Born in Genoa on 12 October 1896, Eugenio Montale was a poet, writer, translator and critic who contributed to enriching our cultural heritage. Montale was the last of the five children of Domingo, the manager together with the cousins of a small commercial company, and of Giuseppina Ricci, who came from Nervi. His father was also Ligurian, originally from Monterosso, in the Cinque Terre, where the Montale family had a house, the place of Eugenio's childhood holidays and which in the poet's sentimental geography is an important place.
Monterosso had been a very formative season. He spent his youth in Liguria in contact with the most remarkable poets of the region. He published the collection “Ossi di seppia” in 1925. In Florence, in 1927 he became director of the Gabinetto Vieusseux, a position that was taken away from him in 1938 because he did not join the Fascist party. Of this period is the collection of poems “Occasions” and some translations (Eliot, Shakespeare) later gathered in the “Quaderno di traduzioni”. He was appointed senator for life by the President of the Republic on 13 June 1967: for very high merits in the literary and artistic field. After the war, he worked in the editorial office of “Corriere Della Sera” and resumed his poetic activity only after the death of his wife. Montale received the world's highest award in the field of literature from the Swedish academy in 1975, winning the Nobel Prize. The poet of the words “rough and essential”, once considered difficult to read due to the density of its meanings, today he is recognized as the author of works that have never lost sight of man's deepest values. He died in 1981.
"Ho sceso dandoti il braccio" is one of the most beautiful and famous poems by Eugenio Montale dedicated to his wife, Drusilla Tanzi, who died in 1963. The poem is in Montale's last collection: Satura, published in 1971.
Ho sceso dandoti il braccio
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.
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.
Eugenio Montale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Montale)I tried to translate it, sorry.
A Million Stairs
"With your arm in mine, we have made at least a million stairs. And now that you're not here, there's a gap at every step. Even so, our long journey was short. I'm still on the road, I don't need any more... of reservations, connections, stratagems, the constant contempt of those who think that reality is what you see. I came down millions of stairs giving you my arm, certainly not because four eyes see better. I came down those stairs with you because I knew that the only true eyes, no matter how dark, were yours".
By Kork75!
