Giacomo Leopardi.

New Version by  John Heath-Stubbs     (followed by the other ones)

To the Moon  -
translated by  JOHN HEATH-STUBBS

O gracious Moon, I call to mind again
It was a year ago I climbed this hill
To gaze upon you in agony;
And you were hanging then above that wood,
Filling it all with light, as you do now.
But dim and tremulous your face appeared,
Seen through the tears that rose beneath my eyelids,
My life being full of travail; as it is still -
It does not change, 0 my sweet Moon. And yet
Remembrance helps, and reckoning up
The cycles of my sorrow. How sweet the thought
That brings to mind things past, when we are young -
When long's the road for hope, for memory brief -
Though they were sad, and though our pain endures.



> To the Moon - Translated by JG NICHOLAS

>
> O gracious moon, now that I recollect,
> It is a year ago I climbed this hill
> In terrible distress to gaze on you:
> And you were hanging then above the wood
> As you do now, suffusing it with light.
> But misty then and muddled from the weeping
> That clouded both my eyes your face appeared
> To me at least, because my life was full
> Of anguish then: and is, nor has it changed,
> O moon of my delight. Yet I enjoy
> Remembrance, and the reckoning of the age
> My sorrow grows to.  What enormous pleasure
> In time of youth, when hope had such great distance
> To travel still and memory so little,
> In recalling things that now are past,
> Though they were sad things and the pain endures.
>
> (Note: Leopardi's language is very aulic with a fashinating use of poetic
> diction)
>
> Alla luna
>
> O graziosa luna, io mi rammento
> Che, or volge l'anno, sovra questo colle
> Io venia pien d'angoscia a rimirarti:
> E tu pendevi allor su quella selva
> Siccome of fai, che tutta la rischiari.
> Ma nebuloso e tremulo dal pianto
> Che mi sorgea sul ciglio, alle mie luci
> Il tuo volto apparia, che travagliosa
> Era la mia vita: ed e' , ne' cangia stile,
> O mia diletta luna. E pur mi giova
> La ricordanza, e il noverar l'etade
> Del mio dolore. Oh come grato occorre
> Nel tempo giovanil, quando ancor lungo
> Le aspeme e breve ha la memoria il corso,
> Il rimembrar delle passate cose,
> Ancora che triste, e che l'affanno duri.
>
> To the moon
> (servile translation by Erminia Passannanti)
>
> O gracious moon, I recall how,
> - A year has just passed - on this hill
> I used to come full of anguish, to admire you:
> And you were hanging then on that wood
> As you do now, lightening it all.
> But clouded and tremulous through the tears
> rising to my eyelashes, to my eyes
> Your face appeared, since troubled
> Was my life: still is, nor cdoes it hange its style,
> My darling Moon.  And yet remebring
> does me good, the recalling of the age
> of my suffering. Oh, how pleasantly it comes,
> at the time of youth  when hope still has a long
> way to go and memory one short,
> the recollecting of past things
> which, being sad, make pain endure.
>
> ( note, in this idyll ,the self-tormenting sweetness of the recalling of
the
> (maybe  by now trivial) sad things which afflicted the poet's soul  in his
> young age;  the element of pleasure in the remembrance of a suffering
which
> is the only thing still enduring, warranting in this way  the continuation
> of the poet's inspiration in the older age, which in the case of Leopardi
> was only forty .
> He sadly died in a bizarre way, for a lyric poet, having eaten , once
> finally on holiday in Naples, (the city he always dreamed of visiting, and
> never managed to do, during his youth  ) several ice-creams which were
made
> with contaminated  water, causing him dysentery.
> Well , mine is a servile translation. From this  one might work out a more
> faithful  English version. Even though I feel that JG Nichols is a very
> successful one.)
> Cheers, Eminia
>
>
>
>


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