Note: I am not the author of this poem/song. This is merely a translation. The original poem/song is known as Korobeiniki (Коробейники), it is Russian. My understanding of the work may be flawed, but I did my best to replicate its meaning and message without sacrificing too much poetic flow. My Russian is not perfect by any means, so take this as a hobby project, not a real down-to-earth translation of the text.
The meter and rhyme are not always perfect. The meter used in the original Russian text is not easily transferable to English, and due to differing sentence structure, some lines may appear somewhat odd.
I may still revise this translation, as it is not perfect. Thank you for understanding.
The Peddlers
Oh, my crate is full of ware,
of brocade, calico.
Pity my shoulder, maiden fair,
pity this lad's woe.
And through the rye I'll go,
where dusk we shall await.
The dark-eyed lass I'll show,
my goods and wares of late.
And so had come the misty night,
the lad awaits his bride,
Hear, it's her! That long-desired sight!
The merchant boasts with pride.
Indeed, I had paid great a price,
so do not bargain, do not stall,
your lips my gaze do so entice,
sit closer lass, or not at all.
Kaťa haggles, lost in thought,
should she pay too much in turn.
There the lad her lips had bought,
for a higher price he'd yearn.
Deepest night and golden rye,
only you had heard their oath,
straighten up, now, rise up high,
guard their promise, hide them both.
Oh, my crate, emptied now it is,
and I rejoice in great relief.
Though the lass had taken but,
a turqoise ring - oh, such grief.
I gave her velvet, blissful art,
a ribbon for her hair,
a belt with which she wouldn't part,
for her to sow with flare.
Yet she returned my precious goods,
threw them back, though not the ring,
"Need I velvet for the woods,
when marriage is a sweeter thing?"
"Stay, remain, my love, for now I give,
to you a promise, my clear vow:
For once I sell my wares,
we shall venture home,
and with blessings, without snares,
with me to church you'll come!"
'Till the rainy evening came,
I walked beside the road,
catching up to Tihonych,
his body weak and old,
"I had thought you'd gone,"
Tihonych said with care.
At his words I calmly smirked,
"I was merely selling wares."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,027 Literary Works • 672,774 Reviews
Oh this is incredibly neat! I have been taking Hebrew recently, and have been working out translations of psalms from the original Hebrew as well as other Hebrew poetry and gosh it's a challenge! To try to capture the meaning, the spirit, and then some of the cadence too - doing word for word literal translations often diminish what the original so much - it's tough! Anyways, I admire your efforts to translate this Russian piece so that's accessible for us.
Though I wonder since it's not original work, if it might fit better in the Poetry Discussion Forums or in the Translation Club.
Well here are some of my impressions of the translation:
First, I have to say the efforts you've got through to preserve rhyme I think were particularity wonderful in here! Most of it sounded fairly natural to me.
I liked the alliteration you added with "Hear, it's her!" it's even a little play on words with the "here/hear".
I noticed in a lot of places there's added superlatives - like "such", "great", "merely", "precious" and these weren't necessarily very descriptive I wondered if they were in the original text?
A few of the phrases were a little awkward; like "for her to sow with flare" and "at his words I calmly smirked" - I can't quite picture how someone would calmly smirk.
Overall it's a cute story and I enjoyed the read. I hope you keep doing these translations!
~alliyah
%u05E9%u05DC%u05D5%u05DE %u05D0%u05DC%u05E0%u05DE
Darn, I hope I got that right. Used to study some Hebrew but forgot most of the alphabet. Can't recall the "SH" sound, and I probably missed some vowel substitutes here and there.
Anyway, you're right! Those words were indeed not in the original, because Slavic languages in general seem not to use them much in this descriptive manner. At least Czech, my native language, does not, and it is seen as the purest Slavic language.
And "for her to sow with flare" was tough as nails to come up with. In the original, it was like this:
"A belt for her white shirt,
for when she cuts during harvest season"
So I replaced cutting with sowing, and added the effect that it's for her to appear different from the other workers. It was quite flimsy, I agree.
Anyway, thanks! For the review and for the links too!
Hi there @LeutnantSchweinehund I am here to do a review on your work first things first.
What needs a bit of work
Oh, my crate is full of ware, I there I am readying this rong but ware is a bit of a stranch word and I am not shore what it means
of brocade, calico. I am not really shore what calico means really could you ecsplan it to me if you can.
Pity my shoulder, maiden fair, I don't get what the tow senstensis are saposto mean when I read it, it just sounds really wered to me.
And through the rye I'll go, I don't think I have ever herd of the word rye before you need to make this a bit more clear.
my goods and wares of late. okay what is this sentes saposto mean really.
The merchant boasts with pride. okay what dose merchant mean I propley have seen this word before but I can not remember what it means.
Kaťa haggles, lost in thought, okay this is okay but a bit stranch. So that is all that I can say about this, by the way nise work on translating this, keep up the good work, HAPPY REVIEW DAY,
@EagleFly out to kill and seek
Ooooohhhh, I loved this! This just solidifies my love for Russian poetry and literature
It sounds very nice in English and I'm sure you've done a great job at translating it!
Oh, many thanks. It wasn't easy to translate, especially to get stuff to rhyme. But the rhyme scheme is important, so hopefully it didn't damage the meaning too much!