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Traduzione
One night in Naples
One night in Naples, Italy,
Below the moon above the shore,
I chanced on an angelic entity
Who’d lost the capacity to soar.
One night in Naples, Italy,
We both forsook our pure oaths,
And then, two of us wing -free,
Up to heaven we arose.
Beside him I went flying to incredible heights,
Both of us leaving behind the sadness of the night,
Both of us, past all confines, in paradise
Crazy with amore like a pair of fireflies.
How long in such a state could we remain?
How many nights like that for dreaming?
How many hours, how many days?
Can caresses be unending?
When love feels stronger than living,
Close your eyes and then pack all your thoughts away,
For time's passage destines all love to decay.
That dance’ll end when you stop breathing.
One night in Naples, Italy,
Below the moon above the shore,
I chanced on an angelic entity
Who’d lost the capacity to soar.
One night in Naples, Italy,
We both forsook our pure oaths,
And then, two of us wing -free,
Up to heaven we arose.
Sadly, all mortal grain falls to the scythe.
So now that my fast-beating heart has broken,
After he has abandoned our love in heaven,
I’m again walking down here upon the earth.
Never again will I experience true love, to this I’ve resigned myself.
But look up!
How long in such a state could we remain?
How many nights like that for dreaming?
How many hours, how many days?
Can caresses be unending?
When love feels stronger than declining,
Close your eyes and then pack all your thinking away,
For time's passage destines all love to decay.
That dance’ll end when you stop breathing.
One night in Naples, Italy,
Below the moon above the shore,
I chanced on an angelic entity,
Who’d lost the capacity to soar.
One night in Naples, Italy,
We both forsook our pure oaths,
And then, two of us wing -free,
Up to heaven we arose.
Up to heaven we arose.
Up to heaven we arose.
Up to heaven we arose.
jhbuck✕
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Commenti
Chi è il traduttore
This is not a word-for-word translation. I have attempted to capture not only the overall story, imagery, and ideas, but to convey the musical qualities of the Italian language as expressed in these lyrics through end-rhyme and other sound patterns.
Italian is very rich in words that end in long vowel sounds; English is not, which creates challenges when trying to make a translation that matches the rhythm and beauty of the original.
To get anywhere close, I needed to add words to many lines to maintain the same number of syllables as the lines in Italian.
And it was simply impossible to find anywhere near the number of sonorous words ending in long vowel sounds. Still, it was possible to be mostly faithful to the original rhyme scheme, which begins with an ABAB pattern, then shifts to AABB, before throwing in some curveballs here and there.