[Andrew Frisardi]

Apropos Italian and English and rhymes and humor, how about this classic by Cecco Angiolieri and the Sphere's own Catherine Tufariello's translation?


S' i' fosse foco, arderei 'l mondo;
S' i' fosse vento, lo tempesterei;
S' i' fosse acqua, i' l'annegherei;
S' i' fosse Dio, manderei l' in profondo;
S' i' fosse papa, sare' allor giocondo,
Che tutt' i cristiani imbrighierei:
S' i' fosse ‘mperator, sa' che farei?
A tutti mozzarei lo capo a tondo.

S' i' fosse morte, andarei da mio padre;
S' i' fosse vita, fuggirei da lui:
Similmente faria da mi' madre.
S' i' fosse Cecco, com' i' sono e fui,
Torre le donne giovan' e leggiadre
E vecchi' e laide lasserei altrui.

--Cecco Angiolieri (1260-1312)


If I were fire, I'd set the world aflame;
If I were wind, I'd blow it down;
If I were water, I'd make it drown;
If I were God, I'd sentence it to hell.
If I were Pope, my pleasure and my fame
Would come from scamming Christians well.
And if I were emperor, know what?
I'd find some necks to cut.

If I were death, I'd fly to my father's bed;
If I were life, I'd flee from him instead;
And to my mother I'd do the same.
If Cecco were, as it was and is, my name,
I'd take the women who are young and lovely,
And leave for others the old and ugly.

trans. Catherine Tufariello

[Gail White]

This sentimental verse used to be popular:

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone:
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in our own.

Kingsley Amis put it this way:

Life is mostly grief and labor,
Two things help us through:
Chortling when it hits your neighbor,
Whinging when it's you.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Wasn't it GBS who said: "It is not enough that we succeed in life. It is also necessary that our best friend fail"?

[Mike Slippkauskas]

New England

Here where the wind is always north-north-east
And children learn to walk on frozen toes,
Wonder begets an envy of all those
Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast
Of love that you will hear them at a feast
Where demons would appeal for some repose,
Still clamoring where the chalice overflows
And crying wildest who have drunk the least.

Passion is here a soilure of the wits,
We're told, and Love a cross for them to bear;
Joy shivers in the corner where she knits
And Conscience always has the rocking-chair,
Cheerful as when she tortured into fits
The first cat that was ever killed by Care.

E.A. Robinson

[Andrew Frisardi]

Wow, I love that E. A. Robinson poem - thanks, Mike, for posting. I'm from New England and although it doesn't describe my family, I can relate to it. I get a kick of how in New England liquor stores are called "package stores." And soda is "tonic." Same ethos Robinson gets down here so vividly.
Andrew

[Susan McLean]

Here are a few of my favorite clerihews by Stephen Fry. Though the form is not metrical, the rhymes are part of the wit.

Elizabeth Barrett
Was kept in a garret.
Her father resented it bitterly
When Robert Browning took her to Italy.

Oscar Wilde
Had his reputation defiled.
When he was led from the dock in tears
He said, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at two years."

Ted Hughes
Had a very short fuse.
What prompted his wrath
Was being asked about Sylvia Plath.

[Andrew Frisardi]

And apropos of clerihews, there is that famous one by Mr. Clerihew himself:

The best thing about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

[Janet Kenny]

Andrew,
That's a wonderful poem. Notice how the passion and important rhymes in the first stanza happen in the first syllable of the rhyme word? Or rather the stresses often happen sooner to stamp out the mood. Hope my rusty Italian is stressing properly? What a gesture!
I love it. Catherine Tufariello's wonderful translation is as good as an English translation could be but don't we miss the foot stamp? Love it.
Janet


S' i' fosse foco, arderei 'l MONdo;
S' i' fosse vento, lo temPESteREi;
S' i' fosse acqua, i' l'anNEGHeREi;
S' i' fosse Dio, manderei l' in proFONdo;
S' i' fosse papa, sare' allor gioCONdo,
Che tutt' i cristiani imBRIghieREi:
S' i' fosse ‘mperator, sa' che faREi?
A tutti mozzarei lo capo a TONdo.

S' i' fosse morte, andarei da mio PAdre;
S' i' fosse vita, fuggirei da LUi:
Similmente faria da mi' MAdre.
S' i' fosse Cecco, com' i' sono e FUi,
Torre le donne giovan' e legGIAdre
E vecchi' e laide lasserei alTRUi.

--Cecco Angiolieri (1260-1312)


If I were fire, I'd set the world aflame;
If I were wind, I'd blow it down;
If I were water, I'd make it drown;
If I were God, I'd sentence it to hell.
If I were Pope, my pleasure and my fame
Would come from scamming Christians well.
And if I were emperor, know what?
I'd find some necks to cut.

If I were death, I'd fly to my father's bed;
If I were life, I'd flee from him instead;
And to my mother I'd do the same.
If Cecco were, as it was and is, my name,
I'd take the women who are young and lovely,
And leave for others the old and ugly.

trans. Catherine Tufariello



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 12, 2007).]

[Clive Watkins]

Dear Janet

I agree that the rhymes in Cecco Angiolieri’s poem are emphatic, but I am not sure the reason for this lies quite where you seem to imply.

The lines here are endecasillabi (which stand to other Italian metres in rather the same relationship as IP does to other metres in English). Allowing for elisions, the key points in the line are the location of a natural stress on the tenth syllable and, commonly, a secondary stress on the fourth or sixth. Despite its name, however, the line may have more or fewer than eleven syllables. For instance, if the final word has its stress on the antepenultimate syllable (which must fall at the tenth position) the line would have twelve syllables, though this would perhaps be unusual in poems of this date. Ten-syllable endecasillabi also occur. As to rhyme, traditionally Italian rhymes are full (though exceptions can be found), rhyming all the syllables of a word from the last stressed syllable of the word to the word-end.

It seems to me that the pattern of rhyme and metre in “S' i' fosse foco” is conventional. I suggest, therefore, that the weight which falls on the rhymes has a different source – the repetitive structure of nine of the fourteen lines (a species of the rhetorical figure anaphora) and the fact that all these lines (and others) are strongly end-stopped. Furthermore, this pattern, which is also a pattern of syntax, with one exception throws emphatic weight on to the fourth syllable in these lines and therefore on to the important content words that are placed in that position (“foco” and “vento”, for instance).

What an angry poem this is! But so are the few other poems by this author which I have read. I’m not sure I quite think of this as humorous or satirical, however. Thanks to Andrew for posting it, however!

Kind regards

Clive Watkins

[Janet Kenny]

Clive,
I understood the basics of what you have written. As we say in English poetry, hendecasyllabic.

My comments were a continuation of our discussion about the nature of rhyme in Italian and in English and involved the line endings only. Not really sensible in this case but it connected with previous posts. The scansion is a simple matter I agree.

I also agree that it's more furious than funny but it is also defiant and impudent which brings it a little closer to Byron.
I will return. This is really a discussion about humour in poetry and we had agreed that rhyme is very important. There are of course plenty of unrhymed humorous poems.

Here to go on with is a dark humorous unrhymed poem (much less good) by Roger McGough. And even this one depends greatly on internal rhyme for its humour.
Best,
Janet


Let Me Die a Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 13, 2007).]