Sopra un basso rilievo antico sepolcrale, dove una giovane morta è rappresentata in atto di partire, accomiatandosi dai suoi
Canzone in seven verses of varying length, composed between 1831 and 1835 and first published in the Naples 1835 edition. The title translates as Upon a bas-relief of an ancient sepulchre, where a dead young girl is represented in the act of departure, taking leave of her parents.
With the subsequent Sopra il ritratto di una bella donna/Upon the portrait of a beautiful woman it constitutes the so called “sepolcrali” or sepulchral poems, linked to reflections on death (a theme often present in Leopardi’s mind, from the Operette morali/Moral Operettas to the Zibaldone), and in particular the death of young women (more immediate examples are A Silvia and Ricordanze/Remembrances, but the theme was already present in Ricordi d’infanzia e di adolescenza/Memories of childhood and adolescence, and in his early Canto Il sogno/The dream).
The heart to the Canto is an anguished metaphysical interrogation addressed to nature, “Mother feared and wept for”, “laudable marvel, / who to kill gives birth and feeds” (v. 44; vv. 46-7): if to die is something bad, why allow it in innocent creatures? And if it is good, why does the loss of dear ones so pain those who remain alive?
se danno è del mortale
immaturo perir, come il consenti
in quei capi innocenti?
Se ben, perché funesta,
perché sovra ogni male,
a chi si parte, a chi rimane in vita,
inconsolabil fai tal dipartita?
And it is indeed the cruelty of such a loss of one’s dear ones which motivates a further series of questions addressed to nature (vv. 75-107); questions that alas remain without answer, considering that nature (and here the theme of the indifference of nature, central to Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese, is back) “of other things in what it does / is it concerned rather than our plights or fortunes” (vv. 108-9):
Come, hai come, o natura il cor ti soffre
di strappar dalle braccia
all’amico l’amico,
al fratello il fratello,
la prole al genitore,
all’amante l’amore: e l’uno estinto,
l’altro in vita serbar? Come potesti
far necessario in noi
tanto dolor, che sopravviva amando
al mortale il mortal? ... (vv. 98-107)
