17. "Колыбельная"

[jetta-e]

текст арии

Карин медленно идет вглубь сцены, где свет выхватывает из темноты колыбель с младенцем.

Карин:

Сгустился сумрак, день ушел,
И сон крадется, словно вор…
Спокойной ночи, мой родной,
Усни, укрывшись тишиной.
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!

Мое дитя, ребенок-принц,
На щечках тень густых ресниц…
Глаза невинные закрой
И спи-усни, мой золотой.
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!

Тебя хранит моя любовь
Для игр и сладких теплых снов.
Не знаешь ты какой ценой
Оплачен будет наш покой.
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!
Я буду рядом, я с тобой!

Настанет день и спросишь ты,
Где твой отец и кем он был.
Кто виноват, что злой судьбой,
Ты вырос, сын мой, сиротой.
Лишь я одна теперь с тобой!
Я буду рядом, я с тобой.
Я буду рядом, я с тобой…

Карин и колыбелька с маленьким Грегором погружаются в темноту

Аудиозапись: lavka.lib.ru/bujold/mp3/2-06%20lullaby.mp3
Зеркало сайта: lavkamirov.com/bujold/mp3/2-06%20lullaby.mp3

Comments

[Menada]

The darkness fell like autumn leaf
And sleep comes crawling like a thief
Sleep well, my dear one, goodnight
In starry silence dream of light
I will be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

My precious child, my baby-prince,
My only treasure ever since…
Do close your eyes so pure and bright
And sleep, my golden one, sleep tight
I will be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

You are too young to realize
What bought our peace, who paid the price
My love will be your guard and guide
So you can play and dream, my child
I will be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

The day will come, you will inquire
About the man that was your sire
Ill fate by which we all abide
Has made you orphan out of spite
It’s only me now by your side
I will be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

[teldreaming]

Oh, very nice. A friend expressed interest in working on this so I'll see if she wants to help.

[Umeko]

Menada, просто потрясающе прекрасно.

[Menada]

спасибо)

teldreaming, I'll gratefully take all the help I could get

Umeko, давно заметила - самые удачные строки непринуждённо рождаются сами, когда их почти не ждёшь)

[teldreaming]

Menada: well, an issue here is that the recorded version does not precisely match the lyrics jetta-e gave... but I'll ignore that for now and just look at your English. I know Philomytha has done a version of this too.

1) The darkness fell like autumn leaf - should properly be something like '[the] Darkness falls like an autumn leaf' which unfortunately does not match the meter
2) And sleep comes crawling like a thief - nothing wrong with the English, but comes across as creepy for a lullaby
8) The dangling "ever since" here is odd but passable.

17-20) The first four lines of the last verse have English that's correct but too complicated and adult to be right for a lullaby. Abide/spite is dubious rhyme.

Otherwise looks great!

-Tel

[Menada]

teldreaming, thanks)

1) May be "the night falls like an automn leaf" will be better?

2) literal translation almost, the original being "night crawls like a thief"

17-20) what can i do about the complexity? the words are quite short and supposedly often used in royal palace (sire, inquire), so the imperial child certainly might understand them
plus i suspect that at some point Kareen sings not so much to put the baby to sleep as to vent her own grief

usually the rhymes of syllables with established pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants (d - t) are accepted, if the vowels are the same, no?
i supposed that any minor rough edges could be downplayed by the singer and the melody, anyway...

[Menada]

teldreaming, oh, and please have Philomytha post her version here too! I am very interested in it.

[Гость]

Well, this is what I've got so far. I'm happiest with the first and third verses; I think the second is too syrupy - actually, it's all a bit syrupy, but that's the worst - and the final lines don't fit the rhythm very well. Also, this is a translation of the sung version rather than the written; the sung omits one of the choruses.

The darkness falls, the day is done
And night's long shadow steals the sun
Good night, my dear, it's time for bed
In sleepy silence rest your head

I'll be with you, I'll be there
I'll be with you, I'll be there

Thick lashes shield your sleepy eyes
And silent now your drowsy cries
My royal child, my precious boy
May all your dreams be dreams of joy

I'll be with you, I'll be there
I'll be with you, I'll be there

Secure within my love you play
And dream your infant nights away
In peaceful days you do not know
The price we pay to make them so.
One day you'll ask where daddy's gone
And why you grew up all alone
What happened to him and who's to blame
And why we never speak his name...
But now alone I'm here with you!

I'll be with you, I'll be there!
I'll be with you, I'll be there...

- Philomytha

[Menada]

Oh, well, my chorus lines can be omitted if necessary between those verses.

I like your 1st and 2nd verses (exept for "drowsy cries") but unfortunatly our variants don't mix well because I took to ensure the AABB-BB rhyme in verse-chorus as it was originally set.

May be you can offer some fixes to my version? 'Cause syrupy IMHO does not go well with the opera.

[teldreaming]

menada, the syrupy thing is not an issue exclusive to Philomytha's version . Pretty much any exclaiming over eyelashes will qualify, imho.

The register's somewhat off in your last verse. I'm not sure how to explain it better.

Spite is just a very quick, harsh, word, with harsher consonants and what I hear as a shorter vowel, while abide is much softer and two syllables.

I would definitely take Philomytha's opening two lines, they're gorgeous.

Both of you are dropping a syllable in the chorus and I don't think that's necessary...

more thoughts later.

[jetta-e]

Один из вариантов перевода, спетый вокалистом из русской записи оперы.
(исполнитель просит передать: он сознает, что его английское произношение более чем несовершенно, и просит сделать на это скидку. в конце концов, посчитаем, что это самый настоящий барраярский английский с русским акцентом! и да, он понимает, что это песня для женского голоса).
barrayar.slashfiction.ru/media/lullaby_en.mp3

[Menada]

афигеть!

