Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba

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Songbook: The
Selected Poems
of Umberto Saba
U M B E RTO SA BA
TRANSLATED BY GEORGE HOCHFIELD
AND LEONARD NATHAN
INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND COMMENTARY
BY GEORGE HOCHFIELD
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
E NEW HAVEN & LONDON
A M A RG E L LO S
WORLD REPUBLIC OF LETTERS BOOK
The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works
from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the
English-speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists,
philosophers, and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East, to stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.
Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.
Copyright ∫ 2008 by George Hochfield.
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part,
including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections
107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public
press), without written permission from the publishers.
Selections from Poesie Scelte di Umberto Saba ∫ 2002 Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore SpA, Milano, are reprinted with permission from the publisher.
Set in Electra type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Saba, Umberto, 1883–1957.
[Selections. English. 2008]
Songbook : the selected poems of Umberto Saba / translated by George
Hochfield and Leonard Nathan ; introduction, notes, and commentary by George
Hochfield.
p.
cm. — (A Margellos world republic of letters book)
isbn 978-0-300-13603-6 (clothbound : alk. paper)
I. Hochfield, George. II. Nathan, Leonard, 1924– III. Title.
pq4841.a18a2 2008
808.8—dc22
2008017685
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of
Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
Leonard Nathan
1924–2007
To us will be
vouchsafed a poor vision
of things as they almost are:
a plumed egret westering
like an omen but only
of itself alone.
Or
if we are very lucky,
a few nacreous moments
prised open like the shell
of an oyster or the sudden
silver spasm of a trout.
—from ‘‘Fishing,’’ Restarting the World
CONTENTS
Introduction
xxi
Volume Primo (Volume One), 1900–1920
Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili (Poems of Adolescence and
Youth), 1900–1907
Ammonizione (The Admonition) 4
La casa della mia nutrice (My Wet Nurse’s
House) 6
Sonetto di primavera (Spring Sonnet) 8
Glauco (Glauco) 10
A mamma (To Mamma) 12
Meditazione (Meditation) 20
Il sogno di un coscritto (The Conscript’s Dream) 24
Versi militari (Military Verses), Salerno, 12th Infantry, 1908
Durante una marcia (During a March) 30
1. Because the soldier who doesn’t go to war 31
2. And yet I don’t dislike this hard 33
3. And if I sometimes suffer from this hard 35
6. And I will tell you, when the days 37
7. Lost, swallowed in a darkness that is 39
Ordine sparso (Single File) 40
1. When I crouch, firing, deep in the woods, 41
2. The animals, for whom it’s home, and bed, 43
vii
viii Contents
Bersaglio (The Target) 44
Dopo il silenzio (After Taps) 46
Consolazione (Consolation) 48
Scherzo (The Joke) 50
Di ronda alla spiaggia (Guard Duty on the Beach)
52
Casa e campagna (House and Countryside), 1909–1910
L’arboscello (The Sapling) 56
A mia moglie (To My Wife) 58
L’insonnia in una notte d’estate (Insomnia on a Summer
Night) 66
La capra (The Goat) 70
A mia figlia (To My Daughter) 72
Trieste e una donna (Trieste and a Woman), 1910–1912
L’autunno (Autumn) 76
Il torrente (The Stream) 78
Trieste (Trieste) 82
Verso casa (Toward Home) 84
Città vecchia (Old Town) 86
L’appassionata (The Passionate Woman) 88
La bugiarda (The Liar) 90
La fanciulla (The Girl) 94
Dopo la tristezza (After Sadness) 96
Tre vie (Three Streets) 98
L’ora nostra (Our Hour) 102
Il giovanetto (The Youth) 104
Il poeta (The Poet) 106
Il pomeriggio (The Afternoon) 108
Il bel pensiero (The Beautiful Thought) 110
La moglie (The Wife) 112
La malinconia amorosa (The Pathos of Love) 116
Contents ix
Il fanciullo appassionato (The Boy Enthralled) 120
Dopo una passeggiata (After a Walk) 124
Più soli (Most Alone) 126
Nuovi versi alla Lina (New Poems to Lina) 128
1. A woman! And to forget her again 129
3. If after labored nights I rise 131
7. For how many nights have I lain without sleep 133
9. I dreamed, and I will tell you the memory 135
12. Whom does she harm, the poor chanteuse? 137
14. I say: ‘‘I’m rotten . . . ,’’ and you: ‘‘If you really love me,
139
All’anima mia (To My Soul) 140
L’ultima tenerezza (The Ultimate Tenderness) 142
La solitudine (Solitude) 148
La serena disperazione (Serene Despair), 1913–1915
Il garzone con la carriola (The Shop-boy with the
Wheelbarrow) 152
Un ricordo (A Memory) 154
La ritirata in Piazza Aldrovandi a Bologna (Sounding the
Retreat in Piazza Aldrovandi in Bologna) 156
Guido (Guido) 158
Caffè Tergeste (Caffè Tergeste) 164
Il ciabattino (The Cobbler) 166
De profundis (De Profundis) 168
Poesie scritte durante la guerra (Poems Written in Wartime)
La stazione (The Station) 172
Milano 1917 (Milan 1917) 174
Sognavo, al suol prostrato... (Prostrate on the Ground, I
Dreamed . . .) 176
Partenza d’aeroplani (Airplanes Taking Off ) 178
x Contents
Tre poesie fuori luogo (Three Poems Out of Place)
L’egoista (The Egoist) 182
Cose leggere e vaganti (Light and Airy Things), 1920
Favoletta alla mia bambina (A Bedtime Story for My Baby
Daughter) 186
Favoletta (Nursery Rhyme) 188
Fanciulli al bagno (Boys on the Beach) 190
Paolina (Paolina) 192
L’ultimo amore (The Last Love) 196
Dopo un mese (After a Month) 198
Mezzogiorno d’inverno (Winter Noon) 200
La schiava (The Slave) 202
Forse un giorno diranno (Perhaps One Day They Will Say)
204
Commiato (Envoi) 206
L’amorosa spina (The Loving Thorn), 1920
1. At the bottom of my thoughts in these 211
4. I feel, my girl, I feel that for me, who loves 213
8. Let me kneel before you in adoration, 215
12. I know a more than human sweetness 217
In riva al mare (By the Sea) 218
Volume Secondo (Volume Two), 1921–1932
Preludio e canzonette (Prelude and Canzonettas), 1922–1923
Il canto di un mattino (The Morning Song) 224
Canzonetta 1 La malinconia (Melancholy) 228
Canzonetta 6 Chiaretta in villeggiatura (Chiaretta on
Vacation) 232
Contents xi
Canzonetta 8 L’incisore (The Engraver)
Canzonetta 9 Chiaretta 244
Finale (Finale) 250
238
Autobiografia (Autobiography), 1924
1. My unhappy youth was spent with 255
2. Alone, at night, in her deserted bed, 257
3. My father had been ‘‘the assassin’’ to me 259
4. My childhood was poor and blessed 261
5. But my guardian angel flew away, 263
6. At that time I had a friend; I wrote 265
7. It was already time to love; the dawn 267
8. So I dreamed, and in the sky the evening 269
9. To have an irresistible thought night and day, 271
10. I was living then in Florence, and once 273
11. It was among my soldiers that I found myself. 275
12. And I could love again, and it was Lina 277
13. I was with her when my book came out, 279
14. With the war I was an infantryman again. 281
15. A curious antiquarian shop 283
I prigioni (The Prisoners), 1924
Il beato (The Blessed One)
286
Fanciulle (Girls), 1925
1. Standing naked, hands behind 291
3. She who approaches me has 293
5. This is the woman who used to sew 295
11. How could she be left out of the final 297
12. I don’t believe in woman. I mean 299
xii Contents
Cuor morituro (The Dying Heart), 1925–1930
Sonetto di paradiso (Sonnet on Paradise) 302
La vetrina (The Glass Cabinet) 304
La brama (Desire) 310
Il borgo (The Suburb) 320
Girotondo (Ring around the Roses) 328
Eros (Eros) 332
Preghiera per una fanciulla povera (Prayer for a Poor Girl)
334
Preghiera alla madre (Prayer to His Mother) 336
Preludio e fughe (Prelude and Fugues), 1928–1929
Preludio (Prelude) 342
Prima fuga (First Fugue) 344
Seconda fuga (Second Fugue) 350
Prima congedo (First Leave-taking) 352
Seconda congedo (Second Leave-taking) 354
Il piccolo Berto (Little Berto), 1929–1931
Tre poesie alla mia balia (Three Poems to My Wet Nurse)
358
1. My daughter 359
2. Sleepless 361
3. . . . A cry 363
Cucina economica (A Cheap Diner) 364
Il carretto del gelato (The Ice Cream Cart) 366
Il figlio della Peppa (Peppa’s Boy) 370
Partenza e ritorno (Departure and Return) 374
Eroica (Heroism) 378
Appunti (Notes) 380
Congedo (Leave-taking) 382
Contents xiii
Volume Terzo (Volume Three), 1933–1954
Parole (Words), 1933–1934
Parole (Words) 388
Neve (Snow) 390
Ceneri (Ashes) 392
Primavera (Spring) 396
Distacco (Departure) 398
Confine (Boundary) 400
Ulisse (Ulysses) 402
Cuore (Heart) 404
Inverno (Winter) 406
Poesia (Poetry) 408
Stella (Star) 410
Felicità (Happiness) 412
Tre città (Three Cities) 414
1. Milano (Milan) 414
2. Torino (Turin) 416
3. Firenze (Florence) 418
Nutrice (Wet Nurse) 420
Sobborgo (Suburb) 422
Alba (Dawn) 424
Donna (Woman) 426
Lago (Lake) 428
Ultime cose (Last Things), 1935–1943
Lavoro (Work) 432
Bocca (Mouth) 434
Caro luogo (Dear Place) 436
Partita (Game) 438
Notte d’estate (Summer Night) 440
xiv Contents
Da quando (Since) 442
Contovello (Contovello) 444
Quando il pensiero (When the Thought) 446
Sera di febbraio (February Evening) 448
Il vetro rotto (The Broken Window) 450
Ultimi versi a Lina (Last Verses to Lina) 452
C’era (There Was) 454
Luciana (Luciana) 456
Una notte (One Night) 458
Porto (Port) 460
Campionessa di nuoto (Champion Swimmer) 462
1944
Avevo (I Had) 466
Teatro degli artigianelli (The Artisans’ Theater)
Varie (Miscellany)
Privilegio (Privilege) 476
La visita (The Visit) 478
Mediterranee (Mediterranean), 1945–1946
Amai (I Loved) 484
Mediterranea (Mediterranea) 486
Amore (Love) 488
Ebbri canti (Drunken Songs) 490
Ulisse (Ulysses) 492
Epigrafe (Epigraphs), 1947–1948
Per una favola nuova (For a New Fable)
Epigrafe (Epigraph) 498
496
472
Contents xv
Uccelli (Birds), 1948
Cielo (Sky) 502
L’ornitologo pietoso (The Compassionate Ornithologist)
504
Il fanciullo e l’averla (The Boy and the Shrike) 506
Passeri (Sparrows) 508
Merlo (Blackbird) 510
Nietzsche (Nietzsche) 512
Sei poesie della vecchiaia (Six Poems of Old Age), 1953–1954
L’uomo e gli animali (Of Man and the Animals) 516
Il poeta e il conformista (The Poet and the Conformist)
518
I vecchi (The Old Men) 520
Ultima (The Last) 522
Appendix: ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’
Chronology 533
Texts, Notes, and Commentary 537
525
INTRODUCTION
Almost simultaneously with the publication of his first book of
poems early in 1911, Umberto Saba, twenty-eight years old, wrote an
essay setting forth with passionate earnestness his ideas about the nature and purposes of poetry. Manifestoes were in the air; the Futurist
cry of ‘‘Death to the past!’’ had already been heard, and the feeling was
widespread that Italian poetry was in need of renovation. But to the
discussion of this subject, Saba’s essay made no contribution whatever.
