Il Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell'Asia è una poesia di Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) composta a Recanati tra il 1829-1830.
Il poeta, nelle vesti di un pastore, interroga la luna sulla condizione umana, e sul suo incarico di governare il gregge, che non è a conoscenza del dolore dell'esistenza, in quanto di natura animale; il pastore interroga ancora la luna, senza ricevere risposta; sogna di viaggiare, di volare via dal mondo, ma non può, e così conclude che è tragico l'essere nati.
Che fai tu, luna, in ciel? dimmi, che fai,
silenziosa luna?
Sorgi la sera, e vai,
contemplando i deserti; indi ti posi.
Ancor non sei tu paga
di riandare i sempiterni calli?
Ancor non prendi a schivo, ancor sei vaga
di mirar queste valli?
Marc Chagall | Solitude, 1933 | Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Somiglia alla tua vita
la vita del pastore.
Sorge in sul primo albore
move la greggia oltre pel campo, e vede
greggi, fontane ed erbe;
poi stanco si riposa in su la sera:
altro mai non ispera.
Dimmi, o luna: a che vale
al pastor la sua vita,
la vostra vita a voi? dimmi: ove tende
questo vagar mio breve,
il tuo corso immortale?
Vecchierel bianco, infermo,
mezzo vestito e scalzo,
con gravissimo fascio in su le spalle,
per montagna e per valle,
per sassi acuti, ed alta rena, e fratte,
al vento, alla tempesta, e quando avvampa
l’ora, e quando poi gela,
corre via, corre, anela,
varca torrenti e stagni,
cade, risorge, e piú e piú s’affretta,
senza posa o ristoro,
lacero, sanguinoso; infin ch’arriva
colá dove la via
e dove il tanto affaticar fu vòlto:
abisso orrido, immenso,
ov’ei precipitando, il tutto obblia.
Vergine luna, tale
è la vita mortale.
Nasce l’uomo a fatica,
ed è rischio di morte il nascimento.
Prova pena e tormento
per prima cosa; e in sul principio stesso
la madre e il genitore
il prende a consolar dell’esser nato.
Poi che crescendo viene,
l’uno e l’altro il sostiene, e via pur sempre
con atti e con parole
studiasi fargli core,
e consolarlo dell’umano stato:
Altro ufficio piú grato
non si fa da parenti alla lor prole.
Ma perché dare al sole,
perché reggere in vita
chi poi di quella consolar convenga?
Se la vita è sventura,
perché da noi si dura?
Intatta luna, tale
è lo stato mortale.
Ma tu mortal non sei,
e forse del mio dir poco ti cale.
Pur tu, solinga, eterna peregrina,
che sí pensosa sei, tu forse intendi
questo viver terreno,
il patir nostro, il sospirar, che sia;
che sia questo morir, questo supremo
scolorar del sembiante,
e perir della terra, e venir meno
ad ogni usata, amante compagnia.
E tu certo comprendi
il perché delle cose, e vedi il frutto
del mattin, della sera,
del tacito, infinito andar del tempo.
Tu sai, tu certo, a qual suo dolce amore
rida la primavera,
a chi giovi l’ardore, e che procacci
il verno co’ suoi ghiacci.
Mille cose sai tu, mille discopri,
che son celate al semplice pastore.
Spesso quand’io ti miro
star cosí muta in sul deserto piano,
che, in suo giro lontano, al ciel confina;
ovver con la mia greggia
seguirmi viaggiando a mano a mano;
e quando miro in cielo arder le stelle;
dico fra me pensando:
- A che tante facelle?
che fa l’aria infinita, e quel profondo
infinito seren? che vuol dir questa
solitudine immensa? ed io che sono? -
Cosí meco ragiono: e della stanza
smisurata e superba,
e dell’innumerabile famiglia;
poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
d’ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
girando senza posa,
per tornar sempre lá donde son mosse;
uso alcuno, alcun frutto
indovinar non so. Ma tu per certo,
giovinetta immortal, conosci il tutto.
Questo io conosco e sento,
che degli eterni giri,
che dell’esser mio frale,
qualche bene o contento
avrá fors’altri; a me la vita è male.
O greggia mia che posi, oh te beata,
che la miseria tua, credo, non sai!
Quanta invidia ti porto!
Non sol perché d’affanno
quasi libera vai;
ch’ogni stento, ogni danno,
ogni estremo timor subito scordi;
ma piú perché giammai tedio non provi.
Quando tu siedi all’ombra, sovra l’erbe,
tu se’ queta e contenta;
e gran parte dell’anno
senza noia consumi in quello stato.
