Inno A Satana (Hymn to Satan)
A SATANA |
TO SATAN
|
NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| A te, de l’essere
Principio immenso, Materia e spirito, Ragione e senso; |
To you, creation’s
mighty principle, matter and spirit reason and sense |
A toast! The poem was originally written as a dinner-party toast. It is easy to visualize the poet with glass raised as he recites the poem. |
| Mentre ne’ calici
Il vin scintilla Si’come l’anima Ne la pupilla |
Whilst the wine
sparkles in cups like the soul in the eye |
|
| Mentre sorridono
La terra e il sole E si ricambiano D’amor parole |
Whilst earth and
sun exchange their smiles and words of love |
|
| E corre un fremito
D’imene arcano Da’ monti e palpita Fecondo il piano; |
And shudders
from their secret embrace run down from the mountains, and the plain throbs with new life |
|
| A te disfrenasi
Il verso ardito, Te invoco, o Satana Re del convito |
To you my daring
verses are unleashed, you I invoke, O Satan monarch of the feast. |
|
| Via l’aspersorio,
Prete, e il tuo metro! No, prete, Satana Non toma in dietro! |
Put aside your sprinkler,
priest, and your litanies! No, priest, Satan does not retreat! |
Against Satan, priests have no power. |
| Vedi: la ruginne
Rode e Michele Il brando mistico Ed il fedele |
Behold! Rust
erodes the mystic sword of Michael and the faithful |
Even the Archangel Michael, who led the army of faithful angels against Lucifer’s rebels, is deplumed and left with a rusted sword. |
| Spennato arcangelo
Cade nel vano. Ghiacciato e’ fulmine A Geova in mano |
Archangel, deplumed,
drops into the void. The thunderbolt lies frozen in Jove’s hand |
Even Jehovah himself is powerless. |
| Meteore pallide,
Pianeti spenti, Piovono gli angeli Da I firmamenti |
Like pale meteors,
spent worlds, the angels drop from the firmament |
The rebel angels descent to Earth from the heavens. |
| Ne la materia
Che mai non dorme, Re de I fenomeni Re de le forme |
In unsleeping
matter, king of phenomena, monarch of form, |
Satan is king of the physical, material realm. |
| Sol vive Satana.
E tien ‘impero Nel lampo temulo D’un occhio nero, |
Satan alone lives.
He holds sway in the tremulous flash of some dark eye, |
Satan’s realm or empire (“impero”) can be perceived wherever the life-force is in evidence: |
| O ver che languido
Sfugga e resista, Od acre ed umido Pro’vochi, insista. |
Or the eye which languidly
turns and resists, or which, bright and moist, provokes, insists. |
… in the flashing eye of a woman in a state of arousal, |
| Brilla de’ grappoli
Nel lieto sangue, Per cui la rapida Gioia non langue, |
He shines in the bright
blood of grapes, by which transient joy persists, |
… in the glimmer of a glass of wine, which makes us happy, |
| Che la fuggevole
Vita ristora, Che il dolor proroga, Che amor ne incora |
Which restores fleeting
life, keeps grief at bay, and inspires us with love |
|
| Tu spiri, O Satana,
Nel verso mio, Se dal sen rompeni Sfidando il dio |
You breathe, O Satan
in my verses, when from my heart explodes a challenge to the god |
…and even in the blasphemous rebllious power of the poet’s own words. |
| De’ rei pontefici
De’ re cruenti; E come fulmine Scuoti le menti. |
Of wicked pontiffs,
bloody kings; and like lightning you shock men’s minds. |
Both popes and kings - the heads of authoritarian regimes - were loathed by the republican Carducci. |
| A te, Agramainiio,
Adone, Astarte E marmi vissero E tele e carte, |
Sculpture, painting
and poetry first lived for you, Ahriman, Adonis and Astarte, |
|
| Quando le ioniche
Aure serene Beo’ la Venere Anadiomene |
When Venus
Anadyomene blessed the clear Ionian skies |
Venus Andadyomene (i.e. ‘emergent’) born from the foam of the seas around Cyprus represents Greek civilization. |
