Translation: Guido Gozzano Grandmother Hope's Friend, Part 1

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878

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 1. 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. 

Grandmother Hope’s Friend by Guido Gozzano, Part 1

“ … to her Hope
from her Carlotta…
June 28, 1850”.


Stuffed is Loreto and Alfieri’s bust, Napoleon’s
flowers in a frame, (good old things in terrible taste are a must!)

the chimney is a bit glum, the boxes without confetti,
the marble fruits steady, sheltered by glass bells that stay mum,

some rare toys in ruts, the half-shell chests in tow
the objects with the warning hello, I remember the coconuts,

Venice depicted in mosaic, the watercolors slightly faded,
the prints, the chests, the painted white of anemones archaic,

the canvases of Massimo d’Azeglio, the miniatures,
the daguerrotypes: creatures that dream perplexedly,

the large outdated chandelier, which hangs in the living room’s middle,
that multiplies the good old diddle on the quartz’s splendid veneer,

the cuckoo that sings the hours all nifty, the chairs adorned
in crimson damask … I am reborn, I am reborn in eighteen hundred fifty.

the little brothers, the room, on this day, cannot enter but cautiously
(they have removed all of the furniture’s upholstery: it is a day to swoon).

But they charge in a swarm. Look! their older sister Hope
and her friend with whom I want to elope, on vacation have come home!

My grandmother is seventeen years old; Carlotta has about the same style:
it’s been just a little while since they they were allowed to put hoops in their folds.

the very vast hoop crinkles the skirt with turquoise roses:
more elegant than their poses emerges a slender waist that wriggles.

Both have a shawl with oranges ablaze, flowers, birds and garland bands:
their hair parted in two strands falling down halfway to the cheeks aflame .

From Mantua they’ve arrived full of courage to Lago Maggiore unseen
even if they’ve travelled fourteen hours in a horse-drawn carriage.

Of all the class their exam got the most distinguished marks. How worked up
they were about the terrible past! They’ve left school for starts.

Oh Belgirate serene! The room looks over the garden at daybreak:
among the straight trunks gleam the mirrors of the turquoise lake.

Be quiet children! The friends — children try and quietly move about! —
the friends on the piano are trying out a scroll of notes that centuries transcends:

Slightly artificial motifs they’re arty the fronds of the settecento
by Arcanegelo de Leuto and Alessandro Scarlatti;

Innamorati lost lovers, lamenting “il core” and “l’augello”,
languors of Giordanello in sweet terrible verse:

“my dear you’re missed
believe me at least,
without you,
languishes my heart!
yours truly
sighs at the start
of every hour
immediately
stop your cruelty!

Carlotta sings, Hope plays. Sweet and in flowery bloom
life burgeons in the brief relays of a romance made of a thousand promises too soon.

Oh music, lighthearted whisper! In the soul it’s already hidden
To each smiles the groom that’s bidden: Prince Charming is the mister,

the husband of many dreams dreamed… Oh daisies just back from school
to find the the magic spool leaf through the tender verse of Prati redeemed!

Uncle arrives, a virtuous gentleman of much esteem,
faithful to the Past and to the cream of Lombardy-Venice and the Emperor’s acumen.

Auntie arrives, a consort very deign, very proper and decent,
faithful to the Past even if she has a penchant for the King of Sardinia’s reign.

“Kiss your Aunt and Uncle’s hand!” would say Mom and Dad:
and they would raise the fiery chins a tad of the restless little ones in a band.

“And this is the friend on vacation: mademoiselle Carlotta Capenna:
the most gifted student in the arena, Hope’s dearest friend in the nation.”

“Well what do you know…what do you know…”—would say the esteemed Uncle
and piously the words he would bungle—“Well what do you know…what do you know…

Capenna? I knew an Arthur Capenna…Capenna…Capenna…
Sure! In the court of Vienna! Sure…sure…sure…”

“Would you like a bit of marsala?” “Dear lady my sister: we wish.”
And on the armchairs reserved for the gala they were sitting like pretty conversationalists.

“…but Brambilla did not know…— She’s already too fat for Hernani;
the Scala has no more soprani… — That Giuseppe Verdi should show!…

“…in March we’ll have some work dear niece— at the Fenice they’ve told me—
the Rigoletto I can’t wait to see; they’re talking about a masterpiece.—

“…do they wear blues or grays? — And these earrings! They dazzle!
The rubies appearing! And these cameos? They frazzle…—The latest in Paris these days…

Read Part 2. 

