Hymn To The Patriarchs. Or Of The Beginnings Of The Human Race.

by Giacomo Leopardi

　　

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Illustrious fathers of the human race,Of you, the song of your afflicted sonsWill chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far,Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,Who were not born to wretchedness, like ours.Immedicable woes, a life of tears,The silent tomb, eternal night, to findMore sweet, by far, than the ethereal light,These things were not by heaven's gracious lawImposed on you. If ancient legends speakOf sins of yours, that brought calamityUpon the human race, and fell disease,Alas, the sins more terrible, by far,Committed by your children, and their soulsMore restless, and with mad ambition fixed,Against them roused the wrath of angry gods,The hand of all-sustaining Nature armed,By them so long neglected and despised.Then life became a burden and a curse,And every new-born babe a thing abhorred,And hell and chaos reigned upon the earth.Thou first the day, and thou the shining lightsOf the revolving stars didst see, the fields,And their new flocks and herds, O leader oldAnd father of the human family!The wandering air that o'er the meadows played,When smote the rocks, and the deserted vales,The torrent, rustling headlong from the Alps,With sound, till then, unheard; and o'er the sitesOf future nations, noisy cities, yet unknownTo fame, a peace profound, mysterious reigned;And o'er the unploughed hills, in silence, roseThe ray of Phœbus, and the golden moon.O world, how happy in thy loneliness,Of crimes and of disasters ignorant!Oh, how much wretchedness Fate had in storeFor thy poor race, unhappy father, whatA series vast of terrible events!Behold, the fields, scarce tilled, with blood are stained,A brother's blood, in sudden frenzy shed;And now, alas, first hears the gentle airThe whirring of the fearful wings of Death.The trembling fratricide, a fugitive,The lonely shades avoids; in every blastThat sweeps the groves, a voice of wrath he hears.He the first city builds, abode and realmOf wasting cares; repentance desperate,Heart-sick, and groaning, thus unites and bindsTogether blind and sinful souls, and firstA refuge offers unto mutual guilt.The wicked hand now scorns the crooked plough;The sweat of honest labor is despised;Now sloth possession of the threshold takes;The sluggish frames their native vigor lose;The minds in hopeless indolence are sunk;And slavery, the crowning curse of all,Degrades and crushes poor humanity.And thou from heaven's wrath, and ocean's waves,That bellowed round the cloud-capped mountain-tops,The sinful brood didst save; thou, unto whom,From the dark air and wave-encumbered hills,The white dove brought the sign of hope renewed,And sinking in the west, the shipwrecked sun,His bright rays darting through the angry clouds,The dark sky painted with the lovely bow.The race restored, to earth returned, begins anewThe same career of wickedness and lust,With their attendant ills. Audacious manDefies the threats of the avenging sea,And to new shores and to new stars repeatsThe same sad tale of infamy and woe.And now of thee I think, the just and brave,The Father of the faithful, and the sonsThy honored name that bore. Of thee I speak,Whom, sitting, thoughtful, in the noontide shade,Before thy humble cottage, near the banks,That gave thy flocks both rest and nourishment,The minds ethereal of celestial guestsWith blessings greeted; and of thee, O sonOf wise Rebecca, how at eventide,In Aran's valley sweet, and by the well,Where happy swains in friendly converse met,Thou didst with Laban's daughter fall in love;Love, that to exile long, and suffering,And to the odious yoke of servitude,Thy patient soul a willing martyr led.Oh, surely once,—for not with idle talesAnd shadows, the Aonian song, and voiceOf Fame, the eager list'ners feed,—once wasThis wretched earth more friendly to our race,Was more beloved and dear, and golden flewThe days, that now so laden are with care.Not that the milk, in waves of purest white,Gushed from the rocks, and flowed along the vales;Or that the tigers mingled with the sheep,To the same fold were led; or shepherd-boysWith playful wolves would frolic at the spring;But of its own lot ignorant, and allThe sufferings that were in store, devoidOf care it lived: a soft, illusive veilOf error hid the stern realities,The cruel laws of heaven and of fate.Life glided on, with cheerful hope content;And tranquil, sought the haven of its rest.So lives, in California's forests vast,A happy race, whose life-blood is not drainedBy pallid care, whose limbs are not by fierceDisease consumed: the woods their food, their homesThe hollow rock, the streamlet of the valeIts waters furnishes, and, unforeseen,Dark death upon them steals. Ah, how unarmed,Wise Nature's happy votaries, are ye,Against our impious audacity!Our fierce, indomitable love of gainYour shores, your caves, your quiet woods invades;Your minds corrupts, your bodies enervates;And happiness, a naked fugitive,Before it drives, to earth's remotest bounds.

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