped there without peace. The south-west wind has whipped its ancient walls for years, and the sound of your laughter is no longer glad: the compass goes crazy and turns every which way and the luck of the dice is gone. You don’t recall; another time troubles your memory; a thread is unravelled. I still hold an end of it; but the house grows distant and on its roof top the smoke-blackened weathercock whirls without pity. I hold an end of it; but you remain alone, nor do you breathe here in the darkness. Oh, the fleeing horizon, where the scant light of the tanker beacons! Is the passage here? (The breaker still boils onto the eroding cliff ...) You don’t recall the house of this my evening. And I don’t know who goes and who remains.

Dora Markus 1 It was where the wooden bridge reaches out to Porto Corsini on the high sea and rare men, almost motionless, lower or hoist nets. With a sign of the hand you pointed to the other shore invisible your fatherland. Then we followed the canal all the way to the dockyard of the city, glossy with soot, in the lowland where a sluggish spring was sinking, without memory.

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d or a m a r k u s

E qui dove un’antica vita si screzia in una dolce ansietà d’Oriente, le tue parole iridavano come le scaglie della triglia moribonda. La tua irrequietudine mi fa pensare agli uccelli di passo che urtano ai fari nelle sere tempestose: è una tempesta anche la tua dolcezza, turbina e non appare, e i suoi riposi sono anche più rari. Non so come stremata tu resisti in questo lago d’indifferenza ch’è il tuo cuore; forse ti salva un amuleto che tu tieni vicino alla matita delle labbra, al piumino, alla lima: un topo bianco, d’avorio; e così esisti! 2 Ormai nella tua Carinzia di mirti fioriti e di stagni, china sul bordo sorvegli la carpa che timida abbocca o segui sui tigli, tra gl’irti pinnacoli le accensioni del vespro e nell’acque un avvampo di tende da scali e pensioni. La sera che si protende sull’umida conca non porta col palpito dei motori che gemiti d’oche e un interno di nivee maioliche dice allo specchio annerito che ti vide diversa una storia di errori imperturbati e la incide dove la spugna non giunge.

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And here where an ancient life is variegated in a sweet anxiety of the East, your words formed a rainbow like the scales of the dying mullet. Your restlessness makes me think of passing birds that strike lighthouses in the stormy evenings: even your sweetness is a storm, it whirls and does not appear, and its restings are even rarer. I don’t know how you, exhausted, resist in this lake of indifference that is your heart; perhaps an amulet saves you which you keep near your lipstick, your powder puff, your nail file, a white mouse of ivory: and thus you exist! 2 By now in your Carinzia of florid myrtle and ponds, bent over on the edge you survey the carp that timidly mouths or you follow, along the lime trees, the kindlings of evening among the bristling pinnacles and in the waters a blazing of awnings from the wharves and little hotels. The evening that spreads itself out on the humid basin carries nothing with the throb of motors except the moaning of geese, and an indoors furnished with snow-white majolica tells to the blackened mirror that sees you different a story of calm errors and engraves it where the sponge does not reach.

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d or a m a r k u s

La tua leggenda, Dora! Ma è scritta già in quegli sguardi di uomini che hanno fedine altere e deboli in grandi ritratti d’oro e ritorna ad ogni accordo che esprime l’armonica guasta nell’ora che abbuia sempre più tardi. È scritta là. Il sempreverde alloro per la cucina resiste, la voce non muta, Ravenna è lontana, distilla veleno una fede feroce. Che vuole da te? Non si cede voce, leggenda o destino. ... Ma è tardi, sempre più tardi.

[From l a bufe r a e alt ro ( 19 5 6 ) ] L’Anguilla L’anguilla, la sirena dei mari freddi che lascia il Baltico per giungere ai nostri mari, ai nostri estuarî, ai fiumi che risale in profondo, sotto la piena avversa, di ramo in ramo e poi di capello in capello, assottigliati, sempre più addentro, sempre più nel cuore del macigno, filtrando tra gorielli di melma finché un giorno una luce scoccata dai castagni ne accende il guizzo in pozze d’acquamorta nei fossi che declinano dai balzi d’Appennino alla Romagna; l’anguilla, torcia, frusta, freccia d’Amore in terra che solo i nostri botri o i disseccati

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Your legend, Dora! But it is already written in those glances of men who have haughty and weak sideburns in great portraits of gold and returns to every accord that the ruined harmonica expresses in the hour that darkens, later and later. It’s written there. The evergreen laurel survives for the kitchen, the voice does not change, Ravenna is far away, a fierce faith distills poisons. What does it want from you? Voice, legend or destiny do not yield ... But it is late, always later.

The Eel The eel, the siren of the cold seas which leaves the Baltic to reach our seas, our estuaries, the rivers which it ascends deep down, under the opposing flood, from branch to branch and then from hair to hair, narrowed, always in deeper, always more into the heart of the boulder, filtering through pockets of mud until one day a light, darted off the chestnut trees, illuminates its flash in stagnant puddles, in ditches which run down from the cliffs of the Apennine to the Romagna: the eel, torch, lash, arrow of Love on earth which only our gullies or the dried-up

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l’ a n g u i l l a

the eel

ruscelli pirenaici riconducono a paradisi di fecondazione; l’anima verde che cerca vita là dove solo morde l’arsura e la desolazione, la scintilla che dice tutto comincia quando tutto pare incarbonirsi, bronco seppellito; l’iride breve, gemella di quella che incastonano i tuoi cigli e fai brillare intatta in mezzo ai figli dell’uomo, immersi nel tuo fango, puoi tu non crederla sorella?

[From l a bufer a e alt ro] La Bufera Les princes n’ont point d’yeux pour voir ces grand’s merveilles, Leurs mains ne servent plus qu’à nous persécuter ... (Agrippa D’Aubigné: À Dieu.)

La bufera che sgronda sulle foglie dure della magnolia i lunghi tuoni marzolini e la grandine, (i suoni di cristallo nel tuo nido notturno ti sorprendono, dell’oro che s’è spento sui mogani, sul taglio dei libri rilegati, brucia ancora una grana di zucchero nel guscio delle tue palpebre) il lampo che candisce alberi e muri e li sorprende in quella eternità d’istante – marmo manna e distruzione – ch’entro te scolpita porti per tua condanna e che ti lega più che l’amore a me, strana sorella, –

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Pyrenean streams lead back to paradises of fertility; the green soul which seeks out life there where only the parching heat and desolation gnaw the spark which says all begins when all seems burning to a crisp, a buried dead branch; the brief rainbow, twin of that which your lashes set like a gem and you make sparkle, intact, in the midst of the sons of man, immersed in your mud, can you not believe her your sister?

Storm Princes do not have at all eyes to see these grand marvels, Their hands do not serve for anything more than to persecute us. (Agrippa D’Aubigné: À Dieu.)

The storm which trickles onto the hard leaves of the magnolia the long March thunder and hail, (its sounds of crystal in your night nest surprise you, of the gold which exhausted itself on the mahogany, on the edge of the bound books, still burns a grain of sugar in the shell of your eyelids) the lightning that whitens trees and walls and surprises them in that eternity of instant – marble, manna and destruction – that you carry within you sculpted for your condemnation and that ties you more than love to me, strange sister, –

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l a bufer a

stor m

e poi lo schianto rude, i sistri, il fremere dei tamburelli sulla fossa fuia, lo scalpicciare del fandango, e sopra qualche gesto che annaspa ... Come quando ti rivolgesti e con la mano, sgombra la fronte dalla nube dei capelli, mi salutasti – per entrar nel buio.

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and then the rude crashing, the systrums, the rattling of the tamburines on the stealth grave, the trampling of the Andalusian dance, and above some gesture that pants ... As when you turned and with your hand, your forehead clear of the cloud of hair, you waved to me – to enter the dark.

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l a bufer a

stor m

SALVATORE QUASIMODO [From acque e ter re (1930)] Antico inverno Desiderio delle tue mani chiare nella penombra della fiamma: sapevano di rovere e di rose; di morte. Antico inverno. Cercavano il miglio gli uccelli ed erano sùbito di neve; così le parole. Un pò di sole, una raggera d’angelo, e poi la nebbia; e gli alberi, e noi fatti d’aria al mattino.

[From acque e ter re ] Vento a Tìndari Tìndari, mite ti so fra larghi colli pensile sull’acque dell’isole dolci del dio, oggi m’assali e ti chini in cuore. Salgo vertici aerei precipizi, assorto al vento dei pini, e la brigata che lieve m’accompagna s’allontana nell’aria, onda di suoni e amore, e tu mi prendi da cui male mi trassi e paure d’ombre e di silenzi, rifugi di dolcezze un tempo assidue e morte d’anima.

