Adam Elgar

Gaspara Stampa — Sonnet XVII

Heavenly angels, I don’t envy you
your glories, your great joys, and that desire
which satisfaction makes a hotter fire
since you are always in the High King’s view:

but so huge and so rich are my delights,
no heart can comprehend them here on earth.
I sing and write for all that I am worth
my loved one’s eyes, those soft and gentle lights.

Infinite beauty gives to me below
the life you gain in heaven from His face
which endlessly refreshes you. I know

there’s only one respect in which your grace
outdoes my joy: it knows no overthrow
while mine will disappear without a trace.

Literal version

Holy angels, I don’t envy your glories and rewards which are so many, and those desires which crave even when satisfied, being always in the presence of the high Lord as you are;

Because my delights are such and so great that they cannot be grasped/understood in the human heart, while I have before me the mild and serene lights about which it is fitting that I always write and sing.

And just as in heaven you are accustomed to enjoy great refreshment and life from His face, so I down here from infinite beauty.

In this only do you overcome my joy, that your glory is eternal and fixed, whereas mine can finish.

Original

Io non v’invidio punto, angeli santi,
le vostre tante glorie e tanti beni,
e que’ disir di ciò che braman pieni,
stando voi sempre a l’alto Sire avanti;

perché i diletti miei son tali e tanti,
che non posson capire in cor terreni,
mentr’ho davanti i lumi almi e sereni,
di cui conven che sempre scriva e canti.

E come in ciel gran refrigerio e vita
dal volto Suo solete voi fruire,
tal io qua giú da la beltá infinita.

In questo sol vincete il mio gioire,
che la vostra è eterna e stabilita,
e la mia gloria può tosto finire.

Translator’s note

There are the usual challenges to translating Stampa’s sequence of 311 “Rime d’Amore” dedicated to Collatino di Collalto — not least a Petrarchan complexity, and a Mediaeval theology coupled with a Renaissance humanism. But for a man, the greatest difficulty may be that she is a woman, and her voice is one of the most intensely, even painfully, “feminine” in literature. For Rilke, she was the paragon of masochism and he gave her an emblematic role in his first Duino Elegy, quoting from her first sonnet.

Ugo Foscolo — Sonnet 1

“To Evening”

You are the image of that final peace,
which may be, Evening, why you are so dear
to me. And when your train of tranquil breeze
and happy summer cloud flirts with the air,

and when you lead the dark across the world,
restless and deep, drawn from the snowy skies,
you always come down from on high when called,
and gently hold my heart’s most secret ways.

You make me wander in my thoughts on trails
that lead to the eternal nothing: while
this evil age runs on, and with it draws

the swarm of discontentments which embroils
my life. To contemplate your calm will still
the warlike spirit that within me roars.

Literal version

Perhaps because you are the image of the fatal rest, you come so dear to me, Evening! And when the happy summer clouds and serene west zephyrs woo/escort you,

and when you lead long, restless darkness from the snowy air to the universe, you always come when called upon, and gently hold the secret ways of my heart.

You make me wander with my thoughts on the tracks that lead to the everlasting nothing; and meanwhile this evil age flees, and with it go the swarms

of troubles which consume both it and me; and while I watch your peace that warlike spirit which roars within me sleeps.

Original

Forse perché della fatal quiete
tu sei l’immago a me sì cara vieni
o Sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,

e quando dal nevoso aere inquiete
tenebre e lunghe all’universo meni
sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.

Vagar mi fai co’ miei pensier su l’orme
che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme

delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;
e mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme
quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi rugge.

Ugo Foscolo — Sonnet 2

I’ve changed: and many of us now lie dead.
This is a time of lassitude and grief.
The myrtle bush is dry; the laurel leaf,
which gave hope to my youthful song, is shed.

That day (when Mars and rampant cruelty
wrapped me in bloody robes) tainted my heart,
put out my mind’s eye, and re-shaped my art
as thirst for money and celebrity.

But when my proud thoughts tell me I should die,
a son’s devotion and a rage for fame
slam shut the door; so much a slave am I

to fate, to others, to myself. What shame!
to cling to evil, knowing good; to cry
for death, but go on living just the same.

Literal version

I am not who I was; a great part of our number have perished: what is coming/taking over is only faintness and grief. And the myrtle is dry, and the laurel’s leaves are scattered, the hope of my youthful song.

Because from the day that cruel abandon and Mars dressed me in their bloody robe, my eye is blind and my heart tainted/rotted, and art [has been made into] the hunger for gold, art in me has been made [into] boasting.

So that if the suggestion [that I should] die arises, a rage for glory and the devotion of a son close the door on my proud reason.

So much a slave of myself, of others, and of fate that I know the better and cling to the worse, and know how to call for, but not give myself, death.

Original

Non son chi fui; perì di noi gran parte:
questo che avvanza è sol languore e pianto.
E secco è il mirto, e son le foglie sparte
del lauro, speme al giovenil mio canto.

Perché dal dì ch’empia licenza e Marte
vestivan me del lor sanguineo manto,
cieca è la mente e guasto il core, ed arte
la fame d’oro, arte è in me fatta, e vanto.

Che se pur sorge di morir consiglio,
a mia fiera ragion chiudon le porte
furor di gloria, e carità di figlio.

Tal di me schiavo, e d’altri, e della sorte,
conosco il meglio ed al peggior mi appiglio,
e so invocare e non darmi la morte.

Translator’s note

Foscolo takes the Petrarchan form into the Napoleonic era and fills it with Romantic gestures that are familiar from Coleridge and Byron, both of whom he knew in London. His work poses the challenge of idealising archaism which (in this reader’s opinion) too often blights European poetry of this period. However, Foscolo is an engaging personality, and a skilful lyricist who is too little known by anglophone readers.