So, I have returned, as I promised, with translations for the songs on Armod. I have chosen to translate all the lyrics, even the ones with an English version, as I figured that it could be interesting to read a more direct translation that does not have to fit in the metre or rhythm.
So here it goes:
Armod
The Black WidowIn the northwind of the night
a blade, a cry, the calm of a haze.
Aaah aaah aaah
Moss, heavy and red,
a reflection in the edge of the dagger,
deep in the cooling embers of life.
Aaah aaah aaah
Striding forth in the darkness,
retaliation with cheerless footfalls,
the queen of vengeance in virgin-hame,
for the wrong she did not forgive.
The leaves of autumn, like her tears,
fall softly in the stillness of the forest.
The moon is the only witness
to the black widow’s task.
Wedding gown, now grey rags,
by the passage of time to the perdition of a soul.
The bane of her heart is the victim
of the black widow’s task.
Through drizzling rain,
the following quietly wanders forth
towards the overflowing hearth of sorrow.
Aaah aaah aaah
Towards a cold, black soil
the coffin is reverently lowered,
during the last words of the psalm.
Aaah aaah aaah
The memories do not fade. Like a scar they remain.
I cannot make myself soothe melancholy.
Heaven does not comfort this crestfallen soul.
My deep anguish becomes my own farewell.
The elusive call of the demons of darkness,
a breeze of relief on the edge of night.
Driven towards the verge and the entirety of the afflictions,
with the cold steel in my hand.
The Queen of Mists
On the mountaintop in the form of an eagle-owl stands Omma,
a brooder, in mythical form, of the wisdom in its world.
At the foot of the mountain in grey shape stands Omma,
a guardian in the shadows, the shepherdess of extinguished lives.
Lo, she is dancing with the fairies
in the forest and on the meadows.
Neither woman, nor eagle-owl,
she is the queen of mists.
In the protection of brush, in the raiment of dew stands Omma.
The goddess from a time that has fled, a spirit in haze-garb.
On gloomy pathway, in a fair body stands Omma,
with the treachery of secret lust shall the wanderer thus be ensnared.
Peace of the Tomb
A fair young maiden bears the shame of lovemaking,
for by the fruits of sins you can never be gladdened.
A dank autumn night after secrecy and murder,
she buried a child’s corpse in unsanctified soil.
One day she was wed, on the lodge there was a feast,
after the guests had listened to their parochial priest.
A fiddle in major, the bride is treading the dance,
when a voice in minor is heard from the cracks:
“My body is too tall
for my grave, which is too narrow.
Rotten and dank is my linen,
filled with longing is my mind.”
Three men raised their courage and dug up
the dead body of an infant, to their horror and grief.
Now the bride, who was just married, dances,
with a risen myling* towards her own tomb.
“My body was too tall
for the grave, which was too narrow.
Peace of the tomb I have now acquired,
as I have found my mother.”
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MylingOh, Silent Solitude
Oh, silent solitude,
where shall I find pleasures?
Among sorrow that no-one knows
shall my days run out.
A burden as heavy as stone
meets me wherever I go.
Among thousands there is barely one
who understands love right.
It is the deepest sorrow
that the Earth can bear
that one should lose
one’s most beloved.
It is the deepest sorrow
passed over by the sun
that one shall love another,
whom one will never have.
A pure and noble mind,
a virtue that gleams lonely,
a mouth that speaks hotly
about all that the heart thinks.
I think such a friend
is more than very rare.
Where shall I the one,
who has these virtues.
Between you and me,
there was lit a flame,
there was lit a fire,
which is a daily pain.
How shall I soften it?
I have really no idea.
I grieve until my death,
if I cannot have you.
By the Grave of the Roses
Innocent love, once in bloom,
germinating in its full glory.
Betrothed hearts in the fire of desire,
victims of the power of envy.
Treacherous lust in the barren light of the moon,
a wailing is heard therein.
Through the gloom of the autumn fog,
like a steel, an icy scream.
Lonely stands the moon as the bride of the night.
In the arms of the darkness stands a shape
in sorrow-black raiment.
The days of gentleness are since long passed,
though the memories thereof do not fade.
The pain of love in the cover of shadows,
dwells by the grave of the roses.
Beyond the marsh, at the edge of the forest,
lies the grave of past sins.
The sworn noblemen
keep silent about that life, which has foundered.
Soiled virtue broods on a secret,
keeping silent, resting in secrecy.
Grimborg
The warriors sat on a high mountain,
greeted each other cheerily one evening.
“It has become time to take a wife, has it not?”
The warrior fought so mightily.
“Well do I know a very fair wife,
but if you propose there, you lose your life”
“Friend and brother dear, will you follow me there?”
The warrior fought so mightily.
When they came to her farmstead,
they found a fence of iron and steel.
On each pole there was a bloody man’s-head.
The warrior fought so mightily.
Grimborg opened the locks,
made his fingers soft and small.
“Come, fair maiden and take off my shoes.”
The warrior fought so mightily.
So he took the maiden and disappeared from there,
home to the mother went his steps.
Say, did he know that she was the king’s daughter?
Before the daybreak and before the light
the courtiers stood before his house.
