Today we read Caro luogo, by Umberto Saba.

Two young lovers are looking for a place where they can “make one life out of two.” All the afternoon they wander around under the sun, surrounded by the noise and the comings and goings of adult, everyday life.

But then the night comes, the moon rises, and they find a quiet spot, where the only noise if that of crickets. And here the poem stops and the poet falls silent, presumably intent in better things than writing poetry.

Saba was an admirer of Tasso, and this poem might remind us of this sonnet of his.

The original:

Today we read L’orologio da rote, by Ciro di Pers.

Complaining about technology is not something modern. So while today we blame social media for decline in mental health and ai for stealing jobs and possibly killing everybody (and I’m not saying I disagree…), back in the 1600s one would complain about… clocks.

Channeling something of a pre-Marxist sensibility, Ciro da Pers sees in mechanical clocks, and in particular in their relentless regularity, a tool that violently cuts up the days, and a stark reminder of the passage of time.

When he hears its tolling he is urged to act, before his allotted time expires.

The concluding terzina is particularly striking. Ciro states that, in a sense, the clock is the cause of time running on; and that when it strikes its bell, it’s actually knocking on our tomb, so that it opens to receive us.

The original:

Today we read Ed è subito sera, by Salvatore Quasimodo.

How do you put the whole of human existence in three verses? Well, this is one way.

Are you an uncharitable reader who isn’t impressed by Quasimodo’s Nobel Prize and would quip “I could also write three lines without even a rhyme”? You then might also maintain that this poem is a fancy way to put the saying “life sucks and then you die.”

But of course there’s more than meets the eye, even just at the technical level. The verses are a double senario, a novenario and a settenario, of descending length as life ends its course.

The endwords of the lines are “Earth”, “Sun” and “evening,” moving from the everyday, to the possibility of something higher, to death.

The original:

Today we read La Nencia di Barberino, by Lorenzo de Medici.

The attribution of today’s poem to Lorenzo il Magnifico is not certain, but has a long tradition. Despite such a lofty author, the topic is very prosaic: a rustic shepherd sings the beauty and various charms of his beloved, Nencia, who gives the title to the composition.

It is a pretty standard theme. The twist is the dramatic change in the social class of the people involved: whereas we are used to courtly love of learned poets for elegant and refined ladies, here we find an illiterate youngster from the lower classes using the language he normally uses (more or less…), and drawing his similes from what he knows in his everyday life.

Here we present only two of the twenty ottave that make up the complete work, just to give a taste of its irony and playfulness.

We are told that Nencia’s teeth are whiter not than pearls, but than horse’s teeth. And that she has more than twenty teeth per side, imagine that!

Also she dances really well: not like an angel, but rather like a cute little goat, skipping around. And when she spins, she is not like the moon or the sun, but rather like the wheel of a mill.

The original:

Today we read Non ha l’ottimo artista, by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Besides painting, sculpting and designing buildings, Michelangelo also wrote poetry. He might not be often remembered for his literary efforts, which he himself considered a “silly thing,” but his sonnets are quite accomplished.

Love is as usual a recurring theme, but it is seldom explored in itself, in the fashion of Petrarca: most of the time themes like death, sin and eternal salvation are interwoven or take center stage.

The result is often a more expressive, sometimes difficult style, with a dark and ominous outlook.

Today’s sonnet is dedicated to the poetess Vittoria Colonna. Michelangelo uses the trope according to which the sculptor doesn’t invent anything, but rather uncovers what is already hidden in the original block of marble.
In the same fashion, his beloved contains in herself the possibility of love for him, mixed with indifference and outright disdain.
But he is not artist enough to extract from her what he desires: his art obtains quite the opposite effect. And the fault is entirely on him and his inadequacy.

The original:

Today we read Sembran fere d’avorio in bosco d’oro, by Anton Maria Narducci.

You gotta love Baroque poetry.
The author of this sonnet must have gotten tired of the never-ending repetition of the “angelic woman with golden hair” trope, and decided to give things a different turn.