It was turned down at La Voce, a literary review of some distinction, by
one of the editors, Scipio Slataper, a friend of Saba’s and fellow Triestine. The hurt of this rejection must have been profound, for Saba put
the essay away and it remained unpublished during his lifetime. The
memory was still sore in the early 1920s when he composed his ‘‘Autobiography,’’ the tenth poem of which recalls that
Giovanni Papini and the group
around La Voce never liked me much.
Among them I was from an alien species.
If the essay ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’ (see the appendix) had
no public influence, it nevertheless tells us a great deal about what
Saba was striving for in his poetry, and by that means it may ultimately
have accomplished something of what he originally intended. Saba’s
poetry was unique and peculiar in his time. Although distinctly modern, it was not recognizably ‘‘modernist,’’ as, let us say, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s and Eugenio Montale’s were ‘‘modernist.’’ Saba complained
frequently and bitterly that he was dismissed, not taken seriously, be-
xxi
xxii Introduction
cause of the absence of a modernist signature. His poetry was not
cerebral or abstract; it did not mystify at first reading but seemed to
offer itself to the reader without difficulty, more or less familiar in
language and outlook. Indeed, Saba said of himself that ‘‘formally’’ he
was the ‘‘least revolutionary of poets. . . . Something deep in his nature
needed to rest upon what was most solid and secure [meaning the
traditions of Italian poetry] before setting out to the conquest of himself.’’ Yet the apparent familiarity and apparent lack of difficulty were
in the end perfectly compatible with self-conquest—the condition, as
he says in the essay, of the only genuine originality.
Honest Poets
‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’ is an ingenuous piece of writing. Saba
was evidently carried away by the urgency and importance of his
message, which was, as he said in his covering letter to Slataper, ‘‘a
method of work and a program of life, apart from which I do not see any
hope for the salvation of poetry in verse.’’ A state of mind so possessed
was in no condition to make careful definitions and precise distinctions. Saba rushed into his exposition by almost immediately confusing
its two most important elements. ‘‘It remains for poets to write honest
poetry,’’ he says in what appears to be a subtitle or statement of theme,
and then he proceeds to differentiate ‘‘honest’’ poetry from its opposite
by naming two poets, Alessandro Manzoni and Gabriele d’Annunzio,
as representatives of honesty and dishonesty in poetry.
Where, then, are the qualities of honesty or dishonesty to be found,
in the poets or in their poems? If in both, as seems most likely, how are
they to be distinguished? What are they, in fact—what makes a poem
or poet ‘‘honest’’ or ‘‘dishonest’’? Saba seems to have no hesitation over
these questions, but that does not make the terms any clearer.
The first part of his essay, focusing on the contrast between Manzoni and d’Annunzio, actually gives a strong indication of the direction of Saba’s thought. The crucial difference between the two, he
Introduction xxiii
says, is that Manzoni writes ‘‘no word that does not perfectly correspond to his vision,’’ whereas d’Annunzio fabricates a vision, he ‘‘exaggerates or actually pretends to passions and admirations that have
never been part of his temperament.’’ Thus there is a crucial moral
component inherent in the poet’s creative gesture. His vision—whatever that may be—must be truthfully represented. His ‘‘passions and
admirations’’ are direct expressions of his character, and to falsify them
is to misrepresent himself, which results inevitably in dishonest poetry.
Beyond such truthfulness, moreover, the honest poet in Saba’s
view takes upon himself a commitment of virtually heroic proportions. For one thing, he must be absolutely selfless; no ulterior motives
are allowed the poet. He must not hope for honors or rewards, nor
even aspire to originality, for originality must come of itself as a byproduct of honesty. And ‘‘This honesty is possible only for one who has
the religion of art and loves it for itself, not in the hope of fame.’’ Poetry
is thus a ‘‘discipline,’’ a virtually ascetic way of life for the sake of which
the poet surrenders all worldly ambitions and desires.
So the young Saba takes a vow in the writing of this essay. He does
not claim to fit the rather extravagant description just given of the
honest poet, but clearly it is a model for him. He intends to assume the
‘‘program of life’’ that is the only ‘‘hope for the salvation of poetry.’’
What will he do? Most particularly, what kind of poetry will he write?
The answer must obviously be: honest poetry.
Honest Poetry
Saba gives one example from his own experience of the pursuit of
honest poetry (he does not claim to have achieved it). In the third
section of ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do,’’ he gives three versions of
the opening lines of a poem that came to him as a result of a dream
and then seeing himself in a mirror. The first compares the dream to
‘‘a fearsome God’’; the second, to ‘‘a judge’’; and the third, to ‘‘a
mirror.’’ After which the poet ‘‘breathed,’’ evidently in relief at having
xxiv Introduction
found what truly corresponded to his vision. This process is not easy to
explain; Saba seems to have thought it self-evident. The earlier language was perhaps grandiloquent; it strove for more significance than
the author could vouch for. But why is the ‘‘mirror’’ more honest? It
would seem that the mind of the poet is activated at a certain moment;
it realizes an insight or grasps a relationship. That is what Saba calls
‘‘vision.’’ The words for this vision must perfectly express it, no more,
no less. The poet knows what is right, though he may be misled by
ambition or laziness or a variety of extraneous factors. There is a
benchmark of some sort in his head, an intuitive measure of exactitude and relevance, of honesty, in other words. Perhaps it is innate;
perhaps it is imparted by the vision itself, or it is the residue of the
poet’s experience with language. In any case, every good poem is the
successful outcome of a struggle against the temptations to dishonesty.
But honest poetry involves somewhat more than aversion to excess
or superficiality. If one examines Saba’s poetry, especially the earlier
work from the beginning to, let’s say, The Dying Heart, one finds a
persistent element of ‘‘realism’’ in it, by which I mean a conscious and
deliberate use of ordinary experience: the events and places and people and objects of daily life. More particularly, they belong to the daily
life of the poet. He is immersed in them and they are his reality; they
help to convey the truth of his vision and are guarantors of his being in
the real world, not one of fantasy or mere language. This idea is so
important to him that he writes a curious poem in honor of ‘‘things,’’
the objects of daily life. In the early ‘‘Meditation,’’ he chastises his
fellow men for their
little regard for things.
Your lamp, your bed, your house
seem trivial to you; they seem
worthless, since when you were born there
was already fire, there were the blanket and the cradle
for sleeping, and, to put you to sleep, the song.
Introduction xxv
All these things are precious, won for civilized life through ages of
suffering. To think of them gives ‘‘joy,’’ Saba says, and they deserve to
be remembered and appreciated, not carelessly thrown on the ‘‘garbage heap.’’
Of course, persons and places are a more important content for
poetry than objects. The reader of The Songbook soon discovers that
he or she is caught up in Saba’s life: his childhood friends, his fellow
recruits in military service, his lover who becomes his wife, his child,
and most of all his own self, the problematic person for whom poetry is
the soul of life.
Autobiography
The organization of The Songbook is unique. It consists of groups of
poems previously published, with dates referring to the time of each
group’s composition. Saba does not appear to have had such an organization in mind when he first started publishing, but as the work
accumulated, he began to think of it as forming a related sequence,
and to his collection of 1921, with its ten groups of poems in chronological order, he gave the title Songbook (Canzoniere), which implied a
certain coherence among the parts.
The coherence is obviously derived from the stages of Saba’s life. It
was the imperative of ‘‘honest poetry,’’ I believe, that gave Saba the
initial impulse to the ‘‘autobiographism’’ (autobiografismo) that distinguished his poetry. Other factors certainly played their part. Saba, who
thought that egocentrism was part of human nature, and that poets
were unusually egocentric, and that he was more egocentric than
most poets, found this a readily available, and probably true, explanation for the self-reference of his work. And, as the critic Joseph Cary
pointed out, he was ‘‘a poor inventor.’’ When Saba tried to write directly out of his head, to make things up, he was almost invariably
unsuccessful. He was a ‘‘concrete artist,’’ he thought, and his own
experience was necessary to him to provide the genuine material of his
xxvi Introduction
vision. The harder he tried for exactitude and truthfulness in translating experience into poems, the more authoritative was his voice and
impressive his achievement.
