Journal of Italian Translation

Joseph Tusiani/Ugo Foscolo
Yet of her guiltless children many still
look up to you. So long as living shades
keep Bellosguardo’s laurel trees alive,
to your bright altar will I offer them
together with the fruit the seasons yield,
together with the scents first April stirs,
mixed with pure rills and cypresses and airs
and also with my tears and timid lyre,
thus binding arts and silence to one rite.
Crowned both a painter and a poet, I
shall tell my land your mercy’s risen hour,
that she may once again now honor you
with ampler gratitude and greater pomp
in a more splendid Court: thus will she know
how twice she was redeemed by your bright worth
when on the Tiber Vesta laid her torch
and Pallas gave to Flora for your sake
the Attic olive tree. Come, Deities,
and oh, dear Goddesses, upon the earth
cast your maternal tenderness again.
So here in Italy the greatest minds
will from Olympus draw their harmony,
for, as you cannot give a greater gift,
give us, O Graces, but your happy smile.
Hymn Two Vesta
Belovèd Graces, to your altar now
some most enchanting priestesses I lead—
three ladies whose long tresses Youth enwreathes
with radiant Italian roses while
a fairer daylight on their faces shines.
Here, come here quickly, you Hesperian lads
Mars has not snatched from loving mothers’ breasts,
and you who, pallid and in silence dwell
deep in the pensive Goddess’ holy shrine.
Happier was Urania when the Graces
adorned her lengthy peplos with their hands.
Here Galileo sat with them, intent
on studying the planet of their queen
yet soon distracted by the nightly murmur
of distant waters hiding silver-hued
under the poplars of the Arno’s banks.
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