Is it True (You will walk in the field) / Leah Goldberg, translated

Today I present a translation to English of Leah Goldberg's "Is it true", popularly known as "You will walk in the field" ("האמנם"/"את תלכי בשדה"). I wrote about this poem in my first blog post. Below is one of Hava Alberstein's performances of the song (I hold her to be the best performer of this song). You might also find the video of Shlomi Saranga's recent cover interesting. Finally, an analysis of the work is available from Wikimedia.

To Y., with pride and gratitude.

Is it true - will there ever come days of forgiveness and mercy?
And you'll walk in the field, and it will be an innocent's walk.
And your feet on the medick's small leaves will be gently caressing,
And sweet will be stings, when you're stung by the rye's broken stalks!

And the drizzle will catch you in pounding raindrops' folly
On your shoulders, your breast and your neck, while your mind will be clean,
You will walk the wet field, and the silence will fill you -
As does light in a dark cloud's rim

And you'll breathe in the furrow in breaths calm and even,
And the pond's golden mirror will show you the Sun up above,
And once more all the things will be simple, and present, and living,
And once more you will love - yes, you will, yes, once more you will love!

You will walk. All alone. Never hurt by the blazing inferno
Of the fires on the roads fed by horrors too awful to stand,
And in your heart of hearts you'll be able to humbly surrender,
In the way of the weeds, in the way of free men.

Translated by yours truly, Dec. 2008.

Francesco Petrarca / Canzoniere, Sonnet 1

Francesco Petrarca, who lived in the 14th century, is often called the "father of humanism" and is considered a progenitor of the Renaissance (which he preceded by a full century!). His contribution to world culture deserves a special mention, but I haven't the time to describe it now - so I will confine myself now to quoting the first poem out of his wonderful Sonnets, which explains his motivation for writing. I don't know Italian, but I the English translation is good in its own right.

Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono,

del vario stile in ch'io piango et ragiono
fra le vane speranze e 'l van dolore,
ove sia chi per prova intenda amore,
spero trovar pietà, nonché perdono.

Ma ben veggio or sí come al popol tutto
favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
di me mesdesmo meco mi vergogno;

et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto,
e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno

---

Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,

Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,
Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.

But now I clearly see that of mankind
Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought
And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;

While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.

Translation by Lord Charlemont

Recitation in Italian -

A Closed Garden / Rachel, translated

Rachel (birth name Rachel Bluwstein) was born into a respectable family of Russian Jews. She grew on the lyrical conventions of the Russian Romantic poetry. Her first works, written in Russian, appear quite mediocre. However, her consequent work in Hebrew is superb and groundbreaking. Main themes are reflection on her coming to Ottoman Turk-controlled Palestine on ideological grounds, her unhappy love affairs giving birth to a profound sense of loneliness, and her eventual mortal illness - tuberculosis ("consumption").

Her personal, clear, stremalined language marks a considerable change from the Bibleic and Talmudic-laced language of many of her contemporaries. In particular, it is interesting that Rachel intended the vowels in her poems to be pronounced with a Sephardic intonation (which eventually was became the dominant in Modern Israeli Hebrew), whereas her contemporaries Bialik and Tchernihovsky used the Ashkenazi intonation. Altogether, her poetic style became the progenitor for much of Israel's lyrical poetry for the decades following her untimely death.

מי אתה? מדוע יד מושטת
לא פוגשת יד אחות
ועיניים, אך תמתינה רגע
והנה שפלו כבר נבוכות

גן נעול. לא שביל אליו לא דרך.
גן נעול - אדם.
האלך לי, או אכה בסלע
עד זוב דם.

To an unknowing muse.

Who are you? And why a reached-out hand
Fails to meet a hand - her mate?
And the gaze - awaiting for one moment,
In the next one is so shyly waived.

A closed garden. No path, no road to go there.
A closed garden is the Man.
Should I leave, or face the rock and batter,
With my hands - a bleeding ram?

Translation by yours truly.

