Translation: Com'è profondo il mare by Lucio Dalla

Lucio Dalla, Com'è profondo il mare, Album Cover, 1977

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the 1977 Italian song Com'è profondo il mare, How deep is the sea or The sea is so deep by the Italian signer-songwriter Lucio Dalla. This song tells the story of humankind from antiquity to nowadays evoking the sea as the immovable guardian of its secrets. You can listen to the original song here.

Com'è profondo il Mare, Lucio Dalla, translated by Bora Mici

It’s us, we are many beside

We hide at night
Afraid of the motorists, the journalists
We are the black cats, the pessimists
We are the dark cracks
And we have nothing to eat
The sea is so deep
The sea is so deep

Dad, you once were a great shot
Of quail and pheasant
Drive away these flies
They drive me mad
They won’t let me sleep
The sea is so deep
The sea is so deep

It’s useless, there’s no more quorum
There’s no more decorum
God or whoever in his name
Is trying to divide us
To hurt us, to make us sink deep
The sea is so deep
The sea is so deep

Through the power of a bribe
Man became someone
Brought the dead back alive, unlocked prisons
Blocked six trains with their wagons
Uplifted the poor man for a moment
To a role that was hard to maintain
Then he let himself fall again, shout and weep
Alone in the middle of the sea
The sea is so deep.

Then by itself the shout became a drumbeat
And the poor man like lightning in the sky ready to meet
Began a war to conquer
That joke of the land
That his great heart was going to till deep
The sea is so deep
The sea is so deep

But the land was taken away
Including that still on his britches
He was thrown into houses, into ditches
I don’t really remember
Then a story about manacled members, beatings
And experimental surgery
How deep is the sea
How deep is the sea

In the meantime a mystic, maybe an aviator
Invented sympathy
And everyone got along newly
The beautiful and the ugly
With some damage to ugly
Who on a piece of glass
Were given the opportunity
Themselves to see
How deep is the sea
How deep is the sea

In the meantime the fish
From whom we are all descended
Looked on with curiosity
At the collective drama of this world
Which undoubtedly seemed wicked to them
In their great sea
How deep is the sea
In their great sea
How deep is the sea

It’s obvious that thinking bothers some
Even if who thinks is mute like a fish
Actually a fish
As a fish is hard to seize
Because he is protected by the seas
How deep are the seas

Obviously those who command
Are not inclined to poetic distinctions
Thought like the ocean
Cannot be seized
It cannot be fenced with ease

So they are burning the seas
So they are killing the seas
So they are humiliating the seas
So they are bending the seas

Translation: Michel de Certeau Vocal Citations

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen, by Edvard Eriksen, 1913

This is Bora Mici's original translation from French to English of Vocal Citations from Michel de Certeau's theoretical work, The Invention of Everyday Life, L'invention du quotidien. In this text, Certeau distinguishes strategies from tactics, with strategies belonging to an institutional authoritative and closed framework, while tactics are the unpredictable moves that individuals effect within these prescribed systems, individualizing their experience of them and turning them upside down on their heads. The translated passage discusses the evanescence of vocal interventions within a codified system of language and writing by taking inspiration from Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe and the protagonist's first encounter with Friday. Whose voices are we going to hear? This argument is especially pertinent in the current social-media- commentary-dominated landscape where anyone can create their own glose but an invisible algorithm chooses which ones become prevalent.   

Citations de voix, Michel de Certeau by Bora Mici

Vocal Citations

Robinson Crusoe indicates himself how a fault was introduced into his scriptural empire. In fact, for a period of time, his enterprise was interrupted and haunted by an absence that returns to the island’s shores, a man’s naked footprint on the beach. The border line cedes to the stranger: the instability of the marker. On the margins of the page, the trace of an invisible fantom (an apparition) comes to upset the order built by a capitalizing and methodical labor. It makes Robinson experience “fluttering thoughts, whimsies, and a terror.” The bourgeois conquerer is transformed into a man who is “beside himself,” becoming a savage himself by way of this “wild” index that reveals nothing. He dreams and his dreams are nightmares. He loses his certainty in a world governed by the great clockmaker. His reason abandons him. Ousted from the productive asceticism that stood for meaning, he experiences diabolical days on end, possessed by the cannibalistic desire to devour the stranger or by the fear of being devoured himself.

So a stain appears on the written page—like the scribble of a child on the book that represents the authority of a place. A lapsus insinuates itself into language. The appropriated territory is altered by the trace of something that is missing and is placeless (like the myth). Robinson will reassume the power of dominion when he has the ability to see, that is to say to substitute the index of a lack with a tangible being, a visible object, Friday. Then he will find himself within his order again. The disorder is due to the index of a past and passing thing, to the “near nothing” of a passage. The violence that oscillates between the impulse to devour and the fear of being eaten, according to Hadewijch d’Anvers, is born out of our ability to name “the presence of an absence.” Here, the other does not constitute a system that is hidden below the one written by Robinson. The island is not a palimpsest where it is possible to reveal, decrypt or decode a system covered by an order superimposed upon it, but that’s of the same type. The passing trace does not have its own text. We cannot enunciate it other than through the discourse of a proprietor, and it does not live anywhere else but in his space. The only language of difference is Robinson’s own interpretive delirium—dreams and “whimsies.”

The novel dating from 1719 already points to the non-place (a trace that eats away at the edges) and a fantastic modality (an interpretive insanity) of that which will interject as a voice in the field of writing, even though Daniel Defoe deals with the silent marking of the text by a body part (a naked foot), and not the voice itself, which represents language marked by the body. A name is already given to this form and these modalities: they speak, says Robinson, of something “wild.” The naming, here like everywhere else, is not a mere depiction of reality: it’s a performative act that organizes what it pronounces. It means in the same way that we mean for someone to go away. It does what it says, and constitutes the savageness that it declares. Since we excommunicate by naming, the name “savage” simultaneously creates and defines that which the scriptural economy situates outside of itself. And its essential predicate immediately comes to affect it: the savage is evanescent; he is marked (by stains, lapsus, etc.) but he cannot be written. He changes a place (he upsets it), but he does not establish one.

In such a way, the “theoretical fiction” invented by Daniel Defoe points to a form of alterity as it relates to writing, a form that will also impose its identity upon the voice, since, later, when he appears, Friday will be faced with an alternative due to a long history: either cry out (a “wild” outbreak that calls for the interpretation or the corrective action of a pedagogical or psychiatric “treatment”) or turn his body into an instrument of the dominant language (by becoming “his master’s voice,” a docile body that implements the order, embodies a reason and obtains the status of being the substitute of enunciation, no longer the act but the doing of another’s “saying.”) As for the voice, it will also insinuate itself as a trace in the text, as an effect or a metonymy of the body, a fleeting citation like the “nymph” of G. Cossart—Nympha fugax, a passing fugitive, an indiscreet revenant, a “pagan” or “wild” reminiscence in the scriptural economy, an unnerving noise from another tradition, and supplying a reason for the production of interminable interpretations.

We still need to define some of the historic forms imposed upon orality as they relate to its ousting. Because of this exclusion, for reasons relating to neatness and economic efficiency, the voice essentially appears as the figure of citation, which is analogous, in the field of writing to the trace of the naked foot on Robinson’s island. In the scriptural culture, the citation unites effects of interpretation (it allows for the production of a text) with effects of alteration (it disturbs the text). It plays between these two poles that, in turn, characterize these two extreme figures: on the one hand, the pre-text-citation, that serves to produce text (a presumed commentary or analysis) from relics chosen from an oral tradition that functions as an authority; on the other hand, the reminiscence-citation that traces within language the unusual and fragmented return (like a breaking voice) of structuring oral relationships but which are suppressed by writing. It would seem these are borderline cases outside of which we can no longer speak of the voice. In the first case, citations become the means of the proliferation of the discourse; in the second case, they escape it and cut it up.

If we were to only keep in mind these two options, I would call one of them the “science of the fable” (from the name that has so often been attributed to it during the 18th century), and the other “returns and turns of the voice” (since its returns, like swallows in springtime, are accompanied by subtle modalities and procedures, in the same way as the turns and tropes of rhetoric, and can be translated into paths that squat in unoccupied places, into “movies for voices” says Marguerite Duras, into ephemeral tours—“a little walk and then we’ll go.”) The sketch of these two figures can act as an introduction to the examination of oral practices, while specifying some of the aspects of the framework that allows for voices to still speak.

