# in vetrato cupolio



## jedna

Ciao members,

Translating the little Ungaretti poem: '_Tepida vaga matina', _(dated 'Bulciano il 22 agosto 1917):
_Abbarbagliati 
risvegli
sfiorenti
in vetrato
cupolio_
I meet a problem with the word_ 'cupolio'. _I searched everywhere but couldn't find an explanation/translation. So I asked myself if it could mean: _'cupola', _'_the dome _of heaven_' _(la volta celeste). But in that case: why 'in', instead of 'under'? Another idea that came up is: 'campana' (bell-glass) the thing which is meant with: 'putting the bell-glass/jar over the cheese'. In that case 'in' would fit already a little bit better, but not 100% satisfying too. Does someone know what 'cupolio' means, and if in the case of 'cupola' I could use 'under' instead of 'in'?

Many thanks in advance and kind regards,
jedna


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## Mary49

Hello jedna,
I think that it's a matter of stress: "cupolÌo", not "cupòlio", obviously. In this context in my opinion the term refers to a group of "cupole". As always, it is a word created by the poet.


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## jedna

Good afternoon Mary,

You're a genius  Many many thanks!!!Your idea makes sense, though it is a strange 'move' for me, not thinking/speaking in 'mothertongues' The situation -after me-  is that Ungaretti, as Italian soldier, awakes (in the company of the other soldiers (risvegl*i*), and maybe they slept (in the field) in tents, and that he (with the knowledge I have now, thanks to you) doesn't mean the 'volta celeste' but the 'roofs' of the tents, and compares them with cupole. But is it possible to use 'under' instead of 'in'? 

PS: I realize that these cupolio are made of glass, so they couldn't be tents. Sorry for this blunder!


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## Mary49

I don't know where Ungaretti set this poem; they may be tents made shining by the night dew, like glass domes.


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## jedna

I don't know either, and I couldn't find one single 'commento' on internet, but if these are tents, (and your above explanation -even if you write 'may be'- pushes me again in that direction) 'in' instead of 'under' should be okay.

Many thanks, again, for your great help,
Have a fine day and my best regards,
jedna


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## johngiovanni

"Bulciano il 22 agosto 1917".  At the end of August 1917 Ungaretti spent his leave in Bulciano, apparently in the house of Giovanni Papini.  (He wrote to Papini soon afterwards, saying "Porto con me una buona memoria; ho ritrovato il sereno nella tua casa".)
Perhaps the "cupolio" was some feature of his room there.


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## jedna

Good afternoon John!

Thank you for your interesting and precious info. (you're a real detective). I didn't know that! But how should I translate that 'cupolio'-word, if it is -as you presume- some feature of the room? In any case it has to be something out of glass, or something that gives the impression of glass, and something where he (Ungaretti) is situated '_in_'.
Inspired by you, I searched for 'Ungaretti Bulciano' and found this link, which might tell us something interesting in the first lines of page 24: Journal II, 1957-1969
In that case he might have meant the 'volta celeste', and might have seen those clouds als cupolio of glass..., but then...how to interpret 'cupolio' in this case...? Instead of 'a group of cupole', like Mary suggested, 'a flight of 'cupole' in the sense of 'a flight of birds'? Not the best idea, that word 'flight', I know, but I gave it to explain/give an impression of how those clouds could be seen. Moreover: I'm not sure if the poem refers to the 'room' or to the lines in the link I gave...


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## Fooler

Hi jedna,

I presume the meaning is referred to the sky as _a glass dome. *In* _is referred to _made of (in) glass _(fatta in/di vetro). See page 7 here too

Ungaretti, poeta


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## Mary49

Fooler said:


> I presume the meaning is referred to the sky as _a glass dome. *In* _is referred to _made of (in) glass _(fatta in/di vetro). See page 7 here too Ungaretti, poeta


Bravo! Ma quell' "in" vuol dire proprio "dentro", non "fatto di", almeno secondo me.


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## jedna

Good evening Fooler

Thank you so much for sending me those two links! Now I know _for sure_ that Ungaretti had the sky in mind, it helps me a lot!
If 'in' means: made of, as you say, I could possibly translate the lines into: Blinded awakenings, fading glass dome. But this doesn't make sense, because if you read: fading glass dome (thinking for example of clouds that disappear/dissolve), sfiorenti shouldn't be written in plural, which -in the poem- it is. Unless 'cupolio' means more than one glass dome (like Mary suggested), but that is denied by the text that (in your link, page 7) Ungaretti himself spoke: *un *vetrato cupolio... Another possibility could be that those 'awakenings' kind of 'evaporate' in/change into the glass dome (are lost in, absorbed by the air). Could this be a possibility? Otherwise: in short:.

