Acerca de

 

CUMAE

 

Ruderi

 

Dalle remote larve della terra

dalle anguste-alte ombre

la fatica schizza del tempo

e la linfa cupa del vivere

tra erosioni e deflagrazioni

si evolvono forme verso

la morte il silenzio

ma il moto elettrizza squame di luce

per le cavità e polverizza etere e nubi fino

al delta del pensiero e dell’orizzonte

(d’improvviso spalanca la geometria

ai fantasmi futuri la via

e l’alto e il basso abitano lo stesso piano)

e si addensa vieppiù nei giorni la scrittura

che cattura le meteore del passato:

sotto il sole – lassù – a perdifiato

parlano i ruderi oscuri della storia.

​

The Cumae collection opens with the poem Ruderi. It is a proemial poem, which therefore comes before the sections. It is presented in two linguistic ways, first in Latin and then in Italian. Sovente uses punctuation only in the last verses and the main characters are the ruins that will be present throughout the entire collection. The language is more refined than in the first two collections, Sovente plays with adjectives by creating juxtapositions such as anguste-alte (l. 2). The syntax is broken by hyperbata ("la fatica schizza del tempo," l. 3) and enjambements (ll. 8-9 and ll. 16-17). In this text we find many elements that will then be part of the lyrical world of Sovente, from Cumae onwards, namely those animal and mysterious presences that inhabit and animate the land: r"emote larve della terra" (l. 1), "i fantasmi futuri "(l. 12), "i ruderi oscuri della storia" (l. 17).

 

​

Le antiche donne cumane

 

1.

 

Ossute parlano donne dalle finestre

muovendo seni e palpebre a lungo

è amore l’ombra che attraversa

la superficie cava dei loro suoni

accennano a zuffe di animali sotto

la luna piena vicino al mare di Cuma

e sono cumane le donne che ridono

lentamente masticando un’arancia

circondate da lattughe e garofani.

 

2.

«Chi ha svuotato la botte stanotte?»

stupite chiedono le donne discinte

a lungo guardando l’acqua retrattile

e le pietre spettrali dell’Arco Felice

«Quale ladro si è portato via le cipolle?»

dalle finestre ai balconi precipita

la voce delle donne di Cuma che sanno

con una risata placare il rancore.

 

3.

 

Zitte ogni sera stanno tra le antiche

ombre le antiche donne cumane

la scia sullo specchio fissando di una

nave a pochi passi dall’acropoli ferma

sopra la fronte intrecciate le mani

i denti macchiati dall’acqua di pozzo

ascoltano il vuoto le donne di Cuma.

​

This poem has an explicit reference to the city that gives the title to the work itself. Michele Sovente recreates in this lyric poem three moments of some Cumaean women’s day:

• In the first stanza we assist to a night conversation from the windows.

• In the second one, Cumaean women talk and wonder about some unforeseen events discovered in the morning.

• In the third one, in the evening, the poet presents us a ship at sea, while the silence of women and of the city dominates.

As Liberti says, the inhabitants of Cumae are projected into an ancient Greek society, almost in a mythical dimension. They are characters that challenge the passage of time, anchored in the Phlegraean space but at the same time characters from another time[1].

He often tells us about the ancient Cumaean women describing their movements and their forms. We can see it from the very first lines, when he says ossute parlano donne dalle finestre muovendo seni e palpebre or even when he says "sono cumane le donne che ridono lentamente masticando un’arancia". He represents them in a field, as it can be understood from the verse circondate da lattughe e garofani, near the sea of Cumae.

The poet makes a reference to the past: "le antiche ombre le antiche donne cumane" and always describes his birthplace, that is the land of the Phlegraean Fields, also mentioning Arco Felice. These Cumaean women he talks about are women who once really cared about the land.

​

Tu, Cumae...

 

Adscipio prata lunaria

Pedes trans arvalia

Pipiant et quatiunt et maqria

In sempiterna ac varia

Concupiscentia inflantur, alia

Defluunt nomina de alia

 aestuosa plaga: clamas infernalia

clinamina tu, Cumae, ad sideralia

fastigia fugitans dum letalia

leniter lingunt calcaria

et cervices parvas et animalia

currentia ultra brumalia

cunicula: et alia…

 

Tu, Cuma

 

Guardo prati lunari

I piedi percorrono solitari

Campi e alveari

Stormiscono e sussultano mari

Avvolti da voluttuosi e vari

Bagliori, precari

Nomi scorrono da crinali

Ardenti che parlano di astrali

Effigi: tu, Cuma, invochi abissali

Infiorescenze, tra estuari

Bui svelandoti, mentre amari

Sproni scuotono gli animali

Che spiccano balzi mortali

Da un pendio all’altro, i crani frali

Negli anfratti: e ali e strali…

 

This poem is dedicated to the place that gives the title to the homonymous collection. The poet addresses himself directly to Cumae, through a personification. It is a one stanza poem in 15 lines, with two rhymes in assonance between them (-ari and -ali).

The landscape is animated by lights, glows and animals that seem to come from a mythical past. The whole poem is written as a description of an almost oneiric vision: the verb guardo (I watch) opens the poem and the poet’s view extends towards a mythical world, where there are no human elements. Cumae is more than a place, in its antrum the Sibyl’s prophecies still echo and some creatures emerge from its abyss referring to an almost fantastic imagery.

 

 

Di là

 

Di là, stretta nella sua pelle, come la

pietra antica e la clessidra che si ostina

a misurare il trascorrere rovinoso

dei venti, dei pensieri, nel lattiginoso

silenzio, nell’immensa brina, di là                         

sta Cuma, la Sibilla che delira.

 

​

The poem consists of six verses with a rhyming scheme ABCCAD, besides the presence of consonances and assonances. With the reference to the hourglass, the poet wants to emphasise the passage of time for the Sibyl who, according to the mythological story, asked Apollo to live as many years as there were grains of sand contained in the palm of the hand. The sand that flows in the hourglass represents time, both the slow one that remains to be lived for the Sybil, and the ruinous one, along which intangible powers such as winds and thoughts flow. At the centre of the poem there is still Cumae, but identified with the most famous figure of its history and perhaps of the entire local imagination: the Sybil, witness not only of the Greek-Roman roots of Campania, but of the essential role of it, in the constitution of archaic religious ideology. Sovente had great interest in the Cumaean Sibyl, to the point of wanting her ashes to be scattered in the cave; in addition he believed that the words of his compositions were dictated by her. Now the Sibyl in Cumae, isolated as in a cold and silent cave, reaches delirium, not being able to enjoy the ability to predict the future and so history, while at first, the Sibyl does not know and this strengthens the comparison between her and the mother of the poet, who reveals herself to be the memory of the territory and incapable of aging in Donna flegrea madre.

 

Parlerai

 

Parlerai, mia eco, mia stranita

ala, aperta strada verso agavi,

cigni, dolorose protuberanze, prima

del crepuscolo parlerai, briciola

randagia di veleno, di combattuta               

luce – tu a forma acuta e ottusa, tu

autunnale feritoia, anfora tu sommersa

e trasparente… -, lo so che non

rinuncerai a fare salti gioiosi tra

rottami, nuda mia voce e pelle                    

lacerata, mentre lampeggiano pagode

e bruciano arsenali, anche il ghiaccio

aspetto perché, mia spenta Sibilla, tu

chiusa nel tuo immoto sguardo, lo so

che infine, mia acqua, parlerai…        

       

The composition consists of a single stanza of 15 verses, most of which are connected by enjambments; there are assonances and consonances, which produce a slight musicality.

The passage opens with an invocation to Echo, nymph of the Oreads. Echo represents the voice of nature, which illuminates the poet’s mind. The poet trusts this fusion of nature and culture, able to "open the way", and he states that “poetry is a sound that produces knowledge”. The underlying meaning of the poem is found in line 12 where there is a clear reference to Sibyl, now lifeless, symbol of the inexorable flowing of time. As stated by the poet, the Sibyl is no longer able to predict the future and the only way to achieve happiness is  through poetry, which allows the passage of the nature’s voices: above all the leaves, connected with the cult of the Sibyl, being the means of transmission of her oracles, but especially the water in line 15, metaphor of a new hope. There is also a reference to a slit that allows the passage of light indoors: the value is figurative, because the voice is compared to the opening that allows the passage of autumn nature’s voices, symbolized by the leaves.

There are many references to objects of the local past, such as the pagodas of the Casina Vanvitelliana and the arsenals of Lucrino, which are used by the poet as a filter to observe space in a new way.

 

 

Donna flegrea madre

 

Donna flegrea madre

di radici antiche, terra aperta

a voci d’acqua, a luci

sul punto sempre di nascondersi

in fenditure, in antri, mea

sunt mea suspiria tui et vulnera,

paura non avevi di parlare

con rovine e schegge, per la guerra

tu passata per la morte

dei genitori tuoi, di cinque

tuoi figli, di mio padre, da nodi

attraversata da ripetuti sibili,

con paziente calcolo tutto conservavi

«non si può sapere cosa

il futuro ci riserva», pensavi,

nulla buttavi, flegreo

deposito di segni tu e di memorie

con il fluttuante suono dentro

di nuove maree, non rughe

in viso avevi, curve le vertebre

dove le stagioni a una a una

si erano raccolte, ruit perpetuo

fluit dolor tui per mea silentia,

di te perdo e ritrovo

un’altra luna sotto il rovo.

