Poetry
How the World Was Set Ablaze because of Two Serpents
Not translated into English
Anonymous · 1916
Synopsis
Two hundred and seventy lines on the Great War, which was then ravaging Europe. The poet sees in it the confrontation of the truly Christian countries, those of the Entente, against Austria-Hungary and Germany, whom he calls the champions of Islam. In his preface, he says he wrote so that his reader would know in time the terrible darkness that had deeply troubled his conscience.
Context
The poem appeared in Rome without the author's name, a year after Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Entente. The first literary printed works in Tigrinya had appeared in Europe: the sixteen-page booklet in which Feseha Giyorgis recounted his journey to Italy, in 1895, then the oral-tradition texts that orientalists and scholars from the country had published there. Ghirmai Negash's history of Tigrinya literature cites the poem's preface. The twenties, then Fascism, subsequently slowed these publications.
Who it is for
A short poem, in Tigrinya, with no published translation. It helps to know that Eritrea was an Italian colony and that Italy joined the Entente in 1915.
Prizes and reception
Ghirmai Negash cites it as an original work of this period, alongside the collections drawn from oral tradition that were then being published in Europe.