42 (+42) X 4 = Four 42-word stories with 42-character titles

Four very little stories of 42 words each were published in a very large anthology of 1764 stories. The volume consists of 42 chapters, each a different genre and each containing 42 stories made up of 42 words plus a 42-character title, all accompanied by a 42-word author bio at the end of the 536-page book: 42 chapters X 42 stories = 1764, or 42 squared, which is the book’s title, 422: https://www.42storiesanthology.com/

Authors were allowed up to 4 stories but had to use a different pen name for each one. The same bio could be used with different names, as long as it remained 42 words.

Here are my 4 stories, in the order they appear: the first with my real name, the rest with pseudonyms:

MARCO POLO AND DANTE GO ON DIVERGENT PATHS

Sante Matteo

Alternate Reality, #26, p. 8

Dante, visiting Venice from Ravenna, sought Marco Polo. “Your travels depict only the marvels of this world: captivating but sinful, poisonous.  My just-finished Commedia is the antidote, depicting a righteous journey, away from this world.” Days later, returning to Ravenna, Dante died.

Sante Matteo, born and raised in a small agricultural town in southern Italy, is a retired Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, His creative writing has appeared in The Chaffin Journal, Ruminate, Bark, and Dime Show Review.

SISYPHUS AND THE BEAR CLIMB A MOUNTAIN

Agioi Matthaios

Mythopoeia, #22, p. 171

Sisyphus met a bear climbing up his mountain to see what was on the other side.

“Here!  You'll need this boulder!”

“Thanks!” The bear took it.

Freed, Sisyphus joined Merope among the Pleiades and is known as the Rock-&-Roll Star.

Agioi Matthaios is a nom de plume of a retired Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies.  His stories and poems have appeared in The Chaffin Journal, River River, New Southern Fugitives, Showbear Family Circus, Bark, Ovunque Siamo, Kairos, Snapdragon, and Dime Show Review.

 FIGS FALL ON THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT

Toussaint Mathieu

Satire, #20, p. 247

Sid sat under the Bodhi tree and waited for enlightenment.  Figs fell around him.  Hungry, he tasted one.  It was delicious.  He ate many more.  And then he had to go, before enlightenment came.  He learned about the power of purgation instead.

Toussaint Mathieu is the pen name of . . . .

WOEFULLY WRONG ABOUT THE MEANING OF 42

Zeno Zweig

Satire, #42, p. 251

          She gave me a coaster she painted: a heart glowing with 42 golden beams, and written on the back: “If 42 is the answer, what is the question?  Love!” 

          “Rereading the Hitchhiker?” I asked. 

          “No, Mr. Romance, it's our 42nd anniversary!” 

          “Oh!”

Zeno Zweig is the pen name of . . . .

 ………..

What’s with number 42?

To find out, you'll have to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams (a "trilogy" that subsequently consisted of 4 books, then 5, and eventually 6: so much for the importance of accurate numeration and rubrication!)

If you don’t have time to hitchhike through the whole galaxy, here are some shortcuts to try:

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/42-h2g2-meaning-of-life-The-Hitchhikers-Guide-to-the-Galaxy

Or the Wikipedia entry on “42 (number)”—the sections toward the end on “Wisdom Literature, Religion, and Philosophy” and on “Popular Culture,” which makes specific reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—as well as to Jackie Robinson’s jersey number, 42, revered by baseball fans and now retired by MLB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number)

…………

FROM ROMANCE TO SATIRE: The fourth story, "Woefully Wrong About the Meaning of 42," was originally submitted and accepted for the “Romance” genre but was later moved to “Satire,” where it is the last story, no. 42, in that chapter. Since the stories are ordered alphabetically by the last name of the “author,” to get it to that final position--number 42, for a story itself about the real “meaning of 42”—I changed my pen name from Matt Hallows (Matt for Matteo; Hallows = Saints) to Zeno Zweig (Gift of Zeus + Twig/Branch--which, it now occurs to me, might have been thematically appropriate for the Bodhi Tree story because of the tree-branch connection).

And, speaking of the Bodhi Tree, I am writing this presentation on Jan. 18, 2025, which, according to my Google calendar, happens to be Bodhi Day—at least in some places and communities:

Bodhi Day (Buddhist)

Saturday, January 18

Description of Observance:

Bodhi Day is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that Gautama Buddha (Shakyamuni) is said to have attained enlightenment, also known as bodhi in Sanskrit and Pali. According to tradition, Siddhartha had recently forsaken years of extreme ascetic practices and resolved to sit under a peepal tree, also known as a Bodhi tree, and simply meditate until he found the root of suffering, and how to liberate oneself from it. Services and traditions vary amongst Buddhist sects, but all such services commemorate the Buddha's achievement of Nirvana, and what this means for Buddhism today. Individuals may choose to commemorate the event through additional meditation, study of the Dharma, chanting of Buddhist texts (sutras), or performing kind acts towards other beings. Some Buddhists celebrate with a traditional meal of tea, cake and readingsBuddhists go to temple services and practice meditation. Some Buddhists decorate bodhi trees with lights and statues of Buddha. They also reflect upon the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths.

The Bodhi tree is, in fact, a species of fig tree, which gave me the idea for the story. Its figs, however, are not “delicious” or even edible, but if eaten in abundance, they might well produce the urge “to go” as narrated in my story.

From Wikipedia:

The Bodhi Tree ("tree of awakening" or "tree of enlightenment"[1]), also called the Mahabodhi tree or Bo tree,[2] is a large sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa)[1][3] located in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India. Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher who became known as the Buddha, is said to have attained enlightenment, or buddhahood, circa 500 BCE, under this tree.[4] In religious iconography, the Bodhi tree is recognizable by its heart-shaped leaves, which are usually prominently displayed.[5]

Pubblicata in Gradiva: Rivista internazionale di poesia italiana, n. 60, autunno 2021, pp. 21-33, nella sezione: "Speciale Dante in occasione del settimo centenario 1321-2021"; traduzione di Maria Silvia Riccio di “Escape from Paradise,” Twelve Winters Journal, vol. 1, 2021: https://twelvewinters.com/matteo-escape-from-paradise/.  Ringrazio Alessandro Carrera, Editor-in-Chief di Gradiva, e Luigi Fontanella, Senior Editor, per la pubblicazione e per il permesso di riprodurre il testo qui.

FUGA DAL PARADISO

Traduzione dal franco-veneto di Mathieu Toussaint

A Donna Laura de Noves, Contessa de Sade,

Riservata a lei sola

Donna Laura, permettimi di darti un consiglio: muori e scappa!

Ha funzionato per me e potrebbe funzionare anche per te.

In realtà non sono affatto morta, ho solo finto di esserlo, ma la messinscena mi ha permesso di sottrarmi a una vita che si era fatta intollerabile.

Perdona il mio ardire, ma da quanto mi è stato detto, la tua situazione parrebbe essere simile a quella in cui ebbi a trovarmi io, e forse anche tu potresti accogliere con favore la prospettiva di scappare. Se la tua situazione familiare lo consente, il mio stratagemma potrebbe essere d’aiuto anche a te.

Tu ed io non ci siamo mai incontrate: so di te tramite mio nipote che vive ad Avignone e conosce la tua famiglia, ed è possibile che tu sappia di me, probabilmente non attraverso mio nipote, che ha giurato di mantenere il segreto su di me, ma per aver letto il mio nome in versi. Prima di fuggire da Firenze per diventare un’altra persona, io ero infatti Beatrice Portinari. Sì, la Beatrice cantata da Dante Alighieri, le cui opere sono conosciute anche ad Avignone tra i fiorentini che là risiedono.

Mio nipote mi racconta che anche tu scrivi versi – brava! – e che conosci le poesie d’amore scritte da Dante, come pure la Commedia, nonostante sia stata bandita dalla Chiesa per le critiche che muove contro il Pontificato e per aver collocato diversi papi all’Inferno, anche Clemente V, il primo pontefice avignonese. Se conosci la Commedia, saprai che a me Dante ha affidato il ruolo di guidarlo dal Purgatorio al Paradiso.

Mio nipote, il tuo vicino, mi ha parlato della tua situazione. Sua madre era mia sorella – la più giovane di quelle che furono cinque sorelle amorevoli e amabili, che Dio le abbia in gloria! – che era andata in sposa a uno dei guelfi bianchi esiliati da Firenze nel 1302, tra i quali figuravano anche Dante e l’amico suo, Ser Petracco, che sarebbe poi divenuto il tuo vicino ad Avignone.

Mia sorella e il marito si trasferirono ad Arezzo insieme alla famiglia Petracco. Il figlio di mia sorella vi nacque nel 1304, nello stesso anno in cui nacque il figlio di Ser Petracco, Francesco – il poeta che, per ragioni a me ignote, è conosciuto da tutti come Petrarca.

Entrambe le famiglie si spostarono poi ad Avignone, la città in cui il Papa si era trasferito con la sua corte nel 1309. Mio nipote è cresciuto insieme a Francesco e sono rimasti buoni amici, e così gli ha sentito recitare i versi italiani in cui canta le tue lodi e la sua adorazione per te. Le poesie, mi dice, sono state distribuite tra gli amici, che a loro volta le hanno trascritte per farne dono ad altri amici, nello stesso modo in cui Dante aveva fatto circolare le poesie a me dedicate.

Mio nipote mi ha consegnato copie delle poesie di Francesco: era curioso di sapere se trovassi delle somiglianze tra la Laura del Petrarca e la Beatrice di Dante. Sostiene che Francesco voglia oscurare la stella di Dante e superarlo per fama e onori; io che conoscevo il padre e il resto della famiglia Petracco non fatico a crederci: sono una genìa ambiziosa. Mia sorella mi aveva confermato che, con il trasferimento ad Avignone, Petracco ed Eletta aspiravano a guadagnarsi il favore del Papa e della sua corte per ottenere gloria e fama per quel figlio tanto dotato, che già in tenera età spiccava per la sua intelligenza. È così dunque che ho saputo della tua situazione, e l’affinità con la mia situazione di un tempo mi spinge a condividere la mia storia con te, nella speranza che possa esserti d’aiuto.

Non fui mai la Beatrice descritta nella poesia di Dante. La guisa in cui mi si presenta nei suoi scritti è falsa, dannatamente falsa, e le conseguenze delle sue parole sulla mia vita furono devastanti. A un certo punto, l’unico rimedio rimastomi era la fuga da Firenze, in quanto, dedicandomi poesie e canti che attiravano attenzione e discredito su di me, il signor Durante Alighieri mi aveva reso la vita impossibile. Non potevo andare al mercato o in chiesa senza che al mio passaggio si ammiccasse, senza che mi si criticasse o deridesse.

Come se non bastasse, la situazione si era fatta veramente intollerabile perché mio marito, Simone di Bardi, ricco e potente banchiere avvezzo ad avere l’ultima parola su ogni faccenda e il controllo su tutte le persone che gli ruotavano intorno, estremamente infastidito dalla notorietà impostami da quei versi amorosi, era diventato geloso e aveva cominciato ad accusarmi di infedeltà. Si era convinto che dovessi essere stata io a illudere i miei “ammiratori”, a sedurli, così aveva finito per limitare i miei spostamenti e scegliere gli abiti che potevo indossare e, non pago, mi insultava con le parole e con gli atti in modo sempre più crudele e violento. Arrivò anche a picchiarmi, prima a mani nude, poi anche con il bastone o con il frustino se erano a portata di mano.

La mia vita era un inferno, e tutto a causa di un poeta presuntuoso e incosciente che non ne voleva sapere di lasciarmi in pace, e mi impediva di vivere la vita di una giovane donna qualsiasi, perché si era messo in testa di eleggermi a ideale, dipingendomi come un angelo inarrivabile il cui nome, Beatrice, doveva per forza essere anche una funzione, uno scopo esistenziale, la manifestazione della Provvidenza la quale, tramite me, distribuiva beatitudine. Io non avevo alcun desiderio di essere innalzata a una perfezione tale, né di incarnare un ruolo simile! L’unico mio desiderio era essere una persona qualsiasi e poter vivere la mia vita: questa vita, gli anni che ci sono concessi sulla terra, e di poterlo fare in salute, non con i segni delle percosse su tutto il corpo.

Se Dante si fosse tenuto le poesie per sé, io non avrei mai saputo che ruolo mi avesse dato, né lo avrebbero saputo altri. Oppure, se le avesse consegnate solo a me, io le avrei bruciate e avrei preteso che non ne scrivesse altre, o che scegliesse un’altra donna, o perlomeno un altro nome, per i suoi versi. Ma no, Dante aveva dovuto condividere le sue opere con altri, con persone che mi conoscevano e che mio marito conosceva, senza nemmeno pensare alla sofferenza di cui ti ho già detto, senza curarsi che la sua avventatezza potesse arrivare a costarmi la vita!

Il sollievo l’ho trovato nella morte. Lascia che ti spieghi.

Mio padre morì alla fine del 1289 durante uno dei periodi di pestilenza che si verificano di tanto in tanto. La sua morte rendeva la mia situazione ancora più pericolosa, privandomi di quel poco di protezione che poteva venirmi da lui. Ma siccome a portarlo via era stata la peste, a una delle mie sorelle venne un’idea: se avessimo inscenato la mia morte attribuendola alla stessa causa, non sarei forse potuta fuggire senza temere di essere rintracciata? Per paura del contagio, tutti evitavano gli appestati, veri o presunti, per cui le mie sorelle lasciarono trapelare che, nel prendermi cura di nostro padre, anche io ero stata contagiata dalla peste, e questo servì a tenere tutti alla larga da me, compreso mio marito: che io fossi malata, morta o persino sepolta, nessuno si sarebbe sognato di venire a verificare con i suoi occhi. I beccamorti che vennero a prendermi per la sepoltura non seppero mai che nella bara che portarono via c’era il cadavere di una pecora. E così, nella primavera del 1290, Beatrice Portinari in Bardi morì, e io lasciai Firenze per cominciare una vita nuova.

Quella nuova vita, però, era assai diversa da quel che Dante illustra nella Vita nuova, l’opera scritta dopo la mia “morte”, che probabilmente avrai letto. Non avevo lasciato questa terra per salire in cielo. La mia dimora non è il paradiso; io abito a Venezia – una città che per molti è quanto di più distante dal paradiso ci sia al mondo, mentre diversi veneziani potrebbero controbattere che è quanto di più simile al paradiso si trovi in terra. In ogni caso, paradisiaca o infernale che fosse, Venezia per me era il miglior rifugio possibile: una popolosa città di mare con un porto mercantile in cui viaggiatori e forestieri andavano e venivano era il posto migliore in cui mescolarsi alla folla per poi sparire dopo la fuga da Firenze, che è invece una città dove tutti si conoscono.

Senza dare nell’occhio e con un altro nome, in pochi anni a Venezia ero riuscita a costruirmi un’altra identità, sposandomi – di fatto ero bigama, sì – con uno dei Polo, i mercanti che ora molti conoscono. L’uomo che avevo sposato era il cugino di Marco Polo; nessuno sapeva chi fosse allora, ma Marco sarebbe presto diventato famoso per aver raccontato le terre sconosciute del lontano Oriente in cui aveva viaggiato insieme al padre e allo zio. All’epoca del mio matrimonio, i tre non erano ancora tornati da un viaggio che durava da oltre due decenni, tanto che si pensava fossero morti. Quando invece fecero ritorno a Venezia, io mi ero già trasferita altrove e non ebbi mai occasione di conoscerli di persona. Mi dicono che circolino molte copie e traduzioni del libro in cui si parla delle loro esperienze e presumo che tu stessa lo conosca.

Quel secondo matrimonio mi portò ancor più lontano da Firenze, sulle rotte commerciali veneziane, verso città affacciate sul Mar Nero e sul Mar Caspio, al riparo da occhi che avrebbero potuto riconoscermi. Tornai a Venezia solo dopo la morte del mio secondo marito, ma a quel punto ero troppo vecchia per attirare l’attenzione ed essere riconosciuta. Anche Dante era morto, e così il cugino Marco Polo. Devo ammettere che la notizia della morte precoce di Dante mi aveva addolorata; dopo tutto eravamo stati bambini insieme, e si ha sempre un po’ di nostalgia per la propria infanzia. Inoltre, non potevo non pensare che mi aveva amata, anche se di un amore per me inaccettabile, e che per lui ero stata importante – troppo importante, e nel modo sbagliato.

Mi dissero che era morto non molto tempo dopo essersi recato qui, a Venezia, in missione come ambasciatore del signore di Ravenna, e che in quell’occasione aveva fatto in modo di incontrare il cugino Marco, e la loro conversazione sembra sia stata una delle ultime per lui. Si era ammalato a Venezia, o forse nelle paludi che la separano da Ravenna, ed era morto a pochi giorni di distanza.

Che curiosa coincidenza che, dopo aver finito la stesura del Paradiso e aver fatto raggiungere all’anima la fine del suo percorso, la beatitudine eterna, la vita dello stesso Dante si dovesse interrompere proprio a Venezia, la città più mondana che ci sia, in quel suo pullulare di tutte le distrazioni e le tentazioni peccaminose che sbarrano la strada per il Paradiso! E non posso fare a meno di chiedermi cosa sarebbe successo se io e mio marito avessimo deciso di tornare a Venezia prima di quel momento, e io mi fossi trovata faccia a faccia con l’ospite di Marco, Dante. Mi avrebbe riconosciuta? Chi poteva immaginare che sarei entrata a far parte della famiglia Polo e che Dante sarebbe venuto a conoscere Marco e a confrontarsi con lui?

Ma mettiamo da parte queste speculazioni oziose e torniamo ai nostri moutons, come dite da quella parte delle Alpi – un’espressione che mi piace e che tendo a usare io stessa, perché la lana era una delle merci più importanti tra quelle che commerciavamo.

Non era la prima volta che Marco e Dante si incontravano. Si erano già visti a Padova, una quindicina d’anni prima, a qualche anno di distanza da quando il libro di Marco – scritto nella tua lingua, mi dicono – aveva cominciato a circolare, non molto tempo dopo la cacciata di Dante da Firenze, all’inizio del secolo. La fama del libro di Marco era già molto vasta allora, mentre gli scritti di Dante probabilmente non erano ancora così conosciuti come lo sono ora, o perlomeno non fuori da Firenze, e non oltre quella cerchia di letterati che leggevano gli uni le opere degli altri e se le passavano tra loro. Probabilmente Dante non aveva ancora nemmeno cominciato a scrivere la Commedia a quel punto, e potrebbe essere che sia stato proprio l’incontro con Marco a fargliene venire l’idea.

Dante venne mandato in esilio da Firenze nel 1302 (insieme ad alcuni dei fiorentini che vivono vicino a te, ad Avignone, inclusa mia sorella e la sua famiglia) e vagò di città in città per diversi anni. Si trovava a Padova quando Pietro D’Abano venne nominato professore all’università, nel 1306. Era stato lo stesso Pietro, che aveva letto le prime parti del Convivio, a invitare Dante perché prendesse parte a un seminario in cui si sarebbe discusso di filosofia aristotelica e di cosmologia con gli studenti; Dante, dal canto suo, conosceva i testi medici e filosofici di Pietro D’Abano e accettò l’invito. Stando a quanto racconta la figlia di Marco Polo, anche suo padre aveva preso parte alle discussioni che si tennero in quell’occasione. Forse non hai mai sentito nominare Pietro D’Abano: mi dicono che i suoi scritti siano stati considerati eretici e che leggerli o discuterne sia proibito, specialmente là dove risiede il Papa con la sua corte. Le sue idee invece sono piuttosto note e apprezzate qui a Venezia, in parte perché Padova e Abano, il suo paese d’origine, sono qui vicino; in parte perché ai veneziani piace farsi beffe dell’autorità papale ogni volta che possono permetterselo. Io sono venuta a sapere di lui e dei suoi scritti perché la famiglia Polo lo tiene in grande considerazione per essere stato tra i primi studiosi importanti e influenti a sostenere e a promuovere il libro di Marco e, di conseguenza, lo considera un amico di famiglia. Raccontano che, dopo aver letto Le Devisement du monde a Costantinopoli, dove era andato a stabilirsi per molti anni con l’intento di imparare il greco e l’arabo e di studiare testi non disponibili in latino, questo grande studioso fosse partito alla volta di Venezia solo per incontrare Marco, in parte per accertarsi della veridicità di quanto si racconta nel libro, ma anche per soddisfare curiosità di cui nel libro non si dice, con l’intento di approfondire la sua conoscenza alla ricerca di elementi che potessero validare i suoi studi e le sue ipotesi sulla terra e sul cosmo.

Quando venne chiamato a insegnare all’Università di Padova, Pietro ebbe nuove occasioni per incontrare Marco e continuare a discutere con lui. Marco era ospite di Pietro quando Dante andò a Padova, e si unì alle loro discussioni all’università, insieme agli studenti, durante i pasti in casa di Pietro, nel corso di lunghe passeggiate per le strade della città e durante varie visite alla vicina Cappella degli Scrovegni, dove il pittore fiorentino Giotto aveva appena terminato un ciclo di affreschi.

Dante era particolarmente desideroso di vedere gli affreschi, avendo conosciuto Giotto in gioventù. Giotto aveva la nostra età e avevamo avuto modo di conoscerlo dopo il suo arrivo a Firenze, dove era venuto per lavorare come apprendista nella bottega di Cimabue. Ci si incontrava spesso in città, in occasione di raduni o di eventi. Il modo di dipingere di Giotto mi era piaciuto subito e mi aveva entusiasmato sapere che la stima e la fama che si era guadagnato fossero così grandi da procurargli una commissione così importante in un’altra città. Ero anche segretamente orgogliosa che un fiorentino che avevo conosciuto in gioventù avesse fatto così tanta strada – segretamente, perché non potevo darlo a vedere. Così spronavo i miei famigliari a raccontarmi quei conversari per sentire notizie di Dante e di Giotto, ma davo loro ad intendere che il mio interesse si concentrasse principalmente sul contributo di Marco alle discussioni. Però, più ascoltavo il racconto di quel che diceva Marco, più i suoi concetti mi incuriosivano, e finii col rendermi conto di quanto fosse importante quel suo libro, al punto da convincermi che potesse aver influenzato il pensiero di Dante in modo significativo, anche se dubito che si sappia.

Quando, molto tempo dopo, ebbi modo di vedere gli affreschi di Giotto, mi fu chiaro che dovevano essere stati una cornice proficua per Dante, Marco e Pietro D’Abano. C’era qualcosa di familiare nel modo di dipingere di Giotto, qualcosa che mi ricordava quel che dipingeva nella bottega di Cimabue: penso che avrei riconosciuto la sua mano anche se non avessi saputo che l’opera era sua. C’era però anche qualcosa di diverso, non saprei dire bene cosa. Le scene dipinte avevano più consistenza, una maggiore imponenza fisica. I corpi sembravano avere solidità e peso; le persone, i paesaggi e gli edifici sembravano essere inseriti nella fisicità del mondo, piuttosto che fluttuare senza peso in una dimensione eterea. Se insisto nel provare a descrivere qualcosa su cui non ho una preparazione adeguata è perché ritengo che il dibattito tra Marco e Dante si sia soffermato soprattutto sulla corporeità che a quel punto percepivo negli affreschi di Giotto: la distinzione e la relazione tra il corpo e l’anima.

In un certo senso, era un’eco delle nostre discussioni di gioventù. Quando Cimabue portò Giotto a Firenze come suo apprendista, Giotto si unì presto a una cerchia di giovani della nostra età, tra cui c’era anche Dante. Eravamo incantati da un giovane filosofo e poeta di qualche anno più grande di noi, Guido Cavalcanti. Le ragazze in effetti non partecipavano direttamente alle discussioni, ma io avevo avuto modo di farmene un’idea abbastanza precisa sentendone parlare. Ero affascinata da quel che mi veniva riferito – anche un po’ scandalizzata, in verità, ma questo mi affascinava ancor più. A Guido piaceva lasciare le persone a bocca aperta quando citava le idee non cristiane del cosiddetto Commentatore Moresco, Averroè. Guido suggeriva la possibilità che non ci fosse alcuna anima personale e nessuna vita oltre la morte così come la concepiamo noi. Sosteneva persino la sconcertante idea che le donne dovessero avere un ruolo negli affari pubblici e nell’amministrazione, idea che io trovavo particolarmente attraente. Questa cerchia di giovani ammiratori, tra cui Dante e Giotto, lo stimava e lo ammirava per il suo vasto sapere unito a un’intelligenza vivace, e per la sua arguzia – le ragazze anche perché era molto avvenente, forse soprattutto per questo. (Devo ammettere che mi è rimasto impresso anche perché aveva sposato una mia omonima, Beatrice degli Uberti, di una delle famiglie fiorentine più in vista, che io avevo molto invidiato).

Dante si era molto affezionato a Guido, e lo aveva eletto a sua guida e mentore. Erano stati molto legati per lungo tempo, e so che il dissidio su questioni politiche, filosofiche e teologiche che li allontanò uno dall’altro doveva essere stato tremendo per entrambi. Rimasi sconvolta quando seppi da mia sorella che, da Priore, Dante aveva esiliato il suo amico da Firenze. E chissà che senso di colpa schiacciante doveva aver provato quando Guido era morto di lì a pochi mesi! Mi chiedo se, due anni dopo, avesse vissuto il suo stesso esilio dall’amata Firenze come un castigo per aver tradito l’amico.

Il loro allontanamento si verificò molto tempo dopo la mia fuga da Firenze, e ne parlo perché penso che siano state le idee di Guido a farmi progressivamente perdere la fede, o perlomeno quella che viene insegnata dalla Chiesa. Il mio punto di vista e le mie convinzioni continuarono a cambiare quando ebbi modo di vedere il mondo con l’occhio del mercante e del viaggiatore, proprio come Marco Polo. La mia “trasformazione” si deve anche al fatto di aver vissuto a lungo tra i cosiddetti “infedeli”, il che mi aveva permesso di rendermi conto che le loro convinzioni erano salde quanto le nostre e la loro vita non era né migliore né peggiore a causa del loro credo.

Adesso che ci penso, suppongo che questo mio cedere allo scetticismo possa servire come prova che le paure di Dante erano fondate, e dimostrare che seguire le tracce di Marco Polo, adottando un punto di vista concentrato sul commercio, avrebbe veramente potuto indurre le persone a mettere in discussione il dogma che la Chiesa ci inculca dalla nascita fino ad abbandonarlo del tutto.

Ecco, mi rendo conto di aver divagato. Tornando a quell’incontro a Padova, da quanto ho potuto dedurre, quelle discussioni con Pietro e Marco dovevano aver portato Dante a rivedere le sue convinzioni filosofiche, cosmologiche e teologiche, e a modificare di conseguenza quel che aveva in mente di scrivere. Fu in quel frangente che decise di abbandonare la stesura del Convivio a cui lavorava da tempo, per dedicarsi a comporre un lungo poema sul cammino che conduce alla salvezza dell’anima. Ritengo che quello che arrivò a chiamare Commedia dovesse servire come una sorta di antidoto al Devisement du monde di Marco, un libro che Dante doveva aver considerato alla stregua di un veleno in grado di distogliere dalla destinazione divina e di condurre alla perdizione le persone incantate dalla descrizione delle meraviglie e delle ricchezze incontrate da un uomo nel corso di un viaggio terreno. Il fascino e l’attrattiva delle meraviglie descritte da Marco avrebbero portato le persone a concentrarsi su faccende terrene piuttosto che su questioni divine e a tenere in maggior conto il benessere materiale rispetto agli obiettivi spirituali, a preferire la salvezza del corpo a quella dell’anima. Si era perciò risolto a descrivere un viaggio diverso e “migliore”, che parlasse del percorso dell’anima verso il Paradiso non attraverso il commercio e l’acquisizione di ricchezze materiali, ma per mezzo della fede e della grazia.

Dal suo punto di vista, la strada per la salvezza eterna era più utile della descrizione dei viaggi di un mercante alla ricerca delle ricchezze materiali, delle meraviglie naturali e dei progressi sociali di parti del mondo sconosciute. Quel che di più agghiacciante e minaccioso doveva aver trovato nei racconti di Marco era l’esistenza di regioni del mondo fino ad allora ignote dove la parola di Cristo non era mai arrivata; dove, tredici secoli dopo la diffusione del Vangelo, non si sapeva nemmeno chi fosse, il Cristo. Com’era possibile? Quel che doveva essergli parso ancora più sbalorditivo è che il racconto di queste regioni sconfinate che non conoscevano il Cristo narrava di popoli più prosperosi, più civili e più contenti dei cristiani di casa nostra, e doveva aver deciso che quel libro poteva solo condurre al dubbio o alla disperazione. Era perciò suo dovere fornire un’alternativa e mostrare un’altra via in grado di restituire fede e speranza.

Potrebbe non essere stata solo una forte antipatia per le descrizioni delle meraviglie di questo mondo raccontate da Marco a spingere Dante nell’impresa di scrivere la Commedia. Dopotutto, era Pietro D’Abano ad aver organizzato le loro discussioni, delle quali è plausibile che fosse anche il principale animatore. È probabile che Dante si fosse fatto convincere da alcune delle idee di Pietro riguardo al cosmo, sostenute dall’ammirazione che entrambi nutrivano per Aristotele. Ad ogni modo, al termine di quegli incontri, Dante abbandonò il Convivio dopo aver composto e spiegato solo tre delle canzoni che si era ripromesso di scrivere. A questo riguardo mio nipote una volta disse scherzando che, prima che il banchetto fosse finito, Dante aveva lasciato il convivio per andare all’Inferno; gli avevo fatto notare che però era andato anche in Paradiso, perché la stessa strada portava a entrambe le destinazioni.

Dopo le discussioni di Padova, quindi, Dante aveva cominciato a comporre il favoloso racconto di un viaggio fisico, che avrebbe coinvolto il corpo, ma anche spirituale, in quanto avrebbe narrato il percorso dal peccato alla beatitudine. Sul suo cammino si sarebbe trovato ad attraversare luoghi fisici: l’Inferno, situato sottoterra; la montagna del Purgatorio che si trova dall’altra parte del globo, e il Paradiso con stelle e pianeti visibili nel cielo sopra di noi. Ma questi sono anche luoghi spirituali dell’aldilà, popolati dalle anime dei defunti. Il viaggio da intraprendere non sarebbe stato come quello di Marco che si svolgeva sulla superficie della Terra, con occhi e menti fissate solo su cose mondane; no, avrebbe dovuto guardare attraverso le tentazioni di questo mondo per concentrarsi sulla ricompensa, la salvezza dell’anima. Il viaggio non sarebbe servito a scoprire e a magnificare le meraviglie di questo mondo, quanto piuttosto a fuggirne.

E chi mai sarebbe stato l’araldo di Dio, il messaggero di grazia con il compito di guidare Dante nel suo cammino se non Beatrice?! Forse scelse proprio quel nome per via del significato, colei che rende beati, ma la sua Beatrice non è un’astrazione, rappresenta una persona reale, con un corpo e una mente; non è solo un’idea, ma una donna precisa con una storia personale e un’identità: la mia. Dante scelse me come dispensatrice di beatitudine.

Cose dell’altro mondo! Se solo avesse saputo che la sua angelica Beatrice, colei che doveva guidare la sua anima verso la “salvezza” ultraterrena, era entrata a far parte di una famiglia, quella dei Polo, la cui occupazione principale era l’esplorazione e lo sfruttamento delle risorse e delle “benedizioni” del mondo terreno, altro che trascendenza! La sua Beatrice beata e beatificante altri non era se non la moglie di un mercante, abile mercante lei stessa! Avrei potuto veramente fare da guida, tra le voci di un libro mastro, però, non certo per mostrare a qualcuno la strada verso il Paradiso facendogli chiudere gli occhi su questo mondo.

Sto divagando, dev’essere l’età: ho finito per spingermi molto lontano dal discorso da cui ero partita e per perdere di vista la ragione per cui ti scrivo. Mi dispiace, ma faccio parte della famiglia Polo da troppo tempo per non cedere all’impulso di divagare o, per dirla con Dante, di ritrovarmi «in una selva oscura ché la diritta via era smarrita».

Di divagazione in divagazione, mi preme chiederti venia per il modo in cui mi esprimo in questa lettera, e per il disordine con cui la scrivo. Di norma l’avrei dettata a uno scrivano che avrebbe saputo scegliere i termini più appropriati e cortesi per rivolgersi al destinatario, correggere i miei errori e riordinare i miei pensieri sconclusionati mettendoli in fila. Ma la segretezza che si conviene a questo scritto mi ha indotto a prendere carta e penna e a scriverti di mio pugno, così ti chiedo di essere indulgente e di perdonare le digressioni e i numerosi errori che questa missiva sicuramente contiene.

Per tornare alla ragione che mi ha spinto a scrivere, io temo che tu possa essere alle prese con lo stesso dilemma che dovetti affrontare io tanto tempo fa, quando ero idolatrata e idealizzata da un poeta, derisa da buona parte della società di cui facevo parte, maltrattata e vessata da mio marito e dalla sua famiglia. Mi chiedo se, avendoti idealizzata contro la tua volontà al pari di una figura “angelica” con attributi ultraterreni, Francesco Petrarca non abbia reso la tua esistenza tanto grama quanto lo era stata la mia. E se davvero tu sei derelitta quanto lo ero io, forse il rimedio che avevo escogitato per me potrebbe servire anche a te.

La mia fuga risale a più di cinquant’anni fa; una volta lasciata Firenze, la vita ha cominciato a sorridermi e, prosperando, sono serenamente approdata alla vecchiaia. Tornare a vivere fuori dalla poesia (in particolare fuori dal Paradiso, diversamente da quel che il poeta a me devoto aveva immaginato per me) era stata una liberazione e un sollievo. La fuga mi aveva dato la libertà di vivere la mia vita a modo mio; non del tutto, ovviamente, perché tutte le società impongono restrizioni e obblighi, ma certamente con libertà maggiore rispetto a quella che avrei avuto a Firenze.

Ma perché non riescono a lasciarci in pace, questi poeti? Cosa li induce a pensare che possiamo sentirci al sicuro, o addirittura a nostro agio e felici, appollaiate su quei ridicoli trespoli che erigono per noi, pensando di farlo in nostro onore e a nostra futura gloria, quando invece è per disfarsi di noi e tenerci alla larga dalle funzioni e dalle istituzioni della vita sociale, così da non lasciarci alcuna voce in capitolo su come vivere le nostre vite? «Guardate – ci dicono – vi abbiamo elevato a un rango molto più importante del nostro, su su fino in Paradiso. Adesso però non vi muovete, sorridete beate e tacete!». Devo ammettere che mi sono sentita molto più soddisfatta e contenta quando sono stata coinvolta negli affari del mio secondo marito e quando ho avuto modo di occuparmene direttamente dopo la sua morte.

