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Последняя просьба старого лирника (Переведи меня через майдан...) → English translation
English, Ukrainian
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Translation
Last Request of Old Lira Player ("Help me cross the maidan")
"Someone, help me cross the maidan1,
My bustling home marketplace,
To the serenity of bee hum among buckwheat,
Help me cross the maidan.
Someone, help me cross the maidan -
Where people laugh, cry and fight,
Sometimes don't hear me, nor themselves,
Help me cross the maidan.
Someone, help me cross the maidan,
Where I sang all the songs I know,
I will go into silence and die there,
Help me cross the maidan.
Someone, help me cross the maidan,
Where cries a woman that was mine.
I'll pass by her and won't even recognize.
Help me cross the maidan.
Someone, help me cross the maidan,
Full of regrets and unforgotten love,
Where were my days of worthlessness and glory,
Help me cross the maidan.
Someone, help me cross the maidan,
Were drunken clouds touch the poplars,
Today my son sings on maidan.
Help me cross the maidan.
Help me cross..."
The tumult of maidan
Took him in and lead him even
When he fell dead in the middle of that square...
And there was no field where the maidan had ended.
- 1. A type of village square in Ukraine, open at least on one side to a field
33cowsOriginal lyrics
Последняя просьба старого лирника (Переведи меня через майдан...)
Click to see the original lyrics (Russian)
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Collections with "Последняя просьба ..."
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Comments
Russia is waging a disgraceful war on Ukraine. Stand With Ukraine!
About translator
A poem (in Ukrainian) by Vitaly Korotich,
Translated into Russian by Yunna Morits
Music - Sergey Nikitin
* Ukrainian lira players were usually blind. That's why he needs help crossing the maidan, that's why he won't recognize the woman he once loved.
* The Russian translation misses a few important points, so when translating into English I deviated a bit from the Russian text and stuck more to the Ukrainian original.
* Ukrainian writer Olga Chigirinskaya: "The lira player wishes to die in a field, in tranquility, but he is blind and doesn't realize that the village has grown into a city, the field is gone and he has nowhere to go".