Il colosso addormentato (Italian Edition)

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Danilo Arona Editor ,. Luigi Acerbi Editor ,. Giuseppe Pastore Goodreads Author Contributor. Samuel Marolla soggetto e sceneggiatua ,. Aldo Di Gennaro Cover. To add more books, click here. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Malik , Kuzhali Manickavel 3.

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Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Imago mortis by Samuel Marolla 3. Want to Read saving… Error rating book. Racconti crudeli by Samuel Marolla 4. La mezzanotte del secolo by Samuel Marolla 3. The esplanade of the castle resembled an anthill overrun by people of every class running to observe them, as if they were some new and unknown spectacle. Would the clouds remain motionless there? Would they dis- perse?

Why were they still waiting to come ahead and explode in rain? Dense, dark, whitish at the edges, they spread out, wrapped themselves around each other, merged, forming a misty darkness over the line of the hills of Baresse. But no one laughed with him. Everyone was intent upon following with anxious eyes the unstable forms that, very slowly, continued to change, growing large here, thinning out there; and lips murmured prayers, vows, exhortations to these conscious beings not to take light and, instead, to spread their life-giving treasure of rain on the dying land below, which had for several long months invoked the comfort of a droplet of water through thousands of cracks, like thirsty human mouths.

Then, one of the lighter clouds broke away and started off like an advanced guard, immediately followed by another, and by a third; and the eyes that were watching every movement began to blink frequently with emotion. E alle prime gocce di pioggia rare e stentate: Viva la divina Provvidenza! Slowly they penetrated the valley, still bathed in sunshine, as if to devour its golden splendor. And at the irst drops of rain, which were forced and sporadic, people shouted: No one thought about avoiding the rain.

Everyone wanted to feel it fall on their uncovered heads, on their faces lifted upward, on their hands with their palms joined in the shape of a cup to col- lect that gift from God, which fell violently, rumbling on rooftops, pouring into the channels, forming rivulets and ponds illed with thousands of bursting bubbles, as if the water was in rebellion. And in the rain, many people returned to the castle before evening, to observe from the esplanade the countryside below, which drank, drank, and drank but was never satisied.

However, the paths, the lanes, the carriageways glistened, stretching a great silvery net over the darkened land, as did the swollen river, which moved like a serpent licking at the feet of the hills; and the rivulets sparkled, overlowing the plain from the rocky humps of the hills that did not know what to do with the water and sent it back to those who needed it most. La roba mia se la gode il marchese di Roccaverdina! Volevano impigliarmi nel processo Noi poveretti abbiamo sempre torto! Cavaliere Pergola, protected by an umbrella, tried to spot his small tracts of land, which could hardly be distinguished, one to the right, one to the left, and a third farther down.

And he also looked toward Margitello, where the building of the Agricultural Association shone white against the brown earth soaked with water; and with the black holes of the windows without shutters and with walls without a roof, it seemed like the skeleton of some large animal dumped there to rot. Now you have nothing to come and see on this side! The Marchese di Roccaverdina now enjoys my property.

Do you know, Excellency, how it happened? Rocco the Lord forgive him worked in the interests of his boss, right or wrong; but he was in the wrong about that which concerned me.

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We poor folk are always wrong! Each drop is a piece of gold that falls from the sky! Ci volevano pei terreni almeno tre palmi di tempera! Non ostante il velo steso dalla pioggia, si distinguevano le macchiette nere che apparivano, cangiavano posto, si diradavano, tornavano a radunarsi. La pioggia tanto desiderata e tanto invocata, gli aveva messo addosso, al contrario, un senso di tristezza; gli scherzi dei ragazzi lo irritavano.

E ora che la pioggia era venuta, e che pioggia! For each one who left, two or three others arrived, as if they could not get enough of hearing the roar of the streams and to see the gutters ill up in the streets; they wanted to enjoy the sight of the ields, drinking, drinking, drinking, and not ever being satisied. Oh, if that rain would last a week, without ceasing for a single moment!

The ields needed at least six inches of rain to get back to normal. From a window in Margitello, the engineer mentioned to the Marchese that people were watching from the esplanade of the castle. Despite the curtain hung by the rain, one could distinguish the black igures that appeared, changed places, dispersed, then came together again.

The sound of the bells of all the churches had reached there after the irst drops of rain had fallen. And with that, the peasants and laborers had abandoned themselves in a frenzy of shouting, leaping with joy in the courtyards, while children enjoyed themselves by stomping on puddles with their feet and splashing each other in the face with water collected in the palms of their hands.

Now and then, looking out the doors of ground- loor residences, they shoved and pushed each other outside, and they splashed the heavy rain on each other as if they were pouring it from pitchers. And yet, all of this happiness should have pleased him. The rain, so needed and so prayed for, had, on the contrary, imposed upon him a sadness; the shenanigans of the children irri- tated him.

Now that the only minor obstacle coming between the two of them had been removed, not only did he not feel happy, but he stood there before that window, with his eyes ixed on the eucalyptus plants dripping water from their curved branches and along old leaves that were being cleaned of a layer of dust that had made them turn yellow and wither.

