(I translate very freely:)
Left behind is youth - like a flowing river.
Already grey threads - sets life's golden handiwork.
I reach for the present moment -
life's joy does not come from pleasant company or wine.
Left behind in time - my strenght's proud days.
The love of my spirit - in ancient times.
I rose from the pit. - I doubt I can fall again?
The wish of all: painless moments.
We know: peace in the grave is allowed us.
Seeker does not find comforting rest,
cool wind speaks, sun is obstructed from sight by storm,
a red line is left: a forceless longing for beauty.
Drown in the sea - my dreams' hills in flower.
I am a poor man: expensive are the costs of songs.
I gave my all, I had the forces to be active - for a while,
the loves f my dreams I paid by my mind's sorrow.
I am exhausted - oh, to the roots of my heart!
Was I given too much - life's load?
Or am I one of those wo have the will but not strenght?
My victory - empty, the results of my work - my conscience finds fault in them.
So in the end - were without a good reason born, difficulties,
broken chains - burned, loved ships?
Now already did I fall - when my all was needed?
I was solidified to ice - when my wound got a scar?
Hopeless fight - against heaven's powers!
Kannel sings - song does not comfort it's child.
Frost night speaks - tune sings - with collapsing wings.
To the peace of my pit - like a dying beast I sneak.
Eino Leino ( My nonliteral translation)
This poem is a favourite of the elderly and they copy a lot from it, I think, since in Finnish it is very impressive, song like. I added the "-" lines to make it more understandable. I did not like the fact that while reaching for secrecy it mixes the skills brought by experience with things going poorly It is fact that most people have great potential and sometimes hardships make a break in the habits and give us a rise toward higher talent if just the advices are right. But on the other hand it aren't good to give an impression that great skill due to experience and reaching for good quality, would somehow usually connect to great misfortune. I guess that some of the typical errors of the lderly come from this poem, so I replaced "In vain, in vain, I grasp the moment" by "I reach for the present moment" which is a cure and not the problem like the first one: one should not let good years pass one by without living them.
tiistai 26. heinäkuuta 2016
lauantai 23. heinäkuuta 2016
Lappland's summer
Lappland's summer
In Lappland all gets into flower soon,
the earth, grass, wheat, also the Lapplandish dwarf trees.
That I have been thinking about often
when I have looked to the past fates of this people.
Why among us all beautiful tends to die
and great deteriorate to not worthy?
Why do we have so many out of their mind?
Why so few who play a musical instrument?
Why men here everywhere fall like grass, -
men, of hope really,
men of ideals, men of feelings,
all get to be earth or stop in the midle of action?
In other countries gray haired spark fire,
in the elderly shines the sun of spirit.
Among us already kids are alike elderly men
and a young man is already ready for grav.
And what about me? Why do I ponder about these things?
It is a mark of having early grown old.
Why am I not following the command of blood's instinct,
but sigh about the fates of peoples?
There is only one answer: Lappland's summer.
In thinking of it one gets melancholic.
Short is Lappland's birdsong, fun
and the flourishing of flowers and other joys.
But long is the might of winter.
Just a moment rest ideals here like from flight,
when they again begin a sunny journey
and already leave the icy Lappland.
Oh, white birds, you guests of Lappland's summer,
you great ideals, I greet you!
Oh, stay here, make a nest here,
even if you move to the southern lands!
Oh, learn from the swans!
They leave in the autumns, return in the springs.
On our shores it is peaceful
and safe the side of Lappland's hills.
Sound of your wings whle you fly through the air!
Do deeds, lighten lands!
But when you see that winter has gone from here,
I pray, I ask: please return!
Eino Leino (My traslation)
(I live in Savo,originally from Helsinki and haven't been to Lappland, I am just a Finn and I was translating Eino Leino's poems at large, not in connection with Lappland, even though this poems is famous just in connection with Lappland.
