This translation of Dante Alighieri’s “Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra” by Alan Bern was published as an illustrated printed broadside, currently out of print, but you can view the original image fron Lines & Faces here.
Sestina translated by Alan Bern
Toward the short day’s dark and the vast ring of shadow
I’ve come sadly, and to the whitening of the hills,
there where my eyes can find no color in the grass:
and yet, my longing remains evergreen,
it is fast-rooted so in the hard stone
which speaks and hears as if it were a woman.
In like fashion this ever-new woman
remains as hard as snow within a shadow;
for she is not moved any more than stone
by the sweet season that warms the foothills,
and returns them from white to April green,
bringing a cover of flowers and of grass.
When in her hair she’s set a garland of grass,
she keeps from every mind every other woman;
for in the mix, crisping yellow and the green
are so lovely, Love seeks out their shadow,
Love who has locked me in among the low hills
more tightly than hardened mortar padlocks stone.
Her beauty has more power than a rare stone,
and she gives wounds that cannot be healed by grass;
for this I’ve fled over plains and over hills,
to venture an escape from such a woman;
but from her light I cannot find a shadow,
under knoll or wall or in the forest-green.
Just now I saw her dressed in the finest green,
so fair she would have instilled in a stone
the love I have even for her shadow;
so I have wanted her in a fresh field of grass
as much in love as ever was any woman,
and closed in all around by the highest hills.
But well may rivers return to the hills,
before flames catch in this wood, so wet and green,
as flame would catch in the heart of a fine woman
for me; I who would sleep willingly on stone
all my days and wander feeding on grass,
if only to see where her dress casts shadow.
Whenever the hills cast the blackest shadow,
Under summer-green this fair young woman
hides it, as a man hides a stone in the grass.
Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra
son giunto, lasso!, ed al bianchir de’ colli,
quando si perde lo color ne l’erba;
e ’l mio disio però non cangia il verde,
si è barbato ne la dura petra
che parla e sente come fosse donna.
Similemente questa nova donna
si sta gelata come neve a l’ombra;
che non la move, se non come petra,
il dolce tempo che riscalda i colli
e che li fa tornar di bianco in verde
perché li copre di fioretti e d’erba.
Quand’ella ha in testa una ghirlanda d’erba,
trae de la mente nostra ogn’altra donna;
perché si mischia il crespo giallo e ’l verde
sì bel, ch’Amor lì viene a stare a l’ombra,
che m’ha serrato intra piccioli colli
più forte assai che la calcina petra.
La sua bellezza ha più vertù che petra,
e ’l colpo suo non può sanar per erba;
ch’io son fuggito per piani e per colli,
per potere scampar da cotal donna;
e dal suo lume non mi può far ombra
poggio né muro mai né fronda verde.
Io l’ho veduta già vestita a verde
sì fatta, ch’ella avrebbe messo in petra
l’amor ch’io porto pur a la sua ombra;
ond’io l’ho chesta in un bel prato d’erba
innamorata, com’anco fu donna,
e chiuso intorno d’altissimi colli.
Ma ben ritorneranno i fiumi a’ colli
prima che questo legno molle e verde
s’infiammi, come suol far bella donna,
di me; che mi torrei dormire in petra
tutto il mio tempo e gir pascendo l’erba,
sol per veder do’ suoi panni fanno ombra.
Quandunque i colli fanno più nera ombra,
sotto un bel verde la giovane donna
la fa sparer, com’uom petra sott’erba.