Translation: Giacomo Leopardi Infinity

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea Fog, 1818

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the poem L'Infinito or Infinity by the Romantic Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. The poem expresses the poet's solitude and his desire to merge with the landscape and transcend the present moment, while paradoxically absorbing himself in it.

Infinity by Giacomo Leopardi 

Always dear to me has been this lonely hill, 

And this hedge that prevents the eyes 

From looking at so much of the farthest horizon. 

But sitting and gazing at endless 

Spaces beyond it, I conjure in my 

Thoughts superhuman silences 

And the deepest calm; wherein my heart 

Almost fearfully trembles. And like the wind 

I hear rustling through these plants, I 

Start comparing that infinite silence 

With this voice: and I remember eternity, 

And seasons passed, and the present 

Is alive, and her sound. And so amidst this 

Expansiveness my thoughts drown: 

And shipwreck is sweet to me in this sea.

Translation: Giuseppe Ungaretti Compassion

Avalokitesvara, Tibetan

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the poem La pietà or Compassion in English, by the 20th century Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. The poem expresses his despair and an existential crisis at the idea of death without redemption, a lonely, Godless world where words are but shadows and where sin does not lead to salvation. Standing alone before him, Ungaretti addresses God directly as in prayer but his poem is utterly human and simultaneously mocking and pitiful towards the human condition. 

Compassion by Giuseppe Ungaretti

1.

I am a wounded man.

And I would like to go
and finally obtain,
Compassion, where is heard
the man who is alone in himself.

I have nothing other than self-righteousness and goodness.

And I feel exiled among men.

But I feel sorrow for them.

Am I not worthy of becoming me?

I have filled the silence with names.

I have broken my heart and mind into smithereens
in order to fall into the slavery of words?

I rule over ghosts.

Oh dried leaves,
Soul tarried here and there…

No, I hate the wind and its voice
of a forgotten beast.

O God, do those that pray to you
only know you by name?

You have ousted me from life.

Will you oust me from death?

Maybe man is not even worthy of hope.

Even the spring of remorse is dry?

What does sin matter,
If it no longer leads to purity.

The flesh barely remembers
That once it was strong.

The soul is mad and spent.

God looks at our weakness.

We would like to find some certainty.

You don’t even laugh at us anymore?

So, cruelty, feel for us.

I can no longer be stuck
in desire without love.

Show us a sign of justice.

What is your law?

Lightning bolt my wretched emotions,
Free me from unrest.

I am tired of screaming silently.


2.

Sad flesh
Once alive with joy
Half-closed eyes, the tired reawakening,
You see, very old soul,
What I will be, when I fall to the ground?

The road of the dead is among the living,

We are the stream of shadows,

They are the seeds that sprout in our dreams,

Theirs is the distance that remains,

And theirs is the shadow that gives weight to names,

The hope of becoming a bunch of shadows
Is this our only fate?

And are you nothing but a dream, oh God?

At least a dream, we bravely,
Wish it could be like you.

It’s the birth child of the most lucid madness.

It does not tremble in clouds of branches
Like sparrows in the morning
At the edge of eyelids.

The mysterious wound languishes in us.

3.

The light that stings us
Is an ever subtler thread.

You no longer blind with your light, if you do not kill?

Grant me this supreme joy.


4.

Man, a monotonous universe,
Believes he is increasing his possessions
Yet his feverish hands
Produce nothing infinite, but limits.

Hanging from the void
From his spiderweb,
He fears and seduces
Only his own scream.

He repairs the ruin by digging graves,
And in order to contemplate you, O Eternal one,
He only blasphemes.

Translation: Eugenio Montale The Mediterranean

Claude Monet, Cap Martin, 1884

This is Bora Mici's original translation of the poem Il Mediterraneo or The Mediterranean, in English, by the Italian 20th century poet Eugenio Montale. Montale's poetry often is set in the Italian landscape. The Mediterranean is an ode to the eternal sea that was the backdrop to his coming of age and an old teacher to the poet, providing a metaphor for his own life: how to be ever-changing, caught up in the crashing waves of the unknown, yet enduring and still, capable of cyclically filtering what remnants the years collect as they wash up on the shores of our lost days. 

