Journal of Italian Translation

John DuVal and Louise Rozier/Giorgio Roberti 125
XLII
The Helpful Cyclopes Clump Off
Now that the giant’s neighbors and relations
were hurrying back to the farm yards where they lived,
Ulysses said to the monster, “Hope and have patience!
You don’t even have an eye for crying with.”
--”It’s true. The eye I had is a black cave,
and I still feel the stick that burst it open,
but I can’t stop tears, and tears, by God, I have-enough
to fill a holy water fountain.
But you, who have a face that’s got two eyes,
and see the sky, do you know what stars are?
They’re cyclopes who’ve gone to Paradise.
Those stars are saying to me, ‘Shepherd, keep
your courage up, because for herding sheep
eyes don’t matter: all you need is heart.’”
Roberti’s note to Sonnet XXXVII: “The Agonale Basin with the Moor is
the basin of the Fountain of the Moor in Piazza Navona, completed by
Bernini, who designed the statue of the Ethiopian in the center of the fountain.”