Si chiamava Gesù [English translation]

He came from far away

to convert beasts and people,

you can’t say it’s been useless,

because he took the Earth by the hand.

Dressed in sand and white,

someone called him a saint,

others thought he had less virtues;

he was called Jesus.

I do not intend to sing the glory

nor to beseech the clemency or the forgiveness

of someone whom I think was nothing but a man

who went down in history as God.

Yet, it is indeed inhuman, the love

of someone who has no resentment even in his death rattle,

who forgives - with his last voice -

those who are killing him in the arms of a cross.

And for those who hated him,

in the Gethsemane1 he cried when he had to part from them,

as he did for those who worshipped him as God,

who told him ‟May you be praised forever”,

for those who brought him - at the end -

a tear or a braid of thorns as a gift,

accepting prayer, insult and spit

as a final farewell.

And he died, as we all die,

changing color, like everyone.

You can’t say it’s been of much use,

because evil wasn’t removed from Earth.

Maybe he had a bit too many virtues,

he had a face and a name: Jesus.

They say he was Mary’s son;

on the cross, he turned as white as a lily.

1. Gethsemane

• Artist:Fabrizio De André
• Album:Volume I (1967)