Un giudice [English translation]

What does it mean to have

five feet in stature,

I'll proving to the eyes

and the lines of people,

or the curiosity

of an irreverent girl

that only brings you closer

for her impertinent question:

she wants to know if it is true

what they say around the dwarves,

which are best provided

of the virtue, the less apparent,

among all the virtues

the most indecent.

The years go by, the months,

and if you count the minutes too,

it is sad to be adults

without being grownup;

backbiting insists,

the tongue beats on the drum

far as to say that a dwarf

is a bitch for sure

because his heart is too

too close to the asshole.

It was in the sleepless nights

vigilant to the lumen of resentment

that I prepared for exams.

I became Attorney

to take the road

that from the benches of a cathedral

brings to the sacristy

then to the chair of a court

Judge finally,

arbitrator on the ground of good and evil.

And then my height

did not dispens any more humor

to those standing at the bar

they said to me, "Your Honor,"

and to entrust them to the Executioner

it was a pleasure of my own,

before genuflecting myself

at 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)