Nightfall: Ugo Foscolo’s Alla Sera between 1 Kings 19:4-5 and Psalm 4:9

This post presents a sonnet by Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), perhaps his greatest. He assigned it the role of proem in the canonical collection of his sonnets. Romanticism’s love-affair with sorrow and death stands in the background of this poem. Still, it is not death but evening prefiguring death that holds Foscolo in her embrace.

The death-wish found in Job 3, by contrast, contains no soft edges whatsoever.

Two passages from the Hebrew Bible which know whereof Foscolo speaks as it were are 1 Kings 19:4-5 and Psalm 4:9. More below the fold.

Forse perché della fatal quiete

tu sei l'immago a me sì cara vieni

o Sera! E quando ti corteggian liete

le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,

 

e quando dal nevoso aere inquiete

tenebre e lunghe all'universo meni

sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete

vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.

 

Vagar mi fai co' miei pensier su l'orme

che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge

questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme

 

delle cure onde meco egli si strugge;

e mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme

quello spirto guerrier ch'entro mi rugge

Parafrasi

Forse perché tu sei l’immagine della morte, a me giungi così gradita, e sia quando sei seguita dai venti sereni sia quando conduci sulla terra notti lunghe e burrascose, e occupi le vie più segrete del mio animo, placandolo dolcemente, mi spingi a pensare al nulla eterno e intanto se ne va quest’età malvagia, e se ne vanno anche le preoccupazioni, e scompaio anch’io, e lo spirito inquieto dentro di me dorme.

 Paraphrase

Perhaps because you are the image of death, I am thankful when you come to me; when serene winds accompany you, or when you bring long and stormy nights upon the earth, and enter the secret pathways of my soul, quieting it softly, you push me to think of the eternal void, and meanwhile this guilty age passes away, and my worries pass away, and I dissipate also, and the warrior spirit which roars within me sleeps.

 Nightfall

Perhaps because you are the image

of the silence of the grave, I cherish when you come to me

o evening! Whether summer clouds

and warm winds hold you in soft embrace,

 

or you send restless and long shadows

from frost-filled air to the universe,

you always fall, desired by me, and the secret

pathways of my heart you gently hold.

 

You make me wander with my thoughts on paths

that lead to the eternal void, and all the while,

this evil time fleets by, and with it masses

 

of care depart, and it dissipates along with me

and while I contemplate your peace,

the warrior spirit that roars within me sleeps.

 

The sonnet per the conventions of the time is composed of 14 lines, two four-liners (quartine) and two three-liners (terzine), though Foscolo breaks with convention on various levels. The sound orchestration of the whole embraces a ABAB ABAB CDC DCD rhyme scheme, but also finds expression in the vocalic alliterations in e and i of the quartine, and the darker, heavier alliterations in o and u of the terzine.

The evening is the poet’s confidant and lover, the space in which the poet reflects on life and death and his life and his death.

The vocabulary is not colloquial, but literary and poetic. Latinisms (reo, aere, secrete, torme, cure) abound, but the sentiments are romantic, not classical. The Sehnsucht, or nostalgia, is almost overwhelming. The syntax of the quartine is characterized by hypotaxis and coordination, that of the terzine, by shorter clauses in paratactic parallelism. The use of oxymorons (fatal quiete, nulla eterno) and enjambment across the terzine is pointed but restrained. The antithesis of the last two lines creates a suitable climax (e mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme / quello spirto guerriero ch'entro mi rugge).

Can the prose and poetry of the Bible match Foscolo for intensity and vividness of expression? Yes it can. Job 3 even matches it in terms of difficulty of register. Here are two passages which counterpoint Foscolo in diverse ways:

וְהוּא־הָלַךְ בַּמִּדְבָּר דֶּרֶךְ יוֹם

וַיָּבֹא וַיֵּשֶׁב תַּחַת רֹתֶם אֶחָד

וַיִּשְׁאַל אֶת־נַפְשׁוֹ לָמוּת

וַיֹּאמֶר רַב עַתָּה יְהוָה קַח נַפְשִׁי

כִּי־לֹא־טוֹב אָנֹכִי מֵאֲבֹתָי

וַיִּשְׁכַּב וַיִּישַׁן תַּחַת רֹתֶם אֶחָד

וְהִנֵּה־זֶה מַלְאָךְ נֹגֵעַ בּוֹ

וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ קוּם אֱכוֹל

 

בְּשָׁלוֹם יַחְדָּו                  אֶשְׁכְּבָה וְאִישָׁן

כִּי־אַתָּה יְהוָה לְבָדָד        לָבֶטַח תּוֹשִׁיבֵנִי

He himself walked a day’s distance into the wilderness.

He came to a solitary broom tree and sat under it.

And he prayed that he might die.

“Enough already!” he said. “Take my life, Lord,

for no better am I than my fathers.”

He lay down and slept under the solitary broom tree.

Then an angel touches him,

and said to him, “Arise! Eat!”  (1 Kings 19:4-5)

 

In peace all at once

I lie down and sleep,

for you alone, Lord,

settle me down securely.  (Psalm 4:9)

 

David Ker, I’m hoping, will also post on this sonnet. I know it is a favorite of his.

Comments

[David Ker]

You bet I'll post. This is beautiful thanks for the many resources in appreciating this favorite of Ugo.

The Job 3/difficulty of register thing is cool. I need to think about that.

[JohnFH]

Looking forward to it, David. I appreciated your recent post on speaking in tongues. Well done.