Doon en hoorin is, voor gemi koo zavte
Choonki indz zavtetsir khapov, nazani
Arivelk, arivmut, harav oo hyusis
Ch ka kizi nman chapov, nazani
Shat mart koo eshkemen koo darna yizit
Ari me rahm ara, lav katsi mizit
Goozim te hamasha dam anim kizit
Santoorov, kamanchov, dapov, nazani
Dardires shatatsav asil im uzum.
Achkemes artasoonk hoosil im uzum.
Hamasha, yar, kizit khosil im uzum.
Sirtes che kshtanoom gapov, nazani
Hayaloo is adab unis, ar unis,
Dzirit dasta kapats soosanbar unis.
Toor indzi spane ikhtiar unis.
Henchak eli kenas bapov, nazani
Sayat-Noven asats arz anim Khanin.
Ghabool unim koo khatroo indz spanin.
Henchak eli, yar, gas im gerezmanin,
Atsis khoghen veres apov, nazani ~Sayat Nova
You are a nymph who seizes ahold of the ship,
Because you seized me with deception, graceful one.
East, West, South and North–
There is none like you, graceful one.
Because of love for you many men might be unfaithful.
Come, have pity on me, stay with us.
I would like that I will always be happy with you–
With the triangle, kamancha and tambourine, graceful one.
My troubles increased–I want to speak.
I want to pour forth tears from my eyes!
Beloved, I always want to speak with you.
My heart is not satisfied with revelry, graceful one.
You are decent, you have modesty–you have shame.
You have the marjoram with you I tied in a bouquet.
Kill me–you have the right!
Let it be thus, you will be faithful, graceful one.
Sayat Nova said, I will petition the Khan.
I agree–they will slay me for your sake.
Let it be thus, beloved–you will come to my tomb.
With your palm you scatter earth on it, graceful one.
Translated by Larison
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 21st, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Mark Krikorian
Bravo for the Sayat Nova translation. His Armenian is so full of dialect and Turkish or Persian words that an ordinary (actually, not very good) Armenian speaker like myself can’t tell what he means half the time. Anyway, during the Soviet period I visited his grave in Tiflis during some commemoration, and they tried to present him as a pan-Caucasus figure, belonging equally to the Georgians and the Azeri Turks.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Daniel Larison
Thanks very much for your comments, Mr. Krikorian, and welcome to Eunomia. His language can be very difficult because of the borrowings and dialectual forms. Amusingly, my very limited dabbling in Hindi by way of Bollywood helped me recognise some of the Persian loan-words that both Hindi and Sayat Nova’s poetry seem to share (hamasha in this poem, for instance, is virtually identical to the Hindi word hamesha, meaning always). I had some considerable help with the Sayat Nova volume I was working with (and from my Armenian instructor), as it had a glossary translating the dialectual and borrowed words into modern Eastern Armenian.
While it is true that he had Georgian and Azeri poems as well, and obviously he dwelt in Tiflis at the Georgian court for many of his most productive years, he was clearly first an Armenian, Armenian was his first language and he was a master of the medieval Armenian ashogh tradition. Naturally, in the Soviet period any emphasis on his Armenian identity would have been most unwelcome. As multilingual and versatile as he was, there is simply no comparison in Georgia and Azerbaijan with how Sayat Nova’s work is remembered and reproduced today in Armenia.