I read the following italian poem…
“ Ecco mormorar l'ondeTorquato”
Tasso (1544-1595)
Ecco mormorar l'onde,
E tremolar le fronde
A l'aura mattutina, e gli arboscelli,
E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
Cantar soavemente,
E rider l'Oriente;
Ecco già l'alba appare,
E si specchia nel mare,
E rasserena il cielo,
E le campagne imperla il dolce gelo,
E gli alti monti indora:
O bella e vaga Aurora,
L'aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l'aura
Ch'ogni arso cor ristaura.
E tremolar le fronde
A l'aura mattutina, e gli arboscelli,
E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
Cantar soavemente,
E rider l'Oriente;
Ecco già l'alba appare,
E si specchia nel mare,
E rasserena il cielo,
E le campagne imperla il dolce gelo,
E gli alti monti indora:
O bella e vaga Aurora,
L'aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l'aura
Ch'ogni arso cor ristaura.
I am going to be honest. I thought I would be able to decipher the majority of this poem, being that the Italian language is very similar to Spanish, but I was lost, lost, lost.
To begin, I inferred that “E” meant “and”, being that I have background knowledge that “Y” in Spanish means “and”. I also was able to possibly make out a few other words….
“tremolar” – tremble?
“L’aura”- This poem is possibly a love poem written to a woman named Laura.
I also think that the writer in this poem is trying to woo her, as he uses the word “cantar”, which I believe means “sing”. I picked up on the word “dolce”, which I believe means “sweet”, so this poem is complimentary in nature. One word I definitely know is “bella”, which means beautiful, and “vaga Aurora” might translate as this woman is from a village or town of Aurora. I inferred this because this word is capitalized. The line “L'aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l'aura” might possibly mean “this message is for you, Laura.”
Some strategies I used to help me decode some of the words were reading the poem in its entirety first, and then breaking it down word for word.
I also took each word apart and looked for familiar prefixes or suffixes that might be comparative to the English language. I also looked for words that were similar to Spanish.
I feel this poem would have been easier to understand had I heard it orally. It would have been even easier if I had heard it in a song or acted out. Lastly, this poem would have been much, much easier to understand had it included pictures or visuals of some sort.
I am interested to read the translation of this poem to see if I was accurate on any of my translation!
Hi Shannon,
ReplyDeleteI also chose to “read” something in Italian. But, I think I had it much easier with the newspaper article I selected than I did with your ambitious poem translation. Like you, I read your poem once and only found a few words to identify, but as you said, looking at the poem line by line and word by word was more helpful. Just by the nature of the writing I found in the newspaper article I selected, the prose offered me more words to decipher and more opportunities to translate repetitive recognizable words. Perhaps it’s just that poetry by nature has always been more difficult for me, but I did not feel like a successful reader with your selected poem until I “cheated” and read your translated analysis. Just a head’s up: I’ve had some ELA kids who successfully read articles in their native language, and Google offers a translation tool to cut and paste (translate.google.com): Here’s your poem in English; not everything translates directly, but it can be a big help!
Here are the murmuring waves,
And trembling of the fronds
In the aura morning, and shrubs,
And the green branches over the vague birds
Sing sweetly,
And the rider East;
That's already dawn appears,
It is reflected in the sea,
It brightens the sky,
And the sweet pearls campaigns frost
And the high mountains gilds:
O beautiful and vague Aurora
The aura is your messenger, and you of the aura
That every burnt current restorations.