He stayed there with his eyes ixed, as if the dream that should have soon come true distanced itself rapidly, and he could do nothing to stop it or call it back. Matrimoni e vescovati dal cielo son destinati? Ammirevole anche per la modestia. E poi, bocca ser- rata! Dinanzi a lei, il marchese di Roccaverdina era Dio! E se qualcuno, per com- miserarla o per stuzzicarla e provocarla, le diceva: Se lo faccia dire dal notaio Mazza che cosa signiichi incappar male!

What else was there to be done, except to take her by the hand and bring her before the mayor and the priest, so as to conirm the proverb often cited by his aunt: At that moment, however, it seemed to him that it had been conirmed, yes, but not in the way in which he and ev- eryone else expected. As if he had read his mind, the engineer said: To tell the truth, she deserves the good fortune of becoming the Marchesa of Roc- caverdina.

But I believe that had someone predicted it, months ago, the signorina would have made the sign of the cross, as if to banish any temptation. No one can be sure of anything. Some other woman, mistress of everything as she was here, would have looked after herself, would have saved up a nest egg. Admi- rable even for her modesty. She wanted to remain that which she was, even in her appearance. She never took off the mantilla, and she would have been able to wear, better than so many others, the shawls that all women wear nowadays, even the poorest.

And then always quiet! Even after she could no longer deceive herself with any hope, never, never, a spiteful or disdainful word. For her, the Marchese of Roccaverdina was God! And if anyone—to comfort, or to prod or provoke her—had said: And this and that! She would have let him inish talking, and then: Only God can repay him!

Poteva forse dubitare ora? Margitello non vi lascia pensare ad altro! One better than the other! Mazza, the notary, can tell you what it means to ind a bad one. After all, in the end, the fault had been all his own. Pride of class, the attempt to protect himself from himself, had caused him to give la Solmo a husband in that tyrannical pact, without a bit of relection over the possible consequences. Seeing that the Marchese remained silent and realizing that references to the past had, perhaps, displeased him, the engineer lit a cigar he had pulled out of his pocket and began to smoke it while waking around the room stroking his whiskers.

Meanwhile the Marchese, continuing to stare at the eucalyptus dripping with water, pursued with his thoughts a white igure with black hair under dark blue mantilla, chasing her through places seen years ago, among shacks that climbed on rocky cliffs, that crouched against the hills as if trying to shelter themselves from the wind. He felt a secret surge of jealousy much different from the one he had felt before. Could he now be having doubts? Had he not been satisied that she had gone to live in that distant city, half squatting in the hollow of a mountain, in one of those shacks crouching on the sides of the cliffs as if trying to shelter themselves from the wind?

And he turned abruptly toward the engineer, who was walking up and down with the cigar in his mouth, stroking his whiskers, as if to say: Francesca Pellegrino was born in Taranto, where she cur- rently lives. Francesca Pellegrino is a coordinator of the literary magazine LibrAria. Remarkable for a compression of form and the multiplicity of meanings that emanate from those few short lines, the poems of Francesca Pellegrino survey and inhabit a terrain that is contempo- rary Italy — its excesses and its silences, in poems whose language ricochets with the internal and external pressures of those who live internal lives and actively navigate in a contemporary world.

Each of her four collections relects, and, indeed, has traveled in tandem with, a course of wider cultural crisis. In the poems of her most recent collection, Chernobylove — Il giorno dopo il vento Chernobylove — the day after the wind , the consideration of love is twinned with the concept of catastro- phe. As with her other poems, the language of consumerism — both product itself and the language of advertising — is invoked, in what is often an investigation of excess and the forms of absence.

She is a writer who has been active in internet publishing and discourse. She is an editor at the literary website LibrAria. So la differenza che passa tra un muro che sostiene e un altro che nasconde. So then, I set down a piece of a place-setting, a plastic plate, a fork, and I drink the empty part of the mistaken half inside the glass to lose weight.

Nouvelle cuisine I left a dream steeping in vinegar and waited to see how butterlies if butterlies ly bitter-sweetened. While waiting, I inished the ingernail of my left hand soaked in salt tears the appropriate length of time, just the right time to render it exquisite. Spring-time is a word undone I know how to do at least a thousand things contemporaneously — a thousand things. I know about the difference between a load-bearing wall and a wall that conceals.

Una sete di foglie da lasciarci gli occhi per il dispiacere. Pregando che faccia silenzio.

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Toglietemi tutto ma non il mio Breil Deve essere andato storto qualcosa. Ogni briciola era comunque rimasta al suo posto. E si fece ugualmente ora tarda il mio sbadiglio. Casa Editrice Kimerik, And, recognizing, even, the exact instant it arrives, fasting, in order to ill my mouth with dead lies after the last uncouth spring. The Man from del monte says Yes There was basil in a lower-pot. The leaves with a thirst to turn eyes aside in displeasure.

