Translation:Mozart and Salieri

Scene 1
(A room)

Salieri Some people say: there is no right on earth. Not in the heavens, neither! This to me Appears as clear as any simple scale. I came into this world in love with art. Yet on a childhood day, when in the heights Of our old church the lofty pipes resounded, I listened, and was lost in listening -- tears Were pouring out, involuntary, sweet! In early years I spurned all idle pastimes; All sciences extraneous to music Disgusted me; with obstinate disdain I soon rejected them and gave myself To music only. Hard the initial step, And dull the initial path. I overcame The first adversities. I put up craft To constitute the pedestal of art. I turned into a craftsman: to my fingers I taught submissive, dry dexterity; My ear, precision. Having stifled sounds, I cut up music like a corpse. I measured Harmony by arythmetics. Then only, Well-versed in science, dared I give myself To the sweet languor of creative fancy. I started to compose, but still in silence, Still secretly, not dreaming yet of glory. Quite often, having sat in my mute cell For two, three days - both sleep and food forgotten, The thrill and tears of inspiration savored - I burned my work, and frigidly observed How my ideas, the sounds I had begotten, Took flame and disappeared with the light smoke. And what of that? When star-enchanted Gluck Arose and opened up to us new secrets (What candidly profound, what charming secrets!), Did I not leave all I had known before, And loved so much, and trusted with such fervor, To follow him, submissively and gaily, Like one who has gone errant yet encounters A man to set him on a different course? By arduous, ever-earnest constancy At last in the infinity of art I reached a high degree. Now glory smiled Upon me finally; in people's hearts I found strings consonant to my creations. I was content; at peace I took delight In my own work, success and glory -- also In works and in successes of my friends, My gentle comrades in the wondrous art. No, never did I know the sting of envy! O, never! -- neither even when Piccini Knew how to charm the savage ears of Paris, Nor when I got to hear for the first time The initial harmonies of "Iphigenia"... Who'd say that proud Salieri would in life Be a repellent envier, a serpent Trampled by people, gnawing sand and dust In impotence? No one! And now -- I'll say it -- I am an envier. I envy; sorely, Profoundly now I envy. -- Pray, o Heaven! Where, where is rightness? when the sacred gift, Immortal genius, comes not in reward For fervent love, for total self-rejection, For work and for exertion and for prayers, But casts its light upon a madman's head, An idle loafer's brow... O Mozart, Mozart!

(Enter Mozart.)

Mozart Aha! You saw me! Damn - and I was hoping To treat you with an unexpected joke.

Salieri You here! -- since long?

Mozart Just now. I had Something to show you; I was on my way, But passing by an inn, all of a sudden I heard a violin... My friend Salieri, In your whole life you haven't heard anything So funny: this blind fiddler in the inn Was playing the "voi che sapete". Wondrous! I couldn't keep myself from bringing him To treat you to his art. Entrez, maestro!

(Enter a blind old man with a violin.)

Some Mozart, now!

(The old man plays an aria from Don Giovanni; Mozart roars with laughter.)

Salieri And you can laugh?

Mozart Ah, come, Salieri, aren't you laughing?

Salieri No, I'm not! How can I laugh when some inferior dauber Stains in my view the great Raphael's Madonna; How can I laugh when some repellent mummer With tasteless parodies dishonors Dante. Begone, old man!

Mozart Hold on a moment: here, Take this to drink my health.

(The old man leaves.)

You, my Salieri, Seem squarely out of sorts. Well, I'll come back Some other time.

Salieri What did you bring me?

Mozart This? No, just a trifle. Late the other night, As my insomnia was full upon me, Brought some two, three ideas into my head; Today I jot them down... O well, I hoped To hear what you may think of this, but now You're in no mood for me.

Salieri Ah, Mozart, Mozart! When am I ever in no mood for you? Sit down; I'm listening.

Mozart (at the piano) Picture... well, whom should you?.. Say, even me -- a little younger, though; In love -- not much, just lightly -- having fun With a good-looking girl, or friend -- say, you; I'm merry... All at once -- a deathly vision, A sudden gloom, or something of that sort... Well, listen. (He plays.)

Salieri You were bringing this to me And could just stop and listen at some inn To a blind fiddler scraping! -- Oh, my goodness! You, Mozart, are unworthy of yourself.

Mozart So, it is good then?

Salieri What profundity! What symmetry and what audacity! You, Mozart, are a god -- and you don't know it. But I, I know.

Mozart Well! rightly? well, perhaps... But My Divinity has gotten hungry.

Salieri Then listen: how about we dine together, Say, at the Golden Lion's Inn?

Mozart So be it; I'm glad. But let me first drop in at home And tell my wife not to expect me later For dinner. (He leaves.)

