Journal of Italian Translation

Joseph Tusiani/Ugo Foscolo
to three sweet regal Graces, the most fair
of the king’s daughters, deathless Heaven’s friend!
All the Gods heard your plea when for your husband,
at war to keep the foe from Elba away,
you raised your prayer to the unseen Fate
that, marching with the heroes, prophesies
a hymn, a lofty tomb, most shining arms,
and, yoked to their quadriga, snow-white steeds
to tread, eternal, the Elysian Fields.
But as, when pushing the Acheans back
onto their ships, Mars on the wall saw Ajax,
bleeding, alone within a storm of darts,
stand where a breach had made more Trojans rush,
and, in the midst of swords resounding high
on shield and helmet, frighten with his shout
and chase the winners through Dardanian flames
that made him most resplendent as he burned,
until he hurled his broken blade at last,
removed his helmet, and with flashing gaze
made Hector stop, perplexed: in such a way
the lustrous pupil of Ausonia’s King
through Boreas’ wailing and lugubrious storm
made Elba his own wall whence a while longer
beyond the Neva with his threat he kept
the Scythians’ triumphant plundering.
The Sun now sways his chariot from here,
mad when Orion with his preying winds
precipitously falls upon the Bear
unleashing all its wrathful, dreadful gales
on deserts of horrendous glaciers, high
silence, and bones, and ghosts of warring men.
My Goddesses abhor those who exalt
Fortune’s bright lavishness: they only make
splendid the wreath that crowns grief-tested kings.
But, most of all, my Goddesses delight
in hymns that with depictive melody
waken to lofty beauty soul and flesh.
Oft for the future ages—if the tongue
of Italy retain its purity
(‘t is yours, O Graces; therefore keep it so)—
in these my very lines I try to limn
the sacred dancing lady, oh, less fair
when she sits down, less beautiful than you,
O gentle harpsichordist, less endearing
than you, O foster mother of the bees,
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