Not that the autobiography in Saba’s poems meets the standards of
contemporary confessional autobiography. If one tried to compose a
life of the poet from what he reveals in his poems, the result would be
sketchy at best. But Saba was unconventional enough in the context of
his age to make his ‘‘autobiographism’’ a matter of some originality as
well as controversy. It seemed to many of his readers private, ordinary,
merely personal stuff. Could the mundane aspects of a writer’s life be
made into the ingredients of poetry? With respect to such questions,
Saba made a wise observation in the History and Chronicle of the
Songbook: ‘‘Where inner necessity is present, anything can be said, in
poetry as in prose; [to] limit poetry to the expression of certain ‘moments’ (even the most luminous) was one of the errors born of the
time’s distrust and exhaustion, and every extreme of ‘refinement’
ends—in art as in life—in an extreme of impoverishment’’ (Tutte le
prose, 207).
Furthermore, to convey the concrete matter of his life, Saba gradually evolved ‘‘a new way of making poems’’ (in the words of the critic
Giovanni Titta Rosa quoted by Saba). ‘‘The novelty,’’ Saba goes on,
‘‘consisted in simplicity of speech, in the quiet tone of the words, in
the absence of ‘stilts,’ ’’ and the refusal to overdo or falsify anything.
And then, to conclude this attempted definition of his uniqueness,
Saba adds an eloquent and simple sentence: ‘‘The poetry of Saba is
born not of a reaction but from the affirmation of a new personality,
appearing at the extreme confines of the fatherland at a difficult moment of our literature’’ (Tutte le prose, 132).
Introduction xxvii
Dolore
The reader of English, possibly taken aback by the frequency with
which suffering and pain are alluded to in Saba’s poetry, if he or she
turns to the original Italian, may be struck by the recurrence of the
word dolore. It means ‘‘pain’’ primarily, but also ‘‘grief ’’ and ‘‘sorrow’’
and ‘‘sadness,’’ and it is accompanied in many poems by such close
relatives as soffrire, male, tristezza, and others. This is another side of
Saba’s autobiographism, and it is sufficiently important in his work to
require comment. The causes of dolore are many and unusually varied. He is different from other boys, he tells his mother; his cradle was
made from strange wood. At a certain period in his youth he suffers
from an obsessive thought that brings on a nervous crisis: ‘‘I am ill with
neurasthenia,’’ he writes to a friend, ‘‘and must have complete rest for 3
months. I can’t tell you . . . how I suffer, for it may be that no other
human creature has suffered like me. I can’t sleep or think or love; any
memory of the past, any hope for the future plunges me into such a
state of prostration that I have to call for help and always end up
fainting. Often I think I’m going mad, the very word horrifies me’’
(Tutte le poesie, lxxv). And there is the pain of desire, and the pain of
rejection; the constraint of marriage and the fear of betrayal. There are
loneliness, Jewishness, a feeling of exclusion, of failure, the torment of
consciousness that set him apart.
And yet all these, so far as the poetry is concerned, are inadequate
as explanations. There is something underlying them, a deeper reality,
a suffering that is coincident with life, the very ground note of existence. This is not a common theme in English or American poetry,
but it is there in the Italian tradition, and nowhere with greater profundity and conviction than in the work of Giacomo Leopardi, the great
master of nineteenth-century Italian poetry. Saba considered himself
an heir of Leopardi, in whom he found both inspiration and confirmation of his own outlook. He was not, by far, Leopardi’s philosophic
xxviii Introduction
equal, but he knew instinctively what Leopardi meant by the necessity
of unhappiness. He brought this awareness into his own sphere of
private life and common experience and, as did Leopardi, he made it a
source of interest and even pleasure with his art. He says in a late poem
from Last Things (‘‘February Evening’’) it’s the thought / of death, after
all, that helps one live.’’ He might have added: And the thought of
suffering that helps one sing.
G. H.
4 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907
AMMONIZIONE
Che fai nel ciel sereno
bel nuvolo rosato,
acceso e vagheggiato
dall’aurora del dì?
Cangi tue forme e perdi
quel fuoco veleggiando;
ti spezzi e, dileguando,
ammonisci così:
Tu pure, o baldo giovane,
cui suonan liete l’ore,
cui dolci sogni e amore
nascondono l’avel,
scolorerai, chiudendo
le azzurre luci, un giorno;
mai più vedrai d’intorno
gli amici e il patrio ciel.
Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 5
THE ADMONITION
What are you doing in the serene
dawn sky, beautiful
rose-red cloud, aflame
and lovingly gazed at?
You change your shape and
floating, lose that fire;
you dissolve, and fading,
admonish me thus:
You, too, o brave youth,
for whom the hours joyously sound,
for whom sweet dreams and love
hide the tomb,
you will fade one day,
the azure lights gone out,
no more to see around you
friends and native sky.
LA CASA DELLA MIA NUTRICE
La casa della mia nutrice posa
tacita in faccia alla Cappella antica,
ed al basso riguarda, e par pensosa,
da una collina alle caprette amica.
La città dove nacqui popolosa
scopri da lei per la finestra aprica;
anche hai la vista del mar dilettosa
e di campagne grate alla fatica.
Qui—mi sovviene—nell’età primiera,
del vecchio camposanto fra le croci,
giocavo ignaro sul far della sera.
A Dio innalzavo l’anima serena;
e dalla casa un suon di care voci
mi giungeva, e l’odore della cena.
MY WET NURSE’S HOUSE
My nurse’s house stands peacefully
facing the old Chapel and looks down
as if in thought on a hillside
friendly to the goats below.
From an open window you can catch
sight of the populous city where I was born
and have a pleasing vista of the sea
and of the fields grateful for hard labor.
Here—I remember—in my earliest years
I played unthinking among the crosses
in the old graveyard as evening fell.
To God I offered up a serene spirit,
and from the house a sound of dear voices
reached me, and the smell of supper.
S O N E T T O D I P R I M AV E R A
Città paesi e culmini lontani
sorridon lieti al sol di primavera.
Torna serena la natia riviera.
Sono pieni di canti il mare e i piani.
Io solo qui di desideri vani
t’esalto, mia inesperta anima altera;
poi stanco mi riduco in sulla sera
alla mia stanza, e incerto del domani.
Là seggo sovra il bianco letticciolo,
e ripenso a un’età già tramontata,
a un amor che mi strugge, all’avvenire.
E se nell’ombra odo la voce amata
di mia madre appressarsi e poi morire,
spesso col pianto vo addolcendo il duolo.
SPRING SONNET
Cities, towns, and far-off summits
smile with pleasure at the springtime sun.
My native coast is calm again.
The sea and fields are full of songs.
Alone here, I exalt you with vain desires,
my spirit, proud and still untested;
then, weary and uncertain of tomorrow,
I return at evening to my room.
I sit there on the narrow white bed
and think about a time already past,
a love that consumes me, and of the future.
And if in darkness I hear the beloved voice
of my mother approach and then die away,
I often ease my grief with tears.
GLAUCO
Glauco, un fanciullo dalla chioma bionda,
dal bel vestito di marinaretto,
e dall’occhio sereno, con gioconda
voce mi disse, nel natio dialetto:
Umberto, ma perché senza un diletto
tu consumi la vita, e par nasconda
un dolore o un mistero ogni tuo detto?
Perché non vieni con me sulla sponda
del mare, che in sue azzurre onde c’invita?
Qual è il pensiero che non dici, ascoso,
e che da noi, così a un tratto, t’invola?
Tu non sai come sia dolce la vita
agli amici che fuggi, e come vola
a me il mio tempo, allegro e immaginoso.
GLAUCO
Glauco, a boy with yellow locks,
cool eyes, and dressed in a
handsome sailor suit, cheerfully
said to me in the local dialect:
Umberto, why do you waste your life
away, without a pleasure, and seem to hide
a grief or mystery in all you say?
Why don’t you come with me to the beach
that beckons us to its blue waves?
What is the thought, unspoken and secret,
that suddenly steals you from us?
You don’t know how sweet life is
to the friends you shun, and how time
flies for me, happy and fancy free.
A MAMMA
Mamma, c’è un tedio oggi, una sottile
malinconia, che dalle cose in ogni
vita s’insinua, e fa umili i sogni
dell’uomo che il suo mondo ha nel suo cuore.
Mamma, ritornerà oggi all’amore
tuo, chi un dì l’ebbe a vile?
Chi è solo con il suo solo dolore?
Ed è un giorno di festa, oggi. La via
nera è tutta di gente, ben che il cielo
sia coperto, ed un vento aspro allo stelo
rubi il giovane fiore, e in onde gonfi
le gialle acque del fiume.
Passeggiano i borghesi lungo il fiume
torbido, con violacee ombre di ponti.
Sta la neve sui monti
ceruli ancora; ed il mio cuore, mamma,
strugge, vagante fiamma
nei dì festivi, la malinconia.
E tu pur, mamma, la domenicale
passeggiata riguardi dall’aperta
finestra, nella tua casa deserta
di me, deserta per te d’ogni bene.
Guardi le donne, gli operai (quel bene,
mamma, non scordi) gli operai che i panni
TO MAMMA
Mamma, the day is tedious, and a subtle
melancholy steals in from things
in every life and humbles the dreams
of the man whose world is in his heart.
Mamma, will he return to your love today
who once held it so cheaply?
Who is alone with his own pain?
And today is a holiday. The street
is black with people though the sky
is overcast, and a harsh wind steals
young flowers from their stalks, swells
in waves the yellow waters of the river.
The townsfolk walk beside the turbid
stream with its purplish shadows of bridges.
Snow still lies on the blue
mountains, and my heart, Mamma,
a wandering flame among these
festive days, is consumed by melancholy.
And you, too, Mamma, watch the
Sunday promenade from the open
window of your house, abandoned
by me, emptied of every comfort for you.
You see the women, the workers (good folk,
Mamma, don’t forget), whose everyday
d’ogni giorno, pur tanto utili e belli,
oggi a gara lasciati hanno per quelli
delle feste, sì nuovi in vista e falsi.
Ma tu, mamma, non sai che sono falsi.
Tu non vedi la luce che io vedo.
Altra fede ti regge, che non credo
più, che credevo nella puerizia,
mamma, nella remota puerizia.
Guardi fanciulli con nudi i ginocchi
forti, con nuove in attoniti occhi
voglie, che tra i sudati
giochi nacquero a un tratto in cuore ai più.
Escono a stormi, vociano, ed il più
alto con gesta tra di bimbo e d’uomo.
Una giovane passa; ecco, le han dato
del gomito nel gomito.
