The Chant of Tiber’s Branches (La Canta delle Marane)

THE SONG OF THE MARANE

What a gang we were! We formed a gang,

a real gang of hotheads!

Swan dive, back flip, belly flop, somersault...

We were me, Mancino, Moretto, Chiolla Chiolla and Candeletta.

In short, we were so many I no longer remember them all.

We left home early, without even breakfast,

ragged and barefoot and then

dashing headlong into the swamp.

Wherever we went we'd get into scrapes,

enough to make a grown man cry.

Chiolla Chiolla, I still remember him as if I could see him,

with that roguish face, as slippery as a snake.

A child of the streets, with neither father nor mother.

His mother died in the bombing,

his father drunk as a skunk,

wanting some fresh air, kerflop, tumbled out the third floor window.

And the neighbours took him in, one here, one there.

And since they were all thieves, then he became a thief too.

Now he's in prison, at Regina Coeli.

Ah, the hunger of those days.

We were always hungry.

The more we ate the more hungry we were.

Neither the fish nor the frogs escaped us.

For us the swamps were like the Mississippi.

We were all friends, but if we spent a while without scrapping, we felt bad.

I remember two who were closer friends than the rest.

One never went anywhere without the other.