PS: I received Mary's post a moment ago, and I agree.


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## bearded

jedna said:


> those 'awakenings' kind of 'evaporate' in/change into .


Hello jedna
I think you found the solution. At first the awakenings are 'abbarbagliati', i.e. the soldiers are 'abbagliati', then the 'abbaglio' _sfiorisce in vetrato cupolìo, _i.e. it fades into a less brilliant light, like through opaque dome glasses.  ''In'' goes with _sfiorenti._


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## jedna

Good morning bearded,

Thank you so much for confirming my last trial. I wasn't sure at all, because I couldn't find fading 'sfumarsi/attenuarsi/dissolversi' among the different 'sfiorirsi'=-synonyms.

Have a nice day and my best regards,
jedna


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## bearded

You are welcome.
In my understanding, here it is not _sfiorare _as you wrote_, _but _sfiorire _(present participle of 'sfiorare' would be _sfioranti)._
Have a nice day!


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## jedna

Oh, yes! My fault, caused by the Dizionario Etimologico, where I searched up 'sfiorire' a moment before I answered your post. D.E. said: 'vedi sfiorare', which I did; but I couldn't make head or tail of what I found there. Already rectified it.
Thanks for signalizing


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## Lorena1970

"sfiorenti in vetrato cupolio" = che si dissolvono / stemperano nel vetrato cupolio (= volta celeste)


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## jedna

Hi Lorena,

I translated the lines already as proposed by bearded and by you.

Thanks for your confirmation. It offers extra certainty
Have a nice day and kind regards,
jedna


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## barking fellows

Very hard - as usual. The ending part of the word "cupolìo" (-ìo) may perhaps be translated by "-ing".
What do you natives think? Other suggestions..?

And then, you (jedna) could invent a new word (like Ungaretti did):
cupuling, bubbling, ...


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## pebblespebbles

Hello,
I think barking is right. A new word is needed here.
The Ungaretti ' s new word "cupolio" makes me think something like "formicolio" or "brulichio" (lots of items) and "mormorio" (there is a sound in it) because of the ending in -io. Whit the meaning of "cupola".


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## jedna

Hi barking fellows,

Yes, I could invent a new word. But in that case I should know at least what Ungaretti exactly wanted to tell, which effect he wanted to achieve, changing 'cupola' into 'cupolio'... But not knowing this, every invention would be one out of the blue, and bring the risk being way off. If Ungaretti should have meant the noun taken as a verb -present participle (like your examples 'cupuling', 'bubbling', the original would have been 'cupolante' after me, and not 'cupolio'. So this 'cupolio' was and stays an enigma to me, and the best I can do in this case (after having thought of many different possibilities), is to stick to 'cupola'. I already thought of the possibility, if 'cupolio' might  be some kind of dialect  for 'cupola' from the Bulciano/Tuscany region where Ungaretti stayed at that very moment, or maybe a long forgotten etymological word.

Many thanks for trying to help,
have a nice evening and kind regards,
jedna

Hi pebblespebbles,

So you think (brulichio) in the direction of Mary's post #2? But I meet problems to visualize this image in my mind, if not 'tents' are meant, but the volta celeste.


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## pebblespebbles

Hi jedna,
The thing with a new word is that is new, it is something different from everything we knew before. Then , to me, there is more the sound to imagine than a visual thing.I think Ungaretti is playing with the sound of the word a lots most of the time...like the futurist poets...with double meanings. In Italian, if you use few words unrelated by articles, the sentence splits opening to several meanings.(that is what he does mist of the time)
I can suggest something like "doming" or what else others already said....


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## jedna

Hi pebblespebbles,

You are right: the thing with a new word is that it is new. But.... I'm not a poet/the poet. I'm trying to translate his poems, and I have to respect the poet's ideas and words and have to find a proper translation for his neologisms. I can interpret them in my own language, push the boundaries, but cannot exceed these, and create words that don't match with the original.
That's why I said that one has to understand what is meant with 'cupolio' in the first place, before one can think of a proper translation/neologism in one's own language. The only thing I can imagine is to translate like this: _cupola_ in my language is: _koepel_ (dome). _Cupolio_ could become: _gekoepelte, _a word that I cannot translate into English (maybe: _doming_, as you proposed?) or Italian (maybe: cupolio), because it doesn't exist... _didn't_ exist... till a moment ago, but it's a noun, and not a present participle verb, and it feels very good!  Think I'll change it right away!

