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 Poetry from The Literary Review
Four Poets Translate Gabriele D'Annunzio's
“Stabat Nuda Aestas”
Stabat Nuda Aestas
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
Primamente intravidi il suo piè stretto
scorrere su per gli aghi arsi dei pini
ove estuava l'aere con grande
tremito, quasi bianca vampa effusa.
Le cicale si tacquero. Più rochi
si fecero i ruscelli. Copiosa
la rèsina gemette giù pe' fusti.
Riconobbi il colùbro dal sentore.
Nel bosco degli ulivi la raggiunsi.
Scorsi l'ombre cerulee dei rami
su la schiena falcata, e i capei fulvi
nell'argento pallàdio trasvolare
senza suono. Più lungi, nella stoppia,
Fallodola balzò dal solco raso,
la chiamò, la chiamò per nome in cielo.
Allora anch'io per nome la chiamai.
Tra i leandri la vidi che si volse.
Come in bronzea mèsse nel falasco
entrò, che richiudeasi strepitoso.
Più lungi, verso il lido, tra la paglia
marina il piede le si torse in fallo.
Distesa cadde tra le sabbie e Pacque.
Il ponente schiumò ne' suoi capegli.
Immensa apparve, immensa nudità.
The Naked Summer Stood
MATTHEW LIPPMAN
First I saw her naked foot
as it slid across burned pine
where the air was big with heat
as an almost white blaze shot forth.
The cicadas held quiet. The brooks
and rocks were hoarse. Abundant resin,
like jewels, poured from the forest.
I recognized the green snake by its smell.
In the olive grove I found her.
I trounced the blue shadows of the boughs
on the bucked back, the bronze hair
through silver Palladian crossroads,
without sound. Farther on, in the stubble,
the skylark, hopping from the shaved trough,
called out to her, called out her name in sky.
Then I, too, called out her name.
Between the oleanders she turned.
She went into a bronze mass of wheat
that surrounded her, engulfed her, loudly.
Father on, at the sea, she caught her foot
in bails of seashore straw.
She fell outstretched between sand and water.
A west wind blew froth from her hair.
She was immense, in her nakedness she was immense.
Summer Was Naked
DIANE MEHTA
First of all I saw her foot race through
the scorched pine needles
while the storm-lashed air trembled
as if an effusion of white flames.
Cicadas fell silent. The brooks
churned, they became more raucous.
Resin ran copiously, lamenting, down the tree trunks.
I recognized the scent, a hint, of the garden snake.
I caught up with her in the olive grove
and ran through the sky-blue shadows of the branches
on her curved spine and her tawny hair
in the silver Palladium soundlessly fly across.
Further on, in the stubble of landscape
the skylark lept from a smooth furrow,
it sung her name to the heavens.
I, too, called her name then.
Among the oleanders she turned
like a bronze-colored harvest in the reeds
she thunderously entered.
Further on, along the beach,
her foot got tangled in seaweed.
She fell, stretched out between sand and water.
The west wind foamed in her hair.
She appeared immense, immense her nakedness.
Summer Stood Naked
MICHAEL MORSE
First glance—I saw her narrow naked foot
rush the high dry pine needles,
the shudder and flush of estuary air
a hot flash in her white wake.
Cicadas hushed. Farther on
The brooks went hoarse.
Sap came crying down the trunks,
a serpent I recognized by smell.
I nearly caught her in the olive groves,
glimpsed the sky-blue shadows of branch
on the sharp arch of her back, Athena's silver
light, her tawny hair flowing quick and quiet.
Farther, from the stubble fields
a skylark tripped the shaven stalks
and sang her out, spread her name in the sky.
I also called her name.
I found her turning in the oleander,
gave chase through a bronze harvest of rushes,
resonant curtains that closed around her.
Farther on, in the straw by the sea
her foot caught and her body twisted down
outstretched between the sands and waters.
The wind blew sea-foam from her hair.
She was naked. She was outstanding.
Stay Naked Always
REBECCA WOLFF
Primal sight: an unshod foot
skating on scorched pine-needles.
Atmosphere acrid, tremulous
white hot and generous. Had
throttled the cicadas. Freshets
running in a sore throat, sap
down the tree-trunks like a funeral.
From its bunker in the grass the snake perfumed me.
I locate her now in a stand of olives.
Entrapped, I admit, by the play of their blue shadows
on the bough of her spine, by the twining
of her mane 'round the silver-plated columns.
Which could not tell me anything. Out in the shorn field
a skylark rocketed from the earth's vagina
implying exactly the name that I believed to be her name.
So then I called her that too.
Another stand. This time, oleander.
She was not afraid of trees, that one, though
they seemed to want to claim her.
Nor was she afraid of water—nevertheless
the sea did its best to clock her:
A clump of seaweed snaked
around her ankle and there she lay in the ocean's vestibule,
Pacific sea-foam fucked into her hair.
Foreshortened thusly, she looked huge.
Her nakedness in my face.
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