Buondì.
Can you lick your nose like a cow?
The reason I ask is that Dante meets a condemned soul who can, and is quite repulsed!
Though perhaps that’s because the guy was an usurer, it’s not clear.
Here’s Dante’s description in the original:
Qui distorse la bocca e di fuor trasse
la lingua, come bue che ’l naso lecchi.
Along with Francesca’s rendering into modern Italian:
Allora distorse la bocca e tirò fuori
la lingua, come un bue che si lecca il naso.
And Longfellow’s English translation:
Then twisted he his mouth, and forth he thrust
His tongue, like to an ox that licks its nose.
There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?
If you’ve been avoiding taking the plunge, so to speak, find out more in Canto XVII of our Dante’s Inferno series.
The whole series is linked to from the new Literature page. There are short extracts from seventeen cantos so far, with more coming!
And if you CAN lick your nose like a cow, do send me a picture, to publish on Monday…
So what else?
It looks as if this will be the last weekend of a long, hot summer, here in Italy. From Monday, temperatures are set to fall, then stay low, at least for a while.
And talking of long, hot summers, here’s a final reminder about this week’s special launch promotion on our new easy reader ebook, ‘Il mistero della quercia‘.
Buy it by Sunday night and spend just £5.99 for this original and entertaining study material!
Or you could wait until Monday and pay the usual easy reader price of £7.99 – that would be fine, too.
Il mistero della quercia, just £5.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | Browse the catalog
P.S.
Have you read/listened to Thursday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news, yet?
There’s no excuse not to, as it’s completely free.
That said, EasyItalianNews.com is (partially) funded by donations.
See the names of our generous supporters here, along with the amounts we raised each month since we began last September (probably around half of what the site has cost to produce…)
Getting your name on the roll of honour is easy! Or you could help us out but remain anonymous – people do.
In a couple of weeks it’ll be EasyItalianNews.com‘s birthday!
Watch this space to see how we plan to celebrate.
P.P.S.
OnlinePoem.com has MORE THAN DOUBLED its number of subscribers this week.
There are now fifteen of us! What a cultured bunch we are, indeed.
Join us, for free, by filling in this form.
A lunedì, allora!