Un giudice [English translation]

A judge

What does it mean to be

five feet height,

will be revealed to you by the eyes

and the jokes of the people,

or by the curiosity

of an irreverent girl

who approaches you only

because of her impudent doubt:

she wants to discover if it's true

what people say about the dwarfes,

which seem to be the most equipped

with the less apparent virtue,

among all the virtues

the most indecent.

Years pass, months pass,

and if you count them even minutes,

it is sad to be adults

without having grown;

malicious gossips insist,

the tongue beats on the drum

to the point of saying that a dwarf

is a bitch for sure

because he has the heart too much,

too much close to the asshole.

It was in sleepless nights

kept awake by the light of resentment

that I prepared the exams,

I became Attorney,

to access the road

that from the benches of a cathedral

bring you to the sacristy

then to the chair of a court:

Judge at last

arbitrator on Earth of good and evil.

And then my stature

did not dispense anymore high spirits

to whom standing at the bar

said to me “Your Honor”,

and to entrust them to the executioner

it was a pleasure of my own,

before kneeling down

in the hour of farewell

not knowing at all

the stature of God.

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