Neither did it perfume either anymore. There was a need for there to be rain sometimes. Praying it would make silence. Perhaps a gear not cognizing round the hours advancing on the table anymore. Each crumb however remained in place. And it made late hour equal my yawn. She has translated four works by magic realist, Massimo Bontempelli: Her essays on translation were published in the Boston Globe. When he died at age 74, Saba left very little unexplored. When he began writing poetry, young Poli used various pseudonyms before inally settling on the name Saba.

He was then sixteen years old. This is where we pick him up in Ernesto. The shop is still at the same location and now serves as a Saba museum as well. Not until he was in his mid forties and analyzed by Edo- ardo Weiss, an early Freudian who practiced in Trieste, was Saba able to unravel the complicated emotions of his early life.

Still, the nervous ailments and depressions of his youth continued to plague him and worsened with age. He spent his last years in and out of sanatoria. In his inal years, addicted to morphine, subject to its and falls, and living alone in a room cluttered with clothes and books, littered with cigar stubs and ashes, Saba turned to prose to reexamine his youth.

He died in August Saba produced nearly one thousand pages of prose: He began the work in when in his seventies, fully aware that its frankness and honesty would appall Italian readers. Although he considered some passages to be his best writing, and read the work aloud to friends and family as it progressed, he repeatedly admonished his daughter, Linuc- cia, and her companion, writer and artist Carlo Levi, to destroy their copies of the manuscript. Four years later, it was made into a movie by director Salvatore Samperi. With the passing of time and the change in social mores the book has become a landmark in Italian and international homosexual literature.

The boy, Ernesto is a sixteen year old clerk at a commercial irm, who writes poetry and plays the violin. He is willingly se- duced by the twenty-eight year old, uneducated stevedore never named in the book whose work Ernesto supervises.

Their surrep- titious trysts at work continue until the boy impetuously decides to have his irst relations with a woman. He cautiously chooses a particular prostitute. Subsequently, wishing to escape the man, Ernesto cruelly engineers his own dismissal from the irm. Still later, he is attracted to a ifteen year old boy, a violinist, very much like his younger self. Discussing his own style in his Scorciatoie Shortcuts , Saba wrote. May my typesetter and my reader forgive me. And there was no other way I could be brief. This candid, almost innocent work on homosexuality relects what I love about Saba: Ernesto is not much known to the world.

It was never issued in North America. Much of the dialogue in the early chapters of Ernesto is in Triestino, the local speech of Trieste and the adjacent Friuli sec- tion of Italy, a dialect so remote in sound and orthography from the standard language that it is in essence a foreign language to other Italians. After beginning the novel with such a dialogue Saba charac- teristically and parenthetically, pauses to tell his Italian readers that he has modiied that dialogue and all that follow it, in the hope that potential readers will be able to translate them on their own. So much for burn the manuscript, dear daughter.

It was not jargon or street slang. Nor was it related to social hierarchy. He spoke it every day. No matter their differences in social class, any two Triestino speakers were equals in terms of direct communication. There is a rich and growing literature addressed to translators on how to translate dialect into a target language. But each translator and work make a unique pair, and as usual in life, every situation must ind its own solution. Much depends on how the dialect is used within the text: Works completely in dialect can perhaps be most happily translated if the translator can deine the essence of a work and ind a rhythmically and vocally compatible style in the target language.

Most of the dialogues in dialect in Ernesto take place between Ernesto and the characters who move the sexual elements of the story forward. These dialogues tend to be lengthy, tension laden and emotional both for the characters and the reader. Sadly, there is no English language dialect — at least none that I could ind or invent - that can function as the Triestine does in Ernesto.

Absent the availability of such a dialect, I have tried to reproduce this essential interplay of voices in English, in as compelling and coherent a way as possible. This translation is based on the critical Italian edition of Ernesto edited by Antonietta Grignani and issued in Prima di pranzo, passa da Bernardo. Bernardo era un barbiere che aveva la bottega in faccia alla casa di Ernesto.

Ma Ernesto non amava perdere nulla della sua persona, nemmeno di quelle parti di essa destinate a ricrescere. Era dificile cavarlo fuori da quel nascondiglio e, qualche volta, la giovane donna, che gli voleva bene come fosse stato suo iglio il suo era morto appena nato , ma aveva molte altre faccende da sbrigare, perdeva la pazienza. E come sempre si mise a piangere. Si trattava di una vecchia calunnia. Signora Celestina had been pleading with Ernesto for over a month to have this bit of surgery done.

It was dificult for her to pry him out from there and at times the woman, who loved him as if he were her own child her son had died shortly after birth , and who had much more work to do, would lose her temper. It had to do with slanderous old gossip. Avrebbe perino strozzato il merlo che, ignaro, cantava alla inestra. Poi, una cartina di bromuro mise, per il momento, le cose a posto. E, ogni volta, sua madre si offend- eva e arrabbiava; lo minacciava di denunciarlo, per un castigo, allo zio Giovanni. Ernesto, per conto suo, oltre ad avere la consolante certezza che sua madre minacciava invano, non avrebbe trovato niente di male ad essere iglio di Bernardo.

Lo conosceva e serviva in da piccolo; era stato il primo, dopo la sua balia, a tagliargli i capelli, e sperava di essere lui a fargli la prima barba. Apparteneva - si vede - a quella categoria di persone, molto numerose, che non immaginano una carriera brillante se non preceduta da una laurea. Thrilled and exhilarated by the revelations of the mysteries of procreation and of his hidden relationship to Bernardo, Ernesto had raced home to recount both these exciting bits of news to his mother.

On hearing the second, she fainted and fell to the ground. He could have throttled his blackbird singing away obliviously at the window. It seemed in fact, to be singing louder and better than ever before. A dose of bromide eventually set things right. Nevertheless, every time his mother pressed him go to the barber two, perhaps three times a year the boy would get back at her with the old tale, though by then he, too, knew that it was complete and utter rubbish.

And every time she would get insulted and angry and threaten to punish him by telling his Uncle Giovanni. Bernardo was a heavy, fairly elderly man with completely white hair and a kind face. He always welcomed Ernesto warmly, had even lent him money once which the boy spent at a new bakery that everyone in town was raving about, and which he repaid punctually from the weekly allowance he got from his uncle.

Bernardo had waited on him since childhood. And he suffered his irst disappoint- ment when Ernesto left school to take a job. It seems that Bernardo belonged to that very large group of people who cannot imagine a brilliant career not preceded by an academic degree. Although he never expressed his disappointment to Ernesto, the boy sensed it.

Produktbeschreibungen

Bernardo volle servirlo di persona. Il barbiere gli chiese, come prima cosa, notizie della sua salute sapeva che Ernesto era stato ammalato e ci teneva a fargli sapere che lo sapeva , di quella della signora Celestina e della vecchissima zia. Pareva se ne vantasse. Gli disse che lo zio gli aveva parlato di lui, lamentandosi che fosse sempre socialista.

I socialisti diceva lo zio - sono in odio a tutti, e non sono destinati a far carriera nel mondo. Ernesto, che conosceva Bernardo da sempre, la preferiva. Ma no son iscritto al par- tito; son ancora tropo giovine. Conosceva abbastanza Ernesto per dare troppo peso alle sue parole. Il ragazzo e Bernardo lo sapeva non odiava lo zio tutore non odiava ancora nessuno: Sentiva che questi non lo amava almeno eccessivamente e, soprat- tutto, non lo approvava. Forse sospettava nel nipote qualcosa di strano e di proibito. Ed uno dei tratti del carattere di Ernesto era il bisogno di essere approvato ed amato.

He walked resolutely into the shop. Bernardo wanted to take care of him personally. Once seated in the revolv- ing chair and completely at the mercy of his unwitting torturer, Ernesto resigned himself to having his hair cut as a necessity, however unpleasant, of the good life. All he said to Bernardo was not to cut his hair too short, and answered all his questions cheerfully. The irst thing the barber inquired about was his health he knew that Ernesto had been ill and wanted him to know that he knew it.

After that he asked after the health of Signora Celeste and of his very old Aunt. Then he told him that just the previous day Signor Giovanni had been in to have his beard trimmed. He seemed to take pride in this. He added that his uncle had spoken about Ernesto, lamenting that he was still a socialist. Socialists, his uncle had said, were hated by everyone and would never amount to anything in the world. Sometimes he used it, sometimes the more formal lei. He knew Ernesto well enough not to take him seriously.

He was just afraid of him. Ernesto si attendeva ad un elogio: Ma sapeva egli stesso di non meritarlo. Il violino era stato un suo capriccio, nel quale poi si era ostinato. Lo zio poi odiava in linea generale i violini e, in modo particolare, quello del nipote. Paganini; e quando voleva far disperare Ernesto, lo chiamava, ridendo: Era, su questo argomento, intrattabile: Play- ing the violin had begun as one of his whims, but one in which he subsequently persisted. He paid a teacher from the weekly allowance that he received from his Uncle, and from the small sums he extorted with wheedling and promises from his old aunt.

He said that there was only one great violinist in the world: The derision with which his Uncle delivered these words stung the boy more deeply than a slap in the face. The only person who was not completely disapproving of the experiment was his old aunt. But his aunt, in addition to being old, was a little deaf. And the only work that signora Celeste let her do at home was to wash the radicchio which they ate in large amounts. Despite his meager progress, the boy persisted in studying his loved-and-hated violin. Adesso desiderava che Bernardo si spicciasse. Il vecchio barbiere non mostrava invece nessuna fretta: Sentiva al collo, dove il barbiere aveva fatto passare il rasoio, una spiacevole sensazione di freddo.

