Песня Остапа Бендера [Нет, я не плачу] Pesnja Ostapa Bendera (English translation)

Artist: Andrey Mironov (Андрей Mиронов)
Song: Песня Остапа Бендера [Нет, я не плачу] Pesnja Ostapa Bendera
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Russian/Romanization/Romanization 2

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Песня Остапа Бендера [Нет, я не плачу] Pesnja Ostapa Bendera

Нет, я не плачу и не рыдаю,

На все вопросы я открыто отвечаю,

Что наша жизнь игра, и кто ж тому виной,

Что я увлекся этою игрой?

И перед кем же мне извиняться?

Мне уступают, я не в силах отказаться.

И разве мой талант и мой душевный жар

Не заслужили скромный гонорар?

Припев:

Пусть бесится ветер жестокий

В тумане житейских морей

Белеет мой парус, такой одинокий,

На фоне стальных кораблей.

И согласитесь,какая прелесть,

Мгновенно в яблочко попасть, почти не целясь!

Орлиный взор, напор, изящный поворот:

И прямо в руки запретный плод.

О наслажденье ходить по краю.

Замрите, ангелы, смотрите: я играю.

Разбор грехов моих оставьте до поры,

Вы оцените красоту игры!

Припев

Я не разбойник и не апостол.

И для меня, конечно, тоже все не просто.

И очень может быть, что от забот своих

Я поседею раньше остальных.

Но я не плачу, и не рыдаю.

Хотя не знаю, где найду, где потеряю.

И очень может быть,что на свою беду

Я потеряю больше, чем найду.

Припев

Белеет мой парус, такой одинокий,

На фоне стальных кораблей.

Submitted by

Schnurrbrat on Sun, 22/09/2019 - 20:44

Last edited by

Schnurrbrat on Wed, 23/09/2020 - 22:51

Submitter's comments:

Автор песни: Юлий Ким.

English translationEnglish (metered, poetic, rhyming, singable)

Ostap Bender's Song

No, I’m not raving and I’m not crying,

To all inquiries I’m openly replying

That our whole life’s a play, and whom I have to blame

That I fell madly for this daring game?

Who is the person to ask forgiveness?

They let me forward and I’ve agreed with swiftness.

And what about my flame, my skill and expertise?

Such moderate reward is hardly a caprice.

REFRAIN:

So let the fierce winds rage uncomely,

Entrapped in the daily routine.

So white is my sail, [it’s] forever so lonely,

Against the sea vessels of steel.

You must agree, it’s such a blessing:

To hit dead-center fast without any aiming!

A keen eyesight and force, a graceful pirouette:

Here is your prize that you would not regret.

I play with fire – it’s always so exciting.

Please slow down, angles, just look at my own acting.

Dissection of my sins let’s leave for other day,

Just be aware of the beauty of my play!

REFRAIN

I’m not a brigand or an apostle.

I’m facing problems too, and sadly very often.

There is a chance that due to my solicitude

My head will turn to grey much faster than it should.

No, I’m not raving and I’m not crying,

My game of gain and loss is always mystifying.

There is a solid chance that for my own pain

My loss will be far greater than my gain.

REFRAIN

So white is my sail, [it's] forever so lonely,

Against the sea vessels of steel.

Thanks! ❤
thanked 13 times

This is a poetic translation - deviations from the meaning of the original are present (extra words, extra or omitted information, substituted concepts).

Submitted by

Schnurrbrat on Thu, 24/09/2020 - 16:20

Last edited by

Schnurrbrat on Tue, 12/01/2021 - 23:44

Author's comments:

Ostap Bender is an attractive, resourceful con artist and the central antiheroic protagonist in the novels The Twelve Chairs (1928) and The Little Golden Calf (1931) written by Soviet authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostap_Bender

Collections with "Песня Остапа Бендера..."

1.	Songs from soviet films and musicals

Andrey Mironov: Top 3

1.	Песня Остапа Бендера [Нет, я не плачу] Pesnja Ostapa Bendera
2.	Остров невезения (Ostrov Nevezeniya)
3.	Журчат ручьи (Zhurchat ruch'i)

Comments

Vera Jahnke

Thu, 24/09/2020 - 18:45

Cool! (but not Russian 😉)

Schnurrbrat

Thu, 24/09/2020 - 19:06

Thank you, Vera, you will spoil me.
I hope you watched this comedy. It should be openly available.

Vera Jahnke

Thu, 24/09/2020 - 19:15

Cool, I found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6tUUvcbjNc
And it has a subtitle-function - perfect! 💗👍

Pinchus

Fri, 25/09/2020 - 00:05

Отлично, 42!

Dr_Igor

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 17:09

Singability failures: the following lines have more syllables than they should have

Such moderate reward is hardly a caprice

Here is your prize that you would not regret.

My head will turn to grey much faster than it should.

Schnurrbrat

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 17:45

There are some. If it would be a perfect match to the original pattern, then it would be E not S.
I chose natural sounding phrases and the similarity to the original over the exact match.

Dr_Igor

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 18:34

Are we on the same page on what "singable" is? I don't care what the "S" definition in LT is. People visit your page, the see "singable"
they expect to be able to sing it ( to the original melody, obviously). People who have this goal don't care about LT "lingo".
If you don't have the "exact match" on the syllable count, you can't sing those lines correctly. It is just this simple.

Schnurrbrat

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 18:45

Why someone should use your definition over the one approved on this site?

