Back to work

I went back to work yesterday or I should say I am now in paid employment. It will be good to have coppers to jangle in my pocket but I shall have less time to spend on my blog!

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My Italian word of the day: si

La Parola del Giorno

I have set myself the challenge of translating ‘Storia di una Capinera’ by Giovanni Verga into English at the rate of a word a day.

Verga: Storia di una capinera (book cover)

___________

 

The next new word in the text is ‘si’.

My dictionary gives this as:

si (pron) = himself, herself, itself

___________

 

Here is an example:

 Si guardava allo specchio. = He was watching himself in the mirror.

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The story so far

Original text:

Storia di una capinera

Avevo visto una povera capinera chiusa in gabbia: era timide, triste, malaticcia ci guardava con occhio spaventato; si

My translation:

Story of a blackcap

I had seen a poor blackcap locked in a cage: it was timid, sad, sickly it watched us with terrified eye; itself (this will become clearer with the next word)

an alternative:

I have seen a poor blackcap locked in a cage: timid, sad and sickly it watched us with a terrified eye; itself

___________

Vocabulary:

The vocabulary has been moved to its own page.

Please click here:

>>> * VOCABOLARIO * <<<

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Navigation:

<<	Previous Italian Word of the Day: spaventato	Next Italian Word of the Day: rifuggiava	>>

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My Italian word of the day: spaventato

La Parola del Giorno

I have set myself the challenge of translating ‘Storia di una Capinera’ by Giovanni Verga into English at the rate of a word a day.

Verga: Storia di una capinera (book cover)

___________

 The next new word in the text is ‘spavenato’.

My dictionary gives this as:

spaventato (agg m) = frightened, scared, terrified

___________

 Here is an example:

Un personaggio spaventato fugge il più velocemente possibile dalla fonte della paura. = A frightened person flees as fast as possible from the source of fear.

___________

The story so far

 Original text:

Storia di una capinera

 Avevo visto una povera capinera chiusa in gabbia: era timide, triste, malaticcia ci guardava con occhio spaventato;

My translation:

Story of a blackcap

 I had seen a poor blackcap locked in a cage: it was timid, sad, sickly it watched us with terrified eye;

an alternative:

I have seen a poor blackcap locked in a cage: timid, sad and sickly it watched us with a terrified eye;

___________

Vocabulary:

The vocabulary has been moved to its own page.

Please click here       >>> * VOCABOLARIO * <<<

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Navigation:

<<	Previous Italian Word of the Day: occhio	Next Italian Word of the Day: si	>>

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Barba Toni by Boz

Little Italy

I had the opportunity, recently, to walk along the Clerkenwell Road again, and explore the area we used to live and play when I was a kid. Then it was called “Little Italy”. It seemed grey and dirty compared with the bright colours of my memories. I turned right into Eyre Street and it all came flooding back to me. The pub was still there and the little café, now closed, where Barba Toni was king. Across the road, the house where Mum, Dad, Nonna and we three kids used to shared 2 rooms is gone, but I could still see it in my mind’s eye and remember waking early, every morning to Barba Toni’s singing. I’d go to the window and there he was.

At half past 5 every morning Barba Toni was to be found with his broom outside his pride and joy the Sun Café. To us kids, he was always ‘Barba’, it means ‘Uncle’ in Piedmont; to his customers he was always Toni. Some of them had been taking their breakfast at his cosy little café for twenty years and had watched him grow from a skinny young man to the rotund, rosy-faced man we knew as kids. Barba wore a large black moustache and his thick black hair was well-oiled and combed back, curling over his collar. He wore a black waistcoat and trousers in all weathers.

Everyone knew Barba around London’s ‘Little Italy’. His singing and whistling could be heard all over. It spent a lot of time on his doorstep talking to friends in the street. The smell of freshly ground coffee drew people to his place like a magic spell. First thing in the morning he was out greeting the postman and the milkman with an enlivening espresso and, in the cold winters, a small grappa. They’d stay to chat and didn’t want to leave his warm hospitality.

Every so often he’d pop inside the café and check his beautiful shiny espresso coffee machine. He gave it a little polish with the pure white tea-towel that he always carried over his shoulder. He checked the level of the beans in the mill and inspected the cups and saucers.

As the morning progressed the street would get busier and the delivery vans would arrive to deliver to the local dairy and Newsagents. The greengrocer came back from Covent Garden with boxes full of fresh vegetables.

‘Hey! Toni! What’s that song you’re singing?” the newsagent called across the road.

‘Non piangere, Lui,’ he stopped momentarily, ‘please don’t cry’.

‘Can’t you whistle?’ always the same teasing response.

‘Dio Santo! I’ll whistle, when your coffee is ready! Puccini is too good for you! Testa di legno!’, he grumbled as he put his head through the Café door.

‘Maria, has that cretino across the road paid off his bill this week?”

When I went down to breakfast, I could hear my Dad, il cretino, laughing loudly in the shop, ‘that Toni, he’ll be the death of me!’

Fragments by Boz

Little Italy Procession

 

Venus and Adonis by Paolo Veronese (1580)

Venus and Adonis by Paolo Veronese (1580)

Venus and Adonis

Venus had been wounded by one of Cupid’s arrows. Before the wound has time to heal she catches sight of Adonis and is infatuated.

Adonis is later killed by a wild boar that has been attacked by his dogs.

Distraught, Venus changes his blood into a flower: the Anemone.

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Venus and Adonis by William Browne

Venus by Adonis’ side
Crying kiss’d, and kissing cried;
Wrung her hands and tore her hair,
For Adonis dying there.

Stay! quoth she: O stay and live!
Nature surely doth not give
To the earth her sweetest flowers
To be seen but some few hours.

On his face, still as he bled,
For each drop a tear she shed,
Which she kiss’d or wiped away, —
Else had drown’d him where he lay.

Fair Proserpina, quoth she,
Shall not have thee yet from me;
Nor thy soul to fly begin
While my lips can keep it in.

Here she closed again. And some
Say — Apollo would have come
To have cured his wounded limb —
But that she had smother’d him.

Venus and Adonis by William Browne
From Britannia’s Pastoral

William Browne (1590-1650?)

My Italian word of the day: occhio

La Parola del Giorno

I have set myself the challenge of translating ‘Storia di una Capinera’ by Giovanni Verga into English at the rate of a word a day.

___________

 

The next new word in the text is ‘occhio’.

 

My dictionary gives this as:

 

occhio (sm) = eye

 

 ___________

 

Here is an example:

 

Le persone con l’occhio azzurro sono molto invidiate = People with blue eyes are much envied

 

___________

 

The story so far

 

Original text:

 

Storia di una capinera

 

Avevo visto una povera capinera chiusa in gabbia: era timide, triste, malaticcia ci guardava con occhio

 

My translation:

 

Story of a blackcap

 

I had seen a poor blackcap locked in a cage: it was timid, sad, sickly it watched us with eye (this will become clearer as we translate the following words).

 

___________

 

 

Vocabulary:

The vocabulary has been moved to its own page.

Please click here       >>> * VOCABOLARIO * <<<

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Navigation:

<<	Previous Italian Word of the Day: con	Next Italian Word of the Day: spaventato	>>

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