Irosa ella si volge, e in cor perdona.
Quello addietro rimasto la persona
piega, che un fonte
vide, e di fonte
acqua non costa alla sua sete nulla.
Mamma, non io così, mai. La mia culla
io la penso tagliata in strano legno.
Tese l’animo mio sempre ad un segno
cui non tesero i miei dolci compagni.
Mamma, è forse di questo che tu piangi
sempre là nella tua casa deserta?
clothes, however useful and handsome,
are put aside today in the rivalry of
holiday apparel, so new-seeming and false.
But you, Mamma, don’t know that they are false.
You do not see the light I see.
A different faith sustains you that I
no longer believe, that I believed in childhood,
Mamma, in my remote childhood.
You look at boys with bare, strong knees,
in whose astonished eyes are new desires,
suddenly born in their hearts
during sweaty games.
They come in swarms, yelling; the tallest
with gestures between child and man.
A girl passes, see how they nudge
her elbow with an elbow. Angrily
she turns away but pardons them
in her heart. One has stayed behind
who saw a fountain, he bends over it,
and its water costs him nothing.
Mamma, I never was like that. I think
my cradle was cut from a different wood.
My spirit always yearned for a sign
that my gentle friends did not yearn for.
Mamma, is it perhaps for this that you
always cry, there in your empty house?
Lacrimi ancora; e dalla non più aperta
finestra, con la sera
entra delle campane, entra il profondo
suono, il preludio della dolce notte,
d’un’insonne per te, gelida notte.
Ad ogni tocco più verso la notte
è roteato il mondo.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Mamma, il tempo che fugge
t’ansia; e l’ansia che impera
nel tuo cuore c’è, forse, anche nel mio;
c’è, pur latente, il male che ti strugge;
son le tue cure in me domenicali
malinconie.
Lente lente ora sfollano le vie
nella sera di festa, e verdi e rossi
accendono fanali le osterie
di campagna. È una strana sera, mamma,
una che certo affanna
i cuori come il tuo soli ed amanti,
sugli ultimi mari i naviganti,
dentro l’orride celle i prigonieri.
Canterellando scendono i sentieri
del borgo i cittadini,
torna dolce al fanciullo la sua casa;
.
You weep still, and through the closed window
comes the deep sound
of evening bells,
a prelude to the quiet night,
for you a sleepless, icy night.
At every peal the earth has turned
nearer toward the night.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Mamma, the flight of time
makes you anxious, and the anxiety that rules
your heart is, perhaps, also in mine;
there is a latent misery that eats at you:
your cares for my Sunday
fits of melancholy.
Now slowly, slowly the streets empty
in the holiday evening, and the country inns
are lighting green and red lanterns.
It is a strange evening, Mamma,
one that surely troubles
hearts like yours, lonely and loving,
of sailors on the most distant seas,
of prisoners in their horrid cells.
Now the townsfolk singing
descend the district’s paths,
the youth returns quietly to his home,
.
ed il mistero ond’è la vita invasa
tu con preghiere esprimi.
Mamma, il tempo che fugge
cure con cure alterna; ma in chi sugge
il latte e in chi denuda la mammella
c’è un sangue solo per la vita bella.
and the mystery by which life is invaded
you express with prayers.
Mamma, the time that rushes on
brings care after care, but in he
who sucks the milk and she who bares her breast
there is but one blood for beautiful life.
30 Versi militari, 1908
DURANTE UNA MARCIA
1
Poi che il soldato che non va alla guerra
invecchia come donna senz’amore,
questo vorremmo: la certezza in cuore
di vincere, ed andar di terra in terra.
Qui andiamo sì, ma a tanta nostra guerra
manca il nemico che ci miri al cuore,
manca la morte che il fuggiasco atterra,
manca la gloria per cui ben si muore.
Son brutte facce intorno a me, e sudori.
Guardo il compagno: mezza lingua fuori
gli pende, come a macellato bue.
O canta, Carmen, le bellezze tue,
le lodi in coro della tua persona.
Il cielo, senza mai piovere, tuona.
Military Verses, 1908 31
DURING A MARCH
1
Because the soldier who doesn’t go to war
ages like an unloved woman, this is what
we crave: certain victory, and to march
in triumph from land to land.
We march here, true, but in all our warfare
the enemy is missing who aims at the heart,
death is missing that strikes down the deserter,
glory is missing for him who bravely dies.
All around me are ugly, sweaty faces.
I look at my comrade: his tongue lolls
half out like that of a slaughtered ox.
O he sings, Carmen, of your beauty,
the praises in chorus of your person.
The heavens thunder, rain never comes.
2
Pure a me non dispiace ancor quest’urto
soldatesco, quel cielo arroventato,
i colloqui col mio vicino armato.
Gli chiedo: «A casa, ove il lavoro frutta;
a casa, dove certo hai la tua tutta
bella, ci andresti, anche così aggravato,
a piedi, con lo zaino affardellato,
vivendo d’elemosina e di furto?»
Egli mi guarda, e mi lascia parlare.
«Non è al paese che frutta il lavoro,
ma più giù nell’Americhe lontane;
dove c’è tanto vino e tanto pane,
tanto oro per chi sa lavorare.
In America sì, vorrebbe andare.»
2
And yet I don’t dislike this hard
soldiering, that fiery sky,
and chatting with my armed companion.
I ask him, ‘‘At home, where you’re paid for work,
where you surely have a sweetheart,
would you go there now, loaded down
like this, on foot, your knapsack crammed,
making your way on charity and theft?’’
He looks at me and lets me go on talking.
‘‘You don’t get paid for working in the village,
but farther off, in faraway America,
where there’s lots of wine and bread,
lots of gold for whoever wants to work.
To America, yes, that’s where I’d like to go.’’
3
Ed io, se a volte di sì aspra vita
soffro, che i sensi ne son tutti offesi;
credi, non è la gravezza dei pesi,
è l’inutilità della fatica.
E tu questo lo sai, mia bella amica;
sai come in breve a consolarmi appresi.
Lina cui poco detti e molto chiesi
penso, e rinnovo la querela antica.
«Saperti amante e non poterti avere,
star lontano da te quando in cor m’ardi,
aver la lingua e non poter parlare,
udir quest’acqua e non chinarsi a bere,
correre in riga quando a lenti e tardi
passi vorrei pensosamente andare.»
3
And if I sometimes suffer from this hard
a life that all my senses ache,
believe me, it’s not the load I carry,
but that the effort is so pointless.
And you know all this, my beautiful friend,
you know how quickly to give me comfort.
Lina, to whom, I think, I said little and asked much,
I bring up again the old complaint.
‘‘To know you as a lover, and not to have you,
to be far from you, when my heart’s on fire,
to have a tongue and be unable to speak,
to hear this water and not kneel down to drink,
to run in close formation when I would like
to walk slowly and lost in thought.’’
6
E ti raconterò, quando lontani
saranno i giorni che n’ero malato,
tutti i mostri di cui m’ha liberato
l’anima il sol che m’arrossò le mani.
Dirò: Per monti e polverosi piani
sotto quali mai pesi ho faticato!
Credevo non tornare e son tornato.
Sono tornato per partir domani.
Per mio diletto andrò di monte in valle.
Zaino mai più mi graverà le spalle.
O Signor mio, non è orribile questo?
Foglia caduta cui non torna il verde,
nello spazio e nel tempo ogni mio gesto,
ogni fatica mia, ecco, si perde.
6
And I will tell you, when the days
are long past that sickened me,
of all the monsters freed from my soul
by the sun that reddened my hands.
I will say: Over mountains and dusty plains
under what loads I labored!
I thought I wouldn’t come back and I came back.
I came back to go out again the next day.
For my pleasure I will go from mountain to valley.
A knapsack will never weigh me down.
O my Lord, isn’t this a horrible thing?
A fallen leaf does not turn green again;
every act of mine in space or in time,
every effort—like that!—is lost.
7
Si perde profondando entro un uguale
buio. Di tutta la pena sofferta
l’accesa faccia emergerà, l’aperta
bocca, il fiero accennar d’un caporale.
Fin che già vecchio, nell’ultimo male,
della febbre alla tetra luce incerta,
andrò salendo una terribil’erta,
per scendere di corsa un bel viale.
Giacerò nello sfatto letto, e fuoco,
farò fuoco sui monti nell’aurora
coi fantaccini del tempo d’allora.
Sfuggiranno tra il verde, curvi un poco.
Io nel delirio qualche nome ancora
ricorderò, qualche guerresco gioco.
7
Lost, swallowed in a darkness that is
everywhere. Out of all the pain endured,
a burning face will emerge, the open
mouth, a corporal’s furious beckoning.
Until I’m old, in my last sickness,
feverish in the dim, uncertain light,
I will go on climbing a terrible slope
to descend in a rush a lovely avenue.
I will lie in a rumpled bed, and fire,
I will fire on the peaks at dawn
with the infantrymen of that time.
They will flee through the green, crouching.
In my delirium I will still remember
some names, some warlike games.
82 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912
TRIESTE
Ho attraversata tutta la città.
Poi ho salita un’erta,
popolosa in principio, in là deserta,
chiusa da un muricciolo:
un cantuccio in cui solo
siedo; e mi pare che dove esso termina
termini la città.
Trieste ha una scontrosa
grazia. Se piace,
è come un ragazzaccio aspro e vorace,
con gli occhi azzurri e mani troppo grandi
per regalare un fiore;
come un amore
con gelosia.
Da quest’erta ogni chiesa, ogni sua via
scopro, se mena all’ingombrata spiaggia,
o alla collina cui, sulla sassosa
cima, una casa, l’ultima, s’aggrappa.
Intorno
circola ad ogni cosa
un aria strana, un aria tormentosa,
l’aria natia.
La mia città che in ogni parte è viva,
ha il cantuccio a me fatto, alla mia vita
pensosa e schiva.
Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 83
TRIESTE
I crossed the whole city,
then climbed a slope,
crowded at first, deserted higher up,
closed off by a low wall,
a niche where I can sit alone,
and it seems to me that where the slope ends
the city also ends.
Trieste has a rude
charm. If you like it,
it’s like a tough and greedy kid
with blue eyes and hands too big
for offering a flower,
like jealousy
in love.
