- Nella mia giovinezza ho navigato
- lungo le coste dalmate. Isolotti
- a fior d'onda emergevano, ove raro
- un uccello sostava intento a prede,
- coperti d'alghe, scivolosi,al sole
- belli come smeraldi. Quando l'alta
- marea e la notte li annullava, vele
- sottovento sbandavano piú al largo,
- per sfuggirne l'insidia. Oggi il mio regno
- é quella terra di nessuno. Il porto
- accende ad altri i suoi lumi; me al largo
- sospinge ancora il non domato spirito,
- e della vita il doloroso amore.
(from "Il Canzoniere", U. Saba, 1948)
ho navigato ............................. I sailed
isolotti ..................................... islands
sole ......................................... sun
terra di nessuno ...................... nobody's land
porto ....................................... port
il non domato spirito............... the indomitable spirit
[...] " You have drunk deeply of everything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. Don't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. Don't make yourself incomplite. you are quite flawless now. You need not shake your head : you know you are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe, and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play - I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that somewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life over again. I wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you. you are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets. "
(from "The picture of Dorian Gray", Oscar Wilde, 1890 )
Categories
- I sailed
- islands
- sun
- nobody's land
- port
- the indomitable spirit
- the sound of music
- thought
- passion
- a change tone of coulor
- a particular perfume
- a line from a forgotten poem
- a cadence from a piece of music that you
had ceased to play
- change
- art
Hierarchy
- the indomitable spirit
- a cadence from a piece of music that you
had ceased to play
- a particular perfume
- a line from a forgotten poem
- a change tone of color
- thought
- sun
- passion
- nobody's land
- I sailed
- art
- the sound of music
- change
- islands
- port