A performance by Shuki and Dorit, music by Shuki (they started performing this song in 1978; the recording is from 1979) -

Ithaca / Constantine P. Cavafy

Constantine P. Cavafy was a great Modernist poet that wrote in New Greek around the turn of the 20th century. He spent most of his life in Alexandria. His life as a whole was not dramatic (whereas Europe endured World War I during that same period, and his ethnic homeland Greece endured a bitter and lengthy confrontation with Turkey).

Judging by the good translations, Cavafy's poetry is technically superb, with words and expressions chosen extremely precisely, obviously through much labor and rewriting. He is extremely attached to his classic heritage and writes much about history and philosophy; another theme is his own sensual life (he was openly homosexual). His expressions are extremely colorful and vivid, his use of free (non-rhymed) verse combines the immediacy of everyday speech with the beauty of classical poetry.

The lyrics of the poem in English are available from here; a wonderful translation to Hebrew is available here (alas, I learnt that the translator died a relatively young man); the Greek original - here.

The poem in English, narrated by Sean Connery:


And in the original Greek:


And now, a personal note:

Two years ago, as I was nearing a graduation ceremony of sorts, I proposed to read this poem to signify the common change of venue (naturally, the proposal was benevolently ignored). Nevertheless, I feel it holds true even more at this anniversary.

I wish our followers, the 3³s, a sound journey.

Samba em preludio, Samba for Two / Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes, Mati Kaspi and Yehudit Ravitz

Upd. Dec. 27, replaced the video that was taken down with a working one.

In continuation to my infatuation with bossa nova (as I already showed by posting Aguas de Março earlier this month), I'd like to put forth another beautiful melody out of the 1960s.

The authors are Baden Powell (named after Robert Baden Powell, the father of scouting) and Vinicius de Moraes.

Mati Kaspi and Yehudit Ravitz covered it as a part of Kaspi's 1977 "Beautiful Tropic Land" (Eretz Tropit Yafa) project, which included highly artistic renditions in Hebrew of famous Latin American songs.

And There Was Between Us Just The Shining / Leah Goldberg, translated

Edited Nov. 15th to speak about Leah Goldberg's attitude to writing 'classical' poems. -Yours truly

Edited Nov. 20th - modified one line of the translation, which appeared lame to me. -Yours truly



Leah Goldberg, herself a modernist and a literary critic, was extremely conscious to the fact that classical poetic forms were falling out of fashion. So she asserted stylistic justification for many of her poems by claiming they are replicas or derivatives from "genuine" classical works.

Goldberg herself translated a considerable number of classical works; however she wrote yet more of her own. In my opinion, they are wonderfully authentic and display formidable mastery of the language.

Poem II from the cycle "Love Poems from an Ancient Tome" (circa 1944) is a lovely sample -

ולא היה ביננו אלא זוהר
עניו של השכמה ברחוב כפרי
ולבלובו של גן בטרם פרי
בלובן תפרחתו יפת התואר.

ומה מאוד צחקת באמרי
כי אל השחר הענוג כורד
אקרב ואקטפנו למזכרת
ואשמרנו בין דפי ספרי.

את זרועך נשאת, התזכור?
והנידות אט ענף תפוח,
ועל ראשי ירד מטר צחור.

מאחורי גבך הכפר ניעור,
החלונות נצטלצלו עם רוח -
ולא היה בינינו אלא אור.

---

To X., who reminded me that true, selfless, friendship is not an extinct species.

And there was between us just the shining
The modest shining of a village dawn,
A garden's blossom ere the fruit have shown,
In its new bright and fair flower binding,

And then you laughed so hard when I intoned,
That I'll approach the heavens' rosy sweetness,
And pick it up, and fold it lest it slips us,
And store it midst the pages of my tome

Do you recall - you raised your arm so high -
And then you slowly stirred the apple trusses,
And rain fell on me - of perfect white,

Behind your back, the street wore off the night;
And morning wind has rung the window-glasses,
And there was between us just the light.

Translated by yours truly.

The poem was set to music by Danny Litany in a lovely bluesy way, and sung by Tsila Dagan. Here is a much later performance by Danny Litany himself (as in most cases, I hold that Leah Goldberg sounded better when performed by a female singer).

And the Rain Will Come, Águas de Março / Antonio Carlos Jobim

I shall mention today a wonderful Brazilian song called Águas de Março, or Waters of March. Two English translations (one of them by Jobim himself) may be found here (also from this link - the song has been recently voted by a committee of Brazilian musicians as "the best Brazilian song".

In Brazil, March is a rainy month at the end of autumn (for us, sordid northern-hemispheriacs, it corresponds to September). The song is written in a stream-of-consciousness technique.

The Hebrew lyrics may be found here. The translator was Eli Mohar, and the performers - Gidi Gov and Mika Karni for Gov's TV program "Layla Gov" (probably at the end of the 1990s)

והגשם יבוא וישטוף כל כאב
הבטחה של חיים, השמחה שבלב

And the rain will come, washing out all the pain,
With the promise of life, and heart's joy again

An inferior (but freely-available-via-YouTube) version was recorded by Ninet Tayeb and Ran Danker:



And a recording in Portuguese by Elis Regina and Tom Jobim -

Harmonica Song / Natan Alterman

Natan Alterman, one of Israel's first great poets, wrote abundantly, combining at the same time high literary work with poetic commentary on contemporary life, and with considerably more down-to-earth lyrics to popular songs. All three rôles won him acclaim during his lifetime (a theme on which I might elaborate in the future).

The song I will bring here is called the "Harmonica Song", "Zemer Ha-mafukhit" (זמר המפוחית). Lyrics in Hebrew are available at this link. It is written as a dialogue between a man (who is by connotation a sailor) and his beloved. The man is drunk and tired of himself, "but not of wine - but because of some rag-tag Miriam".

I like Alterman's sharp metaphor (as well as the fact that he put it in the lyrics of a song intended to be popular) —

האהבה היא תוך-תוכו של התפוח
אבל בנישואין לוקחים את הקליפה

Love is the very flesh that makes the apple,
But getting married is all about its skin

So Alterman's hero will marry his Miriam, but he will leave her to sail away, only to think of her at sea. This is very much Alterman's ideal of being in love, found in many of his works - passionate, hopeless, alienated seemingly out of choice, but in essence - due to his hero's inherent inability to stay in one place.

The song (like many of Alterman's) was set to music by Sasha Argov. The original performance was recorded in the 1960s by Edna Goren and Kobi Recht. Mati Kaspi subsequently recorded a version in which he sang all the lyrics - in my opinion it loses the vital dynamic of the dialogue. I would like to conclude with a recent performance by the original performers, with a nice jazzy accompaniment:

Renewal / Naomi Shemer

With the end of Tishrei holidays, we begin to slide into the working routine of a new year.

Naomi Shemer wrote a wonderful song about that, which is called "Renewal" (Hitkhadshut / התחדשות). Whenever I hear it, it strikes a chord with me. You may find the Hebrew lyrics here.

Naomi Shemer wrote, translated and composed more than two hundred songs, most of them in extremely simple, lucid language (although spiced with allusions to the Jewish sacred literature, in which she was knowledgeable to a remarkable degree). Overall, her work is remarkably meaningful; in spite of never being a member of the clique of Israeli classics, she enjoyed popular admiration by the common Israelis.

במסע שלא נגמר
בין שדות הצל ושדות האור
יש נתיב שלא עברת
ושתעבור
שעון החול, שעון חייך
מאותת לך עכשיו
למד-דלת, למד-הא, למד-וו.

In the never-ending journey,
Light and darkness interleaved,
There's a path you've not yet followed,
And this time you will,
The sand-glass, our lives' measure,
signals now as it proceeds -
thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six.

(Tr. by yours humbly)

The numerals in the original Hebrew are text are the traditional gematria (lamed-vav = 36). Naomi Shemer probably speaks of the Cabbalistic belief that a person's prime age is 36.

