Gustave Courbet, Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine, 1857
Evening: saddened light, slow bells ebbing away. Don’t speak words to me; love of sound is silent in me, and the hour is mine as in the time of communion with air and trees. Flavours descending from the heavens in lunar water, houses sleeping a mountain sleep, or angels the snow has halted on the alders, with stars on the glass, veiled like paper kites. Green drift of islands, harbours for sailing ships, the crew that chased seas and clouds, in a chant of oars and ropes, left me the spoils: naked and white, that at a touch were sounded in secret the voices of rivers and rocks. Then the land reposed in aquarium depth sand anxious ills and a life of other movements descended from the absorbed firmament. To own to you is a consternation that sates itself with every tear, sweetness that recalls the islands.
(Transl. by A.S. Kline)
Sera: luce addolorata, pigre campane affondano. Non dirmi parole: in me tace amore di suoni, e l’ora è mia come nel tempo dei colloqui con l’aria e con le selve. Sapori scendevano dai cieli dentro acque lunari, case dormivano sonno di montagne, o angeli fermava la neve sugli ontani, e stelle ai vetri velati come carte d’aquiloni. Verde deriva d’isole, approdi di velieri, la ciurma che seguiva mari e nuvole in cantilena di remi e di cordami mi lasciava la preda: nuda e bianca, che a toccarla si udivano in segreto le voci dei fiumi e delle rocce. Poi le terre posavano su fondali d’acquario, e ansia di noia e vita d’altri moti cadeva in assorti firmamenti. Averti è sgomento che sazia d’ogni pianto, dolcezza che l’isole richiami.