[Awaiter]

угу. Евгений - ваще дико-мега крут....
Я вот тоже афигела

[Menada]

афигела я от того, что именно моё спели, ещё не слушая...
сейчас послушала - блин, вы не представляете, какой подарок к ДР мне сделали!
фиг с ними, с ошибками в произношении, оно шикарно!

Евгений, спасибо Вам большое!

[teldreaming]

It's definitely an interesting recording. The English is understandable, and I really like the guitar part.

Since this is one I can actually (vaguely) sing, I've dropped something past jetta-e.

[teldreaming]

My try at a merge:

The darkness falls, the day is done
And night's long shadow steals the sun
Sleep well, my dearest one, goodnight
In starry silence dream of light
I will still be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

My precious child, my baby-prince,
My only treasure ever since…
Now close your eyes so pure and bright
And sleep, my golden one, sleep tight
I will still be here by your side
I will stay here by your side

You are too young to realize
What bought our peace, who paid the price
My love will be your guard and guide
So you can play and dream, my child
One day you'll ask where father's gone
And why you grew up all alone
What happened to him, who's to blame
And why we never speak his name...
It's only me now by your side
I will stay here by your side
It's only me now by your side
I will stay here by your side

[Menada]

I don't like the change in the last verse (One day you'll ask...). IMHO the rhyme scheme ought to be kept original, AABB-BB, not AABB-CCCC

all others ok.

[Umeko]

gone (гон) не рифмуется с alone (элоун)...

[teldreaming]

A theoretical solution could be flipping the verse order to start with "One day you'll ask" and end with "dream, my child" if the rhyme is felt to be really that important.

Also worth mentioning an English listener is not necessarily going to perceive the rhyme scheme in the prior verses as AABBBB. "-ight" and "-ide" are similar but not identical.

More than two consecutive lines rhyming is unusual in English in the first place (I don't favor it).

Do you want to be on my email list for random recorded snippets? I do not claim to be very talented and this is not an opera for altos, but I've sung a few fragments for demonstration purpose.

[teldreaming]

Umeko: technically speaking you are completely right but it doesn't bother me in this context and in fact I didn't even notice. But spite/abide bothers me a lot. Mostly because if you soften spite to rhyme it better it turns into "spied"...

[Menada]

teldreaming, yes, please.
flipping may actually work. i think the best way might be to try several drafts with an actual singer and music and judge by ear.

to spite/side/spied issue
is it not acceptable in English to rhyme the similar syllables with pair of consonants voiceless-voiced, as t-d, p-b, f-v etc?
[spait] - [said] would be phonetically acceptable in Russian lyrics and for the songs the rules are not even quite so strict


off topic

More than two consecutive lines rhyming is unusual in English in the first place

really? and rap???

[teldreaming]

It's complicated? There's a lot of exact rhyming and couplets in this song, so it sounds wrong, but in another context it might work. Sandwiching it between two exact rhymes highlights the problem.

The rhyme's close enough for some purposes, but not all. I think that your average English listener will assume that the first verses are AABBCC rather than AABBBB because the couplets rhyme exactly.

AAAA (except a repeated line) is sort of frowned upon in English I think. At least I frown on it It's just not usual to do it like that, in my experience. Mostly because less words rhyme in English - you start running out of good rhymes fast and it gets silly. Moon... June... spoon... baboon...

jetta-e, if you want you can upload the various recorded snippets I sent you so the group can listen. Though I can't sing Kareen very well (Yuri's much easier, oddly).

[Umeko]

teldreaming, I like this "baboon" )))))))

[jetta-e]

teldreaming, сделала объединенный вариант из текстов Menada и Philomytha и напела его (без инструментального сопровождения). Два уточнения: запись разбита на два фрагмента по техническим причинам и является, естественно, рабочим вариантом, предназначенным для того, чтобы услышать, как этот текст звучит в родном произношении:
barrayar.slashfiction.ru/media/opera_tmp/lul11....
barrayar.slashfiction.ru/media/opera_tmp/lul12....

[jetta-e]

teldreaming, сделала объединенный вариант из текстов Menada и Philomytha и напела его (без инструментального сопровождения). Два уточнения: запись разбита на два фрагмента по техническим причинам и является, естественно, рабочим вариантом, предназначенным для того, чтобы услышать, как этот текст звучит в родном произношении:
barrayar.slashfiction.ru/media/opera_tmp/lul11....
barrayar.slashfiction.ru/media/opera_tmp/lul21....

[teldreaming]

Is the guitar part for this written out anywhere? Played the mp3 at a housefilk today and there was a female guitarist who was very interested - I would like to encourage her.

[Гость]

teldreaming, вообще аккордовая последовательность там элементарная, то есть никаких сложностей не представляет даже для гитариста начального уровня (в России это называется "три блатных аккорда"). Я обычно играю в тональности Hm (си бемоль минор), но только потому что мне так петь удобнее, можно совершенно безбоязненно транспонировать в Ам (ля минор). Короче примерно так:

Hm
The darkness fell like autumn leaf
Em
And sleep comes crawling like a thief
A
Sleep well, my dear one, goodnight
D Em
In starry silence dream of light
F# Hm Em
I will be here by your side
F# Hm
I will stay here by your side

Или как вариант для Am:

Am
The darkness fell like autumn leaf
Dm
And sleep comes crawling like a thief
G
Sleep well, my dear one, goodnight
C Dm
In starry silence dream of light
E Am Dm
I will be here by your side
E Am
I will stay here by your side

Вообще если будут вопросы - пишите, мой e-mail - [email protected]

Евгений Адеев

[Гость]

Оппс... вся расстановка аккордов сползла Виноват, I'm sorry... Тогда действительно лучше по e-mail.

Е. Адеев