Here is a recording of the song, performed by Ofra Haza:

Fastidious Horses / Vladimir Vysotsky

Today I will write of a great modern Russian poet, Vladimir Vysotsky. A prominent theatre actor in his own right, his real fame originated in a corpus of approximately 500 poems, written to be sung under the accompaniment of a Russian string guitar.

Musically, as songs, these works were usually very basic, almost always set in the same minor scale, melodically simple and avoiding complex guitar technique.

The lyrics are another matter entirely. Vysotsky employs different stratas of regular, everyday speech (including the Russian criminal jargon, "fenya", illiterate women's speech, 'proletariat speech', 'intelligent Soviet citizen speech'), however beneath it is a powerful undercurrent of the author making a point - and often having a very good swing at it. Almost all songs were performed by the author; when employing the different stratas of speech, he masterfully accented them, achieving perfect intonation, ranging from straight-out parody to profound drama.

Vysotsky himself was a highly educated man (which was desirable for theatre actors of his time, unlike much of what's hot in Hollywood or the Israeli show industry today). He was a patriot, and as all Soviet citizens, fearful from the KGB. However his sense of poetic honesty often brought him to mention the inhumanity and insincerity of the regime, usually not head-on. What appears to the Western observer as mild and casual critique, was quite acrimonious in Soviet standards. However, due to his popularity Vysotsky himself did not suffer personal persecution, besides not being allowed to perform officially for most of his life. Instead, his recordings had to be distributed via bootleg channels.

Personally, Vysotsky was extremely temperamental, fiery and unstable. He was an alcoholic and probably also a drug user. This led to his early death at age of 43. The song I bring here - 'Capricious Horses', 'Кони привередливые' - appears to be based on his personal feeling of going over the edge, several years prior to his death.

• Original lyrics in Russian


• Unruly Horses by Kathrine and Bruce Hamilton. Notable for its high poetic language.


• Capricious Horses by Ilya Shambat - sounds a bit easier.

I also attach a video of a performance by Vysotsky himself. I saw once a comment (I'm not sure if on this video or another one of the same song) - some lady wrote that 'seems he really means it'. He sure did.

The Ballad of John, Yoko and Arik

My friend John corrected me regarding the release of the song - it only appeared as a single and on Past Masters Vol 2., never on the White Album. John - I bow to thy higher wisdom. -Yours truly, October 19th, 2008

The song I bring to you this time is called "The Ballad Of John and Yoko", which appeared for the first time on the Beatles' White Album as a single in 1969. A link to the lyrics.(wait, there's more below the clip!)



It turns out that Arik Einstein, arguably the father of Israeli pop-rock, recorded a number of Beatles songs, which he translated in the characteristically ironic mood.

His version is called "היה לנו טוב, נהיה לנו רע", which translates as "It was once good, it became worse". You may see the lyrics under this link.
Of worth is the following stanza:

ג'ון ויוקו הם על הכיף-כיפאק
אייבי נתן גם כם נחמד
אולי הם רק סתם שיש בהם דם
וגם אולי זה כבר הגיע הזמן

This translates as -

John and Yoko are both OK,
Abie Natan's very nice too
Their plethora is showing its signs,
But maybe it is really the time

(Tr. by yours truly. I wasn't actually aware of the medical meaning of 'plethora' until I had to translate this)

YouTube hosts a recording of Arik Einstein performing it, however it amused me more to bring the video version of the song, recorded by the punk band "Safed Elders" , in Hebrew "זקני צפת", "Ziknei Zfat" (notorious for their masterpiece "שישי שבת", "Weekend").



So here your are. For the sake of proper credit, "The Ballad Of John & Yoko" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, lyrics translated as "It was once good, it became worse" by Arik Einstein, recording by "The Elders of Safed".

Joyous Song / Jacob Orland, Mordechai Zeira / שיר שמח / יעקב אורלנד, מרדכי זעירא

Today I chose to mention 'Joyous Song', one of the classics of Israeli popular music.

It was written in 1954, "on high orders", following a massacre of the passengers of an Israeli bus at the Scorpions' Ascent in the Negev by Fedayun guerrillas.

A nice translation of the lyrics may be found at Yahoo answers.

קישור למילים

שיר זה נכתב במקור "בהוראה מלמעלה" בעקבות הרצח האכזרי של נוסעי אוטובוס ישראלי במעלה עקרבים בשנת 1954 על-ידי פדאיון מצריים.

זמר שכזה / יענקלה רוטבליט, נורית הירש

לאחרונה נתקלתי בשיר ישראלי נפלא, הלא הוא "זמר שכזה".

ברצוני לפרוט אחדות מהסיבות שאהבתי אותו: ראשית אינו נוגה (וזאת בניגוד לנימה המינורית של רבים משירינו האהובים), אלא להפך אופטימי. שנית, בניגוד לשיממון הנפוץ של ארבע רבעים מרובעים ומסוגרים, המנגינה דווקא מכילה תערובת יפה של 4/4 ו-6/6 וביניהן סינקופות ממוקמות היטב. לבסוף, השיר מנוסח טוב, שומר על שפה נקייה ויציבה ואינו מתיימר להיות יותר משיר עממי שמח, כאילו שנדרש יותר מזה.

קישור למילים

מילים אחרונות / לאה גולדברג

א

קר לי מאוד. הגוף לרגלי
כאדרת קרועה. ביד עיפה
אני רושמת
שורה אחרונה של שיר.
כבר במאה השמינית
על שפת הנהר הצהוב
ישב משורר שידע
את מילת הסיום.

ב

מה יהיה בסופנו? השמים
עמדו מלכת.
אלמלא השעון שתקתק
לא ידענו
שכה רחוקים אנו כבר
מן הבוקר.
איזה זרע ישאו הרוחות באביב?
איזה פרח
יצמח על קברנו?
אני אתפלל
שתהיה זאת נורית צהבה.
לפנים
קטפתי אותה בהרים.
מה יהיה בסופנו?

ג

מה יהיה בסופנו?
שני נערים ברחוב
שרים שיר.
בשני חלונות ברחוב
כבר הודלק אור.
שתי אניות בנמל
מפליגות בלילה.
שתי ידי בשתי ידיך
קרות.
מה יהיה בסופנו?

ד

מה יהיה בסופנו? אותות הלילה
יפים אך פשרם סתום. הרוח
מגלגל בשמים את חשוק הכסף.
ירח קדמון! איך שגו כולמו -
האוהבים התמימים וחרטומי מצרים.
עכשיו פסקה את פסוקה הדממה.
ואנחנו
מה יהיה בסופנו?

ה

הכאב
ברור כאור היום.
נעלה מכל ספק,
שלם כאמונה.

---

השיר הולחן על-ידי אשר ביטנסקי, עובד על-ידי אילן וירצברג והושר על-ידי נורית גלרון.

Ganze Jahr Freylach

Several years ago, when I was still in school, we attended a wonderful play at the Gesher Theatre. The name of the play was Adam Resurrected, in the original Hebrew - אדם בן כלב, "Adam Ben Kelev" - which is a pun - both "Man, son of a dog" and "Adam, son of a dog".

The play is based on a book by Yoram Kanyuk that deals with a man broken down by the memory of the Holocaust. The book is currently being made into a Hollywood movie, starring Jeff Goldblum (for some reason I was convinced it was Ben Kingsley - where would I be without Wikipedia?).

In a way that proves the genius of the play director (for it does not appear in any way in the book), twice or thrice during the play, a wagon is driven inside the stage, and on it a figure of a clown-become-Auschwitz-inmate. He cries 'גאנצע יאר פריילאך', 'Ganze Jahr Freylach' as he passes over the stage. In Yiddish it means 'Happy All Year Round'.

