Episodios

  • La pioggia nel pineto, by Gabriele D'Annunzio

    La pioggia nel pineto, by Gabriele D'Annunzio
    Jun 28 2025
    Today we read La pioggia nel pineto, by Gabriele D'Annunzio. We are back with another staple poem that everyone my age is familiar with, and has probably had to at least partially know by heart at some point during their studies. As a little testament of how ingrained it is in the collective Italian school unconscious, you can see it recited by the comedian Renato Pozzetto in one of his movies, as a grade teacher dealing with very rambunctious students. The poem is set in Summer, in the titular pine grove and during the titular shower. The poet revels in the luxurious life that surrounds him, and urges his lover to listen to the sounds that envelop them. It is the epitome of a musical poem, with free verses, rhymes, alliterations, onomatopoeia and all sorts of devices employed to convey the rich soundscape — but also the general sensoriality of the experience of being surrounded by nature and the resulting aesthetic enjoyment. This Ermione the poem addresses is not a young wizard nerd but rather a classical nickname that hides none other than the then-stellarly-famous actress, Eleonora Duse, lover of D’Annunzio. So… listen! The original: Taci. Su le soglie del bosco non odo parole che dici umane; ma odo parole più nuove che parlano gocciole e foglie lontane. Ascolta. Piove dalle nuvole sparse. Piove su le tamerici salmastre ed arse, piove sui pini scagliosi ed irti, piove su i mirti divini, su le ginestre fulgenti di fiori accolti, su i ginepri folti di coccole aulenti, piove su i nostri volti silvani, piove su le nostre mani ignude, su i nostri vestimenti leggeri, su i freschi pensieri che l’anima schiude novella, su la favola bella che ieri t’illuse, che oggi m’illude, o Ermione. Odi? La pioggia cade su la solitaria verdura con un crepitio che dura e varia nell’aria secondo le fronde più rade, men rade. Ascolta. Risponde al pianto il canto delle cicale che il pianto australe non impaura, né il ciel cinerino. E il pino ha un suono, e il mirto altro suono, e il ginepro altro ancora, stromenti diversi sotto innumerevoli dita. E immensi noi siam nello spirito silvestre, d’arborea vita viventi; e il tuo volto ebro è molle di pioggia come una foglia, e le tue chiome auliscono come le chiare ginestre, o creatura terrestre che hai nome Ermione. Ascolta, Ascolta. L’accordo delle aeree cicale a poco a poco più sordo si fa sotto il pianto che cresce; ma un canto vi si mesce più roco che di laggiù sale, dall’umida ombra remota. Più sordo e più fioco s’allenta, si spegne. Sola una nota ancor trema, si spegne, risorge, trema, si spegne. Non s’ode voce del mare. Or s’ode su tutta la fronda crosciare l’argentea pioggia che monda, il croscio che varia secondo la fronda più folta, men folta. Ascolta. La figlia dell’aria è muta: ma la figlia del limo lontana, la rana, canta nell’ombra più fonda, chi sa dove, chi sa dove! E piove su le tue ciglia, Ermione. Piove su le tue ciglia nere sì che par tu pianga ma di piacere; non bianca ma quasi fatta virente, par da scorza tu esca. E tutta la vita è in noi fresca aulente, il cuor nel petto è come pesca intatta, tra le palpebre gli occhi son come polle tra l’erbe, i denti negli alveoli son come mandorle acerbe. E andiam di fratta in fratta, or congiunti or disciolti (e il verde vigor rude ci allaccia i melleoli c’intrica i ginocchi) chi sa dove, chi sa dove! E piove su i nostri volti silvani, piove su le nostre mani ignude, su i nostri vestimenti leggeri, su i freschi pensieri che l’anima schiude novella, su la favola bella che ieri m’illuse, che oggi t’illude, o Ermione.\ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 10, RV 580, played by The Modena Chamber Orchestra (under Creative Commons).
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    6 m
  • Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell'Asia, by Giacomo Leopardi

    Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell'Asia, by Giacomo Leopardi
    Apr 13 2025
    Today we read Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia, by Giacomo Leopardi. A friend of mine once told me that (good) Literature and Philosophy are much more difficult to tell apart than one usually thinks, because the only difference lies in the sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller emphasis on the form given to the content. This never sounded particularly right to me, but what do I know: she’s the classicist. Still, I kept thinking about it while I was preparing this poem by Leopardi. It is probably my favourite poem ever, full stop. I have always been partial to the poetic tradition of using only simple words and plain constructs, in a restrained and controlled way, hiding the extreme refinement of the language in plain sight, drawing the reader in with subdued musicality. But depth in simplicity works here also at the level of the content. We are in front of a philosophical treaty on meaning, happiness, the place of humanity in the cosmos, and of the cosmos itself, clothed in a plain-spoken discussion between a shepherd, his sheep, and the Moon. The first stanza describes the placid life of the Moon herself: she raises at night, travels the same paths, sees the same scenery, sets. Every day. Isn’t she bored yet? And then compares her life to that of the shepherd: similarly repetitive, similarly boring, though on completely different time scales. As if to highlight this incommensurability, the second stanza hits us with a dramatic shift in tone: Leopardi relates the hurried life of an old man that runs here and there, carrying along a heavy burden, tired, bloodied, only to end by falling into an abyss. The last two verses return to the previous quiet calm, saying “Moon: this is the life of man”. In the third stanza Leopardi returns to describing mortal life to the Moon, explaining that being born is ironically at high risk of death; how the first thing we do when born is to cry; that the first thing parents do with their offspring is to console them, as if of being born. But maybe the moon doesn’t care, because she isn’t mortal. The fourth stanza, by far the longest, is all centered on the assumption that he, a mere shepherd, doesn’t know what the point of a life of suffering is, but surely she, the Moon, knows everything, including the reason for the seasons, the stars. Perhaps she even know to whom, if anyone, the shepherd’s life counts as something good. But he knows that, to him, his life is a burden. In the fifth stanza the shepherd talks to his sheep: he is envious of them, because they forget every pain, every fear soon after they experience it. But most of all because, when they just lie in the grass, they are happy. He, on the other hand, always has this feeling of noia, that something is always gnawing away at him, that something is missing, even though there’s nothing specific he desires. In the final stanza, the shepherd wonders. Maybe if I also had, like the Moon, perfect knowledge, and I could fly and count the stars: maybe then I’d be happy. But no, probably not. Probably life, under whatever form, animal human or even celestial, is a source of pain. The original: Che fai tu, luna, in ciel? dimmi, che fai, silenziosa luna? Sorgi la sera, e vai, contemplando i deserti; indi ti posi. Ancor non sei tu paga di riandare i sempiterni calli? Ancor non prendi a schivo, ancor sei vaga di mirar queste valli? Somiglia alla tua vita la vita del pastore. Sorge in sul primo albore; move la greggia oltre pel campo, e vede greggi, fontane ed erbe; poi stanco si riposa in su la sera: Altro mai non ispera. Dimmi, o luna: a che vale al pastor la sua vita, la vostra vita a voi? dimmi:ove tende questo vagar mio breve, il tuo corso immortale? Vecchierel bianco, infermo, mezzo vestito e scalzo, con gravissimo fascio in su le spalle, Per montagna e per valle, Per sassi acuti, ed alta rena, e fratte, al vento, alla tempesta, e quando avvampa l’ora, e quando poi gela, corre via, corre, anela, varca torrenti e stagni, cade, risorge, e più e più s’affretta, Senza posa o ristoro, lacero, sanguinoso; infin ch’arriva colà dove la via e dove il tanto affaticar fu volto: abisso orrido, immenso, ov’ei precipitando, il tutto obblia. Vergine luna, tale è la vita mortale. Nasce l’uomo a fatica, ed è rischio di morte il nascimento. Prova pena e tormento per prima cosa; e in sul principio stesso la madre e il genitore il prende a consolar dell’esser nato. Poi che crescendo viene, l’uno e l’altro il sostiene, e via pur sempre con atti e con parole studiasi fargli core, e consolarlo dell’umano stato: altro ufficio più grato non si fa da parenti alla lor prole. Ma perché dare al sole, perché reggere in vita chi poi di quella consolar convenga? Se la vita è sventura, perché da noi si dura? Intatta luna, tale è lo stato mortale. Ma tu mortal non sei, e forse del mio dir poco ti cale. Pur tu, solinga, eterna peregrina, che sì pensosa sei, tu forse intendi, questo viver...
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    11 m
  • Un'ape esser vorrei, by Torquato Tasso

    Un'ape esser vorrei, by Torquato Tasso
    Mar 2 2025

    Today we read Un’ape esser vorrei, by Torquato Tasso.

    I should perhaps feel a bit bad inflicting on you minor poems from major poets, but this madrigale from Torquato Tasso is just too delightful in its effortless lightness and perfection.

    I will console myself by pointing out that these few verses can be seen as an antecedent for the Baroque sonnet by Materdona that we previously presented. There the stand-in for the poet was a noisy, dirty fly; here it is a nobler and industrious bee.

