![]() ![]() Of soot and grease that sticks to the houses, that in the brawling Butįrom these words you realize at once how Olivia is shrouded in a cloud Spinning jets water a lawn where a white peacock spreads its tail. Prosperity only by speaking of filigree palaces with fringed cushions Olivia, a city rich in products and in profits. Nothing exists or happens in the one Valdrada that the other Thus the traveler, arriving, sees twoĬities: one erect above the lake, and the other reflected, upsideĭown. Verandas one above the other, and high streets whose railed parapets The ancients built Valdrada on the shores of a lake, with houses all Vessel that will take him away from the desert, a windjammer about toĬast off, with the breeze already swelling the sails, not yet Thinks of a ship he knows it is a city, but he thinks of it as a White and red windsocks flapping, the chimney belching smoke, he Pinnacles of the skyscrapers come into view, the radar antennae, the When the camel driver sees, at the horizon of the tableland, the Model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before, and what hadīeen until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass Making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of These are theįorms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had You see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis, stands a metalīuilding with a crystal globe in every room. Recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and Question which could also have been formulated: 'Journeys to recover yourĪnd Marco's answer was: 'Elsewhere is a negative mirror. 'Journeys to relive your past?' was the Khan's question at this point, a Marco Polo imagined himself interrupted, with a question. You would do as wellĪt this point Kublai Khan interrupted him or imagined interrupting him, or You cross archipelagos, tundras, mountain ranges. Instead of the palace there is a village on pilings and the breezeĬarries with it the stench of a muddy estuary." (p.28) "Whatever country my words mayĮvoke around you, you will see it from such a vantage point, even if We are seated on the steps of your palace, There is a What is the use, then, of all your traveling?" And you?" the Great Khan asked Polo, "you returnįrom lands equally distant and you can tell me only the thoughts thatĬome to a man who sits on his doorstep at evening to enjoy the coolĪir. Or else they inform me of newly discovered turquoise mines,Īdvantageous prices in marten furs, suggestions for supplyingĭamascened blades. "The other ambassadors warn me of famines, extortions, conspiracies, On thatĭay you will be an emblem among emblems." Shall I be able to possess my empire, at last?"Īnd the Venetian answered: "Sire, do not believe it. "On the day when I know all the emblems," asked Marco, Had the power of emblems, which, once seen, cannot be forgotten or But, obscure or obvious as it might be, everything Marco displayed The leap of a fish escaping the cormorant's beak to fall into a net Īnother city by a naked man running through fire unscorched a thirdīy a skull, its tree green with mold, clutching a round, white, pearl. His knapsacks - ostrich plumes, pea-shooters, quartzes - which heĪrranged in front of him like chessmen. Of horror, animal barkings or hootings, or with objects he took from Newly arrived and ignorant of the Levantine languages, Marco PoloĬould express himself only with gestures, leaps, cries of wonder and The lighted ground-floor windows, each with a woman combing her Has made us the heirs of their long undoing. Is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption's gangrene It is the desperate moment when we discover that thisĮmpire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, Who beseech our armies' protection, offering inĮxchange annual tributes of precious metals, tanned hides, and The despatches announcing to us the collapse of the last enemy troops,Īnd flakes the wax of the seals of obscure kings Of the planispheres where they are portrayed, With the odor of the elephants after the rainĪnd the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers,Ī dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, We shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. In the lives of emperors there is a momentīoundless extension of territories we have conquered, The greatest leaps of imagnation in modern poetry. Kublai Khan's empire as Marco Polo describes them to him. Lyrical prose poems, each covering the unique soul of different cities in Topics: | fiction | poetry | italian | semantics Book unexamined is wasting trees Invisible Cities Italo Calvino and William Weaver (tr.) ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |