My Virtual Reading Room

Translation of lyrics:

When your heart feels heavy
And your chest feels cold inside,
Come to the steps of the Hermitage at dusk,
Where, without food or drink,
Having been forgotten by the ages,
The Atlases hold up the sky with their stone arms.


To hold up this huge sky is no fun, if you look at it--
Their backs are tense and their knees pressed together.
Their hard job is more important than other jobs--
If one of them should weaken, the sky will fall.


In the darkness, widows will weep,
The fields will burn down,
And the purple mushroom cloud will rise,
And the Earth will end.
And the sky, year after year,
Presses down more and more heavily.
It trembles from the hum
Of the rocket ships.


They are standing there, the lads,
Their carved bodies.
They were placed here long ago,
And their relief never showed up.
The light of day does not make them happy,
And they cannot sleep at night.
The war mars their beauty
With shelling.

They are standing there, forever,
Having pressed their foreheads against the trouble.
Not gods but humans, who are used to hard work.
And we can live in hope while
The Atlases are still holding up the sky with their stone arms.