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salvatore quasimod o

Long-Ago Winter Desire for your bright-shining hands in the half-light of the flame: they smelled of oak and roses; of death. Long ago winter. The birds searched for seed and at once were become snow; the same way: words. A little sun, an angel’s halo, and then the fog; and the trees, and us made of air in the morning.

Wind at Tindari Tindari, I know you mild among wide hills suspended over the waters of the sweet islands of the god, today you assail me and lean heartward. I climb summits aerial ravines, immersed in the wind of the pines, and the brigade that lightly accompanies me moves off in the air, wave of sounds and love, and you take me from whom wrongly I drew myself away and fears of shadows and of silences, refuges of sweetnesses once unceasing and soul death.

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ven to a tín da r i

w in d at tin dar i

A te ignota è la terra ove ogni giorno affondo e segrete sillabe nutro: altra luce ti sfoglia sopra i vetri nella veste notturna, e gioia non mia riposa sul tuo grembo. Aspro è 1’esilio, e la ricerca che chiudevo in te d’armonia oggi si muta in ansia precoce di morire; e ogni amore è schermo alla tristezza, tacito passo nel buio dove mi hai posto amaro pane a rompere. Tìndari serena torna; soave amico mi desta che mi sporga nel cielo da una rupe e io fingo timore a chi non sa che vento profondo m’ha cercato.

[From er ato e ap ol lion (1936)] Del Mio odore di uomo Negli alberi uccisi ululano gli inferni: dorme 1’estate nel vergine miele, il ramarro nell’infanzia di mostro. Del mio odore di uomo grazia all’aria degli angeli, all’acqua mio cuore celeste nel fertile buio di cellula.

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salvatore quasimod o

To you unknown is the earth where every day I plunge in and nurture secret syllables: other light skims over you through the windows in night dress, and joy not mine rests on your breast. Harsh is exile, and the search for harmony which I would have ended in you changes today into early anxiousness about dying; and every love is a screen against sadness, silent step in the dark where you have put for me bitter bread to break. Tindari, return serene; dear friend, awaken me so that I may lean out from a rock into heaven and I pretend fear to those who do not know what deep wind has looked for me.

For My Man Smell In the cut-down trees hell howls: summer dozes in the virgin honey, the green lizard in a monster’s infancy. For my man smell forgiveness from the air of the angels, from the water which is my celestial heart in the fertile darkness of the cell.

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d el m i o o d o re d i uo mo

f o r my man smell

[From li r i ci g re ci ( 19 4 0 ) ] Tramontata è la luna: fusione di più frammenti saffici Tramontata è la luna e le Pleiadi a mezzo della notte; giovinezza dilegua, e io nel mio letto resto sola. Scuote l’anima mia Eros, come vento sul monte che irrompe entro le querce; e scioglie le membra e le agita, dolce amaro indomabile serpente. Ma a me non ape, non miele; e soffro e desidero.

[From ed è s ubito s e r a ( 19 4 5 ) ] Imitazione della gioia Dove gli alberi ancora abbandonata più fanno la sera, come indolente è svanito l’ultimo tuo passo, che appare appena il fiore sui tigli e insiste alla sua sorte. Una ragione cerchi agli affetti, provi il silenzio nella tua vita. Altra ventura a me rivela il tempo specchiato. Addolora come la morte, bellezza ormai in altri volti fulminea. Perduto ho ogni cosa innocente, anche in questa voce, superstite a imitare la gioia.

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salvatore quasimod o

The Moon Has Waned: Synthesis of Several Fragments from Sappho The moon has waned and the Pleiades have reached the middle of their night; youth fades, and I in my bed remain alone. Eros shakes my heart like wind on the mountain which bursts among the oak trees; and he melts my limbs and stirs his fire into them, sweet bitter untameable serpent. But for me neither bee nor honey; I suffer and I desire.

Imitation of Joy Where the trees render the evening even more abandoned, how, listless, your last footstep has vanished as the flower that barely appears on the linden and insists upon its own fate. You search for a reason for tenderness, you feel the silence in your life. Time in a mirror reveals another fate to me. Beauty by now lightning-quick in other faces hurts like death. Every innocent thing have I lost, even in this voice, surviving to imitate joy.

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imitazione del l a g i oia

imitat ion of joy

[From ed è subito ser a ] Ed è subito sera Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra trafitto da un raggio di sole: ed è subito sera.

[From l a ter r a im pare gg iabile ( 19 5 8) ] Alla Nuova luna In principio Dio creò il cielo e la terra, poi nel suo giorno esatto mise i luminari in cielo e al settimo giorno si riposò. Dopo miliardi di anni l’uomo, fatto a sua immagine e somiglianza, senza mai riposare, con la sua intelligenza laica, senza timore, nel cielo sereno d’una notte d’ottobre, mise altri luminari uguali a quelli che giravano dalla creazione del mondo. Amen.

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salvatore quasimod o

And Suddenly It’s Evening Every man stands alone on the heart of the earth pierced by a ray of the sun: and suddenly it’s evening.

To the New Moon* In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and then in His precise day He placed the luminaries in the heavens and on the seventh day He rested. After millions and millions of years man, made in His image and likeness, without ever resting, with his secular intelligence, without fear, in the serene heavens of an October night, placed other luminaries equal to those circling since the creation of the world. Amen.

*This poem observes the launch of the first Sputnik in October 1957.

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al l a nuova luna

to the n ew mo on

AL F ONSO G ATTO [From a more d e ll a v ita ( 19 4 4 ) ] Vento sulla Giudecca I venti i venti spogliano le navi e discendono al freddo e sono morti. Chi li spiegherà nel rigoglio delle accese partenze ove squilla più forte più forte il mare e l’antenna sventola il mattino? Tutta donna tutta forte tutto amore ed è rossa la mela, giallo il pane della Pasqua d’aprile ... Ed eri calda ed eri il sole, mattone su mattone, oltre quel muro la campagna il cielo.

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a l f o n s o g at to

Wind over Giudecca The winds the winds undress the ships and descend to the cold and are dead. Who will unloose them in the luxuriance of inflamed departures where stronger stronger blares the sea and the lateen-yard flaps in the morning wind? All woman all strong all love and red is the apple, yellow the bread of April Easter ... And you were warm and you were the sun, brick upon brick, beyond that wall the fields the sky.

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ven to sull a g iud e cca

w in d over g iudec c a

SANDRO P ENNA [From p o es i e ( 193 8 , 19 5 7) ] Come è forte ... Come è forte il rumore dell’alba! Fatto di cose più che di persone. Lo precede talvolta un fischio breve, una voce che lieta sfida il giorno. Ma poi nella città tutto è sommerso. E la mia stella è quella stella scialba mia lenta morte senza disperazione.

[From p o es i e] Forse invecchio ... Forse invecchio, se ho fatto un lungo viaggio sempre seduto, se nulla ho veduto fuor che la pioggia, se uno stanco raggio di vita silenziosa ... (gli operai pigliavano e lasciavano il mio treno, portavano da un borgo a un dolce lago il loro sonno coi loro utensili). Quando giunsi nel letto anch’io gridai: uomini siamo, più stanchi che vili.

[From p o es i e] La Veneta piazzetta La veneta piazzetta antica e mesta, accoglie odor di mare. E voli di colombi. Ma resta nella memoria – e incanta di sè la luce – il volo del giovane ciclista vòlto all’amico: un soffio melodico: “Vai solo?” 148

s an d ro pen na

How Strong Is ... How strong is the sounding of the dawn! Made more of things than of persons. It is sometimes preceded by a brief whistling, a glad voice which challenges the day. But then in the city all is submerged. And my star is that pale star my slow death without desperation.

Maybe I’m Getting Old ... Maybe I’m getting old, if I’ve made a long journey while always sitting down, if I’ve seen nothing except the rain, if a tired ray of noiseless life ... (the workers would catch and leave my train, carry from some little town to some sweet lake their sleep along with their tools). When I reached my bed I, too, shouted: men we are, more tired than cowardly.

