Eugenio Montale: Mottetti - V (trans. Alan Tucker)

Eugenio Montale

MOTTETTI / MOTETS

translated by Alan Tucker

5

Addii, fischi nel buio, cenni, tosse

e sportelli abbassati. È l’ora. Forse

gli automi hanno ragione. Come appaiono

dai corridoi, murati!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

— Presti anche tu alla fioca

litania del tuo rapido quest’orrida

e fedele cadenza di carioca?—

V

Goodbyes, whistles in the dark (ironic)

cheers, a stranger coughing, lowered windows,

the time’s come. Maybe the morons

will eat their words, walled in by the macaronic.

— Or do you also defend this redoubt

go partying and to dances, rock a-

round, as one does, for the most part,

exit to the wretched cadenza of the carioca? —

NOTE:
macaronic: (of verse) characterised by a mixture of words jumbled together with Latinized or other words of foreign origin. ‘Mario Praz writes in his autobiography,
La Casa della Vita, that he used to delight in exchanging with Montale, ‘poems in macaronic English’ parodying
Pound and Eliot’. (see introduction to Penguin anthology). I was delighted to find this note when compiling these notes.

Introduction

I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI

XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX