Pavarotti – Nessun Dorma

The Prince
Nessun dorma, nessun dorma … Tu pure, o Principessa, Nella tua fredda stanza, Guardi le stelle Che tremano d’amore E di speranza.	No one sleeps, no one sleeps… Even you, o Princess, In your cold room, Watch the stars, That tremble with love And with hope.
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me, Il nome mio nessun saprà, no, no, Sulla tua bocca lo dirò Quando la luce splenderà, Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio Che ti fa mia.	But my secret is hidden within me; My name no one shall know, no, no, On your mouth I will speak it* When the light shines, And my kiss will dissolve the silence That makes you mine.
Chorus
Il nome suo nessun saprà E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir.	No one will know his name And we must, alas, die.
The Prince
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle! All’alba vincerò!	Vanish, o night! Set**, stars! At daybreak, I shall conquer!

* “Dire sulla bocca”, literally “to say on the mouth”, is a poetic Italian way of saying “to kiss.” (Or so I’ve been told, but perhaps a native speaker can confirm or deny this.) I’ve also been told that a line from a Marx Brothers movie — “I wasn’t kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth” — is a conscious imitation of the Italian phrase.

** “Tramontate” literally means “go behind the mountains”, but it’s the word Italians use for sunset and the like. It’s also a word Turandot uses after Calaf kisses her: “E l’alba! Turandot tramonta!” (“It’s dawn, Turandot descends!”) This suggests yet another mythopoetic theme which pervades the Turandot libretto — the sun god’s defeat of the moon goddess — but I won’t get into that….

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Exceprts from THERE IS A PRESENCE

1.

The frost has killed the summer flowers.
They hang brownish heads

from spindly stems.  The autumnal sky
is gray and looks like ice.  November

rain brought the leaves down.  They now cover
most of the ground.  But the hour

is not yet come for the feast that will usher in
the Best Holiday of them all.

I like Christmas.  I love it.
Yet I am wary as a turkey before

the slaughter and have forgotten the word
that was on my mind that night,

when I took notes about the blurring of
false boundaries, so that memories and dreams

became parts of my prayer.  That word destroyed
all categories into which everyone must fit.

I know there were natives present.
But everywhere one goes, it seems,

there are natives.   What was I thinking
that could “break barriers down”?

Is there a word that transcends all difference
and puts my feet on solid ground?

6.

A rainbow is visible through the clouds,
but the multitudes stand like sheep,
while the rain comes stroking the air.  The rain
cleans the water and the firmament.
The people don’t know, of course,
that they are sheep, forsaking what matters most:

They have forgotten to dream.
And as the pond and the lake fill with water,
small puddles form on the land,
the sheep relive their false memories.

They think they are thinking, choosing,
watching for wolves.  They “know about”
wolves, because they are sheep.
But they don’t know wolves.

The sheep bow their heads,
while raindrops fall into a small pond
in the openness of meadow. But other drops
became lodged in the trees, where they hang in
fine slivers of hope—unless, in the coldness,
they freeze—only to fall when the sun penetrates
the dense forest, sending them on a journey
to wherever it is they must go,
which is—at least, for some—

like speaking the truth in love.

7.

The other night
as music over-shadowed the meaning of what

I was trying to say, I realized that prayer is best,
when we recognize the fog and acknowledge it.

Snow swirls toward a whirling earth,
so that as you hear a leaf fall,

you need not ask about love.
Outside my window, bright leaves swayed

in the grayness of sky:   Some yellow, some red.
That evening when they floated toward us in your car,

we stopped, turned off the motor, stepped outside
into what soon became the redeeming moment.

The fog and the wind were coming
as quickly and as surely as my pain.  Then suddenly,

raindrops were all over us.   And just so you know,
that evening, as we sat awkwardly on the back of your car,

when you suggested how close we’d become,
I decided to forgive you.  And God—

who is, perhaps, saner than we like to pretend—
smiled down upon us all.

first published in Ann Arbor Review