La danse de L'Euro (cliquez sur l'image pour les crédits )

Voici l’hymne à l’Euro qui ne cède pas.

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Sous le feu des spéculateurs,
sous l’attaque des agences de notation
au moment même de son grand effort
pour sortir de la crise,
la zone Euro ne s’effondrera pas.

Ils disent que le dollar américain
(et la livre sterling)
n’aiment pas l’Euro.

S’il est vrai, c’est une grave erreur.

Ils devraient aller main dans la main.

Malgré leurs détracteurs
(où qu’ils se trouvent)
l’Euro et l’UE
seront renforcée à la fin.

Cette danse composée par moi
pour nos pièces de monnaie tintement
(que les lecteurs me pardonnent)
exprime ce sentiment.

C’est la danse de l’Europe
qui défie et avance,
et qui finira
par se retrouver plus unie.

La danza dell'Euro (per i credits clicca sull'immagine)

La danza dell’Euro

Ecco l’inno all’Euro che non cede.

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Sotto il fuoco della speculazione
e l’attacco delle agenzie di rating
proprio quando lottava per rialzarsi,
la zona Euro non crollerà.

Si dice che al dollaro
(e alla sterlina)
l’Euro non piaccia.

Se è vero, è un grave errore.

Essi dovrebbero andare a braccetto.

Malgrado i detrattori
(ovunque essi siano)
l’Euro e l’Unione Europea
usciranno dalla crisi più forti di prima.

Questa danza da me composta
per la nostra moneta tintinnante
(mi perdonino i lettori)
esprime tale sentimento.

E’ un inno all’Europa
che sfida e avanza
e finirà per ritrovarsi più unita.

Are the Euro coins dancing? Click for attribution

Euro Dance

Here is a hymn to the Euro that does not yield.

ψ

Under the fire of speculators,
under the attack of the rating agencies
at the very moment of its great effort
to rise from the crisis,
the Euro zone will not collapse.

They say the US Dollar
(and the Pound Sterling)
do not like the Euro.

If true, it is a big mistake.

They should go hand in hand.

Despite their detractors
(wherever they are)
both the Euro and the EU
will be strengthened in the end.

So this dance I composed
for our tinkling coins
(may readers pardon me)
that expresses this sentiment.

It is the dance of Europe
challenging forward,
and therefore getting more united,
in the end.

As promised in the previous post here are some of the oral Greek poems collected on the field from the Griko people – South Italians who still speak Greek.

It is a selection from the book Il tesoro delle parole morte (Argo, 2009, Lecce) by Brizio Montinaro which regards the Griko poetry from Salento, Apulia. Some of these poems were collected by Montinaro himself, whose mother is Griko.

My translation is inadequate and in progress. Any suggestion is welcome. I’ll provide the Greek text of the first poem only.

Mαχάιρι ᾽ναι τὰ μάτια σου,
σπαθιὰ τὰ δυό σου φρύδια
καὶ παὶζουνε με τὴν καρδιὰ
πολλῶ λογιῶ παιχνὶδια.

Knife your eyes
Swords your eyebrows:
They play with the heart
Games of great art.

ψ

That curl so fair
That is bending under your ear
Woven with silk thread,
The most beautiful of your whole head.
Ah had I that curl in my hand!
Out of joy I would fly to heaven’s land.

ψ

Here comes the sun, the moon, the star,
Here comes the maiden who breaks my heart apart.
Here is she who points a knife at me
And chases me away but I cannot but stay.

ψ

Your bosom hides two lemons
That send such a sweet scent.
Give at least one of them to us
To turn over in our hands.
“I hoe, I water, I do not offer lemons.
Go to the gardener, maybe there will be grace.”

ψ

Wherever you go, young man,
May the sun not burn you, and a cloud
May appear in the sky to protect you.

ψ

The wind came
And took away your scarf
And it removed my hat
Uncovering your fair neck.
That night happily I slept.

ψ

ψ

When you see me, as a viper you hide in the bush:
I am he who put your breasts upside down.

ψ

Girl of mine, it was night when we kissed.
By whom were we seen?
By the night, by the dawn, by the star and the moon.
The star bowed and told the sea,
The sea told the oar, the oar told the sailor,
And the sailor sang it at the door of his love.

ψ

I kissed red lips and they dyed my own,
I cleaned them with a cloth
And they dyed the cloth.
I washed the cloth in the river and it dyed the river
Which dyed the beach shore and it dyed the sea floor.
An eagle came down to drink and dyed its wings,
And the sun was half dyed and the moon in the full.

