Italian Poetry

Today we read La prigionia di Don Ciccio, by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli.

Satirical poetry doesn’t get much screen time nowadays, even though in classical times it was a major subgenre.
The author of the following sonnet was an abbot and a jurist who got pissed with a colleague, one Bonaventura Arrighini, who once called him a coglione. That’s an insult we liberally use today too, though strictly speaking it means “testicle”.

As a retaliation, Lazzarelli started writing sonnet after sonnet ridiculing his adversary, whom he calls “Ciccio”, by finding 420 creative ways to liken him to the male gonads — one per each poem.

The name of the overall collection, which starts with the birth of Ciccio and follows along his “illustrious” life, is Cicceide. That sounds like Eneide, the famous epic poem by Virgil…

In this particular sonnet, the poor Ciccio is arrested after being found with a prostitute. To get the clever joke in the last terzina, let me explain that in Italian uccello is a slang term for “penis” (close to “cock”, I guess).
So when someone comes to Ciccio’s defence, they say he should not be be put in a cage because, afterall, cages are for birds (penises), while he is a coglione (testicle).

The original:

Ciccio l’altro dì, benché marito
D’una moglie garbata, e geniale,
Entrò, spinto da stimolo carnale,
In casa d’una Donna da partito.
Il che, per bocca d’una spia sentito
Dal Bargel de la Curia Episcopale,
V’andò, e legollo, e ’l trasse al Tribunale,
Dove presentemente è custodito.
Un, che trovossi allor presso al cancello.
Quando i Birri l’avean per i calzoni,
Fece quest’argomento al Barigello:
Probo quod contra jus tu l’imprigioni,
Lo stare in gabbia è proprio de l’ Uccello,
Ergo non v’hai da mettere i coglioni\ The music in this episode is Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, recorded by Elias Goldstein (Viola) and Christina Lalog (Piano) (in the public domain).