    Tasso would love to be a bee, sucking his love’s nectar. Given the impossibility of stinging her heart, he would settle on piercing her breasts, which would be totally worth it, even if, in doing so, he would be giving up his life.

    This madrigal was put to music at least by Pietro Vinci, but I was unfortunately unable to find a recording.

    The original:

    Un’ape esser vorrei,
    Donna bella e crudele,
    Che susurrando in voi suggesse il mèle;
    E, non potendo il cor, potesse almeno
    Pungervi il bianco seno,
    E ’n sí dolce ferita
    Vendicata lasciar la propria vita. \ 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 m
  • Alla sera, by Ugo Foscolo

    Alla sera, by Ugo Foscolo
    Feb 1 2025

    Today we read Alla sera, by Ugo Foscolo.

    I will admit to a snobbish tendency to avoid presenting here the most widely known Italian poems, let alone those learned by heart by most students.

    And I do believe it is a good thing to widen the horizon to lesser-studied gems. Still, it won’t do to present a too-biased lay of the land.

    So, here is a beautiful classic that I hardly can stand anymore, having been force fed it innumerable times in school and in all sorts of anthologies.

    Evening is descending, and the poet welcomes it, because it brings peace and quiet from the turmoils of the day — and Foscolo’s days were pretty hectic. He’s been on the run all life, fighting wars, travelling all around Europe, feeling exiled.

    But more than that, the evening is the image of death, the eternal quiet and nothingness that promises peace.

    The sonnet is replete with pleasant images (happy winds, light clouds) and soft-sounding words, that contrast with the semantic content (like the insistence on death and darkness). It is only in the very last verse that the sounds themselves manifest the rebellious streak Foscolo is trying to quiet down: six r’s crowd into four aggressive and combative words, as if to say that not even death will be able to take the edge off this soul.

    (Since I can’t roll my r’s, here is an alternative reading by Vittorio Gassman, to let you appreciate that grating last verse in all its glory.)

    The original:

    Forse perchè della fatal quïete
    Tu sei l’immago, a me sì cara vieni.
    O sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
    Le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,
    E quando del nevoso aere inquïete
    Tenebre e lunghe all’universo meni,
    Sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
    Vie del mio cor söavemente tieni.
    Vagar mi fai co’ miei pensier sull’orme
    Che vanno al nulla eterno, e intanto fugge
    Questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme
    Delle cure onde meco egli si stnigge;
    E mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme
    Quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi rugge. \ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 3 No. 11, played by the Advent Chamber Orchestra with David Parry and Roxana Pavel Goldstein (under creative commons from the Al Goldstein collection).
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    3 m
  • Avvertimento a un giovane scrittore, by Giuseppe Giusti

    Avvertimento a un giovane scrittore, by Giuseppe Giusti
    Jan 18 2025

    Today we read Avvertimento a un giovane scrittore, by Giuseppe Giusti.

    Many of Giusti’s most famous poems are political and satirical in nature, and thus require some knowledge of Italy’s and Europe’s complicated and depressing history in order to be fully enjoyed.

    Which is why I chose instead this short epigram, in the form of an ottava. Giusti has a warning for young writers, which in contemporary terms we could translate into the kiss principle: “Keep it simple, stupid!”

    First, don’t take difficult concepts and distort them and make them even more difficult by inventing strange conceptual contraptions of mismatched ideas (like sphinxes and chimeras). Reading this, it’s hard for me not to think that Giusti was born only two years after the publication of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit…

    Secondly, avoid clunky language and a style that needs to be continually kicked in the ass to feel like it actually goes anywhere.

    Just write things as they are, thoughtfully but naturally.

    The original:

    Di concetti difficili e stravolti
    Non fabbricare a te sfingi e chimere:
    Cerca modi spediti e disinvolti,
    E non far, come i dotti di mestiere,
    rime col tiro a secco, o versi sciolti,
    Che vanno avanti a calci nel sedere.
    Ma pensa e di’ le cose tali e quali,
    pensatamente schiette e naturali. \ 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 m
  • Rinovazione del buon Capo d’Anno a D. Ciccio per l’ingresso del 1683, by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli

    Rinovazione del buon Capo d’Anno a D. Ciccio per l’ingresso del 1683, by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli
    Jan 1 2025

    Today we read Rinovazione del buon Capo d’Anno a D. Ciccio per l’ingresso del 1683, by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli.

    Not sure what the very best way to start a year might be, but one can’t go wrong starting with a smile.

    So let me wish everyone an excellent 2025 using the same verses that our friend Lazzarelli employed to wish a great 1683 to his nemesis, Don Ciccio: may all the planets bring you joy, bless you and conserve you!