| A te del Libano
Premean le piante, De l’alma Cipride Ristorto amante: |
For you the trees of
Lebannon shook, resurrected lover of the holy Cyprian: |
Adonis, the lover of Venus (‘holy Cyprian’) was killed by a boar but resurrected by Jupiter at Venus’ request. |
| A te ferveano
Le danze e i cori, A te ii virginei Candidi amori, |
For you wild dances were done
and choruses swelled for you virgins offered their spotless love, |
Carducci understands the Greek festivals of Adonis as having originated along the Syria/Lebannon coast |
| Tra la odorifere
Palme d’Idume Dove biancheggiano Le cipre spume. |
Amongst the perfumed
palms of Idumea where the Cyprian seas foam. |
and its hinterland (‘Idumea”) - the region of ancient Phoenicia. |
| Che val se barbaro
Il nazareno Furor de l’agapi Dal rito osceno |
To what avail did
the barbarous Christian fury of agape, in obscene ritual, |
He points out that the Christian fanatic destruction of Satan’s pagan temples was of no avail because the Satanic religion of |
| Con sacra fiaccola
I templi t’arse E ii segni argolici A terr sparse? |
With holy torch
burn down your temples, scattering their Greek statuary? |
rationalism, fleshly pleasure, material good, and free inquiry survived ‘underground’. |
| Te accolse profugo
Tra gli dei lari La plebe memore Ne I casolari |
You, a refugee,
the mindful people welcomed into their homes amongst their household gods |
|
| Quindi un femineo
Sen palpitante Empiendo, fervido Nume ed amante, |
Thereafter filling the throbbing
female heart with your fervor as both god and lover |
|
| La strega pallida
D’eterna cura Volgi a soccorrere L’egra naura. |
You inspired the witch,
pallid from endless enquiry, to succor suffering nature |
Carducci sees the origin of modern medicine in the witch’s craft which healed the sick in olden times. |
| Tu a l’occhio immobile
De l’alchimista tu de l’indocile Mago a la vista, |
You, to the intent gaze
of the alchemist, and to the skeptical eye of the sorcerer, |
He also sees the beginnings of modern science in the essentially rationalist and secular fields of sorcery and alchemy. |
| Del chiostro torpido
Oltre I cancelli, riveli I fulgidi Ciele novelli. |
You revealed bright
new heavens beyond the confines of the drowsy cloister. |
|
| A la Tebaide
Te ne le cose Fuggendo, Il monaco Triste s’ascose |
Fleeing from material
things, where you reside, the dreary monk took refuge in the Theban desert. |
The Theban desert of middle Egypt was a favored ascetic suffering ground for early Coptic Christian hermits. |
| O dal tuo tramite
Alma divisa, Benigno e’ Satana; Ecco Eloisa. |
To you O soul
with your sprig severed, Satan is benign: he gives you your Heloise. |
The poet here speaks to Abelard, a 13th c. Franciscan monk whose rational philosophy angered the church. His affair with Heloise got him castrated and exiled, but his Satan-given love of her persisted. |
| In van ti maceri
Ne l’aspro sacco: Il verso ei mormora Di Maro e Flacco |
You mortify yourself to no purpose,
in your rough sackcloth: Satan still murmurs to you lines from Maro and Flaccus |
Maro and Flaccus are the poets Virgil and Horace. Licoris and Glycera are beautiful women of which they wrote.. |
| Tra la davidica
Nenia ed il pianto; E, forme delfiche, A te da canto |
Amidst the dirge
and wailing of the Psalms; and he brings to your side the divine shapes, |
|
| Rosee ne l’orrida
Compagnia nera, Mena Licoride, Mena Glicera |
Roseate amidst that
horrid black crowd, of Lycoris and Glycera |
|
| Ma d’altre imagini
D’eta’ piu’ bella Talor si popola L’insonne cella |
But other shapes
from a more glorious age fitfully fill the sleepless cell. |
|
| Ei, da le pagine
