
Miramar by Giosuè Carducci – A Translation
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