Ed io pur seggo sovra l’erbe, all’ombra,
e un fastidio m’ingombra
la mente; ed uno spron quasi mi punge
sí che, sedendo, piú che mai son lunge
da trovar pace o loco.
E pur nulla non bramo,
e non ho fino a qui cagion di pianto.
Quel che tu goda o quanto,
Non so giá dir; ma fortunata sei.
Ed io godo ancor poco,
o greggia mia, né di ciò sol mi lagno.
Se tu parlar sapessi, io chiederei:
- Dimmi: perché giacendo
bell’agio, ozioso,
s’appaga ogni animale;
me, s’io giaccio in riposo, il tedio assale?
Forse s’avess’io l’ale
da volar su le nubi,
e noverar le stelle ad una ad una,
o come il tuono errar di giogo in giogo,
piú felice sarei, dolce mia greggia,
piú felice sarei, candida luna.
O forse erra dal vero,
mirando all’altrui sorte, il mio pensiero:
forse in qual forma, in quale
stato che sia, dentro covile o cuna,
è funesto a chi nasce il dí natale.
Giacomo Leopardi (Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist, 1798-1837).
Giacomo Leopardi | Night-song of a wandering shepherd of Asia
Around the end of 1829 or the first months of 1830, Leopardi composed the Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell'Asia ("Night-time chant of a wandering Asian sheep-herder").
In writing this piece, Leopardi drew inspiration from the reading of Voyage d'Orenbourg à Boukhara fait en 1820, by the Russian baron Meyendorff, in which the baron tells of how certain sheep-herders of central Asia belonging to the Kirghiz population practiced a sort of ritual chant consisting of long and sweet strophes directed at the full moon.
The canto, which is divided into five strophes of equal length, takes the form of a dialogue between a sheep-herder and the moon.
The canto begins with the words "Che fai tu Luna in ciel? Dimmi, che fai, / silenziosa Luna?" ("What do you do Moon in the sky? Tell me, what do you do, / silent Moon?").
Throughout the entire poem, in fact, the moon remains silent, and the dialogue is transformed therefore into a long and urgent existential monologue of the sheep-herder, in desperate search of explanations to provide a sense to the pointlessness of existence.
The two characters are immersed in an indeterminate space and time, accentuating the universal and symbolic nature of their encounter: the sheep-herder represents the human species as a whole and his doubts are not contingent - that is, anchored to a here and now - but are rather characteristic of man at all times; the moon, on the other hand, represents Nature, the "beautiful and terrible" force that fascinates and, at the same time, terrifies the poet.
The sheep-herder, a man of humble condition, directs his words to the moon in a polite but insistent tone, seething with melancholy.
It is precisely the absence of response on the part of the celestial orb which provokes him to continue to investigate, ever more profoundly, into the role of the moon, and therefore into that of humanity, with respect to life and the world, defining ever more sharply the "arid truth" so dear to the poetry of Leopardi.
In the first strophe, in fact, the sheep-herder, even while defining the moon as silent, actually expects a response from it and discovers many analogies between his own condition and that of the moon: both of them arise in the morning, follow their always self-identical paths and finally stop to rest.
The life of the moon, as much as that of the sheep-herder, seems completely senseless.
There appears, however, in the middle of this strophe, a very important distinction: the course of human life is finite and its passage, similar to that of a "vecchierel bianco" (Petrarch, Canzoniere, XVI), terminates tragically in the "horrid abyss" of death.
Such a condition, which is defined in the second strophe as a condition of profound suffering ("se la vita è sventura, perché da noi si dura?") is extremely different from that of the Moon, which seems instead to be eternal, "virgin", and "intact".
In the third strophe, the sheep-herder turns again to the moon with renewed vigor and hope, believing that the orb, precisely because of this privileged extra-worldly condition, can provide him the answers to his most urgent questions: what is life?
What could possibly be its purpose since it is necessarily finite?
What is the first cause of all being?
But the moon, as the sheep-herder learns quickly, cannot provide the answers to these questions even if it knew them, since such is nature: distant, incomprehensible, mute if not indifferent to the concerns of man.
The sheep-herder's search for sense and happiness continues all the way to the final two strophes.
In the fourth, the sheep-herder turns to his flock, observing how the lack of self-awareness that each sheep has allows it to live out, in apparent tranquillity, its brief existence, without suffering or boredom.
But this idea is ultimately rejected by the sheep-herder himself in the final strophe, in which he admits that, probably, in whatever form life is born and manifests itself, whether moon, sheep or man, whatever it is capable of doing, life is equally bleak and tragic.