A bit later, when I started writing in an online forum, I picked this line as my signature. A couple of times, when an opponent wrote something like 'you Jews are too concerned about survival' it reminded me where I stood, as petty and insignificant as it appears now - but the human existence is more often petty and insignificant than not - and I'm no exception; but then, of course there's the hope of occasionally making a good point.

In that mood - friends, countrymen, Romans - on the first day of the new Jewish year 5769, I wish you all the best for a wonderful year.

Gaudeamus Igitur / Author unknown

Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus;
Post jucundam juventutem,
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus!

Vita nostra brevis est,
Brevi finietur,
Venit mors velociter,
Rapit nos atrociter,
Nemini parcetur.

Ubi sunt qui ante
Nos in mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos,
Transite ad inferos,
Hos si vis videre.

Vivat academia,
Vivant professores,
Vivat membrum quodlibet,
Vivant membra quaelibet,
Semper sint in flore!

Vivant omnes virgines
Faciles, formosae,
Vivant et mulieres,
Tenerae, amabiles,
Bonae, laboriosae!

Vivat et respublica
Et qui illam regit,
Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas,
Quae nos hic protegit!

Pereat tristitia,
Pereant osores,
Pereat diabolus,
Quivis antiburschius,
Atque irrisores!

Quis confluxus hodie
Academicorum?
E longinquo convenerunt,
Protinusque successerunt
In commune forum;

Vivat nostra societas,
Vivant studiosi
Crescat una veritas,
Floreat fraternitas,
Patriae prosperitas.

Alma Mater floreat,
Quae nos educavit;
Caros et commilitones,
Dissitas in regiones
Sparsos, congregavit;

Several translations of this song may be found at this link.

A Latin textbook in my possession claims that the poem was often recited by vagrantes - traveling singers, some of whom were defrocked monks, and are also known for distributing Carmina Burana, of which I will perhaps write later.

Mood: Therefore, joyful.

Стих / Мандельштам О.Э - A poem / O. Mandelstam, translated by yours humbly

Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса.
Я список кораблей прочел до середины...
Сей длинный выводок, сей поезд журавлиный,
Что над Элладою когда-то поднялся.

Как журавлиный клин в чужие рубежи
На головаx царей божественная пена...
Куда плывете вы? Когда бы не Элена,
Что Троя вам одна, аxейские мужи??

И море и Гомер все движимо любовью..
Куда же деться мне? И вот, Гомер молчит..
И море Черное витийствуя шумит
И с страшным гроxотом подxодит к изголовью...

1915

---

About a year ago, I almost translated this into English. Today I stumbled upon my draft, and brought it to completion.

Ich danke Herr Danny "zwei hundert gramm"
für seine Beratung und Förderung. Danny - du bist der Mann!

---

Insomnia, I’m into Homer, sails are tight
I read the Catalogue of Ships until its middle,
This brood of cranes, this train’s shining needle,
Which over Hellas once had made its flight

A living wedge into the foreign skies
The royal heads are bearing foam from heavens
Where do you go, Acheans? Were it not for Helen,
What would have Troy alone been in your eyes?

Both Homer and the Sea – Love drives it all,
Whom shall I listen to? But Homer speaks no more
And the Black Sea pounds upon its shore
And with great noise reposes at my pillow.

1915
Tr. by yours humbly 2007-8

Mood: insomniac

אהבה ראשונה / לאה גולדברג

א

כה חביבה וכה נלגעת
ומרחוק - כל כך קטנה
את שוב נשקפת לי מנגד,
אהבתי הראשונה

עיי מפלת, דם ואפר
שנים, שנים רובצות כתהום
בין חלומות של בית-הספר
ובגרותי כבדת היום.

האם עיני כלואות בצהר
התמוגגו בצפיה?
האם לך, יפה-התואר,
הוספתי נוי בהזיה

הלכבודך, הלכבודנו
הדליקו כל הערמונים
בימי תפרחת בגננו
נרות זקופים ולבנים?

