Miramar castle, on the shores of Trieste in north-eastern Italy, is today a beautiful tourist attraction. It was the last home in Europe built for the Austrian Archduke Maximilian and his wife Charlotte. In April 1864, Maximilian and his wife set out on an ill-fated scheme to install him as Emperor of Mexico. By 1867 Maximilian had been executed and for a time Charlotte returned to Miramar. Giosuè Carducci’s poem, addressed to the Miramar castle, tells the story.

Carducci (who among other things founded the Dante Alighieri Society) was a firm supporter of the Italian Risorgimento. As such, the poem reminds the reader of Hapsburg crimes in Italy. However, by the time the poem was written, the Hapsburgs had already been driven out of most of today’s Italy. While the poem takes us to Mexico (and displays some knowledge of Mexican history), it draws on classical heritage, as was Carducci’s style. The poem was published in 1869 in a collection titled Odi barbare (“Barbarian Odes”). Carducci’s Miramar is reproduced below together with my loose blank verse translation.

I hope to publish a longer article on Carducci’s Miramar at https://beyondforeignness.org/9113

O Miramare, a le tue bianche torri

attediate per lo ciel piovorno

fósche con volo di sinistri augelli

vengon le nubi.

O Miramare, contro i tuoi graniti

grige dal torvo pelago salendo

con un rimbrotto d’anime crucciose

battono l’onde.

Meste ne l’ombra de le nubi a’ golfi

stanno guardando le città turrite,

Muggia e Pirano ed Egida e Parenzo,

gemme del mare;

e tutte il mare spinge le mugghianti

collere a questo bastion di scogli

onde t’affacci a le due viste d’Adria,

rocca d’Absburgo;

e tona il cielo a Nabresina lungo

la ferrugigna costa, e di baleni

Trieste in fondo coronata il capo

leva tra’ nembi.

Deh come tutto sorridea quel dolce

mattin d’aprile, quando usciva il biondo

imperatore, con la bella donna,

a navigare!

A lui dal volto placida raggiava

la maschia possa de l’impero: l’occhio

de la sua donna cerulo e superbo

iva su ‘l mare.

Addio, castello pe’ felici giorni

nido d’amore costruito in vano!

Altra su gli ermi oceani rapisce

aura gli sposi.

Lascian le sale con accesa speme

istoriate di trionfi e incise

di sapïenza. Dante e Goethe al sire

parlano in vano

da le animose tavole: una sfinge

l’attrae con vista mobile su l’onde:

ei cede, e lascia aperto a mezzo il libro

del romanziero.

Oh non d’amore e d’avventura il canto

fia che l’accolga e suono di chitarre

là ne la Spagna de gli Aztechi! Quale

lunga su l’aure

vien da la trista punta di Salvore

nenia tra ‘l roco piangere de’ flutti?

Cantano i morti veneti o le vecchie

fate istrïane?

Ahi! mal tu sali sopra il mare nostro,

figlio d’Absburgo, la fatal Novara.

Teco l’Erinni sale oscura e al vento

apre la vela.

Vedi la sfinge tramutar sembiante

a te d’avanti perfida arretrando!

È il viso bianco di Giovanna pazza

contro tua moglie.

È il teschio mózzo contro te ghignante

d’Antonïetta. Con i putridi occhi

in te fermati è l’irta faccia gialla

di Montezuma.

Tra i boschi immani d’agavi non mai

mobili ad aura di benigno vento,

sta ne la sua piramide, vampante

livide fiamme

per la tenèbra tropicale, il dio

Huitzilopotli, che il tuo sangue fiuta,

e navigando il pelago co ‘l guardo

ulula – Vieni.

Quant’è che aspetto! La ferocia bianca

strussemi il regno ed i miei templi infranse:

vieni, devota vittima, o nepote

di Carlo quinto.

Non io gl’infami avoli tuoi di tabe

marcenti o arsi di regal furore;

te io voleva, io colgo te, rinato

fiore d’Absburgo;

e a la grand’alma di Guatimozino

regnante sotto il padiglion del sole

ti mando inferia, o puro, o forte, o bello

Massimiliano.

---

Miramar, white towers

Gloom-darkened

By rain-soaked skies

Like flocks of sinister birds

Come the clouds

Miramar, waves crash

Against granite grey.

Grievances of embittered souls

Rising from the forbidding deep.

Melancholy: shadowed in mist.

The turreted cities of the gulf

Muggia, Pirano, Egida and Parenzo

Jewels of the sea, look on.

And the sea heaps up

Angered laments

Against this rocky spur

This Hapsburg bastion

Looking to two vistas.

And the heavens rumble to Nabresina

Along the rusted shore

And lightning flashes, crowning misty

Trieste, she raises her head.

Oh, how all rejoiced, that April morn

When fair-haired Emperor

With comely spouse

Unfurled his vessel’s sail

With calm and radiant visage

The Empire’s mighty mask

And lady’s sky-blue eyes

Looking coolly on the sea

Farewell, castle made for happy times,

Fruitless flight of fancy for nested love!

The fierce wind sweeps lovers

Out to vast and empty sea.

With shining hope

They departed its storied halls

of triumphs and carven wisdom full

To its lord, Dante and Goethe whisper in vain.

A sphinx, lured him with valiant tales

A mirage upon the waves,

He stumbled and the book he left

Splayed open; half unread.

No song of love or mighty deed

and chorded guitar of welcome.

There in Aztec Spain!

So far, the wind did take them.

Is that mourning of weeping flutes

Which sigh from wretched Point Salvore?

Is it the dead Venetians?

Or ancient Istrian fates that sing?

O but ill you set forth

On Mare Nostrum

Hapsburg’s son,

Aboard the ill-fated Novara

The Furies come darkly aboard with you

And open wide your sails to the wind

See the sphinx visage transform

Feigning retreat as you advance

And pallid face of mad Giovanna

Against your wife

It is Marie Antoinette’s mutilated skull

That mocks you.

It is Montezuma’s putrid eyes fixed on you From his enraged yellowed face.

In a vast agave wilderness

Never yet stirred by goodly breeze

He waits in his pyramid

Blazing in livid flames

In tropical darkness, the God Huitzilopolti

Smells your blood

Farsighted he traverses the endless sea

And howls: Come.

How long I have waited! The fierce whites stole my kingdom and profaned my temple

Come devout victim

O nephew of Charles the Fifth

Not I, your cursed and putrid ancestors

Or spawn of royal chaos desired

You I wanted, and you I reap,

Hapsburg flowering anew

And to Cuauhtémoc’s great soul

Reigning below the Pavilion of the Sun

I send you down as sacrifice,

O pure, O strong, O fair Maximilian.

Michael Curtotti