Journal of Italian Translation

Joseph Tusiani/Ugo Foscolo
Hymn One
Venus
By singing, Graces, the ethereal worth
and the adorning heaven–granted bliss
that, bashful still, you shower on the world,
beautiful maidens, dare I ask of you
the magical immortal melody
that solely may depict your loveliness:
suddenly Italy, so sorely hurt
by wrath of foreign sires, will be reached
by my consoling wingèd song at last.
Here to the valley mid the airy hills
of Bellosguardo, in the quiet shade
of countless youthful cypresses, where I
have raised to the three Goddesses an altar
surrounded by an ever-limpid stream
and solemnly watched over as a shrine
by fateful laurel trees where through the vine
less verdant writhes, O my Canova, come:
come to the lovely rite and to the song.
‘T is but a gift on this my heart bestowed
by the fair Goddess to whose vigilance
you consecrated all the tranquil arts
flourishing still upon this Arno’s bank,
while in ambrosia and immortal glow
she veiled her holy image utterly.
Sculptor of Deities, along with me
maybe (so let me hope) you will soon breathe
a newer life into the Graces hewn
out of the marble by your hand. I, too,
breathe into phantoms an eternal soul;
I loathe the line that sounds yet fails to live,
for Phoebus said to me: “I taught Apelles
as well as Phidias with my lyre first.”
Olympus, Thundering Zeus and Fate alone
existed when our pregnant Mother Earth
feared Neptune’s trident; Love, high from the stars,
pierced Pluto, but there were no Graces yet.
One Goddess only over all creation,
to make it fecund, ever lightly flew—
she who was known by Nature’s awesome name
and has a hundred thrones in heaven while
with varied names and altars here on earth
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