{"id":14731,"date":"2017-08-21T15:32:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T13:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=14731"},"modified":"2017-08-21T20:37:30","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T18:37:30","slug":"quel-mazzolin-di-fiori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/quel-mazzolin-di-fiori\/","title":{"rendered":"Quel Mazzolin Di Fiori"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gathered around <\/span>the old well in Ponticello<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, the local musician are singing <\/span>Quel Mazzolin <\/strong><\/span>D<\/span>i Fiori<\/span><\/strong> (That Little Bunch Of Flowers), a folk song that I loved as a child<\/span>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Composed in the second half of the nineteenth century, Quel Mazzolin <\/strong><\/span>D<\/span>i Fiori<\/span><\/strong> was to become one of the Alpini’s<\/strong> (Italian mountain troops) favourite songs during the First World War. It is written in a mixture of standard Italian and Northern dialect.<\/p>\n

When I was about five or six years old, I used to stand next to il giradischi<\/strong> (the turntable) listening to this song over and over again, but I was always puzzled by the ‘strange’ lyrics. The problem was that the recording we had of this song was performed by an all male Alpini choir. I assumed, therefore, that the person who had picked the bunch of flowers was a lad who wanted to present it to his girlfriend.<\/p>\n

Yet why did the ‘lad’ sing: “Lo voglio dare al mio moretto”<\/strong> (“I want to give it to my brown haired boy” … ‘moretto????’<\/strong> (‘brown haired BOY????’ …. shouldn’t it be ‘moretta<\/span>‘?<\/strong> (‘brown haired girl’<\/em>)”. Boys don’t give bunches of flowers to other boys! I said to myself.\u00a0 Maybe he meant to say ‘il mio amoretto’<\/strong> (‘my little love’)”, I reasoned.<\/p>\n

So, I’d managed to find a possible explanation for the first ‘grammatical error’, but then the rest of the song became even more confusing: “lui non \u00e8 venuto … \u00e8 andato dalla Rosina … mi son poverina”<\/strong> (“he didn’t come … he went to Rosina … I’m a poor lass”) … CHE DIAVOLO!?! <\/strong>(WHAT THE DEVIL!?!)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, more that forty years later, I realised that the person singing the song is meant to be a girl, and I could now enjoy it without puzzling over those inexplicable grammatical errors! Here are its first four verses, which are those most commonly sung today.<\/p>\n