Memory, emotion and imagination: an introduction to  Adagio Transumante by Elio Peretti.

This introduction in English to “Adagio Transumante” is written in memory of the shepherds of Abruzzo who crossed the  Oceans. Emanuela Medoro   

Adagio Transumante is a short poem in unrhymed lines of different length. The main theme is the pastoral way of life in the Abruzzo highlands that dates back to the Middle Ages and went on and on for centuries.

The poem is a rich texture of memory, history, emotions, feelings, culture and imagination, organized in free associations expressed in strophes of a variable number of lines .It develops in a slow movement between reality and myth.

 The careful and aware   quotation of tools ,  work habits and places  is a realistic picture of the shepherds’ traditional characteristic way of life, while  the singular quality of the language chosen for description gives  the  shepherds’ a dimension above  time which is the root of the popular culture and memory of today’s Abruzzesi people.

The life of these shepherds  was characterized by   the seasonal movement, called in Italian “transumanza ” , from the highlands of Abruzzi to the lowlands in the Tavoliere of Puglia and vice versa, in search of rich pastures for the sheep. The beginning of this movement is in September, back home to the mountains in spring and so  on and on,  for centuries.

 The shepherds were not only adult men, but also kids (il biscino), whose  task was to carry water and help with the sheep.

 The main characteristic of the shepherds is mildness. A solemn biblical quality, mild Abel, in fact,  used to lead lambs to pastures. This meek unchanging submission is associated to religious feelings and habits, here and there quoted in the text:  deep simple faith, dawn and evening prayers , the San Michele bell-tower, Sunday rites, All Saints’ Day, Christmas Day mark the flow of time with solitary prayers that overcome sadness, soften grief and sorrows. All feelings and emotions are silent and solitary, no one to share them with, only dogs and sheep, in wide, windy and solitary spaces. 

The memory  of the shepherds’ everyday life from autumn to spring  includes the recollection of the objects they carry with them on setting off from their home villages .They are personal  objects and working tools : A shoulder bag (bisaccia), an umbrella, a haversack (tascapane), tools to carve wood (scheggia raschiatoia , mozzetta), a lantern (lanterna), a hurdy-gurdy ( organetto),a harmonica, a pail ( secchia), a caudron (la caldara). Drops of time, today.  

 Among these objects, one is relevant for a symbolic meaning: shepherds used to walk along tracks  carrying sticks. In this poem they   are scepters turning the shepherds into the  kings of  the lonely places where they live and work. The only real king quoted in the poem is King Ferrante D’Aragona, who organized the tracks from the highlands of Abruzzi to the lowlands of Puglia, allowing the free crossing for all.

Nature is considered as wide open spaces more than  as color .However the dominant color is green. Green is grass, green is the river, green is the dress dreamt of by a shepherd’s sister, the only woman quoted in the poem.

 The most emphasized time of the day  is sunset, when work is over and darkness approaches .Then the shepherds are alone and concentrated on their thoughts, dreams, fears and ghosts.

Their lives spent in such a hard job are illuminated by a hope: in spring the sun will shine again and  will lead them home. This belief in a better tomorrow which illuminated these men has vanished with them.    

The poet’s dominant attitude  for these shepherds is a positive esteem, respect and love. All of them are considered as a “grandfather who gave life to my father” .

The main aspects of the “transumanza” are described by means of a special and personal kind of language: a peculiar, fascinating blend of traditional Italian   and archaic dialectical words or phrases, usually in inverted commas .This peculiarity gives the shepherds the character of popular  heroes of a time past forever. 

Here and there quotations from poets (D’ Annunzio, Settembre, G. Leopardi, Il Canto Notturno di un Pastore  Errante dell’Asia, l’Orlando di Ariosto e di Boiardo),give these shepherds/heroes a contact with high literature  laying them up in the dimension of myth.

 So  the  narrow reality of Abruzzo is overcome and  the shepherds become parts of a wider world where people of different and far away countries and cultures  are united by the same experience of hard lonely life, in communion with nature.

The text has some linguistic difficulties even for Italian/Abruzzesi readers. But thank to the  very good translation into English which gives the basic meanings in simple and smooth language, the poem is made available to a wide range of readers, even to the ones living beyond the narrow linguistic borders of the Abruzzesi mountains.

Dialect words  of Adagio Transumante:

Ainucciu                                                                     A newborn lamb

Allammende                                                                A memory, a recollection

Biscino                                                            A kid shepherd

Caciaro                                                                      A cheese maker

Caciolaro                                                                    A man who salts cheese

Carfagna                                                                     A slow ewe

Ciavarra                                                                     A young ewe

Cordesca                                                                    A spring delivering ewe

Fellata                                                                        A yearling sheep, a teg

Isciacqueggia                                                              Swashing (from D’annunzio “isciacquio”)

Iaccio                                                                         Fold

Ju maggiore                                                                 The boss

Lattaia                                                                        A ewe which feeds lambs

Lisca                                                                          A slice of bread

Morra                                                                         A flock of sheep

Mulacchia                                                                   A ewe giving birth before rising back to the home highlands.

Pesande                                                                      Saltless cheese

Pirocca                                                                       A stick

Redine                                                                        Mules carrying household goods and victuals

Scasata                                                                       Animals moving along the shepherds’ track

Scotta                                                                         A soup made out of whey

Specoramento                                                            Selection in the flock, to kill the oldest

Sterpa                                                                        An old ewe

Taccozzelle                                                                 Pasta hand made with  flour and water.

Vernareccia                                                                A young ewe

Zorrone                                                                      An aged  ram

                                                                                                          Emanuela Medoro, marzo 2006