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Mottetti.
Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1982, 8vo brossura pp. 110
- GenresPoetryNobel PrizeItaly
Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 14, 2017
The black and white
flight of swallows rising
and falling in a line
from the telegraph
pole to the sea
does not ease the pain
you feel by the water
nor bring you back
to somewhere
you have left.
flight of swallows rising
and falling in a line
from the telegraph
pole to the sea
does not ease the pain
you feel by the water
nor bring you back
to somewhere
you have left.
October 26, 2020
Best love poems ever. Full of oblique ache and wonderful spare linguistic contemplation. Right up there with Neruda’s The Captain’s Verses.
August 24, 2025
Evocative and resonant poetry of love.
July 11, 2019
IV
Far away, still I was with you
when your father
went into the darkness and left you his goodbye.
What did I learn
in that moment? That until then
the ravages of the past
had spared me
only for this:
I had not meet you yet
and had to. I know this
from the pain of today, and would
even if the hours bent
back on themselves and bought
me once again to Cumerlotti
or Anghebeni, among the exploding
shells, the screams,
the panic of the squadrons.
XVI
The flower on the mountainside,
which keeps repeating its
forget-me-nots from cliff
to cliff, has no colors brighter
or happier that the space
set between us.
A screech of metal is puling us apart.
The obstinate blue sky is fading. In a sky
so sultry you can barely
see through it, the funicular
carries me back to the other station
where it's already dark.
Far away, still I was with you
when your father
went into the darkness and left you his goodbye.
What did I learn
in that moment? That until then
the ravages of the past
had spared me
only for this:
I had not meet you yet
and had to. I know this
from the pain of today, and would
even if the hours bent
back on themselves and bought
me once again to Cumerlotti
or Anghebeni, among the exploding
shells, the screams,
the panic of the squadrons.
XVI
The flower on the mountainside,
which keeps repeating its
forget-me-nots from cliff
to cliff, has no colors brighter
or happier that the space
set between us.
A screech of metal is puling us apart.
The obstinate blue sky is fading. In a sky
so sultry you can barely
see through it, the funicular
carries me back to the other station
where it's already dark.
November 4, 2014
I was given this small volume by my mother late in her life. She was for fifty years a close friend of Irma Brandeis, the American Dante scholar "who half a century ago inspired these poems." Having known the charming and inimitable Irma myself makes the book more personal to me.
The excellent facing translations allow someone not strong in Italian to read in either language. The poems are about irrevocable separation through which longing persists. The most famous VI, begins "La speranza di pure rivederti m'abbandonava." Reminds me of "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate," but Montale is not in or entering Hell in these poems. He has lost hope of ever seeing the beloved again in person, but not the memory of her. Maybe my favorite of the twenty is XI, the second verse of which begins "La tua voce e quest'anima diffusa."
The excellent facing translations allow someone not strong in Italian to read in either language. The poems are about irrevocable separation through which longing persists. The most famous VI, begins "La speranza di pure rivederti m'abbandonava." Reminds me of "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate," but Montale is not in or entering Hell in these poems. He has lost hope of ever seeing the beloved again in person, but not the memory of her. Maybe my favorite of the twenty is XI, the second verse of which begins "La tua voce e quest'anima diffusa."
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews