| Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato
di Eugenio Montale
Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato: era il rivo strozzato che gorgolia, era l’incartocciarsi della foglia riarsa, era il cavallo stramazzato.
Bene non seppi, fuori del prodigio che schiude la divina Indifferenza: era la statua nella sonnolenza del meriggio, e la nuvola, e il falco alto levato.
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Often the burden of life I have met
by Eugenio Montale
Often the burden of life I have met it was the strangled rivulet that gurgles, it was the crumpling of leaves burnt, it was the horse spent.
No other way was there, if not the wonder that bears divine Indifference: it was the statue in the somnolent afternoon, and the cloud, and the hawk’s ascent.
Translation by ©MatildaColarossi
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The poem is from the collection Ossi di sepia, by Eugenio Montale (poet, writer, editor, translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature).
“I wanted to wring the eloquence of our noble ancient tongue” said Eugenio Montale: and he went on to invent a new language, essential, simple and austere, a language which expressed the desire for truth. Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato [Often the burden of life I have met] is one of the most famous poems in the collection, and representative of the main theme: the male di vivere, the burden of life, the suffering that reigns over the universe.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Bellissima sfida, per una delle poesie più importanti del XX secolo
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Più importante di sempre, aggiungerei. That overwhelming mal de vivre, untranslatable, intangible, ever-present.
That blessed indifference behind the static immobility of the statue, the darkness of the clouds, the distant flight of the hawk.
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