John Keats
The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats
Cambrige Edition
Edited by: Horace E. Scudder
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company [1899]
traduzione-by © poetrypark
***
Gatto!, tu che il tuo grand climacteric hai superato,
quanti topi e ratti ai tuoi tempi
hai sterminato? Quante leccornie rubato? Guardi attento
con quei brillanti, languidi, verdi segmenti, e drizzi
quelle vellutate orecchie – ma, ti prego, non conficcarmi
i retrattili tuoi artigli e aumenta
il tuo gentile miagolo e dimmi tutte le tue zuffe
con pesci e topi e ratti e teneri pulcini.
No, non guardar giù, non leccar le tue belle zampe; –
nonostante la tua ansimante asma, e nonostante
che la punta della tua coda sia smozzicata,
e quantunque i pugni e tanti che la domestica ti diè,
t’abbiano ben conciato, ancor quella pelliccia è soffice,
come quando in giovinezza entrasti in lizza
sopra un muro che guarniva vetri di bottiglia.
***
These verses were addressed by Keats to a
cat belonging to Mrs. Reynolds of Little Britain,
the mother of his friend John Hamilton
Reynolds. Mrs. Reynolds gave the verses to
her son-in-law, Tom Hood, who published them
in his Comic Annual for 1830.
Cat! who has[t] pass’d thy grand clima[c]teric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? — How many tit-bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears — but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me — and upraise
Thy gentle mew — and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick :
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists
For all the wheezy asthma, — and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off — and though the fists
Of many a maid has given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass-bottled wall.
***