Translation: Michel de Certeau The Machinery of Representation

Edouard Manet, Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863

This is Bora Mici's original translation from French to English of The Machinery of Representation from Michel de Certeau's theoretical work, The Invention of Everyday Life, L'invention du quotidien. In this text Certeau distinguishes strategies from tactics, with strategies belonging to an institutional authoritative and closed framework, while tactics are the unpredictable moves that individuals effect within these prescribed systems, individualizing their experience of them and turning them upside down on their heads. The translated passage discusses how the law and customs write themselves on other bodies only to reproduce themselves and make believe. In seeking a socially acceptable identity, people become signs and sacrifice their bodies to these systems of representation that precede them. I am not yet sure if this discussion is useful in order to describe a reality that is inescapable or if it hints at a system of transmission that we can transcend. The tone of the passage certainly seems critical but it seems to ignore the human aspect of this experience. Stay tuned for Les machines célibataires, a commentary on Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors.   

La Machinerie de la Representation, Michel de Certeau by Bora Mici

The Machinery of Representation

Two main operations characterize these interventions. The first one aims at removing from the body a superfluous element, deemed unhealthy or not aesthetic; the other adds to the body what it is missing. Therefore, the instruments in question can be distinguished according to the actions they carry out: cutting, pulling out, extracting, removing, etc. or inserting, placing, attaching, covering, assembling, sewing, articulating, etc.—not to mention those that substitute missing or defective organs, such as valves, pacemakers, limb prosthetics, screws implanted in the femur, artificial irises, bone substitutes, etc.

Either from the outside or from the inside, they correct an excess or a deficit, but compared to what? Just like when we remove leg hair or paint our eyelashes, cut or implant hair, this subtractive or additive activity goes back to a code. It keeps bodies within a norm. In this sense, clothing itself could be considered the instrument thanks to which a social law secures bodies and limbs for itself; it regulates and trains them through changing fashion trends as in military maneuvers. Cars, just like corsets, mold bodies and make them conform to a postural model. These are orthopedic as well as orthopraxic instruments. The foods a cultural tradition chooses to sell in a given society’s markets model just as much as they nourish bodies; they impose a form upon them, a tonality that has the value of an ID card. Glasses, cigarettes, shoes, etc. in their own way reconstitute a physical portrait. Where do we draw the line between the machinery through which a society’s living members represent themselves and when they become its representations? Where does this disciplinary apparatus that displaces and corrects, adds to and removes from malleable bodies, subjected to the instrumentalisation of so many laws, end? In reality, bodies become bodies only when they conform to these codes. Because in what circumstances does a body exist when it is not written upon, reconstituted, cultivated, identified by the instruments of a social symbolic? Perhaps, at the extreme confines of these indefatigable writings, punching holes in them through lapsus, there remains only the cry: it escapes us, it escapes them. From the first to the last cry, something else bursts out, which makes up the other of the body, at times badly brought up and in-fans, which we find intolerable in the child, the possessed person, the madman or the mentally ill—a lack of self-control like the baby’s shouting in Jeanne Dielman or that of the vice-consul in India Song.

This first operation of removing or adding is therefore just the corollary of another, more general one, which consists in making the body say the code. As we have seen, this work “realizes” (in the English sense of the term) a social language; it gives it effectivity. What a great task it is to make bodies spell out an order through “machinization”! The liberal economy is no less efficient than totalitarianism in carrying out this articulation of the law through bodies. It just uses other methods. Instead of oppressing groups in order to better mark them with the hot iron of a single power, first it atomizes them and then multiplies the tight exchange networks which make individual units conform to the rules (or the “trends”) of socio-economic and cultural contracts. We can ask ourselves why this works, whether in one instance or in the other. What desire or what need leads us to make our bodies into the emblems of a law that serves to identify? The hypotheses that respond to this question demonstrate in yet another way the strength of the bonds that tools construct between our childish “natures” and social discourses.

The credibility of a discourse is what makes believers get going. It produces practitioners. Making believe is making do. However, through a curious circularity, the ability to make—to write and mechanize bodies—is precisely what makes believe. Because the law is already applied through and on bodies, “incarnated” in physical practices, it can be approved and make believe that it speaks in the name of the “real”. It becomes believable in saying, “Reality itself dictates this text to you”. We believe what we think is real, but this “real” is assigned to the discourse by a belief that provides it with a body marked by the law. The law constantly needs an “advance” of bodies, a capital of incarnation, in order for it to make believe and be practiced. Therefore, it becomes inscribed because of what has already been inscribed: it’s the witnesses, martyrs or examples that make it believable to others. It imposes itself in this way as the subject of the law, “The ancients have practiced it,” or “others have believed it and done it,” or “you already carry my signature in yourself.”

In other words, the normative discourse does not “work” unless it has already become a narrative, a text articulated upon a reality and speaking in its name, that is to say, a storied and historicized law, told by bodies. Its implementation as a narrative is the necessary presupposition for it to produce other narratives and make believe. And tools ensure the passage from discourse to narrative through interventions that embody the law by making bodies conform to it, and in such a way, accredit it with the ability to be recited by the real itself. From initiation to torture, all social orthodoxy makes use of instruments in order to give itself the form of a history and to produce the credibility attached to a discourse articulated by bodies.

Another dynamic completes the first and becomes entwined with it, that which pushes living beings to become signs, to find in a discourse the means by which to become a unit of meaning, an identity. From this opaque and scattered flesh, from this outstanding and murky life, transitioning finally to the clarity of a word, becoming a fragment of language, a single name, readable to others, citable: this passion lives in the ascetic who is armed with instruments against his flesh, or the philosopher who does the same through language, “losing his body,” as Hegel used to say. But everyone is a witness, thirsty to have or to finally be a name, to remain one who is called, to transform into a saying, even at the cost of his life. This textualization of the body corresponds to the incarnation of the law; it supports it, it even seems to be its foundation, at any rate it serves it. Because the law puts it into play: “Give me your body and I will give you meaning, I will make you the name and the word of my discourse.” The two problems are related, and maybe the law would have no power if it did not rely on the obscure desire to exchange one’s flesh with a glorious body, to be written, even if mortally, and to be transformed into a recognized word. Only the cry, apart or ecstatic, rebellion or inner fire of that part of the body that escapes the law of named things, stands in opposition to this passion for becoming a sign.

Perhaps all experience which is not a cry of joy or pain can be assembled under an institution. All experience which is not displaced or undone by this rapture is captured by the “love of the censor, “ collected and used by the discourse of the law. It is channeled and instrumentalized. It is written by the social system. We ought to also look at cries in order to find that which is not “reconstituted” by the order of the scriptural toolbox.

Translation: Salvatore Quasimodo, Alleyway

Alleyway in Talin, Estonia by Bora Mici

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the 20th-century Italian poet, Salvatore Quasimodo's poem Vicolo, or Alleyway. I chose to translate this poem because of its evocative imagery, which I found to be almost painterly in its choice of descriptive elements. I also enjoyed its simplicity, which is characteristic of Quasimodo. He marries an emotional rendering with a visual one, which all great artworks achieve. The alleyway is both typical and personal in this poem. We can all imagine what it is like to have been there. 

Salvatore Quasimodo, Vicolo by Bora Mici

Alleyway

Sometimes your voice calls me back,
and I don’t know what skies and waters
awaken within me:
the sun’s web that comes apart
on your walls which at evening were
a swinging back and forth of lamps
from the shops open late
full of wind and sadness.

Another time: a canvas cloth flapping in the courtyard
and at night a cry could be heard
of puppies and children.

Alleyway: a cross of houses
that softly call to each other,
and don’t know it is frightening
to be alone in the dark.

Art and Chemistry, A Reflection on Life and Energy

Bora Mici, oil paints palette and turpentine, 2014

This is Bora Mici's original text, written in Italian language, which may or may not contain some minor mistakes, since I am still learning this language. The text itself reflects on a thought my chemistry professor in high school shared with me about how artists are impressive because they create something out of nothing. At the time, I did not think much of it but over the past few days, I have challenged myself to use the subjunctive mood as much as possible, and this reflection on art, chemistry and added value is what emerged. You will follow my line of reasoning as to why we need to come up with a sustainable energy model for a better future. 

Ho una pagina bianca davanti a me e la devo riempire. Direi che si tratta già di una sfida di per sé. Una volta, dopo la lezione, il mio professore di chimica al liceo mi ha fatto un complimento e malgrado le sue parole incoraggianti e meravigliate non ne fossi rimasta convinta. All’epoca io ero molto impegnata negli studi, ed ero una brava studentessa in tutte le materie, anche se la pittura era la mia preferita. E tutti se ne accorgessero tranne di me. Dunque, un giorno, dopo che avessimo terminato le ore di classe, il mio professore di chimica, che era uno di quei tizi che cercavano sempre di star simpatici agli studenti, mi ha confessato che fosse rimasto sbigottito da una realizzazione dirompente. Aveva capito che i chimici non partono mai dal nulla per creare cose nuove, mentre gli artisti sì.

