Snake Dance



Green whip snake, called a magnano in the area round Modena*

You may remember that a while back I translated an Italian nursery rhyme that I liked into English. About a chap called Tommaso who was having fly issues.

I found myself doing the same thing spontaneously the other day with a different song, so I thought I’d post it:

Questa è la danza del serpente
che viene giù dal monte,
per ritrovare la sua coda
ch’a perso un dì.

serpente

Ma dimmi un po', sei forse tu, quel pezzettin del mio codin?

bambino

Sì!

This is the dance that the snake does;
he came down from the mountain,
hoping to come across the tail that
he lost one day.

snake

How do you do? Could it be you? Are you my missing piece of tail?

child

Yes!

So there you are, and here's an MP3! Noemi knows the words in Italian; Monica lets her finish the ends of the lines. I’ve only been listening to it (Noemi wants mummy to sing to her a lot these days, so it’s nursery rhymes by day and psalms at bedtime) but Monica tells me that the point is that you do a conga line adding children to the tail each time.

* And Patty says that magnani will actually whip you, but the last time she did, Luca took the piss out of her something chronic. I believe we may remain sceptical on this point.

Related articles

• In My Life