In the Silence

Original by Eugenio Montale
Translated, from the Italian, by Maurizio Brancaleoni

Today is a general strike.
Nobody walks on the street.
Only a portable radio on the other side of the wall.
Somebody must have moved in a few days ago.
I wonder what will become of production.
Even spring is somewhat late in being produced.
The radiator was turned off earlier.
It’s been realized that the postal service is useless.
There’s no great harm in the delay of normal functions.
Some gearings are bound not to go into gear.
Even the dead got worked up.
They’re part of the total silence too.
You lie under a gravestone. To wake you up does not apply
because you’re always awake. Even today when it’s universal
sleep.

*****

NEL SILENZIO

Oggi è sciopero generale.
Nella strada non passa nessuno.
Solo una radiolina dall’altra parte del muro.
Da qualche giorno deve abitarci qualcuno.
Mi chiedo che ne sarà della produzione.
La primavera stessa tarda alquanto a prodursi.
Hanno spento in anticipo il termosifone.
Si sono accorti ch’è inutile il servizio postale.
Non è gran male il ritardo delle funzioni normali.
È d’obbligo che qualche ingranaggio non ingrani.
Anche i morti si sono messi in agitazione.
Anch’essi fanno parte del silenzio totale.
Tu stai sotto una lapide. Risvegliarti non vale
perché sei sempre desta. Anche oggi ch’è sonno
universale.

Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) was a poet, editor and translator. Born in Genoa, he studied accounting at school and bel canto with a renowned baritone, before serving as an infantryman during World War I. His subsequent literary education was mostly self-taught. His first poetry collection, Cuttlefish Bones, published in 1925, was soon considered a masterpiece. That same year, he was one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals. Since 1927, while collaborating with various journals and newspapers in Florence and Milan, he kept publishing diverse books of poems that were to confirm the strength of his unique voice. In 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Maurizio Brancaleoni is a poet and translator. He received his Master’s Degree in Language and Translation Studies from Sapienza University of Rome in 2018, but he has been translating at least since 2012. In recent years he localized the prose and poetry of manifold authors, among which Thomas Wolfe, Adrian C. Louis, Justin Phillip Reed, Jean Toomer, Dylan Thomas, Herman Melville, Marina Pizzi and Scipione/Gino Bonichi.  

Translator’s Note: An unusual quietness pervades the city. A general strike interrupts the normal process of production, along with the resulting noise, chaos, and inevitable generation of trash. The poet is able to clearly perceive unexpected sounds next door and wonders if, after all, nihilistically enough, some of these temporary renunciations might not be for the best. Not only may the strike be a beneficial break from everyday worries, but it also becomes the unexpected symbol of a passive struggle against a relentless consumerism whose premise is non-stop production without any concerns for the consequences in terms of pollution, environmental degradation, and reduction of living standards. In the widespread silence, however, the poet’s departed wife is paradoxically a constant, living presence who seems to speak to him even after death.

Eugenio Montale’s language is so inherently modern and analytical, almost universal in its precise neutrality and implications, that any attempt at a translation in most modern European languages will hardly feel forced. Generally speaking, I found it quite easy to transpose the text into English which, to the best of my judgment, would read naturally and smoothly. As for the inevitable loss of shades of meaning, it must be admitted that the line about the “gearings” that won’t “go into gear” was not completely satisfying in the switch from one language to the other, as the pun probably sounds better and more all-encompassing in the original. Another line about the delayed arrival of spring was also challenging as the original states that springtime is late in taking place while using the Italian equivalent of the verb “to produce”, which I felt had to be preserved in my translation in order to retain the reference to the term “production” a few lines above. “Late in being produced”, then, could have been simply rendered as “late in occurring”, but in that case the allusion to the world of mass production would have been lost. Even such a short poem as this will show that the art of translating has its limits and, because each different approach has strong and weak points, translation is quite often a matter of choice and deliberation.