The Dream by Giacomo Leopardi
It was dawn, the sun insinuated
the day’s first light through the balcony’s
closed shutters to my blind room.
In that moment, when sleep shadows
our eyelids more lightly, more gently,
the image of her who first taught me
to love, then left me to grieve,
stood there, next to me, gazing at my face.
She didn’t seem dead, only saddened,
an image of unhappiness. She stretched
her right hand to my cheek, and sighing said:
‘Do you still live, and retain any memory
of me?’ ‘Oh my dear,’ I replied, ‘Where
and how do you come to me, in beauty?
Ah, how I grieved for you, and grieve:
I thought you would never know: and
it made my grief for you more desolate.
But will you leave me again?
I greatly fear it. Now say what happened?
Are you as before? And what torments you
within?’ She said: ‘Forgetfulness stifles
your thoughts, sleep enshrouds them.
I am dead, a few moons ago
you saw me for the last time.’ Vast
sorrow oppressed my heart at that voice.
She said: ‘I vanished in the first flower of youth,
when life is sweetest, and before the heart
knows the vanity of human hope
as certain. Mortal sickness has not long
to wait for what will free it
from all trouble: but the young gain no
solace in death, and cruel is our fate
when hope is quenched beneath earth.
Knowledge of what nature hides is no help
to those innocent of life, and blind grief
easily conquers an immature wisdom.’
‘Oh dear unfortunate one, be silent,’ I said,
‘be silent, such words break my heart.
Oh my delight, you are dead then,
and I am living, and was it decreed
in heaven that your dear and tender body
should endure those last sweats,
while this wretched one of mine
should be untouched? Oh despite those
moments when I thought you no longer lived,
that I would never see you again in this world,
I still cannot believe. Ah, what is this thing
called death? If only I could know,
now, and so protect my defenceless
head from fate’s atrocious hatred.
I am young, but this youth of mine
consumes itself and is lost like old-age
I dread, though it’s still far from me.
The flower of my youth is little
different to age.’ She said: ‘We were
born to weep, we two, happiness never
smiled on our lives: heaven delighted
in our troubles.’ ‘Now if this eyelid is wet
with tears,’ I replied, ‘and our parting
makes your face pale, and your heart
heavy with anguish, tell me: did a spark
of love, or pity, ever turn your heart
towards this wretched lover,
while you lived? Then, I despaired,
but dragged myself, in hope, through days
and nights: now my mind wearies itself
with empty doubt. So if sorrow at my
darkened life, even once, oppressed you,
don’t hide it, I beg you, and the memory
will help me, now our future has been
taken from us.’ She said: ‘O unhappy one,
be comforted. I did not grudge you pity
while I was alive, nor now: I was
wretched too. Do not complain
of it, unlucky child.’ I cried out:
‘In the name of our misfortunes,
and the love that destroys me, of our
delighted youth, and the lost hopes
of our life, allow me, my dear one,
to touch your hand.’ And she, sadly,
gently, held it out to me. Now, as I
covered it with kisses, and held it
to my heaving breast, trembling with
sweet distress, my face and chest
sweating with fever, my voice caught
in my throat, my vision shook in the light.
Then, fixing her gaze on me, tenderly,
she said: ‘Oh my dear, have you forgotten
already, that I am stripped of beauty?
O, unhappy one, you tremble and burn
with love, in vain. Now is the last farewell.
Our wretched minds and bodies
are severed for eternity. You are not living
for me, nor will again: fate has already shattered
the loyalty you promised.’ Then I tried
to cry out in agony, and roused myself
from sleep, trembling, my eyes
filled with disconsolate tears. She still
stood before my gaze: and in the uncertain
rays of the sun, I believed I saw her yet.
^
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist.