The Little Venetian Piazza The little Venetian piazza, old and gloomy, welcomes sea smell. And flights of pigeons. But what remains in my memory – and of itself enchants the light – is the flight of the young cyclist turned to his friend: a melodic puff of air: “Are you going alone?” 149

l a veneta p ia zet ta

the lit tle venetian piazza

F RANCO F O R T INI [From fo g l io d i v ia e alt r i ver s i ( 19 4 6) ] Camposanto degli Inglesi Ancora, quando fa sera, d’ottobre, e pei viali ai platani la nebbia, ma leggera, fa velo, come a quei nostri tempi, fra i muri d’edera e i cipressi del Camposanto degli Inglesi, i custodi bruciano sterpi e lauri secchi Verde il fumo delle frasche come quello dei carbonai nei boschi di montagna. Morivano quelle sere con dolce strazio a noi già un poco fredde. Allora m’era caro cercarti il polso e accarezzarlo. Poi erano i lumi incerti, le grandi ombre dei giardini, la ghiaia, il tuo passo pieno e calmo; e lungo i muri delle cancellate la pietra aveva, dicevi, odore d’ottobre e il fumo sapeva di campagna e di vendemmia. Si apriva la cara tua bocca rotonda nel buio lenta e docile uva. Ora è passato molto tempo, non so dove sei, forse vedendoti non riconoscerei la tua figura. Sei certo viva e pensi talvolta a quanto amore fu, quegli anni, tra noi, a quanta vita è passata. E talvolta al ricordare tuo, come al mio che ora ti parla, vana ti geme, e insostenibile, una pena; una pena di ritornare, quale han forse i poveri morti, di vivere là, ancora una volta, rivedere quella che tu sei stata andare ancora per quelle sere di un tempo che non esiste più, che non ha più alcun luogo,

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fr anco fortini

The English Cemetery Even now, when evening comes, in October, and, through the paths, for the sycamores the fog – but lightly – makes a veil, like in our day between the ivy walls and cypresses of the English Cemetery, the grounds keepers burn brushwood and dry laurel trees. Green the branches’ smoke like that of coal men in the mountain woods. Those evenings already a little cold were dying with sweet torture to us. Back then I was fond of searching out your wrist and stroking it. And then there were the flickering lamps, the great shadows of the gardens, the gravel, your step full and calm; and along the walls of the iron-rod fences the stones had, you used to say, the smell of October and the smoke the smell of country and grape harvesting. Your dear mouth would open round in the dark, slow and docile grape. Now much time has passed, I don’t know where you are, maybe spotting you I wouldn’t recognize your form. Of course you are alive and you think back sometimes to how much love there was, those years, between us, to how much life has passed. And sometimes when you do remember, like me right now, an empty sorrow – unbearable – makes you wince; a sorrow for returning, as perhaps the wretched dead have, for living back there, one more time, for seeing again what you have been, for going one more time through those evenings of a then which exists no more, that no longer has a place,

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ca m p o sa n to d e g li in g le si

the eng lish cemetery

anche se io scendo a volte per questi viali di Firenze ove ai platani la nebbia, ma leggera, fa velo e nei giardini bruciano i malinconici fuochi d’alloro.

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fr anco fortini

even if I walk down these paths of Florence where for the sycamores the fog – but lightly – makes a veil and in the gardens the gloomy laurel fires burn.

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c a m p o sa n to d e g li in g le si

the eng l ish cemetery

SIBIL L A AL ERAMO [From s elva d’ am o re ( 19 4 7) ] Son tanto brava Son tanto brava lungo il giorno. Comprendo, accetto, non piango. Quasi imparo ad aver orgoglio quasi fossi un uomo. Ma, al primo brivido di viola in cielo ogni diurno sostegno dispare. Tu mi sospiri lontano: “Sera, sera dolce e mia!” Sembrami d’aver fra le dita la stanchezza di tutta la terra. Non son più che sguardo, sguardo perduto, e vene.

[From luci de ll a m ia s e r a ( 19 5 6 ) ] La Piccina ch’io ero mi guarda Te sola, fra tante ch’io son stata, sola te non ricordo quale m’appari in questa di me remota immagine. Così ero? Ancora in specchi non ti miravi, sapere non potevo se m’assomigliavi. E or s’incontrano i nostri sguardi. Come seria sei, piccina, e assorta, parrebbe quasi veramente tu vedessi quella che oggi io sono, e in balenante prescienza vivessi interi i settant’anni che ti attendevano, lunghi anni e folti e gravi, c’è nell’ovale dolce del tuo viso come un lieve, oh lieve, alito di sgomento, tu creaturina sana, amata, armoniosa, così composta nella posa, manine annodate in grembo, piccina brava ch’io son stata

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s i b i l l a a le r a m o

I Am So Good at It All day long, I am so good at it. I understand, I accept, I do not cry. I almost learn to have pride – almost as though I were a man. But, at the first shiver of violet in the sky, every daytime prop vanishes. You long for me far away: “Evening, sweet evening that’s mine!” I seem to have between my fingers the tiredness of all the earth. I am no more than a glance, a long glance, and veins.

The Little Girl That I Was Looks at Me You alone, among so many that I have been, you alone I do not remember like you appear to me in this remote image of myself. Was I like that? You were not yet admiring yourself in mirrors, I was not able to know if you resembled me. And now our glances meet each other. How serious you are, little one, and absorbed, it would seem almost as though you really saw the one I am today, and lived in a flash of foreknowledge all the seventy years that awaited you, long years intense and serious; there is in the sweet oval of your face like a light, oh light, breath of alarm, you little creature whole, beloved, harmonious, so composed in pose, little hands folded on your lap, good little girl that I have been

155

l a p i ccina

the lit tle g ir l

nella età remota che non ricordo, ma or dimmi, per quanto mai tempo ancora occorrerà aver coraggio, dimmi, tu che sì fissamente con la luce dei pensosi occhi mi guardi mi guardi mi guardi?

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s i b i l l a a le r a mo

in the remote time that I do not remember, but tell me now, for how much longer will it be necessary to have courage, tell me, you who so fixedly with the light of your pensive eyes look at me, look at me, look at me?

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l a p i c cina

the lit tle g ir l

ATTIL IO B ERTOLUCCI [From l a ca pa n na ind iana ( 19 5 0 ) ] Pensieri di casa Non posso più scrivere nè vivere Se quest’anno la neve che si scioglie Non mi avrà testimone impaziente Di sentire nell’aria prime viole. Come se fossi morto mi ricordo La nostra primavera, la sua luce Esultante che dura tutto un giorno, La meraviglia di un giorno che passa. Forse a noi ultimi figli dell’età Impressionista non è dato altro Che copiare dal vero, mentre sgoccia La neve su dei passeri aggruppati.

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at t i l i o b e rto lucci

Thoughts of Home I can no longer write or live If this year the melting snow Won’t have me for impatient witness To smell first violets in the air. As though I were dead I remember Our spring, its joyous Light lasting a full day, The marvel of a passing day. Perhaps to us last children of the impressionist Age it is not given but To copy from real life, while the snow Drips on knots of sparrows.

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pensier i di casa

thoug hts of home

MARIO L UZ I [From avvento not tur no ( 19 4 0 ) ] Avorio Parla il cipresso equinoziale, oscuro e montuoso esulta il capriolo, dentro le fonti rosse le criniere dai baci adagio lavan le cavalle. Giù da foreste vaporose immensi alle eccelse città battono i fiumi lungamente, si muovono in un sogno affettuose vele verso Olimpia. Correranno le intense vie d’Oriente ventilate fanciulle e dai mercati salmastri guarderanno ilari il mondo. Ma dove attingerò io la mia vita ora che il tremebondo amore è morto? Violavano le rose l’orizzonte, esitanti città stavano in cielo asperse di giardini tormentosi, la sua voce nell’aria era una roccia deserta e incolmabile di fiori.

[From un br i n d is i ( 19 4 6 ) ] Diana, risveglio Il vento sparso luccica tra i fumi della pianura, il monte ride raro illuminandosi, escono barlumi dall’acqua, quale messaggio più caro? È tempo di levarsi su, di vivere puramente. Ecco vola negli specchi un sorriso, sui vetri aperti un brivido, torna un suono a confondere gli orecchi.

160

m a r i o luzi

Ivory The equinoctial cypress speaks, and dark the mountain roe-buck rejoices, within red springs the mares wash their manes with kisses. From immense hazy forests to the lofty cities the rivers beat down at length, affectionate sails move in a dream toward Olympia. Wind-blown girls will run through the intense streets of the East and from the markets smelling of salt, gay they will regard the world. But where can I draw my life now that trembling love is dead? The roses did violence to the horizon, wavering cities stood in the sky sprinkled with tormenting gardens, her voice was a rock in the air, bare and not to be loaded up with flowers.

Diana, Waking Up The scattered wind sparkles among the vapors of the plain, the mountain laughs rare, being covered with light, glitters go out from the water, what dearer news? It’s time to get on up, to live purely. Look – a smile flies in the mirrors, on the open panes a shudder, a sound returns to confuse the ears.

161

d i ana, r isve g lio

d ia na , wa k ing up

E tu ilare accorri e contraddici in un tratto la morte. Così quando s’apre una porta irrompono felici i colori, esce il buio di rimando a dissolversi. Nascono liete immagini, filtra nel sangue, cieco nel ritorno, lo spirito del sole, aure ci traggono con sè: a esistere, a estinguerci in un giorno.