והאני היא המבהלת
מעז של להט וצנה
עת כי יורדים פתותי-השלג
על נשיקתך האחרונה?

איכה בגרנו בינתים!
הגם אתה מאז תשא
צריבת השלג על שפתים
דמעת הכפור הנמסה?

ב

הערב בשדרה כחלחל אפר,
אחרית האור באמירים נוגעת
עוד מלבינים כבצלילות-הדעת
האמירים במעטה הכפור

עדת עורבים בלי חפזון המריאה
אילן ניער השלג ונעור.
לאט-לאט נפלו פתותי הצחור:
בשורת כוכב בדמדומי רקיע.

אזכר את צעדיך, עודך נער,
כל-כך קרובים: פסעת משמאלי
בתוך השלג בשדרה שלי
שעה קלה לפני סגירת השער

---

האין זה מוזר שעל אף האומללות והעליבות של אותה אהבה ישנה ו'לא-חשובה', היא מהדהדת עדיין בלבבות הקוראים? האם היא אמנם כל-כך לא חשובה? והלא היא בעצמה כתבה בפעם אחרת:

היום אני את ילדותך זוכרת
כאילו ראיתיה במו עין,
כאילו היא נמשכת בי עדין,
היא גזע לי, אהבתי - צמרת.

אני מרגיש קצת כמוה.

---

ידוע לי על שני ניסיונות להלחין שיר זה. אחד של "האחים והאחיות" (אף פעם לא שמעתי אותו), והשני של יסמין אבן שמופיע באוסף 'שרות לאה גולדברג', שעל אף האפקטים הקוליים המוזרים מביא ייצוג ראוי למילים.

---

בנימה יותר אישית (?), מתוך מרידה ב'בגרותי כבדת היום', אוסיף עוד שורה:
E benedetto ... le piaghe, ch'infino al cor mi vanno.

---

חידה למתקדמים - מה הקשר בין שורה זו בניב עתיק לבין השיר המצוטט לעיל?
מיקום: מעל קניגסברג (לפחות ברוחי)

Ballade des Dames du temps jadis / François Villon

Dites-moi où, n'en quel pays,
Est Flora la belle Romaine,
Archipiades, ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Echo, parlant quant bruit on mène
Dessus rivière ou sur étang,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu'humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

Où est la très sage Héloïs,
Pour qui fut châtré et puis moine
Pierre Esbaillart à Saint-Denis?
Pour son amour eut cette essoine.
Semblablement, où est la roine
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fût jeté en un sac en Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

La roine Blanche comme un lis
Qui chantait à voix de sirène,
Berthe au grand pied, Bietrix, Aliz,
Haramburgis qui tint le Maine,
Et Jeanne, la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglais brûlèrent à Rouen;
Où sont-ils, où, Vierge souvraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

Prince, n'enquerrez de semaine
Où elles sont, ni de cet an,
Que ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

---

Although my French is very weak, I find the original sublime, and the translations - well - less so.

A noteworthy translation by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, one of the leaders of the English pre-Raphaelite movement, may be found at this link. It is named 'The Ballad of the Dead Ladies', which sounds harsh to the modern ear, when compared with the original French 'Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past'.

In Heller's wonderful Catch 22, Yossarian's question "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear" is of course an allusion to 'ce refrain'. A number of further translations may be found here.

Location: Over Avignon (at least in my mind)

Night Mail / Wystan Hugh Auden

(Ed. 16/08/2008) - I watched a the complete Night Mail at YouTube, and of course Auden's poem appears at the movie's end, and not the beginning as I had previously written. Anyway, the movie itself is warmly recommended.

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

---

The poem was written by W. H. Auden in 1936 especially to accompany a documentary. This makes for a lovely example of 'high' art embedded in a 'popular' production. (This leads me to the thought that it is much more important for art to be relevant than to cater to anyone's particular snobbery).

Only the poem part of the film -


The complete Night Mail - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Mood: under full steam

מה עושות האיילות בלילות / לאה גולדברג

מה עושות האילות בלילות
הן עוצמות את עינהן הגדולות
הן שולבות את רגליהן הקלות
ישנות האילות בלילות.

