Wish/Synthesis of Happiness by Carlos Drummond de Andrade*
I wish for you …
Fruit from the jungle
The scent of the garden
Flirting at the front gate
Sunday without rain
Monday without a bad mood
Saturday with your love
To hear a kind word
To have a pleasant surprise
A full moon
Re-examining an old friendship
To have faith in God
Not having to hear the word ‘no’
Nor ‘never’, ‘never ever’ or ‘goodbye’.
Laughing like a child
Listening to a bird song
To write a poem of love
That will never be torn
To form an ideal pair
Bathing in the waterfall
To learn a new song
To expect someone at the station
Cheese with guava
Sunset on the farm
A feast
A guitar
A serenade
To remember an old love
To always have a friendly shoulder
Clapping with joy
A mild afternoon
To put on old slippers
Sitting in an old armchair
Play guitar for someone
To listen to the rain on the roof
White wine
Bolero by Ravel …
And my great affection.
Apparently, there are two versions, one with a little more cultural reference and the one above. Here’s the former in Portuguese, which also goes by the name “Síntese da felicidade”. Also, this is a poem that has been attributed to Drummond but lacks proper citation*.
If you want to arrest a thief
You can go back the way you came
The thief is hiding down below
Behind a tie and a collar
Just because I live on the hill
You awake my misery
The truth is I walk around hungry
I never stole from anyone, I’m a working man
If there’s a bank robbery
How is it that you can’t arrest the powerful boss
Cause the newspapers are saying that only theives live on the hills
…..
On the hill no one has a mansion
Not a house in the countryside for the summer
Not a yacht for a maritime ride
Nor a private plane
We are victims of a society
That is notorious and full of mischief
On the hill no one has millions of dollars
Deposited in a Swiss bank
“I wrote this one eight years ago; I was impressed by those women in Kabul who lived at home like recluses. I’ve done a lot of work on it; we didn’t record it on the first trip to Rio either, I had to go back just to do this one.” It’s an afoxé, an Afro rhythm from Bahia over a cushioned tempo, a singular option for such a serious subject.”
In Portuguese, the Middle East is called Oriente Médio. When thinking of this song, given the context from Faraco himself, I take it to refer to the East, not specifically the Far East.
Over at ProZ, “the translation workplace”, they have a section where members can ask and answer translation requests for words or expressions. It is pretty similar to Word Reference forums (which can be found in my links page) although on ProZ, you will mostly find requests which are professionally-oriented so the terms listed will probably be of a more formal or obscure nature.
The Song of Exile by Antônio Gonçalves Dias
translated by Nelson Ascher
My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air;
no bird here can sing as well
as the birds sing over there.
We have fields more full of flowers
and a starrier sky above,
we have woods more full of life
and a life more full of love.
Lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
my homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Such delights as my land offers
Are not found here nor elsewhere;
lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am there;
My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air.
Don’t allow me, God, to die
without getting back to where
I belong, without enjoying
the delights found only there,
without seeing all those palm-trees,
hearing thrush-songs fill the air.
The original can be found here and the translation above is here.
Antônio Gonçalves Dias
Antônio (born in the state of Maranhão) was a Brazilian poet. A respected ethnologist and scholar, he lived much of the time abroad but drowned at age 41 on his way back to Maranhão. His songs, collected in First Poems (1847), More Poems (1848), and Last Poems (1851), which display both exuberance and longing, are a celebration of the New World as a tropical paradise and a glorification of the indigenous people. While in Europe, he wrote a dictionary of the Tupi language. His “Song of Exile” (Canção do Exílio, 1843) is known to every Brazilian schoolchild, and he is regarded as the national poet of Brazil.
The following is from the Brazilian magazine Bravo (in PT), which I translated, about fan of Caetano Veloso who not only got to meet him, but to get his song recorded by him.
I was 7 when I first saw and heard Caetano Veloso sing Alegria, Alegria with the Beat Boys at the Record Festival, in 1967. At home, we were all hypnotized by Chico Buarque singing Roda Viva. Chico and the song were beautiful. But I, a fan of Roberto Carlos, felt the Jovem Guarda vibe in the marcha-rock of Caetano, which seemed restrained and transgressive. Happiness and laziness – that yeah-yeah-yeah group and and a timidly daring singer with eyes full of color. It was the start.
From then til now, I became a musician of popular music and Caetano, a reference for my generation. In 1977, one decade after Alegria, Alegria, I was studying at the Colégio Equipe, in São Paulo, where the current-day host Serginho Goisman used to organize shows. I was his assistant and ticket-seller. On account of this little job, I got to fetch Cartola and Clementina de Jesus from the bus station, I handed over the payment to Luiz Gonzaga for his appearance and I bought a cognac at the bakery so Gilberto Gil could warm up his voice. Later, it was Caetano’s turn to go to the Equipe. He opened the show with Festa Imodesta, a samba that he composed and that Chico recorded on his album Sinal Fechado. At that time, I also started to compose and I immodestly imagined that Caetano one day would sing one of my songs. But, as time went by, I ended up redirecting my insane desire.
In 2008, when Caetano and the anthropologist Hermano Vianna launched the blog Obra em Progresso, I started to frequent their virtual hang-out and to comment on the posts. Caetano would write with an incredible appetite. Everything was fair game: Noel Rosa, Fidel Castro, sociolinguistics. A group of about 20 people, more sedulous, created an incendiary intimacy among themselves and Caetano would very informally comment on our messages. It was then that a collective was born which came to be called “the blog group”.
One year later, the group went to the premier of zii e zie, Caetano’s most recent show, in Rio de Janeiro. In the dressing room, we had our first face-to-face with the singer, who greeted us one by one and guessed our names. Immediate interaction and affection. It was one rather emotional thing which detonated the taboo that the Internet promotes isolation and the repression of firsthand contact.
