Canzone dei dodici mesi [English translation]

January comes, silent and subtle,

a sleeping river

between its banks lies like snow

my ailing body, my ailing body

White rows of fields

lie in the plains,

they look like lovers after an elopement,

those dark, tired trees, those dark, tired trees.

February comes and the world keeps its head down,

but in banquets and on squares

ditch your sorrows and dress up as Harlequin,

Carnival is all over the streets, Carnival is all over the streets.

Winter is long still,

but hope springs in the heart

in the first days of sickly sun,

spring is dancing, spring is dancing.

March, singing, brings its rains,

the veil of fog is torn,

snowmelt in the creeks carries

the laughter of thaw, the laughter of thaw.

Fill your glass and get rid of winter

and of the useless penance,

the wing of time beats too fast,

you see it and it's already gone, you see it and it's already gone.

Oh days, oh months that run away endlessly,

my life is always similar to you,

different every year, yet the same every year,

a hand of tarot cards one never learns to play,

one never learns to play.

With long days invested in sleep,

sweet April comes,

what secrets about you were discovered by the poet

who called you cruel, who called you cruel?1

Yet in your days it's lovery to fall asleep

after making love,

as the earth sleeps at night

after a sunny day, after a sunny day.

I welcome May2 and the joyful flag3,

I welcome spring,

let the new love push out the old one

in the shade of the evening, in the shade of the evening.

I welcome May and the rose,

the poets' flower,

while I sing of it on my guitar

I drink to Cenne and Folgore, I drink to Cenne and Folgore4

June, ripeness of the year,

I thank God for you:

on one of your days, under the hot sun

I came into the world, I came into the world

and with the harvest in your hands

you bring us your treasure

with your ears of wheat you give bread to men

and gold to women, and gold to women.

Oh days, oh months that run away endlessly,

my life is always similar to you,

different every year, yet the same every year,

a hand of tarot cards one never learns to play,

one never learns to play.

With long days of light colours

here comes July, the lion,

rest, drink, and the world around you

looks like a vision.

No one works, August, in your tired,

long, idle hours,

it was never so enjoyable getting intoxicated

with wine and warmth, with wine and warmth.

September is the month of reconsideration

about years and age

after the summer it brings the usual gift

of doubt, of doubt.

You sit down and think and start playing again

with your identity

like sparkles in your fire

opportunities burn, opportunities burn.

I'm not sure everyone has understood, October,

your great beauty:

in those fat vats, as large as a full stomach,

you brew must and inebriation, you brew must and inebriation.

On my mountains, like mournful birds,

mad clouds flee,

on my copper-tinged mountains

low clouds raise like smoke, low clouds raise like smoke.

Oh days, oh months that run away endlessly,

my life is always similar to you,

different every year, yet the same every year,

a hand of tarot cards one never learns to play,

one never learns to play.

November falls and unsettling, heavy fog

covers the orchards,

in gardens consecrated to sorrow

the dead are celebrated, the dead are celebrated .

Rain falls and splashes your face

with dewdrops

one day, fate will turn you as well

into mud on the roads, into mud on the roads.

And I fall asleep, as if in hibernation,

at your gates, December,

along your days I spread

the sorrowful seeds of death, the sorrowful seeds of death.

Humans and things cast

feeble, lazy shadows on the ground,

but in your days, as foretold by prophets,

Christ, the tiger, is born, Christ, the tiger, is born.

Oh days, oh months that run away endlessly,

my life is always similar to you,

different every year, yet the same every year,

a hand of tarot cards one never learns to play,

one never learns to play.

1. reference to the incipit of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land 2. reference to Ben venga maggio by Angelo Poliziano, Italian 15th century poet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliziano. Full text: https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Ben_venga_maggio 3. Florentine Renaissance tradition, see here https://samwellerdog.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/may-canzone-dei-dodici-mes... 4. Italian 14th century poets. Both wrote sets of poems dedicated to the months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folg%C3%B3re_da_San_Gimignano

• Artist:Francesco Guccini
• Album:Radici