Poetry / Contemporary Man. (excerpts)

Contemporary Man. (Excerpts)
Italian text (Giorno dopo giorno, Day after day, 1947) by Salvatore Quasimodo.
Translation© Jake Spatz.

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1. Up in the willow branches.

And to sing—and how could we sing
with a foreign boot on our heart,
and what with the dead abandoned in the squares
on the ice-hard grass—
how sing to the child’s accompaniment,
the mourning bleat of it,
how sing to the mother’s black shriek
as she stumbled forward face to face with her son
crucified up on a telegraph pole?

Up in the willow branches, even our lyres,
that sacrifice,
EVEN OUR LYRES were hanged,
lightly swaying around on the sad wind.

(NOTE: Cf. Psalm 137.)

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ALLE FRONDE DEI SALICI
E come potevamo noi cantare
con il piede straniero sopra il cuore,
fra i morti abbandonati nelle piazze
sull’erba dura di ghiaccio, al lamento
d’agnello dei fanciulli, all’urlo nero
della madre che andava incontro al figlio
crocifisso sul palo del telegrafo?
Alle fronde dei salici, per voto,
anche le nostre cetre erano appese,
oscillavano lievi al triste vento.

[LITERAL: And how could we sing / with a foreign foot on our heart, / among the dead abandoned in the plazas / on grass as hard as ice, to the lamb-like / lament of the children, to the black howl / of the mother who went up to face her son / crucified on the telegraph pole? / In the fronds of the willow, as a sacrifice (or “vow”), / our lyres as well were suspended, / they swayed lightly on the sad wind.]

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8. Milan, August 1943.

You rummage around in the dust in vain, poor hand,
the city is dead.
The last of its groans rang out, all of us heard it,
it rumbled across the heart of the river Naviglio.
The city is dead,
and the nightingale up on its mast high over the convent,
where it used to sing at the sunset,
has fallen, fallen, fallen:
the city is dead.

Dig wells no more in the courtyards,
the living are out of thirst.
Don’t touch the dead, red as they are,
swollen as they are:
leave them be in the earth of the homes they lived in,
it’s dead, the city is dead.

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MILANO, AGOSTO 1943
Invano cerchi tra la polvere,
povera mano, la città è morta.
È morta: s’è udito l’ultimo rombo
sul cuore del Naviglio. E l’usignolo
è caduto dall’antenna, alta sul convento,
dove cantava prima del tramonto.
Non scavate pozzi nei cortilli:
i vivi non hanno più sete.
Non toccate i morti, così rossi, così gonfi:
lasciateli nella terra delle loro case:
la città è morta, è morta.

[LITERAL: In vain you search through the dust, / poor hand, the city is dead. / It’s dead: its last groan was heard / over the Naviglio’s heart. And the nightingale / has fallen from the spire, high over the convent, / where it used to sing before sunset. / Don’t dig wells in the courtyards: / the living are no longer thirsty. / Don’t touch the dead, so red, so swollen: / leave them in the earth of their homes: / the city is dead, it’s dead.]

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20. Contemporary Man.

Still you belong to the stone and sling,
Contemporary Man.
It was you behind the fuselage,
with wings of malice, altimeters of death,
—I saw you—there, in the coach of fire,
        belted, noosed,
running the torture wheels.
        I saw you,
        saw you yourself,
with your exact science, your doctrine of extinction,
loveless, Christless.
You were killing all over again, as always,
just as our fathers killed,
        just as the animals
killed when first they saw you.
And this blood now stinks the same as it did on the day
when brother said to brother:
        “let us go unto the fields.”
And that constant,
that cold echo
has made its way to you, through your own doing.

O children,
it’s time to forget the clouds of blood
arisen from the off of the ground,
it’s time to forget the fathers:

the sea of ashes take their tombs,
their heart lie covered in black birds,
O bury their heart in the wind.

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UOMO DEL MIO TEMPO
Sei ancora quello della pietra e della fionda,
uomo del mio tempo. Eri nella carlinga,
con le ali maligne, le meridiane di morte,
—t’ho visto—dentro il carro di fuoco, alle forche,
alle ruote di tortura. T’ho visto: eri tu,
con la tua scienza esatta persuasa allo stermino,
senza amore, senza Cristo. Hai ucciso ancora,
come sempre, come uccisero i padri, come uccisero
gli animali che ti videro per la prima volta.
E questo sangue odora come nel giorno
quando il fratello disse all’altro fratello:
«andiamo ai campi». E quell’eco fredda, tenace,
è giunto fino a te, dentro la tua giornata.
Dimenticate, o figli, le nuvole di sangue
salite dalla terra, dimenticate i padri:
le loro tombe affondano nella cenere,
gli uccelli neri, il vento, coprono il loro cuore.

[LITERAL (“Man of my time”): You are still that one of the stone and sling, / man of my time. You were in the cockpit, / with malignant wings, meridians (dials) of death, / --I saw you--inside the chariot of fire, at the gallows, / at the torture-wheels. I saw you: it was you, / with your exact science bent on extermination, / without love, without Christ. You’ve killed again, / as always, as the fathers killed, as the animals / killed when they saw you for the first time. / And this blood stinks as on the day / when one brother said to another brother: / “let’s to the fields.” And that cold, tenacious echo / has come to you, within your own day’s work. / Forget, O children, the clouds of blood / risen from the earth, forget the fathers: / may their tombs sink into the ashes, / may the black birds, the wind, cover their heart.]

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