Ma ancora più fastidiose sono le voci che mio nipote mi ha riferito su tuo marito, il conte Hugues de Sade: dice che sei costretta a sopportare torture fisiche e mentali, supplizi viziosi e crudeltà – tutto questo, se confermato, farebbe impallidire le percosse e le abiezioni che io ebbi a sopportare dal mio primo marito al confronto. Mio nipote non sa dire se le attenzioni e l’esaltazione di Francesco per la tua bellezza e i tuoi divini attributi siano la causa di questo comportamento o se le poesie semplicemente forniscano a tuo marito una scusa per scatenare tendenze aberranti che si tramandano nella sua famiglia; mi racconta che circolano da tempo dicerie in merito a strani avvenimenti occorsi nel castello in cui dimorano i de Sade.

In ogni caso, che queste orrende voci siano giustificate o meno, se anche a te riesce insopportabile trovarti tra due fuochi, così come lo ero io, attaccata su due fronti: idealizzata nell’astrazione di un poeta con la testa tra le nuvole e brutalizzata in maniera abbietta e squallida da un coniuge violento, allora potrebbe esserti utile prendere spunto dalla soluzione che io trovai per me. Se aveva funzionato per me, perché non potrebbe funzionare anche per te?

Il momento sembra propizio affinché uno stratagemma di questo tipo possa funzionare. Qui a Venezia gira voce che dalle coste del Mediterraneo stia per attraversare il mare e sbarcare anche in Italia una terribile pestilenza; si dice che sia la peggiore mai vista e che si abbatterà con particolare ferocia sulle città molto popolose – come Venezia e Firenze, ahimè! Qualcuno la chiama “peste nera”.

Se queste voci si riveleranno corrette, in realtà, “propizio” potrebbe non essere il termine più appropriato; la minaccia di una peste in arrivo è un pericolo niente affatto “propizio”, casomai infausto, eppure potrebbe fornirti le circostanze necessarie ad attuare il piano che fu il mio. Se le voci dell’imminente arrivo di una peste catastrofica dovessero essere confermate dai fatti, la morte potrebbe liberarti comunque, in un modo o nell’altro, mettendo fine alla tua vita o a quella dei tuoi aguzzini. In ogni caso, per assicurarti la libertà senza lasciarla al caso, ti consiglio vivamente di fare quel che feci anche io e di prendere al volo l’opportunità di usare la peste per inscenare la tua morte e ricominciare altrove a vivere la tua vita di donna nei panni di un’altra. Buona fortuna!

Luce (che un tempo fu Bice)

Nota del Ricercatore/traduttore

Mi sono imbattuto in questa lettera mentre mi dedicavo ad alcune ricerche sugli antenati del Marchese de Sade (1740-1814). Le mie indagini miravano a determinare se e in quale misura le inclinazioni “libertine” a cui viene associato, inclusi comportamenti e patologie che da lui prendono il nome, come “sadismo” e “sadomasochismo”, fossero: 1, inventate ex novo dal marchese; 2, determinate dagli usi e costumi della società in cui viveva; 3, ereditate, tramandate da una generazione all’altra all’interno della stessa famiglia, e 4, se “ereditate”, in quale modo: geneticamente, attraverso tratti caratteriali ereditari, o culturalmente, per mezzo di tradizioni, istruzioni ed emulazione?

È stata questa ricerca a condurmi agli archivi del conte Hugues de Sade (circa 13001364), un antenato del Marchese del diciottesimo secolo, e in quegli archivi era nascosta la corrispondenza, mai rinvenuta fino ad allora, della sua prima moglie, Laura de Noves, in cui era conservata anche questa lettera. Se fosse autentica, la lettera non solo proverebbe che Laura de Noves era proprio la Laura cantata dal Petrarca e che Beatrice Portinari era la Beatrice di cui parla Dante, ma rivelerebbe anche – cosa ancor più importante – che Beatrice non era morta a Firenze nel 1290, come risulta agli atti, ma che era vissuta altrove ancora per molti anni.

Siccome la lettera è stata rinvenuta in una custodia in cui si direbbe non sia stata disturbata da nessuno fin dal tempo in cui fu scritta, sono convinto che sia autentica. Tuttavia, mi rendo conto che questo ritrovamento potrebbe suscitare non poco scetticismo, e ho pertanto consultato esperti estranei al mio ramo di studi per farmi aiutare a determinare l’autenticità del documento.

Gli storici della lingua che ho consultato sono giunti alla conclusione che la lettera debba essere stata composta da un mercante veneziano in un idioma franco-italico che all’epoca veniva usato come lingua franca per gli scambi epistolari tra diverse parti d’Europa. Era più facile che fossero i mercanti come i Polo di Venezia a saper leggere e scrivere piuttosto che i nobili, spesso costretti a farsi leggere e scrivere la corrispondenza dagli scrivani. Secondo gli storici, la quantità di errori grammaticali e stranezze lessicali presente in questa lettera sarebbe stata molto più contenuta se a scriverla fosse stato uno scrivano, il quale avrebbe anche evitato le numerose espressioni idiomatiche veneziane che qui punteggiano la lingua franco-italica comunemente impiegata in epistole simili; tutto questo avvalora la possibilità che la lettera sia veramente stata scritta da Beatrice/ Luce.

Con l’aiuto di alcuni archivisti veneziani, ho trovato traccia documentale di un matrimonio combinato nel 1295 tra Luce Brexian, di cui è riportato l’anno di nascita, il 1265, ma non il luogo di nascita né i riferimenti alla famiglia di provenienza, anche se il cognome parrebbe suggerire come luogo d’origine Brescia (che è plausibile fosse stato scelto dalla nostra presunta Beatrice per confondere le tracce del suo legame con Firenze) e Andrea Polo (1252- 1327), cugino di Marco Polo, che aveva vissuto a Sudak, l’antica Soldaia, situata nella penisola di Crimea sulla sponda settentrionale del Mar Nero, al tempo in cui era uno dei remoti centri di scambio della famiglia Polo. I dati d’archivio riportano anche che la prima moglie di Andrea, Caterina, era morta di parto nel 1293 a Sudak, e che, una volta vedovo, Andrea aveva chiesto ai parenti a Venezia di trovargli una nuova moglie da sposare per procura e di organizzare il viaggio della novella sposa fino a Sudak. Dai documenti in archivio si evince che Andrea Polo e Luce si erano sposati e avevano vissuto a Sudak fino al 1327, l’anno della morte di Andrea. Cinque anni dopo la morte del marito si trova traccia di Luce in alcuni atti notarili da cui si deduce che era tornata a Venezia con una figlia, Donata, che, stando agli atti di matrimonio, nello stesso anno risulta essere andata in sposa a Bartolomeo da Canal – un matrimonio probabilmente combinato prima del rientro da Sudak.

Questi dati d’archivio non sono una prova inoppugnabile che Luce Brexian in Polo fosse la fu Beatrice Portinari, né che fosse l’autrice della lettera, ma forniscono una fonte documentale circostanziata molto interessante a supporto di quella possibilità, sufficientemente credibile da spingermi a pubblicarla.

Mathieu Toussaint, Avignone, Francia

Nota aggiunta

Chi volesse contattare il Professor Mathieu Toussaint per chiedergli maggiori informazioni sul suo straordinario ritrovamento dovrà prima di tutto invertire il suo nome in omaggio a St. Mathieu, e cercarlo poi non solo ad Avignone ma tra il corpo docente emerito del dipartimento di francese ed italiano di un’università del Midwest che ha la peculiarità di avere lo stesso nome di una città che non si trova in quello stato, nonché di trovarsi in una città che ha lo stesso nome di una celebre sede universitaria inglese. Traduzione italiana di Maria Silvia Riccio.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter, and Keep Hope Alive!

On Mis/Translating the Most Famous Verse of the Divine Comedy

Sante Matteo

HORS D’OEUVRE

But before ye enter into this essay, let’s start things off with a pop quiz—just two questions: a little antipasto before the main course!

First, a language question:

Choose the correct English translation of this sentence: Finite ogni fagiolo voi che mangiate qui.

A. Finish each bean, you who are eating here!

B. Those of you who regularly eat here, make sure you finish every bean!

C. You who routinely eat here always finish every bean.

D. Those of you who are eating here are finishing all the beans.

E. Those of you who usually eat here are now finishing every bean.

F. You who are eating here always finish all the beans.

G. All of the above.

The correct answer is G: all the proposed translations are correct approximations. In form, both finite and mangiate can be either imperative or indicative. In this particular sentence, however, mangiate can only be indicative—You (you all, plural) eat/are eating—and only finite can be both imperative—Finish (all of you)! or indicative: You finish/are finishing. In the indicative mood, both finite and mangiate can be either the simple present—you finish . . . eat (regularly, all the time)--or the progressive present—you are (in the process of) finishing . . . eating (now). For the second person plural (voi), Italian uses the same verb ending for the imperative, the indicative simple present, and the indicative progressive present.[1]

--[1] A grammar primer for those who have not studied Italian or those who could use a refresher:

In English, as in Italian, the indicative and the imperative have the same form of the verb: eat, but the indicative, in English, is always accompanied by the subject pronoun: you eat, because the same form of the verb, with the same ending, is used for five of the six persons (subject categories) of the verb: first person singular and plural: I/We eat; second person singular and plural: You/You eat; and third person plural: They eat. The only distinct form is for the third person singular: He/She/It eats. So, in the indicative mood, just using eat by itself doesn’t tell us who the subject is.

The imperative, on the other hand, both in English and in Italian, can only be in the second person, addressed directly to the person or persons who are listening, which in English is you in both cases, with the verb in the same form. The first person, I/We, and the third person, He-She-It/They, cannot be the subject of an imperative verb, and so the subject pronoun is unnecessary. Therefore, eat, by itself, is necessarily an imperative, and you eat is the only way to express the indicative.

In Italian, on the other hand, the subject pronoun is not used with verbs in the indicative mood because each person of the verb has a distinct ending that tells us who or what the subject is. Let’s take mangiare (to eat): mangio (I eat), mangi (you, sing, eat), mangia (he/she/it eats), mangiamo (we eat), mangiate (you, plural, eat), mangiano (they eat).

As for the imperative mood, unlike English, in which the only possible subject for the imperative is you, which is both singular and plural, Italian has different forms for the second person singular, tu (thou), and for the plural, voi (you all). In Italian, therefore, it’s possible to tell if an imperative is addressed to an individual or to a group, even though the subject pronoun is not used: Finisci (Finish) addresses an individual (tu); Finite (Finish) addresses a group (voi).

Keep that polyvalence in mind as ye proceed—if ye proceed.

Now, a question on literature:

Which is a famous line from Italian literature in English translation?

A. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

B. Where are the snows of yesteryear?

C. Abandon all hope, you who enter!

D. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

E. A tisket, a tasket, a brown and yellow basket.

F. I think, therefore, I am.

G. All of the above.

The correct answer is C: probably the most quoted verse from Dante’s Divine Comedy. (If ye cheated and got a hint by looking back at the title of this essay, deduct 10 points from your score; or on second thought, add 10 points.)

Even if this had been an open-answer question, without the prompts provided by the multiple choices suggested (7 possibilities, because that’s the number that represents completion or fullness in Biblical, medieval Christian, and Dantean numerology), that line would likely be the one to come to mind for educated English speakers, just as Italian speakers would likely cite the same line in the original: “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate” (Inferno, canto III, verse 9).

For many people, whether they’ve read the poem or not, this sentence has thus come to constitute a summation of the whole poem, its essential message. (And, since I’ve now referred to it as a “sentence,” let us note—parenthetically at least—that English has serendipitously acquired two meanings for the word “sentence”: one, grammatical: a statement constituted by a string of words; and the other, juridical: a condemnation to punishment for the commission of a crime. For Anglophones, therefore, the “sentence” that, in the first sense, serves as a thematic summation also happens to be a “sentence,” in the second sense, to eternal, hopeless imprisonment.)

The wording of various English translations might differ: e.g. Abandon/Leave behind/Give up/Forsake/Surrender . . . all/every/any/each/whatsoever . . . hope/aspiration/wish . . . . The meaning remains the same: You are doomed to be punished in Hell for eternity with no possibility of pardon or parole, ever. So, leave all hope at the door! You won’t be needing it from now on.

WHAT’S DONE IS DONE

That commonly accepted meaning, however, relies on a very problematic and deficient translation of the verb “lasciate”; deficient, not in the sense that it’s incorrect but that it’s not fully adequate. Despite the different words, none of the English translations allow for all the possible meanings, connotations, or implications of the Italian original.

Recall the polyvalence in the first part of the quiz sprung on ye upon entering and notice that “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate” is similar in structure and tense to the quiz sentence. The verb lasciate can have analogous significations and translations to the verb finite in that sentence. That is, it can be either in the indicative or imperative mood and can express either the simple or progressive present tense, which means that this sentence, too, at least when standing by itself, can be translated in different ways, as was the quiz sentence. With lasciate as an indicative, the line could be read as: Those of you who enter in this place (are the ones who) leave all hope behind; or in the progressive tense: Those of you who are entering are (the ones who are) giving up any hope--as well as the other permutations presented for the quiz sentence, with the simple present and the progressive present alternating.

So, why is it always and only translated as an imperative? And what is lost in translation when the other possible meanings are jettisoned or ignored?

Insofar as this verse has commonly come to serve as a sort of short-hand synopsis for the whole text in the minds of many people, its translation fundamentally determines and alters how the Commedia is understood by the speakers of the language into which it is translated. As crucial as an accurate translation of this important verse is, however, I’m not aware of commentators who discuss its multiplicity of meanings and the difficulty of conveying those possible meanings and implications in English (and presumably, in other target languages).

Before plodding ahead, I should confess to being only an occasional visitor to the vast realm of Dante Studies—a dense, immense forest where I am likely to get lost, not having read widely or deeply in the field. In that sense, I am like Dante the pilgrim at the gate of Dis, cautioned, if the verb is read as an imperative, to give up any hope of emerging from the mess into which I am nevertheless blundering with this exploration, or if read in the indicative, reminded that I have already lost any such hope.

On the other hand, I did benefit from studying with the pre-eminent Dante scholar Charles Singleton in graduate school and from having another excellent dantista as a colleague for several years, Madison Sowell (whose illuminating canto-by-canto study questions I continued to use whenever I taught the Divine Comedy). Mostly, I learned by discussing the poem with many students over the years (usually using Allen Mandelbaum’s bilingual edition, with the vast majority of the students reading his English verse translation and the fewer Italian majors in each class reading the original Italian—with an extra class hour of discussion in Italian each week).

VOICES FROM THE PAST

This present excursion into the forbidding forest of Dante Studies, however, is taking place in retirement, without the students to help me get out if I get lost. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how the rest of this essay goes—while roaming through the Dartmouth Dante Project (https://dante.dartmouth.edu/), I came across two literary guides who have encouraged me to stumble ignorantly ahead: Jacopo della Lana (1278-1348) and Johannis de Serravalle (1350-1445), two early commentators of the Commedia.

Jacopo della Lana was Dante’s contemporary and compiled his commentary in Italian between 1324 and 1328, only a few years after Dante’s death in 1321. In his paraphrase of the verse, he apparently reads the verb lasciate as an indicative, based on the fact that he places its clause at the end of the sentence: “voi ch'entrate in questa cittade lassate ogni speranza” (You who enter into this city leave every hope). The fact that he was reading and writing at the time of the poem’s production and initial circulation would seem to imply that reading the verb as an indicative might have been the default or preferred way of reading the line. (I say that della Lana “apparently” reads it as an indicative because what I claim to be a possible double reading of Dante’s verse could conceivably also apply to della Lana’s reiteration of it. In form and out of context, his lassate could be either indicative or imperative. By a very long stretch of the imagination, the verb lassate could be read as an imperative, despite its positioning at the end of the sentence, albeit not very credibly. I doubt that any Italian speaker today could process it as an imperative. Still, the way language is used and understood does change over time, which is one of the points that I’m trying to make. Plus, it would be hypocritical of me to deny or downplay the importance of syntactic context in Dante’s verse and then affirm it as essential in Jacopo’s reiteration of it.  I’m assuming that the use of the exclamation point to signal the imperative is a relatively modern convention not generally in use in Dante’s time.)

In his explication of the passage, Johannis de Serravalle, who produced his commentary in Latin a century later, 1416-17, quotes the verse and supplies a Latin translation: “Lasciate omne speranza, voi che entrate: idest, perditis omnem spem vos qui intratis, nunquam hinc exituri.”  The Latin verb he uses for lasciate is perditis, the present indicative, second-person plural (vos) of the Latin verb perdo, perdere (to lose, destroy, ruin, waste, corrupt). The imperative form would be perdite. Since the imperative and indicative have different forms in Latin, there can be no doubt that Johannis reads the verb as an indicative and the verse as a declaration: You lose/are losing all hope, rather than as a command: Give up all hope!

So, with gratias to Jacopo and Johannis and following their lead from seven and six centuries ago, I blunder ahead on the path least taken since then and by now completely covered over.

ABANDON WHAT EXACTLY?

Current Dante scholars I’ve consulted support the imperative as the reading that makes the most sense. Some cite the explanation supplied by Vergil in the tercets that immediately follow this passage, as well as Charon’s words to the souls he is about to ferry across the River Acheron later in the same canto. Those passages, however, seem to me to compound the problem rather than resolve it. But ye, the jury, be the judge!

After reading the inscription above the gate, Dante turns to Vergil and exclaims: “Maestro, il senso lor m’è duro” (v. 12: Master, their sense for me is hard: my literal translation), which is usually taken to mean that Dante finds the meaning difficult, hard to understand—as in Mandelbaum’s translation: “Master, their meaning is difficult for me”—but according to several commentators, “duro” (hard) could also mean: hard on me: what that sign says is hard (threatening, dangerous, accusatory) for me.

In his reply, Vergil also uses the word lasciare, which could serve as a gloss on how to interpret the lasciate of the earlier tercet: “qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto” (v. 13: “Here one must leave behind all hesitation”; trans. Mandelbaum). The verbal construction, “si convien lasciare,” is not in the imperative mood, and the subject is not voi, the second person plural, but the impersonal third-person si (one). Nevertheless, it does state something that must be done, and it does therefore convey an imperative meaning indirectly. That’s the case, however, only if convenire is taken to imply obligation, which is one of its meanings but not the only one. It can also mean: to be in agreement; to come to a common accord; to be useful or to one’s advantage. But lest we get even more deeply lost in translation, let’s grant that the meaning here is the indirect imperative: one must put aside.

What is it, according to Vergil, that one must put aside? It’s ogne sospetto, which Mandelbaum translates as “all hesitation,” but which could also be: fear, doubt, suspicion, concern, uncertainty. All of these terms, however, are the opposite of hope. In essence, Vergil, in his explanation of the inscription, tells Dante that he—or more accurately: one, which is to say anyone or everyone—must abandon all doubt and hesitation, which means that he/one must keep his/one’s hope alive, not abandon it. It sounds to me like a flat-out contradiction of the divine command posted on the gate, if a command is what it is.

Commentators, including colleagues who have reflected on my hypothesis, however, explain that Vergil is not paraphrasing the saying on the gate but is telling Dante not to worry about it, to ignore the injunction because it doesn’t apply to him, because, thanks to the intervention of Beatrice, he is exempted from the rule. There is no reason for Dante to fear because he is not doomed to Hell, only passing through. But if Vergil is not answering Dante’s question by paraphrasing or explaining the line, why would he re-use the verb lasciare as if he is reiterating and clarifying the sentence that worries Dante? And if he is telling Dante that he, as an individual with special dispensation, can ignore what the inscription says, why does he use the impersonal si (everyone, anyone) rather than tu (you, singular)? The impersonal construction implies that his explanation applies generally to everyone, not particularly to Dante.

Vergil’s admonition would make more sense—without initially appearing to be contradictory—if the inscription’s last line was not a command to abandon hope but a declaration that it’s by losing hope that people get to that point. In other words, Vergil, himself, seems to read lasciate as an indicative, which would also suggest that Dante the author also meant it to be understood that way: Those who abandon hope are the ones who get trapped and can’t get out. So, make sure that you do not abandon hope but keep up your courage! That’s what Vergil not only reiterates but emphasizes by repeating the same admonition in the next verse: “ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta” (v. 14: “here every cowardice must meet its death”; Mandelbaum). This, too, is couched in the third-person, impersonal form, making it generally applicable to everyone or anyone, not directed specifically at Dante. And it, too, would seem to contradict what is written over the gate if lasciate is taken to be an imperative. If Vergil reads lasciate as an indicative, doesn’t it suggest that Dante wrote it as an indicative?

A parallel admonition, near the end of the canto is expressed by Charon, the mythological ferryman who transports dead souls across the Acheron to the Underworld: “non isperate mai veder lo Cielo” (v. 85: “Forget your hope of ever seeing Heaven”; Mandelbaum; more literally, “Don’t hope ever to see the Sky/Heaven!”). Here, too, the verb isperate is taken to be an imperative by commentators and translators. And that is undoubtedly a “correct” reading and translation. Nevertheless, at least in terms of grammatical morphology, this verb, too, could also be read as an indicative: You, anime prave (v. 84: corrupted souls), are the ones who can never hope to see the sky. Without rehearsing all the possibilities again, let’s just say that it fails to serve as convincing supporting evidence that lasciate ogni speranza is perforce an imperative and can only be read as such.

LOST IN THE FOREST OF LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION

To recapitulate, here’s what makes this a textbook case of the traduttore = traditore comparison (translator = traitor; to translate is necessarily to betray the original text): In Italian, lasciate can be read as either an imperative or as an indicative verb. In English, it has to be one or the other (see footnote on first page), and all translators, to my knowledge, have opted for the imperative. All English readers have thus read the verse only as a command: Abandon all hope! What gets lost in translation when the possibility of reading the verb as an indicative is abandoned?

In the Divine Comedy course, taught in English, I would point out that lasciate could be an indicative, which would change the verse to a declaration: "Those of you who go through these gates are the ones who choose or have chosen to abandon hope." Rather than a command issued by a superior force over which we have no control; this description ascribes choices and consequences more directly to us. It thus becomes a description of a psychological state or condition in life instead of an imagined otherworldly punishment. By extension, it describes any addiction to which we are prone as sentient human beings: a condition created by us that we experience in life, not after death.

For supplementary reading in the course, I normally asked students to read a daily newspaper or weekly news magazine. They were to make note of a story in recent news that resonated with the reading assignment in the poem. To their surprise, they had little trouble finding characters and events that were analogous to those depicted in the Commedia. They could thus perceive that Dante was not only writing about cosmology, history, philosophy, and religious doctrine, but also about the everyday life of his Florentine and Italian neighbors, and, even more importantly, also about us, our world, and our neighbors. Reading lasciate as an indicative reinforces the poem’s relevance to other times and places. It defines Hell as a state of our own making, and one that we keep making in each generation. It says: This is what you allow yourselves to become when you lose hope. Dante’s journey becomes the reader’s journey.

Oscar Wilde makes an illuminating distinction in De Profundis, that I think is relevant: “while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes.” “Wrongness” is not inherent in individual actions but in becoming addicted to certain behaviors and reaching a state when there is no longer a possibility of changing. And that is Hell: permanent hopelessness created by our own choices (leaving aside considerations of biological, genetic, social, economic, and other material determinants).

A similar insight came at a party when a fellow graduate student introduced me to her date, Willy, whom I had often seen in the gym, where he was usually working with weights. I said: “Oh, nice to meet you finally. You’re the weightlifter I see at the gym, aren’t you?” He smiled and nodded but corrected me: “Well, I lift weights, yes, but I’m not a weightlifter.” He was echoing Oscar Wilde: What he did was not what he had become, not what he was.

The distinction made by Wilde and by Willy can also help us understand Dante’s notion of contrapasso, the form of punishment meted out in Inferno. As John Freccero (also Singleton’s student, two decades before me) pointed out in his brilliant essay, “Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell” (MLN, 1984), the punishments witnessed by Dante the pilgrim (and invented by Dante the poet) do not correspond to a generalized, pre-established hierarchy nor to a gradation of suffering based on the intensity of physical pain. Dante’s Hell is not just fire and brimstone, and the punishments do not become more severe as Dante and Vergil descend lower. Rather, each form of punishment is custom-made to “fit” the sin being punished. The punishment is actually an extension and reification of the sin, itself. As Wilde might have put it, it’s the condition created when the sinner has become the sin.

Addiction to certain behaviors has brought these people to a state from which they can no longer extricate themselves. Their condition, along with their character, has become static and permanent, and that immobility is their damnation. They have become slaves of the addiction and have lost their capacity for agency and with it, any real hope of change.

Sins and crimes presumably start out with a desire to obtain something that is denied or difficult to attain. Hope of success fuels that desire, bolsters the determination to pursue it, and drives the efforts to make it come true. If the goal is met and the desire is satisfied, success produces pleasure, a sense of empowerment, and the impulse to do it again. And then again, and again, until desire has become a need, a compulsion that no longer allows for choice: an addiction that now controls the addicted, whether it be to drugs or medication, to patterns of behavior, to a rigid set of beliefs, or to ideological convictions.

Hope and desire presuppose and require will, agency, mobility, achievement, change: all of which have been lost through addiction. Through initial desire and hope, addicts have become the hopeless reified victims of their desire. They have produced their own Hell from which they cannot escape. Their self-induced condition resembles Dante’s notion of contrapasso, which can be understood as a version of the jocular warning to “be careful what you pray for because you might get it.” The lesson of Inferno’s contrapasso, as anticipated in the inscription on the entrance gate, could be: Be careful what you hope for; you might get it and be stuck with it.

In this case, too, an essential element of what defines Hell in the Commedia, the contrapasso, seems to make more sense, at least to me, if lasciate is read as a description of what has brought the sinners to that condition rather than as a command of what to do from this point on. In Wilde’s distinction, these are people who are no longer able to “do” anything; they have “become” something. They no longer have the capacity to make a choice and act on it; can no longer anticipate, choose, or determine their future; no longer have the mobility or flexibility to bring about change in themselves or in their circumstances. Commanding them to give up hope is pointless. At best, it’s only rhetorical, to point out the obvious. At worst, it’s a cruel taunt to remind them of what they’ve already given up.

On the other hand, the reading I’m now proposing that focuses on the past, rather than on the future, seems to be just as pessimistic, if not more so. What’s worse, it seems to be an account that “blames the victims,” attributing their condition exclusively to their choices and actions, without allowing for other determinants that might have been outside their control. And yet, paradoxically perhaps, focusing on the sinners’ past experiences allows readers to review causes and consequences more critically than if those experiences were simply occluded, with questions of choice and responsibility removed from sight and consideration. By taking us back to the past, the indicative also allows us to envision possible different futures than the one that has taken us to the gate of Hell. The imperative, precisely because it can be enacted only in the future and thus occludes the past, keeps those other potential futures off the screen, away from the reader’s perception and evaluation.

In pointing out the alternative meaning of lasciate to students, however, my aim was not to contradict or deny the meaning implied by the imperative, but to argue that reading the verb as an indicative can make the passage even more relevant and forceful by switching the cause/effect relationship, thus assigning greater agency to individuals, including the readers—especially the readers. The imperative says: You have sinned and, as a result, you are now commanded to give up hope. The sins come first, and the loss of hope follows as a consequence. The injunction applies only to  characters inside the narrative. The indicative says: You have given up hope and thereby you have created a condition for yourself out of which you cannot exit (Sartre's Huis clos). The loss of hope is not the consequence but the cause—the original sin, in a sense—that leads to the condition of no escape. This explanation, unlike an interdiction, applies both to the fictional characters inside the narrative and to the flesh-and-blood readers outside.

JOURNEY THROUGH THE PSYCHE

When I was a graduate student, I heard an enlightening talk by Franco Ferrucci at a summer semiotics seminar I was attending in Urbino. He made a convincing case that Freud's notions of the Id, Ego, and Superego were essentially a reformulation of Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, and that modern notions of psychology were anticipated by and already embedded in Dante's poem. We could learn as much about the human psyche by reading Dante as by reading Freud.

Scholars with whom I’ve discussed his analogy have generally found the Id-Inferno and Ego-Purgatorio comparisons convincing but objected to likening the Superego to Paradiso. Dante’s paradisal vision, they say, is not of a restrictive, punitive conscience that dictates behavior, thwarts dangerous appetites, curbs desires, and creates a sense of guilt, but a state of grace and joy, far removed from what Freud conceived as the nature and function of the Superego.

We have commonly come to regard Freud’s notion of the Superego (uber-ich) as a policing, forbidding conscience that induces guilt, but his own definition also attributed a more positive manifestation to it, as the ego-ideal, or ideal self, characterized by aspirational goals rather than punitive threats: what in popular parlance we sometimes term the “better angels” that guide us to a sense of wellbeing and fulfillment, if not ecstasy and joy.

Dante's Paradiso does indeed depict a state of grace and joy, but represents it as available only to the “saved” and only in an afterlife, not in this life—which is to say, not in life but in death. The joy of Paradiso is hypothetical, a possibility only for those who believe in an afterlife and the existence of a soul and a deity. Dante’s Paradiso and Freud’s Superego, in other words, are both products of the imagination. They conceptualize ideal aspirations created by the mind. Freud's tripartite concoction is just as much a mental, linguistic, conceptual creation as Dante's vision —and thus also a product of poiesis, which  explains why the French novelist Romain Rolland nominated Freud for the Nobel Prize in 1937 not for science but for literature.

If the Commedia is to be read as an exploration of our human experience and condition and an investigation of our psyche, it has to remain relevant within different socio-historical contexts, regardless of the inevitable diversity of philosophical, religious, or psychological beliefs to be found in different times and places. Readers need to be able to transpose Dante's language and beliefs—what Umberto Eco called an author’s or a reader’s “dictionary” and “encyclopedia”—into their own conceptual paradigms.

As readers, we have to figure out how texts, whether Dante’s poem or Freud’s treatises, pertain to us individually and collectively. To do that, it’s useful, perhaps even necessary, to be “religious,” but not necessarily in the same way that Dante was, nor in the sense of common usage, which defines religion as believing in and worshiping a supernatural deity. Rather, I mean “religious” in the etymological sense of the word, which derives from Latin religo, religare = to tie things back together; or according to another derivation, cited by Cicero: relego, relegere = to read again, review and reconsider, to gather together. While both etymologies allow for the common meaning of  religion as a belief in divinity and an attempt to remain attached to it, they also allow for other possible meanings, for other categories to tie together, other bonds that need to be created and maintained. The essential thing is to establish ties with something beyond ourselves.

Both Latin verbs define the main purpose and function of culture: to recall, assemble, reflect (in two senses: 1, to examine and ponder; and 2, to project back, as in a mirror), establish connections, and tie things together: individuals to society; past events and ideas to present and future ones; facts to ideas; existence to essence; experience to meaning; immanence to transcendence. “Transcendence,” like “religion,” has also come to refer primarily to a supernatural, divine realm, but it doesn’t have to be deistic or mystical. We “transcend” to another realm whenever something takes us out of our individual physical, animal existence and binds us (ligare) to something beyond our biological experiences to a conceptual realm of meaning, be it familial, social, philosophical, political, psychological, theological, magical, or scientific.

Evolution has left us with an organ that produces thoughts, whether we want it to or not, and those thoughts create meanings, forcing us to navigate constantly between bodily existence and mental constructs: in other words, to be “religious” in the sense of tying together immanent experience and transcendent conceptualization. It’s curious that the prefix re- in religare or relegere, and hence in religion, conveys the idea of repetition or retrieval, of tying back to something that existed before but whose bond has somehow been sundered. It suggests that the need to recuperate something that has been lost is already posited as a premise at the outset of thinking: an illusion of loss and reacquisition prepackaged into the term itself. To be in life—with a brain—is to want to transcend it, to “return” to the Garden of creation before and beyond natural life. That little prefix re- immediately transports our quest for significance into the past and to a supernatural realm, beyond the contingency and corruption of biological existence. The fact that we want to go “back” to the Garden before “creation” hides the fact that it’s a fiction we created to have something to look ”forward” to: “salvation.”

The Commedia, as I read it, tells us how to perform that “religious” act of bridging and binding together our immanent (meaningless) reality with a transcendent (meaningful) realm: 1, Avoid the static, hopeless, addictive suffering of Hell; 2, Aim for the pleasure and happiness of Heaven (both of these, mental constructs created by our meaning-making machine, analogous to Freud’s Id and Superego); 3, Laboriously make our way through Purgatory (also a mental or conceptual construct or allegory, but closer to reflecting our physical, biological life).

TRANSCENDENCE READ BACKWARDS

In the classroom and in his writings, Professor Singleton brilliantly and convincingly made a case that Beatrice should be read as a figura Christi (both a symbol and a representative of Christ, a “standing in” in His stead). His allegorical reading is enlightening within a Christian context, especially within the medieval European scriptural and epistemological context he uncovered and evoked and within which he situated Dante’s mental encyclopedia, reconstituting what Dante would have read and learned, the ideas and knowledge to which he would have responded, using the language, information, and beliefs of his time. But does his interpretation also shed light on the possible meanings of the text outside the Christian semantic field?

Singleton’s explication of the poem as a “journey to Beatrice” and, because she is a figura Christi, also as a journey to Christ and to salvation, presumes that Dante, himself, intended such to be the signification to be uncovered by his readers. But, to me at least, Dante’s own intentions are of secondary importance. I don’t think we read literature primarily to find out what a particular person thought about a particular issue at a particular time in a particular place. What we have available to us is the poem, with all the accretions it has accumulated over seven centuries of comments and interpretations. The least fruitful question for me is: What did the author want to say? More interesting and useful questions are: What information does the text convey about the concerns, beliefs, institutions, and customs of the society within which and for which it was produced? How do these cultural traits relate to those of previous times and how did they evolve afterwards, down to our own time? Even more instructive and valuable are questions such as: What do readers find in the work that keeps it vital and seminal over many generations and across the world? How does it help me understand myself, even though I live in a different time and world? What does it disclose to me about other people, so that I can better understand how others influence my life, and I, theirs? As an artifact of cultural production and widespread and long-lived consumption, what does it reveal about the function and value of communication, art, and other cultural products? How do they serve to permit us to make sense of life and to share ideas, to learn from those who came before us and instruct those who come after? How can a work of literature or other form of art help me understand and possibly improve myself, my relationships, my life, the lives of others?

Similar concerns and expectations are echoed in a novel I’m currently reading, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land. One of the characters has spent years trying to translate an ancient Greek manuscript by finding the perfectly correct words and syntax. He finally learns from his young students, with whom he is trying to stage the text as a play, that such perfect, “faithful” translation is not only impossible but undesirable, because it would be counterproductive, hindering the forward flow of cultural production, which relies on change and renewal. He realizes from his students’ reactions, that stories continue to live and help us make sense of life by remaining relevant and adapting to the lives and worlds of new readers. It’s not the original intention of authors that matters and needs to be disinterred and preserved, nor the original language that needs to be reproduced slavishly. If a text doesn’t speak to the needs and interests of current readers and re-tellers of the tale in their own terms, it's a dead letter.

