Inno A Satana (Hymn to Satan)
by Giosue Carducci, 1865
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.