In this period, Leopardi's relations with his family are reduced to a minimum and he is constrained to maintain himself on his own financially.
In 1830, after sixteen months of "notte orribile" (awful night), he accepted a generous offer from his Tuscan friends, which enabled him to leave Recanati.
Why are you there, Moon, in the sky? Tell me
why you are there, silent Moon.
You rise at night, and go
contemplating deserts: then you set.
Are you not sated yet
with riding eternal roads?
Are you not weary, still wishing
to gaze at these valleys?
It mirrors your life,
the life of a shepherd.
He rises at dawn:
he drives his flock over the fields, sees
the flocks, the streams, the grass:
tired at evening he rests:
expecting nothing more.
Tell me, O Moon, what life is
worth to a shepherd, or
your life to you? Tell me: where
does my brief wandering lead,
or your immortal course?
Like an old man, white-haired, infirm,
barefoot and half-naked,
with a heavy load on his shoulders,
running onwards, panting,
over mountains, through the valleys,
on sharp stones, in sand and thickets,
wind and storm, when the days burn
and when they freeze,
through torrents and marshes,
falling, rising, running faster,
faster, without rest or pause,
torn, bleeding: till he halts
where all his efforts,
all the roads, have led:
a dreadful, vast abyss
into which he falls, headlong, forgetting all.
Virgin Moon,
such is the life of man.
Man is born in labour:
and there’s a risk of death in being born.
The very first things he learns
are pain and anguish: from the first
his mother and father
console him for being born.
Jean-François Millet | The gust of wind | National Museum Wales
Then as he grows
they both support him, go on
trying, with words and actions,
to give him heart,
console him merely for being human:
there’s nothing kinder
a parent can do for a child.
Yet why bring one who needs
such comforting to life,
and then keep him alive?
If life is a misfortune,
why grant us such strength?
Such is the human condition,
inviolate Moon.
But you who are not mortal,
care little, maybe, for my words.
Yet you, lovely, eternal wanderer,
so pensive, perhaps you understand
this earthly life,
this suffering, the sighs that exist:
what this dying is, this last
fading of our features,
the vanishing from earth, the losing
all familiar, loving company.
And you must understand
the ‘why’ of things, and view the fruits
of morning, evening,
silence, endless passing time.
You know (you must) at what sweet love
of hers the springtime smiles,
the use of heat, and whom the winter
benefits with frost.
Giovanni Segantini | Dopo il temporale / After the thunderstorm
You know a thousand things, reveal
a thousand things still hidden from a simple shepherd.
Often as I gaze at you
hanging so silently, above the empty plain
that the sky confines with its far circuit:
or see you steadily
follow me and my flock:
or when I look at the stars blazing in the sky,
musing I say to myself:
‘What are these sparks,
this infinite air, this deep
infinite clarity? What does this
vast solitude mean? And what am I?’
So I question. About these
magnificent, immeasurable mansions,
and their innumerable family:
and the steady urge, the endless motion
of all celestial and earthly things,
circling without rest,
always returning to their starting place:
I can’t imagine
their use or fruit. But you, deathless maiden,
I’m sure, know everything.
This I know, and feel,
that others, perhaps, may gain
benefit and comfort from
the eternal spheres, from
my fragile being: but to me life is evil.
O flock at peace, O happy creatures,
I think you have no knowledge of your misery!
How I envy you!
Not only because
you’re almost free of worries:
quickly forgetting all hardship,
every hurt, each deep fear:
but because you never know tedium.
When you lie in the shade, on the grass,
you’re peaceful and content:
and you spend most of the year
untroubled, in that state.
If I sit on the grass, in the shade,
weariness clouds my mind,
and, as if a thorn pricked me,
sitting there I’m still further
from finding peace and rest.
Yet there’s nothing I need,
and I’ve known no reason for tears.
I can’t say what you enjoy
or why: but you’re fortunate.
O my flock: there’s little still
I enjoy, and that’s not all I regret.
If you could speak, I’d ask you:
‘Tell me, why are all creatures
at peace, idle, lying
in sweet ease: why, if I lie down
to rest, does boredom seize me?’
If I had wings, perhaps,
to fly above the clouds,
and count the stars, one by one,
or roam like thunder from crest to crest,
I’d be happier, my sweet flock,
I’d be happier, bright moon.
Or perhaps my thought
strays from truth, gazing at others’ fate:
perhaps whatever form, whatever state
it’s in, its cradle or its fold,
the day of birth is dark to one that’s born.
Edward Henry Potthast | Along the Mystic River, 1925-1927 | Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum
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