From this height I can see every church, every street,
whether it leads to the cluttered beach
or to the hill on which a house, the last,
clings to the stony crest.
Around
everything there flows
a strange air, a troubling air,
the air of home.
My city, in all its parts alive,
keeps this quiet spot for me, for my life
brooding and solitary.
VERSO CASA
Anima, se ti pare che abbastanza
vagabondammo per giungere a sera,
vogliamo entrare nella nostra stanza,
chiuderla, e farci un po’ di primavera?
Trieste, nova città,
che tiene d’una maschia adolescenza,
che di tra il mare e i duri colli senza
forma e misura crebbe;
dove l’arte o non ebbe
ozi, o, se c’è, c’è in cuore
degli abitanti, in questo suo colore
di giovinezza, in questo vario moto;
tutta esplorammo, fino al più remoto
suo cantuccio, la più strana città.
Ora che con la sera anche si fa
vivo il bisogno di tornare in noi,
vogliamo entrare ove con tanto amore
sempre ti ascolto, ove tu al bene puoi
volgere un lungo errore?
Della più assidua pena,
della miseria più dura e nascosta,
anima, noi faremo oggi un poema.
TOWA R D H O M E
Soul, if you think we have wandered
enough to arrive at evening,
shall we go into our room, close the door,
and make a bit of spring there?
Trieste, new city,
that preserves a boyish adolescence;
that grew without form or measure
between the sea and the stark hills;
where there has been no leisure for art,
or, if it’s there, it’s in the hearts
of the inhabitants, in its flush
of youth, its busy comings and goings;
we have explored it all, to its most secret
hiding place, this strangest of cities.
Now that with evening the need also revives
to turn back to ourselves, shall we go in
where I always hear you with so
much love, where you can redeem
an old blunder?
From the most relentless pain,
from suffering most harsh and hidden,
soul, today we will make a poem.
ALL’ANIMA MIA
Dell’inesausta tua miseria godi.
Tanto ti valga, anima mia, sapere;
sì che il tuo male, null’altro, ti giovi.
O forse avventurato è chi s’inganna?
né a se stesso scoprirsi ha in suo potere,
né mai la sua sentenza lo condanna?
Magnanima sei pure, anima nostra;
ma per quali non tuoi casi t’esalti,
sì che un bacio mentito indi ti prostra.
A me la mia miseria è un chiaro giorno
d’estate, quand’ogni aspetto dagli alti
luoghi discopro in ogni suo contorno.
Nulla m’è occulto; tutto è sì vicino
dove l’occhio o il pensiero mi conduce.
Triste ma soleggiato è il mio cammino;
e tutto in esso, fino l’ombra, è in luce.
TO MY SOUL
Endless misery is your only pleasure,
my soul. It’s all that matters to you, so that
your pain, nothing else, can do you good.
Or maybe he who deceives himself
is better off ? who never can face himself
or the sentence that condemns him?
Still, you are magnanimous, my soul,
but for what causes not your own are you exalted,
if a lying kiss soon prostrates you.
To me my misery is a brilliant summer day,
when I discern every aspect of the high
places in all their contours.
Nothing is hidden from me; everything
is near at hand where eye or thinking leads me.
Sad but sunlit is the road I take,
and all that’s on it, even darkness, is in light.
L ’ U LT I M A T E N E R E Z Z A
Ti vedo, mia povera Lina,
ti vedo, e una gran tenerezza
mi vince, ti vedo bambina.
Nella casa di tua madre ben triste,
ben devastata, fra i molti fratelli,
senza piangere chi, se non te sola,
non chiamata, si leva ogni mattina?
Or dice, ravviandole i capelli,
dice la madre a questa sua figliola:
«Di buone come te non ne ho mai viste».
Un’infinita attonita dolcezza,
che quasi mi sgomenta, il gracil viso
trasfigura, e pur esso, il tuo sorriso
di devota risponde alla carezza;
nei tuoi occhi è passato il paradiso.
Ami così tua madre; ma più bella
della Madonna è la maestra; augusta
come un tempio la scuola; la tua frusta
vesticciola per lei orni e rammendi.
E se lontano un suono d’ore intendi
(cerchi un nastro, un colore che le piaccia)
un subito spavento, ecco, t’agghiaccia,
come inseguita il rimorso t’accora.
Pensi: Dovessi darle oggi il dolore
d’un mio castigo; fosse scorsa l’ora,
fosse suonata già la campanella!
T H E U LT I M AT E T E N D E R N E S S
I see you, my poor Lina,
I see you and a great tenderness
overcomes me, I see you as a child.
In your mother’s house, she so sad,
so crushed among your many brothers,
who if not you alone, without tears,
not even called, rises early every morning?
She says, fixing your hair,
the mother says to her little girl:
‘‘I’ve never seen a child as good as you.’’
A boundless, dazzled sweetness
that almost unnerves me, transfigures
the delicate face, and your worshipful
smile responds to the caress;
paradise was visible in your eyes.
So much do you love your mother, but more beautiful
than the Madonna is the schoolmistress,
the school august as a temple; your threadbare
little dress adorned and mended for her.
And if you hear the hour strike far off
(while you look for a ribbon, a color that she likes),
a sudden fear chills you;
like one pursued, remorse breaks your heart.
You think: Today I must give her the pain
of punishing me; would that the hour were over,
that the bell had already rung!
ti vedo, e il rimpianto m’investe
più forte; ti vedo ancor china
sul tuo lavoro; o all’aperto, seduta
a una tavola ingombra, triste e muta
fra le compagne, nella tua Trieste.
Uscita a festeggiar la primavera,
nell’allegra osteria delle Due Strade,
come tarda a venir, Lina, la sera!
Pure, sotto alla pergola, son risa,
son canzoni—uno ha con sé la chitarra—;
tu dal mondo e da te sembri divisa.
Fuor’una che di te quasi è amorosa,
le amiche, fra cui t’ergi agli occhi miei
come tra i fiori minori la rosa,
dicono: «Questa Lina è ben bizzarra,
ben superba»; ed a te brindando quella
che non t’ama, ove dice: «Alla più bella»,
fra sé, soggiunge: «il più triste destino!»
T’offre il suo braccio e il suo cuore il vicino,
non veduta, una tua lacrima cade
sulla tovaglia macchiata di vino.
Forse che invano in bianco petto hai cuore
d’amante, e sola nel tuo ardore sei,
sola che parli a te di solo amore?
«Alla più bella il più triste destino.»
I see you, and yet more strongly
does regret assail me; I see you bent
over your work, or outside seated
at a cluttered table, sad and silent
among companions, in your Trieste.
Gone out to celebrate the spring
at the cheerful Inn of the Two Roads,
how the evening delays its coming, Lina!
And under the pergola are laughter
and songs—someone has brought a guitar;
you seem remote from the world and yourself.
Except for one who’s almost in love with you,
your girlfriends, among whom, to my eyes,
you stand out like a rose among the lesser
flowers, say, ‘‘This Lina is very strange,
very proud’’; and one who doesn’t love you,
when toasting you, says, ‘‘To the most beautiful,’’
and adds to herself, ‘‘the saddest fate!’’
The one near to you offers his arm and heart;
unseen, one of your tears falls
on the tablecloth stained with wine.
Perhaps you vainly keep the heart of a lover
in your pure breast, and are alone in your passion,
alone speaking to yourself alone of love?
‘‘To the most beautiful the saddest fate.’’
ti vedo, e alla gola mi serra
l’angoscia; non gracil bambina,
non giovanetta alle compagne invisa,
morta ti vedo; e son io che t’ho uccisa.
«Levati, se pur m’ami, amor mio santo;
levati, ed anche mi sorridi un poco.
Or che non vedi ch’è stato per gioco,
perché t’amavo, e non sapevo io accanto
viverti, e lontananza il cor ne spezza?»
Non risponde; pietà no, non la stringe
di chi solo da lei sofferse tanto,
se per farmi morir morta s’infinge.
«Mi dici che sarà, se non rispondi,
che sarà della mia povera vita
se non apri i dolenti occhi che ascondi?»
Un’infinita attonita dolcezza
s’incide sulla faccia ben smagrita,
alta quiete dopo la procella.
«Ora mi porteranno alla Cappella
dei morti, marcirà sotto la terra
la tua Lina che un giorno era sì bella.»
Così ti vedo; e dopo tanta guerra,
dopo tante per te notti affannose,
dentro il mio cuore a Dio rendo amorose
grazie per non averti ancora uccisa.
I see you, and anguish tightens
my throat, not as a delicate child,
not as a girl scorned by her companions,
I see you dead, and it’s I who have killed you.
‘‘Get up, if you love me, my holy love,
get up and smile at me a little.
Don’t you see now that it was all a joke,
because I loved you and didn’t know how to live
with you, and your absence breaks my heart?’’
She does not answer; pity, no, she has none
for him who alone suffers so much because
of her, if to make me die she feigns death.
‘‘Tell me what, if you don’t answer,
what will become of my poor life
if you do not open your sad and hidden eyes?’’
An infinite, dazed sweetness
is engraved on the shrunken face,
profound quiet after the storm.
‘‘Now they will carry me to the Chapel
of the dead; she will decay under the earth,
your Lina, who was once so lovely.’’
Thus I see you, and after so much war,
after so many troubled nights for you,
in my heart I render loving thanks to God
for not yet having killed you.
152 La serena disperazione, 1913–1915
IL GAR ZONE CON L A CARRIOL A
È bene ritrovare in noi gli amori
perduti, conciliare in noi l’offesa;
ma se la vita all’interno ti pesa
tu la porti al di fuori.
Spalanchi le finestre o scendi tu
tra la folla: vedrai che basta poco
a rallegrarti: un animale, un gioco,
o, vestito di blu,
un garzone con una carriola,
che a gran voce si tien la strada aperta,
e se appena in discesa trova un’erta
non corre più, ma vola.
La gente che per via a quell’ora è tanta
non tace, dopo che indietro si tira.
Egli più grande fa il fracasso e l’ira,
più si dimena e canta.
Serene Despair, 1913–1915 153
T H E S H O P- B OY W I T H T H E W H E E L B A R ROW
It’s good to recover in ourselves
lost loves, or reconcile ourselves to an affront,
but if life pent up inside weighs you down,
take it out of doors.