    Well… all verses, except the last one, where he wished Don Ciccio to always remain an ass, for our eternal enjoyment.

    (Also see this other sonnet for more background on la Cicceide.)

    The original:

    Se nell’Anno cadente ottantadoi
    Hai goduto quel ben, che t’augurai,
    Men congratulo teco, e più che mai
    Dal Ciel tel prego, e da’ Pianeti suoi.

    Guidi lunge da te Saturno i Buoi,
    Che tranno il Carro suo carco di guai.
    Nè la spada malefica già mai
    Sfoderi Marte iracondo a danni tuoi.

    Giove t’arrida, e Venere con lui,
    Nè il Sol, Cintia, o Mercurio influssi rei
    Sparga mai sovra te da’ Cerchi sui.

    In somma ogn’un di lor t’esalti, e bei,
    E ti conservi, per diletto altrui,
    Eternamente quel Coglion che sei. \ The music in this episode is Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, recorded by Elias Goldstein (Viola) and Christina Lalog (Piano) (in the public domain).
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    2 m
  • Natale, by Giuseppe Ungaretti

    Natale, by Giuseppe Ungaretti
    Dec 24 2024

    Today we read Natale, by Giuseppe Ungaretti.

    Christmas happens every year, even when we are at war. This poem by Ungaretti is introduced by the indication “Napoli il 26 dicembre 1916”: he was on temporary leave from the front of WW1, and visiting his friend’s house in Naples.

    If we didn’t know that, we could read these verses as just a statement of laziness: the poet explains he isn’t in the mood to go out to celebrate in the loud, cold, busy streets of the city (and describing Naples’ roads as a ball of yarn is a nice euphemism). He’d rather rest and lie in front of the fire, like a “forgotten thing.”

    But we do know he was fighting in the war, and so we attach a whole different meaning to the weariness he complains about. He’s so tired that even punctuation is too much, so that he ends up using none at all. His signature broken verses are even shorter than usual, as if stringing words required too much effort.

    The original:

    Natale
    Non ho voglia
    di tuffarmi
    in un gomitolo
    di strade

    Ho tanta
    stanchezza
    sulle spalle

    Lasciatemi così
    come una
    cosa
    posata
    in un
    angolo
    e dimenticata

    Qui
    non si sente
    altro
    che il caldo buono

    Sto
    con le quattro
    capriole
    di fumo
    del focolare\ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 3 No. 11, played by the Advent Chamber Orchestra with David Parry and Roxana Pavel Goldstein (under creative commons from the Al Goldstein collection).
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    2 m
  • Io vidi già seder nell'arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti

    Io vidi già seder nell'arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti
    Dec 14 2024

    Today we read Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti.

    Leon Battista Alberti was one of the great architects of the Italian Renaissance, but like many humanists of the period he wore several other hats: he was a mathematician and cryptographer, a linguist, an inventor.
    And most of his professional writings were in Latin, as traditional at the time.

    The hat we are interested in now, however, was that of poet, and in particular of poet writing in vulgar, i.e. in Italian. After writing sonnets after the manner of Petrarca, in 1441 he organized the Certame Coronario, a poetry competition for verses written in Italian on the theme of friendship. The judges, being stuck-up big-wigs that looked down on anything in the “new language,” decided that no one had deserved the prize (a silver laurel crown, hence the name), but the staging of the thing was worthy in itself.

    In this sonnet, Leon Battista Alberti explores the mismatch between human desire and things as they turn out, and in particular the frustrating effect of wanting something too much, and for that reason, losing it. As he pithily puts it in the last verse, troppo voler mal corrisponde: “too much willing is a bad match.”

    To drive the point home, the poem shows us a sequence of examples: an enraged man ready for battle, yet trembling; a lover so sorrowful that he can’t cry; someone so hungry he can’t even eat; a dog so fast that he loses his prey.

    The original:

    Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato
    uomo furioso palido e tremare;
    e gli occhi vidi spesso lagrimare
    per troppo caldo che al core è nato.
    E vidi amante troppo adolorato
    poter né lagrimar né sospirare,
    né raro vidi chi né pur gustare
    puote alcun cibo ov’è troppo affamato.
    E vela vidi volar sopra l’onde,
    qual troppo vento la summerse e affisse;
    e veltra vidi, a cui par l’aura ceda,
    per troppo esser veloce perder preda.
    Così tal forza in noi natura immisse,
    a cui troppo voler mal corrisponde.\ The music in this episode is Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G minor (Christmas Concerto), Op. 6, No. 8, played by the Advent Chamber Orchestra (licensed under Creative Commons).
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    3 m