Sunday, December 19, 2010

Aqua Buddha Travelog - #05

I never want to hear "the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" again.

Italian

English Translation
Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate;
va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
ove olezzano tepide e molli
l'aure dolci del suolo natal!

Del Giordano le rive saluta,
di Sionne le torri atterrate...
Oh mia patria sì bella e perduta!
Oh membranza sì cara e fatal!

Arpa d'or dei fatidici vati,
perché muta dal salice pendi?
Le memorie nel petto raccendi,
ci favella del tempo che fu!

O simile di Sòlima ai fati
traggi un suono di crudo lamento,
o t'ispiri il Signore un concento
che ne infonda al patire virtù.
Fly, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!

Greet the banks of the Jordan
and Zion's toppled towers...
Oh, my country so lovely and lost!
Oh, remembrance so dear and so fraught with despair!

Golden harp of the prophetic seers,
why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?
Rekindle our bosom's memories,
and speak of times gone by!

Mindful of the fate of Jerusalem,
either give forth an air of sad lamentation,
or else let the Lord imbue us
with fortitude to bear our sufferings!

22 comments:

  1. Wow... interesting. What's this from?

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Brut : it's from Verdi's opera Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar in English).

    It's the hold music for a certain airline.

    I posted it a) to get it out of my head and b) to experiment with poem indentation in HTML. (I've noticed that a lot of poetry blogs just do what I did in the past - just center everything and walk away.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sucio.. you are too much.. I love you man...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Verdi was an amazing composer. I learned a lot about him in music appreciation class :D.

    ReplyDelete
  5. while waiting to fly out of the country, there's nothing i'd rather subject my auditory sense to than this poem

    ReplyDelete
  6. It was on mute because they were playing PuddiPuddi all day.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Haha what kind of airline plays a poem to its customers...?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nabucco! I'm really glad somebody posted where this came from, because not remembering that was going to bother me for a while

    ReplyDelete
  9. That's Blake's artwork isn't it, I like his stuff

    ReplyDelete
  10. uh, chorus of the hebrew slaves? say whut now?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Did you translate that all by yourself? Think this is one of your best posts.

    Seems Buddha does the trick for you

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow those were some weird lyrics

    ReplyDelete
  13. why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Do you have any opportunities to post any pictures of your travels?

    ReplyDelete
  15. as though the airline is saying, "sorry for the delay, but at least you're not a jew"

    ReplyDelete
  16. this is a side of you i've never seen sucio... awwww

    ReplyDelete