Skip to main content

A song about a friend

Finding a good English translation of Russian poetry is always challenging. So, I would like to share with you this excellent, excellent translation of Vladimir Vysotsky by Andrey Kneller: 


Песня о друге
Если друг оказался вдруг
И не друг, и не враг, а - так,
Если сразу не разберешь,
Плох он или хорош.
Парня в горы тяни - рискни!
Не бросай одного его,
Пусть он в связке в одной с тобой -
Там поймешь, кто такой. 
Если парень в горах - не ах,
Если сразу раскис и - вниз,
Шаг ступил на ледник и - сник,
Оступился - и в крик, -
Значит, рядом с тобой - чужой,
Ты его не брани - гони:
Вверх таких не берут, и тут
Про таких не поют. 
Если ж он не скулил, не ныл,
Пусть он хмур был и зол, но - шел,
А когда ты упал со скал,
Он стонал, но - держал,
Если шел за тобой, как в бой,
На вершине стоял хмельной, -
Значит, как на себя самого,
Положись на него.
(1966)




A song about a friend
If your friend just became a man,
Not a friend, not a foe,- just so,
If you really can't tell from the start,
If he's strong in his heart, -
To the peaks take this man - don't fret!
Do not leave him alone, on his own,
Let him share the same view with you-
Then you'll know if he's true. 
If the guy on the peak got weak,
If he lost all his care - got scared,
Took a step on the frost - got lost,
Tripped and screamed in exhaust, -
Then the one you held close is false,
Do not bother to yell- expel, -
We can't take such aboard, and in short
We don't sing of his sort.
If the guy didn't whine nor pine,
He was dull and upset, but went,
When you slipped from the cliff,
He heaved, holding you in his grip;
If he walked right along, seemed strong,
On the top stood like he belonged, -
Then, whenever the chances are slim
You can count on him!


Some think of Vysotsky as just a bard who wrote and performed his own songs, I also think of him as one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Alan Mathison Turing

Update (11/23/2013): " Now, nearly half a century after the war hero's suicide, Queen Elizabeth II has finally granted Turing a pardon." ( http://usat.ly/19bLZET ) Long overdue!!! With academic background in applied mathematics and computer science and years of experience in Information Technology it would be incredibly surprising if I didn't know of Alan Turing, or so I thought. Sure, I knew who he was and had a good idea of what he had contributed to the fields of mathematics, logic, cryptography, and of course computer science, which he basically founded; and things like Turing Machine, Turing Test, and Enigma Code-breaking have been widely popularized. I also knew that he died relatively young, but I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know anything about the circumstances surrounding his premature death. That is until I read the following in the book titled  "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleick: "Turing's hom

Tempus Fugit

I recently started reading what promises to be a very interesting book - "The Time Paradox" by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd. It opens up quite unexpectedly with a story about Capuchin Crypt, a somewhat surreal place located under one of the churches in Rome. This is the kind of stuff one comes to expect from Dan Brown's novels (say, "The Da Vinci Code" or "Angels and Demons"), but much less so from the book, written by a psychology professor from Stanford and a research director for Yahoo!, that according to one review - "reveals how to better use your most irreplaceable resource [time], based on solid science and timeless wisdom". Wikipedia - "The Capuchin Crypt is a small space comprising several tiny chapels located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini in Rome, Italy. It contains the skeletal remains of 4,000 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their o