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Viviana De Cecco’s translation of Amalia Guglielminetti’s poem: Anima duplice – Dual Soul (Italian to English)

Io in me, non vista, porto un'altra diversa me stessa,

che mi veglia indefessa con sguardo e con spirito assorto.


E una compagna attenta ch’ogni mio pensiero misura,

ch’ogni gesto con cura sagace analizza e commenta.


Due dissimili donne io celo nell’intima vita:

l'una folle e smarrita, l'altra cauta lucida insonne.


L’una che appar proterva, ma che s’abbandona e s'illude,

l'altra che in sé si chiude, spettatrice scettica e osserva.


Né l'una si rivolta all’altra e neppur le soggiace,

vivono quasi in pace unite la saggia e la stolta.


La stolta ombre accarezza per la via degli inganni e del male,

va l'altra a meta uguale, con fredda consapevolezza.

There is another, different, invisible self within me,

who keeps me under her unceasing watch with a pensive gaze and spirit.


She is an attentive companion, who measures my every thought,

analysing and commenting on my every gesture.


In my intimate life, I hide two different women:

One is crazy and lost; the other is careful, lucid, and sleepless.


One seems haughty, but indulges and deceives herself,

the other, who shuts herself away and observes like a skeptical spectator.


Neither rebels nor submits to the other,

the wise and the foolish coexist in relative peace.


The foolish one trusts the shadows on the path of deception and evil,

the other moves toward the same goal with cold consciousness.


Viviana De Cecco is a writer, translator, and visual artist. She works as a content writer and book reviewer for Tint Journal and NewMyths. She has translated several poems by twentieth-century authors and poets for Azonal Translation and Polyglot Magazine. She worked as a poetry translator for Atelier d’écriture, a poetry magazine in France. Her fiction have also appeared or are forthcoming in The Polyglot Magazine, Poets’ Choice, Azonal Translation, Yuvoice.org, Seaside Gothic, Black Cat Weekley, The Seize Press, Grim&Gilded, Hiraeth Magazine, Pressfuls Press, Dark Holme Publishing, and others. As an artist, her visual art and photography has appeared or is forthcoming in Mud Season Review, Acta Victoriana, Spellbinder Magazine, MayDay Magazine, Sunlight Press and others. She was the 2nd place winner of Sunlight Press Magazine’s 2024 Photography Contest. Since 2013, she has published short stories, poems and novels of various genres. Her literary works and photographs can be found at:
https://vivianadececco.altervista.org/

Amalia Guglielminetti was born in Turin in 1881 and, after the death of her father, grew up with two sisters and a brother in the home of her grandfather, an authoritarian and strict industrialist. There is no definite information about her mother, but she seems to have been rather absent and never involved in her education. After studying at religious schools, Amalia began writing poetry for the newspaper La Gazzetta del Popolo in 1903, but was most appreciated when she published her first volume of poems “The insane virgins” (Le vergini folli). After the publication of this book she met the famous crepuscular poet Guido Gozzano, who soon became her lover. In her poetry collections, however, Amalia also dealt with themes such as loneliness, grief and love. When she and Gozzano broke up, Amalia intertwined a troubled relationship with writer and journalist Dino Segre, which even led to her being sued for libel. She moved to Rome but failed to pursue a career as a journalist. She died alone in 1941 from septicemia.

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