Il suo movimento istintivo sarebbe stato di alzarsi e scappare; ma, timidezza a parte, avrebbe dovuto dare delle spiegazioni; e, o non le trovava, o non poteva esibirle. Era, oltre a tutto, il suo mestiere: Nessuno si accorse che aveva le lacrime agli occhi. It was a miracle that, chatterbox that he was, he had never said a word about it to the man. He seemed to enjoy dragging out the process, which was a torture to Ernesto. Anyway, , when he was young, he was for Garibaldi. Besides, he was almost done.

Ernesto barely glanced at it, then shut his eyes so as not to see himself looking worse, so he thought, than before. His neck, which the barber had shaved, felt unpleasantly chilled. His intuitive reaction would have been to get up and get out of there. Then suddenly, he thought of the man; saw him, off in the distance, looking as if he were weeping. He is never named in the book. Sperava - pur sapendo che la sua speranza era vana - che sua madre avrebbe saputo confortarlo.

E lo disse col tuono con cui avrebbe annunciata una grande sventura che gli fosse occorsa. Bernardo ha fatto bene a tagliartela. Poi le friggeva in quello stesso olio. It was, after all, his profession. If there were no such things as beards, he would have invented them. Ernesto was inally free and got up from the chair. No one noticed the tears in his eyes. Bernardo smiling contentedly and folding his towel, watched Ernesto cross the street as he led home. He was hoping, even as he knew it was in vain, that his mother would comfort him.

When he had been about thirteen or fourteen years old, he would have liked to be taken for a grown man, and had badgered his mother to buy him a vest like one a boy in his class had. Now, however, reading newspapers, he was pleased if a youth of his age was still referred to as a boy. Auntie and I are hungry. Fino ai tredici anni ne riceveva una; poi due, e della stessa grandezza di prima. Il ragazzo ne avrebbe mangiate tre, anche quattro: Davano tutti gli insegnamenti del caso, ed abbondavano in particolari. Anche il cugino coetaneo non coetaneo del tutto: Tutti gli altri ed Ernesto si collocava fra gli altri dovevano crepare.

Egli si sapeva incapace di dire di no, specialmente ad una donna. They left specks of blood in the oil, and she would then fry them in the same oil. They were in fact, meat balls, though lattened, but they must have contained a secret ingredient. Until he was thirteen years old, Ernesto had been served only one, later, he got a second, as large as the irst.

He could eat three, perhaps even four, but that day he could barely taste any of his food. He ate in silence, then immediately withdrew to his room, the only one in the house with a sloping roof, where he threw himself down on the brass bed to brood on his unhappiness. The blackbird, accustomed to being released and to having its bath at that time of day, began hopping restlessly from perch to perch, and calling to Ernesto to open the cage.

With a sense of regret he recalled all the friends who had already done so; and had bragged about it to him. They had told him all they knew on the subject and were lavish with details. Even a cousin his own age well, not exactly, he was three months older than Ernesto had already done it - more than once, if you could believe him. Life, in that sense, began the day a boy had a woman for the irst time. However, there had been a time when he was convinced that he would die of tuberculosis before he got to be twenty.

Everyone else and Er- nesto counted himself among those others was going to die. The obsession lasted two or three months. Then he stopped thinking about it. E se non gli fosse piaciuta? Ora una prostituta non poteva - ed egli lo sapeva - amarlo; se andava con lui era per i soldi: Ma il destino doveva essergli, anche questa volta, favorevole.

Abitava al primo piano di una vecchia casa, nel quartiere dove si aprivano i postriboli: Se avesse battuto ad una porta sbagliata, cosa avrebbe detto a chi gli fosse venuto ad aprire? And after that, his friendship with the man. He had another problem too. He knew he was incapable of saying no, especially to a woman. Consequently, if he went to a brothel he would have to say yes to the irst woman offered him.

How would he have the nerve to aflict a poor, unfortunate woman The Worker had taught him that prostitutes were poor unfortunate victims of bourgeois prejudice with the shame of a refusal? Ernesto had not yet reached the age of aesthetic sensibility he would reach it shortly - but by other ways and other means. His preferences were dictated solely by his sensuality at a given moment. For example, it never occurred to him to wonder whether the man was handsome or ugly. He had responded to him for reasons that had nothing to do with aesthetics.

He wanted to be loved and the man loved him. If she went with him, it was for the money. This matter of mak- ing a choice or rather of not making one was a major dificulty rooted in his character. But fate was once again to favor him. There was a woman in the old city who practiced the profession on her own perhaps secretly, meaning without police authorization.

Ernesto had seen her often at her window. She lived on the irst loor of an old building in a part of town where brothels were permitted. A friend had told him her price a lorin. If he knocked at the wrong door, what would he say to whoever opened it? He imagined - who knows why- an old woman holding a broom, who, on hearing what he wanted, would chase him into the street shrieking insults and humiliating him in front of everybody. Worse, his uncle, who, fearing solitary vices in his nephew, was giving him weekly gifts for just this purpose though alas, without actually stating his reason , owned shops on a street not far from the brothels.