מי שומר על חלומן המתוק?
הירח הלבן מרחוק
הוא אל תוך הגן בבת צחוק
ואומר לכוס ותן: נום ושתוק

מה חולמות האילות בלילות?
הן חולמות כי הפילות הגדולות
שחקו אתן בג'ולים וגולות
ובכל בכל זכו האילות

מי מעיר אותן עם שחר משנתן?
לא הפיל ולא הקוף ולא התן
לא ארנבת, לא שכוי ולא שפן
כי אילת השחר חברתן
מעירה אותן בבוקר משנתן.

---

מוקדש לשני היעלים - הרומנטיקנים האחרונים בדורנו - שברחו היום מהספארי בחפשם קצת אהבה

Anthem for Doomed Youth / Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

---

Wilfred Owen had been an officer in the British Army during World War I. He had written this poem while on a medical leave, having had suffered from shell shock. Several months later, just a week before the end of the war, he was killed in action. By writing the few poems he had written, he outlived many men who have lived far longer than him.

I picked this poem not for the relevance of its details (after all, we're not in a war at this particular moment), but for its deep and touching humanity and love of life. Tonight, it is we that reside in the sad shires. The girls whose faces are white are our kin. It is our conundrum how to honor the legacy of the deceased.

---

Do not watch TV, nor listen to the radio. The wisdom is in your hearts.

Mood: elegiac

את תלכי בשדה / לאה גולדברג

תיקון - 10 בנובמבר 2008 - המבצע של הקאבר המחודש על השיר הוא שלומי סרנגה ולא בועז שרעבי כפי שכתבתי קודם.

תרגמתי את השיר לאנגלית. ניתן למצוא אותו בקישור הזה.

האמנם עוד יבואו ימים בסליחה ובחסד,
ותלכי בשדה, ותלכי בו כהלך התם.
ומחשוף כף רגלך ילטף בעלי האספספת
או שלפי שיבולים ידקרוך ותמתק דקירתם.

או מטר ישיגך בעדת טיפותיו הדופקת
על כתפיך, חזך, צווארך וראשך רענן.
ותלכי בשדה הרטוב וירחב בך השקט
כאור בשולי הענן.

ונשמת את ריחו של התלם, נשום ורגוע
וראית את השמש, בראי השלולית הזהוב.
ופשוטים הדברים, וחיים, ומותר בם לנגוע
ומותר לאהוב, ומותר ומותר לאהוב.

את תלכי בשדה לבדך, לא נצרבת בלהט
השרפות בדרכים שסמרו מאימה ומדם.
וביושר לבב תהיי ענווה ונכנעת
כאחד הדשאים, כאחד האדם.

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השיר נכתב במהלך מלחמת העולם השנייה, בתור טענה פואטית של לאה גולדברג בויכוח האומנותי בינה לבין נתן אלתרמן על האם מותר לעסוק בפרטי ובלירי 'בלהט השריפות' ובמיוחד לאור הידיעות על שואת יהודי אירופה. בעייני, לשיר זה יש רלוונטיות גדולה הרבה יותר דווקא מחוץ למשבצת הקטנה והמוגדרת של אותו ויכוח היסטורי. זהו שיר על כמיהה לגאולה אישית אל מול אכזריותו של העולם ואל מול יופיו, נושאים נצחיים (ושנמצאים במרכז עולמה הספרותי של לאה גולדברג).

השיר זכה ללחן נפלא מאת חיים ברקני. הוא הושר על-ידי חוה אלברשטיין (הגרסה המקורית והכי אהובה עליי), אסתר שמיר, עופרה חזה (הגרסה שמצורפת לרשומה זו), ולאחרונה על-ידי שלומי סרנגה (לדעתי באופן לא מוצלח - אני סבור כי הקול הנשי של השיר אינו ניתן לביצוע הולם על-ידי גבר).