TRILUSSA *

VINO BONO,

from "Poesie scelte", 1940

Mentre bevo mezzo litro,

de Frascati abboccatello,

guardo er muro der tinello

co’ le macchie de salnitro.

Guardo e penso quant’è buffa

certe vorte la natura

che combina una figura

cor salnitro e co’ la muffa.

Scopro infatti in una macchia

una specie d’animale:

pare un’aquila reale

co’ la coda de cornacchia.

Là c’è un orso, qui c’è un gallo,

lupi, pecore, montoni,

e su un mucchio de cannoni

passa un diavolo a cavallo!

Ma ner fonno s’intravede

una donna ne la posa

de chi aspetta quarche cosa

da l’Amore e da la Fede…

Bevo er vino e guardo er muro

con un bon presentimento:

sarò sbronzo, ma me sento

più tranquillo e più sicuro.

TRANSLATION

GOOD WINE

While I drink half a litre

of sweet Frascati,

I watch the kitchen's wall

covered with dew stains.

I watch and think

how Nature is sometimes funny,

when it creates a form

from salt and dew.

In fact, in a stain

I see a kind of animal:

it looks like a golden eagle

with a crow's tail.

There's a bear, and there's a cock,

wolves, sheep, rams,

and on a heap of cannons

rides a devil on a horse!

But in the bottom I perceive

a woman in a pose

as if she's waiting

for Love and Faith...

I drink and watch the wall

with a good attitude:

maybe I'm drunk,

but I feel quiet and safer.

(translation by M.Ramponi)

* Trilussa is the pseudonym of Carlo Alberto Salustri, born in Rome in 1871. His mother was from Bologna and his father, a waiter, from Albano Laziale. His childhood was filled with mourning and sadness, but he was perhaps too small to feel the full brunt of it. He lost his younger sister Elisabetta at the age of two and his father at the age of three. His mother was a seamstress and somewhat stern with the child, who was a poor and listless student. At sixteen he dropped out of school, but had already written his first verses.
In 1887 one of his poems came out in Il Rugantino (Roman magazine), edited by Gigi Zanazzo, along with a prose piece signed with the pseudonym Marco Pepe. He became soon popular for a series of portraits of Roman girls he published in 1889 under the title Stelle de Roma (Roman Stars). Immediately a dispute broke out with the Roman dialect poet Filippo Chiappini, who accused Trilussa of not knowing the dialect, taking the position of the "vernacular purist".
The poet's popularity was almost immediate, his contributions to Il Messaggero were followed and discussed; even his drawings were well received by the mass of readers. He worked on the editorial staff of Don Chisciotte, providing images, sketches, fables, skits, vignettes and poems with that easy vein that would become a distinctive trait of his life and work.
He traveled extensively, but through the Italian cities, which welcomed him not only as a reporter, but as a fine reciter of his own verses as well. In 1901 he even formed a trio with the poets Berto Barbarani from Verona and Alfredo Testoni from Bologna, making the rounds of the theaters of Genoa, Padua, Milan, Reggio Emilia etc. The invitations became more and more frequent and Trilussa was constantly touring all of Italy, with evening engagements worthy of a star of the theater. People liked his poetry and they liked his recitation even more, done in a dialect everyone could understand yet possessing all the ingredients of cleverness, of wit, of irony and sarcasm.
He even went to Egypt, but perhaps in order to follow a girl he was in love with, the actress Leda Gys.
Upon his return, he began living in Maria Adelaide Street amidst a myriad souvenirs collected all over.
During the Fascist years, he wrote texts for Petrolini and for Fregoli, Mondadori published one of his books, the regime did not react to his quips, which were blunted spears and could even be useful in giving the sensation that there was full freedom of expression and the possibility of protest.
Late in life his economic conditions were very modest, and in addition he was struck by asthma and had difficulty going out for a stroll or to the taverns for his usual glass.
He died just before Christmas of 1950.
"Trilussa is an epicurean moralist," said the critic Barberi Squarotti. And Sciascia (famous Italian writer from Sicily): "Trilussa's characters really do not come out of Gogol's 'Overcoat'" In fact the poet does not know how to thrust deeply, he plays lightly with the foil and never takes sides clearly. "What holds him back is the lack of true indignation" against man's behavior, against his vices and his violence.
His poetry is almost always easy and flat, and skims the surface even when a sentimental, somewhat crepuscular vein filters in, only to disappear at once.