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Poems from the Italian of
GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI
Agony
Becoming
Weightless
Cry
No More
Evening
In
Remembrance
Morning
Nostalgia
Pity
Quiet
Rivers
The
Austrian Front
To
Boredom
Vigil
You
Were Broken
AGONY
To
die like thirsty larks
near
a mirage
Or
like a quail
having
crossed the sea
in
the first shrub
having
no further
wish
to fly
But
not to feed on lament
like
a goldfinch, blinded
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
VIGIL
An
entire night
thrown
down beside
a
slaughtered
comrade
with
grinning
teeth
turned to
the
full moon
with
convulsed
hand
reaching
into
my
silence
I’ve
written letters
filled
with love
I
have never been
so
attached
to life
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
RIVERS
I
lean on this mutilated tree
dumped
into a depression
as
listless as
a
circus
before
or after the show
and
I watch
the
quiet passage
of
clouds across the moon
This
morning I curled up
in
a water trough
and
lay at the bottom
like
a relic
The
Isonzo current
smoothed
me
like
one of its stones
I
got up
on
all fours
and
took off
like
an acrobat
across
the water
I
squatted down
beside
my clothes
filthy
with war
like
a Bedouin
I
bent down to catch
the
sun
This
is the Isonzo
here
best of all
I’m
aware of myself
as
a pliant thread
in
the universe
My
torment
is
when
I
do not feel
in
harmony
But
those mystic
hands
which
control me
grant
me
a
rare
happiness
I
have run through
the
epochs
of
my life
These
are
my
rivers
This
is the Serchio
from
which they’ve drawn
maybe
for two thousand years
the
folk of my region
father
mother both
This
is the Nile
which
has seen me
born
and grow up
and
burn with incomprehension
on
the wide plains
This
is the Seine
and
in the murk of it
I
have been stirred
and
have known myself
These
are my rivers
told
over in the Isonzo
This
is my nostalgia
which
in each one
it
is clear to me
now
that it’s night
and
my life seems
a
flowering
of
shadows
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
MORNING
I
am illumined
by
immensity
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
NOSTALGIA
When
night
is about to go
just
before springtime
and
only rarely
a
soul passes
Upon
Paris condenses
an
obscure colour
of
weeping
At
a bridge
corner
I
reflect on
the
illimitable silence
of
a slim
girl
Our
maladies
intermingle
And
as if transported
we
remain there
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
IN
REMEMBRANCE
He
was called
Mohammed
She’ab
A
descendant of
nomad
emirs
he
killed himself
because
he no longer had
a
homeland
He
loved France
and
changed his name
He
was Marcel
but
not a Frenchman
and
no longer knew
how
to live
in
the tents of his kind
where
they heard the chants
from
the Koran
as
they sipped their tea
He
did not know
how
to let loose
the
song
of
those abandoned
I
accompanied him
along
with the lady from the hotel
where
he lived
in
Paris
at
number 5 rue des Carmes
a
drab, down-hill alley
He
rests
in
the cemetery at Ivry
a
suburb that seems
always
in
a state
of
a
disbanded
fairground
And
perhaps I alone
still
know
that
he existed
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
EVENING
At
the foot of twilight’s defiles
runs
a clear water
the
colour of olives
Towards
the brief fire unmindful
In
the smoke I hear crickets and frogs
Where
tenderly the grass shivers
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
PITY
I
am a man of wounds.
And
I would not go away
And,
Pity, I would come
To
where a man alone
Can
finally be heard.
I
am but proud and decent.
Among
men I feel an exile.
Yet
for them I am tormented.
Am
I unfit to return?
I
have peopled silence with names.
I’ve
crumbled, heart and mind
To
fall a slave to words?
My
reign is over phantoms.
Oh
desiccated leaves,
Soul
borne here and there...
No,
I have heard the voice
Of
the beast without beginning.
God,
do all those who implore you
Know
you no more but by name?
You
have thrust me away from life.
Will
you thrust me also from death?
Perhaps
no man is fit for hope now.
Is
the spring of remorse dry also?
Of
what importance is sin
If
purity does not follow?
The
flesh hardly remembers
It
once had fortitude.
Soul
mad and unrepentant.
God,
behold our debility.
We
would have certitude.
You
don’t even laugh at us now?
Cruelty,
weep for us then.
I
can do nothing but live
Imprisoned
in loveless desire.
Give
us a sign of justice.
What
are these laws of yours?
Lay
waste my meagre feeling,
Free
me from agitation.
I
am tired of my voiceless howl.
