 |
Janus — god of beginnings, endings and thresholds. The month of January is named after him. Marble bust, Vatican (Courtesy of New York Scugnizzo)
|
Dear readers, Happy 2012! We here at Magna GRECE would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Thank you for your support and encouragement. I'm proud to say we're rapidly approaching 100,000 page views in just under three years. This is a very exciting milestone for us. We look forward to making 2012 a more productive and successful year. Felice Anno Nuovo!
I would like to share one of my favorite poems by the great Neapolitan wordsmith, Ferdinando Russo (1866-1927), for the occasion.
Luciano, the King's Favorite
Now I am old, seventy years old,
ill luck hardened my heart,
still I'd go through more bad times
just to see again the face of our King!
Ferdinand the second: what can they know?!
Hats to the ground! I'll not hide it!
I think about it, I feel so much better!
I was a cabin-boy on the Furminanto!
The King knew me very well!
Several times, (hat to the ground and on my knees!)
He made me understand what he wanted!
Tears came to my eyes!
He'd put his hands on my shoulders:
You're not a scribe and do not conspire!
Fetch this, go there! Do this, open your hand!
That's how he talked: Neapolitan!
When he'd come on board, what a life!
He treated everyone like a brother!
He knew everyone by name: Calamita,
Mucchietello, Sciatone, o Carpecato...
We were good hearted people! Always united!
We'd die, when the king ordered it.
Now what do we have to fill our bellies with?
Yes, ...of course what else.... Liberty!
Liberty, this black phantom
which reduced us to skin and bones!
Liberty, ...a lying prostitute
always standing on ceremony, insistent!...
When it finally ripped you off, farewell!
The ship goes on always and the beans boil,
you, clean like a dog's bone,
are left with a handful of flies in your fist!
Ah, freedom! Damned be those born in it!
You invoked it so that finally it came!
So many have died! They threw the key away
So much much blood under the bayonets!...
Now, I'd love to see the King
Come back to life, who did not care for it ever!
He, who was held a traitor,
would laugh his heart off now!
Reprinted from The Bread and the Rose: A Trilingual Anthology of Neapolitan Poetry from the 16th Century to the Present, edited by Achille Serrao and Luigi Bonaffini, Legas, 2005, p.157-158