​

Donna flegrea madre is a single stanza poem which has 25 lines and is dedicated by Sovente to his mother, Maria Consiglia llliano, whose figure overlaps and takes on the features of the Phlegraean land. The relationship between Sovente and his mother was always very strong, also due to the early loss of his father. As Liberti says, the figure of the mother is the incarnation and the memory of the place, which explains the even visceral relationship that the poet has always wanted to establish with his land, seen as an extension of the parental presence[2]. In this poem the author presents the place he belongs to, the Phlegraean land, personified in the figure of the donna flegrea madre: these are the three attributes of Maria Consiglia Illiano. The maternal figure is understood in symbiosis with the surrounding space, made of sea and geological depressions.

Sovente often speaks of a territory characterised by the presence of evocative elements such as lakes, seas and hidden places. A landscape that has its roots in antiquity, bringing back the traces of all past events. Sovente, in fact, alludes to many elements: from the fascinating hisses of the den of the priestess Sybil (located by tradition in Cumae and representing the geographical manifestation of the Phlegraean mystery), to the cruelty and death sown by war. His mother grows up in the ruins of the war, Sovente finds his own ruins in the contemporary world. In this poem, the poet alternates the biographical moment with the analogy with the Phlegraean space. Mum Consiglia is not afraid of the past, she overcame the two world conflicts; with five children, only two, Michele and Luigi, survived. His father died when the poet was only nine years old. Mum Consiglia preserves everything, including memories, thus acting as a carrier of local memory, a much older memory than her. With the quotation from Latin mea sunt mea suspiria tui et vulnera, the author underlines the link with this land with which he also shares sighs and wounds, feeling them as his own. However, the description of the landscape also includes a reference to pain and death that affect its history.

​

Camminando per i Campi Flegrei

 

Perse pietre, insonne camminare

per sparse erbe, accompagnato

da soffi di canne languidamente

agitate nell’ora morta del primo

pomeriggio, arse erbe dimenticate

su muri sghembi, vado stranito

a raccogliere semi di girasole

in questo territorio una volta

abitato da eroi in fuga e divinità

dai nomi sdruccioli o piani, Venere

Demetra Dioniso Diana, ci sono

le pietre ancora, poche e sospese,

dei templi dove erano invocate, le

pietre sono il trionfo e la beffa

del tempo, ciò che rimane e ciò che

assolutamente freddo risuona, risuona

fatuo fastigio coronato da gloria

per braccia schiave in silenzio immolate,

già due millenni sono volati

seppellendo ossa e voci, statue e navi,

ma resiste la nuda cenere sotto

tutto il cemento cupo e folle di cui

fiero va il civilissimo mondo figlio

del progresso, che con cipiglio invincibile

colma crepacci, cancella tracce

di passato, considera relitti stupidi

la spiaggia il panorama il prato…

 

Vile paesaggio intorno vile altare

di barattoli siringhe stracci nafta,

smarrito fende il piede la sua ebbra

ombra dal vento risucchiata, oblio

e insensata solitudine corrodono

le generazioni nuove, il loro alito

e minimo germe di pensiero, frantumi

e neri grumi di angoscia invadono

le baldanzose notti assiderate. Ostile

castello di spettrali infiorescenze,

l’acqua il miele la clorofilla l’aria

ridotti a suono che più non consola,

sottile nube sospinta da ultrafetide

bocche dove rimuore il giorno, tutto

sa di tabe, non un millimetro di luce

lambisce più le orbite cave di tanti

e tanti in similpelle ormai, senza

altro pane che il loro stesso ingorgo

intestinale, e disseccata si ripete

la quotidiana interrogazione dei voli

labilissimi a fior di lago, lontana

più e più facendosi la sagoma della

luna sulla scheggiata grotta sibillina.

 

Pur smemorato, vinto dal sonno, vado

risuonando in me altro polline, altri

dissolti pianeti e lumi, densa saliva

e lucido sudore, pur rovistato da ombre

che dicono sordide macerie, mi muovo

la mano sinistra muovendo a enumerare

le pietre superstiti a picco sul mare.

 

​

This is the longest poem of the collection and has a narrative rhythm as it describes a walk through the Phlegraean Fields, so often mentioned in the previous lines. Here we find a clear return to the past, as in the central verses where he names several gods and heroes on the run (Venere, Demetra, Dionisio, Diana): today, in place of those characters, there are stones left that symbolise the glory and triumph of a time gone by. In the lyric poem, the present is described through a landscape polluted by the new generations who do not seem to care about anything. Even the air and the surroundings are polluted, which is why they are not as pleasant as they once were. In the end, the poet, despite being overwhelmed and haunted by the voices of the past that call him back, manages to communicate with the landscape.

The poem is divided into four stanzas of different lengths, the first two describe the landscape of the Phlegraean Fields, in the last one the poet talks about himself and his relationship with the territory.

 

[1] Michele Sovente- Cumae, critical and annotated edition by Giuseppe Andrea Liberti, Quodlibet, 2019.

[2] Michele Sovente- Cumae, critical and annotated edition by Giuseppe Andrea Liberti, Quodlibet, 2019, pp. 339 – 342.