Vigil
Cima Quattro, December 23, 1915

An entire night
thrown down
beside a
butchered
companion with his
grimacing
mouth turned
to the full moon
with his congested hands
thrust
into my silence
I wrote
letters full of love

I have never held
so hard
to life


Veglia

Un'intera nottata
buttato vicino
a un compagno
massacrato
con la sua bocca
digrignata
volta al plenilunio
con la congestione
delle sue mani
penetrata
nel mio silenzio
ho scritto
letter piene d'amore

Non sons mai stato
tanto
attaccato alla vita
   

Translated, annotated and with an Introduction by Andrew Frisardi

Dual language edition.

Giuseppe Ungaretti was born in Alexandria in 1888. In 1912 he left Egypt to study in Paris where he was influenced by the French avant garde. Moving to Milan in 1914, he became a central figure of Italian modernism, His sense of poetic vocation and language was further shaped by his experience of the fierce fighting on the Austrian front during the first World War. After the war, Ungaretti lived near Rome until 1936, when he was offered a professorship at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. The death of his young son, the outbreak of the Second World War and the occupation of Rome had a profound effect on his poetry at this time. He returned to Rome in 1942 and taught at the university there until his retirement. He died in Milan in 1970. His collected poems were published as Vita d'un uomo:Tutte le poesie (1969)