The Mediterranean 

Oh ancient one, the voice

that seeps from your mouths when they come apart
like green church bells that throw themselves
backward and dissolve
makes me drunk.
The house of my faraway summers
was by you, you know,
in the country where the sun burns
and mosquitos swarm in the air.
Today, like then, I become still before you,
oh sea, but I no longer believe myself worthy
of the solemn warning in your breath. You were the first to tell me
that the tiny stirring
in my heart was nothing more than an instant
of yours; that ultimately
your rule was risky: to be vast and different
and at the same time unmoved:
and so empty myself of all the filth
as you do when you crash on the shores
among cork, algae, starfish
the useless debris of your abyss.

Translation: The Martian in Love by Stefano Benni (Part 2)

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the short story Il marziano innamorato or The Martian in Love, in English, by the contemporary Italian author Stefano Benni. The story tells of an unlikely encounter between the Martian and the author and is told from the quirky point of view of the Martian. It includes delightful plays on words, descriptions of a desolate planet of origin and its contrast with all of the unusual colorful and variegated good stuff that can be had on Earth, and many comical situations arising from a miscomprehension of what is valuable to humans and what is not. Kraputnyk Armadillynk is on a quest to make his beloved girlfriend Lukzettina stop crying -- otherwise she will rust -- and find her an original gift that cannot be had on Becoda.    

The Martian in Love by Stefano Benni, Part 2

—The universe was inhabited by many trond and large quazz structures. The television (we have it too, it’s required) had told us that these worlds were absolutely the same as ours. On Jupiter, there are larger trond, on Venus there are particularly beautiful quazz, but nothing else.

—Well, I thought, it must be so because the TV hardly ever lies, but I want to check for myself. Because, if in some faraway part of the universe, there is a real gift, something that is neither trond nor quazz, to bring to my lover, well then, I will find it. Having made that decision, that very evening I prepared a provision of trond filets, put it in my lunchbox and launched my astroquazzmobile into the stellar corridors of Serpentone number 8, which leads to the Zatopek crossing, and from there, to your solar system. I don’t know why I aimed immediately for Earth. Maybe it was because of its color, which seemed pretty, or maybe because of the way it tronded in space. The fact remains that I engaged my macrotelescope and aimed it at you.

—Alas, the first thing I saw discouraged me. There was a large space with green fur and all around it people were screaming. In the middle, some beings dressed in two different colors were fighting with their feet over a small trond. Here they are even worse off than we are, I thought: we have only quazz and trond, they barely even have any trond. Indeed, huge brawls broke out over this trond, everyone wanted it for himself, and people yelled like crazy. I aimed my macrotelescope somewhere else, and I saw a city made of quazz, stacked on top of other quazz. No sign of life. Maybe, I thought, the aboriginals of the place do not eat the quazz, but it’s the quazz that eats the aboriginals.

———————

Indeed, I saw them disappear by the thousands inside of illuminated quazz.

—Discouraged and disillusioned I had decided to leave when oh, how amazing! I finally saw something that was neither quazz nor trond, nor rock nor lapillus, a wonderful new thing. I landed and got closer to it. It was a large metal box, similar to an obese Becodinian, full of mysterious objects made of materials that I later found out were called paper, plastic and metal sheet. They came in different colors, and even if among them there were examples of quazzism and trondism, the variety was astounding. And what strange smells they emitted! Strong, penetrating, so different than the Becodian smell of ash and boiled quazz. I rummaged a bit with my arm and pulled an amazing object out of the large box: a shiny red cylinder. It was signed in trondsome writing that, with the help of my universobulary, I was able to decipher as saying coco-colo or colo-coco. I thought it was the work of two artists. Then I saw a splendid animal, made up of a hairy body terminating in a long wooden tail, and precious, snow-white fabrics with the writing “Publix supermarkets” and “Filene’s” and more oblong and transparent objects, wonderful aromatic sauces, spiraling skins, and crinkly pieces of paper with hieroglyphs on them. I stood there with the door wide open, gazing at all these riches, when I saw the first earthly creature. It was blessedly rummaging through the wonderful objects of the large box. Immediately, I grabbed the interstellar tourist dictionary and recited the following words clearly:

— Exc-use me, you man of earth, can I bu-y one of these wonderful objects of yours?—The creature open wide its beautiful yellow eyes, wiggled its tail and responded:

—No buy, everyone can take, but now scram, since trash men coming—

———————

— And the creature I had taken for a man scurried off frightened by the arrival of a growling being, large as twenty Becodians, from which the men descended; one of them looked at me and said:

—Since when have they put these new trashcans here?

