« Ho acceso una candela verde e sottile, per renderti gelosa di me; ma la stanza si è riempita subito di zanzare, hanno sentito che il mio corpo era libero....»
Inizia così
una delle canzoni più belle di Leonard Cohen, ballata sarcastica
sull'amore perduto con forte insistenza sulla freddezza di lei che lo
ha lasciato. Si sa, in amore capita. Essere lasciati non è mai
bello, i dettagli li lascio a chi conosce l'inglese ma Cohen commette
un errore e come entomologo (sia pur dilettante) sono costretto a
rimarcarlo: le zanzare non sono attirate dalla luce. Con la luce
accesa entrano nella stanza tanti insetti di tutti le specie, ma le
zanzare (mosquitos) cercano proprio noi, e sanno come trovarci anche
al buio. Purtroppo.
( un clic qui )
I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.
But the room just filled up with mosquitos,
they heard that my body was free.
Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe.
And then I confess
that I tortured
the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.
I showed my
heart to the doctor:
he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote
himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it!
Then he
locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse
that he's gotten much worse
and his
practice is all in a ruin.
I heard of a saint who had loved you,
so I
studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
is
to tarnish the golden rule.
And just when I was sure
that his
teachings were pure
he drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone
but back here on the lawn
his spirit continues to drool.
An Eskimo
showed me a movie
he'd recently taken of you:
the poor man could
hardly stop shivering,
his lips and his fingers were blue.
I suppose
that he froze
when the wind took your clothes
and I guess he just
never got warm.
But you stand there so nice,
in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm.qui qualcosa sulla genesi della canzone (disegno di Waldemar Bonsels)