| L’assenza Guido Gozzano Un bacio. Ed è lungi. Dispare giù in fondo, là dove si perde la strada boschiva, che pare un gran corridoio nel verde. Risalgo qui dove dianzi vestiva il bell’abito grigio: rivedo l’uncino, i romanzi ed ogni sottile vestigio… Mi piego al balcone. Abbandono la gota sopra la ringhiera. E non sono triste. Non sono più triste. Ritorna stasera. E intorno declina l’estate. E sopra un geranio vermiglio, fremendo le ali caudate si libra un enorme Papilio… L’azzurro infinito del giorno è come seta ben tesa; ma sulla serena distesa la luna già pensa al ritorno. Lo stagno risplende. Si tace la rana. Ma guizza un bagliore d’acceso smeraldo, di brace azzurra: il martin pescatore… E non son triste. Ma sono stupito se guardo il giardino… stupito di che? non mi sono sentito mai tanto bambino… Stupito di che? Delle cose. I fiori mi paiono strani: Ci sono pur sempre le rose, ci sono pur sempre i gerani… | Absence Guido Gozzano A kiss. And she is off. She disappears down the way, there, where unseen goes the woodland path, which appears to be a great corridor in the green. I climb up here again where before she donned her lovely grey dress: I see her needles, her novel once more and each imperceptible trace … I bow over the balcony. I set my cheek upon the balustrade. And I am not sad. I am not sad anymore. Tonight she will return. And all round summer is declining. And over a vermillion geranium, its swallowtail wings beating, soars an enormous Papilio … The day in its infinite azure is like silk stretched tense, but by now on the serene expanse the moon already ponders its return. The pool glows. Silent turns the frog. But there’s a flicker of bright emerald, of azure embers: it’s the kingfisher… And I am not sad. But I am ever so stunned if I look at the garden… stunned by what? I have never felt so much like a child again … Stunned by what? By things. To me the flowers seem strange: Still there are roses, still there are geraniums… Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2025 |
The poem L’assenza is from the collection I colloqui, 1911.
The poem describes an emotional state: the poet’s loved one has departed, but not for long (“Tonight she will return”) and the poet is not worried (“And I am not sad”), but while observing nature around him, what is at first perplexity soon becomes the wonder of a child. It is a moment in time, a snapshot of sorts, and thus I remembered the words of Pier Paolo Pasolini: “Gozzano’s work is fiction: even that which is written in shorter verses and lengths. Even if he is not telling a real story, it is in any case a “scene” from real life. Once one closes the book, the reader has the impression the world is technically fictional rather than poetic.”
The poetic devices used by the poet are: rhyme, enjambement, simile, metaphor, and anaphora. As always, I did my best to reproduce them while trying to preserve the spirit of the work.
I would like to share just a few notes on the text, which I found in an old collection and which I found very interesting:
v 1 – “Dispare: disappear. Note how in this section of Colloqui, the female characters he recalls in a positive light systematically temper the sphere of the ego. v 6 – grigio: the colour is attributed to a woman who is no longer young (in a first version of the text, the poem named his mother). […] v 11 – non sono triste: expression repeated in v 25, in a style similar to D’Annunzio, Le tristezze ignote, vv 12, 16 ‘Io non sono triste, quasi’. v 13 – declina: fading or coming to an end, see D’Annunzio, Implorazione (Madrigale d’estate, vv12-16 ‘Estate […] non declinare!’ “ […] “v 29 – cose: realty, captured in its physical immediacy and autonomous life, exemplified in nature (flowers, roses, geraniums). For the rhyme: rose, given the context, see Pascoli, Commiato, vv 24-26 ‘Cresceva l’ombra delle cose / […] traspariva color di rose.’”*
* Translated from the notes found in Guido Gozzano, Poesie e Prose, curated by Luca Lenzini. Universale Economia Feltrinelli, I Classici. Feltrinelli, 1995. pp 116-117.
Painting: Long grass with butterflies, (detail), Vincent Van Gogh, 1890
Absence © 2025 Matilda Colarossi is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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