Di Livio, ardenti Tribuni, consoli, Turbe frementi |
Satan, from pages
in Livy, conjures fervent tribunes, consuls, restless throngs; |
In his cell, the monk’s sleep is interrupted by Satan- inspired nightmarish visions of crowds and leaders from Livy’s history of Rome. |
| Sveglia; e fantastico
D’italo orgoglio Te spinge, o monaco, Su ‘l Campidoglio |
And he thrusts you,
O monk, with your memories of Italy’s proud past upon the Capitol. |
For his treason against Rome’s true roots, the monk dreams, he is impaled. |
| E voi, che il rabido
Rogo non strusse, Voci fatidiche, Wicleff ed Husse, |
And you whom the raging
pyre could not destroy, voices of destiny, Wycliffe and Huss, |
John Wycliffe and Jan Huss, early reformers and martyrs of the late 13th and early 14th centuries. |
| A l’aura il vigile
Grido mandate: S’innova il secolo Piena e’ l’etate |
You lift to the winds
your waning cry: ‘The new age is dawning, the time has come’. |
|
| E gia’ gia’ tremano
Mitre e corone: Dal chiostro brontola La ribellione, |
And already mitres
and crowns tremble: from the cloister rebellion rumbles |
The poet alludes to the existence of secret rebels inside the church. |
| E pugna e pre’dica
Sotto la stola Di fra’ Girolamo Savonarola |
Preaching defiance
in the voice of the cassocked Girolamo Savonarola |
Savonarola was a defiant reformist monk who was burned at the stake in 1499. |
| Gitto’ la tonaca
Martin Lutero Gitta ii tuoi vincoli Uman pensiero, |
As Martin Luther
threw off his monkish robes, so throw off your shackles, O mind of man, |
The poet chooses Martin Luther as an example here explicitly because using him as an example would infuriate the church more than any other name. |
| E splendi e folgora
Di fiame cinto; Materia, inalzati: Satana ha vinto. |
And crowned with flame,
shoot lightning and thunder; Matter, arise; Satan has won. |
|
| Un bello e orrible
Mostro si sferra, Corre gli oceani Corre la terra: |
Both beautiful and awful
a monster is unleashed it scours the oceans is scours the land |
|
| Corusco e fumido
Come ii vlucani, I monti supera, Divora I piani; |
Glittering and belching smoke
like a volcano, it conquers the hills it devours the plains. |
|
| Sovola ii baratri;
Poi si nasconde Per antri incogniti, Per vie profonde; |
It flies over chasms,
then burrows into unknown caverns along deepest paths; |
|
| Ed esce; e indomito
Di lido in lido Come di turbine Manda il suo grido, |
To re-emerge, unconquerable
from shore to shore it bellows out like a whirlwind, |
The Church had proclaimed the steam-engine train to be a tool of the Devil and the poet here embraces the symbolism. |
| Come di turbine
L’alito spande: Ei passa, o popli, Satani il grande |
Like a whirlwind
it spews its breath: ‘It is Satan, you peoples, Great Satan passes by’. |
He sees it as a man-made, science-derived invention that would deliver prosperity to the secular people of Italy. |
| Passa benefico
Di loco in loco Su l’infrenabile Carro del foco |
He passes by, bringing blessing
from place to place, upon his unstoppable chariot of fire |
In the new age of industry Satan (humanity’s ingenuity unfettered by the chains of church) destroys Jehova and thereby the oppressive and restricting tyranny of the Pope. |
| Salute, o Satana
O ribellione, O forza vindice De la ragione! |
Hail, O Satan
O rebellion, O you avenging force of human reason! |
|
| Sacri a te salgano
Gl’incensi e ii voti! Hai vinto il Geova De ii sacerdoti. |
Let holy incense
and prayers rise to you! You have utterly vanquished the Jehova of the Priests. |
Based heavily on translation and notes found in “Selected Verse /Giosue Carducci”
by David H. Higgins (Aris & Phillips: Warminster, England) 1994.
R. Merciless
Priest in the Church of Satan