ψ

May I become a swallow and enter your room
And make my nest in your pillow.

ψ

And I wish I were a flea from here
To get like a hawk into your bed,
And nibble all that flesh,
And you’d let down your hand and catch me!

ψ

Martano, one of the Griko towns of Salento. A poem below refers to it. Click for credits

ψ

I sigh and burn,
And my heart drips blood.
But the pain is sweet
When I suffer for you.

ψ

As maiden I loved you, as woman I had you not,
Soon the time will arrive when as widow you’ll be mine.

ψ

Foolish was I to love you!
Like the wind you never stop.
Better had I loved a wall,
It would perhaps have stopped a moment.
Better had I loved a stone,
It would have softened and something I’d have had.
But I have loved you instead, the Galanto,
Who enchanted Martano with his canto.

ψ

I sent you four apples,
One with a bite,
And in the mid of the bite
I placed a kiss.

Related posts:

Yves Montand and Brizio Montinaro on the set of IL GENIO (1976). Click for credits

I met Brizio Montinaro once at a friends’ place. A friendly, curly- grey-haired Italian from Apulia, actor and writer, Brizio Montinaro is an expert of the Griko people among the rest.

Who are the Griko people? They are South Italians who more or less directly descend from the Greeks of Magna Graecia (with some influence from Byzantium.)

Griko speaking communities today. Click for credits

What’s interesting is that some of them still speak a form of Greek, Griko, that developed from both Magna Graecia and Byzantine Greek (see on the map the location of the Griko speaking communities today.)

[Note on Magna Graecia. We remind readers that most coastal areas of South Italy had been colonized by Greek settlers since the 8th century B.C., and that Magna Graecia (ie, ‘Big Greece’, coastal South Italy) was to mainland Greeks a bit like America was to Europeans: a land of promise where opportunities were bigger, and where everything - to travellers from mainland Greece -  appeared larger and more luxuriant: Syracuse, not Athens, was the largest Greek city in the Mediterranean during classical times. See the map below for the past and above for what is left of the Greek-speaking people today]

Greek settlements in Magna Graecia, with their dialects. Click for credits

Montinaro, born from a Griko mother, wrote a few books on the Griko culture. Among his merits, that of having made known the beauty of the oral poetry of the Grikos.

I have his “Il tesoro delle parole morte” (Argo, 2009, Lecce) ['The treasure of the dead words']. I’ll summarize a passage from his introduction to the book:

Temple of Poseidon. Paestum, Campania, Italy. Click for credits

The traveller in the South of Italy admires the temples of Paestum, the Greek wonders of Agrigento, Taormina and Syracuse. Parmenides of Elea was born in Magna Graecia, the school of Pythagoras flourished in Croton. Archimedes, Diodorus Siculos and other prominent Greeks were born in Sicily.

However, if that traveller closes his eyes – while wandering in Aspromonte (Calabria) or in the land of Salento (Puglia) covered with centuries-old olive trees – he can still hear, carried by the wind, words such as: agàpi, dafni, podèa, vasilicò, alòni.

These are traces, just like the columns and the theatres, of another monument of the Hellenic culture: the Greek language.

These oral poems sing with great freshness the joys and sorrows of love, “with a look – we read in the back cover – that is still the darting gaze common to the boundless sea of ​​Hellenism, and that was expressed by the rhythms of Sappho and Anacreon.”

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Some of these poems will be presented in the next post translated into an English (hopefully not too horrible) version.

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Related posts:

The Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on 115th street, East Harlem, the first Italian Parish in the USA. The 'cult' raised controversy among the US Catholic clergy but was legitimized by Pope Leo XIII. The statue was 'crowned' in 1904. Click for credits

New York City, July 17 1900.

The New York Times wrote on that day:

“Little Italy […] was out in gala attire yesterday, which was the day of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. A crowd of Italians estimated variously at from 40,000 to 75,000 besieged the shrine in the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, at 115th street and Avenue A, from 4 o’clock in the morning until late at night, bringing with them as offerings candles of all sizes, money, jewellery, wax figures, and in one case a pair of spectacles.”

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel exits the church during the 2004 celebration of the 100th anniversary of the statue's coronation. Click for credits

We exchanged ideas in this discussion at the MoR’s about the significance of Italian religious feasts.

Now I’d like to draw attention on those wax figures. What are they?

They are mostly anatomical ex votos, i.e. “models of the limbs or organs they prayed the Madonna would heal” – another NYT article reports.

Ex votos. Anthropology and Ethnography Museum, Cagliari, Italy. Click for credits

As Robert Anthony Orsi observes (at page 3 of his 1985 book “The Madonna of 115th street – Faith and community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950”) :

“Vendors of religious articles set up booths along the sidewalks, competing for business with the thriving local trade in religious goods. The booths were filled with wax replicas of internal human organs and with models of human limbs and heads. Someone who has been healed – or hoped to be healed – by the Madonna of the headaches or arthritis would carry wax models of the afflicted limbs or head, painted to make them look realistic, in the big procession. The devout could also buy little wax statues of infants. Charms to ward off the evil eye, such as little horns to wear around the neck and little red hunchbacks, were sold alongside the holy cards, statues of Jesus, Mary and the saints, and the wax body parts.”

Ancient Rome, 342 BC.

Marcia is happy. Her 14-year-old son has recovered from a terrible cart accident. His fractured legs have healed and he can walk again. The lectica carrying her is now set down. She gets out of it and enters a shop not far from the temple of Aesculapius, god of medicine and healing. She buys two terra-cotta legs that she will soon take to the temple of the god on the Tiber island, as a sacred gift expressing her gratitude.

Anatomical ex votos from ancient Greece

Marcia is fictional but a real ancient Roman shop going back more than a couple of thousand years earlier perhaps (the period of the Roman Republic) was discovered in the spring of 1885 in the foundations of the left embankment of the Tiber.

It contained – archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani wrote a few years later – “a large number of anatomical specimens in painted terra-cotta, beautifully modelled from nature, and representing heads, ears, eyes, breasts, arms, hands, knees, legs, feet, ex-votos offered by happy mothers etc.” to the Greco-Roman deities.

In fact, Lanciani adds, “it seems that at the entrance of the Fabrician bridge (ponte Quattro Capi, see image below), leading from the Campus Martius to the island [where the temple of the god was located, MoR], there were shops for the sale of ex‑votos of every description …”

Pons Fabricius, called Quattro Capi, the most ancient bridge in Rome. It leads to the Tiber Island where the temple of Aesculapius was located. Click for credits

Anatomical ex votos as offerings to a deity out of gratitude or in hope for healing were common in many ancient peoples. They existed in Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, ancient Egypt etc. but the most numerous finds were unearthed in Greece and especially in central Italy where most of them date back from the 4th to the 1st century BC.

We also found anatomical ex votos in provinces of the Roman empire. In Gallia now France, for example, they were present in sanctuaries of Dea Sequana, the Celtic goddess of the river Seine.

Robert A. Orsi in his valuable work on NYC  Madonna of Mount Carmel does not make use of the term ‘pagan’ as for the Italian-Americans of the period 1880-1950 [I wonder why. I don't think there is anything shameful about the traces of ancient customs. Quite the contrary]

Paganism is though mentioned when he describes the reaction of the non Italian Catholics to the Italian religiosity. Italians were accused of religious superficiality and of weird, pagan practices.

“In a bitter attack published in The Catholic world in 1888 – Orsi refers at p. 55 -, the Reverend Bernard Lynch excoriated “the peculiar kind of spiritual condition” of the Italian immigrants, fed on pilgrimages, shrines, holy cards, and ‘devotions’ “but lacking any understanding of ‘the great truth of religion’.”

On the following page Orsi mentions “an Italian priest who spent his own life in East Harlem and at Mount Carmel” and who told the author that “he always knew the Irish Clergy were against the Mount Carmel devotions, viewing them as pagan superstitions: “They thought we were Africans, that there was something weird. They didn’t accept it at all …We were always looked upon as though we were doing something wrong…”.

Related posts:

“Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”
Ancient (Roman) Polytheism and the Veneration of Saints (1)
Ancient (Roman) Polytheism and the Veneration of Saints (2)
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna
Survivals of Roman Religion
From the Goddess of the Fever to Our Lady of the Fever

Read also:

The Mafia and the Italian Mind (1)
The Mafia and the Italian Mind (2)

See also the survival, in the Italian South, of the Greek notion of the ‘envious’ gods:

Gods are Watching with an Envious Eye

Luigi Calcagni, one of Carlo Calcagni's two younger brothers. Click to enlarge. "To my dear mummy, on May 24th 1909"

[13th excerpt from the memoirs of Carlo Calcagni, my maternal grandmother’s eldest brother and a true Roman born almost one and a half century ago. Read the excerpts posted so far and collected in Part 1-2 (or in Parte I-II with Carlo’s original Italian text.)]

Preamble

Carlo Calcagni had no children [see the original text in Italian] but just as an example his brother Gigi had nine, 6 girls and 3 boys, so I was asking myself: is it possible that no descendant is contacting me as regards these memoirs I am posting?

Finally Lorena Baroncini, Manuela and Maura Calcagni showed up, a lovely surprise (also Christian Floquet did: I will mention him in a later post).

Lorena, Maura and Manuela are in fact descendants of Gigi Calcagni [see his picture above], one of Carlo Calcagni’s two younger brothers. This is why I’ve decided to dedicate a post to Gigi Calcagni by collecting Carlo’s scattered memories about him.

Gigi was the tallest in his family, 1.82 mt, which, in those days – beginning of 1900 – and in this country meant being really tall. He therefore joined the grenadiers.

“He volunteered at 17 before his call-up – Carlo writes - and was rising through the ranks having no qualification since he had abandoned school in order to embrace the military career.”

Gigi was the one who accompanied his father Nino in his walks:

“When my father was looking for company in his long walks in the country – Carlo continues – the most enthusiastic was my brother Luigi, very young at that time but very big, or lanky, already. He followed my father like a dog for hours, then came back home tired and hungry beyond description.”

He married a certain Margherita.

“Margherita also exceeds the average height for women … their children all turning up colossal: a beautiful family whose females are like valkyries, and the first male a big and handsome young man … So big and beefy they are that they have cost Gigi a fortune in order to feed and to clothe them. Financial means: little, hence great and exhausting toil for him.”

Luigi was extremely strong and a good companion in their swims in the Tiber.

“And he fought with Toto, our dog, in World War I in the Grenadiers’ II Corps which distinguished itself in several battles.”

To proceed further we must therefore talk about Toto, the Calcagnis’ dog. From now on I hand over the floor to Carlo.

 Toto and Gigi, fellow soldiers

Toto, great Toto, priceless Toto … our dog or, to be precise, my dog … a fox [Terrier?] of the purest breed, all white with a maculated head … a dog that people turned around to admire in the street, a dog that Marquis Calabrini, the King’s squire, came to look for up to our house in order to buy him and bring him to the King’s kennel: he would have paid any sum to have Toto.

From our house window my sister Maria, Toto’s closest friend, cried, particularly indignant and resentful:

“Toto is not for sale. What then? Are we going to repeat the ‘Joseph sold by his brothers’ story?”

Calabrini – I remember as if it were now – went away between admired, astounded, confused and very perplexed.

My brother Luigi progressed in his career as a noncommissioned officer of the grenadiers. He came home every day and then went back to his quarters in S. Croce in Gerusalemme.

He had already experienced war, the Italo-Turkish war or Libyan war, from where he had returned safe and sound despite he had found himself in the firing line in battles such as, for example, Sidi Said and Bir Tobras.

Ponte Sisto on the Tiber as it is today. Click for credits and to enlarge

Getting back home from war he looked at our small house with pleasure, the one we lived in overlooking Ponte Sisto (see picture above,) and said with intention “Oh, we’ve got gas now” (great news for our home since there always had been petroleum, and little of it). Then sitting at the table in front of a good steak (a horse steak although he didn’t know that) he began to eat at a good pace. At one point while cutting the meat and it escaping the grip of his fork he deftly caught it and with his deep voice mimicked the carter who tries to stop the horse, “Leh ….”

A dream! He had immediately understood how and why there could be so much luxury of meat in our house. A little humour inherited from my father but more serious, more restrained and, above all, much less frequent.

Toto, War Volunteer

Then came the First World War with the departure of my brother Luigi as warrant officer together with a volunteering Toto.

Toto’s voluntary service went in this way.

Gigi told me one day:

“Would you give me Toto? I’ll bring him to war with me. He will keep me company and, together with him, I will bring along a piece of home and of you all.”

We were puzzled and between yes and no until the day of the actual departure from the Tuscolana railway station.

All of us, mum, Maria etc. plus Toto went for the ritual adieu. It was a long unending troop train of grenadiers, all the Second Regiment. Gigi went up and down the train to see if everything was all right in order to communicate and enforce orders and regulations. And Toto, without us or Gigi calling him was running back and forth between my brother and us, extremely agitated.

When it was departure time and the train had almost moved, Toto jumped into the car where Gigi was and immediately looked out the window to say goodbye to us.

