DINO CAMPANA
Translated by Austin Nieli
THE VOYAGE AND THE RETURN
Voices and voices and songs of maidens and lusts rose throughout the twisted alleys among the flickering shadows, to the hill to the hill. In the shade of the green street lamps the white colossal prostitutes were dreaming vague dreams in the bizarre light of the wind. The sea stirred its salt in the wind and the wind blew and bathed in the lustful odor of the alleys, and the white Mediterranean night played with the huge forms of the women in their bizarre attempts to inflame, to unravel in the hollow of the streetlamps. They looked at the flame and sang their songs of enchained hearts. All preludes were hushed now. Night, the quietest joy of night, had fallen. The Moorish gates charged and twisted with monstrous black portents while in the background the gloomy blue was streaked with stars. Lonely now towered the illuminated night in all its ecstasy of stars and flames. Ahead like a monstrous wound a street deepened. On either side of the corner of the doors, white caryatids of an artificial sky dreamed their faces resting on the palms. She had the pure imperial line of profile and her neck was clothed in opaline splendor. With a swift gesture of imperial youth, she drew the light robe over her shoulders in a single swooping motion and her window sparkled in anticipation until the shutters softly closed on her double shadow. And my heart was hungry for a dream, for her, for the evanescent love, the love-giver of the ports, the caryatid of fortunate skies. In her divine lap, in her pale form like a dream out of the countless shadowy dreams, among the countless dreams of the shadow, among the countless deceitful lights, the ancient friend, the eternal Chimera held in her red hands my antique heart.
*
Return. In the room where her forms unfolded in the veils of light I encircled, a late arrival: and in the twilight my pristine lamp continues to instill vague memories in my heart. Faces, faces whose eyes laughed in a blooming dream, you young charioteers by the light paths of the dream I encircled with fervor: O frail rhymes, O garlands of nocturnal love... From the garden a song issues forth in a faint chain of sobbing: the vein is open: arid red and sweet in the skeletal panorama of the world.
*
O your body! your perfume veiled my eyes: I did not see your body (a sweet and shrill perfume): naked before the great mirror, veiled by purple fumes, aloft, kissed by a star of light was the beautiful, the beautiful and sweet gift of a god: and the shy breasts were swollen with light, and the stars were absent, and not a god was in the evening of purple love: but lightly you sat on my knees, caryatid of an enchanting night sky. Your body was a gift that fell into my lap, and the stars absent, and not a single God was present in the night of purple love: but you in the night of purple love: but you bowed your purple eyes, you to an unknown night sky who had ravished a melody with your caresses. I remember dear: light as the wings of a dove, you laid your body down upon mine. It breathed happily, it breathed its beauty, breathed a clearer light into my body from your gentle cloud of divine reflections. O do not kindle them; do not kindle them! Do not inflame them: all is vain vain in the dream: all is vain and all is dream: love, spring of the dream, you are alone, you are alone appearing in the veil of purple fumes. Like a white cloud, like the white cloud of my heart, Oh stay oh stay oh stay! Do not welcome the Sun!
We opened the window to the night sky. Men like wandering specters: they wandered like specters: and the city (the streets, the churches and the squares) was composed in a falling dream, as if by an invisible melody sprung from our wandering. Was not the world then inhabited by sweet specters, and in the night was not the dream awakened in its powers all triumphant? What bridge, we silently asked, what bridge have we thrown over the infinite, that all appears to us only a shadow of eternity? To what dream did we raise the nostalgia of our beauty? And the moon rose in its antique robe behind the Byzantine church.
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IL VIAGGIO E IL RITORNO
Salivano voci e voci e canti di fanciulli ed i lussuria per i ritorti vichi dentro dell’ombra ardente, al colle al colle. A l’ombra dei lampioni verdi le bianche colossali prostitute sognavano sogni vaghi nella luce bizzarra al vento. Il mare nel vento mesceva il suo sale che il vento mesceva e lavava nell’odor lussurioso dei vichi, e la bianca notte mediterranea scherzava colle enormi forme delle femmine tra i tentativi bizzarri della fiamma di svellersi dal cavo dei lampioni. Esse guardavano la fiamma e cantavano canzoni di cuori in catene. Tutti i preludii erano taciuti oramai. La notte, la gioia più quieta della notte era calata. Le porte moresche si caricavano e si attorcevano di mostruosi portenti neri nel mentre sullo sfondo il cupo azzurro si insenava di stelle. Solitaria troneggiava ora la notte accesa in tutto il suo brulicame di stelle e di fiamme. Avanti come una mostruosa ferita profondava una via. Ai lati dell’angolo delle porte, bianche cariatidi di un cielo artificiale sognavano il viso poggiato alla palma. Ella aveva la pura linea imperiale del profilo e del collo vestita di splendore opalino. Con rapido gesto di giovinezza imperiale traeva la veste leggera sulle sue spalle alle mosse e la sua finestra scintillava in attesa finchè dolcemente gli scuri si chiudessero su di una duplice ombra. Ed il mio cuore era affamato di sogno, per lei, per l’evanescente come l’amore evanescente, la donatrice d’amore dei porti, la cariatide dei cieli di ventura. Sui suoi divini ginocchi, sulla sua forma pallida come un sogno uscito dagli innumerevoli sogni dell’ombra, tra le innumerevoli sogni dell’ombra, tra le innumerevoli luci fallaci, l’antica amica, l’eterna Chimera teneva fra le mani rosse il mio antico cuore.