So:many thanks to you and barking fellows for helping me think further
Have a nice evening, and my kind regards
jedna


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## pebblespebbles

Hi jedna,
You are welcome...I'm not a poet neither of course, I remember few bits of what I studied in high school ..but I love Ungaretti. Enjoying translating. Poems are the most difficult to traslate...


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## Lorena1970

jedna said:


> Hi barking fellows,
> 
> Yes, I could invent a new word. But in that case I should know at least what Ungaretti exactly wanted to tell,



Not a dialect term. I live in Tuscany and be sure it doesn't exist. There are some suggestions which assert it means tiepida vaga mattina


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## jedna

Hi Lorena,

Thank you for telling that 'cupolio' isn't a dialect term. And thanks for the link too. Fooler sent it already, but after one time of opening, I only got blank pages, which often happens with google books.
I see that Ungaretti changed 'frusciare' into 'sfiorire', and 'under their domes' into 'in vetrato cupolio'. And the blinding light (they -the soldiers?- are abbarbagliati) changes into grey clouds, which is meant by sfiorire/sfiorenti (si dissolvono, as you already said in your former post). Though I don't understand why Ungaretti changed 'frusciare' into 'sfiorire' (what was the connection in Ungaretti's mind?) As to 'abbarbagliati' my thoughts went also in the direction of the soldiers being 'abbarbagliati' (mentally/emotionally) by the hysteria of the war  (double meaning: 1. the blinding morninglight, 2. the blinding hysteria of the war). But I suppose that these thoughts are not really relevant for the translation.

Have a good night and my kind regards,
jedna


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## Lorena1970

Carlo Ossola is the most important expert in Ungaretti poetry. I cannot help more but maybe it's worth to buy his book. Here a screenshot of the page I linked above. Good luck!


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## jedna

Thanks Lorena
I was still thinking of the changing of _frusciando_ into _sfiorenti_. Maybe because Ungaretti meant with frusciando only the rustling sound of leaves/grass/plants, or the rustling sounds made by the awaking soldiers in the first place, and that he changed it into 'sfiorenti' so that this verb could be combined with _and_ the awaking nature and/or soldiers _and_ the vetrato cupolio.
I'll see if I can find a copy of Ossola's book. Seems very interesting! After a little search on internet I discovered the book 'Ungaretti, poeta' was edited only in 2016, so a very recent edition!


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## Lorena1970

I am sorry! I confused the title with the meaning.....................
Apologies for that. I am too tired.......So I guess again that the meaning is "la volta celeste", but I suggest indeed to read Ossola. Good night!


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## barking fellows

Jedna I don't think that a word ending with -ing is always a verb. I thought of cupuling/bubbling and I may think of doming as nouns. To me, the meaning of cupolio is lots/groups of "cupole" (see Mary's #2) but I'm not the Ungaretti expert. And I was hoping some native could maybe suggest some other ending, different from -ing...

EDIT: Although Ugaretti spoke about UN vetrato cupolio, that makes me think of a lot/group of "cupole". How can I explain this? "Gente" is singular in Italian but it means "people", which is plural. And when you say "A lot" or "UN sacco" you mean "many" or "tanti"


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## pebblespebbles

Hi jedna,
Barking is right. "Cupolio" is not a verb, is a noun. (Like formicolio, fruscio etc..).


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## jedna

@lorena,
No need to say 'sorry', Lorena 

@barking fellows,
Yes, I thought you meant the verb. Only afterwards I realized that you gave your examples meant as a noun.
Sorry, my fault, and I should have told you earlier that -at first- I was mistaken
I understand perfectly well what you want to explain with 'gente'. In my language one can translate this into the singular 'volk' (folk/nation/race) and into the plural 'mensen' (folks/people).
Ungaretti spoke of _un_ vetrato cupolio, but the translation into Dutch 'gekoepelte' can mean _one_ cupola but also a _system_ of cupole, (like: volk) so I'm safe

@pebblespebbles,
I know that cupolio is a noun. I only thought that barking fellows meant to make a verb out of the noun, but I was mistaken

Have a nice day, you three,
and kind regards,
jedna


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