Allora, io direi che abbia ragione e no al contempo. Sebbene gli artisti partano da uno sfondo svuotato e ci mettano tutta la loro creazione sopra, che supponiamo, si inneschi dalla loro più profonda interiorità, non è che non godano di un supporto già esistente. In primis, benché possano essere convinti della loro sola autorevolezza, di essere un sistema autarchico a sé stante, gli artisti, come tutti quanti, si ispirano a un input, suscitato per forza da un fattore esteriore a loro, ad esempio un paesaggio oppure anche un sogno. Anche i sogni e le cose che ci immaginiamo non sono ermeticamente isolati dal mondo che ci circonda. Quindi gli stimoli esteriori si mescolano all'individualità di un'artista per far nascere un'opera d'arte che solo quella persona avrebbe potuto creare. 

Per non confonderci le idee, propongo che ci limitiamo ai pittori, quelli che dipingono un quadro sopra una superficie che consideriamo a prima vista priva di contenuto. E in questo non avrei risposto al mio professore di chimica che non avesse ragione. Però, in quanto chimico, avrebbe dovuto rendersi conto dell'importanza delle attrezzature di cui si servono i pittori per realizzare i loro dipinti. Non si può negare che troviamo tra di loro parecchi materiali creati con l’aiuto della chimica e della scienza e la sperimentazione, tra cui i pennelli con i peli naturali e quegli artificiali, le tele di cotone o lino ricoperte di uno strato di gesso liquido che fa in modo che la tela non assorbisca i colori, e non dimentichiamo i tubi dei colori stessi che vengono confezionati per la massima pigmentazione e perché la pittura possa perdurare attraverso i secoli. Forse il mio professore di chimica mi stava spingendo a riflettere proprio su questa interdipendenza tra artisti e chimici. Sara contento di sapere che ci sia riuscita vent’anni dopo e che la sua incitazione non sia andata sprecata. Quando mi ha condiviso la sua riflessione, per quanto l’avessi considerata con occhio scettico, non mi ero spinta fino alla conclusione dove sono arrivata oggi.

Adesso complichiamo un po' l'argomento, per inoltrarsi nel cuore del problema. Se prendiamo la teoria del valore aggiunto in termini economici, chi tra i chimici e gli artisti creano più di valore partendo da una basi materiale che poi trasformano per ottenere un nuovo prodotto? Sarebbe avventato pensare che non esistano anche artisti che scelgono di sfidare i limiti stessi degli attrezzi che impiegano, oppure quelli che ne inventano di nuovi. Per quanto possiate insistere che i chimici svolgono un lavoro essenziale e a fini pragmatici, perché appunto manipolano le sostanze e i componenti della vita, e forniscono gli ingredienti di altri prodotti più finiti, gli artisti e le persone creative sono i loro clienti più fedeli e non si stancano mai di mettere a frutta e di mostrare il potenziale del lavoro scientifico in ambiti diversi, dalla tecnologia all'uso innovativo di materie prime. 

Finalmente affronteremo un altro problema di tenore economico che in qualsiasi modo mi sembra difficile a dipanare e che ci permetterà una riflessione sulla totalità dell'esistenza umana sul pianeta terra. Mettiamo che il valore aggiunto sia un’invenzione umana molto importante per il nostro equilibrio psicologico che ci aiuti a sentirsi valorizzati e ci dia l’impressione di poter crescere questo valore che portiamo anche agli altri, insomma che ci permette di sviluppare le ricchezze e fare progressi. Come facciamo a bilanciare l’equazione che pone da un lato le risorse limitate del pianeta e dall'altro questo valore aggiunto che ci dà l’illusione di poter progredire indefinitamente? Possiamo veramente creare qualcosa dal nulla come ha accennato il mio professore? 

Affinché questo si verifichi dobbiamo essere in grado di arginare a seconda della nostra volontà i poteri immensi della fisica quantica e far sicché una particella subatomica liberi un'energia tremenda che riusciamo a canalizzare, a conservare e a mobilitare a nostro volere. Perciò dobbiamo riuscire a creare più energie di quanto ne usiamo senza sprecarle. Però per quanto ne capisca io, e non sono un'esperta, secondo le leggi della termodinamica, l’energia si può soltanto trasferire, non si può ne produrne di più che ce ne sia già presente nell’universo, ne cancellarne o far sparire una parte. Dunque la realtà è che non possediamo mai niente ma prendiamo in affitto oppure prestiamo al mondo tutto ciò che riceviamo da lui durante la nostra vita per un intervalle limitato. Niente ci appartiene davvero a eccezione del tempo che abbiamo a disposizione. Dobbiamo capire come fare in modo da conservare lo stile di vita che vogliamo sia la norma e che ci possa permettere la convivenza più pacifica possibile come società unita.

Translation: Francis Jammes, It's going to snow

Edvard Munch, New Snow in the Avenue, 1906

This is Bora Mici's original French to English translation of the poem "Il va neiger" or "It's going to snow" by the French 19th- to 20th-century poet Francis Jammes. Even though it is currently the beginning of spring in the Washington, DC area, I was feeling somewhat nostalgic for winter's silence and was drawn to this poem in Georges Pompidou's anthology of French poetry. What I like about this poem is its background of snow falling and the constant and enduring everyday quality of the objects it describes. It evokes a sense of peace and comfort and quiet and eternity, and a reckoning with our innermost strivings to change the world around us by labelling things and thus seeking to possess them and make our imprint on them.  

Francis Jammes, Il va neiger... by Bora Mici

It’s going to snow…

It is going to snow in a few days. I recall
a year ago. I remember my sad thoughts
by the fire pit. If you had asked me though: what is it?
I would have said: let me alone. It’s nothing at all.

I have thought long, last year, in my room, I remember
whilst the heavy snow fell out the door,
My thoughts were naught. Now as before
I am smoking a wooden pipe with an end piece of amber.

My old chest of drawers still smells good of oak,
I was stupid because so many things

could not change and it’s just posing
to want to estrange the things we cannot stoke.

So why do we think and speak? It’s
our tears and kisses, they, don’t speak, [funny thing;
and yet we understand them, and the steps
of a friend are sweeter than sweet words linked.

We have baptized the stars without much thought
and they did not need a name, and the numbers,
which prove that the pretty comets in dark slumbers
will pass, all the same, will not make them change their lot.

And even at this moment, where are my sad fits
from last year? I barely remember them.
I would persevere: Leave me alone, it’s nothing ahem,
if you came into my room to ask me: what is it?

Message to the World, An Existentialist Meditation

This is Bora Mici's original short analysis in French of the reason why people like to imitate each other and want the same things. The conclusion indicates a different, more subtle, approach to life.

Un soupçon

Je voudrais expliquer ici les causes latentes du désir mimétique, identifié comme concept par René Girard dans son livre éponyme. Le désir mimétique nous pousse à vouloir imiter les autres. A titre d’exemple, dans le cas de l’engouement pour les smartphones, on dirait que tout le monde a voulu le même produit en même temps, ce qui a explosé les ventes et a fait du smartphone un objet à la fois indispensable, pour les consommateurs, et rentable, pour les créateurs. Mais qu’est-ce qui se cache derrière cette impulsion de briguer tous les mêmes choses en même temps, de se ruer comme des moutons de Panurge pour avoir du dernier cri? Tout d’abord il y a la vanité. Notre vanité et par conséquent notre estime de nous-mêmes dépendent du regard d’autrui, comme l’a défini Jean-Paul Sartre au sein de sa philosophie existentialiste, qui veut que l’existence précède l’essence.

Tout simplement, on tire l’idée qu’on se fait de notre propre valeur de ce que nous pensons les autres pensent de nous. Au cours du déroulement de ce mécanisme subtil intersubjectif, on se plie à notre nature innée en tant qu’êtres sociaux, qui ont besoin de s’accorder pour mieux vivre ensemble et pour donner un sens aux choses de la vie. Donc, on essaie de nous cerner nous-mêmes à travers la façon qu’on perçoit que les autres nous cernent à leur tour, et comment ils cernent d’autres personnes encore. Cela fait un effet domino, et tout d’un coup, on se retrouve tous avec la même idée.