Dr_Igor

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 18:59

If "someone" wants to sing a song, that person does not care about "approved" or any other definitions. He/she either can sing it or cannot.
If a song technically fits LT definition of "singable" but cannot be sung, something's wrong with the definition, because it conflicts with a "normal"
understanding of the word "singable". And I bet that most people who visit this site are "normies".

Schnurrbrat

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 19:16

Well, then I'm not normal per your definition, but I already expressed my opinion on using your definitions

Allow me to copy-paste my planned reply to Vera, since it's on the same topic, and hopefully she didn't click the Unsubscribe button yet:
I frankly rarely use Singable tag, to me it's like a flawed E or E,R. I'm often forgetting to put one.
If someone has a task to perform this song flawlessly according to the original music score, it should be E (plus R if the original has some rhymes), otherwise the count of syllables is just an exercise in arithmetic.

silenced

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:33

If you start bossing people around, you might end up drawing criticism about your own work.

I have no idea what people you call "normies" expect when they read your publications, but they surely won't find the French you claim to have translated.
Why don't you let people have their fun and LT owners worry about the income of this site?

Schnurrbrat

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:37

It's alright, Pierre.
No harm done. Igor indicated some flaws (which I knew about )
And we disagreed on tag. No one agrees on tags on this website, so it was expected.
Don't start fighting, guys, over the tag.

silenced

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:52

Alright, peace then.

Vera Jahnke

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 19:04

Sometimes I get also critical comments for as singable tagged songs, but I have to agree with you, Schnurrbrat, "singable" is not "equirhythmic", because you can compress or stretch syllables. "Ti - i - i- ime is on my side..." is a good example for that. And I for my part have no problems to sing your translation.

Irula

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 21:49

I am able to sing everything, and only have problem with this line:

To hit dead-center with almost no aiming!

And even there if you stretch “with” and “no”, you still can sing it. I would modify it a little to:

To hit dead-center with almost no aiming! => to hit dead-center without any careful aiming!

Schnurrbrat

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 22:10

Thanks, Irina.
I didn't forget your c&c. I just couldn't find a proper fix and left it as it is. But I tried fixing it and I got tired fixing it.

Мгновенно в яблочко попасть, почти не целясь!
=^=^===^=^=^=
To hit dead-center with almost no aiming!
=^=^==^=^=^= (one syllable short)
to hit dead-center without any careful aiming!
=^=^==^^=^=^= (correct # of syllables, but I don't like how it sounds/sings. I also wanted to place "without" right after "dead center" btw)
to hit dead center fast with almost no aiming
=^=^=^=^=^=^= (here's your iamb, but I would rather use "without something". Need to think again.)

Irula

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 22:15

To hit dead-center even without any aiming?

IsraelWu

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 08:42

I barely understand syllables counting but as you say you are short just one you could add one syllable to your original line:
To hit dead-center with almost no REAL aiming!
with almost no real change. Does it help ?

Schnurrbrat

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 15:55

Thank you, IsraelWu.
I will try to review this line (and others) again, but my last effort wasn't too fruitful.
"real" won't work since it's a two syllable word. "to hit dead-center fast" solves the problem, introducing iambic meter throughout the line, but if we are striving for perfection we should take into account the natural pauses too.
Мгновенно в яблочко попасть, this clause ends on a stressed syllable, so it's better to use "without" rather than "almost".
I will look through the whole text and its rhythmic pattern again and will try to improve it.
I recall I had at least one verse as equirhythmic in my draft but abandoned it, since it didn't sound right to me.
Same is with my refrain lines:
So white is my sail, it’s forever so lonely, = this line is equirhythmic, but I don't like it, I would rather drop "it's":
So white is my sail, forever so lonely = on the grounds that it sounds closer to the original (there's no extra word in between of "парус" and "такой".
In general, equirhythmic versions do sound better, but this feat should not be achieved at the cost of using some weird sentences or structures. I was satisfied with every line in this regard, although I understand that my meter or rhythm deviates here and there.

Irula

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 16:38

42, what about the suggestion I made above?

To hit dead-center even without any aiming

It is singable and uses “without”, the stress falls on the first syllable in “wIthout” though.

Schnurrbrat

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:23

My apologies, Irina, for leaving it unanswered.

Мгновенно в яблочко попасть, почти не целясь!
=^=^===^=^=^=
To hit dead-center even without any aiming?
=^=^=^==^^=^=
It's possible, and it is certainly an improvement over the previous version, but there's a stress shift on "without". Two stressed syllables aren't good, imho, for this line. I used "fast" as a temporary fix, but I had no time to think over it yet.

IsraelWu

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:15

I understand (barely) what you mean and wish you luck but am surprised about "real" being a two syllable word in the count. It is two distinct syllables in "Real Madrid" in Spanish, in "reality" in English but here it seems an one vowel sound, like a long "и" , being kind of inverse of Latin "ae". Is Caesar in a spoken Italian counted as 2 or 3 syllables?
You decide and I"ll try to stay out of your hair, good luck again.

Schnurrbrat

Tue, 24/11/2020 - 17:41

Since I'm not a native speaker, nor a person with education in linguistics, I had to rely on rules of syllabication, dictionaries, etc. To me it doesn't matter how one could pronounce/perform one word or another, since we should use the accepted standards. There are examples when one word can be officially pronounced two ways with a different number of syllables, but it's not the case.
Thanks, I appreciate your help.