Poetry
Këngët e Milosaos
Not translated into English
Jeronim de Rada · 1836
Opening lines
Bota kish ndërruar lisa,
uji i ri në det
kaltronte n`ditn` e re;
por lumbardha e Anakreontit
në Temp rronte e moçme.
The world had changed its oaks,
the new water in the sea
was turning blue in the new day;
but Anacreon's dove
lived on, ancient, in Tempe.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from klasaletersi.com
Synopsis
Milosao, a young nobleman of Shkodra in the fifteenth century, son of the lord of the town, returns from Thessalonica. At the village fountain, he meets Rina, daughter of the shepherd Kollogre, and falls in love with her. Everything separates them, rank and house, and the songs tell of waiting, brief meetings and passing seasons; Milosao says he is ready to live as a hunter and a peasant. Their union remains in suspense until the day an earthquake brings down the town and, with it, what had separated people.
Context
The poem appeared in Naples in 1836, in Albanian with an Italian translation, under an Italian title presenting it as poems of the fifteenth century; the author revised it for the editions of 1847 and 1873, in which the earthquake episode moves from the twentieth to the twenty-third canto. It draws on the folk songs its author collected. Albanian criticism debates this earthquake: a mere device that resolves the plot, or a symbol, as Ismail Kadare argued in 1965. An Italian translation by Vittorio G. Gualtieri appeared in 1917.
Who it is for
A lyric poem in short verses, in Arbëresh, a language that differs from modern Albanian; to be read in a bilingual edition with Italian.
Prizes and reception
The most popular work of its author: critics have mostly focused on this first book, of which the average reader knows a few cantos.
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