Tuesday, January 8, 2013

languagehat.com: UP OR DOWN.

languagehat.com: UP OR DOWN.

is about the poem and the song "А напоследок я скажу".

and the comments give a lot of different great translation attempts; saw that page too late and couldn't submit mine:

When it all ends I will just say -
You have your leave with no obligation
As into madness I descend -
Or rise to folly’s higher elevation.

What was your love - you tasted doom
Just fleetingly, but what’s the matter -
You ruined me - unskillfully,
And did not know any better...

A cruel miss... A hunter must
Expect no pardon having  bungled -
A body walks and sees the light
But it is empty and abandoned.

Few thoughts still animate the head
But hands are hanging in despair
Like flock of birds across the sky
All smells and sounds leave the air...

When it all ends I will just say...