La Mazurca Della Nonna

Grandma's Mazurka

When you hear a little orchestra,
between an American dance,
strumming a Mazurka
with a country air,
you then think of the 'quadrille'
from a good old time that passed,
when they used the 'pair'
attached to the 'carriages',
when there were no 'tangos' and 'fox-trots'.

Ah! The Mazurka
that my grandma used to dance,
with braids hanging down
and with bloomers under her skirt.
When my grandpa,
to kiss her hand,
didn't use the ladder
but the bicycle up to the first floor.

The young lads,
twenty years old or a little more,
how handsome they were
with their mustaches pointing up.
Ah! The Mazurka
from a very distant past,
when before getting married
they stood looking at each other holding hands.

Now they dance the 'Carioca'
the saxophone resounds,
but my grandpa still plays
the trumpet gramophone.
He thinks, alas, with nostalgia,
of the old youth,
when back then every 'Maria' wasn't 'Mariù'.
How beautiful that time was!

Ah! The Mazurka
that my grandma used to dance,
when at Valle and Manzoni
there were already Falconi and Galli as leading ladies.
When my grandpa,
an infantry corporal,
posed for four days
to send Rosa the photograph.

Until progress
invented the automobile.
Oh what a success
the dizziness, the sport.
Then my grandpa
devoured mountains and valleys,
three kilometers in an hour
with the two-cylinder five or six horsepower.