Le ricordanze
Canto (the title of which translates as Remembrances) in hendecasyllables, composed in Recanati between 26 August and 12 September 1829, it was first published in the Florence 1831 edition.
The theme of remembrance, addressed in many places in the Zibaldone, is one of the poet’s fundamental themes, and in particular in the Cantos from the Risorgimento to Sabato del villaggio/Village Saturday (we should also recall how La ricordanza was the original title of Alla luna). In this Canto, almost an autobiography (that autobiography which Leopardi never managed to compose in the form of a “romance”, despite several attempts at autobiographical writings), we find some of the themes that were most important for the poet, linked both to pain for present life (“ma con dolor sottentra / il pensier del presente/But with pain comes to me the thought of the present”, vv. 58-9), and the sad recollection of the past and the loss of youthful hopes. Among the most important, the anguish for the life the poet was forced to live in Recanati:
natio borgo selvaggio, intra una gente
zotica, vil; cui nomi strani, e spesso
argomento di riso e di trastullo,
son dottrina e saper ...
Qui passo gli anni, abbandonato, occulto,
senz’amor, senza vita; ed aspro a forza
tra lo stuol de’ malevoli divengo (vv. 30-3, 38-40).
Among the themes tied to past memories (among them the “vaghe stelle dell’Orsa” the stars of the Big Dipper that he gazed at “as they twinkled over the paternal gardens”, or “il suon dell’ora / dalla torre del borgo”, the clock on the steeple sounding out the hour, vv. 1-3, 50-1), of particular importance is that of his youthful love for Nerina, one of the girls who die young that populate the Canti, in the Sogno, A Silvia and Sopra un basso rilievo:
O Nerina! E di te forse non odo
questi luoghi parlar? caduta forse
dal mio pensier sei tu? Dove sei gita,
che qui sola di te la ricordanza
trovo, dolcezza mia?...
... Ove sei, che più non odo
la tua voce sonar, siccome un giorno,
quando soleva ogni lontano accento
del labbro tuo, ch’a me giungesse, il volto
scolorarmi? Altro tempo. I giorni tuoi
furo, mio dolce amor. Passasti. ... (vv. 136-40, 144-9)