C’est en établissant des normes en commun et définissables qu’on est mieux placés pour réussir notre coexistence. En conséquence, on joue des rôles prédéterminés qui nous aident à établir et maintenir un ordre et souvent une hiérarchie sociale, c’est-à-dire on assigne des essences préalables à notre identité sociale. Ces rôles, selon Sartre, relèvent de la mauvaise foi. Par exemple, nous nous disons qu’on est des employés de banque, alors qu’avant tout, on devrait revendiquer notre liberté radicale et ne pas se conformer à l’ordre établi sans réflexion.

En même temps que nous souhaitons épater nos collègues par notre adhésion bien adaptée aux règles sociales, on reste aussi des êtres foncièrement individualistes qui veulent surpasser nos homologues. On assure donc notre primauté aux yeux de nos semblables en empruntant des chemins qui sont socialement acceptables, soit la concurrence sous-entendue et bien valorisée. Donc on va tout faire pour garder ou améliorer notre statut social parce que ça nous permet une meilleure situation économique et aussi un meilleur contrôle sur comment on est perçus, par les autres, mais surtout par nous-mêmes. Un tel atout fait en sorte qu’on puisse mieux s’intégrer et donc satisfaire notre besoin social, et en même temps de se distinguer pour mieux nourrir notre envie de vaincre. On dit qu’on est notre pire critique, mais en même temps on est notre meilleur agent de pub, engendrant chez autrui le désir d’être comme nous, de vouloir ce qu’on possède, de se voir à travers nos yeux.

C’est pour toutes ces raisons qu’il faut plus se laisser absorber par le moment présent. On a moins d’attentes et on anticipe moins, deux façons d’exister qui sont anxiogènes, et que les smartphones par exemple suscitent en nous demandant d’être toujours connectés à un monde virtuel. On devrait par contre profiter pleinement de la vie, qui se déroule au présent. De toute façon, il faut aussi apprendre du passé et se projeter dans l’avenir parce que la vie en société l’exige, mais je pense qu’on devrait minimiser ces deux aspects de vivre et être plus sereins. Ce sont les querelles du passé qui nous hantent dans l’avenir et ce sont nos aspirations pour protéger notre propre avenir qui peuvent conduire à des guerres insensées. On devrait être moins rancuniers, moins égoïstes et plus généreux et indulgents. On doit comprendre que lorsque nous regardons dans les yeux d’autrui on cherche avant tout l’amour. Mais comme on ne sait pas aimer parfaitement puisque on est tous différents et avons vécu des expériences divergentes, on est toujours obligés de pardonner à autrui et de faire de notre mieux pour communiquer avec honnêteté. Après tout, la vie en société est une projection en continu.

Translation: Italo Calvino, The Adventure of a Reader

George Bellows, Forty-two kids, 1907

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of an extract from the short story "The Adventure of a Reader" or "L'avventura di un lettore" taken from Italo Calvino's collection of short stories Difficult Loves, or Gli amori difficili, in Italian. This collection contains several uniquely constructed love stories that highlight the psychological distance between the protagonists and those whom they love. In this particular story, Amedeo, an avid reader, who is more interested in books than in real life, is progressively torn between the engaging narrative he has his nose in and a typically attractive beach going woman, whose presence he initially observes and comments silently to himself from a distance, and the awkward encounters that ensue, bringing them closer and closer. In all of Calvino's short stories in this collection, as readers, we slowly zoom into the complexities and anticipations that get in the way of two lovers communicating clearly with each other. 

Italo Calvino, L’avventura di un lettore, by Bora Mici

At that point, Amedeo began talking about jellyfish: his direct knowledge was not very extensive, but he had read some books about famous fishermen and undersea explorers so—overlooking the minute fauna—he got around to speaking about the famous manta ray. The woman on holiday was listening to him while showing great interest, and now and then, she chimed in, always exaggeratedly, like women do. “Do you see this red spot I have on my arm? Do you think it could have been a jellyfish?” Amedeo touched the spot, located a little above the elbow, and said no. It was a little reddish because she had leaned on it while sunbathing.

And that was that. They said goodbye. She returned to her spot, and he returned to his and started reading again. It had been an intermission that had lasted just the right amount of time, neither more nor less, an unanticipated human interaction, (the lady had been polite, discrete and docile) precisely because it had been so understated. Now he experienced a much fuller and much more concrete attachment to the reality in his book, where everything had a meaning, a rhythm, and was important. Amedeo felt that everything was perfect: the printed page revealed a true life to him, deep and captivating, and when he raised his eyes, he encountered a random but pleasing correspondence between colors and feelings, a secondary and decorative world that could not engage him in any way. The tanned lady smiled at him and hinted a greeting from her beach mat. He also responded with a smile and a vague gesture and immediately looked down again. But the lady had said something.

“What?”

“Are you reading? Do you always read?”

“What?”

“Is it interesting?”

“Yes.”

“Enjoy the rest!”

“Thanks.”

He needed to no longer raise his eyes. At least until the end of the chapter. He read it in one breath. Now the lady had a cigarette in her mouth and was gesturing at him while pointing at it. Amedeo was under the impression that she had been trying to attract his attention for some time. “What?”

“Sorry, a match…”

“Ah no, you know what? I don’t smoke.”

The chapter was over. Amedeo quickly read the first few lines of the next one, which he found surprisingly enticing, but in order to attack the new chapter without distractions, he needed to deal with the problem of the match first. “Wait!” He got up, started jumping across the rocks, half stunned by the sun, until he found a group of people smoking. He borrowed a box of “Minerva” matches, ran back to the lady, lit her cigarette, and ran back to return the “Minerva” box. “Just keep it, you can keep it,” they told him. He ran back to the lady again and left the “Minerva” with her. She thanked him. He waited a moment before saying goodbye, but then he understood that after such hesitation, he had to say something else, and he said, “You’re not going into the water?”

“In a bit,” said the lady. “What about you?”

“I’ve already been.”

“And you won’t go in again?”

“Yes, I’ll read another chapter and then go for another swim.”

“Me too. I’ll smoke my cigarette and jump in.”

“Ok then. See you later.”

“Later.”

This semblance of an appointment restored a calmness in Amedeo, which, as he now realized, he had not experienced since he had first noticed the presence of the solitary woman on holiday. His conscience was no longer weighed down by the need to maintain any kind of imaginable relationship with that lady. Everything was postponed until the moment of the swim—a swim he would have taken anyways, even if it had not been for the lady—and now he could abandon himself to the pleasure of reading without regrets. He did so to such a degree that he had not realized that at some point—while he had still not reached the end of the chapter—the woman on holiday, who had finished her cigarette, had stood up and had come up to him to invite him to go swimming. He saw her wooden sandals and straight legs a little beyond his book, looked up, looked back down at the page—the sun was blinding—and read a few lines hurriedly. Then he went back to looking up and heard her saying, “Isn’t your head bursting? I’m jumping in!” It was still nice staying there, continuing to read and looking up now and then. But not being able to delay things any longer, Amedeo did something he would never have done. He skipped almost half a a page, until the conclusion of the chapter, which he read very attentively instead, and then he stood up.

“Let’s go! Are we jumping off the top?”

Translation: Bokononist Calypso from The Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Cover of The Cat's Cradle Dell Publishing edition, 1963 

In Kurt Vonnegut's short novel The Cat's Cradle, the Book of Bokonon, which expounds on the made-up religion of the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, is written in cynical and humorous verses of child-like simplicity, called calypsos, which reflect timeless truths about the quest for life's meaning. This was one of my favorites and I decided to translate it from English into all the languages I know. This is Bora Mici's original translation from English into French, Italian and Albanian of Bokonon's calypso on what distinguishes humans from animals. The translation into Romance languages was much easier and closer to the original because these languages have regular verb endings, while I had to get a bit more creative for the translation into Albanian to preserve the rhymes. I would say the translation into Albanian better represents an accurate divulgation of what Bokonon really meant by this calypso, as the greater context of the novel might suggest.   

Original English version

Tiger got to hunt
Bird got to fly
Man got to wonder, Why? Why? Why?
Tiger got to sleep
Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself he understand.

Translation into French

Le tigre a pu chasser
L’oiseau a pu voler
Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Pourquoi, l’homme a pu se demander.
Le tigre a pu dormir
L’oiseau a pu atterrir
Je comprends, l’homme a pu se dire.

Translation into Italian

La tigre ha potuto cacciare
L’uccello ha potuto volare
Perché? Perché, Perché, l’uomo si è potuto domandare.
La tigre ha potuto dormire
L’uccello ha potuto atterrire
L’uomo ha potuto dirsi, sì riesco a capire.