What if his uncle happened to pass by and witness the scene? Ernesto decise di abbandonarsi al caso: Il pomeriggio era, virtualmente, suo: Sapeva che dalle prostitute si andava solo di sera e di nascosto; ma non si sentiva di rimandare: Era anche un giorno di grande sole. A pensarci su, avrebbe perso il poco coraggio che gli rimaneva. La donna era alla inestra; e vide subito il suo cenno.

Era un odore di biancheria nuova, appena tagliata; lo stesso che gli piaceva tanto nella casa della sua balia. Questa, che aveva il marito ammalato, e doveva guadagnare la vita per lui e per lei, cuciva a macchina tutti i pomeriggi capi di biancheria diversi, che la mattina vendeva, o cercava di vendere, in Piazza del Ponterosso.

Ernesto had no doubt she would immediately start crying, maybe faint, or even die right there with the shame of having such a son. Wanting to experience the feelings that Bernardo had inadvertently activated in him with that ill timed, premature shave, Ernesto decided to surrender to fate.

He would walk down the street where the woman lived. He would walk by three times. If one of those times she was at the window he would signal to her and go up. His afternoon was essentially free. So he had plenty of time. He wanted to experi- ence everything head on, immediately, in broad daylight. It was even a bright sunny day. If he stopped to think about it, he would lose what little courage he had. The woman was at the window and immediately noticed his nod.

His heart beating in his throat, Ernesto climbed the steps and found her waiting at her door. In fact, he had the feeling that things might work out better for him this way. What he did notice was a light growth of hair over her upper lip. Is she going to sprout a mustache? The thought amused and cheered him. The nursemaid, who had a sick husband and had to earn a living for both of them, would sit at her sewing machine every afternoon making various articles of linen which she sold, or attempted to sell, mornings in Piazza del Pon- terosso.

But she would chase him off immediately. Forse era anche una buona donna, con repressi istinti materni. Ernesto fece un gesto vago, come per dire che la cosa gli era indifferente. La donna non se le tolse. Under Franz Joseph2 , no one could stop her from walking around with linen under her arm. This woman too, was sewing linen, but she was doing it for herself and for her clients.

She was particular about cleanliness. Perhaps she, too, was a kind woman with suppressed maternal instincts. If so, this strange customer who had dropped in on her in broad daylight and who acted less mature than he looked, would seem to be particularly fashioned to draw them out. He was neither undress- ing nor approaching her. And she looked more closely at Ernesto.

He was a good looking boy, so different from the men who regularly visited her at night. She sensed that on that afternoon, fate had bestowed a strange and unexpected gift upon her. You just get yourself undressed. Ernesto did so too. Ernesto gestured vaguely, as if it was matter of indifference to him. The woman did not remove them. But one glance - and the discovery pleased her - told her her diagnosis had been incorrect.

Ma Ernesto era fatto diversamente. La sua forza e la sua debolezza stavano nel mostrarsi, in dove possibile, quale veramente era. Il ragazzo amava, come tutti i suoi coetanei, le lodi; ma, a differenza di questi, doveva sentire di meritarle. Come ti te ciami? Ma Ernesto non era un cliente comune.

E fece seguire al nome il cognome. Evidentemente, la donna era una slovena del Territorio. It will be easier, if this is really your irst time. Why, in fact, should he have? Youngsters generally try to pass themselves off as sophisticated rather than inexperienced. And the harder they pretend to be the former, the more likely they are to be the latter.

His strength and his weakness lay in trying as much as possible to present himself as he really was. Like all boys his age he liked praise, but unlike most others, he had to feel he merited it. There were times his relationship with the man was a torment to him. It would occur to him that if people whom he knew, who were repelled by such behavior and used insulting terms for it, were to learn what he had done, many who now liked him would no longer do so. Meanwhile, to arouse him, the woman had begun caressing him. Completely nude, he seemed to her not more than a child.

And as if he were a child, her hand stroked his buttocks. They were soft and tender and her hand lingered there for a moment. But that moment was enough for Ernesto to recall the man. And his image there, in that place, was frightening. I like you better this way. E - come desid- erava andarsene pensare in pace a quanto gli era accaduto - mise la mano in tasca, per prendere fuori il denaro e pagare la donna. Era il primo del mese e il primo giorno della settimana: Dette alla donna che costava solo un iorino tutto, o quasi, quello che possedeva, compreso quanto aveva dimenticato di dare a Bernardo.

Voleva rendergli una parte del denaro; ma Ernesto non volle. Ricordite che me ciamo Tanda, e sta atento a no sbagliar de porta. Era quasi commossa,e volentieri gli avrebbe dato un bacio. Due cose tormentavano Ernesto, mentre si avviava ad eseguire le commissioni per il signor Wilder: La matassa doveva attendere molti anni per incominciare appena a dipanarla; la sete invece che, per ragioni isiologiche, afligge tutti gli uomini dopo il coito con una prostituta poteva sod- disfarla subito. And falling back at the edge of the bed, she drew the boy towards her. It seemed to him that he had experienced it before, even before his birth.