Throw open the windows, or go down
into the crowd; you’ll see how little it takes
to cheer you up: an animal, a game,
or, dressed in blue,
a shop-boy with a wheelbarrow
clearing the street with a loud voice,
who, if he finds the slightest downward slope,
runs no more, but flies.
The streets are full of people at that hour
who don’t keep quiet after dodging him.
The noisier the uproar and the wrath,
the more he swings his hips and sings.
UN RICORDO
Non dormo. Vedo una strada, un boschetto,
che sul mio cuore come un’ansia preme;
dove si andava, per star soli e insieme,
io e un altro ragazzetto.
Era la Pasqua; i riti lunghi e strani
dei vecchi. E se non mi volesse bene
—pensavo—e non venisse più domani?
E domani non venne. Fu un dolore,
uno spasimo fu verso la sera;
che un’amicizia (seppi poi) non era,
era quello un amore;
il primo; e quale e che felicità
n’ebbi, tra i colli e il mare di Trieste.
Ma perché non dormire, oggi, con queste
storie di, credo, quindici anni fa?
A MEMORY
I can’t sleep. I see a road, a grove of trees,
that oppress my heart like a dread,
where we went to be alone together,
I and another boy.
It was Easter: the long and alien rituals
of the old. And if he doesn’t care for me
—I wondered—and won’t come back tomorrow?
And tomorrow he did not come. It was a grief;
it became an agony toward dusk;
it was not (I realized later) friendship;
it was love,
the first, and what happiness
I had in it, between the hills and the sea of Trieste.
But why can’t I sleep tonight for these
thoughts of, I suppose, fifteen years ago?
L A R I T I R ATA I N P I A Z Z A A L D R O VA N D I A B O L O G N A
Piazza Aldrovandi e la sera d’ottobre
hanno sposate le bellezze loro;
ed è felice l’occhio che le scopre.
L’allegra ragazzaglia urge e schiamazza,
che i bersaglieri colle trombe d’oro
formano il cerchio in mezzo della piazza.
Io li guardo: Dai monti alla pianura
pingue, ed a quella ove nell’aria è il male,
convengono a una sola vita dura,
a un solo malcontento, a un solo tu;
or quivi a un cenno del lor caporale
gonfian le gote in fior di gioventù.
La canzonetta per l’innamorata,
un’altra che le coppie in danza scaglia,
e poi, correndo già, la ritirata.
E tu sei tutta in questa piazza, o Italia.
S O U N D I N G T H E R E T R E AT I N
P I A Z Z A A L D R O VA N D I I N B O L O G N A
Piazza Aldrovandi and October twilight
have married their beauties,
and lucky is the eye that beholds them.
The happy crowd of youngsters shoves and yells,
as bersaglieri with their golden trumpets
form a circle in the middle of the square.
I watch them: they have come from the mountains
to the fat plains, where sickness is in the air,
all mustered to the same hard life,
to the same discontent, the same common ‘‘you’’;
now at a signal from their corporal
they puff their cheeks in all the flush of youth.
A love song for a sweetheart,
another that flings couples into dance,
and then, already running, the retreat.
And all of you is in this square, oh Italy.
172 Poesie scritte durante la guerra
L A S TA Z I O N E
La stazione ricordi, a notte, piena
d’ultimi addii, di mal frenati pianti,
che la tradotta in partenza affollava?
Una trombetta giù in fondo suonava
l’avanti;
ed il tuo cuore, il tuo cuore agghiacciava.
Poems Written in Wartime 173
T H E S TAT I O N
Remember the station at night, filled with
last good-byes and ill-restrained tears,
mobbed by the troop train about to pull out?
A bugle in the distance signaled
departure,
and your heart, your heart turned to ice.
MILANO 1917
Per ogni via un soldato—un fante—zoppo
va poggiato pian piano al suo bastone,
che nella mano libera ha un fagotto.
MILAN 1917
In every street a soldier—infantry—limps
slowly, leaning on his stick,
in his free hand carrying a bundle.
S O G N AV O , A L S U O L P R O S T R AT O . . .
Sognavo, al suol prostrato, un bene antico.
Ero a Trieste, nella mia stanzetta.
Guardavo in alto rosea nuvoletta
veleggiar, scolorando, il ciel turchino.
Ella in aere sfacevasi; al destino
suo m’ammonivo in una poesietta.
Quindi «Mamma—dicevo—io esco»; e in fretta
a leggerla volavo al caro amico.
«Che fai, carogna?» E mi destò una mano:
e vidi, come al cielo gli occhi apersi,
tra fumo e scoppi su noi l’aeroplano.
Vidi macerie di case in rovina,
correr soldati come in fuga spersi,
e lontano lontano la marina.
P R O S T R AT E O N T H E G R O U N D, I D R E A M E D . . .
Prostrate on the ground, I dreamed of a long past
happiness. I was in Trieste in my little room.
High up I saw a small pink cloud
drift by, growing faint in the blue sky.
It dissolved into the air; I took heed
of its fate in a little poem.
Then, ‘‘Mamma,’’ I said, ‘‘I’m going out,’’ and off
I flew to read it to my best friend.
‘‘What’re you doing, lard-ass?’’ a hand shook me,
and wide-eyed, I saw in the heavens,
amid smoke and explosions overhead, the airplane.
I saw the ruins of fallen houses,
soldiers running, scattered as in flight,
and far, far away, the seashore.
206 Cose leggere e vaganti, 1920
C O M M I ATO
Voi lo sapete, amici, ed io lo so.
Anche i versi somigliano alle bolle
di sapone; una sale e un’altro no.
Light and Airy Things, 1920 207
ENVOI
You know it, friends, and I do too.
Poems also resemble soap bubbles:
one flies up, and another, no.
302 Cuor morituro, 1925–1930
S O N E T T O D I PA R A D I S O
Mi viene in sogno una bianca casetta,
sull’erto colle, dentro un’aria affatto
tranquilla; e il verde del colle è compatto
e solitario, e l’ora è benedetta.
Mi viene in sogno una dolce capretta,
che mi sta presso, e mi sogguarda in atto
placido umano, quasi un muto patto
ne legasse. Poi pasce ancor l’erbetta.
Volge il sole al tramonto; un luccichio
cava dai vetri, un dorato splendore,
della casetta su in alto romita.
E tutto il dolce che c’è nella vita
in quel sol punto, in quel solo fulgore
s’era congiunto, in quell’ultimo addio.
The Dying Heart, 1925–1930 303
S O N N E T O N PA R A D I S E
In a dream a small white house comes to me,
on the slope of a hill enclosed in a perfectly
tranquil air, and the green of the hill is dense
and deserted, and the hour is blessed.
In a dream a gentle goat comes to me,
who stays close by and looks at me sidelong
in a placid human manner, almost as if a silent pact
binds us. Then she resumes cropping the short grass.
The sun turns toward its setting, the windows
glitter, a golden brightness shines from
the small house on the lonely height.
And all the sweetness to be found in life,
in that one moment, in that sole radiance,
has been gathered in that final good-bye.
LA VETRINA
Sono a letto, ammalato. E gli occhi intorno
giro per la mia stanza. Oltre i lucenti
vetri un mobile antico a sé li chiama,
alle cose ch’esposte in lui si stanno.
Bianche stoviglie, ove son navi in blu
dipinte, un porto, affaccendate genti
intorno a quelle. Altre vi sono cose
ch’erano già nella materna casa,
cui guardo con rimorso oggi ed affanno,
e così lieto le guardavo un giorno,
che di nuove acquistarne avevo brama.
Ciascuna d’esse a un tempo mi richiama
che fu sì dolce, che per me non fu
tempo, che ancor non ero nato, ancora
non dovevo morire. Ed anche in parte
ero già nato, era negli avi miei
il mio dolore d’oggi. E in un m’accora
strano pensiero, che mi dico: Ahi, quanta
pace era al mondo prima ch’io nascessi;
e l’ho turbata io solo. Ed è un mendace
sogno; è questo il delirio, amiche cose.
Quanto un giorno v’ho amate, belle cose,
che siete là nella vetrina, e altrove
siete, nell’ombra e nel sole, ed oh quale
ho nostalgia di lasciarvi! Nel buio,
THE GLASS CABINET
I am in bed, sick. And my eyes drift
around my room. They are drawn by the bright
glass panes of an old cabinet
to the objects displayed there.
White dishes painted with blue boats,
a port with busy people all around.
And there are other things that were
in my mother’s house; today I look
at them with anguish and remorse,
though once I gazed with such delight
that I longed to possess still more.
Each one takes me back to a time
so sweet, it was not time for me,
when I was not yet born and did not have
to die. Still there was a part of me
already born: in my forebears was
my present sadness. And I am grieved
by a strange thought that tells me: Alas,
how much peace was in the world before
I was born, and I alone disturbed it. It is a lying
dream; it is delirium, you friendly things.
How much I loved you, pretty things,
there in the glass cabinet, and wherever else
you are, in shade and sunlight, and oh how homesick
I am at leaving you! Into the dark,
tornar nel buio dell’alvo materno,
nel duro sonno, onde più nulla smuove,
non pur l’amore, soave tormento
sì, ma a me fatto intollerando. È il letto
questo in cui venni da quel caro buio,
molto piangendo, alla luce, alle cose
ond’ebber gioia i miei occhi. E mortale
non so che più quel dì deprechi. E male
non ho che m’impauri, o è solo interno.
Come ogni notte, quando il lume spengo,
che agli occhi miei gravi di sonno apporta
esso fastidio, e metto il capo sotto
la coltre, e tutto a me stesso rinvengo,
tutto in me mi rannicchio, or sì vorrei
fare, e che più per me non fosse giorno!
E sì tutto m’arride. Anche la gloria
viene; il suo bacio, ancor che tardo, io sento.
Del divino per me milleottocento
amate figlie, qui dalla lontana
Inghilterra venute, di voi dico,
pinte tazzine, vasellame usato
dagli avi miei laboriosi, al tempo
che la vita più degna era e più umana,
e molto prima che nascessi, io so
la vostra istoria, che ai vecchi la chiese
il poeta ch’è pio verso il passato.
