A Silvia

Composed in Pisa 19-20 April 1828, immediately after Il risorgimento, and with the same “spirit” (Leopardi wrote to his sister on 2 May ’28: “after two years, I wrote some verse this April; but truly verses in my old style, and with the heart I once had”, referring to the Risorgimento and to A Silvia). First published in the Florence 1831 edition, it is the first “canzone libera”, or “leopardiana” (in hendecasyllable and  seven-syllable verses of different length with varied rhymes).

Behind the name Silvia (taken, as for that of Nerina in the Ricordanze, from Tasso’s Aminta) are probably hidden memories of some young girls from Recanati about which Leopardi talks in the Ricordi d’infanzia e di adolescenza/Memories of childhood and adolescence, and in particular that of Teresa Fattorini, who died of consumption in 1818. What is, of course, important, is not the exact details of the story, but the image of a girl who dies young that, starting with his own autobiography, Leopardi constructed in the Canti: from the Sogno/Dream to A Silvia, and the  Ricordanze/Remembrances, as well as Sopra un bassorilievo antico sepolcrale/Upon a bas-relief of an ancient sepulchre.

How the poem, which is one of his most famous, is articulated is well known: the first part, with the splendid memory of Silvia who sings as she works at a spindle, is dedicated to Silvia’s and the poet’s youthful hopes. The second part is instead dedicated to the end of those hopes: caused, in the girl’s case, by death (which has however saved her from future disappointments); in the case of the poet, from the “apparir del vero/ appearance of truth” (v. 60), that is to say the understanding that human life is of need unhappy, and not how we dream it to be when we are young:

Che pensieri soavi,

che speranze, che cori, o Silvia mia!

Quale allor ci apparia

la vita umana e il fato!

Quando sovviemmi di cotanta speme,

un affetto mi preme

acerbo e sconsolato,

e tornami a doler di mia sventura.

O natura, o natura,

perché non rendi poi

quel che prometti allor? perché di tanto

inganni i figli tuoi? (vv. 28-39)