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Il vetro rotto di Umberto Saba . Tutto si muove contro te. Il maltempo, le luci che si spengono, la vecchia casa scossa a una raffica e a te cara per il male sofferto, le speranze deluse, qualche bene in lei goduto. Ti pare il sopravvivere un rifiuto d’obbedienza alle cose. E nello schianto del vetro alla finestra è la condanna. |
The broken pane by Umberto Saba . Everything moves against you. The storm, the lights that go off, the old house rattled by a gust and to you dear for the pain suffered, the hopes shattered, some good times had there. Survival feels to you like a refusal to obey the order of things. And with the crash of the window pane comes the sentence.
. Translation ©Matilda Colarossi |
The poem The broken pane, by Umberto Saba is from Il Canzoniere, in the collection Tutte le poesie, Mondadori, Milano, 1988. Written between 1935 and 1943, during the fascist regime and, therefore, the persecution of the Jews (Saba was Jewish), the poem describes a house that is anything but a safe haven. Saba’s house is something fragile, incapable of resisting the hostility of the outside world, the wind that rattles it, the condemnation. It is a house of death and resignation.
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parallel texts: words reflected 