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Feb. 5th, 2010 at 9:17 PM
Enjoy!
Cat
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Vladimir Vysotsky
Song About Reincarnation
joking song
some believe in Muhammad, Allah, or Jesus
some people don't believe in anything, even in the devil
just to spite others
the Hindus have thought up a good religion
that when we kick the bucket, we don't entirely die
if your soul aspired to higher things,
you'll be reborn again with a dream,
but if you lived like a pig,
you'll remain a pig!
Let others look askance at you,
get used to their reproach,
annoying? well, you'll get reborn
able to answer in kind
and if you saw your enemy die in this life
in the next, you'll have a sharp and clear eye
Live normally
there's a reason to rejoice
because perhaps your soul will transmigrate into a boss
if you're a street cleaner, you'll be reborn as a building supervisor,
and later, from a building supervisor, you'll become a minister,
but if you're dumb as a stump,you'll get reborn as a baobab tree,
and you'll live as a baobab tree a thousand years, till you die!
it's annoying to live as a parrot
or as a rattlesnake, which lives a long time, too,
isn't it better to be a decent person while you're alive?
so who is who? who was who?
we never know
the geneticists have gone insane from their genes and chromosomes
maybe that shabby-looking cat was a criminal before
and that kind person used to be a nice dog in his previous lifeI jump up and down with delight
I avoid all temptations
Hindus have thought up a really handy religion!
Comments
The Promotion
I was a dog in my former life, a very good
dog, and, thus, I was promoted to a human being.
I liked being a dog. I worked for a poor farmer
guarding and herding his sheep. Wolves and coyotes
tried to get past me almost every night, and not
once did I lose a sheep. The farmer rewarded me
with good food, food from his table. He may have
been poor, but he ate well. And his children
played with me, when they weren’t in school or
working in the field. I had all the love any dog
could hope for. When I got old, they got a new
dog, and I trained him in the tricks of the trade.
He quickly learned, and the farmer brought me into
the house to live with them. I brought the farmer
his slippers in the morning, as he was getting
old, too. I was dying slowly, a little bit at a
time. The farmer knew this and would bring the
new dog in to visit me from time to time. The
new dog would entertain me with his flips and
flops and nuzzles. And then one morning I just
didn’t get up. They gave me a fine burial down
by the stream under a shade tree. That was the
end of my being a dog. Sometimes I miss it so
I sit by the window and cry. I live in a high-rise
that looks out at a bunch of other high-rises.
At my job I work in a cubicle and barely speak
to anyone all day. This is my reward for being
a good dog. The human wolves don’t even see me.
They fear me not.
by James Tate
http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/3635766.html
(also, I fixed the entry--you can now listen to the song :))
And the plagiarist's song--do you know the source of the phrase he plagiarized? ;)
I will listen to "Morning Calisthenics" now; thank you.
I'll have to post that poem sometime.
See, he is studied in school in Russia (of course), and the two lines the plagiarist quotes are the two lines which begin one of his more famous poems, one specifically studied in schools...;)
The illustrations are good, aren't they? They are for "Ruslan and Ludmila", the beginning of the tale:
"By the sea-strand an oak green,
A gold chain around that oak,
And day and night, a learned cat
At the end of that chain, walks round and round the oak;
When he walks to the right, he starts chanting a song,
When he walks to the left, he narrates a fairy-tale;
There be marvels: the forest sprite wanders there,
And a mermaid sits up in the trees;
There, on the unknown paths, are the footprints of fairytale animals,
There's a house on chicken legs, without doors or windows, which stands there..."
The house on chicken legs, I did recognize.
Have you read Orson Scott Card's "Enchantment"? Many allusions to Russian folklore in that one, although not to Ruslan and Ludmila.
Also, look, I found Vysotsky's songs in translation, here's one of his funny ones, "Agent 007":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10so-u_610I
P.S. Yes, Baba Yaga lives in the house on chicken legs...
Edited 2016-08-19 07:17 pm (UTC)
Thank you; I like 'Agent 007', and appreciate the interlinear translation. I will send this to my niece, who is a James Bond fan and speaks better Russian than I.
You're welcome re: Agent 007 and I'm sure your niece will also enjoy it. (in case you didn't know, the mention of long-distance call in the song is because back then, one had to dial "07" to get the long-distance operator; actually, it's mentioned in another of his songs ["...and I'm dialing the eternal '07'"], I'll have to post that one for you at some point)
I remember dialing 9 to get an outside line. It is odd to think how much telephones have changed in the past few decades. My niece has probably never seen a rotary dial phone.
And I see; one of the reasons you prefer poetry, then, perhaps? :)
The sheet music can be found--I can look if you wish?