Re: translation?

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

I'm forwarding this for Yosl or Peggy who sent it from Peggy's
e-mail account. ari

Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:28:43 -0500
To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
From: Peggy Davis <phd (at) crocker(dot)com>
Subject: Re: translation?

A couple more corrections and comments on the translation:


At 4:59 AM -0500 7/15/98, Rachel Heckert wrote:>
>>>Mit a groysen Yidishen melech - WITH A GREAT YIDDISH KING

The word Yiddish means Jewish, so this would read WITH A GREAT JEWISH KING.

At 3:48 AM -0500 7/15/98, Ben Gidley wrote:

> >Ich hob ongevoren aza libe
> I HAVE BEEN AFFECTED THROUGH LOVE [VERY FREELY TRANSLATED, IS LIKE "I
>HAVE BEEN HIT BY LOVE"]

onvern = to lose; ongevorn is the past participle of onvern, therefore:
I have lost such a love

>>Vey iz mir un vind
>IT HURTS ME (AND?/IN THE? WIND)

vey = pain, vind = woe
Therefore: pain and woe are upon me

>>Die malko iz gevoren fardorben
>THE QUEEN WAS [literally DROVEN DESTRUCTED]

The dictionary (Weinreich) defines fardorbn as corrupted or depraved.  The
incomplete translation in the songbook cited below uses the word desolate
which I think makes more sense in context.  The phrase would therefore read:
The queen became desolate.

>>Die fegele is fun nest antlofen
>the small bird fell from the nest

Better: the little bird ran away from the nest, presumably by flying.


>>
>>Vu nemt men aza chochom
>where can you get a wise man
>>Er zol kenen maine vunden tzelen?
>he should be able to heal my wounds

Better:  Where can you get someone wise enough to COUNT my wounds?  In
other words: is there anyone who can understand what I have been through.

At 4:59 AM -0500 7/15/98, Rachel Heckert wrote:
>
>This sounds like a beautiful song.  Does it have an official name so I
>could look it up in the Brooklyn College music library (where we have
>some Yiddish resources)?

It is a beautiful song.  It can be found without the last verse in Mir
Trogn a Gezang published by Workmen's Circle, 45 E. 33rd Street, NY, NY.

I can't remember where I first heard it, I suspect on a Ruth Rubin record.
It appears to be like one of those lullabyes that were sung by mothers
whose husbands died, who were abandoned by their husbands who may have gone
off to America and then didn't send for their families, or whose lovers who
would not marry the girls they got pregnant.  In this genre, the mother
sings her woe to her child who is presumably too young to understand the
disturbing words, and is, rather, lulled to sleep by the comforting melody.

According to the songbook, the meylekh and malke (king and queen) represent
the Jewish husband and wife on Shabbos.  Thus, in this song, the woman
would be singing about herself:  Her husband (der meylekh) died (literally
or figuratively, by abandoning her), she (di malke) is inconsolable,
everything she has (the vinyard and the tree) are lost to her,  her child
(dos feygele) ran away (or will run away as soon as he or she is old enough
to get married, go to America, etc.) She wonders whether she will ever find
another person to love (der dokter).

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204