Salieri I am waiting; don't you fail me! No, I cannot withstand it any longer, Resist my destiny: I have been chosen To stop him -- otherwise, all of us die! All of us priests and votaries of music, Not I alone with my faint-sounding glory... What use is there in Mozart living on And reaching yet to new and greater heights? Will he thus lift up art? Not really: art Will fall again as soon as he will vanish. He will bequeath us no inheritor. What use is he? Like some celestial cherub, He came to bring us several tunes from heaven, To rouse within us, creatures of the dust, Wingless desire and fly away thereafter. So fly away! the sooner now, the better.

Here's poison -- late Isora's final gift. For eighteen years I've carried it with me, And life since then has seemed to me quite often A wound unbearable; and oft I sat At the same table with a carefree foe, And never to the whisper of temptation Have I inclined -- although I'm not a coward, Though I can feel profoundly the offense, Though small my love for life. I kept delaying, As thirst of death excruciated me. Why die? I mused: perhaps yet life will bring Some sudden gifts before me from her treasures; Perhaps, I will be visited by raptures And a creative night and inspiration; Perhaps, another Haydn will create New greatnesses -- wherein I will delight... As I was feasting with a hateful guest -- Perhaps, I mused, I'm yet to find a worse, More vicious foe; perhaps, a worse offense Will crash upon me from disdainful heights -- Then you shall not be lost, Isora's gift. And I was right! and I have found at last My greatest foe, and now the other Haydn Has filled me wonderfully with my rapture! The time has come! Prophetic gift of love, Transfer today into the cup of friendship.

Scene 2
(A special room at an inn; a piano. Mozart and Salieri at a table.) Salieri You seem a little down today?

Mozart Me? No!

Salieri You surely are upset with something, Mozart? Good dinner, glorious wine, but you keep quiet And sit there looking gloomy.

Mozart I should own, My Requiem's unsettling me.

Salieri Your Requiem!-- You've been composing one? Since long ago?

Mozart Long: some three weeks. A curious incident... I haven't told you, have I?

Salieri No.

Mozart Then listen: About three week ago, I came back home Quite late at night. They told me that some person Had called on me. And then, I don't know why, The whole night through I thought: who could it be? What does he need of me? Tomorrow also The same man came and didn't find me in. The third day, I was playing with my boy Upon the floor. They hailed me; I came out Into the hall. A man, all clad in black, Bowed courteously in front of me, commissioned A Requiem and vanished. I at once Sat down and started writing it -- and since, My man in black has not come by again. Which makes me glad, because I would be sorry To part with my endeavor, though the Requiem Is nearly done. But meanwhile I am...

Salieri What?

Mozart I'm quite ashamed to own to this...

Salieri What is it?

Mozart By day and night my man in black would not Leave me in peace. Wherever I might go, He tails me like a shadow. Even now It seems to me he's sitting here with us, A third...

Salieri Enough! what is this childish terror? Dispel the empty fancies. Beaumarchais Used to instruct me: "Listen, old Salieri, Whenever black thoughts come into your head, Uncork yourself another Champagne bottle Or reread 'Le mariage de Figaro.'"

Mozart Yes! I remember, you were boon companions With Beaumarchais; you wrote "Tarare" for him -- A glorious thing. It has one melody... I keep on singing it when I feel happy... La la la la... Ah, is it right, Salieri, That Beaumarchais could really poison someone?

Salieri I doubt he did: too laughable a fellow For such a serious craft.

Mozart He was a genius, Like you and me. While genius and evildoing Are incompatibles. Is that not right?

Salieri You think so? (Throws the poison into Mozart's glass.) Well, now drink.

Mozart Here is a health To you, my friend, and to the candid union That ties together Mozart and Salieri, Two sons of harmony.

Salieri But wait, hold on, Hold on, hold on!.. You drank it!.. Without me?

Mozart (throws his napkin on the table) That's it, I'm full. (He goes to the piano.) And now, Salieri, listen: My Requiem. (He plays.) You weep?

Salieri Such tears as these I shed for the first time. It hurts, yet soothes, As if I had fulfilled a heavy duty, As if at last the healing knife had chopped A suffering member off. These tears, o Mozart!.. Pay no respect to them; continue, hurry To fill my soul with those celestial sounds...

Mozart If only all so quickly felt the power Of harmony! But no, in that event The world could not exist; all would abandon The basic needs of ordinary life And give themselves to unencumbered art. We're few, the fortune's chosen, happy idlers, Despising the repellent cares of use, True votaries of one and only beauty. Is that not right? But now I'm feeling sick And kind of heavy. I should go and sleep. Farewell then!

Salieri See you later. (Alone.) You will sleep For long, Mozart! But what if he is right? I am no genius? "Genius and evildoing Are incompatibles." That is not true: And Buonarotti ?.. Or is it a legend Of the dull-witted, senseless crowd -- while really The Vatican's creator was no murderer?

THE END