Silvio Rodríguez - Sueño con serpientes (English translation)

English

Translation

I dream of snakes

There are men who struggle for a day

and they are good.

There are men who struggle for a year

and they are better.

There are men who struggle many years,

and they are better still.

But there are those who struggle all their lives:

These are the indispensable ones.

Bertolt Brecht

I dream of snakes, of sea snakes,

of a certain sea of snakes I dream of-

Long, transparent, and in their bellies they carry

whatever they can snatch to love.

Oh, I kill her and a greater one appears,

oh, with much more hell in digestion.

I don't fit in her mouth. She tries to swallow me

but she chokes on a clover of my temple.

I think she's crazy. I give her

a dove to chew and I poison her of my well

Oh, I kill her and a greater one appears,

oh, with much more hell in digestion.

This one, at last, devours me. And meanwhile I travel

through her esophagus, I go thinking on what will come.

But she destroys herself when I get into her stomach

and I present a truth with a verse.

Oh, I kill her and a greater one appears,

oh, with much more hell in digestion.

Spanish

Original lyrics

English

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