I don’t mean to dismiss my revered professor’s thesis as being valid only for Christian readers. His studies illuminated the text for all readers, be they of other religions, agnostic, or atheists, by showing other facets of the poem that had been hidden, or not polished enough to be as visible as he made them. Each time a new facet of the Commedia is shown, the poem becomes more brilliant. If nothing else, new interpretations, if convincing in their own terms, reveal to all readers that there are many dimensions and many paths within the journey Dante depicts; many directions to pursue. The poem has become a canonical masterwork because it has so many brilliant facets and accommodates many expository itineraries through it, but as importantly, in my view, because it reveals how the process of signification works and why signifying is essential, indeed inevitable, for humans with a brain and with language.

Partly thanks to Singleton’s guidance, albeit followed obliquely, I started to read allegorical and metaphorical equations backwards, to see if there were hidden implications hiding on one side or the other. The direction in which we process equations matters. Two plus two always equals four. But reading it in the other direction, if the starting point is 4, it can equal 2 + 2 or 3 + 1. If Beatrice is a figura Christi, is Christ a figura Beatrice? And would it mean the same thing?

Even back in Singleton’s classroom, it struck me that, from a materialist perspective, a divine entity seems a more likely candidate to be a figura than a person, since it’s not a physical or biological object but an imagined ideal, hence a figura by definition. Dante and his fellow poets present the women who are the love objects in their poetry as exemplars of the donna angelicata (woman made angel, angelified), instruments for the distribution of God's grace that, through love, will lead us to salvation, away from this world of woe to a realm of pure, eternal joy: a state that does not exist in the physical universe. Read backwards, however, it’s the metaphysical notions of divine grace and salvation that appear to be the instruments or vehicles that lead us back to life and the world in order to make sense of existence, of people, of our human condition—not merely to understand, in the sense of “standing under” something already made, but to make sense, conceived as something that is created and constructed.

This bi-directional view of the relation between the human and the divine is expressed poignantly in the Commedia, itself, by St. Bernard's prayer to the Virgin Mary at the beginning of Paradiso canto 33: “Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio, /  umile e alta più che creatura . . . //  tu se' colei che l'umana natura /  nobilitasti sì, che 'l suo fattore /  non disdegnò di farsi sua fattura.” (vv.1-2,4-6: “Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, /   Humble and high beyond all other creatures . . . // Thou art the one who such nobility /   To human nature gave, that its Creator /   Did not disdain to make himself its creature”; Mandelbaum). All the paradoxes invite a double perspective: both a virgin and a mother; the daughter of her son; the maker of her Maker, in that the “Creator” was also her “creature.” The paradoxes express a mystery, and it’s likely that Dante’s intention was to express this mystery as a miracle: the divine making itself manifest in our earthly realm; transcendence descending to immanence. But read in the other direction, it also reveals obfuscation achieved through a sort of linguistic and mental prestidigitation: self-contradictory affirmations that simultaneously suggest and hide the fact that we imagine a Creator so that we can believe that we were created by an eternal supernatural force to be special "creatures" who are put on Earth for a purpose and who will never die after we’re freed from our bodies.

Ultimately, and even more fundamentally, Beatrice is also a figura hominis, or more accurately, figura hominum: a symbol and representative of all people: living people with bodies, not just disembodied souls. In representing or symbolizing Christ, she also stands for other human beings: the people we encounter in our daily lives, our neighbors. It’s them we must love and by them be loved. Beatrice, as a figura Christi, is the human made divine. Christ, on the other hand, is the divine made human. By loving Christ, a human, we also love God, and by loving Christ, a God, we also love human beings.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have a well-known saint, or one of the Apostles, or a Church Father to serve as a guide through Paradiso? Better yet, why not the Virgin Mary? Having Beatrice, a Florentine neighbor who is not known outside Florence, as both the guide and the goal of Dante the pilgrim’s journey serves to humanize divinity, to “popularize” it, that is, to locate and embody divinity in the populace around us. Beatitude comes from and resides in our relations with other people. Even if we believe in the afterlife of the soul and in eternal salvation or damnation, it is a Beatrice who takes us there: a person we meet in life, a neighbor, a fellow human being.

Beatrice, a woman Dante knew, reveals to us that the sufferings of Hell and the joys of Heaven, which we project onto an afterlife, are also reflections of this life. Her function is not only to take Dante to God in the Empyrean but to bring him back to Florence: to this world and this life. Singleton used to quote St. Paul’s metaphorical aphorism that in this life “we see in a mirror, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), whereas after we’re dead, we will see everything clearly. Reversing the direction of the mirror analogy allows another meaning to emerge: that perfect clarity is a metaphysical ideal that exists outside the boundaries of our natural lives, and the only thing we can do in life, in this world, is to perceive things imperfectly, darkly. At the same time that it’s a call to have faith in a divine, ultramundane realm, it reveals that such a realm is in fact ideal, a product of the mind, of ideas spawned by imagination, desire, and the fear of death and finitude. Read in reverse, the metaphor doesn’t tell us that the imperfect vision of this life is something to dread, despise, and shun, but a condition to accept as natural, as the way things should be in life: acceptance, not abhorrence, of our limits as mortals.

One doesn't have to believe that there is a real Hell underground or a real Empyrean beyond the stars reachable after death to take part in Dante's vision and learn from it. One just has to translate his allegorical framework into one's own allegorical landscape.

TO DO OR TO BE?

And so, back to the quest of how to interpret and translate: Lasciate ogni speranza.

When read as a declarative sentence, Hell can be understood as a condition that we create for ourselves when we "become" our obsession, when we have already "abandoned all hope." The loss of hope has happened before getting to the gate. It's what has brought us there, not what is imposed on us from that point on. We are thus granted greater agency, as well as more responsibility, in determining our own fate, choosing how to act and what to become.

But wait, do not abandon the imperative!

Do not leave with the idea that reading and translating lasciate as an imperative is incorrect! It can and should be read as an imperative. As a command, it conveys a meaning that would, in its turn, be lost if the verb were to be translated always and only as an indicative. The imperative at this point is rhetorically and dramatically more effective and forceful. It engages the reader more directly: the reader inside the text who reads the inscription and also the reader outside the text who reads the poem. For both sets of readers, a command is a speech act that elicits an affective reaction as well as an intellectual perception and is thus more engaging and compelling than a declaration or explication. Narratively and dialogically, it’s not surprising that the imperative has come to be preferred and eventually perceived as the only possible reading in this context.

Nevertheless, I would suggest that both sets of meanings, borne by the same verb performing double duty as imperative and indicative, are not only possible and credible in themselves, when considered independently, but they are also complementary to each other and mutually supportive. One way of reading the verb reinforces the other. The performative force of the imperative serves as a catalyst to process the implications of the explication provided by the indicative, while the explanation offered by the indicative justifies the emotional impact induced by the command.

The verb lasciare is used over a hundred times in the poem (106, by my count). In all but one other case, it is used in a different form, with a different subject or in a different tense or mood. None of the other forms found in the poem present a possible confusion as to whether the verb is an imperative or an indicative, not even the one other use of lasciate.

Can ye guess, dear reader, where lasciate shows up again? Wouldn’t ye know that the only other time it’s used again is in front of another gate: the entrance to Purgatory proper. Dante and Vergil reach it after making their way through Ante-Purgatory, following an itinerary similar to the one in Hell, where they traversed Ante-Hell before reaching the gate of Hell proper.

This time Dante the character does not hear or read the verb used directly but hears it used in Vergil’s account of how they reached the entrance. After Dante had fallen asleep down in the Valley of the Rulers, St. Lucy had arrived and said: “'I' son Lucia; /  lasciatemi pigliar costui che dorme; /  sì l'agevolerò per la sua via.'” (“’I am Lucia; / let me take hold of him who is asleep, / that I may help to speed him on his way.” Mandelbaum, Purgatorio 9.55-57).

In this case, the verb lasciate can only be an imperative because of the pronoun mi attached to it. In the indicative, the pronoun would precede and be separate from the verb: mi lasciate. Since in this case lasciate is clearly an imperative and seems to echo its use in the previous cantica when our heroes encountered a similar situation, can its use here serve as supporting evidence for the argument that the lasciate of Hell was also an imperative?

Perhaps it does since it does seem to be an echo of the previous usage. But if it is repetition, it’s repetition with several significant differences. First, it is not written but spoken orally, or more accurately, quoted, and so spoken twice. Moreover, it is not addressed to Dante, nor generally to the souls making their way through Purgatory. Lucia was addressing Vergil and the souls of Sordello, Nino, and Currado, who were present when Dante fell asleep. Hence, the imperative verb was not originally uttered at the gate, nor meant for the souls about to enter through that gate. Furthermore, it’s not a warning or a prohibition, as the lasciate at the gate of Hell is taken to be. It’s not a demand not to do something but a polite request to be permitted to do something: allow me to take him.

Given these differences, it could be argued just as persuasively that the repetition of the verb here, now used in such a way that it can only be read as an imperative, could also serve to point out that the lasciate of Hell is, in fact, used differently and should not be read the same way, but as an indicative.

But lest ye give up hope of ever getting out of this discussion, shall we try to retrace our steps and see if we can find a way to sneak out?

The indicative leads us to the individual psyche and the process of self-determination: What can, should, will I make of myself?

The imperative, on the other hand, puts us in the realm of communal responsibility and accountably, making us focus on our social behavior to question how we fulfill our collective roles in relation to others: What is my place in a community? What has society given me? How has it shaped me? What do I owe to others in the community and to the community as a whole?

Is it enough to conform to what my community’s dictates and expectations or is it more fruitful to translate and possibly transform the received culture to help the community adapt and evolve to changing conditions?  

By presenting the situation of those who dwell in Hell as a punishment for the violation of a law sanctioned by a higher authority—God in this case, as mediated by Scriptures, the Church, the community of believers—the passage alludes to the importance of adhering to the laws, customs, beliefs, and expectations of the groups to which we belong: demographic, geographic, political, economic, religious, vocational: any affiliation that grants recognition and privileges and makes demands on us, influences our behavior to some extent, and contributes to giving us a sense of identity. If we adhere to a community, we must also adhere to its rules. If not, we will be expelled—either by force, against our will, or by choice and of our own volition: expulsion, in either case. And that’s what Hell is: exclusion more than confinement.

Reading the inscription only in one sense or the other leaves the text and its readers bereft of what has been lost in translation, which, as I hope to have demonstrated, happens to be quite a bit.

So, dear readers and fellow travelers, if ye held on tight to that polyvalence that I told ye to keep on hand, ye can now see that it’s the key that allows entrance through many gates of the “divine” poem, including some that are still hidden. In the meantime, ye can use it to find your way out of this diabolical disquisition and go back to your own meaningful explorations.

But before ye go, do abandon all hope of ever obtaining complete and unique knowledge and do keep hoping to find a little more understanding whenever and wherever ye seek it!

WHAT EVERY FOOL KNOWS

After reading a draft of this essay, my former colleague and stellar Dante scholar, Madison Sowell, who happened to be in Rome planning for the publication of his book on ballet photography (he, too, in retirement, pursuing paths less travelled), asked an Italian friend whether lasciate was indicative or imperative, without giving the context. The friend answered, “Ogni sciocco sa che è tutti e due, indicativo e imperativo” (Every fool knows that it’s both, indicative and imperative). When given the context, the friend’s answer was: “Ogni sciocco sa che è imperativo” (Every fool knows that it’s imperative).

In just a few words, those two statements succinctly restate the argument of this verbose essay; that lasciate can be read either as a command or as a declaration, that the choice depends on the context, and that, in this case, the verb has universally come to be read only as an imperative. Faced with such certainty—available to any sciocco (fool)—my attempt to show that in this very context lasciate can also be read as an indicative seems indeed to be a fool’s errand, a Quixotic quest at best (to mix literary allusions, if not metaphors). But if fools and Don Quixote do rush in where angels and wiser folk fear to tread, to paraphrase Alexander Pope (and jumble literary allusions further), at least fools manage to do some treading.

The responses are also intriguing because of the colorful use of the colloquial formula "Ogni sciocco sa . . .” (Every/Any fool knows), which, unwittingly perhaps, couples knowing with foolishness. While meaning that “everyone knows this, even fools,” the expression also seems to say that “those who know this are foolish.” That implication, I think, is both telling and important in what it suggests about language and knowledge: that ultimately it is foolish to think that one knows something with certainty, without allowing for any doubt.

If language is a mirror through which we attempt to reflect reality, it can only reflect it “darkly” (in the Pauline sense) because it necessarily distorts and hides some facets while revealing others. The word sciocco (fool; probably from Latin ex-sucus, without juice, sap, and by extension, without vigor, force, energy) could be considered a collective Freudian slip, in that while used to affirm certain knowledge, over which there can no longer be any doubt, it also equates such certainty to foolishness; somewhat like Pirandello's Così è se vi pare (That’s the way it is if that’s the way it seems to you), which implies that reality is, after all, a matter of perception. Even though the quip that “perception is reality” has become a cliché in popular psychology, we nevertheless realize that it’s true only up to a point. Perception is what we see, but it can fool us. The reality we think we perceive may not be the full or real reality. It’s “foolish” to believe in our perceptions and to believe that we can grasp and know reality fully.

Translation is a mirror of a mirror. It adds more distortions and hides more facets while uncovering or emphasizing others. But in doing so, it also reveals the arbitrary nature of language and the meanings that we construct and convey with language and then try to replicate in different languages. If language is a deficient medium to convey reality, to create knowledge and meaning, and to express and share our ideas, then translation is doubly so: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che traducete! Abandon all hope, you who translate!

But that, too, can be read otherwise, with lasciate as an indicative: You translators are the ones who give up hope; but giving up hope in a good sense: giving up the expectation of achieving perfection, as in that which is finished and complete; accepting the imperfections that language and life contain and impose; and striving to keep communicating and tying stories, poems, ideas, and people together (religare), across geographical and chronological boundaries, with each other in the present and with the acquired wisdom and beauty (relegere) of other times and cultures, so that we can pass them on to those who come after us.

Language, writing, translation are all makeshift instruments of transmission on which we rely (another term and concept that stem from the Latin root religare, to bind, to tie, and therefore another necessary act of “religion”).

As serendipity would have it (perhaps a more forceful and resourceful guide for our cognitive journeys than tried and true experts who take us down tried and tired paths rather than into new, unexplored territory), while pondering the relationship between foolishness and knowledge, I happened to come on this passage in Doerr’s marvelous novel Cloud Cuckoo Land: “What’s so beautiful about a fool is that a fool never knows when to give up.”

Isn’t that how culture is created, maintained, and passed on: with fools, sciocchi, never giving up, never abandoning hope?

MORE TRIPTIKS THROUGH DANTE’S TRIPTYCH

Just in case ye want to continue your wanderings through Dante’s Hell, here are some other questions for ye to consider (ye, not me, because I’m retired and already exhausted by this Hell-bound pilgrimage):

Why are lasciate and entrate in the plural voi, rather than in the singular tu, in the first place?

Charon’s harangue in the plural voi makes sense because he is addressing a group of people and is doing so out loud. And Vergil’s use of the impersonal si also makes sense if he’s talking about everyone and anyone who passes that way. But for the inscription, wouldn’t the singular tu make more sense since it’s a written text that has to be read by each individual? Shouldn’t it therefore be addressed to each sinner individually? (And why, ye might well ask, have I addressed my dear reader—particularly dear if still here—as ye rather than as thou/thee, or why not just stick to our more convenient, dedifferentiated, post-Elizabethan “you”? The devil must have made me do it.)

What’s more, now that reading and writing have come up, why is it an inscription that adorns the gate? Why is it written? Why in Italian? Do only Italians go to Hell? Are there different gates for different languages? Or does the inscription switch to a different language for each sinner? What if the sinner can’t read (which would be the case for just about everybody at that time and a vast majority of folks at most other times)? Or, are only the literate expected to be going to Hell (in which case, be afrid, reader, be very afraid!)? And why would God write in terza rima, using exactly the same rhyme scheme and verse and stanza form that Dante invented specifically for his poem? Or is Dante telling us that that’s how he came up with the prosody of the Commedia, by seeing it on the gate and imitating it for his poem? (Freccero addresses the terza rima question in the above-mentioned essay,”Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell,” making it the basis of the “irony” he attributes to the gate.)

(Oh, oh, I feel that familiar itch of a hypothesis coming on: could this be a self-referential fractal component in the text: a repetition on a micro-scale of the Commedia, itself, as a written text; it, too, crafted to convey universal truths to an uncertain and varied audience while simultaneously displaying all its localized, material limitations: a way for the text both to justify and to question itself? Written language, or rather, language tout court, regardless of how it’s manifested, even if just thought without any kind of utterance or expression, is necessarily inadequate to contain and convey lived experience and the full material complexity of the world and the universe; but it’s all we have. [Note to self: You’re retired. Abandon any intention of pursuing this!])

But before getting lost in other byways, let’s get back to voi vs. tu. Is the plural voi on the inscription used in order to imply collectivity of some kind; to suggest that sinning, committing a crime, or doing something “wrong” always involves doing it within a group or cohort? If misery loves company, as the saying goes, does the use of the collective voi accommodate that very company that misery loves by involving others in our choices and actions?

Is it significant that, if the subject of the verbs lasciare and entrare had been the singular tu, there would be no possible confusion between the imperative and the indicative, because for verbs of the first conjugation, whose infinitive ends in -are, the second personal singular (tu) endings are different in the two moods: lasci, indicative; lascia, imperative? Is voi used precisely in order to create the confusion, so that lasciate can be read as either or both an indicative and an imperative?

Frankly, my dears, I don’t know whether to give a damn or not because I don’t know if these issues have been addressed in commentaries and critical studies. I suspect, however, that, even if they have been, they open up paths for further investigation. So if ye want to extend your stay and undertake more excursions in Dante’s Hell, these are some possible triptiks to consider. (If ye don’t know what triptiks are--or were?—good! It helps make the point that life, knowledge, and language all go with the wind: not gone, though, just translated, which means moved and adapted elsewhere.)

Abandon all hesitation! Go to Hell! Meander through its circles with abandon! Buon viaggio!

A HEAVENLY DESSERT

         But what about those of ye—if there still be any—who prefer to be Heaven-bound and to roam in the realm that is much less frequented, whether it be by souls—many being called but few chosen, as another S. Matteo (St. Matthew, in English) once pointed out—or by readers, as well as by translators, given that there are many more translations of Inferno than of the entire poem or of the other canticles—and even by me in this little excursion? Well, if ye want to be among the select few who make it to and through Paradise, do not abandon hope!

         Actually, I had no intention of steering my “piccioletta barca” (little, teeny-weeny boat) in that direction, myself, until a possible direction for that leg of the journey was just pointed out to me by one of the generous scholars who took the time and trouble to persevere through this meandering excursion (which doesn’t seem to want to reach its end, no matter how hard I try to say “goodbye” and go home). Claiming to play the “devil’s advocate,” he posed this simple-enough-sounding question: “Doesn’t everything you suggest about the nature of Hell—its immobility, permanence, changelessness, even hopelessness—also apply to Paradise? Aren’t those souls also without hope, in that there is nothing beyond their present and eternal state for them to desire and strive to achieve? Couldn’t the sign at the gate of Hell just as convincingly be placed at the entrance to Paradise to address the souls who enter there? And couldn’t the verse, even in that setting, be read as either an imperative: “Leave all hope behind; you won’t need to bother with it anymore”; or as an indicative: “Congratulations! You are now leaving all hopes behind you because you have already achieved anything you could ever hope for.”

         The devil’s advocate does seem to make a valid point. Leaving it for more skilled and better-resourced investigators and advocates to ponder and debate that question fully, I nonetheless do now wonder why this thought didn’t occur to me and why I avoided Paradiso altogether in my explorations—other than because I was merely following Dante’s advice to stick to my own safe shores if my boat was too small to follow him into that deep, unfamiliar, unchartered realm (Paradiso II.1-6; Mandelbaum translation):

O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,

desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti

dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,

tornate a riveder li vostri liti:

non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse

perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.

O you who are within your little bark,

eager to listen, following behind

my ship that, singing, crosses to deep seas,

turn back to see your shores again: do not

attempt to sail the seas I sail; you may,

by losing sight of me, be left astray.

         But since my correspondent and devil’s advocate (who happens to share a name with the Magus after whom the sin punished in Inferno XIX is named, but who is instead a good Magus, who is also able to fly, but with his mind, not his body) has now taken me there, let’s take a closer look at these new, less-explored surroundings and especially at those verses just cited.

Unlike Hell and Purgatory, this realm does not have a gate. Nor is the verb “lasciate” written or uttered anywhere by anyone. But here, too, we are entering into another realm, and here, too, we are met with an admonition at the threshold. This time the entreaty is extra-diegetic. It’s Dante the poet, not a character or a written sign inside the narrative, who provides the warning, which is addressed directly to the reader of the poem, not to any character within the story.

But a warning it is, and its language does echo that of the inscription at the gate of Hell, even though it’s not a dictum on how to proceed forward, but an admonition to turn back—unless it’s actually a devious rhetorical use of reverse psychology, which, by pretending to dissuade readers from undertaking something too challenging for them, actually impels them to proceed into those deep seas more eagerly and with greater resolve: “Hey, whose barca are you calling piccioletta! Let me at those deep seas of yours! I’ll show you how big my barca is!”

         Let’s take a closer look at the two active verbs of the poet’s admonition: tornate and non vi mettete. Wouldn’t you know it? They just happen to be second person, plural form of tornare and mettersi (subject: voi, you plural).

And what does that mean, class? That’s right: it means that they can be either imperative or indicative, just like lasciate and entrate.

         Mandelbaum translates them as imperatives, along with every other translator, and that’s how every Italian reader is likely to read them as well. Read as indicative verbs, the sense would be something like: Those of you in a little boat are the ones who turn back to your own shores and don’t venture into the vast ocean for fear of losing me and remaining lost: not a command or recommendation to turn back, but a chastisement for doing so.

I confess that I, too, find it difficult to read these verbs as indicatives. But that just means that I now need to remind myself, too, along with others, that language changes. Seven centuries have passed since those words were written, when the Italian language had not yet taken shape (Dante was, in fact, in the process of giving birth to it). Let’s remember that Jacopo della Lana and Johannis de Serravalle, not casual readers but leading and authoritative experts in the interpretation of the Commedia, saw the indicative where readers of the past six centuries saw only the imperative.

A DIGESTIVO?

And what if those lines are neither a command nor a dismissal, nor even a dare, but simply a statement of fact that Purgatory is where we belong, because that’s where life happens? If Hell and Paradise are reverse mirror images of each other: eternal, permanent, unchanging, doesn’t it mean that they are also lifeless (even if the term we use is “afterlife”)? Living requires change, growth, evolution, trying, doing, failing, learning, stumbling along , and dying—which does not mean returning to nothingness, but rearranging our cells, molecules, and atoms into other living forms. There is no such thing as “nothingness” in the Universe. Every segment of space-time contains particles or energy traversing through it at any moment. “Nothingness” is a product of our imagination. We do not come from it. We do not return to it. We only imagine it, along with deities, ideals, philosophical constructs, laws, customs, beliefs, poetry.

Anything that purportedly exists before, after, or beyond the confines of our observable, physical universe can only be imagined, not known. Hell and Paradise both fit into all three of those categories. They exist only in our thoughts, where they serve as imaginary poles within which to chart our mental journeys toward the construction of meaning to give sense to our biological existence. They serve as conceptual embankments to try to contain, restrict, and control the constant flow of life, to give it the semblance of having a purpose and a direction: of having meaning. In other words, they are like Inferno and Paradiso bracketing Purgatorio: on one side, the barrier of fears, prohibitions, taboos, evils to avoid; on the other side, the virtues, bliss, sense of fulfillment to seek: a negative and a positive pole to fuel our mental and cultural activity.

Purgatory is the only one of the three realms that is not fixed and permanent. Souls there suffer, reflect, come to understand the causes and effects of their actions, repent, are purged, move on, climb up the mountain, if not toward salvation in a mystical sense, then toward an acceptance of the human need to navigate in the turbulent, exhilarating, meaningless flux of life by riding on a notional vessel—a piccioletta barca, if you will—made of the forms, regulations, and systems we construct and superimpose on that vital flow. As my brilliant friend and devil’s advocate put it, Purgatory is the temporal hinge around which the two conceptual eternities, infernal and paradisiacal, revolve. As eternal states, both inclinations invite or beguile us to “become” rather than to “do.” Purgation means cleansing. When we wash off the grime we’ve accumulated, is it to remain pure and unblemished forever thereafter or to resume our way up the mountain and get dirty again, over and over, following the path toward life, not death?

But wait! Something is still not right in the picture I’ve just sketched, in which Purgatory is presented as real, based on and reflective of our lived reality, while Hell and Paradise are purely conceptual, imaginary, existing only in our minds. In the fiction of the poem, on the other hand, the picture is different. Hell and Purgatory are physically part of the Earth. Hell is a cavernous abyss under the ground, created when God plunged Lucifer to the bottom of the Universe (which would have been the center of the Earth). Purgatory is a mountain on the opposite side of the globe, created by the material expelled from the hole of Hell. They have a physical, geological location and material earthly substance. Paradise, on the other hand is the realm that is outside of this world, and its last stage, the Empyrean, is completely outside the physical universe: a non-place where God is both a single point and all-encompassing: the center and the all-embracing periphery.

So, given their geological placement, are Hell and Purgatory more real? Let’s try a test. Take a shovel and go digging around the planet! Did you find the entrance to Hell? Probably not. Go around the globe with binoculars! Did you locate Mount Purgatory? Nope. Now, go outside on any clear night and look up! With or without a telescope, you will definitely see Dante’s Paradise, or most of it: all but the Empyrean. The astral bodies he visits are all really there, even if their configuration and positions are now understood differently. In that sense, it’s Paradise that is the most “real” realm of the three, the one that corresponds to what we can actually observe and experience outside the fiction of the text.

And yet, as my students discovered, it’s Hell that seems to correspond more closely to the world we see depicted in our newspapers and other media. The human behavior recounted in that canticle seems most to reflect the behavior we encounter in “real life.” In that sense, Inferno seems more realistically descriptive or our social world, whereas Purgatorio and Paradiso seem to be corrective and aspirational, existing more in the realm of possibility than actuality. Put another way: Hell is the diagnosed illness; Purgatory, the prescribed treatment; Paradise, the prognosis of eventual results, if the treatment is followed and if the cure works.

So, we have three contenders claiming to be the most “real.”  Will the real “most real” now please stand! Is it: A, Inferno; B, Purgatorio; or C, Paradiso?

Oh, no! They all stand up and claim to be the “most real real.”

Could they all be telling the truth? Indeed, that is what the journey of the Commedia has revealed: that there are many dimensions and facets of reality, each perceptible through a different cognitive lens and from a particular existential perspective. Dante, himself, provided four possible lenses to adopt to understand his poem: literal, allegorical, moral, anagogic.  But there are more. Many interpretative schemata have been fashioned and deployed by subsequent critics and theorists. And I suspect that many others remain buried in the Commedia, itself, to emerge when new hermeneutic resources are devised and perfected.

No other text I’ve encountered is as multi-dimensional or reveals as many facets of life and reality—not Homer, not Virgil, not Milton. The Divine Comedy is most apparently about religion, ethics, and history, but also about politics, economics, physics, geology, cosmology, art, philosophy (natural and conceptual), mythology, and even about fields not yet invented or discovered in Dante’s time: psychology, sociology, anthropology, archaeology. All those disciplines, and more, provide lenses with which the text can be read and interpreted. Given its all-encompassing complexity, seems likely continue to generate new readings and interpretations if it continues to resonate, the poem and the journey it describes will likely remain a productive mine of meaning and inspiration.

We have already considered how Freud’s conception of the psyche resonates with the poem’s tripartite structure. A similar claim could be made about another tripartite model of nature that started to circulate around the same time, promoted by scientists and philosophers, such as Russian-Ukrainian bio-geo-chemist Vladimir Vernadsky, French Jesuit priest and philosopher-scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and American engineer-inventor-designer-etc. Richard Buckminster Fuller. In that model, our world consists of three layers: the geosphere, the region of inanimate materials; the biosphere, the region of living beings that lies above the geosphere; and the noosphere, the region of mind, thought, and knowledge that lies above both. This model, too, could be super-imposed on the regions described by Dante.

To test that hypothesis, let’s try out a pseudo-anthropological/archaeological reading of the poem. (I don’t know if such a reading has actually been proposed before. I’m just making it up as I go along.) We can start by noting that the poem’s very structure reflects the evolution of human existence. We notice this merely by looking at the poem’s “architecture” from the outside, how it’s put together.

First comes Hell, a cavity inside the Earth. It recalls the dwellings of early humans, troglodytes who found shelter in empty, covered, secluded spaces. Such “found” natural caverns were eventually followed by the fashioning of tools to create “negative architecture,” shelters excavated from the terrain where none were found ready-made by nature. The concept of creating and enclosing an empty space might also have led to the invention and creation of pottery and basketry (analogous to the circles and pouches of Inferno: smaller, specialized containers within the larger container of Hell). The manufacture of enclosed empty space (vases, pots, baskets, and other vessels) allowed things to be collected, separated, individuated, contained, preserved, which is also the structure and function of Hell: an articulated cavity, or excavated negative architecture, that represents humans’ first cognitive leap into thinking, reasoning, imagining.

Mount Purgatory, then, suggests the next archaeological development: positive or protruding architecture: construction, reshaping, adding new structures to the natural environment: walls, roofs, stairs, poles, as well as sculpture and statuary. Such manufactured structures erected on the surface of the world, rather than carved into the earth, represented the second cognitive leap in the human mental landscape: design, engineering, manufacturing, social collaboration, a material cultural legacy that would be passed on to subsequent generations. The sense of passing on to others also contained the idea of progress, change, improvement, which are also the characteristics and the purpose of Purgatory (purgation as cleansing of set and harmful behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs in order to advance to a better state).

Paradise, finally, represents the third major cognitive phase: the passage into the “noosphere,” outside the confines of matter, in other words, the development of civilization, the transition from pre-history into history, which occurs once events, ideas, tabulations, and designs can be recorded and transmitted, with such tools as language, numeracy, art, and other means of representation that express and promote symbolic thinking and ritualization, which in turn spawned traditions, customs, taboos, laws, beliefs, music, theater, narration, poetry, painting: all of which are means of superimposing meaning on experience and on objects.

It is telling that Dante’s Paradiso is presented as a multi-staged theater or a multi-screen movieplex with 3-D projection. The souls that Dante encounters in the various planetary and astral spheres of the physical universe aren’t really there. Dante is told (Paradosp IV) that the real souls reside in the Empyrean. What he sees are virtual projections that have momentarily appeared in the celestial spheres specifically for this occasion.  This proto-television (vision at a distance, tele), takes place so that Dante, still in his body, can perceive them with his corporeal senses and converse with them in his own language: a grand celestial command performance for just one lost individual trying to find his way—but, of course, also for the many readers who have accompanied him on his journey and the many who will continue to do so.

So, which are more “real”: the figures Dante sees and hears with his senses or the souls in the Empyrean of whom the images are ephemeral representations? Within the fiction of the poem, the projected manifestations are unreal, figments of the “real” beings who cannot be seen. Outside the fiction of the poem, however, it’s the Empyrean that has no basis in physical reality. Unlike the planetary spheres, it does not exist in the material universe but beyond the reaches of bodily perception. The Empyrean where the souls dwell permanently is the product of imagination, not observation. The poem is thus using what it defines as false apparitions to stand for, justify, and bolster the greater fiction that the reality they represent is in a metaphysical realm, inaccessible to the body and its senses.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW AND BACK

The paradox echoes a similar one that arises in St. Paul’s claim that, in life, “we see through a glass, darkly,” whereas in Heaven, we will see clearly and fully. This, too, suggests that the world we see and the existence we experience in life are unreal, or deceptive, hence somehow “fictitious,” whereas the invisible, imperceptible spiritual realm that exists after life, beyond the confines of physical existence, is true and real. The essence of Pauline transcendence is to deny the veracity of the physical world and to use that very denial as negative proof of the existence of a metaphysical world that is more pure, more permanent, more “real.”

A similar perplexity also emerges from Plato’s “allegory of the cave.” Socrates describes what we see in the world as shadows of the “real” objects behind our backs, invisible to us, which are being moved in front of a fire so that their shadows are projected on the cave wall in front of us. The enlightened philosopher is able to escape the shackles of bodily existence and sensual perception and ascend out of the darkness of the life of the body into the light of the life of the mind and thus to perceive the universal truths and ideals of which physical objects are imperfect approximations.

In these views of the faculty of vision, seeing with our eyes is a form of blindness and whatever we perceive bodily, with all our senses, is unreal, or less real than what we can conceive with our imagination.

The Wizard of Oz repeats that same scenario, but then demystifies it by unveiling the conceptual prestidigitation that makes it possible. While Dorothy and her three fellow travelers are following Plato’s and St. Paul’s script and looking upward at the image of the great magical wizard, her little dog, Toto, keeps his eyes and nose to the ground and eventually discovers the real-life person behind the illusion: a little old man, lost in this land, who has created the illusion of a mystical super being to protect or empower himself, only to be obscured and engulfed by the illusion he created. The illusion, once accepted by the dwellers of Oz, becomes much more powerful than he, its creator, is. When the dog pulls back the curtain, the “wizard” desperately tries to keep up the illusion, but in doing so also reveals that it is a trick. He can be seen speaking into the microphone while the voice booms out thunderously from the superhuman image of the Great Wizard overhead: “Don’t pay any attention to that little man behind the curtain!”: a plea that seems to echo the injunctions of Socrates and Paul, while simultaneously revealing their mendacity. Dorothy’s and her companion’s eyes have been brought back down to earth, and they now see how the magic trick works. (But don’t worry, kids, there are still the Witches in Oz; and their magic must be real, no?)

By tracing the trajectory of transcendence backwards, as suggested earlier, we can also detect the return path that will take us back from the realm of imaginary speculation to the natural world of sensation. The poles of reality and unreality are thus switched back, aligning reality with what can be observed rather than with what can only be imagined. (Perhaps like the north-south magnetic polarity of the Earth, the immanent-transcendent gnostic poles also switch roles periodically.)

Does this mean that those who don’t share Christian Pauline convictions or a belief in Platonic universal ideals should dismiss notions of transcendence as mere delusions that stem from a fear of death, impermanence, and uncertainty, or as futile wishful thinking for secure, permanent, ubiquitous, and unquestionable guideposts to give direction and meaning to our existence? Are ideological products of the imagination, in fact, less “real” than the physical objects that we construct: buildings, vehicles, tools, weapons?

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were also products of human imagination and design, given a solid form by human and machine labor. And so were the airplanes that flew into the skyscrapers. Which were more real: these very solid material objects, which were destroyed and annihilated, or the ideas and convictions that drove the terrorists to destroy them? Unlike the living organisms of the “biosphere” and the material elements and constructions of the “geosphere,” the unphysical ideas and convictions of the “noosphere” were not destroyed; they live on. If not materially real, they are historically, psychologically, and experientially very real.

Regardless of whether such religious, political, ideological beliefs are seen as fanatical delusions or as inspired revelations, they become no less “real” as human constructs than the physical objects we build and leave behind. Once created, they persist and spread through the world and are passed on from generation to generation and end up shaping and transforming the purportedly more “real” physical, material objects of our world. Once an idea or belief takes root and propagates in the “noosphere” (to borrow mixed metaphors of roots and spores from the “biosphere”), it becomes just as real and determinant in the human landscape as elements found in the “biosphere” and “geosphere.”

That, too, is what the Divine Comedy tells us: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise and what they represent are all real. Furthermore, not only does each canticle represent reality, but paradoxical as it may seem and is, each canticle represents reality more fully and more accurately than the other two canticles, the “most real real,” because each looks at different facets of reality and from different points of view. For, as ye know, dear and tired readers, reality, like something else named Legion, has many facets and guises that can and do possess us.

ARE YE STUFFED YET?

But, dear reader, enough with the “furthermores,” “what ifs,” “but waits,” and “and yets”! Now it really is time for a post-prandial pisolino (nap).

What I’ve served up is just a pell-mell, potluck smorgasbord, nowhere near the culinary standards of Dante’s Convivio (Banquet). But my meager and less nutritious offerings go all the way from hors d’œuvres to a heavenly dessert, and even include a digestif to aid digestion, unlike Dante’s Convivio, which advertised fifteen courses but delivered only four before the chef decided to get out of the hot kitchen and got lost in a dark wood instead. Maybe he realized that it was better to leave readers hungry for the really big dish he was planning to cook up next.

I, too, hope to have left my banqueteers not too sated with answers but stuffed with questions to take home with them: a copious cud on which to ruminate.

But first, that needed and overdue pisolino. Sweet dreams!

***

Acknowledgments: Even though I did not cite them directly, I am grateful to many colleagues and friends whose responses to my queries on this topic and early drafts of this essay helped me better to formulate and articulate my thoughts, albeit often in disagreement with their generously offered reflections and well-founded conclusions. Any lingering idiocy that I refused to abandon, despite their sage arguments, is stubbornly my own. Grazie to: Susan Bennett, Ted Cachey, Phil Cass, Alison Cornish, Judith de Luce, Simone Dubrovic, Wiley Feinstein, Lloyd Howard, Chris Kleinhenz, Richard Lansing, Dennis Looney, Lara Mancinelli, Barbara Newman, Peter Pedroni, Alessandro Scafi, Paul Sandro, Madison U. Sowell, John Took, Paolo Valesio, Rebecca West.

[1] A grammar primer for those who have not studied Italian or those who could use a refresher:

In English, as in Italian, the indicative and the imperative have the same form of the verb: eat, but the indicative, in English, is always accompanied by the subject pronoun: you eat, because the same form of the verb, with the same ending, is used for five of the six persons (subject categories) of the verb: first person singular and plural: I/We eat; second person singular and plural: You/You eat; and third person plural: They eat. The only distinct form is for the third person singular: He/She/It eats. So, in the indicative mood, just using eat by itself doesn’t tell us who the subject is.

The imperative, on the other hand, both in English and in Italian, can only be in the second person, addressed directly to the person or persons who are listening, which in English is you in both cases, with the verb in the same form. The first person, I/We, and the third person, He-She-It/They, cannot be the subject of an imperative verb, and so the subject pronoun is unnecessary. Therefore, eat, by itself, is necessarily an imperative, and you eat is the only way to express the indicative.

In Italian, on the other hand, the subject pronoun is not used with verbs in the indicative mood because each person of the verb has a distinct ending that tells us who or what the subject is. Let’s take mangiare (to eat): mangio (I eat), mangi (you, sing, eat), mangia (he/she/it eats), mangiamo (we eat), mangiate (you, plural, eat), mangiano (they eat).

As for the imperative mood, unlike English, in which the only possible subject for the imperative is you, which is both singular and plural, Italian has different forms for the second person singular, tu (thou), and for the plural, voi (you all). In Italian, therefore, it’s possible to tell if an imperative is addressed to an individual or to a group, even though the subject pronoun is not used: Finisci (Finish) addresses an individual (tu); Finite (Finish) addresses a group (voi).

Birds of Passage

Sante Matteo

I’m floating over my town again, looking down at the clusters of attached stone houses in rows snaking along the contours of the hillside, surrounded by an irregular patchwork of fields along the steep slopes meandering down to the Biferno River valley. In the wheat fields only stubble remains, where it hasn’t been burned to charred brown residuum. Newly erected haystacks dot the landscape. Olive trees glint silvery green in the sunlight. Under the almond, hazelnut, and walnut trees the ground is carpeted with fallen nuts, many still in their green husks. Apples and pears, some bored by worms, and late-season figs, some pecked by birds, hang heavily from sagging branches or have fallen to the ground. Vineyards are laden with red and green grapes ready to be plucked.

I soar slowly over ochre-colored tiled roofs overlaying barren walls of hand-hewn granite blocks. Plumes of smoke waft from the chimneys, as they do year-round, because all the cooking is done in fireplaces. But now, in September, fires in the hearth are also needed for warmth; nights and mornings grow chilly.

I glide over the town’s only carriageable street, the via nova, the new road. There are rarely any motor vehicles on it: a bus in the early morning, heading toward Campobasso, the provincial capital, and another in the late afternoon going in the other direction. The children always know when the afternoon bus is coming because a quarter of an hour before it’s due, our mothers lean out their windows and shout at us to get off the street, if we don’t want to be run over. Most of the traffic on the road usually consists of the contadini, tillers of the land, going out to work in the fields outside of town in the morning and coming back into town in the evening, some with goats and sheep, some with a donkey. Sometimes there are horse-drawn carts, and once in a while even an ox-drawn wagon. But most of the time the road is just filled with us children playing: young ones playing hop-scotch or hide-and-seek, and older ones, those closer to my age, playing soccer with a ball made of rolled up rags tied with string; or p’zzill, played with a short stick sharpened at both ends with a pocket knife, and a longer stick used first to hit the short stick on a pointed end, to make it pop up into the air, and then to strike it as far as possible while it’s still up in the air. The street and alleys are our playgounds, until our mothers call us in for meals, or for the little ones to take a nap, or for the bigger ones to run errands, often to fetch water at the public fountain.

I swoop over the town’s main piazza, which serves as a border between the old and new sections of town. On one hillside, to the north, the old medieval quarter clusters around the ancient church, whose campanile can be seen rising above the rooftops, and whose bells can be heard from the fields all around the town, and when the wind is right, even from neighboring towns. On the other side, where the terrain is flatter, extends the “new” section of the town, built outside the old medieval walls and gates. Here, where my own house is located, the alleys between the rows of houses are wider and more sunlit, the homes more spacious, but built of granite stones as old as those in the oldest houses in the medieval quarter and in the ancient church itself, though not as big. From my vantage point up in the sky I can make out the difference between the old town, with weathered walls, and the new town, where the walls are less dark and sooty. The brightest walls are those of newest houses on the outskirts of the new quarter, whose freshly chiseled stones of pink-veined granite seem to glisten in the sunlight.

Some of those new houses were built by my grandfather and my father, assisted by their apprentices. They’re stonemasons—as I too will be someday, following in the footsteps of generations. I look down on those houses in the old quarter that have stood for hundreds of years, maybe more than a thousand, and the newer ones that will stand just as long, for centuries to come, and am filled with a sense of pride to belong to a family of builders. They sometimes take me along as their “helper,” and I’ve come to know many phases of their work: extracting stone from quarries outside the town; shaping and chiseling the rocks by hand on the ground floor of our house during the winter months, when it’s too cold to work outside; and then in the warm months constructing those rock-solid houses that stand for centuries; designing and building them from bottom to top, erecting walls, sculpting entries, lintels, fireplaces, mantles, cisterns. Like them, I too will become a muratore: quarryman, architect, engineer, sculptor, and mason all in one; and people will someday call me Mastro.

But will there be houses for me to build when it’s my turn to take up the family trade? So many families are emigrating, leaving empty houses behind. Will they be coming back? There are some schoolmates and play friends that have been gone so long, I can’t even remember them anymore.

I hover over my own house on the via nova—named Corso Vittorio Emanuele II after the first King of Italy, as I’ve learned in school—and watch the swallows emerge from their nests under the eaves of the roofs. The swallows, according to Nonno, my grandfather, are getting ready to return to Africa for the winter. They will all be gone in a month and won’t be back until April next year, eight long months away: a long, cold winter without their frenetic flitting and chirping filling the sky and supplying the background noise of summer days. There are more of them now than those who arrived in the spring. Their babies were born under those eaves, and it’s the young ones, Nonno says, that fly away first, all the way back to Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. They somehow know where to go even though they’ve never been there before. Nonno says that they even pause to rest in the same places where their parents stopped in their migration north to Italy and to our town. After a week or so of flying they’ll reach their destination: the same location from where the parent swallows departed and where they, the parents, will themselves return later. I don’t know how Nonno knows all this, but I believe everything he says. He doesn’t try to fool me like Papà or some of my uncles. I never know when they’re kidding, but Nonno doesn’t kid.

Nowadays, Nonno points out with sorrow in his voice, the swallows are not the only ones going away. Many of the town’s young men are also leaving, heading for faraway places that the townsfolk call “America,” by which they mean any foreign land where there is work to be found. Argentina, Venezuela, Australia, Germany, Belgium, the UK: they’re all “America.” A few of the men who left returned after a while, but most haven’t. Instead their wives and children have gone to join them in those faraway lands, in those Americas where people speak different languages than ours. Many of them, Nonno predicts, will not be coming back as the swallows always do, not next spring, not ever.

In the view of the old men who sit on the bench in front of the house with Nonno on sunny afterrnoons, the war, which brought a lot of destruction to the land, also destroyed our way of life. Many men were killed, or wounded, or detained for years as prisoners of war. The poorest families in the town, hard as life had always been for them, now face ongoing hunger, with no prospects for a change in the future, making them desperate to find some way to feed their children, even if it means leaving their homes to go into the unknown. The old men lament that long-established customs and age-old traditions are disappearing. Nevertheless, some of the younger townspeople, my father among them, argue that these changing conditions also present new opportunities for those willing to risk starting over in a foreign land, facing and adapting to strange ways and conditions and an incomprehensible language.

It is a sorrowful subject in our family, because my own father recently became one of those who left. He got a work contract in what the townspeople call Nuova York, or the “Good America,” although Nonno says that the country is actually called Stati Uniti, United States, and that New York, Nuova York, is the name of a city, not of the whole country; and he should know, because he went there several times himself, as a seasonal migrant when he was just a young man at the beginning of the century. He says that they were called “birds of passage,” those who, like him, went back and forth, following the work seasons. They were like the swallows that come to our town each spring and leave in the fall. I’m sure my Papá will be coming back, just like the swallows. Almost sure.

The swallows have emerged from their roof-top nests under the eaves and dart and chirrup all around me, zigging and zagging in their jerky way. They’re scolding me, I think, for all the stones I’ve shot at them over the summer with my slingshot—my own hand-crafted masterpiece, made with a perfect y-shaped twig and the elastic band from the underpants that my mother sewed. Soon, I realize with some apprehension that after the swallows have all left and it gets colder, I will have to change from my cotton summer underwear to woolen winter underwear, and I will have to come up with an explanation for what happened to the missing elastic: “I don’t know, it just fell out. . . . The Gypsies took it. . . . Those bullies from ‘ngopp a chies, the old part of town near the church, beat me up and stole it. . . . A witch came through the wall one night and just ripped it off.”

And then suddenly, over the chorus of the swallows’ shrill chirping, I hear a much more plaintive birdsong: “kyoo, kyoo.” I look around, puzzled and alarmed. The Kyoo owl only sings at night. Its call is out of place here and now: up in the sky, in the daylight.

And then I’m suddenly falling from the sky, gasping, my arms flailing wildly trying to regain my lift. Just before hitting the ground I wake up, thrashing in my bed

My relief that it has all been a dream doesn’t last long. Now that I’m awake I still hear the mournful cry of the bird of death: “kyooo . . . kyooo . . . kyooo.” It was what called me out of my dream. What’s worse, to my increasing dread, it’s very close to our house: just outside.

Is it looking at my window? To announce my impending death? That’s what the Kyoo owl does: It perches outside the house and looks right at the window of someone who is going to die that night.

Did I say all my prayers and recite all the necessary incantantions before going to sleep? There are so many and they take so long that I sometimes fall asleep before completing the whole lot. I also have to cross my arms and legs to ward off the array of witches, ghosts, werewolves, and other horrid creatures that lurk through the town at night. But it’s hard to keep arms and legs crossed when I’m asleep. I must have uncrossed them when I was flying. Now, awake, I quickly cross them again and start anxiously to repeat the prayers and magic incantantions as fast as I can. For good measure I also cross my fingers.

Of all the frightening nocturnal creatures that populate my world, the one I fear the most is the Kyoo owl, because its doleful call can actually be heard at night; it is not just imagined. I’ve heard it many nights, sometimes far away, sometimes close by. But not this close! It sounds as if the deadly bird is perched in the big red-fig tree in our back orchard. Or it could be in the walnut tree in the neighbor’s orchard to the left, or the apple tree in the other neighbor’s yard.

After what seems like a very long time the kyooing finally stops, and I’m relieved to realize that I am still alive. I slowly relax, trying nevertheless to stay awake and keep my legs, arms, and fingers resolutely crossed. But it’s no use. Here I am flying up in the air again, with arms and fingers spread wide and legs extended, having forgotten all about the deadly birdcall. Now I’m circling under the rafters inside the ancient town church, where I’ve recently started to serve as an altar boy. Below, behind the marble altar, the recently arrived young priest, Don Benedetto, is saying mass to a sparse congregation of parishioners, mostly old women dressed in black. Once they reach a certain age, they’re always in mourning for someone, and it’s easier just to wear black all the time.

Don Benedetto arrived in town only a few months ago, and he enlisted me and the other altar boys to help him go through the archives to learn about the church’s and the town’s history. With our help, and to our fascination and that of the whole town, he has discovered that our austere, unadorned church is actually an “architectural jewel” that was built many centuries ago by the Templars, who were knights who fought in the Crusades, and that it is really a remarkable example of what he calls “Romanesque” architecture that should be studied and evaluated by art scholars and historians. Some people think he’s crazy; some think he’s given our town new prestige.

To tell the truth, I’ve never heard of Romanesque architecture or of the Templars. But I have heard of knights and of the Crusades, both in school and at home. On winter evenings, sitting around the hearth, my grandfather tells us many stories: memories of his youth and of family life, fables and folktales, ghost stories, Bible stories, and tales of knights and Crusaders. So, now as I float near the church’s ceiling I look at the austere, naked-stone walls and the two unevern rows of massive columns topped with strangely carved capitals with a new sense of reverence and admiration, seeing our imposing, unembellished church as something fabulous, built by legendary crusading knights.

And now I’m out of the church, out in the open air again, soaring over the town’s only school, which people call new, even though it was built before the war, years before I was even born, in the time of il Duce, Mussolini. Looking at it from above, I can see how different it is from the other buildings in the town. It’s made of bricks, not stones, and has two tall marble pilasters framing the entrance, in the form of two long fasces, symbols of the Fascist Party.

As I look down at the children filing in like ants—the black-smocked boys going in one side of the entrance and the girls, with white smocks, going in the other side—I hear my mother shout up to me: “Sendu’, scign’, get down here . . .!” I tumble from the sky again, startled awake, and hear the rest of her urgent command: “. . . iusht mo, right now! You’re going to be late for school!”

So, it’s morning. I’m alive. I listen anxiously. There is no more kyooing outside the window. I’ve survived through another night. And so has my mother.

I throw on my clothes, rush down to the kitchen on the second floor, and hurriedly gulp down chunks of crusty bread dunked in hot milk—taken just a few minutes earlier from a neighbor’s cow. My mother helps me put on my school smock and buttons it in the back and makes sure that my pen and pencil and homework are in my cartella, and I set off for school, a short walk from my house . . . or from any other house in town.

As soon as I step outside I see and hear the swallows streak through the sky as usual, wishing me and the world good-morning with their shrill twittering. But there is also something unusual in the air this morning: another sound that shouldn’t be there. After a moment I realize what it is: the goats are bleating next door. Strange! They shouldn’t be there at this time. Usually Zi’ Iuccio has taken the herd out of town to pasture well before now, at sunrise. I’m tempted to push the neighbors’ door open and peek in to investigate.

I like looking in on these neighbors, especially in the evening, when the goats have been herded back home from the countryside, because Teresina, the goatherd’s young daughter, often gives me a ladle of warm whey, or better yet, a clump of fresh cheese that she scoops up from the cauldron with a strainer and squeezes in her hand, forming what she calls a little bird, uccelluccio, because it really does look like a white, featherless, naked baby bird still in its nest. And it even squeaks when my teeth bite into it.

But no, I don’t want to be late for school right at the beginning of the school year. My third-grade teacher, the same teacher I had in the first and second grade, waits by the door with his ruler ever at the ready to swat the hands of miscreant boys. I have never been swatted with the ruler yet—but I was slapped once, even though I had done nothing wrong; it was my deskmate who had made the noise, not me, but he wouldn’t own up to it, and we both got slapped in the face; and I almost peed in my pants because of the shock of the blow and the injustice of the punishment and my deep humiliation in front of my classmates. I don’t want to risk being punished now, and especially don’t want to get on Signor Leonardo’s bad side.

The punishment I dread the most, meted out to those boys who do get on the teacher’s bad side, is to be made to kneel on the ground, with a handful of hard, raw ceci, chick peas, placed under each bare knee, with those sharp little protruding nebs that bite into the flesh and leave marks on the knees. I love to eat ceci: whether still green, right off the bush; or dried and hard; or boiled and used in soup, or with t’bett, short elbow maccaroni; or just by themselves, after they’ve been boiled and cooled, with a little oil and salt; or best of all, toasted in the fireplace until they are browned and crunchy. To turn our beloved ceci into instruments of torture seems particularly cruel and menacing, since the boys so tortured are reminded of the punishment every time we eat them, which is pretty often.

What is even more frightening is that it is certain to be a double jeopardy, because if I were to go home with all those red, inflamed dimples dotting my knees, my mother would be sure to recognize them for what they were: evidence of my crime and punishment in school. She would then punish me all over again.

Worse still, she would then tell the whole extended family about it at the communal Sunday dinner at my grandparents’ house: “Guess what one of our own did at school this week?” And I would be shamed in front of all my relatives. It’s triple humiliation that is at stake! So, no dallying! I rush off to school and forget about the neglected and complaining goats, and so manage to avoid humiliation and torture for that day: no slaps, no swats, no kneeling on ceci.

When I get out of school in the early afternoon, the swallows seem to be gathered in groups on the rooftops, as if taking a rest from their frenzied flying. Or perhaps they’re pondering their upcoming departure across the sea. Maybe they’ve eaten all the insects in town, and there is nothing left for them to eat. Or maybe it’s getting to be too cold for the insects, and they have migrated too, or burrowed somewhere and gone to sleep.

Summer, a stegion’ bon’, the “good season,” as folks here call it, is coming to an end. Days are getting shorter, nights longer. But the grape harvest and wine-making are coming up, and they’re a lot of fun for young and old: summer’s last festive offering. Winter is not here quite yet.

As I approach my house I’m surprised to see a throng of people gathered in front. As I get closer I see that they are actually converged next door, outside Zi’ Iuccio’s house. They all look somber. Some seem to be weeping. I see my mother among them and make my way to her. She pulls me to her and tells me in a subdued voice that Zi’ Iuccio is dead. Tears come to her eyes again, and to mine too. The neighbors’ goats are noisy and smelly, but the old man was a kind and generous neighbor, always happy to let me drink some whey and taste the fresh cheese he was making, from when I was able to toddle into the ground floor of their next-door house. He even let me try my hand at milking the goats a few times, chuckling and praising me warmly if I managed to squeeze a few white drops into the bucket.

All the men in Zi’ Iuccio’s family are now gone. His two sons were both killed in the war. Only his widow Filomena and the daughter are left. What will happen to the goats? Will Teresina and her mother be able to tend to them and to cultivate their fields without menfolk to do the heavy work? Or will they too have to go away, like the swallows, but maybe never come back? No more warm whey, no more hand-squeezed “little birds.”

Later, inside, I ask my mother if she heard the Kyoo owl calling last night. Yes, she did. She too was afraid that it might be looking at our house, but it must have been looking instead at the window next door, into the bedroom of poor old Zi’ Iuccio, good soul! She shivers and makes the sign of the cross three times, and nods to me and my little sister to do the same, and we do.

Today more swallows have flown away, and tomorrow more will follow. Tonight the Kyoo owl will cry again.

Sante Matteo was born and spent his childhood in a small agricultural town in southern Italy. He is a retired Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Recent creative writing has appeared in Dime Show Review, Bark, The Chaffin Journal, and The New Southern Fugitives.

Hold That Tail!

It was the year of the pig with no name.  When nonno brought home a baby pig from the livestock market in Campobasso in the early Spring, he cautioned me not to name it.  In previous years, including just a couple of months prior, I ended up squealing too when my Pudgy or Pinky was slaughtered at the end of the year.  My grandfather now reminded me to keep in mind that it wasn't a pet; it was meat for the family.  Next year, if all went right, it was going to be sausage and spr'sciat (salame) and pr'sutt (prosciutto) and ciquul' (rinds).  So, that piglet didn't become Snorty or Hammy or Choppy; just “the pig.”

It was again my job to feed it scraps from the table to fatten it up as much as possible before Christmas.  It was a very easy or a very hard job, depending on how you looked at it: easy because there weren't many scraps to deliver; and hard for the same reason: how could I fatten him up with such few scraps?  Leftovers were out of the question because there were none at the end of our meals.  We had to finish everything on our plates: no choice, no argument.  The only scraps came from preparing meals, not consuming them: stalks, peels, seeds, rotten fragments.  And there weren't many of those either.  Whatever could be made edible by pounding, spicing, and cooking for a long time went into the pot and into our bellies.  Fortunately, the pig didn't make much of a fuss.  He liked even those things that couldn't be made edible enough to force on us.  So, in addition to his daily gruel, I chucked any available scraps into his pen and watched “the pig” grow fat month after month, fighting the temptation to give him a name.

When winter approached I reminded my grandfather that I was now seven years old and begged him to let me take part in the slaughter and the butchering with the other “men” of the family.  Nonno looked me up and down appraisingly, at first frowning and shaking his head slowly, but then he finally nodded: va buon', very well.

On Christmas day our whole extended family dined together and ate what was left of that year's cured meat.  The next day, St. Stephen's, we prepared the meat that would last us through the following year.  It had to take place during the coldest part of the year, when the sausages and hams could be hung up to dry without spoiling.  It was a day of bustling but festive activity from early in the morning to late into the dark of the evening.  The men caught and killed the pig, quartered and cleaned it, and hung it up to bleed out.  The women scalded the skin and shaved it, gathered, cooked, and preserved the blood (to turn into a syrupy sweetener--sang'doce, sweet blood--used as filling for pastries), cut up and seasoned the meat for various modes of preservation: hams, bacon, sausages of different kinds, lard, rinds.

This was my big moment, an important milestone toward manhood.  Nervous but putting on a brave front, I accompanied the menfolk into the stall at the bottom of the house. The oldest uncle and the one in charge of the proceedings assigned roles and explained the sequence of events and what each person had to do.  He then turned to me and, with the other menfolk looking on and nodding in appproval, he informed me emphatically that mine was the most important job of all: to hold on to the pig's tail with both hands and to keep it straight the whole time.  If I let go, and the tail curled up, the meat would spoil and we would all go hungry.  No matter how much the pig squealed or lunged, or how much blood or anything else came out, I had to hold on to that tail!  Was I up to it?  I faltered a bit but muttered, scin', yes.

It wasn't the blood that made me nervous.  My cousins and I had helped memmell', our grandmother, kill plenty of chickens over the years.  We were used to seeing blood spurting out of the neck—even though I still marveled at how the body continued to flail around the courtyard even after the head had been chopped off.  We all knew where our meat came from and how it got to the table.

What didn't occur to me was to question what that “anything else” might be that would be coming out of the pig.  I knew nothing of sphincter muscles.  Neither did my relatives, for that matter, but they did know from experience what happened when the pig lost control of its organs and what that “anything else” was that would be emerging from it, and from where.

There was much more blood than I was used to from my experiences with the chickens, but at least it came out at the other end of the carcass from where I was stationed, and there were a couple of uncles interposed between me and the pig's neck to obstruct my view—even though they couldn't obstruct the amazingly human-like, high-pitched squealing that sounded so desperate and pathetic and made me shiver.  What I was not at all expecting was what came out the other end of the pig, the end to which the tail was attached, the tail around which my hands were wrapped and that I had to keep gripping no matter what.

But I had a job to do.  A crucial job!  So I shut my eyes, clenched my teeth, tried to ignore the squealing, the squirming, and the stench, and tightened my grip on that tail, and held on fiercely until the squealing stopped and the twitching finally subsided.  The men looked at me, smiled, chuckled, and told me I could let go now.  They all lavished jocular praise on my skill and tenacity. Had any of them ever seen better tail holding?  No, no one could remember any tail held better!  Because of my good work, there would be meat for us next year.

That evening, tired but still in a festive spirit, we celebrated St. Stephen's feast by frying and eating the bits of pork left over from the day's butchering and processing.  The menfolk recounted and embellished my pig-tail-holding heroics to all the family members around the tables set up in my grandparents' spacious kitchen, warmed by the day's cooking and glowing with the dancing light from the roaring flames in the hearth.  The listeners ooh-ed and ah-ed and heaped on the praise.  As we ate and conversed merrily, all exclaimed how good the pork was: maybe the best they had ever tasted, and all thanks to me, because I had valiantly held on to that tail and kept it from curling up.  I blushed and smiled bashfully, trying to look modest, as my mother always insisted we be, but feeling proud and important: manly.

And that next year's meat was good and did not spoil.

THE ABSTRACT ELEPHANT MAGAZINE

UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUES OF THE HUMAN CONDITION

https://abstractelephant.com/2021/03/15/quantum-entanglement-between-doppelgangers-sante-matteo/

Quantum Entanglement Between Doppelgangers

By Sante Matteo March 15, 2021

This recounted moment of personal history, which induced the author to reflect on the many times he’s been told that he looks just like someone else, started out as a holiday greeting to colleagues and friends a few years ago. Using analogies to quantum physics and to the distinction between particles and waves, it addresses how we are all connected to each other and mutually entangled, to make it resonate (albeit subtly) with some of the pressing issues of our day: e.g., isolation, identity politics, polarization, silo culture, and whose lives matter.

Well, how about that? For once, I actually submitted my final grades before the 1PM deadline, with whole minutes to spare! It’s barely past noon: 12:12PM, to be exact.

And look at that: today is December 12! So, it’s the twelfth minute of the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the century: 12:12 12/12/12!

That combination won’t happen again until a century from now, in 2112.

It’s curious that this long string of similar numbers represents a unique centennial event. It’s a manifestation of opposite concepts: alikeness and uniqueness, repetition and rarity. It makes me wonder if other events or phenomena embody an analogous paradox, simultaneously expressing similarity and difference.

The first thing that pops into my mind is that maybe I do: that I’m like one of those 12s in the chain.

This morning, a friend posted a picture of the Dos Equis man next to my name on Facebook, followed by the assertion: “L’uomo più interessante del mondo :)” (“The most interesting man in the world”: the tag line for the Dos Equis man). The implication was that he looks just like me.

It made me smile because, unbeknownst to my friend, one of my students had recently pointed out the same resemblance in class: “You know, professor, you look a lot like the Dos Equis man. Do you do some acting on the side?” After he said it, the rest of the class agreed vociferously: “Oh, wow! It’s true; just like him!” Someone then declaimed: “Hey, stay thirsty, my friends!”

I had no idea who this Dos Equis person was, nor that he was dubbed “the most interesting man in the world.” In fact, I did not know what Dos Equis was, nor what the expression meant. I actually didn’t know what words they were saying, as if they were speaking a different language — and, as it turned out, they were. “It’s a Mexican beer,” they informed me (only an occasional and indifferent beer drinker). “You know, XX, double X, dos equis in Spanish.”

Once that was cleared up, I still had to look up the Dos Equis ads on YouTube to see the man whose double I supposedly was. The similarity didn’t seem particularly striking to me. So, I was ready to shrug it off. But then, as if to confirm my students’ claims, my friend posted his very picture on my timeline, implying that it could be a picture of me, and people couldn’t tell the difference.

You be the judge, dear reader! Can you tell the XX beer imbiber from the YY wine sipper?

See Carousel Image 1 below: Left: Dos Equis man (used in accordance with fair use policy) | Right: Sante Matteo

This got me thinking, however, that, rather than the most interesting man in the world (or one of two such), I may well be the most commonplace man in the world, because this is only the latest of a long series of sightings of a host of doppelgangers of mine.

Earlier in the semester, students came across a picture of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Hero of Two Worlds, who fought for independence and liberty in South America and in Italy, and a Founding Father of Italy as unified nation (1861). “He looks just like you!” they noted and asked if I had posed for the picture, or if I was his direct descendant.

A few pages later in the textbook, there was a picture of the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, who was also instrumental (pun not initially intended, but accepted gleefully when noted) in unifying Italians culturally, if not politically, by creating music that could be shared throughout the peninsula and among all classes: “our” music. My students again exclaimed: “Wow! You look just like him, too!”

 See Carousel Image 2 below: Left: Giuseppe Garibaldi | Center: Giuseppe Verdi | Right: Sante Matteo

“Do all you Italians look alike?” a student wondered.

“Only the famous, heroic, brilliant, handsome ones with beards,” I explained.

But my doubles are not just Italians. Members of my doppel-gang apparently roam far and wide.

Many people, both those who know me personally and those who happened to see a picture of me on Facebook or elsewhere, declare that I am Ernest Hemingway reincarnated. I was a big hit when traveling in Cuba. People would stop in their tracks, point at me, and exclaim: “Papa Ernesto!” and insist on taking a picture with me. There must be dozens of pictures hanging on Cuban walls of me standing or sitting alongside people who claim to be with Hemingway, or with his revenant.

See Carousel Image 3 below: Left: Ernest Hemingway | Right: Sante Matteo

Is reincarnation possible, considering that Papa Hemingway was still alive when I was born? Boh! — as we eloquently say in Italian for: I have no idea!; Haven’t the foggiest!; No clue!; Who knows? It could be that the reincarnation took place not with my birth but with the birth of my beard. Boh!

People have also wondered if I’m a descendant of the guy on the $50 bill.

See Carousel Image 4 below: Left: Ulysses S. Grant | Right: Sante Matteo

Does that middle initial of his, S (which he started using for no apparent reason), actually stand for a mysterious family name of unknown origin, which eventually was passed down to me as a first name? Could that connection also explain why I talk and write so much about the figure of Ulysses in my classes and in my articles and books (e.g., Il secondo occhio di Ulisse, The Second Eye of Ulysses)?

The possibility that I, born and raised in Italy, with ancestors who, as far as I know, all came from there, could be related to General U. S. Grant seems rather remote. But who knows? Grant did travel to Italy after his presidency. While there, he might have enjoyed a dalliance with my great-great-grandmother. He still would have been young enough for amorous dallying, only in his mid-fifties. But his wife, Julia, was with him, greatly reducing the chances of such dallying and consequent potential contributions to my ancestral gene pool. Still, maybe DNA testing is in order.

My very own son insists that I look just like the guy on the left:

See Carousel Image 5 below: Left: Sean Connery (used in accordance with fair use policy) | Right: Sante Matteo

If he — my son, not Bond, James Bond; oops, I mean: Connery, Sean Connery — should read this, here’s a hint: different eye color: his, brown; mine, blue (visibly so, when not squinting against the sun). And, okay, perhaps also a slight difference in physique. I never got around to competing for Mr. Universe.

Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of times people have sworn that I look just like a cousin, uncle, friend, colleague, or neighbor of theirs.

I don’t mind. It’s not a bad part to play, since it’s usually someone they like or miss, and they tend to transfer that sympathy and affection to me. All I have to do is just add a smile or two to those pre-existing feelings of friendship and fondness, stir in a little conversation, and voilà: instant bonhomie and benevolence.

Well, dear reader, if you’re still there, you must be wondering, as am I, what could possibly have brought about this concatenation of thoughts and images roaming through my mind. In part, it must be due to the sense of liberation after submitting the final grades and putting to rest another semester. Freed from having to concentrate on the material taught in my courses, my thoughts can finally roam around more freely.

On the other hand, although released from their curricular duties, those newly liberated thoughts embarked on a direction imposed by the very topics addressed in essays I had been reading. Free to wander but led by the nose: another contradiction.

For the course “Italy: Matrix of Civilization,” one of the questions was whether there is such a thing as an Italian identity. Some students argued that there is, as represented by a common cultural patrimony: literature, painting, opera, religion, and soccer — especially soccer!; and common historical figures and heroes: Marco Polo, Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo, Garibaldi, and Pirlo. Others, on the other hand, claimed that there are only local identities: Venetian, Neapolitan, Florentine; Sicilian, Lombard, Piedmontese. They recalled and deployed the term campanilismo to indicate an allegiance to the church steeple of one’s hometown. Each region, indeed each city or town, they point out, has its own history, language (often incomprehensible in other parts of the country), customs, cuisine, folklore. And, last but not least, there were also a few students who argued for a combined identity: a unified national identity superimposed on diverse local identities, making Italians similar to and distinct from other Italians.

One student used food to make the case. When traveling in Italy, she never encountered what might be termed a national dish, only local dishes. Even common enough items, such as pasta and pizza, were prepared in ways unique to the location. But when she traveled outside of Italy, and especially when she came back to the States, there were so-called Italian restaurants that served so-called Italian food. Italian cuisine, she opined, existed only outside of Italy. How one perceives identity depends on whether one is looking from inside or from outside.

It’s too bad that I’m the only one to read these essays at the end of the course. Students would learn much from reading and discussing each others’ opinions and conclusions. There was a physics major in the class, who might have shed light on this other paradox: the need to be positioned both inside and outside, by pointing out that this is what quantum superposition and entanglement are all about: particles being distinct, far away from each other, and yet entangled, part of the same wave.

I once read that we, human beings, are waves. If so, if I am a wave, am I too superposed and entangled with other human beings, even those who are not in my proximity — what Einstein dubbed: “spooky action at a distance”?

Waves are a force that is propagated through matter, or through particles. Ocean waves are not a conglomeration of water molecules that travel great distances, but rather a force that is transmitted from molecule to molecule. The water is a medium. When traversed by waves, it is agitated up and down and all around, side to side, forward and backward, but remains more or less where it was before the wave passed through it. It’s not the water that travels; it’s the wave that travels through it.

The cells in our bodies are also a medium for the transmission of something that travels through them. Our cells are not permanent. They renew and mutate constantly. Except for some brain cells and ova in women, which apparently do remain intact, no cell in our body is the same as what was there, say a decade ago. Every few years, we have a body made up of new cells. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the non-human cells that constitute 90% or so of all the cells in our body: the bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms of our microbiomes, all of which also replicate and mutate continuously.

All our cells change, and yet our physical features remain the same: skin, hair, and eye color, height, bone structure, moles, scars, etc. At the cellular level, we are almost totally new and different (although not always improved, alas!) at different points in time. Yet, we somehow remain the same at the level of the whole body.

And something analogous happens at the mental level. Our memories and our knowledge constantly change and grow. New memories are added with each experience. Old ones are altered. And they all get mixed up and rearranged, and yet remain more or less intact and continuous throughout our lives, giving us the illusion of being one and the same person through the years.

All of these accumulating paradoxes circle back to the original conundrum of how something can be both unique and commonplace. None of these tangential reflections help to resolve the conundrum, only to accentuate it. But perhaps they do suggest that a “both/and” approach might be more fruitful than an “either/or” paradigm. If particles partake of both the properties of matter and of waves, as quantum physicists hypothesize, perhaps people do, too. As individuals, we uniquely occupy a specific time and space, but as members of communities — family, state, organizations, church, clubs, workforce, circle of friends, and so on — we are caught up in the waves that traverse those socio-cultural spaces (e.g., traditions, rules, laws, guidelines, beliefs, expectations — forces that entangle us all with others in the cohort).

But, dear reader, if you’re puzzled and perhaps disconcerted, as am I, as to how and why I have trespassed into the forbidding, if not forbidden, territory of quantum physics, let’s beat a retreat to a more familiar field in which I have toiled: the study of language.

With lexical spade in hand, let’s dig up some etymological roots for the word that here seems to be in question: “identity.” First of all, we should notice that even in the way we use it today — in its above-ground branches — the term is ambiguous. We carry an “identity” card to prove that we are exclusively the individual we claim to be: a token of our uniqueness. And yet, the root of the word is idem, Latin for “same,” the opposite of “unique” or “distinct,” and, true to that root, the adjective “identical” doesn’t mean “pertaining to one particular identity (ascertained by the ID card),” but “exactly like something else, a duplicate”; hence, “identity” means “resemblance” and “commonality,” antonyms of uniqueness.

So, even staying within the boundaries of my own oft-tilled field, I run into an analogous paradox. Our identity, what our ID card represents, consists of seemingly contrary properties: our commonality, our sameness with each other, as well as our difference from everyone else, our singularity.

Conclusion? No, probably not; there is no conclusion. Rather, another starting point: continuation through mutation — riding the wave across different patches of the sea of history (or seas of histories). We are all part of the same family, each person with different and unique contributions to make to the whole family, and all benefiting from what each has to offer. Or, if permitted to trespass one last time to another realm — this time just across the Alps, and just across the hall from my university office (in the Department of French and Italian), to the adjacent field of French literature, in which I have occasionally toiled — let me plagiarize the Musketeers, who put it more succinctly, forcefully, and memorably: “All for one and one for all!”

But, enough of this post-grading rapture and rudderless cerebral rambling! After all, 12:12 12/12/12 has already passed and won’t come around again for a hundred years. So, who cares about those 12s? I’d better get back to the calendar to count how many shopping days are left before the holidays.

But, lo and behold, on that December calendar, what do I see? Someone else who looks just like me! At this wintry time of year many people, especially children, have often noted a striking resemblance between me and this seasonal worker, with whom I share not only a white beard and a comparable girth, but also a similar first name, and on occasion — when my grading is done — a similar proclivity for jollity and mirth:

See Carousel Image 6 below: Left: Santa Claus | Right: Sante Claus

So, I’d better not cry and I’d better not pout because Sante Clones are all around town. They’re too many to list, let alone to check twice. So, I’d better be good, get some gifts, and be nice, and bid all: Merry Holidays, Happy New Year, and don’t slip on the ice!

Sante Matteo was born and raised in a small agricultural town in southern Italy, emigrating to the United States with his family when he was almost ten. He had the good fortune to maintain and strengthen his ties to Italy by becoming a professor of Italian Studies. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, where he resides, reminisces, and writes. Recent stories and poetry have appeared in THE CHAFFIN JOURNAL, DIME SHOW REVIEW, RIVER RIVER, SNAPDRAGON, THE NEW SOUTHERN FUGITIVES, OVUNQUE SIAMO, SHOWBEAR FAMILY CIRCUS, KAIROS.

Ambles with Zoe

A 20/20 Vision: Wednesday evening, 20 May 2020

Zoe noses the wet shrubs. Rain brings out fresh scents.

A light flashes to my left. I turn, see nothing.

Shooting star? No, the clouds hang low and dense.

Another flash; same direction: southward, over the road.

This year’s first lightning bug. Already? Too soon.

Out of season, too early to fly out of the pupa stage.

Out of place, too: hovering over the road, away from trees.

Flanking me, keeping pace; is it lured by my penlight,

Looking for a response, a welcome, an invitation?

Sorry, little bug, we're not what you're looking for.

A lone wavering speck twinkling alone on a chilly night:

Glowing off and on; now here, now there; on ... off ... on ... off.

Beaming eagerly, hopefully? Or desperately, uselessly?

A dance to an unheard melody? A code for an arcane message?

Beckoning beacon to a mate? Warning threat to a rival?

Or a solitary, futile quest in a world and a time not yet ready?

It flickers on, now there, now gone. But, no, not gone:

Still there, unseen in the dark, hiding and seeking, expecting.

Small as a sunflower seed, one five-millionth of my weight,

yet grand: an effulgent creator of light that pierces the darkness.

It flutters about on its new wings, seemingly haphazardly,

yet resolutely, unwaveringly toward some impellent end:

To locate and attract a mate, to engender and propagate life.

Another vagrant and resolute propagator lurks in this year's air:

Imperceptible to sight—two billion times smaller than my body,

smaller in relation to the firefly than the firefly is to me,

than I am to the Earth: a novel virus, minuscule and tremendous:

bearer of a planet-spanning scourge that infects, multiplies, kills:

Infinitesimal, immense agent of reproduction and destruction:

Myriad invisible invaders that hijack life and bestow death.

(Like another species that creates and exterminates life,

cultivates and destroys nature: builders and wreckers: us.)

And yet, and yet . . . . Here we are and here we go,

all of us, homebound in the same home world:

people, fireflies, viruses, and a dog called Zoe: life.

Homebound: contained, confined in our earthly home:

insulated in bodies, mired in senses, tethered to genes.

Homebound: homeless, on the road, traveling homeward:

bound for elsewhere, away from here and now.

Bound: tied up, anchored in biological bondage.

Bound: directed to roam, to seek and reach home.

Is home what holds us or what draws us away?

A place to seek or a place in which to hide?

Doubly life-bound: locked in life, impelled toward life.

Live in the moment, bound to sensual desires!

Obey the body, the urge for immediate pleasures!

Live for the future, bound toward procreation!

Spawn a progeny, a cascade of replacements,

all temporary: a cycle of annihilation and continuation:

all bound to be divergently homebound in life:

trapped within the fleeting bounds of biological being,

floating over and beyond the horizons of existence.

Looking for home while lost in the labyrinth of home,

we play hide-and-seek with meaning and insignificance.

Zoe trots on, pauses to snuzzle and sniff her world amiably.

Leaves have sprouted. Flowers are blooming. Chicks hatch.

Mulberries will soon fill branches and fall to the ground.

In the backyard, a new generation of squirrels for Zoe to chase.

The spasmodic glow of fireflies will fill the summer nights;

myriad companions for tonight's lone stranger if it hangs on.

The chase continues, life continues, Zoe strolls on.

 A Cicada Coda: One Year Later, mid-May 2021

At my "NO!" Zoe stops foraging for the strange new bugs:

Cicadas, now dormant after chirping stridently all day long.

A novelty for her, these bug-eyed, ear-piercing screechers;

their husks strewn about, stuck to tree trunks, on walls.

The previous brood rose from underground two dogs ago:

An alien invasion that was new to me, as well as to Mysti,

who, curious, sniffed, nibbled, liked, gobbled, and gorged,

then disgorged the emergent feast, re-emerged undigested:

So now, my "NO!" stops Zoe from learning from experience.

Still sparse, the few cicadas that have emerged in mid-May.

Advance scouts come to lead the way or impatient fugitives

Buried for seventeen years and avid for resurgence?

Up into the air, into sunlight, out to the open green earth,

to climb, fly, sing, click wings, mate! Ah, ecstasy at last!

And then? Plunge into death; the sun and moon barely glimpsed.

Long years of inert waiting, inhumed in airless darkness,

for a mere twinkling of winged, sonorous, sunlit vitality

when finally freed in the realm of light, noise, movement.

(Like our own lives: years of inertia, moments of momentum;

like history: long spans of stasis, sporadic change and progress;

like the universe: boundless emptiness dotted with galaxies,

speckled with countless stars, minuscule in the cosmic immensity.)

Or is that a distorted view, seen through an anthropomorphic lens?

Perhaps the nymphs cherish the sheltered existence underground,

abide contentedly in reclusion and wail in protest when expelled,

enraged by their sudden emergence into the open and the unknown.

But is this image as distorted, also seen through a human lens

that filters perceptions through our experiences and concerns

and leads us to wonder if the din is for joy or pain, dread or desire?

Or is it a blind biological response to nature's call to procreate:

birth, survival, growth, transition: flux, cycles: life, death, life?

Seed the world with new life and be gone! You're done!

Words, ideas, crafts, art: are these our mating calls and rituals,

our version of the screeching of cicadas and the glow of fireflies?

Our convoluted process of procreation, both physical and mental:

The intercourse of bodies for progeny and of minds for culture:

The coupling of bodies to arouse pleasure and beget children;

the engagement of minds to create meaning, ideals, illusions:

Our two-tiered response to the calls of the body and the mind:

Simultaneously an affirmation and a refutation of our bodies

as essential vessels and engines of life, to be protected, nurtured,

but also shunned and refuted as bearers of mortality and extinction?

Physical and mental constructions that help our species survive:

Fabrications that serve to camouflage life and hide its finality,

to mask and deny the meaningless randomness of existence?

Unlike our insect neighbors, we screech and glow incessantly.

After mating and procreating, we refuse to be gone, to be done.

Last year's intruders, the coronavirus, have lingered and spread,

compelled to reproduce, occupy new hosts, spawn variants,

in the march of life: adaptation, survival; continuation, change.

Will the newcomer viruses infect the newborn cicadas,

go underground, re-emerge in seventeen years and disseminate?

The cicadas won't know or care. Neither will the viruses.

Nor will the fireflies, nor any of the dogs that come after Zoe.

Will I, if still here, or others of my species that I leave behind?

Beam, Gleam, Repeat! Three weeks later, 6 June 2021

Zoe and I encounter this season's first firefly; on time this year,

and flying about in the shrubs: where and when it should be.

Companions will show up soon, tonight or tomorrow night:

A constellation of dancing sparkles will dot the nightscape.

Zoe ignores it for the immobile cicadas near the ground.

She sneaks a nibble while I'm looking for the fitful glow.

Caught munching by the penlight when I look down,

she looks up guiltily, then away, her head and tail down;

not for long; soon the tail wags again tentatively, hopefully.

I pretend to look for more lightning bugs to hide my smile,

not wanting to send mixed signals. But are there any other kind,

if moods and thoughts flit about like butterflies and bees,

alighting occasionally for a sip of nectar and a pinch of pollen,

living and spreading life by a script with rhyme but no reason?

Fireflies make light before the dawn.

Cicadas make noise before the night.

Dogs make bonds of devotion day and night.

We make words and thoughts, laws and art,

wars and feasts, hope and fear, hate and love.

Life makes us all. We all make life.

Glow on, glow worms! Sing along, cicadas!

Come on, Zoe, let's amble along!

"Ambles with Zoe" was published in volume I of the international anthology OUR CHANGING EARTH, sponsored by THE POET magazine, edited by poet Robin Barratt in the UK; Winter 2022, vol, 1, pp. 179-83. The anthology consists of two volumes containing 198 contributions from 193 poets in 46 countries. ISBN: 9798374310610. 

I’s Rise 

Sante Matteo 

Sunset, moonrise; 

stars in the skies. 

Shadows arise, 

darken, disguise. 

Gloom terrifies. 

Fears agonize. 

Tears come to eyes. 

Fearful child cries. 

“There, there! Oh my!”s 

soothe, tranquilize. 

Soft lullabies 

turn sobs to sighs. 

Warm, caring eyes 

to calm give rise. 

Cooings reprise. 

Love pacifies. 

Starset, sunrise; 

sunshiny skies. 

Light clarifies. 

Fearfulness dies. 

Open your eyes! 

Wake up! Arise! 

Eager mind flies, 

risks, dares, defies. 

New “why”s arise, 

spur, energize. 

Strive! Improvise! 

Explore! Revise! 

Greet each surprise 

with gleeful cries! 

Learn! Memorize! 

Try! Realize! 

“Wow!”s, “Yay!”s, “Good try!”s 

serve as a prize, 

lead to more tries, 

forge trustful ties. 

Welcome the “Why?”s! 

Help verbalize! 

Give kind replies, 

simple and wise! 

Childhood, childrise: 

Bonds crystalize. 

Hearts harmonize. 

Thoughts organize, 

try out a guise, 

make an “I” rise. 

Life’s precious prize 

love magnifies. 

In Midsummer’s Eve, no. 12, pp. 30-31, a volume of poetry published by Wingless Dreamer, 11 August 2022: https://winglessdreamer.com/winner-announcement-for-the-midsummers-eve-poetry-contest-2022/  

Queste poesie, compilate e mandate a mia madre per il suo compleanno nel 1976--per caso, anche l'anno in cui finalmente presi la cittadinanza americana, dopo quasi vent'anni di residenza negli Stati Uniti--le scrissi per cercare di ricuperare l'italiano che avevo perso (poco che fosse quello che ero riuscito a imparare fino alla quarta elementare) e per conservare alcuni dei ricordi della mia infanzia che si diluivano dopo la mia seconda emigrazione, questa volta allontanandomi dalla mia famiglia e dalla comunita` dei petrellesi di Cleveland, prima per ragioni di studio (per la laurea, 1967-71), poi per il servizio militare (1971-73), seguito dai corsi per il Dottorato di Ricerca, Ph.D. (1973-76), e infine per il lavoro accademico  in diversi atenei in diversi luoghi.  Nei ricordi, predomina la figura di mia madre perche' mio padre si trovava in America per parecchi di quegli anni, fra il 1954 e il 1958, quando l'abbiamo raggiunto a Quincy, nel Massachusetts. Non ho mai pensato di pubblicarle, e le "pubblico" qui sperando che possano divertire e piacere ai miei amici, parenti, e coetanei petrellesi che hanno avuto simili esperienze e che fanno tesoro di simili ricordi.

Paesaggi con figura di madre

È inverno.

Tutto è spoglio,

freddo,

grigio.

Dalla nebbia

mi arrivano suoni

fiochi,

lugubri;

non una voce umana.

Suoni grigi e freddi d'inverno

in una cittá

pur troppo americana.

Ed io cerco di riempire

il vuoto freddo

e il grigiore

del mio presente invernale

col calore

e coi colori

del passato.

Ricordi di altri tempi

e di altri luoghi

riscaldano il mio gelido cuore.

Tanti ricordi!

Passano davanti ai miei occhi chiusi

come tanti quadri.

La memoria è una galleria di ricordi.

È il museo dei miei ieri:

facce conosciute

e facce non più riconosciute,

momenti sereni

e momenti agitati,

scene di allegria

e scene di dolore.

E le immagini più belle di tutte

sono i paesaggi con

figura di madre.

Via di Lucito

Un sentiero sassoso di campagna

fiancheggia campi variopinti.

Laghetti d'oro macchiati di rosso:

papaveri ridenti sotto il sole meridiano

sparsi fra gialle spighe di grano

che chinano il capo stancamente

sotto la tiepida carezza di una brezza estiva.

Verdi vigne filate,

radi alberi di frutta:

fichi, ciliegi, mandorli, noci,

e da ogni lato il pacato grigio-verde degli ulivi

coi tronchi contorti che suggeriscono

chissà quante sofferenze patite

attraverso secoli e secoli.

Lontano lontano, sullo sfondo,

un paese sonnolento

sdraiato su una collina.

Le case allineate,

marmoree

sotto tetti di coppi marrone,

sotto l'azzurro abbagliante

del cielo sereno,

sembrano un branco di pecore assopite.

Il campanile dell'antica chiesa

si erge

in mezzo a loro

come il buon pastore

che veglia sul suo gregge.

Nelle distanze più remote,

il verde delle colline

si fa quasi bluastro.

All'orizzonte si scorgono

le montagne,

con le vette

bianche di neve.

In primo piano,

vicino alla strada sassosa,

una masseria,

bassa,

ombreggiata da un vecchio ciliegio,

un po' nascosta

dietro un antico fico.

Da qui, due figure si avviano

sul sentiero pietroso

per ritornare al paese:

un fanciullo,

coi pantaloncini corti,

e sua madre.

Il bambino galoppa davanti,

cavalcando una lunga canna.

Ogni tanto schiocca la lingua

per esortare l’esile palafreno.

La mamma lo segue

e lo guarda

con un lieve sorriso.

Poi, seria, volge il suo sguardo

al distante orizzonte,

oltre le montagne.

Forse pensa a qualcuno lontano,

a qualcuno che avrebbe sorriso con lei.

La pennichella

Gli occhi socchiusi,

il bambino se ne sta supino

sul gran letto,

nel semi-buio della camera.

Se la mamma entra,

lui subito chiude gli occhi,

approfondisce il respiro,

ogni tanto dà un sospiro più lungo

e si sposta un po'

come chi sta sognando.

Prova un vago piacere

nella finzione

e sorride fra di sé

nel sentirla uscire dalla camera

a punti di piedi

e socchiudere la porta piano piano

per non risvegliarlo.

E se ne sta lá quieto quieto

e ascolta i suoni pomeridiani

del suo mondo:

Un sussurrio di mosche

intorno alla polverosa striscia di luce

che entra per le persiane socchiuse.

Ogni tanto un soffio di vento porta

dai vicini campi,

qualche tonfo di zappa

che suona cupo,

stanco, ostinato,

fra l'allegro cinguettio degli uccelli,

fra il canto insistente delle cicale,

fra il chiocciare delle galline

giù nell'orto.

Un remoto raglio di asino,

esasperato dalle mosche

che gli ronzano attorno,

che si lamenta inutilmente

dei suoi patiti tormenti.

Dalla strada,

vivaci voci di bambini:

strilli, risate, cantilene.

Staranno giocando a palla-cucca!

E, in armonia con questa sinfonia di vita,

i suoni della mamma

in un'altra parte della casa.

Canterella dolcemente mentre cuce

alla luce della finestra,

accompagnata dal ritmico rumore della Singer:

da-da-petà … da-da-petá … da-da-petà …

Da lontano,

dai quattro tubi,

un lungo,

ansioso suono di clacson:

Il pullman delle due e mezzo avverte

il suo arrivo.

Le madri, affacciate alle finestre

gridano ai fanciulli

di levarsi dalla via nova.

La pennichella sta per finire.

Rincasare

Il paese è immerso nel crepuscolo.

Il sole è tramontato,

ma in alto,

il cielo è ancora pieno

di una chiara luce tenue

e di rondini che svolazzano,

frenetiche, di qua e di là

e si sgridano clamorosamente.

Nelle strade, i contadini

ritornano dalla campagna a passi lenti,

la zappa sulla spalla,

e di tanto in tanto,

uno schiocco della lingua

per incitare, forse per ringraziare

i loro asinelli stremati.

Saluti scambiati con voce pacata.

Si dicono in quale campo sono stati oggi,

cosa sono riusciti a fare.

Scambiano pareri sul tempo che farà domani.

Rifiutano ritualmente i dovuti inviti a favorire,

a prendere qualcosa:

“Meh! indr', ia’, che t' fie nu b'cchier'.

Iamm'!  na tazz' d' chefè n'da vuo' fà?”

“Grazie, grazie, c'mmà, n'atre vot'.

M’espett’n’ na cas’.

Buon appetit’ e buona ser’!”

Procedono verso casa.

I loro passi e quelli dell'asino

echeggiano nei vicoli

che si fanno più scuri,

man mano più vuoti.

Dalle finestre aperte scola

una luce giallastra

carica di sapori:

cipolla fritta,

aglio ed olio,

peperoni fritti,

fagioli lessi,

sugo di pomodoro,

minestra, cicoria.

Dalle finestre aperte si diffonde

un concerto di rumori casalinghi:

il tintinnio di rozze posate

e vecchie stoviglie,

il gorgoglio di vino

versato in bicchieri di varia foggia,

voci rauche e stanche,

voci vivaci e penetranti,

risate, gridi, lamenti, bestemmie,

il pianto dei cit’l’ in culla,

la sigla musicale del giornale radio

e le notizie, sommesse, distanti:

Una dolce sinfonia serale.

Il paese mangia.

Una donna giovane e forte

cammina per la strada.

Porta una bambina in braccio.

Un ragazzino le cammina accanto,

fischiettando, le mani ficcate

nelle tasche dei suoi calzoncini corti.

Vuol far finta d'essere un piccolo uomo,

come il suo papà che non c'è.

Ma ogni tanto si dimentica

e incomincia a dare a calci

con qualche pietruzza

o a salterellare

come un bambino.

Una vicina di casa, giocosa,

s'affaccia alla sua finestra

e saluta la giovane madre

seria e dignitosa

ma pronta al sorriso;

finge di sgridare e minacciare

la fanciulla, incerta

se piangere o ridere:

Perché si fa ancora portare

in braccio dalla mamma

adesso che è cosí grande?

“Meh, nu sié che si’ gross', mamm' e sè?

Mamm't' ngià fa e p’rtar’t’.

Scign' de ngoll e mamm't', iusct mo,

s’nno’ mo’ vieng’ yi’ e t’ facc’ v’de’!”

Minaccia anche il bambino,

dicendogli che scenderà

per fargli il solletico,

che lui non può resistere.

Lui ride e si contorce;

se lo sente già addosso

quel solletico,

e si nasconde

dietro la gonna della mamma.

La piccola famiglia rincasa.

I bambini sono stanchi.

Ritornano dalla casa della nonna,

sul Calvario, un po' fuori del paese.

Tutto il giorno hanno giocato coi cugini,

rincorrendo lucertole e farfalle

intorno alle tre croci,

giocando a bocce con le pietre

nel campo sportivo,

nascondendosi nei pagliai,

facendo capriole per i prati,

rotolandosi nell’erba fresca.

Adesso è sera.

Sono stanchi.

Rincasano.

Fra poco,

dietro le case,

dai campi oscuri,

si sentirà

il primo

“chiuuu”.

Pane fresco

La mamma si è alzata presto

per fare il pane.

Ritorna dal forno con grandi pani

tondi, caldi, fragranti.

Ne taglia uno,

appoggiandoselo contro il petto.

La crosta dorata scrocca.

La mollica bianca, bucata,

è ancora calda, umida.

La mamma taglia una lunga fetta,

la bagna con olio d'uliva,

la cosparge leggermente di zucchero,

me la tende.

La prendo con tutt'e due le mani.

Chiudo gli occhi

per goder meglio l'odore

e il gusto del primo morso.

Addento voluttuosomanete.

Mastico lentamente.

Pian piano scendo le scale,

reggendo la fetta con due mani

come un’ostia.

Esco. 

Mi siedo sulla panca assolata

accanto al portone.

Le mosche si riuniscono

sussurrandosi la grande scoperta.

Le sventolo via

col soffio e una mano,

e mangio beatamente

il mio pane

fresco fresco,

unto e dolce,

ancora caldo.

Il ritorno dal pellegrinaggio

“Ecc'u vi’ u capp'llon'!  Mo err'vam'!”

Annuncia la voce felice della mamma.

Il fanciullo si tira avanti nel sedile

per poter veder meglio dal finestrino.

Stanno per arrivare al paese.

Il pullman si riempie d'un mormorio eccitato.

Il ragazzino è un po' ansioso.

Gli sembra tanto tempo fa

che erano partiti

per il pellegrinaggio.

Sarà lo stesso il paese?

Forse tutto è cambiato.

Forse papà è tornato dall’America.

E i suoi compagni?

Sono riusciti a giocare

senza di lui?

Avrà tanto da raccontare:

quell'antico albero di San Francesco d'Assisi,

sorretto con grandi anelli di ferro

intorno al vecchio tronco.

Che cosa aveva detto il monaco?

Che invece di foglie,

Francesco aveva visto facce,

o forse anime,

e che dimostravano qualcosa:

che “molti sono chiamati,

ma pochi sono eletti.”

O era vice versa?

Ma che significava? Boh!

Non aveva capito molto.

Ma era un albero sacro

ed era importante,

e lui, piccolo devoto--

quando è buono, la gente dice:

“Sand’ z’ chiam’ e sand’ ‘è”

e lui se ne compiace--

aveva ascoltato tutto

con aria grave, solenne, pia.

E quell'enorme cavallo

davanti alla basilica di Sant'Antonio

a Padova,

dove s'erano persi

lui e la mamma,

ed era stato proprio lui

a rintracciare la strada giusta

al dormitorio (un convento?)

dove tutti i pellegrini

dormivano insieme in una grande camerata

(e il gabinetto gli faceva schifo);

e nel dormiveglia lui sentiva,

come da molto lontano,

squarci di conversazioni,

pacate e misteriose,

voci di vecchie donne

che raccontavano miracoli;

e ripensava ai lunghi viaggi in pullman

con le vecchie vestite di nero,

con le facce rugate e riverenti,

che con voci acute inneggiavano:

“A’A’veee....A’A’vee....Aave Mmmari’iaaaa....”

Ecco i quattro tubi!

Siamo arrivati al paese!

Si vede già la casa della nonna:

“Ell'i vi’!  I vid', ma?”

Davanti alla porta dei nonni

aspetta un gruppo di figure immobili.

Stanno raccolte lí

come in una fotografia.

In piedi in mezzo al gruppo,

c'è la nonna,

vestita di nero, coi capelli neri

raccolti sotto il fazzoletto nero.

Tiene per mano la bambina più piccola,

magra magra,

tutt'abbronzata dal sole molisano,

i folti capelli scuri della frangetta in fronte.

Il piccolo viso raggrinzato

e gli occhi socchiusi

contro la luce intensa del pomeriggio.

La fanciuletta guarda i finestrini del pullman

dove le sta indicando la nonna.

Ma il viso della sorellina resta serio,

quasi disinteressato.

Non riesce a vedere niente.

Non vede la sua mamma e il fratello

che la salutano, gioiosi di rivederla,

colpevoli d'averla lasciata.

“Ell'a vi a z'ngherell' e me!

Oh Gesù! m' par' pruoprie na z'ngherell'!”

esclama la mamma, commossa di vedersela

cosí piccola,

cosí fragile,

cosí annerita dal sole,

con quell'aria di creatura abbandonata

che dubita di mai essere ritrovata.

Il pullman si ferma.

Il pellegrinaggio è finito.

Il focolare

Due ombre,

una grande, l'altra piccola,

ballano sulle pareti della cucina.

Due figure,

una grande, l'altra piccola,

stanno sedute davanti al focolare.

La donna,

seduta su una sedia di paglia,

fa la maglia.

Il bambino,

seduto su una sedia di paglia,

fissa il fuoco,

affascinato dalla danza frenetica delle fiamme

e il volo caotico delle scintille.

La cucina palpita

al ritmo spasmodico delle fiamme.

Fuori, silenzio.

È quasi inverno.

Pochi giorni fa,

il bambino ha dovuto indossare

la maglietta di lana,

e ancora gli dà prurito.

Ci vorranno ancora alcuni giorni per abituarsi.

Infastidito, ogni tanto si gratta.

Dalla radio nell'angolo,

una blanda voce annuncia

il terzo mistero doloroso,

e poi riprende a recitare,

con tono monotono e stanco:

“Ave Maria ...”

Risponde un mormorio indistinto

di voci pacate: “Santa Maria ...”

Sopra le voci della radio,

si sente la voce viva

della madre.

Anche il ragazzo partecipa,

recita con voce fioca.

Cerca di restare sveglio,

di finire il rosario,

per non essere mandato a letto.

Gli piace stare davanti al fuoco del camino,

sentire il calore sulle ginocchia e sul viso,

sentire il freddo e il buio alle sue spalle,

seduto accanto alla mamma,

sentire la sua voce serena e dolce,

sicura e rassicurante.

Non vuole andare a letto.

A letto ha paura.

C'è il buio.

Ci sono streghe e spiriti in giro.

Lui dorme con le braccia e i piedi incrociati

per allontanarli.

Prima di addormentarsi,

recita mezz'ora di preghiere di protezione.

La mattina è sorpreso

di svegliarsi sano e salvo.

Perciò rimane accanto al focolare,

recita il rosario,

tenta di restare sveglio.

Ma le ciglia pesano.

Si assopisce.

Sussurra qualche parola

delle “Ave Maria”.

Pian piano, la testa si china sul petto.

La madre scuote il capo e sorride:

“Guegliò, mè nu vid' ch’ mo t' muor' d' sonn'?

P'cchè nd' viè e dr'mmí?”

Lui fa di no con la testa,

che poi si richina lentamente.

La voce della radio,

anch’essa stanca,

annuncia il quinto mistero doloroso,

ma lui non la sente più.

Alla fontana

“Chi è a lut'm'?”

chiede la donna

al gruppo intorno alla fontana.

“Song' i, Giuseppi’”

La mamma indica al bambino

la donna che le ha risposto:

“A víd’ e’ quell'e femm'n'?

Quann' tocc’ e’ ess' d' mett' l'acqu',

tu ann'm' e chiemà!

I chepit', scin' o non'?”

Il bambino fa di sí con la testa.

La mamma capovolge

l'anfora di rame, a t’nucc’,

e la posa per terra.

Il bambino ci si siede sopra

per aspettare il turno

e poi correre a casa per avvertirla.

Prima di partire,

la mamma nota che il viso del figlio

è un po’ sporco:

“Meh temié com' tie’ vrett' sa facc'.

Z' può chepí’ dov' t' s'i’ 'ngr'tat' ecqu'sci’?”

Caccia un fazzoletto da una tasca,

sputa su un lembo,

e strofina il mento del ragazzo,

tenendolo per la testa con l'altra mano.

Lui fa una smorfia,

protesta e si dimena debolmente.

Cerca di svincolarsi

da quell'atto troppo materno.

Quello sfregamento

un po’ gli fa male

e un po’ gli dà fastidio.

Si vergogna di tali attenzioni materne

rese davanti alla gente.

Ma sente anche una sensazione di tenerezza,

un’emozione familiare e insostituibile

che ha paura di perdere.

Quella frizione sgradevole

e quell'effluvio intimo materno

lo infastidiscono

e lo fanno sentir sicuro;

gli dicono chi è,

dove e a chi appartiene.

“Sc'tatt' sod'! Ch' fié?”

La madre ripone il fazzoletto,

ritorna alle sue faccende domestiche,

alla sua macchina Singer.

Il ragazzino si sente il mento arrossato

da quello strofinare dolce e violento,

e se ne sta seduto timidamente sulla tinozza

e osserva la vita paesana che lo circonda,

che lo opprime,

che lo protegge,

che lo esalta.

Anche adesso,

anni dopo,

decenni dopo,

se chiudo gli occhi,

vedo tutte quelle donne intorno alla fontana,

vestite di scuro,

le facce cotte dal sole e dal vento;

quei ragazzi coi calzoncini corti

che giocano a pallone

con cenci arrotolati;

quelle bambine con le vestine corte

che giocano a cicozza;

le antiche case di pietra

scurite dal tempo,

imbianchite dal sole pomeridiano.

Sento ancora quel canto allegro dell'acqua

che scroscia nelle tinozze metalliche;

quel sussurrio, quel vocio delle donne

che si scambiano chiacchiere ovattate;

i gridi acuti dei bambini;

il tintinnio ritmico che viene dalla bottega del fabbro;

i colpi più irregolari del martello del falegname;

i tocchi della campana a ventun’ore.

E cosí,

per un attimo,

fuggo dal mio presente invernale,

da quest'oggi freddo, grigio, e silenzioso.

Faccio un pellegrinaggio

al mio paese,

al mio passato.

E per un attimo,

sento di nuovo

il calore di quel sole;

mi ricreo

coi ricordi di quella vita lontana,

tranquilla,

bella.

E quel calore materno

mi riscalda ancora.

In appendice al libro, La mia vita: Dall'aia alla piscina (1998), di mio zio, Michele Ruscitto: 

La mia poesia "In barca insieme per mezzo secolo" scritta per il cinquantesimo anniversario di matrimonio dei miei genitori, Nicolino Matteo e Giuseppina Ruscitto, e due componimenti di mio padre: la canzone "Petrella Tifernina - Paese di belle bambine" e la poesia "Petrella mia":

IN BARCA INSIEME PER MEZZO SECOLO SUL MARE DELLA VITA

Poesia di Sante Matteo, in La mia vita: Dall'aia alla piscina, di Michele Ruscitto, pp. 585-87.

Insieme per una vita,

congiunti nel male e nel bene,

bagnati dalle piogge di due terre,

riscaldati dal sole di due continenti,

continuate a navigare sul mare della vita,

uniti nella barca del vostro matrimonio.

E che viaggi avete fatto in questa barca!

A prima vista sembrerebbe cosí esile e fragile,

fatta di impegno, pazienza, sacrificio, affetto--

cose effimere, senza sostanza e concretezza--

eppure, nel vostro caso, costanti e durature,

che hanno tenuto la vostra barca a galla

per mezzo secolo sul mare della vita.

E che viaggi avete fatto su questo mare!

Un mondo abbondanato, un altro trovato;

eppure né l'uno del tutto abbondanato

né l'altro mai del tutto adottato--

rimanete attaccati al mondo perduto,

e perduti nel mondo dove siete ancorati;

sbandati di qua e di là dai venti della vita,

per finire approdati a queste sponde straniere,

sempre insieme sulla barca della famiglia.

Ditemi, dove avete trovato il coraggio

per lasciare la vostra terra, i vostri cari,

i luoghi e le persone della vostra fanciullezza,

quel posto dove eravate di casa,

dove eravate diventati "voi," le persone che siete,

conosciuti e conoscenti, radicati e amati?

Come avete trovato la forza

per voltare le spalle al calore del focolare

e al dolce ronzio delle voci e dei suoni familiari,

che fluivano per le case, per le vie, per i campi,

che si radunavano intorno al cammino di sera,

che riempivano la cucina dei nonni nei giorni di festa,

mescolati con quei buoni odori di cibo e di famiglia?

Imbarcati per dove: l'esilio, l'ignoto, un'altra vita?

Piccola barca e fragile, la vostra,

sul mare a volte buio e tempestoso dell'emigrazione:

marito, moglie, e due bambini: soli ed inermi

contro la novità, l'incomprensibile differenza

del nuovo mondo; ma insieme, forti perché uniti.

Sradicati dal vostro suolo, ma tenaci nel vostro amore,

nell'esilio, in bilico fra il qua ed il là,

fra l'adesso e l'allora, avete rifatto casa.

Con che?  Con chi?  Voi siete bastati a voi stessi.

Ma, ditemi, dove avete trovato il coraggio e la forza?

Forse l'uno li ha seminati e coltivati nell'altra.

Li avete trovati e raccolti nel matrimonio,

quando avete deciso di unirvi e di affrontare la vita

e la morte insieme, piangendo e ridendo,

litigando e perdonando, soffrendo e gioiendo?

Forse li avete creati creando la famiglia,

dando luce e un posto sulla vostra barca ad altre vite,

figli e nipoti, da voi nutriti, sostenuti, amati.

Ditemi, è nei figli che si vede il futuro

e si trova la forza per abbordarlo,

nonostante i pericoli, i dolori, e la paura?

Quanta distanza e quanti anni son passati!

Piccoli, semplici, innocenti a Petrella,

mondo di ieri, dove ogni oggi era come uno ieri,

chi avrebbe mai sognato un tale viaggio,

attraverso tanta strada e tanti anni,

un mare di spazio e di tempo fra ieri e oggi?

Ma la barca, che avete costruito e menato

attraverso il mondo e la vita, ce l'ha fatta;

è rimasta intatta e a galla per mezzo secolo.

Vi ha portato da una sponda all'altra,

arrecandovi meste memorie e dolci ricordi di altri tempi,

penose ansie e liete speranze per il futuro.

Ha riempito ed arricchito la vita a voi ed a noi.

Anche il nostro viaggio per il mare della vita

è incominciato con voi nella vostra barca.

Ora che anche noi navighiamo con le nostre famiglie,

nel vasto mare a volte turbolento della vita,

la vostra unione ed la vostra dedizione

continuano a sostenerci, a servirci da stimolo

per affrontare la vita con la vostra risoluzione,

la vostra rettitudine e il vostro amore.

Mezzo secolo in barca insieme!

Grazie per il viaggio che ci ha portato qui,

a diventare chi siamo, ad essere i vostri.

E buon proseguimento nel vostro viaggio insieme!

PETRELLA TIFERNINA, PAESE DI BELLE BAMBINE

Canzone di Nicolino Matteo, in La mia vita: Dall'aia alla piscina, di Michele Ruscitto, pp. 588-90.

Ritornello:

Venite a Petrella!

Venite a veder che bambine!

Quelle che vedete passare

Son tutte Tifernine.

Se di mattina ti fai un giretto,

e dalla chiesa tu scendi alla piazza,

vedi un mucchio

di queste belle ragazze.

Ritornello

Dal Biferno al Cappellone

c’è una salita di gran valore,

chi la vuole petteggiare

da queste ragazze deve passare.

Ritornello

Se vieni a Petrella nei giorni di festa,

specie di sera quando la musica

suona dull’orchestra,

dalla piazza al Cappellone

vedi una via vai di queste belle guaglione.

Ritornello

Dai paesi d’intorno,

e di qualche lontana città,

tutti a Petrella vengono a festeggiare,

con la speranza che qualcuna

di queste belle ragazze

si volesse ingaggiare.

Ritornello

E cosí questi giovanotti forestieri

fanno la fila per corteggiare

queste belle bambine,

ma i giovanotti petrellesi

si mettono a gridare

che con queste ragazze

non c’è niente da fare.

Ritornello

Quando la festa è finita

malinconici i forestieri son ripartiti,

ed i giovanotti petrellesi, quelli innamorati,

la loro fidanzata a casa l’hanno accompagnata.

Ritornello

Però fermandosi in qualche angolo,

o sotto a qualche balcone,

a qualcuna di esse si sentiva gridare:

Stringimi, baciami, amore,

che io sono una bella guagliona!

Apre, rientra, e chiude il portone.

Dà un lungo sospiro e, contenta,

va a letto a dormire.

Ritornello

Petrella Tifernina, paese sportivo,

vorrei farvi vedere tutte queste ragazze

che per il tifo ne vanno pazze.

Ritornello

Quando le squadre avversarie di calcio

vengono a giocare al paese

queste ragazze son molto cortesi;

gridano, saltano, e alzando il bandierino,

mettono tutto il paese in armonia.

Ritornello

Nel cuor della notte

Tifernina riposa

mentre tutte queste ragazze

nel cuore tengono il fuoco,

fuoco ardente, fuoco di gioventù.

Petrella mia, aiutale tu!

Venite a Petrella!

Venite a veder che bambine!

Quelle che vedete passare

Son tutte Tifernine.

PAESE MIO, PETRELLA TIFERNINA

Poesia di Nicolino Matteo, in La mia vita: Dall'aia alla piscina, di Michele Ruscitto, pp. 591-92.

Dalla dolce terra del Molise

è nato e sorto il mio paese:

Petrella Tifernina, paese mio caro.

La dolce fanciullezza e la bella gioventù

Petrella mia cara, me le hai date tu.

Per trentatré anni ci son vissuto,

e dopo la guerra mi son perduto.

Sono andato via, ma non per colpa mia.

Avevo moglie, e due figli,

ma da nessuno ho preso consiglio.

Mi son deciso ad emigrare

per pochi anni, e poi tornare.

La lunga guerra ci ha colpiti tutti.

Non c’era lavoro, né moneta.

Cosí mi son deciso a cambiare paese.

Fortunatamente un vecchio paesano

mi fece l’atto di richiamo,

e cosí come scarpellino

per gli Stati Uniti emigrai.

Tu, mio caro paese, eri allora povero,

ma non più ora,

perché tutti oggi hanno pane e lavoro.

Ma credimi, paese mio caro,

che dopo pochi anni da te volevo tornare.

Ma dopo quei pochi anni

che avevo deciso di ritornare,

la mia famiglia ha voluto emigrare.

Pur essendo qui in America,

riuniti e lavorando,

sempre te abbiamo davanti.

È vero che vivendo a lungo in terra straniera

Si diventa cittadini e si dimentica il proprio paese.

Molte e molte volte siamo venuti in vacanza,

ma per tornarci definitivamente

non abbiamo mai deciso quando.

Or siamo vecchi, passati tanti anni.

Dai figli, i nipoti son venuti,

e il nostro ritorno ormai è perduto.

Perciò non pensare, paese mio caro,

che con te sono stato volgare.

Ma ti voglio far sapere

che ti penso da mattina a sera.

Ti ripeto, mio caro paese,

che tutte le volte venuti in vacanza,

se pur per pochi giorni,

perché il lavoro ci teneva legati,

quel poco tempo volava via,

ma per noi era gioia e allegria

star con te, paese mio.

Se sapessi il giorno di morire

pur per un istante vorrei tornare

per chiudere gli occhi e morire,

per poter restare con te,

Petrella mia.

Poesie occasionali per feste, compleanni, anniversari

CUOR DI MADRE

--A mia madre, per il suo settantatreesimo compleanno, marzo 1999

I tuoi capelli ormai son radi e bianchi,

E spesso senti la stanchezza addosso,

Eppure tu non dici mai: Non posso!

Di quel che fai per noi tu non ti stanchi.

Anche se sei afflitta da dolori,

Li nascondi sempre dietro un sorriso,

Che nella mente ci rimane inciso

E che riscalda sempre i nostri cuori.

Con pene angosce affetto e sacrifici,

Il cammin di nostra vita hai spianato,

Stando sempre vicino al nostro fianco.

Col tuo costante amor ci benedici;

E anche quando il corpo è affaticato,

Il tuo cuor di madre non è mai stanco.

CUORE MATERNO

--La festa della madre, 11 maggio 2003

Il freddo e il gelo ormai son passati.

Torna l’estate, dopo un aspro inverno.

I giorni son lunghi e più assolati.

Il verde s’è sparso sul mondo esterno.

La luce e il caldo, che infin son tornati,

Rallegrano un po’ il mondo moderno.

Anche menti e cuor si son risvegliati.

La speranza inonda l’animo interno.

Ricordo stagioni e fior colorati,

E ore felici vicino al Biferno.

Momenti fuggiti, eppur mai scordati,

Rivivono ancor nel pensier odierno.

Dal sole estivo siam or riscaldati,

E da un altro sol, che risplende eterno:

Oggi e doman, come negli anni andati,

Ci nutre e riscalda il tuo cuor materno.

PADRE MURATORE EMIGRANTE

--Festa del Padre, 2003

A Petrella facevi il muratore,

Come tuo padre, esperto scalpellino,

Di lui discepolo e continuatore,

Poi noto e stimato--Mastro Lilino.

Con mani incallite, nerbo, e sudore,

Danni aggiustavi a un mondo perituro.

Con occhio d’artista, cura, e rigore,

Ergevi sogni, costruivi il futuro:

Del nostro ieri abile curatore,

E del domani esperto fabbricante:

Restauratore e fiero creatore:

Ingegnere, architetto, e anche bracciante.

Ma un bel dì partisti, incerto emigrante,

Per dare ai figli un avvenir migliore,

Mettendo radici in terra distante.

Il ricordo resta, come un bel fiore

Stretto in un libro, frale e duraturo:

Memorie dolci di umano calore,

Di un altro tempo più semplice e puro.

Dispersi, rinati, siam come spore

Menate dal vento, dal Tifernino

All’urbe moderna, pien di fragore.

Dall’umile ovile, ov’ero bambino,

A nuovi pascoli, da buon pastore,

Ci hai guidato; con amor che mai muore

Ci hai nutrito, e con maniere leggiadre.

Con stima, dunque, ed affetto nel cuore,

Ti onoro e ringrazio, caro mio padre.

NOVEMBRE PATERNO

--per il compleanno di mio padre, 5 novembre 2004

Il cielo è grigio; sta piovigginando.

Le foglie, stanche, coprono la terra.

Il vento che le fa cader è blando.

Ma ecco che raffiche più forti sferra!

Agita i rami e fa volar le foglie.

Spazza via le nubi e il sol disserra.

Tutto risplende e tremola; si scioglie

Quel grigior triste ed ogni pensier mesto;

E tornano speranze e buone voglie.

La mente, come il tempo, cambia presto.

I pensieri son come foglie al vento:

Di qua e di là svolazzan senz’arresto.

L’autunno dà ai ricordi il sopravvento:

Bei pensieri delle stagioni scorse,

Memorie care d’un tempo contento.

Raccogliamo in autunno le risorse

Per superar l’inverno freddo e duro:

Raccolta di esperienze già trascorse,

Di soddisfazioni, e d’affetto puro:

L’amor ricevuto dai genitori,

Il tuo paterno amor, sempre sicuro.

Se abbiamo bisogno, tu ci ristori,

Com’hai fatto per ogni nostro inverno,

Per cui ti sarem sempre debitori.

E il nostro affetto sarà per te eterno.

PER QUASI QUARANTASEI MILIONI DI MINUTI DI VITA

--Compleanno di mio padre, 5 novembre 2006

Mandiamo a te, caro padre, i saluti

Per gli ottantacinque anni oggi compiuti,

Con le memorie di una vita bella,

Incominciata nella tua Petrella;

Tanti ricordi di tempi goduti,

Con figli e nipoti oramai cresciuti.

Non più con la zappa, ma la cartella,

Ora si studia, non più si scalpella.

Cinquanta milioni sono i minuti,

In due mondi e due secoli vissuti,

Da un mondo antico a una terra novella,

Tu insieme con la tua contadinella.

Per progressi voluti,

Da legami tenuti,

In terra straniera siete venuti,

Con ricordi che il tempo non cancella:

Casa e famiglia, chiesa e cappella:

Lontano il suon della lor campanella.

Ma vicino in pensier e in cuor tenuti,

Ricordi e affetti non restano muti;

Si fan dolci con gli anni e benvenuti.

Contro i mali l’amore si ribella,

E la pazienza, dell’amor sorella.

Il tempo infine gli alti e i bassi livella;

Raccoglie tutto e fa da sentinella;

Ci rende ogni esperienza, brutta o bella.

E quindi siamo adesso risoluti

A mandarti gli auguri a te dovuti

E grazie per i doni ricevuti,

Con la speranza che non li rifiuti.

Buon compleanno con cari saluti!

NATALE 2006

Un altr’anno quasi sta per finire.

Ne abbiamo visti di tutti i colori:

Gioie e felicità, pene e dolori.

Ma volgiamoci adesso all’avvenire!

L’anno nuovo sta ormai per arrivare.

Anch’esso porterà gelo e calore,

Piaceri e problemi, rabbia e amore.

E sarà più dolce per chi sa amare.

FESTA DELLA MAMMA 2017

Cara nostra mamma dolce e buona,

nel nostro cuor il tuo amor risuona,

e in questa giornata della mamma

il nostro affetto sorge e rinfiamma.

Tu dici che sei una vecchiarella,

ma agli occhi nostri sei sempre bella.

Di tutte le madri in questo mondo

il tuo sorriso è il piú giocondo.

Ci riempie il cuor di buonumore,

di gratitudine e tanto amore.

Con rispetto e stima ti onoriamo,

e con tutto il cuore ti adoriamo.

Altre poesie e scritti di Nicolino Matteo, mio padre

LA PASSEGGIATA

di Nicolino Matteo

 Nei giorni lunghi e caldi d’estate,

la domenica, giorno di festa,

più che altro giorno per riposare.

A mezzogiorno, dopo paver mangiato,

si va a letto e si fa la pennicatella.

E quando l’aria s’è rinfrescata

si va fuori per far la passeggiata.

Laggiù nella vallata,

sdraiati in mezzo ai fiorellin dei prati,

sono coppie innamorate;

e sotto quei cocenti raggi del sole fanno l’amore,

e tutti contenti cantano così:

RITORNELLO: Con te, con te, con te,

una notte a Petrella,

con te, con te, con te,

tanti baci d’amore!

Loro vanno laggiù

per abbronzarsi e prendere il sole—

mentre la gioventù più moderna

va nel luogo ch’è più bello,

nella fonte del mancino

dove c’è un bel ritrovo

e il campo sportivo.

Quel luogo è meraviglioso,

un bel fabbricato e tutto attrezzato.

Lì si vendono aperitivi, birra e liquori,

panini, dolci e caffè, e anche gelati.

Campi di bocce per giocare,

tavolini di fuori per sedersi e a carte giocare,

e molte altre cose accese per far giocar i bambini.

In quella bell’aria calda e profumata,

chi fischia, chi suona e chi canta

questo bel ritonrello:

RITORNELLO

Per quella bell’aria di tramontana,

lassù nel Cappellone va gente a processione,

chi va per passeggiare, chi va per moreggiare.

L’anziano va e cammina piano piano,

e verso il tramontare incomincia a rincasare,

mentre la gioventù, più ardente, pian piano si perde.

Chi va nella pineta, chi dietro a lunghe siepe,

e sotto quel bel chiar di luna,

cantano così per la loro fortuna:

RITORNELLO

Chi va in quelle stradette dei campi intorno al Cappellone,

tra cespugli, prati, e siepe,

e trovandosi un bel posticino, si mettono là seduti,

godendosi quella bell’aria fresca e profumata,

e sotto quel bel chiaro di luna,

contenti cantano così alla loro fortuna:

RITORNELLO

Chiacchierando e moreggiando,

il tempo incomincia ad imbrunire.

Dobbiamo ripartire!

E camminando pian piano,

tenendosi per mano,

continuano a scherzare.

Ma ecco che ad un tratto,

sentono l’orologio del campanile che rintocca.

Contano le battute, e dicono:

Gia mezzanotte!

Così s’affrettano ad allungare il passo.

Ma contenti e gioiosi della dolce serata,

cantano così:

RITORNELLO

E prima d’arrivare accanto alla casa,

si salutano dandosi per quella sera

l’ultimo bacio.

Chissà se andando a letto riescono a dormire,

o se pensano per l’avvenire

ad un’altra dolce passeggiata?

LA DOLCE VACANZA E IL TRISTE RITORNO

Nicolino Matteo, alla fine di un soggiorno a Petrella, il nostro paese nativo

Cognati, cognate, nipoti,

amici e paesani,

Abbiamo passato fra voi

dei giorni allegri e felici,

e che il Signore a tutti vi benedice!

Purtroppo la nostra vacanza

è quasi alla fine.

Fra un paio di giorni

dobbiamo ripartire.

So che nel salutarvi

molte lacrime bagneranno

questo nostro viso.

Però voi accompagnateci

con gioia e con sorriso.

E quando quel gigante apparecchio

spicca il volo,

noi vi stringiamo tutti

sul nostro cuore.

E dando l'ultimo sguardo

da quel piccolo finestrino

diciamo <<Arrivederci, Roma>>

e a tutti <<Addio!>>

Dopo un periodo di tempo

che si vola,

con occhi mezzo addormentati,

ci sembra di non esserci

ancora separati.

Ed ecco che si entra

nell'immensa oscurità

e l'apparecchio vola, vola, vola,

e lontano da voi di nuovo ci porterà.

E cosí nello stesso aeroporto

da dove siam partiti, là

si atterrerà, e ci scenderà.

Stanchi e pieni di malinconia,

lí troviamo Franca

e ci porta via a casa.

Casa bella, casa cara,

ora sí che Giuseppina

può dormire

e dolcemente riposare.

Io contento, ma non tanto

perché volevo allungare

un altro poco le vacanze.

Ma si vuole che in America

la donna comanda.

Ho chiuso la bocca

e ho piegato le spalle.

E questa è la storia

della nostra vacanza.

LA NOSTRA NIPOTINA, RINA PASTINA

Nicolino Matteo

Il 16 ottobre 1979 è nata la nostra prima nipotina, di nome Rina.

I genitori erano in affitto in un piccolo appartamentino in località di Golden Gate, a Mayfield Heights, a circa un miglio dalla nostra casa, dove tuttora noi abitiamo, nella stessa località di Mayfield Heights, dal 1973.

Erano quasi giorni d’inverno, e molte volte, per non dire ogni giorno, andavamo noi là per vederla, e a volte per guardarla, specie la sua amata nonna, che appena incominciò a parlare la sua parola era ya-yà.  Siccome suo padre è greco, le ha insegnato a dire ya-yà, che in lingua greca significa nonna.  E quindi è rimasto il nome di ya-yà.

Rina, dalla sua nascita, è stata simpatica e carina, e nel svilupparsi quando incominciò a dare i primi passi non si reggeva e strascinandosi correva di qua e di là per la cucina, e ogni piccolo tiretto o sportellino voleva aprire.  Ma la sua ya-yà le diceva “no, non si tocca!”  Cosí si fermava, la guardava, e sorrideva.  Poi quando, da inginocchiata, alzata ha cominciato a camminare, un cancelletto nella scalinata abbiamo dovuto adottare.

Nei bei giorni d’estate, nel garage se ne stava, e in un piccolo tavolino lí si mangiava la pastina, che la nonna ya-yà gliela cucinava.  Molte volte veniva per giocare una sua amica di casa vicino, di nome Gina.  E molte volte le faceva compagnia a mangiarsi la pastina.  Insomma ogni giorno che ya-yà la pastina le ha cucinato, mai l’ha rifiutata, e sempre tutta se l’è mangiata.  E appunto per questo la nonna le ha dato il nome Rina Pastina.

LEZIONI DI GUIDA

Mia figlia Franca, quando era incinta, si prese la pazienza di insegnare a sua madre per prendere la licenza per poter guidare.  L’avevo fatto io per un periodo di tempo, ma non ci sono riuscito perché non avevo la pazienza della figlia, forse perché un giorno sapeva che gli sarebbe stato utile.  E quindi mia moglie Giuseppina riuscí a prendere la patente.  Quindi nel periodo d’inverno, quando la mamma andava a lavorare, la fasciava e a casa nostra la portava, e tutte le sere la metteva in macchina e a casa sua la riportava, e lei aspettava che la sua mamma tornava, tornava.

PAZIENZA E PIANTO

All’età di quattro anni e più, ricordo che una mattina che la mamma la portò come al solito, prima di entrare già sentivamo Rina Pastina che piangeva a lacrime, che gli scorrevano per il suo bel visino, e quando la mamma la lasciò per andarsene a lavorare, per tre o quattro volte scappò fuori, che voleva la sua mamma.  Cosí la nonna ya-yà, con la sua pazienza, la prendeva e la riportava dentro, ma non ci fu nulla per accontentarla, finchè la nonna ya-yà, non so se per la rabbia o perché vedeva Rina cosí, si sedette in cucina, e gli venne da piangere, e solo allora Rina si calmò.  Andò ad abbracciare la nonna che piangeva, e col suo bel visino gli disse, “non piangere, ya-yà, che ti voglio bene e non lo farò più!”  E cosí, dopo quella triste mattinata, finí cosí che la nonna ya-yà gli cucinò la pastina, e finí il resto del giorno in armonia.

Un altro caso simile a questo avvenne quando, nei bei giorni d’estate, io e Giuseppina ci decidemmo d’andare a far visita a certi parenti a Detroit, e cosí portammo con noi anche Rina.  Come vi ho detto prima, era sempre allegra e contenta quando in macchina si viaggiava.  Io avevo battezzato una figlia di uno di questi nostri paesani, di nome Sofia.  E cosí Rina per quattro o cinque giorni che siamo stati lí giocava con Sofia, che era più grandicella di Rina.  Avvenne che quando ripartimmo, di nuovo piangeva, dicendo che voleva scendere dalla macchina.  Facemmo un bel po’ di strada, e ugualmente la nonna ya-yà mi disse, “ferma la macchina, che la debbo far scendere!”  Cosí si mise paura che la nonna la facesse scendere e si calmò, e poi dopo aver tanto pianto gli prese il sonno.  S’addormentò per tutto il resto della via da percorrere.  Quindi all’età di quattro anni s’era fatta un po’ cattivella.

BEAUTIFUL DEATHS, BEAUTIFUL LIVES

Nicolino Matteo, 1921-2012

The day after our father passed away, as we were sitting around our mother’s kitchen table with friends who had stopped by to express their condolences, my sister Franca was giving an account of his last moments at the hospital.  At a certain point, she appeared to surprise herself by saying that our father’s death had been “beautiful.”  It’s not a word one normally expects to associate with death.  Nevertheless, when she explained—as much to herself as to the people around the table—why that word had come to her mouth, it made perfect sense.  She had been touched by how peacefully and serenely our father left us and was especially moved by the love and devotion that she witnessed her children, Rina and Niko, bestowing on their nonnò in his last moments: a pure manifestation of love and grace, when they seemed to be shining at their brightest, and thus indeed beautiful.

It seems as if our father waited for his whole family to be gathered together before leaving us, thus allowing us to express our love for him and to be reminded of his for us, and perhaps even more significantly, leading us to reaffirm our ties and our bonds of love to each other, as we gathered around him on his final day among us.

I drove up to Cleveland from Oxford, near Cincinnati, Monday evening and spent the night by his bedside in the hospital.  Also on Monday, my son, who proudly carries his grandfather’s name (and whom you heard recite my father’s poem “Petrella mia” in Italian at the funeral home yesterday afternoon), drove in from Boston, a twelve-hour drive, with his wife Anne and their five-month-old son Eddie—Edward Sante Matteo—Lilino’s and Giuseppina’s great-grandson.  They came to the hospital on Tuesday, where Eddie got to meet his great-grandparents for the first time: a family of four generations all together in that room.  And even though Eddie is too young to form and retain a lasting memory of the occasion, and his great-grandfather did not appear to be conscious, I’d like to think that at some level the significance of the occasion registered in the minds of all those who were present, including theirs: the respect, gratitude, and affection that we all felt for the man whose life was drawing to a close, in recognition of the unstinting and constant love that he always harbored for all of us.  I believe that that manifestation of love served to nourish all the branches of the family tree, including its expiring root and its new blossom.

That evening, after having granted all of us the opportunity to say goodbye to him, to thank him for all he had done for us and for being such a good husband, father, and grandfather, to tell him how much we loved and honored him, and to say: “It’s okay.  You’ve done enough and you’ve done it well.  You can go!” he went, quietly, peacefully, serenely, in his sleep, embraced by those he loved.  So, a beautiful death indeed!  Franca found the right word after all; there is no better way to express it.

A beautiful end and the apt culmination of an equally beautiful life, a long and wonderful life of ninety and a half years that spanned two continents and two centuries.

***

It was probably not until I went back to Petrella, our hometown, for the first time, in the summer of 1967, that I started to take the full measure of the man Lilino Matteo. 

My mother, my six-year-old sister, and I had left Petrella in 1958, along with Egidio Camino’s family, wife Rosina and five-year-old son Walter, and Egidio’s brother Aldo and his wife Carmela and toddler Antonio.  I was nine going on ten.  I returned for the first time when I was eighteen going on nineteen, when I had spent half my life in Petrella and half in America. 

My father had emigrated with Egidio with a work contract in 1954, intending to stay only a year or two.  And in fact, he returned to Petrella in 1956.  But his wife wanted to come to America too, and so he came back, and we joined him two years later on June 3, 1958, also with the intention of staying for only a year or two, which then became three, then four, and five, and eventually fifty-four, come June 3 of this year.

When I went back to Petrella for a few weeks in the summer of 1967, a curious thing happened on the way to the piazza.  With distance and separation, I began to acquire a real understanding and appreciation of what a wonderful father and mother I had.

The realization began to dawn on me before I got to Italy, when my father and I went to Argentina for three weeks, to visit his two sisters, Tittina (Concetta) and Angiolina, and their families.  At the Buenos Aires airport, we were met by a whole busload of relatives and paesani.  The public buses were called colectivos back then and were privately owned and operated.  The one that met us was owned by a Petrellese, and it proved to be aptly named, as the ride to the Berazategui neighborhood, where my aunts and their families lived, was one long, collective joy ride, as dozens of paesani joked and sang and reminisced, with my father as the main recipient and instigator of their revelry.  And so, it went for the three weeks that we were there: one joyful encounter after another.  The affection that people harbored for him and the delight that they took in having him in their midst were clear.

It was the first time my father had seen his sisters and their families since they had emigrated, shortly after the war.  Their reunion was a love fest.  Years later he was able to bring his sister Angiolina’s family to Cleveland, and I am touched and comforted that her children, Domenico, Antonio, and Ada, and their families can be here today to honor his memory, and know that his other nephew and niece, Antonio and Elena, do so from afar, in Buenos Aires.

At the end of three weeks, my father had to come back to Cleveland to work, but I went on to Italy for the rest of the summer, before beginning college.  I spent most of the time in Rome with the families of my maternal uncles, but also went with my cousins to Petrella for a few weeks, where we stayed with memmell’ Filomena, my maternal grandmother, in the Ruscitto compound near the Calvario, slightly outside of town. 

And this is when something funny happened on my way to the piazza.  As I walked into town, I ran into clusters of women sitting on benches and chairs outside their houses, knitting or sewing, and chatting.  As I approached, the conversation turned to speculation about who this stranger might be, with no attempt to hide their curiosity or lower their voices: “e cosht giovn’ chi vo’ ess’?  Meh, a ess u figl’ d’ Giuseppin du Squecciat.  Nu vid che ts rass’migl’ tal e qual a mamm?”  “And who could this young man be?  Why, he must be the son of Giuseppina of the Squecciat clan.  Can’t you see that he looks just like his mother?”  And then one of them would confirm their deduction by asking me, or rather informing me: “tu i ess u figl’ d’ Giuseppin ch’è iut na Meric.  Com shta mamm’t’?”  “You have to be the son of Giuseppina who went to America.  How is your mother doing?”

When I reached the piazza there was a group of men sitting in front of the central bar, and the scene repeated itself, but with a significant difference: “E coss chiye è?  ‘A ess u figl’ di Lilin du Chiochier’.  E’ tal e qual u patr.  Ue’, Sant, com shta patr’t?  Ts’ god a Meric com ts guedeye a Petrell?”  “Who’s this guy?  He must be the son of Lilino of the Kyokyer’ clan?  He looks just like his father.  Hey, Sante, how’s your father?  Is he enjoying himself in America as much as he enjoyed life in Petrella?”

Puzzled as to how I could be the spitting image of both my mother and my father, I was nonetheless happy and proud to be recognized as belonging to them, and thus to be accepted into the bosom of the community which still cherished their memory.

The second thing I noticed as I talked to people was how much and how genuinely they missed my father.  All wanted to know, “Quann r’ve’?”  “When is he coming back?”  “E’ ngor cmpegnon’ com’er’ ecc?”  “Is he still the life of the party as he was here?”  Everybody liked and admired him.  It seemed as if their lives and the life of the town were diminished by his absence from their midst.

Furthermore, as I reacquainted myself with the town, both outside in the streets and inside people’s homes, people would point to things: a house, a fireplace mantle, a sink, a cistern, a set of fluted pilasters or columns, and say, “Your father made that.”  He, like his father Sante who taught him the trade, was a stone mason, a scalpellino, a stone sculptor, and he left behind a physical legacy of masonry and sculptures in granite and marble that will last for many generations.

Thus, through his paesani’s eyes, I came to perceive my father’s accomplishments and his value in several essential ways: as a father, whose genetic legacy and life lessons defined me to the point that it was obvious to everyone that I was his son; as a friend to so many and a highly valued member of his home community, whose absence they felt deeply; and as a skilled artisan, whose work and artistry enriched the architectural and esthetic patrimony of the town: father, friend, and artist: u meeshtr’ (il maestro), the master, as he came to be called.  He gave much to life and received much in return.

I’m confident that I speak for my sister and our children when I say that we are happy and proud to be the beneficiaries of the multi-faceted legacy he left behind.  I am particularly delighted that his great-grandson Eddie had the opportunity to meet the man whose last name and whose genes he bears, the emigrant who made it possible for him, Eddie, to come into this world.  The genetic cocktail that is Eddie could not have been concocted if Lilino had not had the courage to leave his beloved Petrella at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind his family, his friends, his language, his customs, his comforts and way of life, for a strange land, where he would be an unknown and unappreciated outsider, and if he had not had the fortitude to make a new life for his family and open up new doors of opportunity for his children and grandchildren in this foreign place.

We are proud, as I hope and trust Eddie will one day be, of all of Lilino’s achievements: as an indefatigable worker, as a skilled artisan, as a lively and supportive friend to everyone he met, and as a provident and loving patriarch.  May his descendants always strive to be worthy of all his sacrifices and hard work and all the love he dedicated to us, and may we strive to live our lives by the values he instilled in us: to be devoted to family and friends, to enjoy life and the company of others to the fullest, and to do everything with love: to live well and to die loved by many friends.

Addio, papà!  Addio, nonno!  Addio, meeshtr!  Addio, cumpar!  Adios, tio!  Addio, caro amico!  Addio, Lilino!  Addio!

…………………….

Giuseppina Ruscitto, 1926-2018

         It seems that beautiful deaths run in the family.

         Six years later, 6 February 2018, my sister Franca called me early in the morning to tell me that our mother was probably dying.  Franca was distressed, fighting to keep her emotion and voice under control.  When she called two hours later, to tell me that our mother had passed away, her voice was calm, expressing not just resignation, but serenity, maybe awe.  She said that our mother's death had been peaceful, and more than that, it had been truly beautiful.

After the doctor told her that our mother's body was shutting down, Franca notified the family.  Her husband Kostas stopped by to pay his last respects.  Their children Rina and Niko came and stayed with their ya-ya, talking to her, caressing her lovingly.  The musical therapist at the facility came to the room with her guitar and sang “Ave Maria,” a song my mother had enjoyed hearing in previous days.  It soothed her.  She didn't regain consciousness, but her breathing slowed, and her face softened.  The resident Rabbi came in to say that the priest had been notified, but that he was saying mass and could not come right away.  Franca asked the Rabbi if he would say a few words and a prayer.

The Rabbi had met us the week before, the evening when our mother was transferred from the hospital to the hospice unit of Menorah Park, a Jewish facility that accepts patients of all faiths.  Franca and Kostas, Rina and Niko, and I were there.  Giuseppina, surrounded by people she knew and loved, was in a good mood and greeted the Rabbi warmly, with a big, broad smile.  Early the next morning, when I stopped by to look in on her before heading home to Oxford, the Rabbi happened to arrive at the same time.  As we walked together, he told me how moved he had been to witness the love and devotion shown by our family the evening before.  “Your mother must be a very loving, very special person,” he said, to have instilled such devotion in her children and grandchildren.

At her bedside he reiterated those sentiments and ended by reciting the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd,” while the musical therapist continued to play softly.  When the Rabbi got to the last verse: “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” Giuseppina breathed her last breath.  A beautiful death to crown a beautiful life.

The psalm was well chosen.  Even if the words in the English version were unfamiliar to her, the sentiments and the attitude expressed were those by which she lived.  She firmly believed that the Lord was her shepherd.  That steadfast belief led her to keep on the “paths of righteousness.”  Her religious faith contained the ethical principles, moral values, and generosity of spirit that served as strong and reliable “rod and staff” that sustained her throughout her life's journey.

***

Her journey was a long one, across geographical and cultural boundaries.  Maria Giuseppe (Giuseppina) Ruscitto was born in the small agricultural town of Petrella Tifernina, in the Province of Campobasso, in southern Italy, on the 18th of March 1926, year IV of the Fascist era.  It was the day before the Feast of St. Joseph (San Giuseppe).  So, she was given his name and came to be called Giuseppina in the family, and Pinuccia by her friends.  The customs, routines, and social conditions in the town, like much of its architecture, were age-old. The hewn-stone houses had no plumbing or running water.  Meals were cooked in the fireplace.  There were no electrical appliances.  Agriculture was done by manpower, not mechanized.  Fields were too far or too steep even for animal-drawn plows; they were tilled by hand with fork hoes.  She came from a family of tillers of the soil: contadini—inaccurately translated as “farmers,” since there were no “farms”; the cultivators all lived in town and went out daily to “farm” different plots of land situated outside the town, some near, some far, requiring hours to reach on foot—the only way to reach them at the time.  She was the third of four children, with two older brothers, Giorgio and Antonio, and one younger, Michele, nicknamed Lilino.