[From pr imizie del deserto (1952)] Marina Che acque affaticate contro la fioca riva, che flutti grigi contro i pali. Ed isole più oltre e banchi ove un affanno incerto si separa dal giorno che va via. Che sparse piogge navighi, che luci. Quali? il pensiero se non finge ignora, se non ricorda nega: là fui vivo, qui avvisato dal tempo in altra guisa. Che memorie, che immagini abbiamo ereditate, che età non mai vissute, che eistenze fuori della letizia e del dolore lottano alla marea presso gli approdi o al largo che fiorisce e dice addio. Rientri tu, ripari a questa proda e nel cielo che salpa un pino stride d’uccelli che rimpatriano, mio cuore.

162

m ar i o luzi

And you, gay, run up and all of a sudden contradict death. So when a door is opened, happy the colors spill in, the darkness leaves dismissed to fade away. Happy images are born, the spirit of the sun, blind in its return, filters in the blood, light breezes pull us with them: to exist, to be extinguished in a day.

Seashore What weary waters against the weak shore, what gray waves against the posts. And islands further out and sandbanks where an uncertain anxiety breaks off from the day that’s leaving. What scattered showers you sail, what lights. Which? Thought if it doesn’t pretend doesn’t know, if it doesn’t remember denies: there I was alive, here warned about time in another guise. What memories, what images we have inherited, what ages never lived, what existences beyond gladness and grief struggle against the tide by the landfalls or in the luxuriant open sea that says goodbye. You come back, you refit at this shore and in the sky that sets sail a ship shrieks with birds that return home, my heart.

163

mar ina

seashore

CE SARE PAVESE [From l avor are stanca ( 193 6 ) ] Semplicità L’uomo solo – che è stato in prigione – ritorna in prigione ogni volta che morde in un pezzo di pane. In prigione sognava le lepri che fuggono sul terriccio invernale. Nella nebbia d’inverno l’uomo vive tra muri di strade, bevendo acqua fredda e mordendo in un pezzo di pane. Uno crede che dopo rinasca la vita, che il respiro si calmi, che ritorni l’inverno con l’odore del vino nella calda osteria, e il buon fuoco, la stalla, e le cene. Uno crede, fin che è dentro uno crede. Si esce fuori una sera, e le lepri le han prese e le mangiano al caldo gli altri, allegri. Bisogna guardarli dai vetri. L’uomo solo osa entrare per bere un bicchiere quando proprio si gela, e contempla il suo vino: il colore fumoso, il sapore pesante. Morde il pezzo di pane, che sapeva di lepre in prigione, ma adesso non sa più di pane nè di nulla. E anche il vino non sa che di nebbia.

L’uomo solo ripensa a quei campi, contento di saperli già arati. Nella sala deserta sottovoce si prova a cantare. Rivede lungo l’argine il ciuffo di rovi spogliati che in agosto fu verde. Dà un fischio alla cagna. E compare la lepre e non hanno più freddo.

164

ces a re pave se

Simplicity The man who is alone – who has been in prison – returns to prison every time that he bites into a piece of bread. In prison he dreamed of the hares that flee on the winter soil. In the winter fog the man lives between walls of roads, drinking cold water and munching on a piece of bread. One believes that life is born again, that the breath is calmed, that winter returns with the odor of wine in the hot inn, and the good fire, the stable, and suppers. One believes, until he’s on the inside one believes. You go out one evening, and the others have caught them, the hares, and they are eating them in a warm room, gladly. You have to look at them from the windows. The man who is alone dares to go in to drink a glass when it’s really freezing, and he contemplates his wine: its smoky color, its heavy taste. He bites into his piece of bread, which tasted of hare in prison, but now it does not taste of bread nor of anything else. And even the wine does not taste of anything but fog. The man who is alone thinks back to those fields, content to know that they have already been ploughed. In the deserted room he tries, under his breath, to sing. He sees again, along the embankment, the faded tufts of bare bushes that in August were green. He whistles to the dog. And the hare comes out, and they’re not cold any more.

165

s em p l icità

simp licit y

[From ver rà l a m o rte e av r à i t uoi o cch i ( 1 9 5 1 ) ] The Cats will know Ancora cadrà la pioggia sui tuoi dolci selciati, una pioggia leggera come un alito o un passo. Ancora la brezza e l’alba fioriranno leggere come sotto il tuo passo, quando tu rientrerai. Tra fiori e davanzali i gatti lo sapranno. Ci saranno altri giorni, ci saranno altre voci. Sorriderai da sola. I gatti lo sapranno. Udrai parole antiche, parole stanche e vane come i costumi smessi delle feste di ieri. Farai gesti anche tu. Risponderai parole – viso di primavera, farai gesti anche tu. I gatti lo sapranno, viso di primavera; e la pioggia leggera, l’alba color giacinto, che dilaniano il cuore di chi più non ti spera, sono il triste sorriso che sorridi da sola. Ci saranno altri giorni, altre voci e risvegli. Soffriremo nell’alba, viso di primavera.

166

ces a re pave se

The Cats Will Know The rain will still fall on your sweet pavements, a light rain like a breath or a footstep. The breeze and the dawn will still flower lightly as though under your footstep, when you come back in. Between flowers and window sills the cats will know. There will be other days, there will be other voices. You will smile alone. The cats will know. You will hear agéd words, tired words and empty ones like the costumes put aside after yesterday’s merrymaking. You, too, will gesture. You will reply words – face of springtime – you, too, will gesture. The cats will know, face of springtime; and the light rain, the dawn color of hyacinth, that rend the heart of him who no longer hopes for you, are the sad smile that you smile alone. There will be other days, other voices and awakenings. We will suffer in the dawn, face of springtime.

167

t he c ats w ill k n ow

[From ver rà l a m o rte e av r à i t uoi o cch i ] Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi – questa morte che ci accompagna dal mattino alla sera, insonne, sorda, come un vecchio rimorso o un vizio assurdo. I tuoi occhi saranno una vana parola, un grido taciuto, un silenzio. Così li vedi ogni mattina quando su te sola ti pieghi nello specchio. O cara speranza, quel giorno sapremo anche noi che sei la vita e sei il nulla. Per tutti la morte ha uno sguardo. Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi. Sarà come smettere un vizio, come vedere nello specchio riemergere un viso morto, come ascoltare un labbro chiuso. Scenderemo nel gorgo muti.

168

ces a re pave se

Death Will Come, and She Will Have Your Eyes Death will come, and she will have your eyes – this death which is with us from morning to night, sleepless, deaf, like an old remorse or a silly vice. Your eyes will be an empty word, a hushed scream, a silence. Thus you see them every morning when you, alone, bend down in front of your mirror. O beloved hope, that day we will know, we too, that you are life and that you are nothing. For everyone death has a look. Death will come, and she will have your eyes. It will be like giving up a bad habit, like seeing a dead face re-emerge in the mirror, like listening to closed lips. Silent we will go down into the abyss.

169

ver r à l a mo rte

de ath w ill come

P IER PAOL O PASOLINI [From da l di ar io ( 19 5 5 ) ] Vicina agli occhi ... Vicina agli occhi e ai capelli sciolti sopra la fronte, tu piccola luce, distratta arrossi le mie carte. Adolescente ardevo fino a notte col tuo smunto chiarore, ed era strano udire il vento e gl’isolati grilli. Allora, nelle stanze smemorati dormivano i parenti, e mio fratello oltre un sottile muro era disteso. Ora dove egli sia tu, rossa luce, non dici, eppure illumini; e sospira per le campagne inanimate il grillo; e mia madre si pettina allo specchio, usanza antica come la tua luce, pensando a quel suo figlio senza vita.

[From l a re li g io ne d e l m io tem p o ( 1 9 61 ) ] Alla Mia Nazione Non popolo arabo, non popolo balcanico, non popolo antico ma nazione vivente, ma nazione europea: e cosa sei? Terra di infanti, affamati, corrotti, governanti impiegati di agrari, prefetti codini, avvocatucci unti di brillantina e i piedi sporchi, funzionari liberali carogne come gli zii bigotti, una caserma, un seminario, una spiaggia libera, un casino! Milioni di piccoli borghesi come milioni di porci pascolano sospingendosi sotto gli illesi palazzotti, tra case coloniali scrostate ormai come chiese. Proprio perché tu sei esistita, ora non esisti, proprio perché fosti cosciente, sei incosciente. E solo perché sei cattolica, non puoi pensare che il tuo male è tutto il male: colpa di ogni male. Sprofonda in questo tuo bel mare, libera il mondo. 170

p i er paolo paso lin i

Near My Eyes Near my eyes and hair falling over my forehead, you, little light, absent-minded redden my paper. As a youth I burned until the night together with your dull brightness, and it was strange to hear the wind and the rare crickets. Then, in the rooms, without memories my parents slept, and my brother lay beyond a thin wall. Where he is now, red light, you do not say, and yet you continue to light; and the cricket sighs through the inanimate countrysides; and my mother combs her hair in front of the mirror, a habit as ancient as your light, thinking of that son of hers who has no life.