He felt like a man who, after a long, adventurous journey, returns home where he knows and recognizes everything: Ernesto, no longer worried about himself, inquired about it. And, as he was anxious to get away to think quietly about what he had just experienced , he reached into his pocket for money. It was the irst of the month, the irst of the week. It was what only the old or impotent paid. She offered to give him some money back, but he refused.

Just remember my name is Tanda, and be careful not to go to the wrong door. Non gli restava quindi che bere ad una fontana pubblica. Ma la loro vista lo rese anche accorto di essere in ritardo. Per affrettarlo, decise di prendere, coi pochi centesimi che gli rimanevano, il tram. Lo avrebbe poi messo in conto al parsimonioso signor Wilder. Molte donne, la maggior parte giovani, alcune ancora bambine, attendevano il loro turno. Dovette, per bere a garganella, piegare in due la persona: Two problems were troubling Ernesto as he set off to do his errands for Signor Wilder.

He was unable to undo the twisted tangle of his thoughts, and he was very thirsty. It would be many years before he could even begin to undo the tangle. However, the thirst which, for physiological reasons, aflicts all men after coitus with a prostitute could be satisied immediately. So there was nothing else to do, but drink at a public fountain. He found one in an outlying area, a highly populated outskirt of the city, which had been growing in every direction. Ancient hovels that Ernesto knew from childhood, and which he thought would surely last forever, were being razed to make way for new buildings.

The chimney of a nearby factory was emitting thick smoke that permeated the air. Workers, walking double ile, lunch boxes in hand, were already leaving their building. But seeing them reminded him that he was late. Suddenly, he felt a strange nostalgia for the ofice, even for Signor Wilder. To get back sooner, he decided he would use the remainder of his money to take the tram back and bill it to miserly Signor Wilder.

The fountain rose in the middle of a tree-lined ield between a barracks and a church, both painted yellow. Many women, most of them young, some still merely girls, were waiting their turn. Despite his desperate thirst, Ernesto waited patiently in line. Ernesto si giudicava male. Gli pareva fosse pas- sato non so quanto tempo da quando era stato per la prima volta da una donna Gli pareva fosse passato non so quanto tempo da quando era stato per la prima volta da una donna He had to bend his body almost in half to reach the spout.

The movement and resulting position of his body roused an intrusive memory. At just that moment, he heard laughter all around him. They know everything, he thought. They know about the man, they know where I just came from. He stopped drinking before his thirst was satisied and blushing, began walking away.

They continued staring at Ernesto, who, with his eyes to the ground, was trying to escape the wretched fountain as quickly as he could. Ernesto was misjudging himself badly. There was nothing about his appearance to induce laughter. But Ernesto interpreted their subdued laughter very differently. It seemed to Ernesto as if an incalculable amount of time had passed since his irst experience with a woman. And an entire epoch separated him from the time he had begun his strange relationship with the laborer, who - he was at least sure about this - had in his own way loved him.

And perhaps if Ernesto had wanted him to would still have loved him. And only one month had gone by. His volumes of poetry are Frammenti di tormenti prima parte Longo: Kirschenbaum and illustrations by Delia Robinson. Transla- tions of his poetry have appeared in English and Catalan, and are being prepared in German. He translated into Italian poems of W. He co-translated from German two autobiographical novels of Johannes Hoesle and is a regular contributor to magazines and journals in both Italy and the U.

His other publications are books and articles on literary criticism and language pedagogy. Giovanni Raboni is arguably one of the greatest Italian poets of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Milan of an afluent middleclass family he gave up a career in law to become a journalist, translator and literary critic. He was awarded all the most prestigious Italian poetry prizes, including the Viareggio and the Librex Montale. The poems presented here were published posthumously in as part of Ultimi versi with an afterword in verse by his wife and poet Patrizia Valduga.

They are now included in the Meridiano Mondadori Opera poetica with the rest of his poetry, a selection of his essays, and works for the theatre. The problem is from where, exactly, to start the counting: Or will it be the case of going further back, much further back, for example to the entry of the lodge or to when the conscience of the country started to model itself after the programs of channel ive?

Canzone del danno e della beffa Stillicidio di delitti, terribile: Until, I say to myself, God preserves him and his squads in double-breasted suits or blazers leave him be, we will always know whom to vote against. Song of Harm and Mockery Unrelenting low of crimes, terrible: Never so low, so similar not only saying it, even thinking it hurts to the heinous caricatures that have always sullied and disigured us In other places as well, I know, they sanctify crime, in other places as well they celebrate rites of privilege and impunity transformed into doctrine of the state.

But only to us, soaked already in ancient sins and pardons, to us irst agents and later victims of the plague of the century, was allotted, with the harm, the mockery, a farce in addition to ill fate. Sia detto, amici, una volta per tutte: Antonello Borra And all the students of Italian Poetry: Of course it is.

