So I'll starting with Pascoli.
I don't need to tell you too much about him,
but I'll tell you a couple of little biographical things.
In Italy, everybody knows his life story
because it was famously tragic.
His father was murdered when he was a boy and his mother
and two of his siblings died before he grew up.
And I mention that because it a number of his poems
either refer explicitly or implicitly to these tragedies,
and it helps.
On the one hand, they sometimes kind of overshadow the poetry
and people mythologized him a bit much for that reason.
But on the other hand, I think it
does help understand certain things about the poetry.
For example, the first poem that I'll read
is called "Nebbia," or "Fog."
And the poem is addressed to the fog,
and what he values in it is its ability
to sort of hide the world from him, because for him
the world is a fundamentally tragic place.
And so this poem is called "Nebbia."
I'll read the Italian, I think, of the poems,
and then I'll read the translations.
"Nebbia."
Nascondi le cose lontane, tu nebbia impalpabile e scialba,
tu fumo che ancora rampolli, su l’alba,
da’ lampi notturni e da’ crolli d’aeree frane!
Nascondi le cose lontane, nascondimi quello ch’è morto!
Ch’io veda soltanto la siepe dell’orto,
la mura ch’ha piene le crepe di valeriane.
Nascondi le cose lontane: le cose son ebbre di pianto!
Ch’io veda i due peschi, i due meli, soltanto,
che dànno i soavi lor mieli pel nero mio pane.
Nascondi le cose lontane che vogliono ch’ami e che vada!
Ch’io veda là solo quel bianco di strada,
che un giorno ho da fare tra stanco don don di campane…
Nascondi le cose lontane, nascondile, involale al volo
del cuore! Ch’io veda il cipresso là, solo,
qui, solo quest’orto, cui presso sonnecchia il mio cane.
"Fog."
"Hide what is far from my eyes, pale fog, impalpable,
gray vapor climbing the light of the coming
day after the storm-streaked night, the rock fall skies.
Hide what has gone and what goes.
Hide what lies beyond me.
Let me see only that hedge at my boundary and this wall
by who's crumbling edge Valerian grows.
Hide from my eyes what is dead.
The world is drunk on tears.
Show my two peach trees in bloom,
my two pears that spread their sugared balm on my black bread.
Hide from my eyes lost things whose need for my love
is a goad.
Let me see only the white of the stone road.
I, too, will ride it some night as a tired bell rings.
Hide the far things.
Hide them beyond the sweep of my heart.
Show only that cypress tree standing apart, and here, lying
sleepily, this dog at my side.