Toto had left as a war volunteer.

A smooth Fox Terrier. Click for attribution

He behaved very well and always accompanied Gigi in all expeditions there including the very risky ones… Gigi took him under his coat while riding his mule and Toto didn’t utter a sound: he knew very well how to play the military dog … Of course all these feats had won Toto the affection of all the grenadiers …

When Gigi was once on leave he arrived in the dead of night. By hearing the family whistle everyone jumped out of bed to open the street and the flat doors. Toto was there with him and there hugs and rejoicing occurred for the two fellow soldiers. Then of course we went to bed and Toto triumphantly resumed his place on the bed at my feet according to his ingrained habit. Have a good night and rest: lights are turned off.

At one point Gigi, needing a piece of cigar for his pipe, carelessly walked into my room. Toto immediately attacked him since this time he didn’t serve any more as a fellow soldier, but rather as a guardian of his truer and senior master. I remember Gigi saying to Toto the bitterest insults that dog ever received from its master.

ψ

When the war ended Gigi returned home, got his discharge with honour and passed to the civil service at the Ministry of Finance. He was then employed at Banco Roma and later obtained a post in the Governorate of the Vatican City.

Original text in Italian

Château Frontenac (left), Quebec city. It is a luxury hotel designed by the American architect Bruce Price at the end of the 19th cent. Click to enlarge

Here is another set of pictures from our trip to Quebec. They are not the best I have since I had problems arranging them today.

Below you can see the refined French Canadian stairs you find a bit everywhere in Quebec. An example of how, in my opinion, the Quebecois – a common Latin trait I believe – may prefer beauty to practicalness (imagine a postman or an old person climbing up and down these stairs during the long and icy Canadian winters.)

All sorts of tasteful stairs can be admired in Quebec. Click to enlarge

This is Paul’s beautiful grand daughter. After which you have Paul taking us around Montreal with his car.

Paul's cute grand daughter. Click to enlarge

Paul driving. Click to enlarge. Therèse is behind with Flavia

Another picture of Quebec city. Lovely French architecture, isn’t it.

Quebec city's main street. Click to enlarge

Here is Queen Victoria’s statue at the entrance of the McGill University, Montreal.

Monument to Queen Victoria. McGill University, Montreal. Click to enlarge

Here is MoR enjoying the Canadian beautiful nature.

A river with falls behind. Click to enlarge

Allow me to finish with Caffé Italia in Montreal, an iconic café of Montreal’s Little Italy according to the Commentator.

Caffé Italia, on the Saint Laurent Boulevard, Montreal

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Therèse, Paul et moi at our dining table in Rome. Click to enlarge

Scrivere a volte significa dover affrontare situazioni come questa: la testa completamente vuota, di fronte ad una pagina egualmente vuota.

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Enjoy Therèse et Paul while having lunch with us in Rome.

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I just published a new chapter of the Manius’ soap both in English and in Italian.

Two more chapters are ready, one with Massimo and Deirdre (who finally reaches home after months); another with Massimo and the Witch.

Stay tuned.

A splendid lake in the Parc national de la Mauricie, Quebec. Click to enlarge

Our Canadian vacation has been memorable. We’ll definitely return to this country and to Quebec!

We plunged into nature at La Mauricie National Park (see images above and below.)

Click for a larger image

I finally met Paul Costopoulos and the Commentator face to face, and I met Devinder Singh for the second time (he had already visited us in Rome: read his post on our first encounter). They all live in Montreal.

Here is Paul and his wife Therèse on the Mont Royal, where they took us by car. Mont Royal is the mountain that gave its name to the city of Montreal.

Paul and Thèrese took us to the Mount Royal. Click to enlarge

And here is the Commentator and myself at La Petite Italie, the Italian district of Montreal. Commentator took us to the places of his childhood.

The Commentator (right) and MoR at La Petite Italie, Montreal. Click to zoom in

I am sorry I don’t have good pictures of Devinder. He took us a couple of times to Down-town Montreal, where he lives. This is though Devinder in Rome.

Devinder in Piazza Navona, Rome. Click to enlarge

This is Flavia and I in front of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Quebec City, possibly the oldest church in North America. Flavia, whose face I have blurred, I now realise looks like an alien.

Flavia and MoR in front of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Quebec City. Click to enlarge

And here some pictures at Paul’s, where he and his wife offered us a great lunch and great company.

More pictures to come in the next days. Ciao