Andrew Waterman
Featured
Romanian folk ballad
Tuesday, 22 Dec 2009
|
Below is my translation of the Romanian folk ballad was published in the fiftieth anniversary double issue of Aganda (Vol 44 No 4/Vol 45 No1)Mioritza NOTE The ballad Mioritza (Ewe Lamb), known by Romanians in hundreds of variants for centuries, was first written down and printed by Vasile Alecsandri in 1850. His is the standard literary form, but its creator is the Romanian people. In Mioritza they find a myth defining their identity and psyche. It fuses fatalism – the victim neither fights nor flees when warned of what threatens – with a transcending of evil in a manner both mystical and ethical: a majestic pantheistic affirmation coupled with, in the shepherd’s instructions to his lamb, a compassionate moral vision. Mioritza differs from such other national epics as the Iliad and the Nibelungenlied not only in its brevity, but in its minimal narrative, dropped with its outcome undisclosed as a serene lyricism supervenes. Instead of relations between characters shaping action, here they are undeveloped beyond the jealousy of the two other shepherds; but nature, rather than mere backdrop, is an active agent. Mioritza has complex, mutually enriching origins; the notion of death as a wedding has been traced back to pre-Roman Dacia. Its spell is in the power and beauty of the myth, given perfect artistic shape that is no feat of individual genius, but evolved through the collective processes of oral telling. My translation aims for as close a fidelity as possible to the text and feel of Alecsandri, for which adherence to his pithy rhymed form, with its unadorneddirectness of diction, is essential. On a green slope straight Below heaven’s gate, Descending the trail That drops to the vale Come three flocks of sheep Three shepherds keep, One a Moldavian, One Transylvanian, And one Vrancean. Now the Transylvanian And the Vrancean Sharing their thought, Conspire in a plot, When the sun leaves the sky The other must die, That Moldavian, The wealthier man, With more sheep in his flock, Long-horned sturdy stock, Better-trained horses And his dogs the fiercest. But a ewe-lamb, small With yellow-white wool, While three days pass Bleats without pause, Won’t eat any grass. ‘Pied lamb with your black Face and legs and white back, While three days pass You bleat without pause, Don’t you like this grass? Are you too ill to eat, Mioritza my sweet?’ ‘O dear shepherd, gather Your sheep to the river, Dark woods spread through With grass for us too, And shadow for you. Master, master, Call to that pasture The bravest of all Your dogs and most loyal, For at sunset those two Intend murdering you, That Transylvanian And the Vrancean!’ ‘Lamb, if by some spell What’s to be you foretell, Should I chance on my death On this stretch of heath, Tell that Transylvanian And him, the Vrancean, They should bury me near, In the sheepfold here, So that I will Be with you all still, And hear my dogs bark Round the fold in the dark. Tell them what I’ve said, Then place at my head A pipe of beech, Of love is its speech, A pipe of bone Caressing in tone, A pipe of elder Fierier and wilder! Winds when they blow Will sound through them so All my sheep crowd Round weeping aloud With tears of blood! But don’t breathe a word That I was murdered, You must just say I married today, A king’s daughter my bride, The whole world’s pride; At my wedding tell How a star fell; That the sun and moon Carried our crown; Of the guests at our feast, Firs and maples, our priests Great mountains, and birds, Thousands of birds Our lutes and guitars, And our torches stars! But if you sight, If you should meet My old mother in her wool Sash, from her full Eyes the tears flowing, Over fields going, Asking of all, Speaking to all, “Who of you has known, Who has seen my own Proud shepherd, as slim As if drawn through a ring, The white of his brow Milk-foam from the cow, His moustache neat As an ear of wheat, Thick curls that grow Like the plumes on a crow, And his two eyes Wild blackberries?” Then, my little ewe, Pity her too, You must just say I married today A bride royal and great, At heaven’s gate, But to my sweet Mother never repeat That a star fell At my wedding, nor tell Of the guests at our feast, Firs and maples, our priests Great mountains, and birds, Thousands of birds Our lutes and guitars, And our torches stars!’ |
|
|
You can contact me at andrew@andrewwaterman.co.uk
This website ©2004-2010 Andrew Waterman