Her younger brother, Lilino—who started using Facebook last year, and who celebrated his 90th birthday on Feb. 5, the day before his sister died—shared a memory of her when she was 14.  It was 1940, and their two older brothers, who did much of the work in the campagne (fields), were called away to fight in Mussolini's war.  Giuseppina had to take on their work for the duration of the war, laboring like two men—while still doing her woman's work at home.  Yet, what she recalled and recounted to us of those years was not the back-breaking labor she had to do.  Instead, she told us of her bond with the family's horse, Ciccillo.  He was too tall for her to mount, but he was good-natured and smart, and she trained him to lower his head when she commanded, “Ciccil', ebbass't'!” (down!), so that she could climb on his neck and from there, slide on his back.  The anecdote, entertaining and endearing, illustrated her resolve and resourcefulness and had a moral: when facing something that seems overwhelming, bring it down to size; approach tasks or problems one step at a time; remember that where there's a will, there's a way; it's the will that counts.

Zio (uncle) Lilino goes on to recall that, after laboring so strenuously in the fields (and getting severe rheumatism that plagued her—but never stopped her—for the rest of her life), Giuseppina decided to marry outside her class: not another contadino, as was the usual custom, but an artigiano (artisan; someone with a skilled trade: e.g. tailor, carpenter, smith, stonemason), so that she wouldn't have to continue to toil in the fields.  When Nicolino Matteo, also nicknamed Lilino, started to court her, her older brothers kidded her by referring to him as the artigiano: “So, how is it going with your artigiano?”  It went well, and they were married in 1946.  If her physical toil did diminish in an artisan's household, the reprieve didn't last.  After the family migrated to America in 1958, she had recourse to the work ethic instilled in her by her family and community to confront the difficulties of adapting to a new, strange society, whose language and customs she didn't know, and to tackle the factory jobs she undertook: shelling clams in Quincy, Mass., and sewing coats in Cleveland, Ohio.  But this was a woman who had done the work of two men as a teenager—in addition to her own—and who had managed to mount and ride a horse too big for her.  She had the will and found the way.

***

For me and my sister, she was a strict moral guide, in word and in deed, always practicing what she preached.  She held strong convictions and implemented them unequivocally.  She would say to me, “This is what has to be done.  This is what you should and will do.”  And that was what I did.  Whether it was because she was a strict, no-nonsense disciplinarian who had conditioned me to obey when I was little, or because she usually turned out to be right, or because she had the aura of a biblical matriarch whose authority could not be questioned, she had to be obeyed.

And yet she wasn't so dogmatic or doctrinaire as to be inflexible when things didn't turn out as she expected or wanted.  She accepted unforeseen developments, adapted, and went on.  For example, she never liked the idea of having a dog in the house.  Even in her advanced dementia, when I was with her in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, when pictures of dogs came on the TV screen and I teased her by asking if she wanted a nice dog to keep her company, she exclaimed, “Meh ch' si pazz'?  Nu kecciun' na cas'?  Oh no!” (Are you crazy?  A dog in the house?  No way!).  And yet, when she came to stay with us in Utah for a month after our son Nicholas (aka Kolya) was born, she soon adapted to sharing a house with our dog, Lapki, a huge lab-shepherd mix who weighed close to a hundred pounds.  She graciously suppressed her disapproval, quickly learned the word “pooch,” and before long was petting him, albeit somewhat tentatively at first, while cooing, “Hi, pooch.  Nice pooch!”

When I married a Petrellese mother's worst nightmare: an “American”--not even Catholic! And to boot, a college graduate and scholar more interested in reading and studying than in cooking and housekeeping—instead of being scandalized, as might have been expected, my mother immediately embraced her as part of the family, as a daughter.  Susan in turn adopted the Petrellese custom of calling her “mamma” and has considered her as such ever since. 

Our son Kolya, his wife Anne, and their two boys, Giuseppina's golden great-grandsons, Eddie, 6, and Vincent, 3, live in Colorado.  Kolya travelled all night to be a pallbearer at the funeral, leaving Friday afternoon and arriving at 6 o'clock Saturday morning, to mourn and honor his nonna, who kept a calendar with his smiling five-year-old face on her kitchen wall for twenty years, taking delight in seeing it and smiling back at him, even when she no longer remembered whose face it was.

My high-school mentor, Ray Sposet, said in his condolences that Franca and I are “blessed to have had wonderful parents.”  Indeed, we are, as are our children to have had such wonderful grandparents.  Other condolences and comments have been both heart-warming and eye-opening.  They have come from near and far: all wonderful testaments to how Giuseppina, as a woman and as a friend, not just as a mother, touched many hearts and enriched many lives.

Toni Stanfield (Antonietta Petrella) remembered how often her mother in Detroit and our mother in Cleveland would talk on the phone—when long-distance calls were costly and rare—because, as her mother explained, “Giuseppina can be trusted with my secrets.  She is not a gossip.”  Toni, herself a therapist, goes on to point out that Giuseppina “was like a therapist for her women friends.”

The comments have made me aware of a blindness that I've had in thinking about my mother.  My vision has been blurred or limited by the very love that bound me to her.  Growing up in the center of that love, I couldn’t perceive and appreciate other aspects of her life: her relationship with relatives and friends; her work outside the home; any private, personal goals, disappointments, or concerns she might have had.  I could only see the tree, not the forest.

It was largely her fault though: for being such a loving, devoted mother who always made Franca and me feel as if we were the center of her world: safe, loved, fully enfolded within her maternal embrace.  It's only the perspective of time and distance, and now the testimonials expressed in the condolences and memories of her friends, that have allowed me to see her more fully: as a person, not just as my mother.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night, when I was 11 or so, shortly after we moved to Cleveland from Quincy.  We were living in the bottom of a duplex on Evangeline Road, in the Collinwood area.  It must have been around 4 or 4:30 in the morning, still dark outside.  My mother was in the kitchen kneading dough to make bread.  Papà didn't like American bread; nor did she.  So, she had to get up early because the dough needed time to rise before she left for her job.  In fact, she always had to get up earlier than any of us, because she served dinner shortly after my father got home.  She had to prepare much of it in the morning so that she could throw it on the stove as soon as she got home from her own job.

Another early morning, I found her washing the kitchen floor, even though it had been washed just a few days before.  We always cleaned the house thoroughly every Saturday: dusting, washing, vacuuming, scrubbing, waxing.  Someone must have caused a stain, but the house had to be spotless all the time because “You never know if someone is going to stop by.”  Cleanliness reflected on the family, and we all had a stake in maintaining the family's reputation.  I washed the dishes every evening from the age of ten (standing on a stool to reach the sink) and cleaned the house every Saturday.  The justification for drafting me into such service was not that she had too much else to do herself—which was true, but she never complained about that—but simply because we were a family, and we all had to contribute to the family's welfare, just as we all shared in its benefits.  It wasn't a punishment—though I occasionally protested that it was unfair for me to be slaving in the house while my friends were outside playing—nor was it a “job”—there was no pay for doing chores, nor an allowance—; it was my contribution to the family's wellbeing, a way of showing my love, in the same way that my parents showed theirs: by living it, not just saying it. It was a lesson that Franca learned and has practiced for many years, as she has cared for our mother tirelessly, selflessly, with constant good humor and affection, as mamma sank slowly into dementia and helplessness.  With her daughter's tender care our mother harvested the love she sowed.

My mother's job was probably just as hard as my father's, but while he rode to work in a car (Egidio's before he got his own), she had to take three buses to get to her job, freezing in the frigid Cleveland winters, slipping and falling on the ice more than once, and sweltering in the hot and humid Cleveland summers.  Furthermore (like other mothers of her generation: your own mothers or grandmothers) she had to do much more: rush home to fix supper; do the shopping—taking the bus or walking many blocks to and from Fisher Foods and Pic-&-Pay in the Five Points shopping strips, with heavy shopping bags cutting into her fingers (all the groceries had to be piled into those two bags, no matter how heavy); tend to the bank accounts; pay the bills; buy our clothes and school supplies; take us to the doctor or the dentist; exchange Sunday dinners with relatives and friends; hold parties (plan, bake, clean, cook, organize and decorate, host and serve), mostly for the paesani, for all kinds of occasions: holidays and feast days (both American and Italian), birthdays, name days, communions, confirmations, graduations, and so on.

But the most remarkable thing is that none of all that ever detracted from her relationship with us, her children.  Somehow, she always managed to give us her full attention and engagement.  She kept up with all our schoolwork, knew our teachers, made sure we did our assignments, knew when our tests were, made us study for them, checked on the grades we got.  She knew our friends and stayed on top of all our activities.  She didn't allow other concerns or obligations to encroach on her role as our mother.

Franca and I have realized recently that we never saw her sleep: no naps, no dozing off in front of the TV (whereas our father used it as a white-noise machine: turn it on, lie down on the sofa, fall asleep).  She was always the last to go to bed and the first to get up.  In fact, it was a point of pride for her that she slept little.  Even during her last days in the hospital, where she was sedated and slept much of the day, when we asked how she had slept, her reply was, “Yi dorm' poc'” (I don't sleep much). Sleeping too much was a weakness in her eyes, a sin.  It stole time that should be devoted to working and caring for us.

Even more telling, given how sleep-deprived she must have been, we never saw her yawn either.  Recently she resurrected a saying that she must have learned when she was a child.  When one of us yawned in her presence, she would chide, “Chi ghal' poc' val'” (Anyone who yawns isn't worth much).  Yawning for her was akin to complaining, or an admission of tiredness, a declaration of lacking the energy or the will to do what had to be done.

I now realize that all the motherly love in which we were immersed was a lot like sunshine. Sunshine warms, illuminates, energizes.  It provides the solar energy that fuels our lives.  But it is also blinding. It lights up the world around us, but in doing so it hides the rest of the universe from our view.  When the sun comes up, the moon and stars disappear.  But it's not because they go away.  They're still up there in the sky.  We just can't see them because the light of the sun has hidden them.  It's only when the sun sets that we see that the world around us is not all there is.  We then perceive that there is a vast universe beyond it and that the sun that warmed us and lit up our lives also shines on other worlds and that it is one star among many other stars.

With Giuseppina's passing, we can perceive and appreciate how the splendor and warmth of her spirit nourished and illuminated our own lives.  The many comments and condolences we received reveal how her love warmed and lit up many other lives.  True to the psalmist's expectation at the end of the 23rd Psalm, “goodness and mercy” did follow Giuseppina all the days of her life: the goodness and mercy that she generously gave and that she received so bountifully from those who knew her and now join us to celebrate her beautiful life, and to reflect back onto her and on each other some of the affection and caring that she bestowed on us.

The journey: In the spring of 2009, I started having abdominal pains.  In the summer, it was diagnosed as cancer.  The prognosis: average of 5 months survival.  In the fall, I had surgery and chemo; in the winter, a stem-cell (aka bone-marrow) transplant; in the spring of 2010, radiation, with the last treatment on April Fool's Day. These letters to friends describe the journey.  Those 5 months of the prognosis have now stretched to many years.

9 October 2009—Detour on my world-galloping tour

Dear Old Gang of Mine,

 First, a recap:  While in Italy this summer, directing my university’s summer program in Urbino and planning a post-program trip to the capitals of Eastern and Central Europe, I started having severe abdominal pains, mostly at night.  I attributed it to constipation and stopped eating.  After a couple of weeks of not sleeping or eating (my students thought I looked great, having shed 15 or 20 pounds and with intriguing dark rings around my eyes), I finally and reluctantly—a la typical stupid male—decided to go see a doctor.  OK, full disclosure: it was really because of the e-threats of my wife back home, who promised to do me even greater bodily harm if I didn’t go see a doctor.  It only took him a few seconds of palpating to find a mass in my abdomen.  Echographs and a CAT scan the following day revealed a tumor of substantial size in the peritoneum (and all the doctors involved, as if in cahoots with my irate spouse, yelled at me for neglecting it for so long).  So, the good doctor advised me not to waste more time in Italy to do a biopsy to confirm that it was cancerous, but to take a detour from my travel plans and to come home instead, so as to have the tumor removed as soon as possible.  And so I abandoned my travel maps and came back Stateside early.

Susan, instead of beating me, took me to the hospital directly from the airport (with a DVD of the echographs and CT scans in my suitcase), with the expectation that I would have surgery tout de suite, and that the surgeon would do a frozen section biopsy to determine malignancy.  But, after the surgeon looked at the CAT scan, he saw that the tumor was wrapped around veins and vessels that would make surgical removal extremely complicated and risky.  Furthermore, it seemed to him to have the signs of follicular lymphoma, which he thought could be treated effectively with chemotherapy.

So, what had been the worst-case scenario, cancer, suddenly became the best-case scenario, and we began hoping that it was “just” lymphoma that could be treated “only” with chemo.  He then did a laparoscopy cum biopsy.  Visually it definitely looked like lymphoma to him, but the biopsy came back negative (because it turns out that the tumor, because it had grown and was growing so aggressively, had many large necrotic patches of dead tissue, and that is what he had harvested).  Another CAT scan revealed that the mass had grown several centimeters in all directions in the two weeks since the initial scan done in Italy.  So, surgery was necessary after all.

This was decided the week before the start of the semester.  In continued stupid-male mode I had still expected to be able to teach my courses and had not requested a leave or sought a replacement.  The surgery was scheduled for Aug. 22, just four days before classes started.  When the doctors finally convinced me that I wouldn't be able to waltz into the classroom so soon, I was lucky enough to find an Italian professor, a former colleague from Cincinnati, to take my courses.  My department and the university gave me emergency medical leave, not just for a few weeks to recover from the surgery, as I still expected, but for the entire semester (fortuitous as it turns out, or wise on the administrators' part, since with the intense chemotherapy I’m getting every two weeks there’s no way I could have taught my three courses).

So, I scored an unexpected sabbatical out of the deal.  This must be Mother Nature’s way of telling me to slow down and look at all the pictures I’ve taken during my travels over the last few years that I’ve never found the time to enjoy.

The surgery went well, but even though they took out a grapefruit-size chunk, the surgeon had to leave a third of the mass in place to be treated by chemo, so as not to damage the vascular system.  The frozen section did confirm that it was cancerous.

I recovered from the surgery in record time, and they released me from the hospital the next day instead of keeping me for the expected three or four days.  I began to regret having hired a replacement, thinking that I could have met my classes after all, even stapled and stitched up from sternum to groin.

But after a week the same abdominal pains came back at night (presumably because the remnant tumor was still growing), and I had to be hospitalized again, first here in Oxford and then transferred to Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, which has a larger and better equipped oncology center.  After two days of other tests (e.g. a PET scan and more Echos and CATs) and procedures there (e.g. a bone-marrow biopsy and the installation of a port in my chest to draw blood and administer drugs), they administered the first cycle of chemo (the R-CHOP series) on Sept. 3.  After a brief episode of rigors (convulsions or shakes) in reaction to the Rituxan (the R of the series), the rest of the treatment went smoothly, although it took all day, from 7 AM to 5 PM, and I tolerated it tolerably well.  They sent me home that same evening, and I’ve had the other chemo cycles administered here in Oxford, without any more negative reactions.

Now an update:  What first was diagnosed as Follicular non-Hodgkins Lymphoma—characterized by small cells, slow-growing, and with a somewhat encouraging prognosis—has turned out to be a Histologic Transformation (HT), with large, fast-growing B cells and a somewhat less encouraging prognosis.  The oncologist thinks that I already had the follicular lymphoma, possibly for several years, in an indolent form.  Because an HT is aggressive, it calls for more aggressive treatment.  Hence the chemo cycles every two weeks, instead of the more usual three- or four-week intervals.  The chemotherapy will have to be followed by some other “consolidating” treatment(s), possibly radio-immunotherapy, and very likely a bone-marrow transplant.  I’ll see the transplant specialist in a couple of weeks, after my fourth cycle of chemo.

Well, this is surely more information than you wanted or needed to know.  But the internet is like the old game of “telephone” on steroids: information spreads quickly and widely—I think I’ve received messages from every continent except Antarctica—but with a lot of distortions, and so I wanted to set the record straight.  So far I’m tolerating the chemo treatments well.  My weight is down a flattering couple of dozen pounds (but not to worry, there’s still plenty more where that came from) and much of my hair has fallen out (both from my head and from my beard—but interestingly, my mustache is holding tough).  My attitude is positive, bolstered as it is by so much support.

Both the surgeon and the oncologist happened to apply the same analogy to me: that I have the constitution of a horse.  As I said to my Italian relatives, though, I’m not completely sure whether to be encouraged or worried by that assessment, since, at least in the movies I’ve seen, the only treatment for ill horses, regardless of what’s ailing them, is to shoot them in the head to put them out of their misery.  So far I haven’t seen the oncologist toting a gun, but if she’s packing when I see her again Monday, you may not be receiving any more updates.

This unexpected detour has revealed how valuable and precious friendship is and how fruitful the good will that we cultivate and harvest in our life’s journey.

13 October 2009—Good news

Dear Colleagues, first of all, thank you all for your expressions of support and encouragement, which have certainly helped me confront the cancer in relatively good spirits and with a positive frame of mind, one consequence of which might be the good news I received yesterday: last week’s PET scan reveals a remission of the tumor.  Overwhelmed with such a barrage of good will, it has started to melt away after only three chemo treatments.

However, since histologic transformations of follicular lymphoma are sneaky guys that don’t like to be kicked out and tend to find a way to sneak back in before too long, the oncologist wants to consolidate the remission with a bone-marrow transplant and continue with the chemo until that is set up.  So, I had my fourth cycle yesterday, which I’m so far tolerating much better than the first three (it figures: as soon as you get good at something, they move you on to something else: a version of the Peter Principle?).

I expect to meet with the transplant specialist at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati in the next couple of weeks to discuss and set up the transplant (probably autologous, using my own marrow, but possibly allogeneic, using a donor’s).  But with remission this early, things are going as well as or better than expected.

By the way, my regrets for missing meetings and lectures.  I had hoped at least to come to the talks, but my oncologist wants me to avoid exposure to germs (and I’m afraid that means you) because the bi-weekly chemo keeps my immune system KO’d constantly.  As a result, even when I do sneak into the office, I’m afraid that I have to play the hermit and keep my door closed (plus, technically, with a full medical leave, I’m not supposed to come to campus at all—so don’t tell anyone).

12 November 2009—The new life (Sante’s, not Dante’s)

Dear Friends, please pardon my silence.  I know that some of you are concerned because you haven’t heard from me in some time; others because I haven’t answered your messages.  Partly it’s because there haven’t been significant new developments to communicate, but mostly it’s because I’ve become lazy as a result of this extended vacation.

This coming Monday, Nov. 16, I’ll have my sixth and final chemo cycle, after which I will proceed to a bone-marrow transplant, which will take another couple of months.  Since the cancer is in remission, it will be an autologous transplant, using my own marrow.

The rest of this message is an explanation of the transplant, which you may want to skim or skip.  (I keep telling myself that I should start a blog that people could consult at will, rather than impose these long, tedious, unsolicited emails, but there’s that laziness issue to overcome.)  But since some curious minds might want to know, here is what’s coming up:

After meeting with the transplant specialist, I realized that calling the procedure a ‘marrow transplant’ is really a misnomer, in that the real purpose of the procedure is not to transplant bone marrow, but to come as close to killing me as possible, without actually succeeding.  I jest, but the real purpose does seem to me to administer massive, lethal doses of chemotherapy over a six-day period so as to destroy any remaining cancer cells.  In so doing, however, they also kill off all the bone marrow in the body, which is fatal.  They then ‘rescue’ the patient by implanting the previously harvested bone marrow, along with growth-factor hormones, so that it can start to create red and white blood cells and platelets again.  This newly pristine blood should be free of malignant cells (at least in 70% of cases).  Without this ‘consolidation’ of the remission there’s apparently a 50-50 chance of relapse within a year (in which case treatment would be much more difficult and less promising).  New blood, new life!

It’s a misnomer in another sense, in that they no longer take actual marrow from inside the bones, nor put it back there directly.  It’s more like a blood transfusion, through a venous catheter inserted in the chest.  For the first step, during six or seven days I’ll get injections of Mozobil, which forces stem cells (the so-called hematopoietic cells that create the red and white blood cells and platelets) out of the marrow inside the bones into the peripheral bloodstream.  After the fourth day they’ll start a procedure called apheresis, drawing blood out by the chest catheter, passing it through a machine that separates out the stem cells before re-injecting the blood back into the body through a different tube of the catheter.  The harvested stem cells will be frozen, and then I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks before the massive chemotherapy is administered.

For that chemo treatment and the re-infusion of the harvested stem cells I will be hospitalized for about a month (this time at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, a nice complement to where the previous procedures took place, Christ Hospital; except that I seem to be moving backwards, from New to Old Testament).  For the first six days they will administer the super-toxic chemicals, with two aims: to kill any lingering malignant cells and to destroy my immune system, so that it won’t fight the re-introduction of the harvested stem cells.  After that, during the next two days, the stem cells will be re-inserted and will find their way to the bones now devoid of marrow, where they will start reproducing until they can start creating blood again.  For the following three weeks or so I will have no immunity whatsoever and will have to stay in a sterile environment in the hospital.

By the way, that catheter will have three tips of different colors dangling from my chest; and this in addition to the subcutaneous but highly protruding port I already have implanted on my chest: body sculpting and piercing cum tri-colored pendant!  Too bad it won’t be bare-chest beach weather to show it off!

Even after they let me out of the hospital, however, I’ll have to avoid infections and potentially contagious situations, which means that I won’t be able to teach next semester either.  The semester starts Jan. 11, when students come back from winter break laden not only with gifts but with germs galore from all corners of the world.  Even if I were out of the hospital by then, I couldn’t be among students and colleagues for several additional weeks.  The University has already granted me another medical leave for next semester.  I might be able to start coming back to my office toward the middle or end of March to tend to administrative or professional matters.  So, an even more extended vacation than I expected, no doubt to be accompanied by even greater laziness, to which I’m becoming ever more addicted!

The good news (or bad, depending on how strong the laziness addiction becomes) is that by June or so I should be done with my checkups and be able to resume my normal activities, including travel, which means that I will be able to direct our summer program in Italy again, from mid-June to early August.  So, when I finally do resume work, after a year-long vacation, it will have to be in the enchanting Renaissance city of Urbino in the magnificent Apennines during the sunniest days of the Italian summer.  But enough about my suffering, lest I afflict you with too much pity for me!

Now, if I could only talk the doctors and Susan into letting me keep that tricolored catheter dangling from my breast to flaunt on the Adriatic beaches!

6 Dec. 2009—A Jewish Christmas

It looks as if both Santa Claus and la Befana will have to look for me at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, where I will be spending Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year, and probably Epiphany as well (but not much of Hanukah, most of which I will have missed by the time I’m admitted). Here’s the schedule of upcoming festivities:

Dec. 10: Insertion of Neostar catheter in chest for stem-cell transfusions;

Dec. 11-15, AM: Neupogen injections to stimulate production of white blood cells;

Dec. 14-15, 9 PM: Mozobil injections, to get stem cells from bone marrow to peripheral blood circulation;

Dec. 15-16: collection of stem cells from blood;

All the preceding as an outpatient;

Dec. 17-22: admission to hospital as inpatient and daily administration of chemotherapy for six days;

Dec. 22: transplant of harvested stem cells back into blood, and to marrow;

Dec. 23-?: remain in hospital until blood count and immune system have recuperated, probably close to a month.

The last CAT scan showed that the tumor has shrunk considerably.  But the last PET scan showed that there is still some metabolic activity in it, which means that they will have to consolidate the consolidation (i.e. the transplant) with focused radiation treatment after I’m out of the hospital: 5 days per week for 4 weeks, probably in the spring.  I hope that they won’t then have to consolidate the consolidation of the consolidation of the remission, but who knows?

I feel good, have regained my appetite for now, and with it have gained some weight back, and am getting plenty of exercise by walking everywhere, including to the office occasionally, usually in the off hours and weekends.

And last but not least, it seems that I’ve even managed to be more brief this time than has been my wont previously: something to celebrate, and my gift to you for the holidays.

5 March 2010—To Beam or not to Beam?

Sorry for my overlong silence.  I’ve been waiting to have some definitive information to impart about what’s coming up, but the decision about radiation therapy, which I assumed had already been made, was put on the table again and took longer than expected to be resolved. 

But first and most importantly, the good news is that the last PET scan detected no active lymphoma.  The cancer appears to be in remission. 

This week, after meeting with the radiation oncologist, I decided to proceed with the radiotherapy, beginning next week: 18 treatments in all, over a four-week period.

I’ve been taken off full medical leave at the university and have resumed working on a half-time basis, but with no teaching duties. 

I’m over most of the unpleasant side effects of the intensive chemo administered before the transplant in December and am merrily on the mend (the main lingering unpleasant condition being chronic gastric troubles, about which I’ll spare you any further details). I’ve avoided colds and flus so far; my fatigue has diminished; my appetite is back to normal; my beard started growing back, followed by my eyebrows, and now I also have some white fuzz on my head.

T o get exercise, I’ve taken frequent advantage of the ample opportunities to shovel the unusual amount of snow we’ve received this winter, with no heart attacks to show for it so far.  I walk the two miles to the office every day, and true to my “constitution-of-a-horse” reputation, I periodically stop to do grocery shopping on the way home, packing the shopping bags the remaining mile to my house (all uphill and covered in deep snow and ice, naturally).

I should point out that my caregiver—aka my wife Susan—doesn’t subscribe fully to the equine analogy, preferring to characterize my behavior by reference to a different beast of burden: of the same family (Equidae) but a different subgenus (Asinus): an ass.  In any case, whether equinely or asininely, physically I seem to be fairly fit.  And emotionally and spiritually as well: good mood, good thoughts, good vibes.  Intellectually, hmm . . . well, not so sure: some forgetfulness, lack of concentration, repetition, forgetfulness.  And did I mention forgetfulness?  What’s worse, I don’t know if it’s to be attributed to chemo-brain or to getting back to normal. 

As for the issue that was put back into play, the radiotherapy, the problem was a disagreement between my doctors.  My transplant doctor advocated it from the outset as a logical follow-up treatment after recuperating from the transplant.  Nevertheless, at my last meeting with him, instead of scheduling a meeting with a radiotherapist as expected, he advised me to make an appointment with my original oncologist.  Apparently she was not in favor of the radiation.  Since I wasn’t able to set up a meeting with her for a couple of weeks, I met first with the radiotherapist recommended by the transplant doctor.  He explained the procedure to me and, not very surprisingly, opined that radiation was indeed a good idea.

Furthermore, the disagreement among the experts was echoed on the home front, with my caretaker—aka my significant other (but isn’t it odd that care-GIVER and care-TAKER should have the same meaning when give and take are opposites?)—rather vehemently opposed to radiation and me for it, albeit not very vehemently.  She was afraid that the radiation would do more harm than good, that it was not only unnecessary, given the remission, but potentially harmful, perhaps even deadly.  I, on the other hand, persuaded, or brainwashed, by the transplant and the radiation specialists, feared that without it the remission might not hold, and if there was a relapse, curative measures would no longer be viable.

I learned a couple of interesting things from the radiation oncologist that I didn’t know before.  The major surprise, which I had not learned from the original oncologist, was that the PET scan I had in September, before starting chemotherapy, showed cancer in at least four different places in my abdomen.  I was always under the impression that it was restricted to one fast-growing tumor in the left mesentery region of the peritoneum.  But there was actually another, somewhat smaller, but distinct and equally fast-growing mass to the left of the main tumor, by the descending colon.  There was also cancerous activity on the right side of the rectus abdominis muscle running up the front of the abdomen (the “abs” or “six-packs” on muscular types), as well as in an adjacent area on the lateral margin of the right rectus sheath.  It was apparently because of that proliferation that radiation wasn’t considered when I had chemo: the cancer wasn’t concentrated in one restricted area.

The irony of this discovery is that while many of you marveled at how well informed my previous missives appeared to be—practically the professional reports of an oncologist in the making—it turns out that I was woefully ignorant of the essentials of my own case: a situation to be chalked up perhaps not only to my own gullibility but in part also to the currently much-discussed American health care system, wherein doctors share information only among themselves—if in fact they do so; who really knows?—giving the patient only selected tidbits; in contrast to my experience in Italy, where the results and the explanations of the scans are given directly to the patient by the radiologist; American medicine thus curiously more akin to the Catholic Church: the priest/doctor knows what’s best for you and will read and explain only the pertinent parts of Scripture/medical records.

By the way, for those of you following the debates about health care costs, you might be interested to know that, according to my calculations, the charges submitted for my treatments amount to over one million dollars so far—not counting the upcoming radiation treatments—and the amount paid by the insurance company totals more than half a million.  The insurance company has contracted for lower prices on most products and procedures and only pays a fraction of the charges.  People without insurance would presumably be liable for the full amount: a million-plus dollars and counting—unless they qualified for Medicaid by being or becoming indigent!

This discovery helped to answer a pressing question we had about radiation: What’s the hurry?  Couldn’t I wait to see if the cancer came back before deciding to have the radiation?  The radiotherapist’s answer was that by the time it manifests itself again it might be too late, presumably because it might repopulate the same places or spread elsewhere through the lymphatic system.  It is lymphoma after all.

The other surprise, which I had not learned from the transplant doctor, was that there was still appreciable metabolic activity in the remnant of the main tumor.  Though reduced in size after all the treatments (from 13 x 6 cm in September—and that’s after a two-thirds-size chunk of it was removed surgically—to 5 x 2.3 cm in January), the tumor is still of some bulk and contains living tissue in addition to scar tissue.  According to the last PET-C/T scan, Jan. 26, the SUV in this mass was 2.8 (SUV = Standard Uptake Value, referring to the ‘uptake’ of injected glucose by actively proliferating cells: the faster the uptake, the higher the number, the greater the likelihood of cancer).  This is below the threshold that might implicate cancer (“four-ish or five-ish” according to the radiation doc), and hence the conclusion that no lymphoma was detected.  By comparison, the SUV in the same mass in the September scan, after surgery but before I started chemotherapy, was 23, and it was 19.3, 18.2, and 9.5 in the other areas deemed to be cancerous.  Nevertheless, this most recent SUV of 2.8 turned out to be higher than the October SUV, 2.3, after three cycles of chemo (my initial remission), and the December SUV, 2.1, after the full six cycles of chemo and right before the stem-cell (aka bone-marrow) transplant.  In sum, the mass does not consist only of dead scar tissue, but of soft, living and presumably growing tissue.

When we later met with my original oncologist, it turned out that she wasn’t as opposed to radiation treatment as reported.  Her main concern was that it might cause bowel damage that would be hard to repair.  Because the tumor has remained bulky and metabolically active, she guardedly sanctioned the radiation treatment.  Consequently my own carekeeper cum spouse reluctantly started to come around to that way of thinking too, her opposition at least losing much of its vehemence.

When I saw the radiation specialist the first time, he had seen only the printed reports of the various scans, not the images.  We met with him again this week, on March 3, after he had obtained the disks of the PET-C/T scans.  He explained that while there is some risk of bowel damage, as well as damage to other tissue in the mesentery, it is very low, because they are now better able to focus the radiation beams and shield surrounding tissue and because lymphoma is susceptible to very low dosage of radiation, too low to damage the vessels around which the tumor is still wrapped and the intestine on which it impinges; the radiation goes right through them.  He estimated the risk of such damage to be within the 1-2% range, whereas the risk of cancer recurring would be around 20-30%.  I decided to have the treatments, and my carecarer concurred.  They will start March 9, which—now that I look at the calendar—means that they will end on April Fool’s day.  Appropriate or what?

It doesn’t end there.  In a previous update, thinking I was joking, I wondered if there would then be a consolidation of the consolidation of the consolidation of the remission—sort of the way Gillette keeps adding more blades to its razors, ridicule by comedians notwithstanding.  No joke: it turns out that the oncologist does indeed recommend an additional consolidation to complement the radiation therapy: the further administration of Rituximab (aka Rituxan), a monoclonal antibody that was part of the original chemo cocktail I received in the fall—it’s the R in the R-CHOP series, but this time to be administered by itself, without the rest of the CHOP chemicals: chemo-lite!

And so it goes.  A Ouija board once revealed that in my previous life I was a bear (a revelation that many of my acquaintances seem to find persuasive, indeed illuminating: one of those “oh, of course, that explains a lot!” moments).  Now I feel like the bear in the song, the one who climbed over the mountain.  And what do you think he saw?  Another mountain.  And what do you think he did?  Kept climbing; mountain after mountain, always another mountain.  And, ursinely or asininely, so will I.  Onward and upward!

31 May 2010—Good Bongos!

Good bongos, gang! 

The cancer remains in remission, and my blood counts are ok.  I leave for Italy this Friday, June 4.  I’ll be in Urbino directing our summer language program until the end of July, at which point I’ll hightail it back to the States to attend my son’s wedding on August 7.  I expect to resume my teaching duties at the university for fall semester, which starts on Aug. 23.

The radiation therapy in March—appropriately ending on April Fool’s day, as anticipated—went well, with no pain or immediately discernible negative side effects.  The major side effect was that I went to the movies a lot.  My daily treatments, at a hospital in Hamilton, about a half hour from Oxford, usually ended around 4 PM, around which time two nearby multiplex movie theaters had half-price matinées for $4 (plus free popcorn on Tuesdays!).  So I went to the movies more times in those few weeks than I had in the previous decade or two.  But don’t ask me what I saw!

The other consolidation therapy, the intravenous injection of rituximab that was to be administered contemporaneously with the radiotherapy, had to be postponed, because my white-blood cells and neutrophils were deficient, which meant that my immune system was still compromised.  Instead the oncologist prescribed Neupogen shots (or filgrastim, a recombinant DNA product) to restore my white-blood count, vitamin B-12 shots for red cells, and a smorgasbord of antibiotics, anti-protozoans, anti-virals, and anti-fungals: anti-microbials of every stripe to prevent all conceivable infections, plus florastor, a probiotic, to restore some of the bacteria, or flora, annihilated by all the anti-life stuff.  I have managed to avoid all those potential infections so far, and even more amazingly, to survive all the pharmaceuticals too.  After a couple of weeks my blood counts stabilized, and I went off all the medications except four, which I will continue to take indefinitely: acyclovir (an anti-viral to prevent shingles, taken twice a day), florastor (the probiotic yeast, twice daily), pentamidine (an aerosol anti-protozoan to prevent pneumosystic pneumonia, which apparently can be deadly; administered at the hospital through an inhaler once a month, to be replaced by Mepron, or atovaquone, in suspended liquid form, taken daily, while I’m in Italy), and last and least, simethicone (for good old gas relief).

My blood counts are still below normal, but no longer so low as to cause great concern.  It’s presumably a condition to be expected, a lingering consequence of the massive chemotherapy I had in December, right before the stem-cell transplant.  It could also be that the radiation contributed to some extent.  The oncologist performed another bone-marrow biopsy three weeks ago, on May 12, followed by a C/T scan the next day, to get a post-radiation snapshot of what’s happening in there.  The biopsy revealed no illness (cancer) in the marrow and normal cell activity, and the C/T scan showed that there had been no growth in the tumor since the previous scan after the transplant: very good bongos!  Still, because of the still-low white-blood-cell counts, she decided to put off the administration of the rituximab until the end of the summer, after my return from Italy, or the fall.  More turns on the merry-go-round!