2
Most
melancholy flesh
which
once was flooded with joy,
Eyes
heavy and tired, awake,
Can
you see, too lived-in-soul,
What,
fallen to earth, I shall be?
Life
is the street of the dead.
We
are a torrent of shades.
They
are the grain bursting in dreams,
Theirs
the remoteness in us,
Their
dark gives names their meaning.
Is
the hope of a heap of shadow
And
nothing else our condition?
And
God, would you be but a dream?
Rashly
we want this of you,
That
you be at least like a dream.
That’s
the spawn of the utterly mad.
It
does not shake in the cloudy trees
Like
sparrows at sunrise
In
the beaming of an eye.
It
worsens, mysterious wound.
3
The
light which perforates
Is
an ever-slenderer beam.
Can
you not blaze, short of killing?
Bestow
that supreme delight.
4
Man,
a monotonous cosmos,
Thinks
he is flooded with blessings
And
from his feverish hands
Nothing
but limits come.
Lightly
attached to Nothing
By
his pitiful spider-thread,
He
does not fear or control
Anything
but his cry:
Hides
transience building tombs.
To
speak of you, Eternal,
He
has only blasphemies.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
QUIET
The
grapes are ripe, the meadows ploughed,
The
mountains disconnect from the clouds.
On
the dusty mirrors of summertime
Shadow
has fallen.
Between
uncertain fingers
Their
light is clear
And
distant.
With
the swallows depart
The
last pain.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
THE
AUSTRIAN FRONT
Of
these homes
remains
nothing
save
some
stumps
of wall
So
many
who
were close to me
nothing
is left
not
even that
But
the heart
lacks
not its cross
My
heart is
the
most sacked village
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
BECOMING
WEIGHTLESS
For
a deity which laughs out like a child,
So
many chirrups of sparrows,
So
much prancing in the branches,
A
soul becomes without weight,
The
meadows are full of tendernesses
Such
a penitence revives in the eyes,
That
the hands are like foliage
Spellbound
in air...
Who
fears any more, who judges?
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
CRY
NO MORE
For
God’s sake, murder not the dead,
Cry
out no more, cry not
If
you desire to hear them yet,
If
you aspire not to die.
Theirs
the unperceived susurrus,
They
exchange no greater talk
Than
the grass which is softly growing
Happily
where no men walk.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
TO
BOREDOM
There
was a stillness when the body I now seek,
Pubescent,
arose of one skein woven.
The
she-illumining hand which held toward me
Recedes
now by as much as I advance.
The
worse for me, lost in these vain pursuits.
When
morning rippled she stretched out herself
And
laughing slid beyond my sight.
Handmaid
of madness, Boredom:
Teasing
and intemperately sweet.
Why
has not memory followed you?
Is
your gift a cloud?
It
is a rumour and it populates
The
branches of the trees, a distant choir.
Memory:
a shifting of images,
A
melancholy scorn,
Dark
of the blood...
Like
a shy fountain in the ancient
Shade
of olive trees,
You
turn to soothe me...
In
the morning still secret
Still
may I burn for your lips...
And
never know them again!
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
YOU
WERE BROKEN
1
The
many, enormous, dull-grey rocks
Still
shaking from the hidden catapults
Of
aboriginal, suffocated fires,
Or
from the terrors of virgin torrents
Flooding
with implacable caresses:
—Above
the glare of harsh sand set against
The
void horizon, you don’t remember these things?
And
the inclining (that opened out the only
Agglomeration
of shadow in the valley)
Araucaria
pine, a yearning magnified,
Turned
to unbearable flint from desert fibres
More
obstinate than the surrounding damned,
Its
mouth refreshed with butterflies and grasses,
A
hole which had among its roots been gouged.
—You
don’t remember it, the speechless raving,
Upon
a circular flint-stone one yard wide
In
perfect balance,
A
magical display?
From
branch to branch, a light, gold-crested wren,
Your
avid eyes transported with the wonder,
You
made a conquest of its mottled top,
Reckless,
melodious child,
Only
to see in the lucid depths
Of
a sunken and silent crater in the sea
Fabulous
turtles
Stirring
in the algae.
The
tension of nature in
extremis
And
the subaqueous cortège:
Funereal
warnings.
2
You
raised your arms like wings
Giving
the wind rebirth
Racing
through the weight of unmoving air.
No
one ever saw you rest
Your
nimble feet from dancing.
3
Happy
grace,
That
could not have not been broken
In
a blindness so hard-hearted.
You—pure
breath, a crystal,
Too-human
sudden blaze for the barbarous,
Savage,
mad and groaning
Bellow
of the naked sun.
(translated
by Alan Marshfield)
(back)
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