You are like a creamy pullet,
my white hen,
whose plumes the wind disturbs
when she stoops to drink
or peck at the ground,
yet proceeding over the grass with measured step
just like a queen:
full-bosomed and superb
and better than roosters;
she is like all the females
of the peaceful animals,
close to God.
And so if eye and judgment
do not fool me,
among these your equal will be found,
and in no other woman.
And when the evening makes them comfortable,
the peaceful cluck of their troubles
reminds me of you
complaining,
and unaware
that like the hens
your voice makes sad and gentle music.

You are like a pregnant heifer,
happy still and without dullness,
even frisky,
who if you pet her
turns her neck where the coat glows,
a tint of rose.
Or, coming on her and listening to her moans,
so sad is her lament,
you are driven to gathering grass
to make her a gift.
And so it is I offer you my gift when you are sad

You are like the sleek bitch
so sweet of stare
but tough at heart.
When she lies down
she seems a saint
burning with unconquerable religion,
looking at you as though
you were her Lord and Master.
But when she follows you
through the house, in the street,
should anyone dare approach,
bares her lily teeth.
Love. Love and jealousy.

You are like the scared rabbit
who in her narrow cage
raises herself erect at sight of you
and stretches her ears,
keeping them stiff,
as though begging you to bring her the leavings,
radishes,
and when denied
curls up in the corner by herself,
snuggling the dark.
Who would hold food from her?
who would rob her
of the fur she nips from her back
to line her nest with
where she shall give birth?
O who would ever make you suffer?

You are like a swallow
returning in Spring,
departing in Autumn–
(but you’ve not learnt this trick!)
And, like the swallow, you have your light ways,
as when, the time I was feeling my age
and becoming ancient,
you predicted another Spring.

You are the thrifty ant
of whom, when they go to the country,
Grandmother speaks to the baby
as they take their walk.
And so too I find you in the bees,
as in all the females
of the peaceful animals,
close to God;
and in no other woman.

To My Wife, composed between 1909 and 1910 and first published in Casa e campagna (House and Land), is among the most famous of Umberto Saba’s poetic compositions. It is one of five poems in the series and, according to some, certainly the most scandalous.

In this poem, the newlywed Saba compares his wife to various animals and insects (hen, heifer, dog, rabbit, swallow, ant, and bee), associating her with a shy, spirited, and self-renewing nature and its creatures. Saba intended this to be a religious poem. It is written like a prayer, but this mattered little to his wife, who initially took offense at its frankness.

Saba represents his wife as having the core qualities of various animals that they both knew well and saw every day while living in the countryside. There are several obvious connections between biblical passages and Saba’s encomium of various animals. Each stanza shares the same beginning, with the anaphora “You’re like . . .” (Tu sei come . . .); this repetition reinforces the idea of incantation that is often one of the hallmarks of prayer and meditation. The elementary and direct lexicon can be understood by a child, but the tone is elevated by its syntax and other rhetorical figures.

The poem is made up of six stanzas of varying lengths, for a total of 87 lines in Italian, and features occasional strong rhyming lines with no apparent order. Through his wife, Carolina, Saba finds virtue in the various animals, and the poet’s recurrent use of simile makes this point obvious.

Saba includes a first-person point of view twice in the poem when he writes, “I give you gifts when you’re sad” and, in the last stanza: “And so I see you in the bee / and in all females / of all the untroubled creatures / who come close to God / and in no other woman.” The poet’s intimate idiom for his idiosyncratic vision reinforces the poem’s expression of the strictly personal relationship of the poet with this poem, with God’s creatures, and with his wife, a sacred connection that his observations of both tamed and untamed fauna help him express.

Bibliography

Saba, Umberto. The Dark of the Sun: Selected Poems of Umberto Saba. Translated by Christopher Millis. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994, 11–15.

———. An Anthology of His Poetry and Criticism. Translated by Robert Harrison. Troy, Mich.: International Book Publishers, 1986.

———. Songbook: Selected Poems from the Canzoniere of Umberto Saba. Bilingual edition. Translated by Stephen Sartarelli. New York: Sheep Meadow Press, 1998.

Categories: Italian Literature, Literature, World Literature

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