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Three Sonnets 

by Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803)
translated by Adam Sedia

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LXXIV

Melancholy, why take your only seat
On this, my miserable heart—oh, why?
A trembling supplicant, I yet entreat:
Oh, when will you relieve my tearful cry?

Is this dark pomp of your funereal suite—
Infernal phantasms of death now fly,
Released in me by you—the fate I meet,
To live forever dying, yet not die?

What, Melancholy? Do you wish I might
Put this long, heavy sorrow to an end
Before the pain can turn my temples white?

Then every hope of joy that time might send
Love shows me in a twofold divine light;
Let me chase it, and die while I contend.

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CCLXXII

Sweetest melancholy, you always come
Faithful and invisible, at my side,
Slowly reviving genius fallen dumb
(Although your action seems at first to hide).

The honest soul can only dart forth from
The world with your sweet company as guide:
No thought of beauty, so revered by some,
Nor speech, nor passion shall he be denied.

But you, aloof among the woods and hills,
Where clear and babbling waters intertwine,
You sate your children, whom your nectar fills.

I owe all to your spells that ring divine,
Which first soften my eyes as a tear spills,
Because I then seize others’ tears as mine.

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XLIII

written at Florence

Here, Michelangelo? Here, the sublime
And sweet transcriber of what love dares tell?
Here, the great poet who in mighty rhyme
Captured the wailing of the damned in hell?

Here, the discoverer, whose gaze could climb
And rule the planets from our deepest dell?
And here, the thinker of that noble time
Who states the prince’s painful task so well?

Here they were born, when it was not proscribed
To say, to read, to hear, to write, to think:
Crimes, now, that to them all would be ascribed.

Then no cowardly school would quake or shrink;
Nor was there seen a golden book inscribed
With spies who, seeking thought-crime, skulk and slink.

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Original Italian

LXXIV

Malinconìa, perchè un tuo solo seggio
Questo mio core misero ti fai?
Supplichevol, tremante ancor tel chieggio;
Deh! quando tregua al mio pianger darai?

L’atra pompa del tuo feral corteggio
Ben tutta in me tu dispiegasti omai:
Infra larve di morte, or di’, mi deggio
Viver morendo ognor, nè morir mai?

Malinconìa, che vuoi? ch’io ponga fine
A questa lunga insopportabil noja,
Pria che il dolor giunga a imbiancarmi il crine?

Dunque ogni speme di futura gioja,
Che Amor mi mostra in due luci divine,
Caccia; e fa, ch’una intera volta io muoia.

(1783)

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CCLXXII

Malinconía dolcissima, che ognora
Fida vieni e invisibile al mio fianco,
Tu sei pur quella che vieppiù ristora
(Benchè il sembri offuscar) l’ingegno stanco.

Chi di tua scorta amabil si avvalora,
Sol può dal Mondo scior l’animo franco;
Nè il bel Pensar, che l’uom pur tanto onora,
Nè gli affetti, nè il Dir, mai gli vien manco.

Ma tu, solinga infra le selve e i colli,
Dove serpeggin chiare acque sonanti,
Tuoi figli ivi di nettare satolli.

Ben tutto io deggio ai tuoi divini incanti,
Che spesso gli occhi a me primier fan molli,
Perch’io poi mieta a forza gli altrui pianti.

(1798)

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XLIII

Qui Michel-Angiol nacque? e qui il sublime
Dolce testor degli amorosi detti?
Qui il gran poeta, che in sì forti rime
Scolpì d’inferno i pianti maladetti?

Qui il celeste inventor, ch’ebbe dall’ime
Valli nostre i pianeti a noi soggetti?
E qui il sovrano pensator, ch’esprime
Sì ben del prence i dolorosi effetti?

Qui nacquer, quando non venía proscritto
Il dir, leggere, udir, scriver, pensare;
Cose, ch’or tutte appongonsi a delitto.

Non v’era scuola allor del rio tremare;
Nè si vedeva a libro d’oro inscritto
Uom, per saper gli altrui pensier spïare.

(1779)

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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. In addition to the Society’s publications, his poems and prose works have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and other literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.