[[Image:Carducciclitunno.jpg|thumb|A monument to Carducci at the headwaters of the Clitunno, inspiration for one of the Barbarian Odes]] Barbarian Odes (Italian: Odi barbare) is a collection of three books of poetry by Giosuè Carducci, published between 1877 and 1889. Overview Together, the three books of Barbarian Odes contain 56 poems. Of the adjectives available in English—"barbarian," "barbaric," and "barbarous"—to translate the Italian barbaro ("barbare" is the feminine plural form in Italian), "barbarian" is the choice of most English translators, including the Nobel Prize committee in its 1906 literature award to Carducci. The word, here, is to be understood not in the negative sense of something savage, but simply as a reference to the Classical and pre-Christian setting of the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans, a reference that is a constant in Carducci's poetry. Prominent translators such as William Fletcher Smith also use the term "barbarian". The Nobel prize award speech says of the Barbarian Odes that "… Carducci's full lyrical maturity and accomplished stylistic beauty appear…" and that "… Carducci's genius has never reached greater heights than in some of his Odi barbare." Carducci was a patriot and committed to the aspirations of the Risorgimento, the 19th-century movement to unify Italy; thus, there are in the Barbarian Odes poems in praise of Garibaldi and queen Margherita. Most of the poems, however, are Classical in theme and even in style, as Carducci often uses forms and meter imitative of Latin poets such as Horace and Virgil. An example from the Barbarian Odes and perhaps the one most familiar to Italians, in general, and Italian school children, in particular, is entitled Le fonti del Clitumno'' ("The Head-waters of the Clitumnus"), a description of that spot in the hills of Umbria where the Clitunno River has its beginning. Carducci wrote the ode between July and October 1876. It is generally considered one of Carducci's highest evocations of the Classical world, combining pastoral purity and nostalgia for the glories of ancient Italy. The first seven verses in Italian are: Ancor dal monte, che di foschi ondeggia frassini al vento mormoranti e lunge per l’aure odora fresco di silvestri salvie e di timi, scendon nel vespero umido, o Clitumno, a te le greggi: a te l’umbro fanciullo la riluttante pecora ne l’onda immerge, mentre ver’ lui dal seno del madre adusta, che scalza siede al casolare e canta, una poppante volgesi e dal viso