Bisanzio, le traduzioni

BYZANTHIUM [Bisanzio]
Traduzione inglese di Riccardo Venturi

So, even tonight the moon has risen
Drowned in too red, too vague a colour
And you can’t see Vesper, it’s growing dark
The point of the stylus has broken
What horoscope can you cast tonight, Magician?
I, Philematios, archiater, mathematician, astronomer,
Maybe a sage, groping in the dark like a blind man,
I have not the knowledges, or the courage
To cast this horoscope, to divine an oracle
And I stay here waiting for the dawn to come...
And I must say, I must say
That I am maybe too old to understand
That I did loose my faith in no matter what abuse or otium
Or are the stars changing in the equinoctial nights?
I, maybe, I, maybe
Have underestimated this new god, for sure,
I feel, I see in the stars that something is changing
But it is only a sign that doesn’t tell me how and when..
On last ev’ning I was walking almost unconciously
To the Bosphoreion harbour, where dryland does fade
In the sea and becomes a vague infinite
And when you’re back on dryland, another Continent,
No matter if the sea was blue or green,
I heard groups of drunkards singing absurd songs,
With their painted eyes, with their empty glances
A hippodrome, a brothel, soldiers from the North
Tell me, Romans and Greeks, where have you gone?
I heard bloody oaths in Alemannic and Gothic...
Strange city, absurd city
Of this emperor who’s the bridegroom of a whore
Of an immense plebs, of labyrinths, of impiety
Of barbarians who, maybe, do already know the truth
Of philosophers, of heterae,
Hanging between two epochs and two worlds
My wealth and age decided for a day not far to come
And then, fate would ask her that she would give me her hand, but...
Byzanthium’s maybe only an imperscrutable symbol, secret and ambiguous just like this life
Byzanthium is a world I’m not accustom’d to, Byzanthium is a dream not coming to an end
Byzanthium, maybe, has never exist’d, and I still don’t know, another night has gone
Lucifer’s already risen, there’s a blow of wind, it is cold on the tower or it’s my sick age
I can’t tell life from death, which of the two has gone
I cover my head with my mantle, I can’t hear anything more
Falling asleep, falling asleep, falling asleep.