Grimborg rides to the farmstead of the king.
“Where are the courtiers I sent yesterday?”
“Your servants lie stricken like sheep”
The warrior fought so mightily.
Grimborg turns the grey steed,
batters all the king’s courtiers beneath him.
Then he brushes off his bloody sword.
The warrior fought so mightily.
“We ask you, dear Grimborg, still your sword.
The daughter of mine is your wish
and you shall have her, you earn that.”
Grimborg went off with the gentle daughter
and they lived calmly in peace thereafter.
Sir Peder and his Sister
The king went far away, to Ryninge.
When the bird sings in the forest.
Left at home was sister and brother.
A proud maid awakes me.
“Little Kerstin, may I have sweet love with you?”
When the bird sings in the forest.
“No, for severe sins are bound to that.”
A proud maid awakes me.
“Then I shall concoct a lie about you!”
When the bird sings in the forest.
“Go on and lie, no-one will believe you over me!”
A proud maid awakes me.
When the king was returned from Ryninge:
When the bird sings in the forest.
“And how do you fare, who stayed at home?”
A proud maid awakes me.
“Little Kerstin commits both adultery and murder”
When the bird sings in the forest.
“Little infants she puts in the soil”
A proud maid awakes me.
Under the height of heaven,
kinship desecrated by the work of the devil
on this mournful day.
Under the glow of the autumn sun,
virgin* sacrificed for conceit and betrayal,
now bears fabricated guilt.
“How can the grass grow on the ground,”
When the bird sings in the forest.
“when the father will not believe the son?”
A proud maid awakes me.
The king said to two petty squires:
When the bird sings in the forest.
“Now go to the forest and cut me a pyre”
A proud maid awakes me.
Under the height of heaven,
kinship desecrated by the work of the devil
on this mournful day.
Under the glow of the autumn sun,
virgin* sacrificed for conceit and betrayal,
now stands on the brink of the grave.
Early the escort rode, the graveyard was its destination
and then little Kerstin was thrown on the reddest of pyres.
My limbs burn red, my hay-sheafs burn blue.
“God spare me, who shall go up thereon”
“Hear, Sir Peder, what I say to you,
in the name of the Jesus, I wish for some water for me!”
So he put a horn on the longest of spears,
but those few little drops, he spilled.
Under the height of heaven,
kinship desecrated by the work of the devil
on this mournful day.
Under the glow of the autumn sun,
virgin* sacrificed for conceit and betrayal,
now stands in the blaze of the flames.
There came down two doves of heaven.
When the bird sings in the forest.
When they went up, they were three.
A proud maid awakes me.
There came up two ravens of hell.
When the bird sings in the forest.
They took sir Peder with body and soul.
A proud maid awakes me.
Grimace in the Morning (written by the famous Swedish 70's-troubadour Cornelis Vreewijk)
Now dew falls and now sun rises, but you cannot hear it.
You lie without blouse and skirt, with the lips against my ear.
Now speak seriously, you ask firmly:
You laugh songs and sing jokes,
you can but won’t make a song about the fragile happiness.
Now rises sun and now dew falls for poor people and for rich,
but happiness has a poisoned thorn, which one should carefully avoid.
She stays for a few days
but when you wish to keep her,
her eyes turn ice-cold and you turn as bitter as gall.
So the dew falls without sound and grass and leaves become wet
and each morning the sun stands as bride, though no bridal psalms sound.
Ann-Katarin, know this:
there is a happiness that dies through laughter,
but it wants caressing in the night and is still as water.
Rise from the bed, Ann-Katarin, and listen to something important:
there is a certain kind of precious wine that should be enjoyed carefully.
Because if you drink it without sense
it loses its former shine
and you are left with an empty bottle and bitter tears and ashes.
Lady Silver (Silfver is a noble last name, but it is only an older spelling of "silver", so I chose to translate it)
Sir Silver was a knight,
he was betrothed to a maid in a foreign land.
They lived together for seven years
and she bore the children, one and then two.
Then death came unto their farmstead,
lady Silver was laid upon the blackest of litters,
but the fathers soon weds a new mother to his farm.
She kicked one and beat the other,
the third she pulled in the hair.
The children then fled the chamber where the mother lay.
One cried tears, one cried blood,
the third cried “mother” from blackest soil.
“On my grave there is lamenting, on the grave there is weeping”
Lady Silver descends from heaven
and returns to her farmstead
and out to meet her stands the stepmother.
“I left both field and meadow,
but the children and forced to bed starving.
I left sheets so blue,
but the children are lying on splinters and straw”
“If you now will not become
a gentle mother of the children,
I shall let you suffer and abide in Hell”
“I shiver and I dread.
Never shall your children lack anything.
I promise it now and shall keep it until my death”
“May then serpents eat away both heart and bosom
if I then do the little ones any harm.
For never shall I torment your kin,
so nevermore show yourself in such raiment.”
And lady Silver leaves
both safety and hope
and then goes back up to heaven.
Then the stepmother embraces her children
and calls them all loving names.
Thema: The return of the translations - the lyrics of Armod in English (Gelesen 25048 mal)