—Don’t know—said the other one,—it looks empty anyways—And he grabbed me by the nose (which is not the nose!) and moved me out of the way.

—Back to work—said the other one—let’s dump this junk—They took the large box of wonders and tipped it over into the mouth of the large being. Then they jumped back on and left. At that moment, I felt bad, then I thought: if they throw out this splendid stuff and do not value it, think about the other wonderful things they have, much more precious than these. Reassured and thinking of my Lukzenerper, I followed them at full speed on my trondskates, until I got to the city and almost melted from surprise. What a variety of shapes and colors! What exquisite gifts everywhere, both still and moving, large and small! This is paradise, I told myself, but I need to remain calm and choose well, and not let myself be dumbfounded by all this abundance. Above all, I do not want just any gift. I want a gift that even earth women see as precious and important. I already knew how to recognize the men, now I had to find an earth female. How would she have been made? I carefully entered a bar with the writing “bar and tobacco”. I immediately saw something that could have been a female, something with a lot of noses and a man that was pulling on it up and down, which for us means gibolain or mating. But then I heard the man call it a “coffee machine”. It was not her. Over there, I saw her, the female. She was beautiful, all adorned with multicolor lights, she screamed and cried while a man held her by the sides and shook her.

———————

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 3 here.

Translation: The Martian in Love by Stefano Benni (Part 1)

This is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of the short story Il marziano innamorato or The Martian in Love, in English, by the contemporary Italian author Stefano Benni. The story tells of an unlikely encounter between the Martian and the author and is told from the quirky point of view of the Martian. It includes delightful plays on words, descriptions of a desolate planet of origin and its contrast with all of the unusual colorful and variegated good stuff that can be had on Earth, and many comical situations arising from a miscomprehension of what is valuable to humans and what is not. Kraputnyk Armadillynk is on a quest to make his beloved girlfriend Lukzettina stop crying -- otherwise she will rust -- and find her an original gift that cannot be had on Becoda. 

The Martian in Love by Stefano Benni, Part 1

This is the true story of Kraputnyk Armadillynk as it was told to me in his own voice.

One early morning I was fishing in the Sompazzo river when I heard an amazing raucous behind me. I saw the trees trembling and the birds flying away. Then a burst and then nothing else. I crossed the dam and a weird creature appeared before me, a squat metal barrel, with a long mole’s snout, and two tiny removable reflective arms. He was kicking a flying disc and yelling at it irately, more or less like this:

— Zukunnuk dastrunavi baghazzaz minkemullu mekkanikuz!

Catching sight of me he bowed and said:

— Sir, I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, but if you would be so kind as to hear me out, I think you will understand and be able to help me.

— My name is Kraputnyk Armadillynk, and I come from the planet Becoda. My planet is located 700 light years from yours, and the average temperature there is 50 degrees Celsius in the shade. It’s a scorching and desolate planet. Only two things can grow there: trond and quazz. Trond is a tasteless round tuber. Quazz is a square tuber that tastes the same as trond. One could easily say they were the same thing, but for the sake of the morale of the Becodians, it is best to set them apart. In such a way, we can ask: “What’s for dinner tonight, trond or quazz?” and create a little bit of suspense.

———————

— There are three ways of eating Trond: that is, while seated, while standing, or while laying down. Similarly, there are three ways of cooking quazz: in trond sauce, in quazz sauce, or with trond filling.

— So you must have understood by now that life on our planet is very hard. We have nothing but scorched land and fields of trond and quazz, black rocks, mountains of lava, and a few Nerperos (volcanoes) that spit out boiling lapilli into the air. There are no animals, with the exception of a worm we call Krokuplas, which is not edible, but makes for great fish bait. Unfortunately on Becoda there are neither water nor fish. However, we drink wonderful freshly squeezed trondquazz blends.

— The only fun pastime on our planet is dating. Becoda’s inhabitants are in fact really beautiful. At least, that’s what’s written in the first article of our Constitution. We males, as you can see, are composed of two trond feet, a quazz body, and a somewhat trondoid head, from which protrudes a tube (which is not the nose!) The females have small quazz feet, a deliciously small tronding body and a rather bitrondic head. My girlfriend is called Lukzenerper Graetzenerper Bikzunkenerper. Which means Luckz, born near the volcano, daughter of Graetz, who lives on the volcano, and of Bikz, who fell into the volcano. Lukzetcetera is very young; she is eighteen in Becodian years, which are nearly as long as two earthly sitcoms. I love her, and taking walks with her grunka in grunka on the pathways of the planet is my only joy.