Approdava ogni mese un bastimento
to return to the dark of the maternal womb,
to the slumber where nothing stirs,
not even love, sweet torment yes, but an
unbearable fact to me. This is the bed to which
I came from that dear darkness, crying so much,
into the light, to the things from which my eyes
took joy. And I know nothing more deadly
than that ill-starred day. And I have no illness
that frightens me, it’s only my thoughts.
As every night, when I extinguish the lamp
that brings distress to my eyes heavy with sleep,
and I hide my head under the blanket,
and it all comes back to me, I curl up
inside myself, I would do it now,
so that the day would no longer exist for me!
And then everything smiles at me. Glory
also comes; even if late, I feel its kiss.
Beloved children of the, to me, divine
nineteenth century, come here from far off
England, I speak of you, painted cups, china
used by my hardworking ancestors at a time
when life was more gracious and more humane,
and long before I was born, I know your history,
I, a poet who reveres the past, have
questioned the elders. Every month a ship
docked at this friendly port for trade,
with such great abundance of you
a questo porto di traffici amico,
con di voi sì gran copia che il mendico
come il ricco ne aveva. Aveva il tempo
fornito appena atroce guerra, e pace
era sui mari, ma non mai nel cuore
dell’uomo. Or voi nella vetrina state
che v’è coetanea, semplice, capace
di molte e belle forme. Ed io a guardarvi
non so, nel mio dolore, altro che morte
non so invocarmi. Non vissuto invano,
più d’esser nato la sventura sento.
that the beggar like the rich man could have some.
The times had just brought a hideous war, and
there was peace on the waters, though never
in men’s hearts. Now you rest in the plain
glass cabinet, your contemporary, that holds
so many beautiful shapes. And I looking
at you do not know, in my sorrow,
how to invoke anything other than death.
Not having lived in vain, I feel,
is greater misfortune than having been born.
Prelude and Fugues, 1928–1929 345
FIRST FUGUE
(in 2 voices)
Life, my life, is as sad
as the black coal shed
I still see in this street. I see,
beyond its open doors, the blue sky
and the sea with its masts. Black
as the shed is it in my heart; the heart
of man is a cavern of punishment. Beautiful
is the sky at midmorning, and beautiful
the sea that reflects it, and beautiful, too,
is my heart, a mirror of all living
hearts. If in my sight, if beyond it,
I see only despair,
darkness, desire for death,
which fear of the unknown raises
before me, all the sweetness I have
within me is swept away. Dead
leaves don’t frighten me, and I think
of men as of leaves. Today your eyes
see the sky and the sea from the black
coal shed, and by contrast they are luminous;
remember that tomorrow your eyes
will be closed. And others will open,
like mine, like yours. Life,
your life that is so dear to you, is a long mistake,
346 Preludio e fughe, 1928–1929
(breve, dorato, appena un’illusione!)
e tu lo sconti duramente. Come
in me in questi altri lo sconto: persone,
mansi animali affaticati; intorno
vadano in ozio o per faccende, io sono
in essi, ed essi sono in me e nel giorno
che ci rivela. Pascerti puoi tu
di fole ancora? Io soffro; il mio dolore,
lui solo, esiste. E non un poco il blu
del cielo, e il mare oggi sì unito, e in mare
le antiche vele e le ormeggiate navi,
e il nero magazzino di carbone,
che il quadro, come per caso, incornicia
stupendamente, e quelle più soavi
cose che in te, del dolore al contrasto,
senti—accese delizie—e che non dici?
Troppo temo di perderle; felici
chiamo per questo i non nati. I non nati
non sono, i morti non sono, vi è solo
la vita viva eternamente; il male
che passa e il bene che resta. Il mio bene
passò, come il mio male, ma più in fretta
passò; di lui nulla mi resta. Taci,
empie cose non dire. Anche tu taci,
voce che dalla mia sei nata, voce
d’altri tempi serena; se puoi, taci;
lasciami assomigliare la mia vita
—tetra cosa opprimente—a quella nera
(brief, golden, hardly an illusion!),
and you pay for it cruelly. As
for myself I pay for these others: people,
gentle, weary animals; they go
about in idleness or at work, I am
in them and they are in me in the daylight
that reveals us. Can you still
feed on fairy tales? I suffer; my pain,
it alone exists. And not the blue
of the sky, and the sea today so calm, and on the sea
the worn sails and the moored ships,
and the black coal shed,
that the picture frames as if by chance
so marvelously, and those more delicate
things, in contrast to pain, you feel within
you—vivid joys—and that you don’t speak of ?
I fear too much losing them; for this reason
I call the unborn happy. The unborn
do not exist, the dead do not, there is only
life, warm, bright, eternal life, the bad
that passes, and the good that stays. My good
has passed, like my bad, but it passed
more swiftly; none of it is left to me. Be still,
don’t say sacrilegious things. You too
be quiet, voice that was born from my own,
serene voice of other times; be quiet, if you can;
let me compare my life
—gloomy, oppressive thing—to that black
volta, sotto alla quale un uomo siede,
fin che gli termini il giorno, e non vede
l’azzurro mare—oh, quanta in te provavi
nel dir dolcezza!—e il cielo che gli è sopra.
vault, beneath which a man sits
until the day ends for him, and he does not see
the azure waves—oh, how much you tried
to tell of the sweetness within you!—and the sky above him.
SECOND FUGUE
(a 2 voci)
L’ultima goccia di dolcezza esprimi,
anima stanca e muori. Oh, nella mia,
di fresco nata, tu degnassi piamente passare! Un dono tu mi stimi
ben grande! Che se a me tu lo facessi,
come una nuvoletta i rai del sole,
t’accoglierei nel mio seno. Non vuole
questo il destino; ed io, se pur potessi,
non lo farei. Perché così m’affliggi?
Perché t’amo. Di amarmi dici, e il dono
di te non mi faresti. Chiedi un dono
che sarebbe un castigo. Oh, me lo infliggi!
Anima fanciulletta, anima cara,
ecco prendi di me quel che tu puoi.
Io prendo tutto: la dolcezza, e poi,
che più mi piace, la tua essenza amara.
SECOND FUGUE
(in 2 voices)
You squeeze out the last drop of sweetness,
weary soul, and you die. Oh, if only you
would deign to pass charitably into
mine, newborn! You consider me
a great gift! If you were to offer it,
like the rays of the sun to a cloud,
I would clasp you to my breast. Fate
does not will it, and I, if I could,
I would not do it. Why do you grieve me so?
Because I love you. You say you love me, and the gift
of yourself you do not give me. You ask a gift
that would be a punishment. Oh, inflict it upon me!
Childish soul, dear soul,
here take of me what you can.
I take all: the sweetness, and then,
what I like more, your bitter essence.
402 Parole, 1933–1934
ULISSE
O tu che sei sì triste ed hai presagi
d’orrore—Ulisse al declino—nessuna
dentro l’anima tua dolcezza aduna
la Brama
per una
pallida sognatrice di naufragi
che t’ama?
Words, 1933–1934 403
U LY S S E S
O you so joyless and with forebodings
of horror—Ulysses in decline—does no
Desire
muster tenderness in your soul
for a
pale dreamer of shipwrecks
who loves you?
404 Parole, 1933–1934
CUORE
Cuore serrato come in una morsa,
mio triste cuore,
rallegrati di questa ultima corsa
contro il dolore.
Quale angoscia non hai viva abbracciata,
vivo restando?
Una piccola cosa ti è bastata,
di quando in quando.
Words, 1933–1934 405
HEART
Heart clamped shut as in a vice,
my unhappy heart,
rejoice at this last race
against sorrow.
What suffering have you not embraced,
and remained alive?
A little thing sufficed you
from time to time.
406 Parole, 1933–1934
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.
Words, 1933–1934 407
WINTER
It’s night, a bitter winter. You raise
the drapes a little and peer out. Your hair
blows wildly; joy suddenly
opens wide your black eyes,
and what you saw—it was an image
of the world’s end—comforts
your inmost heart, warms and eases it.
A man ventures out on a lake
of ice, under a crooked streetlamp.
408 Parole, 1933–1934
POESIA
È come a un uomo battuto dal vento,
accecato di neve—intorno pinge
un inferno polare la città—
l’aprirsi, lungo il muro, di una porta.
Entra. Ritrova la bontà non morta,
la dolcezza di un caldo angolo. Un nome
posa dimenticato, un bacio sopra
ilari volti che più non vedeva
che oscuri in sogni minacciosi.
Torna
egli alla strada, anche la strada è un altra.
Il tempo al bello si è rimesso, i ghiacci
spezzano mani operose, il celeste
rispunta in cielo e nel suo cuore. E pensa
che ogni estremo di mali un bene annunci.
Words, 1933–1934 409
P OETRY
It’s as if for a man battered by the wind,
blinded by snow—all around him an arctic
inferno pummels the city—
a door opens along a wall.
He goes in. He finds again a living kindness,
the sweetness of a warm corner. A forgotten
name places a kiss on
cheerful faces that he has not seen
except obscurely in menacing dreams.
He returns
to the street, and the street, too, is not the same.
Fine weather has come back, busy hands
break up the ice, the blue reappears
in the sky and in his heart. And he thinks
that every extreme of evil foretells a good.
410 Parole, 1933–1934
STELLA
Stella che m’hai veduto un giorno nascere
—passavi in cielo al primo mio apparire—
del bene in cambio che, nudo ed inerme,
da tanto male ho derivato, dammi
scendere in breve volontario all’altra
riva; ogni linea si cancella, tace
ingiustizia, non pesa più abbandono,
fuori della tua orbita ch’io giunga,
o tu che in cielo passavi funesta.
Words, 1933–1934 411
S TA R
Star that saw me born one day
—you crossed the sky at my appearance—
naked and helpless, in exchange for all
the misery that came to me from life, let me
soon reach the other shore, beyond
your orbit: there every line is erased,
injustice is silent, loneliness matters no more,
o you who crossed the sky so fatally.
478 Varie
L A V I S I TA
a Bruno e Maria Sanguinetti
Ho scritto fine al mio lavoro; messo,
diligente scolaro, in bella, pagina
dopo pagina. Il cuore mi mancava
e proseguivo. Ora da te, partito,
com’usi, a un tratto, con mia figlia sosto,
i tuoi bimbi e Maria tua di Sardegna.
