Why Happiness is Waiting
Saro Trovato - Leopardi’s Il sabato del villaggio: Why Happiness Is Waiting
Giacomo Leopardi’s Il sabato del villaggio (Saturday in the Village), composed in 1829, is more than a poem; it is a warning shot against our illusions about the future. It captures the clash between the hope that life can offer complete, lasting satisfaction and the inevitable disappointment that tomorrow brings. For Leopardi, human existence is marked by a structural tension—a dramatic gap—between what is expected and what actually happens.
The poem serves as a metaphor for the whole of existence. True pleasure, in Leopardi’s view, never coincides with the possession of happiness, but with the awaiting of it. Joy manifests itself as a promise. Precisely for this reason, the moment we try to grasp it, it tends to dissolve.
This message is an invitation to lucidity. It challenges us not to be seduced by expectations projected onto the future, which are destined to generate disillusionment. Instead, Leopardi urges us to look at the nature of the I and its relationship with Reality.
THE VILLAGE SATURDAY NIGHT.
The damsel from the field returns,
The sun is sinking in the west;
Her bundle on her head she sets,
And in her hand she bears
A bunch of roses and of violets.
Tomorrow is a holiday,
And she, as usual, must them wear
Upon her bodice, in her hair.
The old crone sits among her mates,
Upon the stairs, and spins;
And, looking at the fading light,
Of good old-fashioned times she prates,
When she, too, dressed for holidays,
And with light heart, and limb as light,
Would dance at night
With the companions of her merry days.
The twilight shades around us close,
The sky to deepest blue is turned;
From hills and roofs the shadows fall,
And the new moon her face of silver shows.
And now the cheerful bell
Proclaims the coming festival.
By its familiar voice
How every heart is cheered!
The children all in troops,
Around the little square
Go, leaping here and there,
And make a joyful sound.
Meanwhile the ploughman, whistling, returns
Unto his humble nest,
And thinks with pleasure of his day of rest.
Then, when all other lights are out,
And all is silent round,
The hammer’s stroke we hear,
We hear the saw of carpenter,
Who with closed doors his vigil keeps,
Toils o’er his lamp and strives so hard,
His work to finish ere the dawn appear.
The dearest day of all the week
Is this, of hope and joy so full;
To-morrow, sad and dull,
The hours will bring, for each must in his thought
His customary task-work seek.
Thou little, sportive boy,
This blooming age of thine
Is like to-day, so full of joy;
And is the day, indeed,
That must the sabbath of thy life precede.
Enjoy, it, then, my darling child,
Nor speed the flying hours!
I say to thee no more:
Alas, in this sad world of ours,
How far exceeds the holiday,
The Joy of Waiting and the Disillusionment of the Feast
After staging an ordinary Saturday evening, Leopardi leads us to the heart of his reflection on human happiness. Il sabato del villaggio does not describe the celebration (Sunday), but the time that precedes it. Sunday remains offstage, as do all the promises that, once kept, cease to be promises.
The poet consciously chooses to stop before that moment, while happiness has not yet been denied by the verification of Reality.
The Architecture of the Poem
Leopardi opens with an image of slow, everyday movement. It is sunset—the pause between the workday and the evening. Nothing is yet a celebration, but everything is moving toward it. It is here that the profound meaning of the poem takes shape.
The Young Girl: Happiness Projected
The first figure to appear is a young maiden returning from the countryside. She carries a bundle of grass—a concrete sign of her daily work—but in her hand, she also holds a bouquet of roses and violets. Note the detail: these flowers do not bloom in the same season. They do not belong to the present moment of nature; they belong to the heart’s desire. They are destined for the following day, for the celebration. From the outset, Leopardi clarifies that happiness is not found in the now, but in the not yet.
Critics often see the shadow of Teresa Fattorini (from the poem A Silvia) here. But in Il sabato, Leopardi takes a decisive step. The maiden is not struck by tragedy or premature death; she is destined for something more common and inevitable: the attrition of hope. Even if life continues, the "celebration" of adulthood will not keep the promises of youth. Disillusionment arises not from tragedy, but from the nature of time itself.
The Old Woman: Happiness as Memory
Immediately afterward, Leopardi introduces a mirror image. An old woman sits on the stairs spinning, facing the dying light. Her gaze is not turned toward the future, but toward the past. She recounts the “good times,” the days when she, too, adorned herself for the festival.
Here, happiness is no longer anticipated; it is remembered. The woman is static, contrasting with the movement of the girl. Leopardi constructs a fundamental dialectic: Happiness exists for the I only as expectation or as memory. It never fully belongs to the present possession.
The Landscape of Waiting
As the human figures move, the landscape transforms. The sky darkens, the moon hits the rooftops, and the bell announces the coming festival. Note that it is the announcement that comforts the heart, not the event itself.
Leopardi writes this from the window of his library, looking out at the square. He listens to the “happy noise” of the children. For others, it is a Saturday night; for him, it is the representation of a universal dynamic. His distance from the square is not just physical—it is existential. He observes life as it happens, no longer able to participate in it with the naivety of those who do not yet know the outcome.
The Children and the Woodcutter: Vital Energy vs. Anxiety
The children in the square represent an age where expectation coincides with pure vital energy. Their joy is immediate and unreflective. It has not yet been forced to measure itself against Reality.
In contrast, the woodcutter works while the village sleeps. He hurries to finish before dawn. He reminds us that behind every celebration lies anxiety. Effort precedes the feast, but the feast does not erase the burden of existence.
Why Waiting Is Welcome
Only after surveying these characters does Leopardi explain the theoretical core. Saturday is the best day not because it contains happiness, but because it promises it. It is full of hope precisely because it has not yet been tested by the verification of Sunday.
Waiting is welcome because it keeps the hypothesis open. Until the moment arrives, the I can imagine a satisfaction that is absolute, infinite, and without compromise. But when the event is realized, it enters into time, into limits, into the fatigue of concrete experience. It loses its aura.
For Leopardi, hope is not a mistake; it is a structural necessity of the human being. It is what makes the present bearable. Without expectation, life would reveal itself as devoid of definitive compensation. With expectation, we can grapple with the present, even while suspecting that tomorrow will not keep all its promises.
This is why Saturday surpasses Sunday. Sunday closes; Saturday opens. Sunday consumes; Saturday imagines. In this difference, Leopardi identifies the very structure of the human destiny, always suspended between infinite desire and finite reality.
Happiness: Not a Goal, But a Sign
At the end of Il sabato del villaggio, what remains is not bitterness, but a disarming lucidity. Leopardi is not talking about a weekend; he is talking about the nature of the heart.
Happiness is not a possession we can lock away. It is not a point of arrival. It is a sign, a promise that accompanies the journey. When we try to fix it, to force the infinite into the finite, it loses its consistency.
Human existence is structurally projected forward. We live in anticipation. The "roses and violets" that shouldn't exist together are proof that the human heart desires something that nature alone cannot provide. They belong to the realm of Mystery.
Leopardi suggests an uncomfortable truth: Disillusionment does not arise from exceptional failures, but from the normal course of life. The "celebration" of adulthood betrays the promises of youth because the finite cannot satisfy the infinite capacity of the heart.
But Leopardi does not invite us to despair. He invites us to look at the dynamic of expectation without censorship. To accept that happiness is a promise, not a biological goal, is to live with more clarity. It means acknowledging that while life may not keep its immediate promises, the very fact that we have these expectations reveals something profound about who we are. In that tension—in that waiting—lies the possibility of finally becoming aware of our own nature.
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