Today we read Tacito orror di solitaria selva, by Vittorio Alfieri. This poem has two main historical referents.
On the one hand, as is often the case, Petrarca, whose sonnet CLXXVI (they are usually referred to by Roman numeral) contains these verses: Raro un silenzio, un solitario orrore
d’ombrosa selva mai tanto mi piacque (A rare silence, a solitary horror of a shadowy forest never have I liked so.)
There the woods are rendered inoffensive and even benevolent by his love for Laura. On the other hand, the noun selva will forever be associated in Italian poetry with Dante , and specifically the first verses of the Divina Commedia: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita. (In the middle of the walk of our life, I found myself in a dark forest, since I had lost the right path.)
The reference is made explicit by the creation of neologisms (inselva, rinselva), of which Dante was an endless source.
Here the woods are a scary manifestation of Dante’s condition as a sinner. Not so in Alfieri, who experiences the forest both as a terrible and invigorating escape from the mediocrity and spinelessness of his times, and who says he is at home there more than the beasts that inhabit it. It is a refuge for the tragic hero, whose titanic will is at odds with the restrictions imposed by unworthy rulers, limiting his freedom. The original: Tacito orror di solitaria selva
di sì dolce tristezza il cor mi bea,
che in essa al par di me non si ricrea
tra’ figli suoi nessuna orrida belva.
E quanto addentro più il mio piè s’inselva,
tanto più calma e gioja in me si crea;
onde membrando com’io là godea,
spesso mia mente poscia si rinselva.
Non ch’io gli uomini abborra, e che in me stesso
mende non vegga, e più che in altri assai;
né ch’io mi creda al buon sentier più appresso:
ma, non mi piacque il vil mio secol mai:
e dal pesante regal giogo oppresso,
sol nei deserti tacciono i miei guai.\ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Cellos in G minor, RV 531, played by New Trinity Baroque (under Creative Commons).