I have also written about the seasons in Savo and the capital area, see http://finnishskills.blogspot.fi/2014/11/living-with-seasons.html , to which I needed some poems...)
(10th of June 2020 Surviving the winter is a question of high skills. I do not know if it belings here at all, but Santa Claus is said to live in the Finnish Lappland, and I have written a very long text about learning skills of Christmas gnomes and other Finnish gnomes: You can find it at https://learntalents.blogspot.com/ )
* * *
I try to explain this poem, kind of to tell that poems have objective content and are valuable, that is if they are really good quality poems.
1st paragrapf: The practical physical circumstancies in which we live our lives determine a lot of how our lives go. The Lapplandish seasons show that for example the ampunt of daylight and of how much one can because of the weather spend time outdoors, affect a lot how we feel:what is our situation of life that our feelings make us tuned to. From such things one can learn different lessons in life, especially valuable lessons aóne can learn from the nature, since it is objective, ages old and fractureless good quality, also objective in it's concretical features like for example the seen landscape and how branches grow toward light, which often is a good example for reaching one's goals, a good analogy for them.
2nd paragrapf: These are problems that the poet wants to solve in the world at large, with the help of the wisdom of life learned from the Lapplandin´sh nature. Music is a cure.
3rd paragrapf: to these the pet thinks that the Lapplandish nature is a good cure:if they did not have those wished for strenghts to begin with, the Lapplandish way of life together with the nature tend to teach them so that they can have them as realk virtuals from then on.
4th : Ideals that people, also kids tend to agree with, even though saiud as if one did not have such.
...
In Lappland all gets into flower soon,
the earth, grass, wheat, also the Lapplandish dwarf trees.
That I have been thinking about often
when I have looked to the past fates of this people.
Why among us all beautiful tends to die
and great deteriorate to not worthy?
Why do we have so many out of their mind?
Why so few who play a musical instrument?
Why men here everywhere fall like grass, -
men, of hope really,
men of ideals, men of feelings,
all get to be earth or stop in the midle of action?
In other countries gray haired spark fire,
in the elderly shines the sun of spirit.
Among us already kids are alike elderly men
and a young man is already ready for grav.
And what about me? Why do I ponder about these things?
It is a mark of having early grown old.
Why am I not following the command of blood's instinct,
but sigh about the fates of peoples?
There is only one answer: Lappland's summer.
In thinking of it one gets melancholic.
Short is Lappland's birdsong, fun
and the flourishing of flowers and other joys.
But long is the might of winter.
Just a moment rest ideals here like from flight,
when they again begin a sunny journey
and already leave the icy Lappland.
Oh, white birds, you guests of Lappland's summer,
you great ideals, I greet you!
Oh, stay here, make a nest here,
even if you move to the southern lands!
Oh, learn from the swans!
They leave in the autumns, return in the springs.
On our shores it is peaceful
and safe the side of Lappland's hills.
Sound of your wings whle you fly through the air!
Do deeds, lighten lands!
But when you see that winter has gone from here,
I pray, I ask: please return!
Eino Leino (My traslation)
(I live in Savo,originally from Helsinki and haven't been to Lappland, I am just a Finn and I was translating Eino Leino's poems at large, not in connection with Lappland, even though this poems is famous just in connection with Lappland.
I have also written about the seasons in Savo and the capital area, see http://finnishskills.blogspot.fi/2014/11/living-with-seasons.html , to which I needed some poems...)
(10th of June 2020 Surviving the winter is a question of high skills. I do not know if it belings here at all, but Santa Claus is said to live in the Finnish Lappland, and I have written a very long text about learning skills of Christmas gnomes and other Finnish gnomes: You can find it at https://learntalents.blogspot.com/ )
* * *
I try to explain this poem, kind of to tell that poems have objective content and are valuable, that is if they are really good quality poems.
1st paragrapf: The practical physical circumstancies in which we live our lives determine a lot of how our lives go. The Lapplandish seasons show that for example the ampunt of daylight and of how much one can because of the weather spend time outdoors, affect a lot how we feel:what is our situation of life that our feelings make us tuned to. From such things one can learn different lessons in life, especially valuable lessons aóne can learn from the nature, since it is objective, ages old and fractureless good quality, also objective in it's concretical features like for example the seen landscape and how branches grow toward light, which often is a good example for reaching one's goals, a good analogy for them.
2nd paragrapf: These are problems that the poet wants to solve in the world at large, with the help of the wisdom of life learned from the Lapplandin´sh nature. Music is a cure.
3rd paragrapf: to these the pet thinks that the Lapplandish nature is a good cure:if they did not have those wished for strenghts to begin with, the Lapplandish way of life together with the nature tend to teach them so that they can have them as realk virtuals from then on.
4th : Ideals that people, also kids tend to agree with, even though saiud as if one did not have such.
...
tiistai 5. heinäkuuta 2016
Some poems
Night song
Say, when breaks the morning
when I can wake up lightly?
Say, when lowers the evening,
when I can gladly fall?
Say, do you know when will come
Christmas and candles?
Say, when will disappear the ghosts
which walk behind me?
Don't fear! I am not crying.
I haven't been crying for years.
But for years I have slept
and believed in dreams.
And if one sleeping dream failed me,
I believed in a new one;
but the most beautiful dream of beautiful dreams
were you, girl - and my last.
I thought that you were the morning,
when I could wake up easily,
i believed you were the evening
when I could fall asleep gladly.
I dreamed my Christmas had come
with Christman trees and candles,
I thought ghosts had vanished
and gone the forest nights.
I already thought I was a human being,
not forever a dreamer,
I already thought I was happy -
not just a poet of happiness.
See, a human has joys and sorrows
and human feels and lives.
But a singer wanders and listens
and in his ears music sings.
And the music sings, sings days
and nights, he hears it from a distance, so far away.
And a singer wanders and listens
and he hears and - sings.
Eino Leino (My translation)
If I would comment to the poem: it sounds clishee like but is somehow better, more profound. Instead of just clishes it mentions feelings which make the experience of life deeper and healthier. While touching misery it finds a solution that usually works: dreaming. From that the poet continues to making dreams real at the level of life in the practise: "you, girl" and with dedication. But he knows that supposing something isn't the same as things being so, so his views stay on a solid ground. And while in some foreign lands peope would have emphasized art, he emphasizes life and a human being, so practical and healthy, with many kinds of feelings and multitude of things in days, that it sings in itself. And as the culmination of such wisdom of life a sense of music born of how the world sings, how the wisest choises sing in some profound deeply touching natural music of life, and so he lives naturally and expresses his life as a song too - which need not be of a certain form, it can be a description of how he came to write poems.
* * *
When I remember -
When i remember how many evenings
I have sat alone, alone,
and watched the stars of the sky,
which glimmer side by side,
so my girl,
my girl, oh,
close to you I need to come
and look at you long, so long.
When I remember how many travels
I have wandered in the forests,
I have sat under thick needle trees
and sat without joys,
oh my girl,
so my girl,
I need to kiss you long
and cry, cry quietly.
When I remember how many thoughts
I have trhought evil there,
which we could have avoided together
and won by cooperation,
so my girl,
oh, my girl,
you need to love me a lot
and love long, oh long.
Eino Leino (My translation)
* * *
Which one is more beautiful
Whih one is more beautiful:
believe that freedom comes,
hope that light wins,
and fight for light, -
or fight
knowing that light does not win,
knowing that freedom does not win,
and still fight.
Which one is more beautiful:
to think: if freedom does not win,
to ponder: if light does not come to rule,
why do I fight then?
Or to think:
I am a child of sunset, not of sunrise,
I am a man of light, if not of victory,
that's why I need to break.