Translation into Albanian

Tigri mundi të gjuante
Zogu mundi të fluturonte
Duke pyetur Pse? Pse? Pse? njeriu veten mundi të torturonte.
Tigri mundi të flinte
Zogu mundi të zbriste
Kuptoj, mundi të thotë njeriu që mend të shiste.

Une histoire absurde en français

René Magritte, Les amants, 1928

This is a short poem-story in French by Bora Mici that utilizes French-language idiomatic expressions in a creative way.

Une histoire absurde en français qu'on peut tout de même suivre

Cette histoire est tirée par les cheveux.
J’ai dû lui tirer les vers du nez pour entendre sa voix.
Pourtant elles ont des atomes crochus.
Elles vivent aux crochets des autres.
Si tu veux bien me donner un coup de main
Je te montrerai comment ne pas trop accuser le coup la nuit venue.
Il a trop la banane dernièrement
Quand je rentrerai de la pêche, il faut que tu l’assommes.
C’est convenu, il faut serrer les coudes et non pas les dents.
Je me demande si on aura du pot.
Elle accepte les pots de vin pardessus tout.
C’est pour faire belle figure, figure-toi!
Mais non elle l’a échappé belle! Elle veut juste faire la fine bouche pour se vanter de n’avoir jamais dû pâtir des peines ordinaires. C’est une étourdie, une végane. Elle ne ferait jamais de mal à une mouche, t’as fais mouche.
Elle prend tout au pied de la lettre et puis exécute une pirouette, prend ses pieds à son cou et se faufile dans mes veines.
Veinard!
Le sang qui coule dans tes veines te fait honneur. Prends ton courage à deux mains et n’y vas pas de main morte.
Tu l’auras. Chose promise chose due.
C’est à dire? Ne tire pas trop sur la corde.
Ne t’inquiète, c’est dans mes cordes de payer de mine. Tu n’auras que dormir sur les deux oreilles et avoir bonne mine le matin. La bouche à l’oreille s’occupera du reste.

Translation: The Canary Prince as told by Italo Calvino, Part 3

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, 1882

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the fairytale The Canary Prince, Il Principe canarino, as told by Italo Calvino. It tells a story of treachery, love, bravery and ingenuity that integrates many traditional fairytales, including Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and lesser known ones.

The Canary Prince by Italo Calvino, Part 3

At the dogs’ wailing, the other hunters arrived, rescued him, and carried him on a stretcher made of tree branches, without even looking up at the window of his beloved who was still terrified by pain and fear.

Back in his kingdom, the Prince did not give any signs of recovery, and the doctors did not know how to bring him any relief. The wounds would not close and continued to hurt. His father, the King, put up signs in all the street corners promising treasures to whomever figured out how to heal him; but no one could be found.

In the meantime, the Princess was heartbroken that she could not be near her beloved. She began to cut her sheets into thin strips and tie them together in order to make a very long rope, and one night, she used this rope to come down from the very high tower. She began to walk along the hunters’ path. But it was completely dark and the wolves were howling, so she thought it would be better to wait for morning and found an old oak with an opening in it, went inside and curled up in there, falling asleep immediately since she was dead tired. She woke up in the middle of the night and thought she had heard a whistle. She put her hand to her ear and heard another whistle, then a third and a fourth one. And she saw four candle flames approaching. They were four Old Hags, who came from the four corners of the world and had decided to meet under this tree. From a slit in the trunk, the Princess, invisible, spied on the four old women with the candles in their hands, who were having and party and cackling, “Hah! Hah! Hah!”

They lit a bonfire at the base of the tree and sat down to warm up and roast a couple of bats for dinner. After they had eaten their fill, they began to ask each other what they had seen that was remarkable around the world.

“I have seen the Turkish Sultan who bought himself twenty new wives.”

“I have seen the Chinese Emperor who had grown his braid by three meters.”

“I have seen the King of the Cannibals who ate his own Chamberlain by mistake”

“I have seen the nearby King, whose son is ill, and no one knows the remedy except for me.”

“And what is it?” asked the other three Witches.

“There is a loose tile in his room. All you have to do is lift up the tile and you will find a vial. In the vial, there is a potion that would make all his wounds disappear.”

From inside the tree, the Princess was about to scream out with joy. She had to bite her finger in order to keep quiet. At that point, the Old Hags had said everything they had to say to each other, and each went on its way.

The Princess jumped out of the tree, and at the light of dawn, started walking toward the city. At the first secondhand shop, she bought an old doctor’s smock, a pair of eyeglasses, and she went and knocked on the palace doors. At the sight of this paltry doctor, the servants did not want to let him enter, but the King said, “As things are, he cannot harm my son any further, because it’s impossible for him get any worse. Let this one try too.” The false doctor asked to be left alone with the patient, and it was granted.

When she was at the side of her lover, who was moaning unconscious in his bed, the Princess wanted to burst out into tears and shower him with kisses, but she contained herself because she had to quickly follow the Witch’s instructions. She began to walk up and down the room until she found the loose tile. She lifted it and found a small vial full of potion. She started to rub the Prince’s wounds with it. All she had to do was put her hand covered with potion on them and the wounds would disappear. Completely satisfied, she called the King, and the King saw his son without wounds, with the the color back in his cheeks, sleeping quietly.

“Ask me for what you wish, doctor,” said the King. “All of the riches of the State treasury are yours.”

“I don’t want any money,” said the doctor. “Give me only the Prince’s shield with the family emblem, the Prince’s banner and his yellow jacket, the bloody torn one.” And with these three objects in hand, she left.

Three days later, the King’s son was out hunting again. He passed by the castle in the middle of the woods, but he did not even lift his gaze toward the Princess’s window. She immediately took the book, turned the pages, and even though he was upset about it, the Prince was forced to transform into a canary. He flew into her room, and the Princess made him turn into a man again. “Let me go,” he said. “Isn’t it enough that you speared me with your pins and caused me so much suffering?” As it turns out, the Prince no longer felt any love for the girl, thinking she had been the cause of his misfortune.

The girl was about to faint, “But I saved you! I was the one that healed you!”

“It’s not true,” said the Prince. “The one who saved me was a foreign doctor, who wanted no other reward than my emblem, my banner and my bloody jacket.”

“Here is your emblem, here is your banner, and here is your jacket! I was that doctor. The pins were my stepmother’s cruelty!”

The Prince looked her in the eyes for a second gobsmacked.

She had never seemed so beautiful to him. He fell to her feet asking for forgiveness and declaring all his gratitude and love.

That same night, he told his father that he wanted to marry the girl from the castle in the woods. “You must only marry the daughter of a King or an Emperor,” said his father.

“I am marrying the girl who saved my life.”

And the wedding preparations were under way. All the Kings and Queens from the nearby surroundings were invited. The King who was the Princess’s father also came unwittingly. When he saw the bride walking to the altar, he exclaimed, “My daughter!”

“What do you mean?” asked the King who was the host. "My son’s bride is your daughter? Why did she not tell us?”

“Because,”—said the bride. “I no longer consider myself the daughter of a man who allowed my stepmother to imprison me.” And she pointed at the Queen with her index finger.

After hearing about all of his daughter’s misfortunes, the father was filled with compassion for her and contempt for his treacherous wife. And he did not even wait to return home to have her arrested. And so the wedding was celebrated with happiness and joy by all, except for the disgraced one.

Translation: Mamma's Cat by Giovanni Arpino, Part 1

Woman with Cat, Kees van Dongen, 1908

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the short story Il gatto mammone or Mamma's Cat (in English) by the Italian 20th century writer Giovanni Arpino. It's a comically absurd but touching story of the relationship of a cat with her two diametrically opposed owners.

Mamma’s Cat by Giovanni Arpino, Part 1

If they refer to him as Your Excellence at the table, he barely squints, electrically shakes his left whiskers, then leans over his plate with exaggerated caution, grabs a piece of meat, sits up again and chews slowly, staring into the void.

He is huge, neutered, has never left home, and paces between the living room and the hallway like a Chinese Mandarin. He especially likes to look at himself in the mirror, or motionlessly stop before a composition of butterflies trapped under a piece of glass. He winks at the butterflies, shakes his left whiskers, and suavely moves his rich tabby tail. Like this, he waits for five o’clock, when finally they turn on the television for him, and alone, with abandon on the couch, he looks at the black and white movements on the screen, ready to pretend to suspend his interest as soon as the noise level surpasses his limit of tolerance.

He does not respond to being called, but is alert every time the phone rings, every time the intercom makes a sound, every time the doorbell goes off. Because he does not like strangers, people who can take over his couch, turn off the television, steal his place at the table, where he sits to the right of his mistress and never extends even so much as a nail toward his plate if everyone else has not started eating yet.