*
Ritorno. Nella stanza ove le schiuse sue forme dai velarii della luce io cinsi, un alito tardato: e nel crepuscolo la mia pristina lampada instella il mio cuor vago di ricordi ancora. Volti, volti cui risero gli occhi a fior del sogno, voi giovani aurighe per le vie leggere del sogno che inghirlandai di fervore: o fragili rime, o ghirlande d’amori notturni… Dal giardino una canzone si rompe in catena fievole di singhiozzi: la vena è aperta: arido rosso e dolce è il panorama scheletrico del mondo.
*
O il tuo corpo! il tuo profumo mi velava gli occhi: io non vedevo il tuo corpo (un dolce e acuto profumo): là nel grande specchio ignudo, nel grande specchio ignudo velato dai fumi di viola, in alto baciato di una stella di luce era il bello, il bello e dolce dono di un dio: e le timide mammelle erano gonfie di luce, e le stelle erano assenti, e non un Dio era nella sera d’amore di viola: ma tu leggera tu sulle mie ginocchia sedevi, cariatide notturna di un incantevole cielo. Il tuo corpo un aereo dono sulle mie ginocchia, e le stelle assenti, e non un Dio nella sera d’amore di viola: ma tu nella sera d’amore di viola: ma tu chinati gli occhi di viola, tu ad un ignoto cielo notturno che avevi rapito una melodia di carezze. Ricordo cara: lievi come l’ali di una columba tu le tue membra posasti sulle mie nobili membra. Alitarono felici, respirarono la loro bellezza, alitarono a una più chiara luce le mie membra nella tua docile nuvola dai divini riflessi. O non accenderle! non accenderle! Non accenderle: tutto è vano vano è il sogno: tutto è vano tutto è sogno: amore, primavera del sogno sei sola sei sola che appari nel velo dei fumi di viola. Come una nuvola bianca, come una nuvola bianca presso al mio cuore, o resta o resta o resta! Non attristarti o Sole!
Aprimmo la finestra al cielo notturno. Gli uomini come spettri vaganti: vagavano come gli spettri: e la città (le vie le chiese le piazze) si componeva in un sogno cadenzato, come per una melodia invisibile scaturita da quel vagare. Non era dunque il mondo abitato da dolci spettri e nella notte non era il sogno ridesto nelle potenze sue tutte trionfale? Qual ponte, muti chiedemmo, qual ponte abbiamo noi gettato sull’infinito, che tutto ci appare ombra di eternità? A quale sogno levammo la nostalgia della nostra bellezza? La luna sorgeva nella sua vecchia vestaglia dietro la chiesa bizantina.
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Austin Nieli is a poet from New Orleans and related nearby areas. He hosted the reading series “Eublablabla” from 2019-21, and his work has appeared in Blazing Stadium, NEW American Poetry, and New Orleans Poetry Journal. His chapbook “Some Prayers” inaugurated the 24 Hour Store Chapbook Series, of which he is a co-editor, and his book “At The Intercontinental Hotel” was published in 2022 by False Dimensions. He is currently absorbed in writing his next book, as well as translating the entirety of Dino Campana’s “Canti Orifici” from which “The Voyage and the Return” was drawn from, and he currently lives in Perugia, Italy with his fiancé.
Dino Campana was born in 1885 in the town of Marradi, along the border of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. He traveled widely, however where he went and when is debated. In its original form, his only book contains poems written between 1906 and 1913, however, Campana was forced to rewrite the book from memory at a later date after his initial intended publisher “misplaced” it, despite Campana threatening him with a knife from his doorstep. He financed its printing himself using a local printer of religious tracts. With material often drawn from his travels, Campana’s poetry aligns itself in the obscure state between dream and wakefulness, and the poet has been hailed by many as the greatest Italian poet of the new world. In 1916 Campana met Sibilla Aleramo, author of Una Donna, with whom he began an intense and tumultuous relationship that ended shortly afterwards. In 1918 Campana was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he died in 1932--from sepsis, an infection that ensued from a barbed wire injury during an attempted escape.