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→"Il testamento di Tito"
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==="Il testamento di Tito"=== | ==="Il testamento di Tito"=== | ||
;("Titus's Testament") | ;("Titus's Testament") | ||
Probably the album's best-known song, it revolves entirely around Titus, | Probably the album's best-known song, it revolves entirely around Titus, the "penitent thief". While on the cross, he explains the [[wikipedia:Ten Commandments|Ten Commandments]] from his point of view, saying that even though he didn't respect any of them, he never felt any sorrow or guilt, because the events of life, which the Commandments don't take into account, drove him to do it.<br /> | ||
Then, before dying, he tells his mother how, through the sorrow for the fate of "[[wikipedia:Jesus|this dying man]]",<ref>Original lyrics: "[...]io nel vedere quest'uomo che muore/Madre, io provo dolore[...]".</ref> he has [[wikipedia:Penitent thief|learned love]]. | Then, before dying, he tells his mother how, through the sorrow for the fate of "[[wikipedia:Jesus|this dying man]]",<ref>Original lyrics: "[...]io nel vedere quest'uomo che muore/Madre, io provo dolore[...]".</ref> he has [[wikipedia:Penitent thief|learned love]]. | ||
The journalist [[w:it:Andrea Monda|Andrea Monda]], director of the Vatican newspaper [[w:L'Osservatore Romano|L'Osservatore Romano]], notes that this last song in the album is in reality a hymn to the mercy of Jesus. In fact Fabrizio De André himself said, during an interview with Giampaolo Mattei<ref>Mattei published this and other similar interviews in the volume '''''Anima mia''''' (1998)</ref>: | |||
{{Quote|text=Noone can take away the idea that Jesus Christ would have saved both of the thieves who were crucified alongside him, yes, even the impenitente one.|author=Fabrizio De André|source=interview with Giampaolo Mattei}} | |||
This long acoustic ballad, which has ten verses each of which is dedicated to one of the Ten Commandments, tella the story of the life and death of the "good thief" Titus, and yet from the lyrics Titus doesn't actually seem all that "good". He is an angry and wounded man, and he expresses resentment and vindication. A bitter irony, ready to fall into sarcasm, is in his words, even when speaking about God, with whom he speaks by reminding him and even taunting him about His [[w:Ten Commandments|Decalogue]]. At the eighth commandment Titus makes his greatest accusation: «They know divine law by heart, / but they always forget about forgiveness». Titus condemns pharisaism, in other words the hypocrisy of those who preach a formal compliance with the law but never exercise mercy. A criticism of religion which does however reveal the search for a true, sincere and believable faith. A search that doesn't appear explicitly in the song but is surely present in the finale which sheds a whole new light on the whole song. | |||
It is in fact in the finale that the song accomplishes a breakthrough and turns the ballad into a dizzying emotion: in these ten verses about the Ten Commandments, there is a sort of an interruption after the ninth, and even the guitars stop in order to bring our attention to the voice of the songwriter, and as though he were speaking directly to those listening, he hints in the last verse at those two other commandments, the ones that sum up all the others of the old law, using the words of Jesus. After having spit out all the bitterness within him, Titus looks up, overcoming the weight of his head crushed to his chest from his torment, and finally looks beyond himself and sees the person next to him, Jesus: «seeing this man as he was dying, / mother, I feel sorrow». Up until that moment he had been an “homo curvatus” to use the expression of Saint Augustine, he had been closed in on himself, and now he emerges from his solipsism and opens himself to someone else finding in this other person someone who is similar to him, someone who is in his own condition, and he admits that he feels a sorrow for this man like no other he had ever felt before, having always angrily and arrogantly shut it out. | |||
Tito prova compassione, in quel momento si scopre essere umano e si scopre vivo. Egli “nasce” in quel momento, alla fine di una esistenza che solo apparentemente poteva essere definita “vita”. La sua durezza si scioglie, frana. Lo capisce lì, sulla croce, che il segreto di una vita veramente umana sta in quella cosa misteriosa, l’amore, che fino ad allora non aveva compreso («io forse ho confuso il piacere e l’amore» cantava nella sesta strofa). Lo dice chiaramente l’ultimo verso, definitivo, che riscatta tutto il suo amaro bilancio: «Nella pietà che non cede al rancore, / madre, ho imparato l’amore». E non è un caso che per due volte sia ripetuta quella parola, “madre ” (è la mamma di Tito o | |||
Maria?), un punto di luce nel buio del Golgota; da quel punto Tito, proprio mentre muore, può ripartire, perché «Non c’è vita che almeno per un attimo non sia stata immortale. La morte è sempre in ritardo di quell'attimo» (W. Szymborska).<ref>{{Cita news|titolo=Misericordia e riscatto|autore=Andrea Monda|pubblicazione=L'Osservatore Romano|p=10|data=10 aprile 2020}}</ref> | |||
==="Laudate hominem"=== | ==="Laudate hominem"=== | ||