Eugenio Montale

Eugenio Montale – Don’t scissor away / Non recidere, forbice

Elihu Vedder, Memory, 1870 Don’t scissor away that face the single image I can remember allow me to keep my attentive gaze as the fog thickens the cold descends … – the blow hits hard the wounded acacia releases the cicada’s husk to the first leaf-muck of November. (Transl. by Alan Tucker) Non recidere, forbice, …

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Eugenio Montale – Don’t ask me for words / Non chiederci la parola

Giorgio de Chirico, Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1968 Don’t ask me for words that might define our formless soul, publish it in letters of fire, and set it shining, lost crocus in a dusty field. Ah, that man so confidently striding, friend to others and himself, careless that the dog day’s sun might stamp his …

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Eugenio Montale – La primavera sbuca / Spring pokes out

Bruno Liljefors, Anna, 1885 Spring pokes out at a snail’s pace.Never again will I hear you talking of antibioticpoisoning, or the pin in your femur,or the patrimony plucked from youby that thousand-eyed[deleted].Spring comes on with its heavy fogs,long daylights and unbearable hours.Never again will I hear you struggling with the backwashof time, or ghosts, or …

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