—One day or another I’ll kill you—mumbles the man at the other side of the table.

—Oh, don’t say these things to him, you know he gets offended—his wife tries to make peace between them.

—One day or another I’ll hang you. You are my brother, but then you’ll see. I will hang you—repeats the man.

Then he pulls his head back into his neck and mutters something, immediately stopping to eat. He knows very well that the man of the house is joking, but he does not like his tone of voice and particularly that he keeps repeating these jokes. What’s more, he can sense how it will all end in the evening. And this annoys him because he does not feel like repeating himself and drawing commentary.

—See? Now he is not eating anymore—the woman complains sweetly.

—Fatty! You’re a fatty. Sooner or later, I will put a bomb under you so you explode—the husband starts up again.

Then he lazily comes down from the chair and walks away, and goes and posts himself in front of the butterflies under the glass in the hallway.

—There—the maid interjects abruptly:—We’re back at it. Then he takes it out on me. Why do you always insult him? Miss, please say something, tell the mister to stop. I always get caught up in the middle of it for hours and hours.

Leaving behind the butterflies, because he is irritated despite his cautious step and long thick fur, he goes to the kitchen, sits in front of the window and starts growling.

It’s a deaf moan, with unexpected dark lows, with a hint of wailing that also contains a threat, contempt, livid hostility toward the gestures, words and attempts of others.

He is capable of going on like this for an entire afternoon. On the other side of the window’s glass frame, there is a small terrace that ends in a yellow wall over which the shadow of a swallow or a dove rarely glides.

But nothing, neither calling out to him nor flying shadows shake up his rigidity, hunkering down with enmity. Not even the sounds coming from the bathroom, where his mistress washes her hands before going back out to return to the office.

Bye—says the wife as she puts on her light coat:—Remember to make that phone call.

—Ok, Ada. Bye. See you later—responds the husband as he looks around his newspaper for a moment.

If they had not mocked him with those assassination threats, he would have started behind Mrs. Ada, would have accompanied her to the door, would have shaken his whiskers in resignation at seeing her go out.

But with everything that had happened at the table, he will not leave the kitchen until dark. He will give up television, the couch, solemn walks in front of the mirror.

—Here we go again—says the maid pouring the man’s coffee as he reads the newspaper:—He is offended to death. Come on, do something. Otherwise he will mope around all day.

—Oh yeah?—the man laughs with the coffee cup in his hand:—Listen here, Your Excellence. Come here. Now! Otherwise I’ll get up and strangle you.

—You know what you are? A headstrong troublemaker—the maid lights up.

The man keeps laughing as he mixes the sugar into his coffee, but he has heard him from the kitchen, and now increases his growling, his tail going from the most stone stiff immobility to shivering brief flicks, and his eyes are angrily palpitating.

—Calm down, come on, calm down. You should not pay attention to that hardhead. He does it on purpose. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you like this—the maid tries to pacify him in the kitchen.

It’s an impossible undertaking because he won’t give in. Even if they had left him alone at home, he would have still stayed in the kitchen motionless, ignoring the butterflies, the couch, the television, the mirror, waiting for Mrs. Ada to come back and bring with her or invent a little bit of peace.

—Dear young lady, I’m going out—the man notifies her laughing from the hallway:—Have a good afternoon. Tonight we’ll get down to business.

—Did you hear? He left. Come on, stop it. Be nice—says the maid in the kitchen, as soon as the door has closed behind them.

But she would never dare touch him. Perhaps out of fear. Perhaps it’s that more complicated diffidence that certain women feel towards cats. For sure, she would never pick him up in her arms to move him away from the window. She can speak to him, yes. But she also knows that her voice, her opinions and her consolations count for nothing for those tense ears, that spine curved with well-nourished fur.

And he looks out and waits, and sits with his growling that seems to come from faraway muffled bronzes.

Translation: Guido Gozzano Grandmother Hope's Friend, Part 2

Maxfield Parrish, The Sugar-plum Tree, 1904

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the poem L'amica di Nonna Speranza or Grandmother Hope's Friend by the Italian poet Guido Gozzano. This is Part 2. The poem describes the homecoming from school of a young boy's grandmother Speranza (Hope) and her best friend Carlotta, the romantic center of the boy's eclectic but familiar home life of mismatched objects and savory characters just before Italy's unification. The poem is peppered with literary allusions as well as historical ones. 

Grandmother Hope’s Friend by Guido Gozzano, Part 2

“Radetzki? What say you? The armistice…the peace, the peace that now reigns…
That young king of Sardaigne is a man of great judgment indeed!—

“He is certainly a tireless soul…—he’s strong, he’s vigilant, he’s quick!—
“Is he handsome? — Not handsome not a bit…—He likes women above all…

“Hope!” (slowly leaning forward in a sibylline tone, as if begging your pardon)
“Carlotta! Go down into the garden: go and play badminton, go on!”

So the happy friends with a curtsey, in perfect poise,
respectfully leave the noise, of the uncles and aunts in a frenzy.

Alas! While they were at play, a birdie, that was hit much too hard,
never again came downward, from a nearby chestnut tree!

The friends lean over the balustrade, and look out at the Lake,
they dream of love awake, in lustrious daydreams in the shade.

“…if you only saw what teeth, what a smile! — How old? — Twenty-eight.
— A poet? She frequents of late, the salon of the Maffei countess. Been a while.

It certainly won’t die, the day won’t languish. It lights up the lawn
in velvet; like dawn, with bloody stigmatas of anguish;

finally it goes out, but slow. The mountains darken in a chorus:
the Sun sheds its gold flawless, the Moon dons silver aglow.

Oh Romantic Moon, behind a wispy cloud, you kiss the treetops
of the poplars arched in crops, like a child puzzled, young browed.

An entire past’s dream, settles into your crescent:
you are perhaps reminiscent, of the prints in a literary magazine.

Have you perhaps seen the empty houses, of Parisiana La Bella?
Perhaps in the latest novella, you are that which Young Werther espouses?

“Future dreams to come, sigh. — The lake has become more dense
with stars—…what do you think?…— I cannot dispense…—How would you like to die?

“Yes!—It seems like the sky reveals, more stars in the water, brighter.
Leaning over the rails feeling lighter, we dreamed between two azurine seals…

“It’s like I am floating: I am soaring above!… Do you know Mazzini…
— Do you like him?— What divine terzini… He gave me that book on love,

remember? that tells about how a guy, in love but without a farthing,
he kills himself for a darling, a darling who had the same name as I.

Carlotta! A name not elegant but sweet! Which like the perfumes I don’t disparage
you bring to life the carriage, the scarves, the crinoline, what a feat…

Oh grandmother’s friend I know, the flowerbeds where you were reading
the story of Jacopo misleading, in the tender book by Foscolo.

With such sadness and sorrow, in my notebook I mark the date:
the year is eighteen fifty on June twenty-eight, I immortalize you for the day and the morrow.

You stand as if ravished in a hymn; looking deeply into the sky,
and your index on your lip as you try a demeanor romantic and dim.

That day—Woe me!—you were wearing a pink gown,
to have your portrait taken down, by a photographer—What novelty!

But I can no longer see you in the flower, oh Grandmother’s friend! Where are you?
oh alone—so that maybe I too—may love out of love’s power.

Read Part 1.

Translation: Extract of Malaria by Giovanni Verga

Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Malaria, 1883

This is Bora Mici's original translation of the beginning of the short story Malaria by Giovanni Verga. Verga was a proponent and practitioner of Verismo, or Italian Naturalism, a 19th century literary movement, which often focused on the lives of the poor and how their character and habits were inadvertently informed and determined by the environment in which they grew up or lived. Naturalist authors used a positivist sociological framework in order to bring to light the close relationship between the individual and society. Verga was also very interested in the relationship between the individual and the natural environment since he often wrote about rural settings. This particular passage shows how Sicilian farmers live and breathe the malaria that haunts their land and daily existence. 

Malaria extract, by Giovanni Verga

And you think you can touch it with your hands—like the replete land that smokes there, everywhere, all around the mountains that encircle it, from Agnone to Mongibello with its snowcaps—stagnant in the plain, like the sweltering July heat. The scorching sun and the pale moon are born and die there, and the Pleiades, that seem to navigate in an evaporating sea, and the birds and the white daisies of spring, and the burnt summer; and the ducks pass by in long, dark rows through the overcast autumn, and the river shimmers as if it were metallic, between wide, abandoned banks, white, threadbare and pebble-strewn; and at the bottom, Lake Lentini, like a pond, with its flat shores, without a single tree, without a boat, smooth and still. The rare oxen, chest-deep in mud, begrudgingly go to pasture on the pebbly riverbed in their hirsute hides. When the herd’s sad bell rings, the yellow wagtails fly away in the silence. They too are silent. And the shepherd himself, who is also a feverish yellow and white from the dust, blinks for a second with his swollen eyelids, lifting his head in the shadows of the dry reeds.

It’s that the malaria seeps into your bones through the bread you eat, and when you open your mouth to speak as you are walking along the suffocating dusty, sunny roads, and your knees give, or you let yourself fall onto the saddle of your trudging mule with your head leaning forward. Lentini, Francofonte and Paterno try in vain to clamber onto the first few hills, like lost sheep scurrying from the plane, and to line themselves with orange trees, vines and evergreen vegetable gardens; the malaria gets hold of the inhabitants on the empty streets and nails them to the doorways of their houses, whose plaster is crumbling under the sun. They feverishly shiver there under their greatcoats and the blankets thrown over their shoulders.

Down there in the plain, the houses are rare and melancholy looking, along the sun-worn streets, standing between two piles of smoking fertilizer, leaning against the faltering make-do shelter, where the horses are waiting for their next shift with listless eyes in front of empty troughs.—Or you can find it on the lake’s shore, where the inn’s decrepit wooden sign hangs on the doorway, in the large, sad, empty rooms, and the innkeeper who snoozes on the threshold with his head bound in a handkerchief, looking out, every time he wakes up, for whether a thirsty passenger is arriving. Or on the white wooden boxes, topped off by four spindly and gray eucalyptuses like feathers, along the railroad tracks that split the plain into two, as if with an ax, where the machine flies by, whistling like the autumn wind, and fiery sparks glow at night. —Or finally, here and there, on the perimeter of the plots, marked by a recently cut shaft, and the rooftops shored up from the outside, the broken shutters, in front of the crumbling barn, in the shadow of the tall straw piles where the chickens sleep with their heads under their wings, and a donkey lets his head fall with his mouth still full of straw, and a dog lifts up his head suspiciously, and hoarsely barks at the stone that is detaching from the plaster; from the lizard that crawls, to the leaf that shakes in the still countryside.

In the evening, as soon as the sun goes down, dried up men appear in the doorways under poor straw hats and in wide canvas underpants, yawning and stretching their arms; and half-naked women with dark shoulders, breastfeeding pale and already exhausted children. Who knows how they will become dark and tall, and how they will roll around in the grass when winter returns, and the courtyard turns green once again, and the blue sky, and all around, the countryside smiles under the sun. And who knows where they are and why all those people rush to the lonely small churches for Mass on Sunday, surrounded by the hedgerows of prickly pears, ten miles around, as far as one can hear the broken bell ring in the never-ending plain. However, God has also blessed this land of malaria. In June, the ears fall to the ground under their weight, and as the plowshare turns the soil in November, the furrows smoke as if they had blood in their veins. So it is only natural that those who plant and harvest fall to the ground like mature ears because God has said: “You must earn the bread you eat with your own sweat.” So that when the feverish sweat leaves someone stiff on their cornhusk mat, and there’s no longer any need for sulfate or eucalyptus tea, they load them onto the hay cart, or across a donkey saddle, or on a ladder, whatever works, with a sack on their face, and they take them into the little solitary church, under the prickly pears with their thorns, but whose fruits no one therefore eats. The women cry in a circle, and the men look on while smoking.

Translation: The Canary Prince as told by Italo Calvino, Part 2

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Music, 1862

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the fairytale The Canary Prince, Il Principe canarino, as told by Italo Calvino. It tells a story of treachery, love, bravery and ingenuity that integrates many traditional fairytales, including Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and lesser known ones.

The Canary Prince by Italo Calvino, Part 2

“I like you,” said the old woman. “So I will help you.” And after knocking on the castle’s door, she gave the Court maidens a big old book with frayed and oily pages, saying it was a gift for the Princess so she could spend her time reading. The maidens brought it to the girl who immediately opened it and read, “This is a magical book. If you turn the pages in the right direction, the man will become a bird, and if you turn them in the opposite direction, he will become a man again.”

The girl ran to the window, placed the book on the windowsill and quickly began to turn the pages while looking at the young man dressed in yellow standing in the middle of the path. And there you have it, from the young man dressed in yellow that he was—he moved his arms, shook his wings—he had become a canary; the canary took flight and there he was already higher than the treetops, he was coming toward her and landed on the cushion on the windowsill. The Princess could not resist the temptation to take that beautiful canary in the palm of her hand and kiss it. Then she remembered it was a young man and felt ashamed. Then she thought of it again and was no longer ashamed, but she could not wait to transform him into a young man again, like he had been before. She took the book again, leafed through the pages, making them flow in the opposite direction, and there was the canary that was picking at its yellow feathers, shaking its wings, moving its arms and had once again become the young man dressed in yellow hunting pants, on his knees before her telling her, “I love you!”

When they had finished confessing their love to one another, it was already evening. The Princess slowly began turning the pages of the book. The young man, who was looking into her eyes, became a canary again, flew to the windowsill, then onto the waterspout. Then he let the air carry him and went down in large swoops, landing on the lowest branch of a tree. Then she turned the pages in the opposite direction and the canary became a Prince. The Prince jumped to the ground, whistled to his dogs, blew a kiss toward the window, and went away down the path.

So everyday, the pages of the book turned in order to make the Prince fly to the window on the tower top, turned again to re-endow him with his human form, then turned again to make him fly away, and turned one last time to make him go home. The two young people had never been so happy.

One day, the Queen came to see her stepdaughter. She walked about the room, as usual saying, “You’re doing well, no? I see you’ve lost a bit of weight, but it’s nothing, right? You’ve never been so well? Isn’t it so?” And in the meantime, she made sure everything was in its place: she opened the window, looked outside, and down on the path, she saw the Prince dressed in yellow that was approaching with his dogs. “If this prissy little thing thinks she is going to make eyes at the windowsill, I will teach her a lesson,” she thought. She asked her to go prepare a glass of sugar water; then quickly she removed five or six pins from her hair and stuck them into the cushion, so that they were head up but no one could see them coming through. “This way she’ll think twice before she looks out the window again!” The girl returned with the sugar water, and she said to her, “Oh, I am not thirsty anymore. Why don’t you drink it little one? I have to go back to your father. You don’t need anything, right? Bye, then,” and she left.

As soon as the Queen’s carriage had disappeared, the girl hurried to turn the pages of the book. The Prince turned into a canary, flew to the window and swooped like an arrow onto the cushion. Immediately a painful high-pitched chirping could be heard. The yellow feathers were stained with blood. The hairpins had speared the canary in the chest. He lifted himself with a desperate thrashing of the wings, let the wind carry him, descended in uncertain swoops, and landed on the ground with his wings open. The frightened Princess, who still had not completely realized what had happened, rapidly turned the pages in the opposite direction hoping that if she regave him his human form, the piercings would disappear. But alas. The Prince reappeared with blood squirting out of deep wounds that tore through his yellow chest, and lay face down on the ground surrounded by his dogs.

Read Part 1. 

Translation: Words by Salvatore Quasimodo

Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, 1485

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the short poem Words, or Parola in Italian, by the 20th century Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo. This poem expresses the poet's dilemma regarding his use of words to enchant others and himself, and how once an idea or an image has been rendered in words, much like once we have labelled something or someone we love, its aura disappears and we are left with nothing but our words, which also no longer provide consolation. In order to persevere in our endeavors, we must always leave the horizon of our expectations partially undefined.

Words by Salvatore Quasimodo

You laugh that I waste away for syllables 

and wrap around myself 

skies and hills, a blue hedgerow 

and the rustling of elm trees 

and the worried voices of brooks; 

that I swindle youth 

with clouds and colors 

which light shatters. 

I know you. Head over heels for you 

beauty lifts up your breasts, 

hollows out at the hipbones in a smooth curve 

widens around your timorous pubis, 

and redescends in a harmony of forms 

to your pretty feet with ten seashells. 

But if I get a hold you, there: 

oh words you also make me sad.

