Il corsaro nero: an Italian graded reader at level A2

Glossary

abbordare · to board ((sin. assalire, arrembare))

Attaccare un'altra nave in mare, saltandoci sopra.

To attack another ship at sea by jumping onto it.

This is Salgari at his most Salgarian: the hulls touch, men leap across with cutlasses in their teeth, and the fight is won on the deck. The Corsair boards a Spanish ship: and finds Honorata aboard.

bandiera · flag ((sin. insegna, vessillo))

Il telo colorato che dice a quale paese appartiene una nave.

The coloured cloth that shows which country a ship belongs to.

The Folgore flies a black flag. To the Spanish it means: now be afraid. But black, for the Corsair, is not a trick of war: it is mourning, for three brothers.

cadavere · corpse ((sin. salma, corpo))

Il corpo di una persona morta.

The body of a dead person.

At night the Corsair steals his brother's body from the square and carries it out to sea for burial. Over that body he swears his oath. The entire novel is born from a dead man carried away in the dark.

cannone · cannon ((sin. bocca da fuoco, artiglieria))

Grande arma di ferro che spara palle pesantissime.

A large iron weapon that fires heavy balls.

Cannon open and close every battle in the book. Salgari always counts them for you (forty, sixty) because the reader has to know who is stronger, and hope anyway.

corsaro · corsair ((sin. filibustiere, pirata))

Marinaio che attacca le navi dei paesi nemici, con il permesso del suo re.

A sailor who attacks enemy ships, with his king's permission.

The Black Corsair is no common sea-thief: he is a nobleman who took to the sea in order to have his revenge. A corsair obeys a law; a pirate does not. That distinction matters enormously to him.

crudele · cruel ((sin. spietato, feroce))

Chi fa soffrire gli altri e non prova pietà.

Someone who makes others suffer and feels no pity.

The Olonnais is cruel and nothing else. Wan Guld is cruel by calculation. The Corsair, on the last page, does the cruellest thing of all: and does it weeping. Salgari shows us three quite different ways of being cruel.

destino · fate ((sin. sorte, fato))

Quello che deve succedere, e che nessuno può cambiare.

The mysterious force that some believe decides a life in advance.

A gypsy woman told the Corsair he would die at sea, at the hands of the woman he loved. He doesn't believe her, and does everything in his power to avoid it. And in doing everything to avoid it, he brings it about.

The glossary contains 39 entries in all