———————

— But it just so happened that one night, while we were alone in my quazzmobile and were looking at the thousand stars of the Universe, she got up close to me and started dripping. Which is the worst thing that can happen on Becoda. Dripping is like your crying, but we cry oil, precious, lubricating oil. For if one drips too much, then one ends up rusting, freezing up and dying. So, I consoled her and tried to put back into her tank all the oil that I could, but she continued her dripping, and I did not know what to do.

“Lukzettina—I said—please speak. Don’t drip anymore, it’s painful. What can I do for you?

— Oh Kraputnyk—she responded— you are good like a trond (it was not such a big compliment. We also say: scumbag like a trond too, because we have so few things to compare ourselves to)… but I want something impossible … I would like … I would like…

Seeing her in such despair made a large drop appear on my lashes.

—Speak dear, don’t hesitate—I said—I will do anything for you—

—Oh Kraputnyk—she said—I have never received a gift during my whole life. And I will die without anyone ever having given me a gift!

— But how is that possible, I thought, had I not just given her a trond necklace? Yeah, but what kind of gift was a trond on that accursed planet where there was nothing but trond and quazz and stones shaped like trond and pieces of quazz always at our feet. A gift is something you do not expect. What was there on Becoda that could surprise a young woman? It was at that moment that I gazed at the starry sky and I lit up. (I mean it: when we have a great idea, a red light comes on.)

———————

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3 here .

Translation: Salvatore Quasimodo The Wall

Giorgio de Chirico, The Uncertainty of the Poet

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of the poem The Wall, Il muro in Italian by the 20th-century Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo who won the 1959 Nobel Prize for Literature. The poem reflects on the solitary nature of the poet's social standing and profession, and below the translation, you will also find a translation of an excerpt from Quasimodo's 1959 Nobel Prize speech in which he criticizes the "adulators of culture" who are the very people who appropriate it for their political purposes.

The Wall 

They build a wall against you

in silence, stone and limestone stone and hate,

each day from higher up

they drop the plumb line. The masons

are all the same, small, dark

in the face, evil. On top of the wall

they mark judgements on the duties

of the world, and if the rain erases them

they rewrite them, with even larger

geometric forms. Once in a while, someone falls

from the scaffolding and immediately another one

runs to take his place. They do not wear

blue overalls and speak an allusive tongue.

The stone wall is high,

in the holes of the beams now crawl

geckos and scorpions, dark weeds hang.

The dark vertical defence shirks

from a certain horizon only the meridians

of the earth, and the sky does not cover it.

On the other side of this shield

you do not ask for grace or mayhem.

From Quasimodo’s 1959 Nobel Prize speech:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1959/quasimodo/25676-salvatore-quasimodo-nobel-lecture-1959/

The corruption of the concept of culture, as seen in the masses, who believe they have obtained access to the paradise of knowledge, is not a modern political phenomenon; however, the methods used to manifoldly diffuse the meditative interests of man are new and faster. Optimism has become tangible. It’s just a memory game. Myths and fairytales (let’s say human anxiety about supernatural events) have degraded into the “murder mystery,” undergone visual metamorphoses in the movies or in epic tales about innovators or crime. We cannot choose between the poet and the politician. The irony of “the worldly circles,” which sometimes can be a facet of constructed indifference, reduces culture to the dark corner of its history, affirming that the framework of dissent is dramatized, that man and his pain have been and will be trapped in their usual confines, over the years, today as tomorrow. Certainly. But the poet also knows that there is an ordeal, an exacerbation of the drama; he knows that the adulators of culture are also its fanatical incendiaries: the collage of writing composed under any regime corrupts, at their center and periphery, literary groups that vie for eternity with their scant calligraphies of the soul, with the varnish of their impossible intellectual life. At particular moments in history, the cultural secretly unites against the political: it’s a temporary unity that serves to tear down the walls of dictatorship. This force establishes itself under any dictatorship, when it coincides with the quest for the basic liberties of man. This unity disintegrates as soon as, beaten the dictator, the chain of factions arises.

The poet is alone: the wall of hate rises around him as literary companies of mercenaries throw the stones. The poet considers the world from this wall, and, without going from town square to town square, like the bards, or into the “worldly” world, like men of letters, but precisely from this ivory tower so dear to those who seek to tear to shreds the romantic soul, he enters the realm of the people, not only of their desires and feelings, but also of their jealous political thoughts.