[simo7]

Not only they were cousins, in their private correspondence right before the outbreak of WWI they were addressing each other as Willy and Nicky[0]. By the way they fought against each other.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy%E2%80%93Nicky_correspond...

edit: I meant the correspondence between the third cousin, Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas.

[riffraff]

There's a beautiful poem in roman dialect called "the war lullaby"[0] from this period. The last two stanzas speak of this, and go something like:

    Sleep tight, my darling
    while this mess goes on
    sleep well, as tomorrow
    we'll see the kings again
    
    exchanging pleasantries
    good friends as before
    they're cousins, and amongst relatives
    you don't need formalities,
    again will turn friendly
    the personal relations.
    
    And reunited among them
    with no sign of remorse
    they'll give a nice speech 
    on Peace and Labour
    to that dumb people
    spared by the gun.

[0] in italian/romanesco http://www.la-poesia.it/poesie-di-trilussa/trilussa-ninna-na...

[guelo]

I wouldn't translate "popolo cojone" as dumb people.

[EarthLaunch]

I became interested in this Italian word and found this[0] casual translation: "cojone: bad word, but very useful! referring to someone who's an asshole, and stupid persons in general".

Some of the older English references[1] also seem negative: "English had it as cullion a 16c. term of contempt for a man, "a mean wretch" (Shakespeare) also "a testicle" (Chaucer), from Middle English coujon, coilon (late 14c.), from Old French coillon "testicle; worthless fellow, dolt," from Latin coleus."

I find that I can quite easily imagine the poet seeing people dying for these 'friends' while the stupid public (popolo cojone) attends a nice speech.

0: https://hinative.com/questions/10051415?locale=en-US#answer-...

1: https://www.etymonline.com/word/cojones

[magneticnorth]

How would you translate it?

[01acheru]

A "coglione", which is the Italian word for the dialectal "cojone", is literally a testicle. Anyway you can also call someone a "coglione" and it means they are somewhere between dumb, jerk and ignorant.

[guelo]

"fucking people" would be closer since its supposed to be a curse word.

[riffraff]

but it's not a generic curse word, it's an insulting way of saying you're stupid, which is the more important part in this context.

But yeah, I could not think of a better word in english, "traduttore traditore" as the saying goes :)

[Animats]

"War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other."

Very much the case in 19th century Europe, where most of the royalty was related.

[jonny_eh]

Kaiser Wilhelm doesn't look too different either.