To My Nation Not an Arab people, not a Balkan people, not an ancient people but a living nation, but a European nation: and what are you? A land of babes, hungry, corrupt, governors employed by landowners, reactionary prefects, lawyers slicked up with Brillcreme and with dirty feet, liberal functionaries carcasses like bigoted uncles, a barracks, a seminary, a free beach, brothel! Millions of petits bourgeois like millions of pigs feed gouging under the unharmed villas, among colonial houses peeling now like churches. Exactly because you have existed, now you do not exist, exactly because you have been conscious, you are unconscious. And only because you are Catholic, you cannot think that your evil is all evil: the blame of every evil. Sink to the bottom in this beautiful sea of yours, free the world of you. 171

al l a mia na zio n e

to my natio n

ANDREA ZANZOTTO [From eleg i a e alt r i ve r s i ( 19 5 4 ) ] Storie dell’arsura 1 Vuoto d’acque, misero scheletro lungo le case del mio paese, Soligo io ti guardo e non mi basta la Pasqua dell’Angelo, non piove da mesi. Hai sete, piccolo fiume imbavagliato nudo nudo e senza parola. Io tra le lacrime guardo il sole allontanato ed offeso dal vento, la Pasqua dell’Angelo tra furiosa polvere sparire e invernali ombre di reticolati di rive in brulle rive assecondare la tua magra quiete. Da tanto a te, Soligo, mi conformo, la sete lunga lunga trassi come il tuo letto, da tanto non piove che un’amara abitudine mi ha tolto ricordarmi che sia la sete stessa. 2 Dai miei poveri giorni mi svio, salgo con lena primaverile verso i boschi di Lorna e benefiche valli e grato verde d’aprile acerbamente sogno. Nulla per dorsi spenti e per cavi torpori mattutini nulla dietro il ventaglio del meriggio che soffocate sere scopre per tramiti gessosi e stecchi e brividi. Negli altri anni a queste ore sulle mie pene invernali grande e madido il bosco era cresciuto, mansueto limo

172

an d rea za n zot to

Stories of the Drought 1 Empty of water, miserable skeleton alongside the houses of my town, Soligo I look at you and Easter Monday – it has not rained for months – is not enough for me. You’re thirsty, little river silenced naked naked and without a word. Among tears I look at the sun distanced and wounded by the wind, Easter Monday among furious dust disappear, and winter shades of barbed wire entanglements of banks in barren banks favor your meager quiet. For so long now, Soligo, I match myself to you, the thirst long long I dragged like your bed, for so long now it hasn’t rained that a bitter habit has robbed me of remembering what thirst itself is. 2 From my poor days I go astray, I go forth with springtime energy toward the woods of Lorna and beneficient valleys and grateful green of April I prematurely dream. Nothing through spent ridges and through void morning numbness nothing behind the afternoon fan which uncovers suffocated evenings through chalky paths and sticks and shivers. In other years at these hours on my winter pains great and drenched the forest had grown, gentle mud

173

stor ie del l’arsur a

stor ies of the droug ht

aveva popolato il mio cortile. Ma ora un sole infelice mi fa scuotere il capo, or si fende la creta, sbigottito è il ruscello, e le tue care labbra sento umide solo per un’avara dimenticanza dell’immenso risucchio dell’arsura.

[From vo c at ivo ( 1 9 5 7 ) ] Esistere psichicamente Da questa artificiosa terra-carne esili acuminati sensi e sussulti e silenzi, da questa bava di vicende – soli che urtarono fili di ciglia ariste appena sfrangiate pei colli – da questo lungo attimo inghiottito da nevi, inghiottito dal vento, da tutto questo che non fu primavera non luglio non autunno ma solo egro spiraglio ma solo psiche, da tutto questo che non è nulla ed è tutto ciò ch’io sono: tale la verità geme a se stessa, si vuole pomo che gonfia ed infradicia. Chiarore acido che tessi i bruciori d’inferno degli atomi e il conato torbido d’alghe e vermi, chiarore-uovo che nel morente muco fai parole e amori.

174

an d rea za n zot to

had peopled my courtyard. But now an unhappy sun makes me shake my head, now the chalk cracks, appalled is the brook and your dear lips I feel moist only through a miserly forgetfulness of the immense whirlpool of the drought.

To Exist Psychically From this artful earth-flesh frail sharpened senses both tremors and silences, from this dribble of events – suns that dash against threads of eyelashes ears of corn barely unraveled through the fields – from this long instant gulped down by the snows, gulped down by the wind, from all this which was not spring not July not autumn but only ill gleam but only the psyche, from all this which is nothing and is everything which I am: so truth groans to itself, we want an apple that swells and rots. Acid glimmer that you weave the burnings of hell of the atoms and the hazy effort of algae and worms, egg-glimmer which in the dying mucus you make words and loves.

175

es i s tere p sichica m e n te

to exist psychic al ly

ROCCO SCOT ELLAR O [From è fat to g ior n o ( 19 5 4 ) ] Sempre nuova è l’alba Non gridatemi più dentro, non soffiatemi in cuore i vostri fiati caldi, contadini. Beviamoci insieme una tazza colma di vino! che all’ilare tempo della sera s’acquieti il nostro vento disperato. Spuntano ai pali ancora le teste dei briganti, e la caverna, l’oasi verde della triste speranza, lindo conserva un guanciale di pietra. Ma nei sentieri non si torna indietro. Altre ali fuggiranno dalle paglie della cova, perchè lungo il perire dei tempi l’alba è nuova, è nuova.

176

ro c co scote ll a ro

Always New Is the Dawn Don’t yell inside me any more, don’t pant in my heart your hot breaths, peasants. Let’s drink together a brimming cup of wine! that in the merry evening time our desperate wind may calm itself. The heads of the brigands still stick out on the stakes, and the cave – the green oasis of sad hope – keeps clean a pillow rock. But there’s no turning back on the track. Other wings will flee the straw of the nesting place, because alongside the perishing of times the dawn is new, new.

177

s em p re n uova è l’ a lba

always new is the daw n

CARL O B ETOCCHI [From p o es i e ( 19 5 5 ) ] Rovine Non è vero che hanno distrutto le case, non è vero: solo è vero in quel muro diruto l’avanzarsi del cielo a piene mani, a pieno petto, dove ignoti sognarono, o vivendo sognare credettero, quelli che son spariti ... Ora spetta all’ombra spezzata il gioco d’altri tempi, sopra i muri, nell’alba assolata, imitarne gli incerti ... e nel vuoto, alla rondine che passa.

[From p o es i e] Di Mattina Ancora una mattina che non potrei tradirmi se non, nube su nube, decidermi a rivivere tutto nel cielo, al suo fantastico passaggio d’occidente in oriente da un mare senza mente a un monte senza peso; la verità che vive nei cuori non si scrive che misteriosamente. 178

c a r l o b eto c ch i

Ruins It is not true that they have destroyed the houses, it’s not true: the only thing that’s true in that dilapidated wall is the advance of the sun with full hands, with proud chest, where the unknown dreamed, or while alive believed they dreamed, those who have vanished ... Now to the shattered shadow the game of other times belongs, above the walls, in the bright dawn to imitate its uncertainties and in the void, to the passing swallow.

In the Morning Yet one more morning that I could not betray myself if not, cloud on cloud, to vow to live again all that is in the sky, in its fantastic transit from west to east, from a sea without mind to a mountain without weight: the truth which lives in hearts is not written but mysteriously. 179

d i m at t ina

in the m o r n in g

B ARTOL O CAT TAFI [From l’os s o, l’ anim a ( 19 64 ) ] Isole Vengono le tue isole affiorano a poco a poco o di colpo risplendono l’affilato profilo l’arcipelago le tue terre al sole e alla nebbia fondate sul nulla timorose d’un soffio con quanta vita alle spalle che mare navigato.

180

ba rto l o cat ta f i

Islands Your islands come they appear at the surface little by little or all at once shine the sharpened profile the archipelago your lands in the sun and in the mist founded on nothingness fearful of a puff of air with as much life behind them as sea travelled.

