Poetry
The Barbarian Odes
Odi barbare
Giosuè Carducci · 1877
Opening lines
Poi che un sereno vapor d'ambrosia
da la tua coppa diffuso avvolsemi,
o Ebe con passo di dea
trasvolata sorridendo via;
Since a serene vapour of ambrosia
spread from your cup has wrapped me round,
O Hebe, who with a goddess's step
flew smiling away;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Odes in which Italian takes up, through the play of accents, the stanzas of Latin poetry, in imitation of Horace and Virgil. Ancient Greece and Rome stand alongside the Italy of the Risorgimento: the source of the Clitumnus in Umbria, the Baths of Caracalla, Piazza San Petronio in Bologna, a railway station on an autumn morning, and tributes to Garibaldi or Queen Margherita.
Context
The first book appeared in 1877 from the Bologna publisher Zanichelli; new odes followed in 1882, then a third book in 1889. The poems render, through Italian stress accent, metres that in ancient poetry were based on the length of syllables. Julien Lugol produced a French translation as early as 1888, published by Lemerre, with three letters from the author; in English, William Fletcher Smith translated them in 1939 under the title “The Barbarian Odes”.
Who it is for
Short, unrhymed poems, with a syntax often Latin in character, to be read aloud in order to hear their metre.
Prizes and reception
According to the Nobel Foundation, his poetic forms reach perfection in this collection.