In occasion of sister Paolina’s wedding
Canzone composed at Recanati between October and November 1821, and first published in the Bologna 1824 edition (in the Preambolo to the reprint of the Annotataions to the ten Canzoni published in the “Nuovo Ricoglitore” of September 1825, Leopardi defines it “a wedding Canzone” that “speaks neither of the bridal chamber and the zone or of Venus and the Nuptials”).
Prompted by the announcement of the wedding, later cancelled, of his sister with Andrea Peroli (Giacomo had himself taken an interest in the matter when on 1st February 1823 he wrote to Pietro Giordani: “She wished, and this (I confess) because it was my wish and that of Carlo, to have a fashionable wedding, that is to say of interest, taking that gentleman who was so ugly and without spirit, but ... deemed to be rich. It was later discovered that this last quality had been wrongly attributed to him, and the agreement that had already been reached was dissolved”), this Canzone recovers a draft of Dell’educare la gioventù italiana/Of educating Italian youth and a literary sketch entitled “A Virginia romana”.
The Canzone’s central theme is a comparison between the vile and corrupt modern Italy and heroic antiquity, with particular reference to the education of children. On this subject the comparison between the glorious models of old (that of the young Spartans and above all that of Virginia, who prays to her father: “And if albeit am I alive and youthful / Rome shall have my blood, to the last drop”, vv. 89-90) and the sad present, in which a mother’s choice for the future of her offspring can but be bitter, is desultory:
O miseri o codardi
figliuoli avrai. Miseri eleggi. Immenso
tra fortuna e valor dissidio pose
il corrotto costume. Ahi troppo tardi,
e nella sera dell’umane cose,
acquista oggi chi nasce il moto e il senso. (vv. 16-21)
Or miserable or cowardly children you shall have. Miserable elect. Our corrupt customs set a great gap with fortune and valour. Alas too late, and upon the eve of human matters, do those who are born today acquire motion and sense.
