Citazione della Settimana / Quote of the Week

Vi siete mai trovata, dopo una pioggia di autunno, a sbaragliare un esercito di formiche, tracciando sbadatamente il nome del vostro ultimo ballerino sulla sabbia del viale? Qualcuna di quelle povere bestioline sarà rimasta attaccata alla ghiera del vostro ombrellino, torcendosi di spasimo; ma tutte le altre, dopo cinque minuti di pànico e di viavai, saranno tornate ad aggrapparsi disperatamente al loro monticello bruno. – Voi non ci tornereste davvero, e nemmen io; – ma per poter comprendere siffatta caparbietà, che è per certi aspetti eroica, bisogna farci piccini anche noi, chiudere tutto lʼorizzonte fra due zolle, e guardare col microscopio le piccole cause che fanno battere i piccoli cuori. Giovanni Verga, “Fantasticheria”, da Vita dei campi (1880).

Have you ever found yourself, after an autumn rain,  routing an army of ants, tracing carelessly in the sand on the road the name of the last person you danced with? Some of those poor little things will remain stuck to the ferrule of your umbrella, writhing in agony. But all the others, after five minutes of panic and bustle, will return to cling desperately to their brown mound. You would not really return there, and nor would I. But in order to understand such determination, which is in some ways heroic, we need to be like children, to close the whole horizon between two dug-up pieces of turf, and look with a microscope at the little things that make little hearts beat. Giovanni Verga, “Fantasticheria”, from Vita dei campi (1880). English translation by Leonardo Ciampa.

Translator's note: A zolla is what a golfer might call a "divot": a small, compact piece of soil or sod that has been detached from the ground by a man-made tool, such as a plow or a spade. Verga's use of the word zolla is very meaningful and expressive; he's talking about a little piece of earth that was spared the misfortune of having been dug up by man, with dug-up earth on either side of it.

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