News at Eleven: [Umberto Saba] also wrote perhaps his most

famous single poem, the affectionate though disconcerting "A mia moglie" (To My Wife), in which he compares his wife with one female animal after another--a young hen, a pregnant heifer, a rangy bitch, a nervous rabbit, a swallow, an ant, and a bee: "E così nella pecchia/ti ritrovo, ed in tutte/le femmine di tutti/i sereni animali/che avvicinano a Dio;/e in nessun'altra donna"--in Hochfield and Nathan's translation: "And so I find you also/in the bee and in all/the females of all/the peaceful animals/who are near to God,/and in no other woman". Later he apparently regularly referred to his wife as an old hen, with no complimentary intent.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Umberto Saba's self-inventions

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