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Italian Poetry

By: Italian Poetry
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  • Summary

  • This podcast is dedicated to English speakers who would like to know more about Italian Poetry, but don’t speak Italian.

    You can hear a summary of each poem in English, then the original in Italian, and you can also follow along on our website, where you’ll find resources to help find your way across languages.
    © 2024 Italian Poetry
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Episodes
  • Mio padre è stato per me l'"assassino", by Umberto Saba

    Mio padre è stato per me l'"assassino", by Umberto Saba
    Jul 6 2024

    Today we read Mio padre è stato per me l’“assassino”, by Umberto Saba.

    Saba’s mother was abandoned by the poet’s father while still pregnant. Understandably she didn’t harbour good memories of him, but went as far as referring to him as “the assassin” when talking to Umberto all through his childhood.

    In this sonnet Saba recounts meeting his father later on, when he was twenty. He is presented not with a killer or a mastermind, but with a child, drifting without cares through his life and the world (and his many lovers).

    The poet contrasts his mother, who felt all the heaviness of life, with his father’s attitude, his slipping from her hands like a balloon, light and ethereal: not a bad person, really — simply unable to keep his responsibilities.

    The original:

    Mio padre è stato per me l’“assassino”,
    fino ai vent’anni che l’ho conosciuto.
    Allora ho visto ch’egli era un bambino,
    e che il dono ch’io ho da lui l’ho avuto.

    Aveva in volto il mio sguardo azzurrino,
    un sorriso, in miseria, dolce e astuto,
    Andò sempre pel mondo pellegrino;
    più d’una donna l’ha amato e pasciuto.

    Egli era gaio e leggero; mia madre
    tutti sentiva della vita i pesi.
    Di mano ei gli sfuggì come un pallone.

    “Non somigliare – ammoniva – a tuo padre”.
    Ed io più tardi in me stesso lo intesi:
    eran due razze in antica tenzone.\ The music in this episode is Alessandro Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in D minor, S. Z799, recorded by the Orchestre de chambre de la Sarre (in the public domain).
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    2 mins
  • Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro, by Giambattista Marino

    Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro, by Giambattista Marino
    Jun 22 2024

    Today we read Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro, by Giambattista Marino.

    In the full glory of baroque flourishes, Marino presents here the notorious rape of Daphne by Apollo. And the poem, though offset by the beauty of the language and technique, is brutal.

    The first quatrain focuses on Daphne, shown in distress, running away, looking for her father, likened to a hunted-down doe. Still, slowly but surely, as she turns into a tree as the last resort to escape from the god, the poet’s sympathy also seems to recede. As if saying: she’s just an object now.

    And so in the last terzina there is almost no trace of her left. There’s only the triumph of the god: he might have not gotten her fruit, but he will forever adorn his head with the branches of the laurel: her branches. Violence and god’s will prevail in the end, of course.

    The original:

    Stanca, anelante a la paterna riva,
    qual suol cervetta affaticata in caccia,
    correa piangendo e con smarrita faccia
    la vergine ritrosa e fuggitiva.

    E già l’acceso Dio che la seguiva,
    giunta omai del suo corso avea la traccia,
    quando fermar le piante, alzar le braccia
    ratto la vide, in quel ch’ella fuggiva.

    Vede il bel piè radice, e vede (ahi fato!)
    che rozza scorza i vaghi membri asconde,
    e l’ombra verdeggiar del crine aurato.

    Allor l’abbraccia e bacia, e, de le bionde
    chiome fregio novel, dal tronco amato
    almen, se’l frutto no, coglie le fronde.\ The music in this episode is De Torrente, from Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus (RV 807), played by Cor i Orquestra de música antiga de l’Esmuc, Inés Alonso (soprano solista), Albert Baena (alto solista), Lluís Vila (director) (in the creative commons thanks to the Catalonia College of Music).
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    2 mins
  • Sia pace ai frati, by Vittorio Alfieri

    Sia pace ai frati, by Vittorio Alfieri
    Jun 8 2024

    Today we read Sia pace ai frati, by Vittorio Alfieri.

    This short and punchy epigram by Vittorio Alfieri embodies the Enlightenment attitude towards religion and state: peaceful coexistence in separate domains.

    Priests should be few and not overly loquacious in the public arena; cardinals should not take away the lights (here Alfieri uses the term “lume”, and “età dei lumi” is an expression for “Enlightenment”).

    The pope should concentrate on the problems of faith and salvation, leaving politics to politicians.

    Laws should rule, not a king.

    And the concluding line exclaims patriotically: there is an Italy!

    The original:

    Sia pace ai frati,
    Purchè sfratati:
    E pace ai preti,
    Ma pochi e queti:
    Cardinalume
    Non tolga lume:
    Il maggior prete
    Torni alla rete:
    Leggi, e non re;
    L’Italia c’è. \ The music in this episode is Gaetano Donizetti’s overture to the opera Don Pasquale, played by the United States Marine Band for the album Overtures, Volume Two (in the public domain).
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    2 mins
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