181

isole

isl a n d s

AL DA ME RINI [From l a prese n z a d i or f e o ( 19 5 3 ) ] Il Gobbo Dalla solita sponda del mattino io mi guadagno, palmo a palmo, il giorno: il giorno dalle acque così grigie, dall’espressione assente. Il giorno io lo guadagno con fatica tra le due sponde che non si risolvono, insoluta io stessa per la vita ... E nessuno m’aiuta. Ma viene a volte un gobbo sfaccendato, un simbolo presago d’allegrezza che ha il dono di una strana profezia. E perchè vada incontro alla promessa lui mi traghetta sulle proprie spalle.

182

a l da m e r in i

The Hunchback From the usual shore of the morning I earn, inch by inch, my day: the day with its grey waters, void of expression. I earn my day with toil between the two shores that never meet, a waverer myself in life ... And no one helps me. But sometimes an idle hunchback comes along, a symbolic omen of gaiety that has the gift of a strange prophecy. And so that I can see the promise fulfilled, he ferries me across on his own shoulders.

183

i l g o b bo

the hun chback

MICHEL E P IERRI [From contempl azione e r ivo lta (1950)] Se da lontano Se da lontano conducete un uomo sui luoghi in sogno della fanciullezza a mostrare che son polvere e fumo, muri crollati, cieli nudi, erbacce secche, avarizia e lordure viventi; un uomo intatto, rinnegato a lungo da potere da gloria e da saggezza, morrebbe al giorno per sempre per sempre.

184

m i chel e p ie r r i

If from Far Away If from far away you lead a man into his dreams along the roads of childhood to show him that they are but dust and smoke, fallen walls, naked skies, dry weeds, avarice and living filth – a man intact, long since neglected by power, glory and wisdom would die right then for ever and ever.

185

s e da lo n ta n o

if f ro m fa r away

MARGHE RITA GUIDACCI [From pag l ia e p o lve re ( 19 6 1) ] La Conchiglia Non a te appartengo, sebbene nel cavo della tua mano ora riposi, viandante; nè alla sabbia da cui mi raccogliesti e dove giacqui lungamente, prima che al tuo sguardo si offrisse la mia forma mirabile. Io compagna d’agili pesci e d’alghe ebbi vita dal grembo delle libere onde. E non odio nè oblio ma l’amara tempesta me ne divise. Perciò si duole in me l’antica patria e rimormora assiduamente e ne sospira la mia anima marina, mentre tu reggi il mio segreto sulla tua palma e stupito vi pieghi il tuo orecchio straniero.

[unpubli s he d ] Canzone d’un morto di sete Acqua e polvere, acqua e polvere, voi non mi eravate così indifferenti un istante prima ch’io morissi: allora bramavo l’acqua, detestavo l’arida polvere, e ora tutti i fiumi dell’universo sono per me lo stesso che polvere; tutta la pioggia dell’universo non toglierà dalle mie labbra il sapore della polvere. Non datemi quel che bramavo, perché più nulla desidero, non allontanate quel che odiavo perché più nulla odio. Riportate indietro, fratelli, le vostre colme anfore e lasciatemi solo nella mia polvere.

186

m arg he r ita guidacci

The Seashell Of you I am no part, though in the hollow of your hand I am now resting, passer-by; nor am I part of the sand where you found me and where at length I lay before my admirable form offered itself to your gaze. I companion of nimble fish and seaweed found my life in the lap of the free waves. And neither hatred nor forgetfulness but rather the bitter storm took me from that. Thus the ancient fatherland moans within me, complaining without end, and my marine soul longs for it, while you hold my secret in your palm and, astonished, bend your foreign ear to it.

Song of One Dead from Thirst Water and dust, water and dust you were not so undifferent to me a moment before I died: then I longed for the water, I detested the arid dust, and now all the rivers of the universe are for me the same as dust; all the rain of the universe will not take from my lips the taste of the dust. Don’t give me what I was longing for, because I don’t want anything anymore; don’t take away what I hated, because I don’t hate anything anymore. Carry back, brothers, your full amphorae and leave me alone in my dust.

187

canzone d’un morto di sete

song of one dead from thirst

GIUSE P P E VILLAR OEL [From quasi vento d’apr ile (1956)] Padre Strano tempo ch’io vissi. E c’è mio padre in questi specchi dei negozi antichi. E, come lui, ombra che guarda, io stesso. E c’è il silenzio che s’è fatto sangue simile al suo e soffre sulle strade, dove più bianco e più deserto, a sera, coi suoi passi cammino e i suoi pensieri.

188

g ius ep pe v ill a ro e l

Father A funny time I lived in. And there’s my father in these mirrors from the antique shops. And, like him, shadow staring, my very self. And there’s silence which has become blood like his and suffers on the street, where older and more alone, in the evening, with his footsteps I walk and with his thoughts.

189

pa dre

father

190

p o et’s name

Biographical Notes

aler amo, sibill a (1876–1960). Aleramo (the pseudonym of Rina Faccio) had a long and tempestuous relationship with Dino Campana. Her work alongside Giovanni Cena with the poor of the rural areas around Rome was pivotal in her development. In her 1906 feminist novel Una Donna, Aleramo debuts some of the principal components of her writing: her strong sense of social justice and her tendency towards autobiography. Between 1919 and 1945 she published three more novels and three other books of prose. Her first book of poetry, Selva d’amore (1947), won the Viareggio Prize. Aleramo wrote two other collections of poetry, Aiutatemi a dire (1951) and Luci della mia sera (1956). bertolucci, at tilio (1911–). Living in Rome, he has worked on radio, television, newspapers, and magazines. Since 1939 he has directed Guanda Press’ “La Fenice” line of foreign poets. Bertolucci has translated from Balzac, Baudelaire, Wordsworth, D.H. Lawrence, and Hemingway. While very young he published his first poetry collections, Sirio (1929) and Fuochi in novembre (1934), both of which Montale praised. La capanna indiana won the Viareggio Prize in 1951. His most mature works are Viaggio d’inverno (1971) and the verse novel La camera da letto (published in two parts in 1984 and 1988), which also won the Viareggio Prize. Bertolucci’s most recent books of poetry are Verso le sorgenti del Cinghio (1993) and La lucertola di Casarola (1997), collections of juvenilia and recent pieces. beto cchi, carlo (1899–1986). A licensed skilled surveyor, Betocchi was drafted in 1917 and as an officer took part in the last decisive battles against Austria. When the war ended he asked to be stationed in Libya, where he remained until 1920. Discharged, he returned to Italy, where he constructed bridges, roads, and canals, especially in the North. Between 1928 and 1938 he lived in Florence, where he took part, in breaks from his work, in the Catholic

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Introduction

Il Frontespizio movement. Because of his work, Betocchi lived in Rome from 1941 through the war. In his last years he returned to Florence, where he taught. He published several collections of poetry: Realtà vince il sogno (1932), Altre poesie (1939), Notizie di prosa e poesie (1947), Un ponte nella pianura (1953), Poesie (1955), L’estate di San Martino (1961), Un passo, un altro passo (1967), Prime e ultimissime (1974), and Poesie del sabato (1980). campana, dino (1885–1932). He had a tormented childhood and left off his studies at the University of Bologna. After a stay at the psychiatric hospital of Imola (1906), he began his lifelong travelling. Campana went to Switzerland, France, Argentina, Odessa, and Brussels before a stay in a Florentine hospital. In 1913 he took the manuscript of Canti orfici to Soffici and Papini but was forced to rewrite it because Soffici lost the original; it was published privately in 1914. Campana then returned to his trips, had a long relationship with Sibilla Aleramo, and in 1918 took up a permanent residence at the mental hospital of Castel Pulci. Much of his poetry came out after his death, such as Inediti (1942), Taccuino (1949), and Taccuinetto faentino (1960). His lost manuscript, Il più lungo giorno, found among Soffici’s papers, was published in 1973. carducci, g iosuè (1835–1907). Poet and literary critic. A self-proclaimed antiromantic classicist, patriot, and liberal, he taught literature at the University of Bologna from 1860 to 1904. The aims and struggles of the Risorgimento are reflected in Juvenilia (1860), Levia gravia (1868), Giambi ed epodi (1879; 1882), and Rime nuove (1887). Odi barbare (1877–89) and Rime e ritmi (1898) reveal Carducci’s predilection for the classical. cat tafi, bartolo (1922–1979). He was trained in law but did not practise it. Cattafi was widely travelled in Europe and Africa. He published many books of poetry, including Le mosche del meriggio (1958), L’osso, l’anima (1964), L’aria secca del fuoco (1972), La discesa al trono (1975), and L’allodola ottobrina (1979). cor azzini, serg io (1886–1907). He worked in an insurance agency as a very young man and indulged his passion for poetry in the evenings. Corazzini developed tuberculosis in those years. Among his friends were Govoni and Palazzeschi. His collections include L’amaro calice (1905), Poemetti in prosa (1906), Piccolo libro inutile (1906), Libro per la sera della domenica (1906), and the posthumous Liriche (1909). d’annunzio, g abr iele (1863–1938). He was the author of an extraordinary number of novels, plays (including one in French), and books of poetry. His novels, such as Il piacere (1889), Il trionfo della morte (1894), and Il fuoco

