Самое Большое Простое Число
Злой
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- ▶ play from beginning (annotation starts at 1:31)
- Verse
- Первые люди были поэты, дали вещам имена The first people were poets, they gave names to things Likely Giambattista Vico (Scienza Nuova, 1725): his core thesis is that primitive humans were poets who named the world through metaphor; widely absorbed into Russian literary theory via Potebnya and others
- Я сохранила твои секреты, ты же назвал меня I kept your secrets, but you named me Original СБПЧ; plays on the naming theme from the previous line: intimacy via naming, betrayal via exposure
- Нас мало любили, мы малые дети, ослепшие от красоты We were little loved, we are small children, blinded by the beauty Likely original СБПЧ; Silver Age register, echoing Balmont's aesthetic of beauty as an overwhelming, dangerous force
- Кто видел когда-нибудь ветер? Ни я не видел, ни ты Who has ever seen the wind? Neither have I seen it, nor you Christina Rossetti, "Who Has Seen the Wind?" (1872). Near-direct translation; "nor you" is deliberately ambiguous, with both the wind and the person remaining unseen
- Couplet ×4
- Выжечь на сердце железом раскалённым To burn into the heart with hot iron Likely original СБПЧ; "burning into the heart" is a common Romantic/Silver Age trope; possibly echoing Mayakovsky's hyperbolic declarations of love
- Четыре горячих слова — «Хочу быть всегда влюблённым» Four burning words: "I want to always be in love"
- Chorus ×2
- Он злой, он очень плохой He is evil, he is very bad Original СБПЧ; deliberately childlike register, stylistically mirroring Korney Chukovsky's animal catalogues (Tarakanishche, Krokodil); the absurd list deflates adult betrayal into a child's tantrum
- Он змея, крокодил, носорог, китобой He is a snake, a crocodile, a rhinoceros, a whaler
- Он всадил мне нож в бок He drove a knife into my side Original СБПЧ; tonal contrast: the knife is genuinely violent imagery erupting through the childlike register above
- Как он мог, как он мог? How could he, how could he?