A more realistic turn. You see, in the 1600s hygiene was not what it is today, so it must not have been a rare occurrence to see people scratching their heads with suspicious frequency and intensity.

The beloved of the poet — real or imagined, it doesn’t really matter — still has a fabulous golden mane, just like Petrarca’s did. The difference, and it is a remarkably substantial one, lies in its cleanliness, or lack thereof.
Indeed, her hair is infested with lice. And the poet celebrates these guests, comparing them to gems that adorn it, or even to little Cupids, darting to and fro, and preparing a golden net that the lady uses to capture men and make them love her.

Such is the Baroque equilibrium between poetic and disgusting, commonplace and exalted, traditional and rebellious.

The original:

le fère erranti onde sí ricca siete;
anzi, gemme son pur che voi scotete
da l’aureo del bel crin natio tesoro;
o pure, intenti a nobile lavoro,
cosí cangiati gli Amoretti avete,
perché tessano al cor la bella rete
con l’auree fila ond’io beato moro.
O fra bei rami d’or volanti Amori,
gemme nate d’un crin fra l’onde aurate,
fère pasciute di nettarei umori;
deh, s’avete desio d’eterni onori,
esser preda talor non isdegnate
di quella preda onde son preda i cori! \

Today we read D’un alto monte onde si scorge il mare, by Isabella di Morra.

Picture it: you are a young, smart girl who adores her father because, among other things, he gives you a literary education. Which is not at all to be taken as a given when you live in the early 1500s.

You are surrounded by unruly and frankly nasty brothers, who envy your father’s attentions for you.

Then you father runs afoul of the powers that be, and has to flee to Paris. You are left alone with your brothers, who confine you by the early age of ten to live inside your castle, perched atop a steep cliff. Your life is reduced to writing poetry for yourself, hating the place of your imprisonment, and longing for your father’s return.

This is what the sonnet describes: Isabella looking out to the sea from her lonely, hated cliff, searching the horizon for ships that might bring her, if not her father, at least news of him.

But her father never came home, even after his pardon: he preferred to climb the ranks at the court in Paris, and abandoned his family back in the sticks.

This veritable Rapunzel had her one little joy in the literary correspondence she maintained with another poet, Diego Sandoval, a neighbouring noble. Their letters had to be sneaked in by her tutor, to avoid suspicions. But of course their brothers got wind of them, immediately suspected a tryst, and thought nothing of killing her to restore the “family honour.”

Such was the short, unhappy life of Isabella.

The original:

Today we read Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono, by Francesco Petrarca.

I am a happy subscriber to the Poem of the Day newsletter from the Poetry Foundation, and a few weeks ago I received in my mailbox this version of the opening sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere.

Though I’m of course glad to see Italian authors showcased, and even setting aside my general misgivings about translating poetry, I must admit I would definitely not call this a “translation” from the Italian: perhaps a rather free reinterpretation?

And so, given a severe delay in providing some Petrarca on these pages, here we go.

As mentioned, this is the first sonnet of the collection that cemented Petrarch’s reputation for the ages: the Canzoniere, which means “collection of songs.” As it was the case for the opening sonnet of Boccaccio’s collection, it is a declaration of poetics. But it can also be seen as the capstone of the collection, because it recapitulates the journey of the poet, from the total absorption in his love for Laura, to the later recognition of it as a shameful error, and the very religious turn of the later poems.

What I can’t help but always find striking is how, in describing this “youthful error” of his, he inject in this very poem, so prominent, an obviously-deliberate syntax error. The first two quatrains are a long sentence building up on that Voi, “you who listen,” that one expects to be the subject. And yet, once verse eight arrives, the sentence breaks down, Petrarca becomes the subject asking for forgiveness, and if he asks it of them, at least one preposition is missing all the way back in verse one.

For the master sonnettier, synonymous of formal perfection, and founder of a tradition lasting more than 600 years, it feels like quite a statement.

The original: