"" ("The Sardinian Patriot to the Lords"), widely known also by its incipit as "" ("Endeavor to Moderate"), is a protest and antifeudal folk song in the culture of Sardinia.
The chant was written in Logudorese Sardinian by the lawyer Francesco Ignazio Mannu () on the occasion of the Sardinian mass revolts (1793âÂÂ1796) against the Savoyard feudal system, that culminated with the execution or expulsion from the island of the officials of the ruling House of Savoy on 28 April 1794 (officially commemorated today as or "Sardinian people's day"). Because of its temporal coincidence with the French Revolution, the song was also nicknamed by J. W. Tyndale and other scholars like as "the Sardinian Marseillaise".
Long regarded as a national anthem in Sardinian culture, "" was officially declared as the island's anthem in 2018.
The anthem is a poetry written in octave with a metrical pattern of a bb cc dd e, and its content resounds with typical Enlightenment themes. The entire text consists of 47 stanzas for a total of 376 verses, and describes the miserable state of Sardinia at the end of the 18th century, kept as an overseas dependency of the House of Savoy with an archaic feudal system that would only advantage the feudatories and leave a Sardinian only with "a rope to hang himself" (stanza 34, verse 272).
The incipit is, in fact, addressed to the feudatories' arrogance, regarded as the people being most at fault for the island's decadence: ("Endeavor to moderate, Oh barons! your tyranny...").
The disastrous socio-economic situation plaguing the island is described in detail. The oppressors from the Mainland are also harshly criticized: according to the poet, they did not care about Sardinia, and the only thing that would concern them was to surround themselves with richness and loot through the cheap exploitation of the island's resources, in a manner analogous to what Spain had done on the Indies ("Sardinia to the Piedmontese was like a golden land; what Spain found in the Indies, they discovered here": stanza 32, verses 249âÂÂ251).
The chant closes with a vigorous incitement to revolt, sealed with a terse Sardinian saying: ("When the wind is in your harbour, is the proper time to winnow": stanza 47, verse 375âÂÂ376).
Here, following the original lyrics in Sardinian.
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The anthem was illegally published in Sassari in 1796 and not in the nearby island of Corsica, as it was believed until recently. After all, Sassari was already taken by the rebels and, in 1796, ruled by the alternos Giovanni Maria Angioy.
The song was first translated into another language by John Warre Tyndale, in English, in 1849 ("Endeavor to Moderate..."), while Auguste Boullier would publish a French translation in his own book () in June 1864 with the incipit being "".
The anthem, aside from any copy that had been illegally circulating on the island, was published for the first time in Sardinia in 1865 by Giovanni Spano and later by Enrico Costa, who also made an Italian translation. Sebastiano Satta would provide another Italian translation on the centenary of Giovanni Maria Angioy's triumphant entrance in the city. In 1979, B. Granzer and B. Schütze would translate the song into German, with the title "".
Raffa Garzia compared the song to Giuseppe Parini's "". The scholar also drew attention to another two poems having a similar subject: one by the Ploaghese poet Maria Baule about the attempted French invasion of the island in 1793, with the title "" ("We Are Still at War"), that was published by Giovanni Spano; the other one, always addressing the events of 1793, by the Gavoese poet Michele Carboni (1764âÂÂ1814) titled "" ("Come On, Patriots, to War!").