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(1900), are probably his best-known work; his tragedies, such as Francesca da Rimini (1902) and La figlia di Iorio (1904) are also famous. From Nietzsche he took the notion of the “superman,” which became eventually the notion of the “supernation,” called by destiny to empire and fascism. D’Annunzio was a flamboyant man who lived a flamboyant, luxurious life. A fervent nationalist, he commandeered troops to march on Fiume and occupied that city from 1919 to 1921, when he was deposed by Italian troops. D’Annunzio’s liaison with the great actress Eleonore Duse is legendary. His Laudi del cielo, del mare, della terra, degli eroi was published in four books (Maia, Elettra, and Alcyone, 1903; and Merope, 1912); they are his outstanding poetry. folgore, luciano (1888–1966). Early in his career Folgore, the pseudonym of Omero Vecchi, participated in futurism, publishing Il canto dei motori (1912) and Città veloce (1919). He then devoted himself to whimsical caricatures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian poetry and ironic commentaries about contemporary events. He also wrote fiction and theatre pieces. fortini, fr anco (1917–94). A Tuscan, he studied classics and later law at the University of Florence. Fortini, a pseudonym of Franco Lattes, was a soldier in World War i but did not see combat. After the war he joined the Socialist party. Vittorini brought him onto the editorial staff of Politecnico. For a year (1946–47) Fortini was editor of Avanti! He worked for Olivetti. Fortini’s poetry includes Foglio di via e altri versi (1946), Una facile allegoria (1954), I destini generali (1956), Poesia ed errore (1959), and Una volta per sempre (1963). His work is often characterized by “narrative” diction. gat to, alfo nso (1909–1976). Born into an old family, Gatto left school early and supported himself with a variety of jobs, finally settling into journalism. He published Isola in 1932 and Morto ai paesi in 1937. He was, along with Pratolini, founder of Campo di Marte, a magazine to which Bo, Montale, Betocchi, Sereni, and many others contributed. He continued his poetry in Il capo sulla neve (1949), La forza degli occhi (1954); Osteria flegrea (1962); La storia delle vittime (1966), which won the Viareggio Prize, and Rime di viaggio per la terra dipinta (1969). Gatto expressed themes of the Resistance and political involvement. g iaconi, luisa (1870–1908). Dying prematurely, this talented Florentine poet left only the fin de siècle Tebaide, published posthumously in 1909, a poetic “diary.” govoni, cor r ad o (1884–1965). The son of farmers, Govoni had no regular education. After the war, he worked most of his life at odd jobs, saving his energy and passion for poetry. His early, clearly Crepuscular poetry

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includes Armonia in grigio et in silenzio (1903) and Fuochi d’artifizio (1905). His clearly futurist work includes Poesie elettriche (1911) and Inaugurazione della Primavera (1915). Later he published Il quaderno dei sogni e delle stelle (1924), Canzoni a bocca chiusa (1938), Pellegrino d’amore (1941), Aladino (1946), Preghiera al trifoglio (1953), Antologia poetica (1953), Stradario della Primavera (1958), and the posthumously published (1966) La ronda di notte. gozzano, guid o (1883–1916). Suffering from tuberculosis from the age of 21, Gozzano dropped out of law school and devoted himself to the literary circles of his native Turin. Gozzano travelled widely, in part to find climates that might help in his fight with his illness. His first book of poetry, La via del rifugio (1907), had immediate critical success. His Colloqui (1911) contains some of his most famous poems, including “La signorina Felicita.” His stories and fables are less noteworthy. guidacci, marg her ita (1921–1992). Her poetry is extensive, including La sabbia e l’angelo (1946), Giorno dei santi (1956), Paglia e polvere (1961), Poesie (1965), Terra senza orologi (1973), L’altare di Isenheim (1980), Inno alla gioia (1983), and Anelli del tempo (published posthumously in 1993). She translated T.S. Eliot, Conrad, Dickinson, and others. Guidacci published studies in English and American literature, including Studi su Eliot (1975). She spent most of her life in Florence and Rome and taught in liceo. luzi, mar io (1914–). Soon after he graduated in literature, Luzi published his first book of poetry, La barca (1935). He collaborated on Campo di Marte and Letteratura. A hermetic poet, Luzi has published poetry at regular intervals throughout his life, including Avvento notturno (1940), Un brindisi (1946), Quaderno gotico (1946), Primizie del deserto (1952), Onore del vero (1957), and Al fuoco della controversia (1978), which won the Viareggio Prize. Luzi has translated Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Racine. mar inet t i, filipp o tommaso (1876–1944). He spent his youth in Paris, where he published his first works. In the 20 February 1909 edition of Figaro he published the first futurist “manifesto,” in which he rejected traditional values and exalted the machine, war, and violence as a means of affirming individuality. The following year Marinetti produced “II manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista” (“The Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature”) which commanded “parole in libertà” (words in freedom) to express modern life. These were followed by several other related but lessimportant manifestos. His nationalism and militarism led him to support involvement in the Libyan enterprise (1912) and in World War i. More a theorist than a creative writer, he nevertheless wrote some poetry, including Zang Tumb Tumb (1910) and Adrianopoli, ottobre 1912 (1914). He also worked extensively in the theatre.

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mer ini, alda (1931–). She attended only the first three years of trade school and has worked mainly as a stenographer and bookkeeper. Her first book of poetry was La presenza di Orfeo (1953), followed by Tu sei Pietro (1961). She then published nothing for more than twenty years, during which time she suffered from poor physical and mental health. She returned to poetry with La Terra Santa (1984), Testamento (1988), Vuoto d’amore (1991), and Ballate non pagate (1995), which won the Viareggio Prize. She has also written short prose. montale, eugenio (1896–1981). He served as an officer at the front in World War i. In 1927 he began his publishing career with Bemporad in Florence. He then worked for the publisher Vieusseux; he was forced to resign after ten years because he refused to join the Fascist party. Montale contributed to many magazines, such as Solaria and Pegaso. His first published book of poetry was Ossi di seppia (1925). La casa dei doganieri e altri versi (1932) came next. A long period of translating (Eliot, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Corneille, and Melville) followed, along with Le occasioni (1939). In 1948 Montale moved to Milan to work on Corriere della sera. He published La bufera e altro in 1956. He received the Nobel Prize in 1975. n e g r i , a da (1870–1945). A schoolteacher of humble origins, Negri made her debut with traditional poetic forms and humanitarian, socialist, and feminist themes in Fatalità (1892), Tempeste (1894), and Esilio (1914). Her later poetry – Il libro di Mara (1919), I canti dell’isola (1924) – was D’Annunzian and rather diarylike. Vespertina (1930) and Il dono (1936) were generally Christian in content. pal azzeschi, ald o (1885–1974). Palazzeschi, the pseudonym of Aldo Giurlani, published his first collections of poetry at his own expense: I cavalli bianchi (1905), Lanterna (1907), and Poemi (1909). He aligned himself with both the Milanese and the Florentine futurists, often mediating conflicts between the Tuscan group affiliated with the magazine Lacerba and the followers of Marinetti. In 1914 he broke with the futurists by means of a letter in La voce. Palazzeschi gradually distanced himself from nationalism and in particular fascism, returning to Christianity. His Poesie was published in 1930. Palazzeschi contributed to many avant-garde magazines before the war. Viaggio sentimentale appeared in 1955. papini, g iovanni (1881–1956). Papini’s first love was journalism, by means of which he debated myriad problems and worked for myriad causes. After a brief stay in Paris, he founded La voce in 1908 with Prezzolini and Soffici. In 1913 he helped found the literary magazine Lacerba, from which podium he worked for intervention. The years of his extensive involvement in fascism and the war years prepared him for his embracing of Catholicism, the great-