Translation: Art by Théophile Gautier

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII, 1913

This is Bora Mici's original French to English translation of the poem L'art by the 19th century French poet Théophile Gautier, known for having pronounced that art is created for its own sake, or "L'art pour l'art." This poem is taken from the collection Emaux et Camées, or Enamels and Cameos, in which the poet likens the creative process of a visual artist to that of a poet. Unlike the Romantic poets of his period, Gautier wrote in a much more simplistic, almost naive, manner and relished the sensual nature of words and what they represented. He tried to fashion what he wrote about as if he were applying color and texture to it, like a visual artist. In its original version, this particular poem, which I have translated a bit loosely in certain places, while still trying to retain its rhyme scheme and structure, is more conceptual and abstract than Gautier's other poems and is written in extremely simple verse. French being a language that is more prone to rhyming than English, I had to make a few concessions in my version. 

Art by Théophile Gautier

Yes, prettier is art that comes from
A shape worked with terse
Affront,
Marble, onyx, enamel, verse.

No feigned constraints upon!
But in order to walk upright
You don,
Oh Muse, a buskin slender and tight.

Away with rhythm and suit
Like a shoe that none fits,
Every foot
tries it on for fashion’s sake and quits!

Sculptor, push and plumb
The clay that molds
Your thumb,
When the mind wanderingly unfolds;

Wrestle with the Carrara stone,
With the Parian marble demure
Rarest alone
Guardians of the pure contour;

Borrow from Syracuse
Its bronze where sternly
The Muse
strikes a charming line firmly;

With a delicate touch
Seek in the agate you file
Not trying much
Apollo’s profile.

Painter, avoid water based hues,
And fix the color tones
Delicate blues
In the enameler’s oven stones.

Render the blue mermaids,
Which twist their tails
In myriad braids
As heraldic whales.

In her cloud-like trilobe
The Virgin and Child,
The globe
Let the Cross above it beguile.

Everything fades. — Only art robust
Possesses eternity.
The bust
Survives urbanity.

And the austere medallion
That the farmer unearths
With his scallion
Reveals royal births.

The gods themselves expire,
But the sovereign songs
Forever inspire
Like metals they are strong.

File, chisel, sculpt;
May your wandering dreams
Find hold
In the block that redeems!

Translation: The Canary Prince as told by Italo Calvino, Part 1

Veronica Veronese by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1872

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the fairytale The Canary Prince, Il Principe canarino, as told by Italo Calvino. It tells a story of treachery, love, bravery and ingenuity that integrates many traditional fairytales, including Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and lesser known ones.

The Canary Prince by Italo Calvino, Part 1

There was a King who had a daughter. Her mother had died and her stepmother was jealous of her and always badmouthed her to the King. The girl desperately tried to clear her name; but the stepmother was always a step ahead and the King, even though he loved his daughter, ended up believing the stepmother: and he told her she was allowed to send her away. However, she had to put her in a comfortable place because he would have never allowed her to be mistreated. “As for that,” said the stepmother, “don’t worry, don’t even think about it,” and she locked up the girl in a castle in the middle of the woods. She gathered a group of Court maidens and locked them up with her to keep her company with the instructions that they ought to neither let her go out nor sit by the window. Of course, she paid them from the coffers of the Royal House. The girl was given a comfortable room and all that she wanted to eat and drink: she just could not go out. The maidens, on the other hand, who were very well paid and had a lot of free time, kept to themselves and did not pay attention to her.

Now and then, the King asked his wife, “And how is our daughter? Is she doing anything interesting?” In order to make it seem like she was involved in her affairs, the Queen went to visit her. At the castle, as soon as she got out of her carriage, the maidens all ran to greet her and to tell her to not worry. The girl was doing very well and was very happy. The Queen climbed up to her room for a few minutes. “So, you are doing well, yes? You have everything you need, yes? I can see from your complexion that you are healthy. The air is good. So keep smiling! Good-bye!” And she left. She told the King that she had never seen his daughter so happy.

However, the Princess who was always alone in that room, with her escort who did not even look at her, spent her days sadly looking out of the window. She sat there with her elbows on the windowsill, and she would have gotten calluses on them if she had not thought to put a pillow underneath. The window looked upon the forest and all day long, the Princess saw nothing but the tops of the trees, the clouds and beneath, the hunters’ path. One day, the son of a King happened upon this path. He was following a wild boar and passing by the castle, which he thought was abandoned many years ago, he was surprised to notice signs of life: clothes drying between the balustrades, smoke in the chimneys, open windows. He was looking up at all this when he saw a beautiful girl sitting by a window and smiled at her. The girl also saw the Prince dressed in yellow hunting pants and carrying a musket, and she also smiled at him. They spent an hour looking and smiling at one another and also curtseying and bowing because the distance that separated them did not allow for other forms of communication.

The next day, the Prince dressed in yellow, showed up again with the excuse that he was going hunting, and they spent two hours looking at each other; and this time, other than exchanging smiles, curtseys and bows, they also put one hand on their hearts and shook their handkerchiefs for a long time. The third day, the Prince stayed for three hours, and they also blew each other a kiss with their fingertips. On the fourth day, he was there as always, when an Old Hag tumbled out from behind a tree and began to snigger: “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

“Who are you? What’s there to laugh about?” said the prince in a lively voice.

“It’s just that I have never seen two lovers who are so stupid as to stand so far away from one another!”

“If only I knew how to reach her Grandma!” said the Prince.

Read Part 2.

Reductio Ad Absurdum: Reading Freud on the Subway

The Subway by George Tooker, 1950

This is a little story, or at least the beginning of it, that I wrote for a local writer's competition. It did not get selected so I am publishing it here because I think it makes points worth considering.

Reading Freud on the Subway

In “Civilization and Its Discontents,” Freud writes that he finds no error in the Communist economic plan, but surmises that it would not resolve one fundamental problem: the need to express aggression and direct it inward or outward. An economic system that prioritizes the equal distribution of resources might work, but human nature would still creep in and create inequities elsewhere.

Imagine a subway car with a limited number of car seats. If everything is planned accordingly, there are only as many customers as there are empty seats available at any given time. The flow of passengers into the car is subject to careful monitoring and regulation and unfolds without a hitch; there is no competition in sight because the frequency of the trains adapts to the fluctuating demand. But the train ride is long, longer for some than for others. How will they occupy themselves? Sound planning might alleviate one set of spatial constraints, but the laws of physics dictate that a train travels at an average speed over a given distance, and for lack of inventions to come, the present imposes itself in all its less than predictable vicissitudes.  

There’s a zealous knitter next to an avid reader. Although he tries his best to minimize the elbow room required to stitch his rows, sometimes the end of his thick wooden needle brushes against the flashy neon green and pink book cover on the edge of his peripheral vision. The reader, who is wearing headphones to drown out the chatter of two gregarious friends across the aisle, remains unperturbed. She shifts in her seat, crosses one leg over the other, but does not make a move. The story is engrossing after all, and a slight nudge from the left is a small price to pay for the pleasure of a subway car that is not cramped. The train pulls into a station. The demure couple sitting to her right gets off. Taking its place, in saunters an eccentric pair bundled up against the cold in what seems to be glossy astronaut suits, carrying bunches of flowers with flanking gigantic palm leaves.

Now our reader feels squished. What’s more, the flowers are casting an obstructive shadow over the pages of her book. Where should she turn? Should she reprimand the knitter for occasionally jolting her book or ask the bulky new arrivals to kindly put down their flowers into the aisle? She considers turning to the flower people. As she is about to make her move and takes off her headphones, one of them, the one immediately to her right, makes eye contact, then glances at his bouquet and shakes his head as if saying, “Not going to happen, sister. The flowers are staying put. Otherwise, they’ll roll up and down the aisle as the subway screeches to a stop and starts up again.” She reconsiders and turns to the left.

At this point, the conversation between the gregarious friends is really grating on her. She grabs the end of the needle. Its jaunty movement abruptly comes to a stop. She looks the knitter in the eye as if saying enough is enough — both say they’re sorry.

How can we explain this reaction? Aggression is how the superego, our social monitoring mechanism, copes with a recalcitrant, desirous ego, which in turn negotiates with our basest instincts to present a unified and socially acceptable image to our most immediate interlocutors. Gestures, thoughts, simple eye contact become aggressive acts that lead to painful remorse in conscientious individuals. But what happens between our reader and our knitter? Do they compromise and turn their backs to each other so as to no longer venture into each other's embattled airspace, so to speak, and thus expose themselves to new vagaries of idiosyncratic train behaviors? Do they cease and desist?

Or does one emerge victorious through subtle guilt-tripping or by occupying the moral high ground? Or does it depend on what book the reader is reading and the lessons it can impart in the serendipitous event that she reflect upon them, and perhaps shares them with her nimble fingered neighbor, who in turn offers to knit her a pair of gloves to keep her hands warm while she is reading other works of literature that provide insight into human nature and encourage conversations, thus defusing stressful factors and creating bonds?