The beautiful poem Ho sceso, dandoti il braccio, almeno un milione di scale by Eugenio Montale.
Eugenio Montale – Ho sceso, dandoti il braccio, almeno un milione di scale
Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981) was an Italian journalist, poet and writer and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. The poem was written in 1967 and is included in the Satura collection.
It is a love poem, a tribute to his deceased wife. The poem consists of two parts:
- In the first part, the poet and his wife walk down the stairs: a metaphor of their life together. For him, ordinary things like train connections or reservations are now meaningless, now that she is no longer there.
- In the second part, the poet revisits the theme of stairs and living together. He reveals his wife’s superior abilities to see reality, despite her visual impairment. She can see beyond the exterior of things and is the one who leads their journey.
| Italiano | Inglese by Ellie |
| Ho sceso, dandoti il braccio, almeno un milione di scale e ora che non ci sei è il vuoto ad ogni gradino. Anche così è stato breve il nostro lungo viaggio. Il mio dura tuttora, né più mi occorrono le coincidenze, le prenotazioni, le trappole, gli scorni di chi crede che la realtà sia quella che si vede. | I went down, giving you my arm, at least one million of stairs and now that you are no more here it’s the void on every step. Also in such way our long journey has been short too. Mine still goes on, and I need no more connections, reservations, traps, deceptions of those who think that reality is that what you see. |
| Ho sceso milioni di scale dandoti il braccio non già perché con quattr’occhi forse si vede di più. Con te le ho scese perché sapevo che di noi due le sole vere pupille, sebbene tanto offuscate, erano le tue. | I went down millions of stairs giving you my arm not just because maybe it’s better to see with four eyes than two. With you I went down because I knew that between us the only true pupils, though so much blurry, were yours. |