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est theme of the rest of his life. His poetic works are collected in Poesia in versi (1932), which included Opera prima (1914–16) and Pane e vino (1921–26). pascoli, g iovanni (1855–1912). He was born into a family of farmers. His father was murdered (1867); his mother, sister, and two brothers died early. He soon embraced socialism. Pascoli received a scholarship to the University of Bologna. His teacher and mentor there was Carducci; he was appointed to Carducci’s chair when the latter retired. His simple and natural early poetry, such as Myricae (1892), resembles the poetry neither of Carducci nor of D’Annunzio. His next book of poetry was Primi poemetti (1897), followed by Canti di Castelvecchio (1903). Poemi conviviali (1904), Odi e Inni (1906), and Nuovi poemetti (1909) came next. Canzoni di re Enzio (1909), Poemi italici (1911), and Poemi del Risorgimento (published posthumously in 1913) contained more historical themes. He also wrote considerable prose. Pascoli died early, after a long illness. pasolini, pier paolo (1922–1975). A poet, novelist, and film director, Pasolini’s major relationship was with his mother, with whom he lived for most of her life. Through her, a woman of lowly rural origins, he developed a lifelong interest in dialects and the poor. In 1947 he joined the Communist party. He taught middle school for a while but in 1949 was accused of “corrupting minors”; he was banned from teaching and expelled from the Party. Pasolini moved to Rome, where he lived in extreme poverty with his mother. Le ceneri di Gramsci (1957) won the Viareggio Prize. La religione del mio tempo (1961) was followed by Poesia in forma di rosa (1964). In 1961 Pasolini made his debut as a film director. He received international fame in this field, with such films as Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) and Il Decamerone (1971). Beginning in 1974, he was a contributor to Corriere della sera. pavese, cesare (1908–1950). He spent much of his life in Turin, where he was educated. He devoted a great deal of time to translating British and especially American writers (Sinclair Lewis, Melville, Sherwood Anderson, Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, and Defoe). After the arrest of Leone Ginzburg, Pavese was interned for anti-Fascist, pro-Communist activities. Returning to Turin, he published his first book of poetry, Lavorare stanca (1936), which was largely ignored by critics. He worked extensively with the publishing house Einaudi, founded by Ginzburg and others. At the end of the war he joined the PCI and published in Unità. Pavese achieved fame in those years as a novelist. The depression from which he had long suffered drove him to suicide in 1950. Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi was published posthumously in 1951. penna, sandro (1906–1977). He lived much of his life in Rome, mostly doing odd jobs. He debuted in 1938 with Poesie, which was followed by Una

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strana gioia di vivere (1956), Poesie (1957, winner of the Viareggio Prize), and Croce e delizia (1958). Tutte le poesie (1970) contains most of his poems. Just before his death Stranezze (1976) came out. Il viaggiatore insonne (1977) is posthumous. pier r i, michele (1899–). A medical doctor, Pierri travelled widely in France and Latin America. At first he published only anti-Fascist material, for which he was arrested in 1934. He began writing again only in 1945. He returned to practising medicine and has published Contemplazione e Rivolta (1950), De consolatione (1953), Poesie (1957), and Realtà oppure (1959). quasimod o, salvatore (1901–1968). Son of a railway worker, the young Quasimodo lived by doing odd jobs throughout Italy. In Rome, at the age of twenty, he began his lifelong study of Greek and Latin. He settled for a while in Florence, where his brother-in-law, Elio Vittorini, introduced him to the group affiliated with the literary magazine Solaria. In 1930 his first collection of poetry, Acque e terre was published. Oboe sommerso (1932) and Erato e Apollion (1936) followed. Quasimodo moved to Milan, where he obtained the chair of Italian literature at the Conservatory in 1934. He was, for a while, a member of the Italian Communist party. He was also a theatre critic during this time. In a surprise to some, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959. In his acceptance speech (published in 1960 as Il poeta e il politico) he stressed the political responsibility of literature. Other early poetry included Ed è subito sera (1942). His postwar volumes were Con il piede straniero sopra il cuore (1946), Giorno dopo giorno (1947), La vita non è sogno (1949), Il falso e vero verde (1956), La terra impareggiabile (1958, winner of the Viareggio Prize), and Dare e avere (1966). Quasimodo’s translations were from both classical and modern writers, his most famous being Lirici greci (1940); he translated Homer, Virgil, Catullus, the Palatine Anthology, and some Shakespeare and Neruda. rebor a, clemente (1885–1957). Rebora studied literature and philosophy in Milan. He contributed to La Voce and published Frammenti lirici in 1913. Rebora fought in the trenches during World War i, where a mine explosion caused him to have a nervous breakdown. He turned to Christianity, the Bible, oriental authors and mystics, and published Canti anonimi (1922). Rebora was ordained a priest in 1936. His Canti dell’infermità came out in 1956. He translated from Russian (Gogol, Tolstoy). saba, umberto (1883–1957). Saba’s mother was abandoned by her husband before his birth; he met his father only when he was grown and refused to use his name. He took instead the name “Saba,” which in Hebrew means “bread,” in homage to his mother, who was Jewish. After World War i, he became owner of an antiquarian bookstore, both a source of income and a refuge during the depressions from which he suffered. During the Fascist

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period, because of the racial laws, he was obliged to flee to Paris and then to Florence, where Montale and other intellectuals hid him. His depressions gradually deepened, forcing him to seek almost absolute isolation. Saba was nonetheless prolific, in particular with his Canzoniere, which he worked on throughout his life, putting it through editions in 1921, 1945, and 1951. He also published Poesie (1911), Coi miei occhi (1912), Cose leggere e vaganti (1920), Preludio e Canzonette (1922), Autobiografia e I prigionieri (1924), Parole (1934), Ultime cose (1944), Mediterranee (1946), Uccelli (1950), and Uccelli— Quasi un racconto (1951). scotel l aro, ro cco (1923–1953). A militant socialist, Scotellaro was deeply interested in the rural poor of Lucania. His poetry, published posthumously, combined themes of political activism and ancestral myths of the rural poor. The first publication of Scotellaro’s poetry, È fatto giorno (1954), won the Viareggio Prize. He also wrote Margherite e rosolacci, 1941–1953 (1978). soffici, ardengo (1879–1964). After studying in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts, Soffici went to Paris in 1899, where he knew Picasso, Derain, Braque, Matisse, Apollinaire, and Jacob. Back in Italy by 1907, he became friends with Papini and Prezzolini; when they founded La Voce in 1908, he became one of its greatest contributors. With Papini, he left La Voce and founded Lacerba. He volunteered to fight during World War i and was wounded. Later he became a faithful follower of Mussolini and for that spent several months in prison after the Liberation. His futurist poetry included Bif & zf 18 and Simultaneità e chimismi lirici (1915); and his later work is contained in Marsia e Apollo (1938). Soffici wrote a four-volume autobiography and was a noted painter and art critic. ungaret ti, g iuseppe (1888–1970). Ungaretti was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and studied at the Sorbonne. While in France he met Apollinaire, Gide, Valéry, and the Italians Papini, Soffici, and Palazzeschi. In 1914 he joined the Italian army and fought in the war. Ungaretti settled in Rome in 1920, where he participated in the movement of La Ronda. Then followed a period of journalism, in which Ungaretti was a correspondent for several newspapers and travelled throughout Europe. From 1936 to 1943 he taught literature at the University of São Paolo in Brazil. After that he taught at the University of Rome. Ungaretti translated from Racine, Shakespeare, Góngora, Blake, and Mallarmé. He produced twelve books of poetry and translations of poetry: Il porto sepolto (1916 and 1923), La guerre (1919; reprinted in Derniers jours 1947), Allegria di naufragi (1919), L’allegria (1931), Sentimento del tempo (1933), Traduzioni (1936), Poesie disperse (1945), Il dolore (1947), La terra promessa (1950), Un grido e paesaggi (1952), and Il taccuino del Vecchio (1960). His entire opus was published as Vita di un uomo (1969).

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v ill aroel, g iuseppe (1889–1968). First a lawyer, Villaroel retrained and became a professor of literature, teaching in Milan from 1927 to 1943. After World War ii he moved to Rome. Villaroel wrote essays and novels but is best remembered for his poetry. He is the author of eleven books of poetry, among them La bellezza intravista (1923), Ingresso nella notte (1943), L’uomo e Dio (1951), and Quasi vento d’aprile (1956). zanzot to, andrea (1921–). Zanzotto served in the war and afterwards worked in Switzerland, then taught middle school in Treviso. His poetry includes Dietro il paesaggio (1951), Vocativo (1957), IX Ecloghe (1962), La Beltà (1968), Gli sguardi i fatti e senhal (1969), Pasque (1973), Filò (1976), Il Galateo in bosca (1978, winner of the Viareggio Prize), Fosfeni (1983), Idioma (1986), and Meteo (1996). He has translated Balzac and Bataille.

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Select Bibliography

Barnard, Mary, trans. Sappho, A New Translation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958. Burnshaw, Stanley, ed. The Poem Itself. New York: Horizon Press, 1981. Howard, Maureen. “Foreword,” in Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt, 1981. Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Selected Writings of Salvatore Quasimodo. New York: Minerva, 1968. Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

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