Eino Leino (My translation)
My comment: Things are called good because they are good for some purpose, for example for making life better. Also wisdom is typically called good. So light isn't on the way to disappearing from the world. Quite contrary: as technology develops, it gets more complex and demands better thinking ability. Likewise globalization encourages to think of the wide world and avoid the error of tunnel-sightedness which is a typical reason for evil. About my objective views on the role of moral and feelings and ages old healthy natural ways of living in the tough modern world, please see my book http://www.angelfire.com/planet/paradisewins/2013paradise.rtf .
Say, when breaks the morning
when I can wake up lightly?
Say, when lowers the evening,
when I can gladly fall?
Say, do you know when will come
Christmas and candles?
Say, when will disappear the ghosts
which walk behind me?
Don't fear! I am not crying.
I haven't been crying for years.
But for years I have slept
and believed in dreams.
And if one sleeping dream failed me,
I believed in a new one;
but the most beautiful dream of beautiful dreams
were you, girl - and my last.
I thought that you were the morning,
when I could wake up easily,
i believed you were the evening
when I could fall asleep gladly.
I dreamed my Christmas had come
with Christman trees and candles,
I thought ghosts had vanished
and gone the forest nights.
I already thought I was a human being,
not forever a dreamer,
I already thought I was happy -
not just a poet of happiness.
See, a human has joys and sorrows
and human feels and lives.
But a singer wanders and listens
and in his ears music sings.
And the music sings, sings days
and nights, he hears it from a distance, so far away.
And a singer wanders and listens
and he hears and - sings.
Eino Leino (My translation)
If I would comment to the poem: it sounds clishee like but is somehow better, more profound. Instead of just clishes it mentions feelings which make the experience of life deeper and healthier. While touching misery it finds a solution that usually works: dreaming. From that the poet continues to making dreams real at the level of life in the practise: "you, girl" and with dedication. But he knows that supposing something isn't the same as things being so, so his views stay on a solid ground. And while in some foreign lands peope would have emphasized art, he emphasizes life and a human being, so practical and healthy, with many kinds of feelings and multitude of things in days, that it sings in itself. And as the culmination of such wisdom of life a sense of music born of how the world sings, how the wisest choises sing in some profound deeply touching natural music of life, and so he lives naturally and expresses his life as a song too - which need not be of a certain form, it can be a description of how he came to write poems.
* * *
When I remember -
When i remember how many evenings
I have sat alone, alone,
and watched the stars of the sky,
which glimmer side by side,
so my girl,
my girl, oh,
close to you I need to come
and look at you long, so long.
When I remember how many travels
I have wandered in the forests,
I have sat under thick needle trees
and sat without joys,
oh my girl,
so my girl,
I need to kiss you long
and cry, cry quietly.
When I remember how many thoughts
I have trhought evil there,
which we could have avoided together
and won by cooperation,
so my girl,
oh, my girl,
you need to love me a lot
and love long, oh long.
Eino Leino (My translation)
* * *
Which one is more beautiful
Whih one is more beautiful:
believe that freedom comes,
hope that light wins,
and fight for light, -
or fight
knowing that light does not win,
knowing that freedom does not win,
and still fight.
Which one is more beautiful:
to think: if freedom does not win,
to ponder: if light does not come to rule,
why do I fight then?
Or to think:
I am a child of sunset, not of sunrise,
I am a man of light, if not of victory,
that's why I need to break.
Eino Leino (My translation)
My comment: Things are called good because they are good for some purpose, for example for making life better. Also wisdom is typically called good. So light isn't on the way to disappearing from the world. Quite contrary: as technology develops, it gets more complex and demands better thinking ability. Likewise globalization encourages to think of the wide world and avoid the error of tunnel-sightedness which is a typical reason for evil. About my objective views on the role of moral and feelings and ages old healthy natural ways of living in the tough modern world, please see my book http://www.angelfire.com/planet/paradisewins/2013paradise.rtf .
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