Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 27, Volume 9 Number 1, September - October 1982.

The Younger Brutus (translated by Patrick Creagh) Giacomo Leopardi

translated by Patrick Creagh

Now that uprooted, in the dust of Thrace,
Italic virtue lay,
Ruined colossus, so that for the valleys
Of green Hesperia and the banks of Tiber
Fate even now prepares
The stamp of barbarous horse, and from the gaunt
Forests tormented by the icy Bear
Calls forth Germanic swords
To crack the fabled walls of Rome, Brutus
Hot with battle, wet with the blood of brothers,
In sombre night, in a sequestered place,
Set already on death, curses
Hell itself and the unpitying gods,
And with ferocious notes
Strikes, and strikes in vain, on the listless air:
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image