Dialogue between Alfieri and his Florentine Laundress

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[Page 369]

                                             DIALOGUE

     BETWEEN ALFIERI AND HIS FLORENTINE LAUNDRESS,

                                       NERA COLOMBOLI.*(1)

    A. Why, Mistress Nera, what the devil’s here?

        To bring my stockings home at last undone?

    N. Undone! ah! God knows if I’ve sewn and sewn;

        But they so spider-web, it’s a despair.

    A. So spider-web, school-mistress! Why, that’s queer.

    N. How? Any thing that we put off and on,

        And wear and wear, till all the stuff is gone,

        Does’nt it spider-web? I think it’s clear.

    A. Spider-web? I don’t take it: what d’ye mean?

    N. Lord bless me, Sir, break me a spider’s web,

        And see if I can sew it up again.

    A. Ah! It is I that am the unlick’d cub.

        I grow grey writing Tuscan, but in vain:

        A sorry graft, fit only for the grub.

                                      ______________

    A. Che diavol fate voi, Madonna Nera?

        Darmi per sin co’buchi le calzette?

    N. Co’buchi, eh? Dio ’l sa, s’i’l’ho rassette;

        Ma elle ragnano sì, ch’è una dispéra.

    A. Ragnar, cos’è, Monna vocaboliera? —

    *Alfieri, a Piedmontese, writes this sonnet (which is doubtless a true re-

cital) to shew the difficulty he found in acquiring the niceties of the Tuscan

tongue, and how well they are felt and understood by the common people.

---

[Page 370]

    N. Oh! la roba, che l’uom mette e rimette,

        Che vien via per tropp’uso a fette a fette,

        Nun ragna ella e mattina e giorno e sera?

    A. Ragnar? non l’ho più udito, e non l’intendo.

    N. Pur gli è chiaro: la rompa un ragnatélo;

        Poi vedrem, se con l’ago i’lo rammendo.

    A. Ah! son pur io la bestia! imbianco il pelo

        Questa lingua scrivendo, e non sapendo:

        Tosco innesto son io su immondo stelo.

                                      ______________

                                        A BLESSED SPOT.

FROM AN EPIGRAM OF ABULFADHEL AHMED, SURNAMED

               AL HAMADANI, RECORDED IN D’HERBELOT.

                    HAMADAN is my native place;

                        And I must say, in praise of it,

                    It merits, for its ugly face,

                        What every body says of it.

                    It’s children equal it’s old men

                        In vices and avidity;

                    And they reflect the babes again

                        In exquisite stupidity.



EDITORIAL NOTES

[1] Alfieri’s sonnet CLXXXV “Difficoltà dell’apprendere il parlar toscano,” composed on 28 March 1796; the two interlocutors are Alfieri and Nera Comboli, his Florentine maid.