Un giudice [English translation]

What it means to be

one and a half meter in height,

you get to know through the eyes

and the jeers of people,

or the curiosity of a mouthy girl

who approaches you only

because of a cheeky doubt of hers:

she wants to find out if it’s true

what they say about dwarfs:

that they are the most provided

with the least apparent of virtues,

the most indecent among all virtues.1

The years, the months pass,

and, if you count them, the minutes do too;

it’s sad to find yourself an adult

without having grown up.

The malicious gossip insists,

it beats its tongue on the drum,

[it goes] as far as saying that a dwarf

is surely a vermin

because his heart is way,

way too close to his ass hole.

It was during the sleepless nights

– when I stayed awake in the light of resentment –

that I prepared for my exams:

I became a prosecutor,

to take the road

that, from the pews of a cathedral,

leads to the sacristy,

then to the desk of a courtroom;

[I became] a judge, finally,

an arbiter on earth about good and evil.

And then my stature

no longer dealt out good cheer

to those who – standing before the bar –

addressed me as “Your Honor”;

and entrusting them to the executioner

was a pleasure all of my own,

before genuflecting

in the time of my farewell,

since I didn’t know at all

what was the stature of God.

1. They say that the dwarfs’ “little buddy” is not as short as they are.

• Artist:Fabrizio De André
• Album:Non al denaro non all’amore né al cielo (1971)