My recovery, nevertheless, continues to go well, as far as I can tell.  Susan has transitioned from urging me to eat more, so as to get my weight back up, to the much more familiar mode of imploring me to stop being such a pig, otherwise I won’t be able to fit into my pants for our son’s wedding.  My hair has grown back, not black as some predicted, but curlier than before and downy, as fine as a baby’s hair—at least for this first crop; maybe it will thicken up eventually, after some cropping.  I also got two cavities out of the deal, apparently because the chemo also destroys saliva-producing tissue, which results in dry mouth, which helps bacteria to proliferate and teeth to decay (and presumably breath to become more malodorous).  Who knew?

Everyone tells me I look great, though, which of course is highly gratifying.  But can I believe them?  At Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, where I went for my bone-marrow biopsy three weeks ago, when I returned to the reception desk after blood work, the receptionist informed me, “Your son is sitting over there in the waiting area.”  When I reported what she had said, my “son” pumped his fists in the familiar triumphal “Yes!” gesture, not because he was elated to have such a father, but because he is ten years older than I am: my friend and ex-colleague, now retired, Peter Pedroni.  I don’t mean to imply that Peter is not in fact very young- and good-looking, but I nonetheless do have to wonder how “great” I can possibly look when an impartial observer takes me to be the father of a 70+-year-old retiree?  Maybe I look pretty good for a centenarian.

Finally, does anyone else say “good/bad bongos!” anymore to mean good/bad tidings?  Did anyone ever actually say it other than me?  Did it disappear from our lexicon because of politically incorrect racist implications (jungle, natives, drumbeats, missionaries for supper, Tarzan and Cheetah to the rescue)?  Anyway, I still think it’s kind of groovy.

12 August 2010—Better Bongos and Wedding Pix

Dear Friends, the bongos are even better this time, mixed with wedding bells:

This summer too I had to rush back from Italy in a hurry, but this time for a wonderful reason: my son’s wedding on Aug. 7.  He and the bride met during a university summer workshop abroad, in the Brazilian jungle. The newlyweds will move to Boston, where he will do a PhD in math at Northeastern and she will look for work, preferably in her Master’s field, environmental science.

I had a great experience in Urbino and in Italy generally, including a joyful visit to my hometown Petrella Tifernina.  Of the many delights that Urbino and Italy had to offer, one of the most delightful things was to have a two-month respite from almost daily visits to doctors and hospitals--but now that I’m back and they’ve resumed, I find that I missed all the nurses and staff and fellow patients after all, and they missed me; so it’s not too bad to be back to the old routine: everything is habit-forming.

29 August 2010—Before and After Pix

Dear Old Gang of Mine,

All is going well.  I’ve resumed my hectic teaching and professional life, always running behind and already juggling overdue projects and missing deadlines, just as in the good old days as a student at Kenyon College.  Some things never change.  Ahh, finally, life back to normal!

I missed my appointment with the oncologist last Monday, not because I forgot or got there late, but because she was running late, and eventually I had to get back for an afternoon class.  Rather than resenting the fact that Susan and I waited a couple of hours needlessly, I actually experienced a feeling of satisfaction, perverse perhaps, that the demands of normal life—teaching my class, in this case—had again taken the upper hand over the demands of the cancer.  It was liberating in a way.

From the nurses I was able to find out that the results of the CAT and PET scans I had taken the week before were encouraging.  The CAT showed further shrinkage of the tumor, and the PET revealed no undue metabolic activity: very good news.  My blood counts, however, especially white blood cells, remain stubbornly low, somehow worse than I actually feel or look.  I feel perfectly fine.  As to how I look, I’ll let you be the judge.

I’m attaching three pictures: before, during, and after. 

1) The first one was taken during my trip along the Silk Road with my MU colleagues in 2006, showing me at my sartorial and white-bearded best.  

2) The second one is a selfie from the first week in February this year, after I got out of the hospital, showing the effects of six cycles of chemo in the fall and an intensive five-day chemo regimen preceding the stem-cell transplant in December, when my new friends in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan would not have recognized me. 

3) The third one is how I look now, but without the beard.

[The pictures could not be copied here.  Please see the first three pictures in the carousel in the next section.]

 25 September 2010—Found Out!

OK, so some of you figured out that that third picture isn’t the way I really look now (although I can’t figure out how you could tell; was it because I’m wearing a turtle-neck and a sweater in the picture, winter garb, while claiming that it was taken in the middle of summer?).

Others wanted to know how they could get their hands on some of that chemo stuff, and if I had any left over that I could spare or sell.  Sorry, all gone!

OK, so it was a picture of me when I was 25 or so.  Here is a real “after” picture of me, one taken in July by my cousin while we were trekking through the fields outside my hometown Petrella Tifernina, which can be seen in the background in all its picturesque glory.

 [That picture could not be copied here either.  Please see the carousel in the next section, where it is the 4th and last of the series.]

So, with life more or less back to normal and with no significant new treatments on the horizon, there’s no reason for me to keep assailing you with further missives from the tropic of cancer.  It has been an interesting journey, and I thank you for sharing it with me.  I cherish the encouragement and support and in some cases the renewed and welcome contact that I’ve received along the way. 

Am I a better or wiser person after having gone through this ordeal?  I doubt it.  I feel like the same old clueless nincompoop as before (and as I was in that photo at twenty-something—but I hope a nice and likable nincompoop, both then and now).  In any case, whether wiser or more nincompoopish than ever, I do appreciate how much my life is enhanced and sweetened by having such good and loving friends.

Thanks, and happy trails!

Post-script: 31 August 2018

The oncologists say that this kind of cancer can never be declared “cured”; it can only remain in a state of remission.  The tumor cells have apparently returned to a dormant, indolent state, but could transform and start growing and reproducing again at any time.  My immune system has not recovered, and likely never will, curtailing some of my activities, but not very much. My caretaker, aka she who must be obeyed, consequently will not let me travel to exotic places, which thereby makes them more appealing to me for being forbidden.  Nevertheless, the curtailed trails I can and do take have been and continue to be happy ones.

When the cancer was diagnosed, the prognosis indicated that the average survival rate for this type of lymphoma was five months.  Those five months have stretched out to nine years, and counting: nine wonderful years when I brought a successful and rewarding academic year to a close, started exploring and enjoying the pleasures of pursuing new endeavors in retirement, and best of all, have experienced the unmatched delights of grandparenthood afforded by two luminous grandsons, soon to turn 4 and 7.

If I haven't yet climbed every mountain, as the song dictates, I've climbed enough of them and forded enough new streams to reach more than one unexpected and joy-filled dream in these nine years, and I've found that an indefinite remission is a wondrous-enough rainbow to follow.

Lettere di aggiornamento scritte ai miei parenti e amici italiani durante le cure per il cancro:

11 agosto 2009--Aggiornamento

Carissimi, anzitutto grazie per il vostro aiuto e sostegno.  Un rapido aggiornamento: al rientro ad Oxford mercoledi’ sera, Susan mi ha portato subito all’ospedale per farmi ricoverare, sperando di poter farmi operare subito, anche il giorno seguente, se possibile.  Il chirurgo, pero’, dopo aver visto le immagini della TAC che ho portato con me dall’Italia, ha determinato che un intervento chirurgico sarebbe complicato e rischioso perche' il tumore e' attaccato al sistema vascolare, fatto poi confermato da una laparoscopia.  Sarebbe difficile toglierlo senza danneggiare i vasi sanguigni e linfatici.  Sarebbe meglio infatti se fosse un linfoma, come pare che sia, perche' si potrebbe trattare con la chemioterapia, che oggigiorno, mi dice, e' abbastanza efficace.  Venerdi' hanno fatto una biopsia tramite laparoscopia, ed ora aspettiamo i risultati.  Da cio’ che poteva vedere visualmente attraverso la laparoscopia gli sembrava infatti un linfoma, ma non ne poteva essere sicuro al 100%.  Insomma cio' che sembrava la peggiore ipotesi, il cancro, ora e' diventata la migliore: forza, linfoma!  Intanto mi hanno dato medicinali per il dolore, ed ora riesco a dormire la notte ed a funzionare abbastanza bene di giorno.  Il prossimo appuntatmento e' venerdi' per sapere i risultati delle analisi e decidere come proseguire.

Un abbraccio.  S

5 settembre 2009—Altro aggiornamento

Carissimi, scusate il ritardo con cui mi rifaccio vivo.  La convalescenza dopo l’intervento chirurgico (il 20 agosto) e’ andata molto bene, ma dopo una settimana i dolori addominali causati dal tumore (di cui circa un terzo era rimasto, per non spezzare i vasi sanguigni intorno a cui e’ avvolto, e che a quanto pare continuava a crescere) sono ritornati, per cui sono stato ricoverato in ospedale di nuovo venerdi’ sera, il 28 di agosto.  Lunedi’, il 31, e’ passata a visitarmi l’oncologa, che mi ha fatto trasferire lo stesso giorno a Christ Hospital, a Cincinnati, molto piu’ attrezzato di quello di Oxford, per una serie altri esami ed interventi (p.e. biopsia del midollo, e inserzione subcutanea di un porto nel petto per amministrare i medicinali ed estrarre sangue piu’ facilmente ed efficacemente).  Tutto si e’ fatto rapidamente, nel giro di due giorni, e giovedi’, l’altro ieri, il 3 settembre, ho subito il primo trattamento di chemioterapia, che ho tollerato bene.  Quella stessa sera sono tornato a casa, e finora me la cavo abbastanza bene.  Si prevede un dosaggio ogni tre settimane, ma l’oncologa ancora non ha ricevuto tutti i risultati degli esami, e quindi qualcosa potrebbe cambiare.  Ma a questo punto tutto sembra promettere bene.

Ho detto a Susan che questo e’ un messaggio da parte di madre natura: che mi devo fermare e finalmente guardare le migliaia di foto che ho scattato durante i miei viaggi di questi ultimi anni, che non ho mai trovato il tempo di guardare.  Chissa’ quanti posti riusciro’ a riconoscere a questo punto?

Apprezzo molto il vostro sostegno ed i vostri auguri.  Un caro abbraccio.  Sante

27 settembre 2009—Aggiornamento nuovo

Carissimi, di nuovo, grazie di tutti i messaggi di apppoggio e di incoraggiamento che mi avete mandato.  Quasi quasi vale la pena ammalarsi in tal modo per rendersi pienamente conto del valore dell’affetto fra parenti ed amici come voi.  Anzi, niente “quasi quasi”: e’ una cosa piu’ importante di qualsiasi malattia.

Dunque, i risultati di ulteriori analisi dimostrano un grado di cancro alquanto piu’ avanzato: non un semplice (per cosi’ dire!?) linfoma follicolare di primo grado, ma una trasformazione istologica di terzo grado.  L’oncologa  dice che il linfoma follicolare (a piccole cellule, di progressione lenta) probabilmente ce l’ho da parecchio, forse da anni, in forma indolente o asintomatica.   Il tumore che si e’ manifestato quest’estate e’ invece un linfoma a grandi cellule B, di progressione rapida.  Percio’ va curato in maniera piu’ aggressiva: la chemioterapia somministrata (grazie, S!) ogni due settimane anziche’ ogni tre o quattro, dopodiche’ anche un trapianto di midollo, per cui dovro’ consultare uno specialista fra qualche settimana.

In ogni modo, i medici mi assicurano che ho una costituzione forte e che finora tutto procede bene (“beautifully”, secondo l’oncologa).  Infatti sia il chirurgo che l’oncologa hanno usato la stessa espressione: ho la costituzione di un cavallo.  Non so pero’ se esserne rassicurato o preoccupato, visto che, almeno in tutti i film che ho visto, l’unico rimedio per i cavalli che soffrono e’ di sparargli.   Se l’oncologa si presentera’ al prossimo appuntamento con un fucile, sapro’ di essere preoccupato (e non avrete altri aggiornamenti).  Nel frattempo preferisco esserne rassicurato, e spero che lo sarete anche voi.

Un caloroso abbraccio.  Sante

11 novembre 2009—Vita nuova

Cari amici, scusate il lungo silenzio.  Lo so che alcuni cominciano ad essere preoccupati, o gia’ lo sono da un po’, perche’ non mi rifaccio vivo da parecchio.  Un po’ e’ perche’ non ci sono state vere novita’ ne’ svolte da impartire; ma un bel po’ e’ anche perche’ son diventato pigro con tutto questo dolce far niente.

Questo lunedi’ prossimo, il 16 nov., subiro’ il sesto ed ultimo ciclo di chemioterapia, dopodiche’ si passera’ al trapianto di midollo osseo, che durera’ un altro paio di mesi.  Siccome il tumore e’ in remissione il trapianto sara’ autologo.  Cioe’ il donatore saro’ io stesso, per cui il processo sara’ piuttosto lungo: raccolta, pausa, re-infusione, ricostituzione, ma meno rischioso di quello allogeneico proveniente da un altro donatore, con meno pericolo di rigetto.

Il resto di questo messaggio e’ una spiegazione dettagliata e noiosa del trapianto, che vi consiglio di saltare, a meno che non abbiate nient’altro da fare.  (Mi dico che dovrei stabilire un blog che potreste consultare a voglia, invece di imporvi questi lunghi e tediosi messaggi, ma c’e’ quella benedetta pigrizia da superare.)

Ora che ho parlato con lo specialista, capisco che ‘sto trapianto non e’ lo scherzo che immaginavo, e che veramente si tratta di un termine improprio, nel senso che il vero scopo dell’intervento non e’ il trapianto di midollo di per se’, ma un omicidio appena mancato.  Scherzo, ma mi pare che infatti il vero scopo della procedura sia la somministrazione di una chemioterapia micidiale, cioe’ a dosi sovramassimali per un periodo di 6 giorni di seguito, con lo scopo di eliminare qualsiasi traccia del cancro.  Cio’ facendo si distrugge anche tutto il midollo nel corpo, il che crea una condizione letale.  L’unico modo per non farti morire e’ di re-inserire un po’ di midollo e farlo crescere cosi’ si rimetta a creare sangue (globuli rossi, globuli bianchi, e piastrine).  Questo nuovo sangue dovrebbe risultare del tutto ripristinato, senza traccia del cancro (almeno nel 70% dei casi).  Si tratta di una procedura di consolidamento, senza la quale la probabilita’ di recidiva entro un anno sarebbe 50%.

E’ un termine improprio in un altro senso: non si tratta piu’ di un vero e proprio trapianto di midollo come una volta.  Cioe’ ne’ prelevano il midollo direttamente dalle ossa ne’ ce lo rimettono direttamente.  Invece sia la raccolta che l’infusione vengono effettuate per aferesi tramite un catetere venoso inserito nel petto: cioe’ come una trasfusione del proprio sangue.

Funziona cosi’: per sei giorni mi faranno iniezioni di un medicinale che si chiama Mozobil, che fa fuoriuscire le cellule staminali (o progenitrici: quelle che producono le piastrine ed i globuli bianchi e rossi del sangue) dal midollo e le mette in circolazione nel sangue periferico.  Dopo il quarto giorno cominceranno l’aferesi, cioe’ far circolare il sangue attraverso il catetere e un apparecchio esterno che separera’ le cellule staminali espulse dal midollo dal resto del sangue prima di farlo ripassare nel mio corpo attraverso un secondo tubo dello stesso catetere (che di tubi ne avra’ tre, di diversi colori, che mi penderanno dal petto per alcuni mesi—finalmente Susan mi permettera’ di fare il piercing ed andare in giro con ciondoli tricolori penzolanti dal seno!  Era l’ora!).  Le cellule staminali verranno congelate, e dovro’ aspettare un paio di settimane prima di procedere alla terapia sovramassimale.

Per questa terapia verro’ ricoverato in ospedale, dove rimarro’ per almeno tre settimane e mezza (allo Jewish Hospital stavolta, ossia l’ospedale ebreo, a Cincinnati—una bella coincidenza, dato che le prime procedure erano al Christ Hospital, l’ospedale di Cristo).  Durante i primi sei giorni somministreranno i farmaci tossici con lo scopo di eliminare tutte le cellule malate ed anche con lo scopo di distruggere il sistema immunitario, per permettere alle cellule staminali di essere re-introdotte senza essere attaccate dalle difese immunitarie.  Poi per due giorni verranno re-infuse le cellule staminali prelevate tre settimane prima, che si re-insedieranno nelle ossa svuotate di midollo, aiutate da fattori di crescita.  Sangue nuovo, vita nuova!

A questo punto saro’ privo di difese immunitarie e per due o tre settimane dovro’ rimanere isolato in un ambiente sterile.  Ma anche dopo essere rilasciato dall’ospedale, per parecchie settimane dovro’ evitare situazioni e condizioni potenzialmente contagiose, per cui non potro’ insegnare nemmeno il semestre prossimo (che incomincera’ l’11 di gennaio, quando gli studenti torneranno dalle vacanze natalizie pieni di regali e di patogeni da tutte le parti del mondo).  L’universita’ mi ha gia’ accordato un altro sabbatico, ed il professore che mi sostituisce adesso continuera’ a farlo il prossimo semestre.  Forse verso la fine di marzo potro’ cominciare a frequentare il mio studio all’universita’ e riprendere qualche attivita’ amministrativa. 

Quindi la vacanza si prolunga, e con essa sicuramente anche la pigrizia, alla quale ho gia’ cominciato ad abituarmi, forse addirittura ad affezionarmi.

Comunque, i medici mi dicono che per giugno dovrei essere libero dei controlli periodici che ci vorranno per alcuni mesi e pronto a riprendere le mie attivita’ normali, inclusi i viaggi all’estero.  Percio’ conto di organizzare e dirigere il programma estivo ad Urbino di nuovo (anche se sono in ritardo coi preparativi), da meta’ giugno ai primi di agosto, e quindi spero di rivedere alcuni di voi in Italia l’estate prossima.

Intanto vi chiedo di nuovo scusa per il mio silenzio, soprattutto per il fatto che non riesco a rispondere individualmente a tanti messaggi, e vi ringrazio di tutto cuore per il vostro caloroso appoggio e la vostra generosa e gradita benevolenza.

Un abbraccio forte forte.  Sante

6 marzo 2010--Irradiare o no?

Cari amici,

Scusate il silenzio sostenuto troppo a lungo.  Aspettavo notizie definitive prima di farmi sentire, ma la decisione sulla radioterapia è stata più problematica del previsto.

Comunque, prima di passare a spiegazioni, vi dico subito che l’ultima scansione PET, del 26 gennaio, dopo il trapianto di midollo osseo (ossia di cellule staminali) rivela che il cancro è in regressione o remissione.

Ho deciso di consolidare la remissione con la radioterapia, che consisterà di 18 trattamenti di radiazioni ionizzanti, somministrati cinque giorni alla settimana per quattro settimane, a cominciare dalla settimana prossima.

Intanto ho ripreso il lavoro all’università a metà tempo, ma senza insegnare siccome i miei corsi sono stati affidati ad un altro docente.

Ecco, queste sono le notizie essenziali, per cui potete anche smettere di leggere a questo punto.  Oppure leggere il paragrafo seguente sul mio stato di salute attuale e poi smettere.  Il resto è spiegazione dettagliata e commento.

Ho superato il peggio degli effetti collaterali della chemioterapia intensiva somministrata prima del trapianto a dicembre (con l’eccezione di continui disturbi gastrici, di cui vi risparmierò ulteriori dettagli).  Niente raffreddore né influenza; affaticamento superato; appetito restituito; la barba che ricresce, seguita dai sopraccigli, e adesso forse anche dai capelli, antecipati da una peluria bianca che comincia a spargersi per la testa.  Ho potuto affrontare la grande quantità di neve che ci è capitata quest’anno spalando a non finire, senza finora incorrere in infarti.  All’università ci vado a piedi, una distanza di tre chilometri e mezzo da casa, e per far fede alla mia “costituzione da cavallo” al rientro spesso mi fermo al supermercato a metà strada e continuo il percorso (tutto in salita, naturalmente, e colmo di neve e di ghiaccio) carico della spesa—ma per qualche ragione la mia custode (cioè mia moglie Susan) sembra preferire un’altra analogia a quella equina, riferendosi ugualmente ad una bestia da soma, e anche della stessa famiglia (equidae), ma di specie diversa: asinus.  In ogni modo, o equinamente o asininamente, fisicamente mi sento bene; e anche sentimentalmente e spiritualmente: buon umore, serenità, felicità in abbondanza.  Intellettualmente, mbé ... non so, qualche mancanza forse c’è: smemorataggine, distrazione, ripetizione, smemorataggine.  Il peggio è che non so se è un danno della chemioterapia o se invece è un segno che son tornato alla normalità.

Per quanto riguarda la decisione sofferta se subire la radioterapia o no, il problema è sorto con un dissenso fra i medici.  Lo specialista del trapianto ci contava dall’inizio e aveva programmato di mandarmi da un radioterapista appena mi sarei ripreso dagli effetti del trapianto, senonché al nostro ultimo incontro mi ha consigliato invece di tornare a vedere la mia oncologa originale, che non era d’accordo, pensando forse che la radioterapia o non fosse necessaria o fosse pericolosa.  Non potendo vederla per un paio di settimane, ho deciso di sentire prima il parere del radioterapista, che mi ha spiegato come funziona la radiazione: la durata, il dosaggio, il frazionamento, i rischi, i potenziali vantaggi,  dopodiché ha espresso il parere, mica tanto sorprendente, che in fondo mi conveniva.

Inoltre, il dissidio fra gli esperti era rispecchiato fra i non esperti a casa, cioè fra me e la mia guardiana (cioè la mia dolce sposa): lei era ardentemente contro, io per, sebbene molto meno ardentemente.  Lei temeva che le irradiazioni facessero più male che bene, ritenendo che non erano necessarie, data la remissione, e che potevano essere addirittura letali.  Io invece, convinto o suggestionato dagli specialisti, temevo che senza il consolidamento la remissione potesse non reggere, e che se il cancro tornasse, nessuna terapia curativa sarebbe più stata efficace.

Intanto dalla visita con il radioterapista ho imparato un paio di cose interessanti che non sospettavo nemmeno.  La prima è che la scansione PET di settembre, somministrata dopo l’intervento chirurgico e prima della chemioterapia, aveva rivelato il cancro in quattro posti diversi dell’addome.  Io avevo sempre capito che c’era un solo tumore, nel mesentere nel lato sinistro del peritoneo nell’addome.  Invece c’era un altro tumore, più piccolo ma altrettanto cancerogeno, più a sinistra.  In più c’era attività cancerosa nel lato destro del muscolo retto dell’addome—una zona insolita per il linfoma, secondo lui—e un’altra zona adiacente alla fascia destra del muscolo retto.  (E qui si manifesta una bella incongruenza.  In parecchi mi avete complimentato o mi avete accusato di aver mostrato molta o troppa competenza terminologica nei miei resoconti, come se fossi diventato un esperto in materia, praticamente pronto a praticare l’oncologia io stesso.  E invece ora si rivela che ero ignorantissimo degli aspetti più elementari della mia propria condizione.  Attribuiamola pure questa ignoranza alla mia stoltezza.  Ma forse è da attribuire in parte anche alla professione medica americana, in cui solo i medici hanno accesso ai dati e se li condividono solo fra di loro—se poi lo fanno, boh!—comunicando al paziente solo ciò che ritengono necessario, in contrasto con la mia esperienza in Italia l’estate scorsa, dove i radiologi davano le immagini e le spiegazioni direttamente al paziente.  È curioso che in questo l’assistenza sanitaria americana è più come la Chiesa Cattolica: solo il sacerdote/medico sa capire e spiegare le sacre scritture/i documenti medici che i non addetti non devono nemmeno vedere.  E siccome siamo in tema dell’assistenza sanitaria americana di cui tanto si parla attualmente, soprattutto dei suoi costi, potrebbe interessarvi sapere quanto tutto ciò è costato finora.  I conti pervenuti da medici ospedali laboratori cliniche tecnici farmacie e cosí via ammontano a più di un milione di dollari, di cui l’assicurazione ha coperto oltre mezzo milione, perché ha una convenzione che gli dà uno sconto su tutti i prezzi.  I non assicurati, di cui ce ne sono una cinquantina di milioni di americani, presubilmente sarebbero tenuti a pagare la somma intera, non avendo diritto agli sconti convenzionati: forse un paio di milioni di dollari una volta che ci mettiamo anche la radioterapia e chissà cos’altro!)

Questa scoperta della pluripresenza del cancro è servita a farci capire un’altra cosa.  Ci chiedevamo perché bisognava decidere subito se fare la radioterapia o no.  Non potevo aspettare che si rifacesse vivo il cancro prima di procedere?  Il radioterapista ha spiegato che a quel punto potrebbe essere troppo tardi perché il cancro potrebbe essersi già sparso in altre zone o in altri punti del sistema linfatico, e la radiazione focalizzata non sarebbe più possibile.

L’altra scoperta, non rivelatami dal trapiantista, era che c’era rimasta una notevole attività metabolica in ciò che rimaneva del tumore principale.  Sebbene molto rimpiccolito, da 16 x 6 cm a settembre (dopo l’intervento chirurgo che ne aveva già asportato due terzi) a 5 x 2,3 cm a gennaio, il tumore è rimasto coerente e non consistente solo di tessuto necrotico ma di cellule attive.  L’attività metabolica misurata dalla PET di gennaio era 2,8, inferiore alla soglia cancerosa (più o meno 4 o 5, secondo il medico).  A mo’ di paragone i valori della scansione di settembre, prima dell’inizio della chemioterapia, erano 23 per il tumore principale, 19,3 per quello secondario, 18,2 per la zona nel muscolo retto, e 9,5 per la fascia della guaina muscolare.  Perciò la conclusione che il linfoma è in remissione.  Ciononostante, quel valore di 2,8 è superiore ai valori delle scansioni precedenti: 2,3 in ottobre, dopo il terzo ciclo di chemioterapia, e quindi la prima remissione, e 2,1 a dicembre, dopo il sesto ciclo di chemioterapia e prima del trapianto.  Insomma l’attivita’ metabolica nel tumore non era né scomparsa né diminuita ma era ricresciuta un po’ dopo il trapianto.  Poteva benissimo essere una reazione positiva di risanamento del tessuto dopo l’intensa chemioterapia associata al trapianto, ma si tratta sempre di attività di crescita nel tessuto tumorale.

Alla visita dell’oncologa originale lei si è rivelata meno ostile all’idea della radioterapia del previsto.  La sua preoccupazione principale era la possibilità di eventuale danno alle viscere che sarebbe difficile riparare.  Data la saldezza della massa e la continua attività metabolica non si opponeva alla radioterapia, ma non la consigliava nemmeno, lasciava la decisione a me, aggiungendo che se decidevo di farla, meglio farla presto.  E cosí anche la mia sorvegliante (cioè la mia gentile coniuge) ha cominciato a ripensarci, o almeno ad opporvisi meno ardentemente.

La prima volta che ho consultato il radioterapista non aveva visto le immagini delle scansioni, solo i resoconti scritti.  Quando l’ho rivisto la settimana scorsa aveva ottenuto i dischi delle scansioni per poter valutare meglio il potenziale danno alle viscere e ad altri organi adiacenti al tumore.  Ha spiegato che il rischio c’è ma è molto basso, circa 1-2%, perché il dosaggio di radiazione che è efficace contro il linfoma è anch’esso molto basso e attraversa vene e intestini senza danneggiarli.  Il rischio di recidiva del cancro senza il consolidamento della radioterapia invece è di c. 20-30%.  Abbiamo optato per la radioterapia, stavolta la mia badante e consorte esitantemente ma pienamente d’accordo.

Ma non finisce qui.  In un aggiornamento precedente, credendo di fare lo spiritoso, mi ero chiesto se poi ci sarebbe voluto un ulteriore consolidamento del consolidamento del consolidamento della remissione—un po’ come la Gillette continua ad aggiungere lamette ai suoi rasoi usa e getta, ormai assurdamente arrivati a cinque lame!  Non è uno scherzo, l’oncologa vuole infatti consolidare gli effetti della radioterapia con la somministrazione del farmaco rituximab, già parte del cocktail chiamato R-CHOP della chemioterapia che ho subito in autunno.  Il rituximab, un anticorpo monoclonale, è la R di R-CHOP che però stavolta verrà somministrato da solo, una specie di chemio-light.

E cosí via, e cosí sia.  Una volta una tavola Ouija mi ha rivelato che in una vita precedente ero stato un orso (una rivelazione che molti amici trovano convincente, anzi illuminante: ah, ecco!, questo spiega tante cose!).  E devo dire che mi sento un po’ come l’orso della canzone per bambini in cui l’orso si arrampica sulla montagna per vedere che c’è da vedere dall’altra parte.  E che c’è da vedere?  Un’altra montagna, sulla quale sale per vedere ... un’altra montagna da scalare, e cosí via.  E cosí sia: cosí, orsinamente o asininamente, farò anch’io, su e avanti!

Un affettuoso ed orsino abbraccio, Sante

31 maggio 2010: Buone notizie!

Carissimi, le notizie sono buone, anche se tardive.  Il cancro è ancora in remissione.  Parto per l’Italia questo venerdí, il 4 giugno.  Sarò ad Urbino fino alla fine di luglio con un gruppo di 14 studenti, dopodiché tornerò per le nozze di mio figlio il 7 agosto.  Conto di riprendere ad insegnare il prossimo anno accademico, che comincerà il 23 agosto.

Come al solito, queste in testa sono le notizie essenziali.  Seguono ulteriori dettagli che potete saltare.

La radioterapia somministrata durante il mese di marzo è andata bene, senza causare dolori né conseguenze negative; almeno non tali da poter notare.  Infatti la conseguenza piú notevole è stata che ho potuto frequentare il cinema piú spesso.  Il trattamento finiva verso le 16, quando due cinema multiplex nei pressi dell’ospedale offrivano sconti del 50% per film che cominciavano piú o meno a quell’ora.  Cosí mi son visto quasi un film al giorno, piú di quanti ne abbia visti al cinema da un decennio.  Ma non chiedetemi di ricordare quali film!

L’altra terapia di consolidamento che si progettava di fare contemporaneamente alla radioterapia, la somministrazione di rituximab, invece è stata rimandata, perché i valori del sangue, soprattutto dei globuli bianchi, erano troppo bassi.  È stata rimandata al mio rientro dall’Italia o all’autunno.  Insomma la giostra continua a girare.

Tre settimane fa, il 12 maggio, l’oncologa ha fatto un’altra biopsia del midollo, seguita da una scansione TAC il giorno seguente, per determinare l’efficacia delle cure finora.  Risulta che il funzionamento delle cellule nel midollo è normale e non c’è traccia di malattia, cioè del cancro, ed il tumore è di misura ridotta di fronte alle immagini dell’ultima TC a gennaio.  Quindi buone notizie.

La guarigione prosegue bene, mi pare.  Mia moglie Susan che fino a poco fa m’incitava a mangiare di piú per farmi rimettere il peso che avevo perso ora è tornata a dirmi di smettere di mangiare come un maiale, altrimenti non riuscirò a mettermi i pantaloni scelti per le nozze.  Quindi tutto normale.  I capelli sono ricresciuti non piú neri ma piú ricci, e fini fini, come quelli di un neonato.  Non so se rimarranno cosí o se s’induriranno col passar del tempo.

Tutti mi dicono che ho un bell’aspetto, il che ovviamente mi fa molto piacere.  Ma non so se crederci.  Tre settimane fa, quando sono andato al Christ Hospital a Cincinnati per la biopsia, dopo un intervento un’addetta mi ha detto, “Tuo figlio ti aspetta lí nella sala d’attesa.”  Quando gli ho riferito questa battuta mio “figlio” ha fatto un gesto di trionfo col pugno in aria gridando “Yes!” con grande soddisfazione, ma non perché era contento di avere me come padre, ma perché ha dieci anni piú di me.  Si tratta del mio amico ed ex-collega, ora in pensione, Peter Pedroni, che mi aveva dato un passaggio all’ospedale, come tante altre volte.  Non voglio dire che Peter non sia molto giovanile e bello d’aspetto, ma mi chiedo come posso io avere un bell’aspetto, come tutti mi dicono, se un’estranea presumibilmente piú obiettiva dei miei amici mi può prendere per il padre di un settantenne.  Vorrà dire che ho un bell’aspetto per un centenario.

Grazie di nuovo a chi mi ha scritto.  Auguri di una proficua e felice estate a tutti.  Sante

29 agosto 2010: Prima e dopo

Cari amici e parenti,

tutto procede bene.  Ho ripreso ad insegnare, e le prime due settimane sono andate benissimo, cioè come sempre, con troppo da fare e non abbastanza tempo per fare tutto.

Avrei dovuto incontrarmi con l’oncologa due settimane fa, ma non ci sono riuscito, non perché son mancato io ma perché lei aveva troppi altri pazienti da visitare prima di me (non un buon segno, direi, quando l’oncologo sembra la persona piú popolare del paese!).  Dopo due ore di attesa inutile son dovuto tornare all’università per insegnare.  Stranamente però, invece di arrabbiarmi ho sentito quasi un senso di soddisfazione, forse perché le esigenze della vita normale—in questo caso il mio lavoro all’università—riprendevano cosí il sopravvento sulle esigenze del cancro.  Concedere la priorità agli impegni quotidiani mi dava un senso quasi di liberazione.

Comunque dalle infermiere ho avuto le informazioni piú essenziali, cioè che i risultati delle scansioni TAC e PET della settimana precedente erano positivi: la massa del tumore s’era ridotta ancor di piú e non c’era attività metabolica fuori del normale: ottime notizie.

Mi sento benissimo.  Alcuni di voi che non mi avete visto quest’estate siete curiosi di sapere come sono cambiato fisicamente, dato che ne ho parlato altre volte.  Per rispondervi, ecco tre fotografie che misurano la mia evoluzione: prima, durante, e dopo le procedure:

[Le foto non si possono riprodurre qui.  Per vederle, guardate il carosello di foto nella sezione precedente.]

1) PRIMA: La prima foto, scattata durante il mio viaggio lungo la Via della seta qualche anno fa, mostra com’ero prima del cancro e della somministrazione della chemioterapia: biancobarbuto e sartorialmente ineccepibile.

2) DURANTE: La seconda è di questo febbraio scorso, poco dopo essere uscito dall’ospedale, e cioè dopo sei cicli di chemio in autunno seguiti dalla chemio intensiva somministrata a dicembre prima del trapianto di midollo: finalmente imberbe come mi avrebbe sempre preferito mia madre. 

3) DOPO: La terza è come sono adesso che mi sono ricresciuti i capelli.

[La quarta nel carosello di foto, che rappresenta come apparivo veramente alla fine di tutte le cure descritte, fu scattata dalla mia cugina Cecilia Ruscitto nei pressi di Petrella nel mese di luglio del 2010, quando ero tornato in Italia per dirigere il nostro programma estivo universitario a Urbino, un anno dopo di aver scoperto i tumori addominali.]

Un affettuoso abbraccio.  Sante