How could we not be obsessed with the continuous reiteration of the most obscene stereotypes, the lood of falsity and arrogance, the supreme pornography of cunning made object of worship, of bullying made valor, of impudence made icon? Let it be said once and for all, my friends: He is currently working on a memoir of his Italian childhood in the Bronx. Bickersteth, and Dorothy Sayers. At age twenty I thus embarked on a foolhardy venture to avoid the most egregious faults of these most established terza rima versions. Six years later, under the guidance of Professor Daniel Donno, I submitted my annotated terza rima translation of the irst nine cantos of the Inferno as my thesis requirement for an MA in English at Queens College.

I continued my Dante studies while pursuing a doctorate in English at Yale and produced three more cantos for a total of twelve. Then, after ten years of work on my version, my day-job responsibilities compelled me to declare an end to the project in , though I have continued to revise my entire text every few years since then. In the meantime several terza rima versions of the Inferno have appeared, most notably that of Michael Palma, and the num- ber of other Dante translations has proliferated at an astonishing rate.

La gente che per li sepolcri giace potrebbesi veder? Ed el mi disse: The suffering people here who occupy These tombs—may they be seen? Within this graveyard Epicurus lies With all his followers in heresy, Who say the spirit with the body dies. The question that you ask shall presently Be answered here, nor shall you be forbidden That wish of yours which you conceal from me. Your language clearly makes you out to be A native of that noble fatherland Which I, perhaps, have harmed too grievously. You will gain A view of all of him, from waist to head.

This made him arch his brows a bit and say: He must have been upon his knees inside. He looked around at irst, as though he meant To see if someone else were with me too, But when his expectations were all spent, Weeping, he said to me: That one who waits leads me through this domain— For whom, perhaps, your Guido felt despite.

Is he not living then? It seems that—if I hear aright—you see, Beforehand, things that time will bring to light, But with the present, you fare differently. Therefore, you see, all things will be concealed From us, and all our knowledge will be dead When the door of the future shall be sealed. And that if I was mute and did not tell What he would know, it was because my thought Was on that problem you have solved so well. Here Frederick and the Cardinal are found— And of the rest, I make you no reply. I turned around And walked back toward that poet of long ago, Relecting on those words of hostile sound.

He said to me, as we began to go Upon our way again: Lujan lives in Belmont, California, twenty-ive miles south of San Francisco. He has a doctorate in English from the University of California at Berkeley, and for forty-seven years has taught composition and literature, humanities, speech and ilm, history and political science, philosophy, and religious studies at various colleges in the Bay Area; he is currently at Notre Dame de Namur University. Growing up in the Mis- sion, a working-class albeit richly multicultural neighborhood in San Francisco, I had heard only vaguely of Dante before then, but I was powerfully impressed.

While in high school I read through the whole of the Commedia on my own, and wrote a careful summary. In graduate school at U. Jones, in which we went through the Commedia canto by canto. Since then, in classes and in school tours to Italy, I have taught parts of the Commedia many times.

I now have neither the energy nor the expertise to translate the entire poem, but there are many individual passages, especially in the Inferno, that I have pondered over often and deeply enough to have some sense of how they ought to go in English. The previ- ous translations that I have found most helpful have been those by John D. Sinclair and Charles S. Rather, I have written my versions in blank verse. Ah me, how hard a thing it is to tell Of that wood, savage and harsh and stubborn, The very thought of which renews my fear!

So bitter is it, death is scarcely more; But to treat of the good that I found there, I will tell of the other things I saw. I cannot rightly say how I got there, I was so full of sleep at the moment When I irst abandoned the path of truth. These words I beheld inscribed in color Obscure above a gateway; so I said. We have come to the place where you shall see The sorrowful people I told you of, Who have lost the good of the intellect.

Here sighs, lamentations, and loud wailings Reverberated through the starless air So that at irst it made me weep to hear.

Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa; Misericordia e giustizia li sdegna: Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa. Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave Un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo, Gridando: Non isperate mai veder lo cielo: And I, my head encircled with horror, Said: They are commingled with that wicked choir Of angels who were neither rebellious Nor faithful to God, but were for themselves.

Heaven drove them forth, not to be less fair, Nor yet will the depth of hell receive them, Lest the sinners have glory over them. They have no hope that they will ever die, And this blind life of theirs is so abject, That they then envy every other lot. The world permits no report of them to be; Mercy and justice both disdain them: Let us not talk of them, but look and pass. And behold, coming toward us in a boat, An ancient man, his hair snow-white with age, Crying: Do not hope ever to see the heavens; I come to lead you to the other shore, To eternal darkness, to ire and ice.

And you there, who are still a living soul, Depart from those who are already dead. La bufera infernal, che mai non resta, Mena li spirti con la sua rapina: Voltando e percotendo li molesta. A lighter bark than this must carry you. It is so willed there where there is power To do that which is willed, and ask no more. The infernal blizzard, which never rests, Sweeps the spirits onward before its blast: Whirling and striking, it torments them still. When they arrive in front of the ruin, There are shrieks, wailings, and lamentations; They blaspheme against the divine power.

I understood that unto such torment Are condemned all the sinners of the lesh, Who subject their reason to appetite.

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