Il destino riunì queste persone
—né altrimenti poteva—in questa stanza.
Ardono al caminetto alcune legna.
Si fa notte sui colli, sul giardino
che un triste inverno spogliò, nell’incongruo
di quei discordi pigolio che accusa
vicini l’ora della cena, il bacio
della mamma nel bianco caldo letto.
Si fa notte ai dipinti da Bolaffio,
seduti due sopra una panca (parlano
di politica), a quell’immensa dietro
magnolia, alla bambina che sorvola,
battendo il cerchio, un viale. Altri tempi
era il mio quadro; tutta
illuminava la mia casa. Amico
Miscellany 479
THE VISIT
to Bruno and Maria Sanguinetti
I have written finis to my work, arranged
it perfectly, like a diligent schoolboy, page
by page. I had no heart for it,
but I went on. Now, in your absence,
sudden as usual, I stop with my daughter
to visit your children and your Maria from Sardinia.
Destiny brings these people together
—nor could it do otherwise—in this room.
A few logs burn in the fireplace.
It is night on the hills, in the garden
that a hard winter has laid bare, in those
discordant whimperings that announce
the supper hour and a mother’s
kiss in the warm, white bed.
It is night for Bolaffio’s painted figures,
two seated on a bench (they talk
of politics), for that immense magnolia
behind them, for a little girl who flies across
a road, jumping rope. Once
it was my picture; it lit up
my whole house. A friend,
480 Varie
l’ho ritrovato nella tua, che buono
l’hai salvo al cieco disamore. E sono
—penso—vent’anni che passò Bolaffio.
Si fa notte negli occhi di mia figlia
e in quelli della donna bruna. Ai miei
scende, e non è dolore, umido un velo.
È tardi. Affronto lietamente il gelo
di fuori. Ho in cuore di una vita il canto,
dove il sangue fu sangue, il pianto pianto.
Italia l’avvertiva appena. Antico
resiste, come quercia, allo sfacelo.
Miscellany 481
I found it again in yours, who rightly
saved it from blind unlove. And it’s been
twenty years, I think, since Bolaffio died.
It is night in my daughter’s eyes
and in those of the dark-haired lady. Into mine
a moist veil descends, not of pain.
It’s late. Cheerfully I face the cold
outdoors. I have the song in my heart of a life
where the blood was blood, the tears, tears.
Italy was hardly aware of it. Ancient,
it resists decay, like an oak.
484 Mediterranee, 1945–1946
AMAI
Amai trite parole che non uno
osava. M’incantò la rima fiore
amore,
la più antica difficile del mondo.
Amai la verità che giace al fondo,
quasi un sogno obliato, che il dolore
riscopre amica. Con paura il cuore
le si accosta, che più non l’abbandona.
Amo te che mi ascolti e la mia buona
carta lasciata al fine del mio gioco.
Mediterranean, 1945–1946 485
I LOVED
I loved the worn words that no one else
dared use. I was enchanted by the rhyme June
moon,
the oldest and most stubborn in the world.
I loved the truth that lies in the depths,
almost a forgotten dream, that pain
rediscovers as a friend. With dread the heart
approaches it and never after lets it go.
I love you who listen to me, and the winning
card left me at the end of my game.
MEDITERRANEA
Penso un mare lontano, un porto, ascose
vie di quel porto; quale un giorno v’ero,
e qui oggi sono, che agli dèi le palme
supplice levo, non punirmi vogliano
di un’ultima vittoria che depreco
(ma il cuore, per dolcezza, regge appena);
penso cupa sirena
—baci ebbrezza delirio—; penso Ulisse
che si leva laggiù da un triste letto.
MEDITERRANEA
I think a far-off sea, a harbor, with its secret
streets; I once was there,
and am here today, and raise my palms
in supplication to the gods, that they not punish me
for a last victory that I disdain
(but my heart, for sweetness, barely endures);
I think a gloomy siren
—kisses, intoxication, delirium—I think Ulysses
who rises from a melancholy bed.
AMORE
Ti dico addio quando ti cerco Amore,
come il mio tempo e questo grigio vuole.
Oh, in te era l’ombra della terra e il sole,
e il cuore d’un fanciullo senza cuore.
LOVE
I say good-bye, Love, even as I hunt you,
as my age and this gray hair will have it.
Oh, in you was the shadow of earth and of sun,
and the heart of a boy without heart.
EBBRI CANTI
Ebbri canti si levano e bestemmie
nell’osteria suburbana. Qui pure
—penso—è Mediterraneo. E il mio pensiero
all’azzurro s’inebbria di quel nome.
Materna calma imprendibile è Roma.
S’innamora la Grecia alle sue sponde
come un’adolescenza. Oscura il mondo
e lo rinnova la Giudea. Non altro
a me vecchio sorride sotto il sole.
Antico mare perduto... Pur vuole
la Musa che da te nacque, ch’io dica
di te, col buio alle porte, parole.
DRUNKEN SONGS
Drunken songs and curses rise up
in the suburban tavern. Here, too,
I think, is the Mediterranean. And my mind
is drunk with the azure of that name.
Rome is impregnable maternal calm.
Greece falls in love on its shores like
an adolescent. Judea darkens the world
and renews it. Nothing else under
the sun smiles on my old age.
Ancient, lost sea . . . Yet the muse
born of you wants me, with
darkness at the doors, to speak of you.
504 Uccelli, 1948
L’ORNITOLOGO PIETOSO
Raccolse un ornitologo pietoso
un espulso dal nido. Come l’ebbe
in mano vide ch’era un rosignuolo.
In salvo lo portò con il timore
gli mancasse per via. Gli fece, a un fondo
di fiasco, un nido; ritrovò quel gramo
l’imbeccata e il calore. Fu allevarlo
cura non lieve, ed il dispendio certo
di molte uova di formiche. E ai giorni
sereni, ai primi gorgheggi, l’esperto
in un boschetto libertà gli dava.
«Più—diceva al perduto, e lo guardava
a terra e in ramo cercarsi—il tuo grazie
udrò sommesso.» E si sentì più solo.
Birds, 1948 505
T H E C O M PA S S I O N AT E O R N I T H O L O G I S T
A compassionate ornithologist picked up
a chick expelled from the nest. As he held
it in his hand he saw it was a nightingale.
He carried it to safety, fearing
it might die on the way. He built a nest for it
on the bottom of a flask, where the pitiful thing
found food and warmth. It wasn’t easy
to care for, and cost him a fortune
in ant eggs. And when the weather
turned fine, at the first trills, the man of science
set it free in a small grove of trees.
‘‘I will,’’ he said to the flown bird, as he watched it try
itself on the ground and on a branch, ‘‘just barely
hear your thanks.’’ And he felt himself more lonely.
506 Uccelli, 1948
I L FA N C I U L L O E L ’ AV E R L A
S’innamorò un fanciullo d’un’averla.
Vago del nuovo—interessate udiva
di lei, dal cacciatore, meraviglie—
quante promesse fece per averla!
L’ebbe; e all’istante l’obliò. La trista,
nella sua gabbia alla finestra appesa,
piangeva sola e in silenzio, del cielo
lontano irraggiungibile alla vista.
Si ricordò di lei solo quel giorno
che, per noia o malvagio animo, volle
stringerla in pugno. La quasi rapace
gli fece male e s’involò. Quel giorno,
per quel male l’amò senza ritorno.
Birds, 1948 507
T H E B OY A N D T H E S H R I K E
A boy fell in love with a shrike.
Eager to learn of her—he heard
interesting things from the hunter, marvels—
how many promises he made to possess her!
He got her; and promptly forgot her.
The sad bird in her cage at the window,
wept alone in silence for the distant,
unattainable sky she could not see.
He only recalled her on that day
when, out of boredom or an ugly mood,
he squeezed her in his fist. The almost wild
bird struck at him and flew away. On that day,
for that wound, he loved her hopelessly.
508 Uccelli, 1948
PA S S E R I
Saltellano sui tetti
passeri cinguettanti. Due si rubano
di becco il pane che ai leggeri sbricioli,
che carpire s’illudono al balcone.
Vanno a stormi a dormire...
Uccelli sono:
nella Natura la sublimazione
del rettile.
Birds, 1948 509
S PA R R O W S
They hop across the roofs,
cheeping sparrows. Two of them do battle
with their beaks, hoping to snatch
a few breadcrumbs on the balcony.
They go off in a flock to sleep . . .
They’re birds,
the sublimation in Nature
of the reptile.
510 Uccelli, 1948
MERLO
Esisteva quel mondo al quale in sogno
ritorno ancora; che in sogno mi scuote?
Certo esisteva. E n’erano gran parte
mia madre e un merlo.
Lei vedo appena. Più risalta il nero
e il giallo di chi lieto salutava
col suo canto (era questo il mio pensiero)
me, che l’udivo dalla via. Mia madre
sedeva, stanca, in cucina. Tritava
a lui solo (era questo il suo pensiero)
e alla mia cena la carne. Nessuna
vista o rumore così lo eccitava.
Tra un fanciullo ingabbiato e un insettivoro,
che i vermetti carpiva alla sua mano,
in quella casa, in quel mondo lontano,
c’era un amore. C’era anche un equivoco.
Birds, 1948 511
BLACKBIRD
Did that world exist to which in dream
I still return, that in dream so moves me?
It surely existed. And a big part of it were
my mother and a blackbird.
I can hardly see her. What stands out more
are the black and yellow of him who cheerfully greeted
me with his song (such was my thought)
when I heard it from the street. My mother
sat, weary, in the kitchen. She had ground
only for him (this was his thought)
the meat for my dinner. No other
sight or sound so excited him.
Between a cooped-up boy and an insect-eater
who snatched the worms from his hand
in that house, in that distant world,
there was love. There was also a misunderstanding.
512 Uccelli, 1948
NIETZSCHE
Intorno a una grandezza solitaria
non volano gli uccelli, né quei vaghi
gli fanno, accanto, il nido. Altro non odi
che il silenzio, non vedi altro che l’aria.
Birds, 1948 513
NIETZSCHE
Around a solitary grandeur
birds do not fly, nor do these bright
creatures build their nest nearby. You hear
nothing but silence, see nothing, only air.

Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba

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