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.