As promised earlier in the "now listening" thread, I finally got around to translating Sergei Kalugin's "King Otter" song, whose lyrics (though the melody also contributes..) make it one of my very favorite songs, of any genre and age.
I still remember the striking impression (nay, impact) it made on me when I first heard it several years ago, and it had been at a time when I was very receptive for this song's symbolism and its dreamlike flow, and assigned a strong personal meaning to it. It had played an important part, in its time, in its way. Incredibly haunting and potent, and it will remain so for me.
This may not be the best translation, since English is not my native tongue, but at least this is word-for-word and illustrates the song's content. This song loses so much in being translated like this, on the go.
It would have been more fitting to search out archaic English words for this translation, since the original Russian poem text is very literary and colorful - but since English is not native to me, such archaic fits and patterns do not come easily on the spot.
(For the Russian folks on this forum who are unfamiliar with the original... never mind my English drivel, see the original text here:
orgius.ru/akkord/raskaz_korolja_ondatry.html )
"The Tale of Otter King's Friday Fishing" (by Sergei Kalugin, off of his solo album "Nigredo")
I saw the heavens in glimmers of steel
And stones on the reedy bottom;
And arrows of fish, whose flesh is swift,
Sparkled in the coastal wave.
A sea there was also, and foamy manes
On the combs of the roaring waves
And mold-covered cross in the willow's embrace
Whose roots to me shelter gave.
And in lands beyond sea, where people are winged,
Lived my brother, a king he was;
And watching the sky-frigates circle above me
I remembered and wept for him.
Brother mine, with bird-like countenance,
Broher mine, with fingers of a maiden,
Brother mine.
Brother, I dream of the sea,
Black waves' incessant songs,
Brother mine.
On one fateful morn I found out from an Elder
Of a fish, whose fat is sorcery;
And with oath of blood did I fearfully swear
To partake of its fleshly essence.
And the Elder, like unto a century-old elm,
Stabbed his finger into the parchment:
"The bait for the fish is created from an eye,
The eye of the Master of Birds."
Brother mine, your black cloak,
Brother mine, your white stature;
Brother mine, my white cloak,
Brother mine, my black stature,
Brother mine.
Brother mine, your cross is encircled,
Brother mine, my circle is enclosed in a cross;
Brother mine, my cross is encircled,
Brother mine, your circle is enclosed in a cross,
Brother mine.
I went out to the cliffs, bent double and hunchbacked,
And my shout shook the heaven's bend;
Thus did a brother call out a brother to the slaughter,
To tear out a brother's eyes.
And storm did arise from the flap of great wings -
'Twas my brother come to my summons;
And with sacrificial blood did we sprinkle the cliffs,
And hid from the view of the gods.
Brother mine, your black gaze,
Brother mine, your white scream;
Brother mine, my white gaze,
Brother mine, my black scream,
Brother mine.
Brother, where is your knife - here is mine;
Brother, here is my knife - where is yours;
Brother, where is your knife - here is mine,
Here is my knife, my brother,
Brother mine.
And battle there was, and celestial bodies faded
Behind the black row of clouds;
I knew not what power was being roused
By the glimmer of our blades...
I knew not what power was being roused
By the glimmer of our blades,
And steamed the battle, and boiled the battle
Behind the black row of clouds!
(Ja-hei, ja-ho! etc)
Whose half-ghostly shadow is smoking in the east?
Whose crystal roads did sunder night and day?
Who did touch the sky with his shaft,
Who with his shaft did penetrate the bottom?
Whose breast-placed amulet enjoins the Sun and the Moon?
This one - the one whose time is still to come, sliding on the winds of evening storms;
Three pupils burn in one eye, inwards turned.
This one - propelled by our fight,
He carries on his way in silence;
And four pupils burn in the eye that gazes outward.
(Hei! etc)
And to my feet fell my brother, besmeared in crimson;
And the cries of crazed birds
Did circle the rock where the defeated one lay steaming,
Oozing from the empty eye sockets.
And the eye did I bait, and threw the line under the cliff,
Where the waves swirl in a funnel:
The luck was mine! - I brought out a fish
With a strange, unfamiliar human face.
The fish did I taste - and the shutters fell off me,
I saw through the day's burning haze
How a crimson warrior moves through the sky,
Whose exacting eye did call me to account.
I threw up my palms, but saw through my fingers,
And lo, then did it stab into my face:
The four pupils in a glimmering circle,
In a bloody and horrible ring.
And singed were my thoughts, and my memory frozen,
And then did I start on my journey;
And Northwards I went, and a bird did soar,
And my gaze streamed like liquid mercury.
I slept under roots of the great fallen firs,
And ate loganberries and honey;
I embroidered the tortured call of the water-hen
Over the ripples of the evening swamps.
And in lands of the edgeless ices and gloaming,
Where a tear freezes and evaporates on one's face,
Do I sing of a brother who slaughtered a brother
For a fish, whose food is an eye.