Journal of Italian Translation

Joseph Tusiani/Ugo Foscolo
while still you speak. But if she dances, oh,
the whole harmonious power of the sound
explodes through her fair body and her smile:
each lovely gesture, every graceful turn
gives unexpected pleasure to the eyes.
But who can ever paint her? Ah, the more
I try to hold her beauty in my glance,
the more she baffles me: her dancing steps,
until now slow, become a sudden whirl
and just as breeze on blooms she vanishes:
I hardly see her veil now disappear
as a white gleam among the myrtle trees.
Hymn Three
Pallas
I
Let now the hymns in equal number soar
to yonder holy virgins with the wondrous
sound of the same yet diverse music of
three languages. Canova, hear me still:
I feel the incense all about me spread
such as was strewn on altars when Amphion’s
mysterious lines were sung: the neighing’s here
of the Dircean steeds which Hippocrene
refreshed with its own streams, Eolus fed
with winds, and the Sun quickened with his spurs
while, high above, an eagle showed the way.
‘T was Pindar tamed the others, running wild
near the Cephisus, and adored the Graces.
And listen, girls, you too: a Latin Hymn
out of the little isle of Sirmio
comes with a rhythm of a wedding feast
over the Garda of the silver light,
whose waters proudly sound as sea-born waves
since golden-voiced Catullus told his lake
of Peleus’ nuptials sung beneath the sea.
Give, sacred poets, all your art to me,
to me the spirit of your different tongues,
and, bolder than before, I will adorn
with Tuscan elegance the well-known tales
and those that you reveal to me alone
as you appear out of the ancient tombs
casting Elysian light on lonely lands
whereto my wandering fantasy has brought me,
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