In Salvador, there was another meeting. After the Concha Acústica concert at the Castro Alves Theater, we went to Caetano’s house and ended the night in a pizzeria. But in Bahia, nothing really ends with pizza. On the following day, the group got together for a caruru (typical Bahian dish) at Vellame’s house, one of the members of the “blog group”. I was playing with Emerson, another component of the gang when Caetano showed up and said: “Continue”. I started playing the samba song Rugas by Nelson Cavaquinho. I had said on the blog that I dreamed of hearing this song in Caetano’s voice. A comment that, at the time, got him to respond with: “Salem, you read my thoughts. The song I most sing at home is Nelson’s song Rugas. So, together, we sang Rugas, which has a genius line “a happy person knows how to suffer”.
During this meeting, some of the people already knew the song that I had composed about our internet-related experiences: Rugas na Pele do Samba. Caetano, didn’t. It was a surprise to be delivered to him a little later, recorded. But, with the atmosphere loaded with emotions, they asked me to sing it. And I sung it, a little clumsily, but I think it went well. When the samba was over, I saw that Caetano was moved. After that, we sang another 15 to 20 songs. We closed out the night trying to find a planet in the sky which only Moreno, Caetano’s son, managed to see.
When zii e zie came to São Paulo, I thought about not going. I feared diluting the enchantment of the Rio and Salvador meetings. But I received an invite and I went on a Friday with my wife, Fernanda. It was a dry show, almost a recital. There was silence during the songs and then long applauses. In the dressing room, some friends invited Caetano to go out and he declined saying that he was tired. But a little bit later, already at the door, he surprised me: “What about now? Where are we going?” I asked if he wanted to come to my house. “I prefer that we meet in the hotel.” That way, we could talk closer to where he would be able to get some rest later. We went, we ate and spoke of music and children without even looking at the clock. At four in the morning, Caetano surprised me again saying that he wanted to learn my song. I got up quickly and took out the guitar from the case. “How nice! Play it”, he asked. I sang. An initial attentive audition. “Write the lyrics on paper,” he asked again. Afterwards, he sang the song with me on the guitar and, in sequence, he sang it and played alone. Everything in place. Even the errors, which were few, sounded perfect. I strummed the last chord. To my luck, it wasn’t a dream. “Now you both can rest and I’ll work on the song.” In the elevator, I asked Fernanda to pinch me. I imagined the possibility of Caetano singing my song in his show on Saturday, but my low tolerance to frustration made me erase that fantasy. Conceit and expectation are the worst kind of drugs.
I was invited to the Saturday show and met up with the “blog group,” but I didn’t say anything about the night before. I maintained myself with my desire and my antidotes against disappointment. In the middle of the show, the roadie positioned a stand with some lyrics on it. I felt Fernanda’s eyes on me. Suspense. I pretended I didn’t notice and made a face like I was part of the paying public waiting to hear the song O Leãozinho. “Today I want to sing a song that’s very new, by Fernando Salem, to celebrate what happened with us through my blog Obra em Progresso“. Then, Caetano sung Rugas na Pele do Samba and, just after, Rugas, from Nelson, which he dedicated to me.
After the show, a long hug. I couldn’t contain myself: “Would you be interested in recording that with me on my new CD?.” The answer: “Yes, of course!” A few days later, Caetano was in my studio registering Rugas na Pele do Samba at my side. To hear it there and on the stage was for me, a truly immodest celebration*.
* – The last line of the story (a truly immodest celebration – uma verdadeira festa imodesta) is a bit of a play on words, as the author was referring to Caetano’s song Festa Imodesta, which is mentioned earlier in the article.
The following is an article/interview taken from the Brazilian magazine ‘Língua Portuguesa’, which I have translated below. For the interview (in PT), see the link above.
- by Luiz Costa Pereira Junior
“The youth of today are children of their mother. With all due respect. The observation, resulting from one of the most interesting pieces of research on Brazilian youth, indicates that the mother figure has become the highest reference of those born in the 80′s and 90′s. In a country in which 20 million families are run by women, values which are considered maternal (affection as a vector of happiness, the cultivation of friends, doing what one enjoys and taking care of who one likes) have come to substitute those which were formerly “masculine” (earn money, build a career, be better at any cost), that have predominated in the previous generation.
The intention of Novos Consumidores 2, a study conducted by Studio Idéias between July and October of 2008 with 1,623 adolescents throughout the entire country and launched at the end of the year, was to measure the relation that the youth maintain with publicity. But, at the request of Núcleo Jovem from the editor Abril, which solicited the study, it was formed into a study of how the urban youth between the ages of 13 and 24 express themselves.
“We took caution to not speak with opinion-formers, in order to portray the average Brazilian, with a minimum of access to the Internet,” said Brenda Fucuta, the director of the Núcleo Jovem from editor Abril, who was responsible for the research.
A journalist since the 1980′s, Brenda has worked with adolescent readers for over 10 years. She was the director of the magazine Capricho and today comands an array of publications for young people, which make up 7 million monthly copies. Under Brenda’s command, the study compared behaviors that explain in part how young people express themselves. On the Internet or during a regular conversation, they dictate the language that will be absorbed in the work place and during family reunions.
Brenda knows that the entire study suffers the risk of generalizing what may be just a partial tendency. But she believes her research brings generational markers that will be incorporated into society. “The generation of peace and love was a minority, but it impacted an era,” she says. Brenda shows here how, by maternal influence, the youth of today is feminizing their vision of the world and shaking up their idea of language.”
You weren’t supposed to fall in love
I was just having fun
I let you know!
Darling, I let you know!
You knew I was like this
One night of passion with an end in sight
I told you, darling, I told you
It won’t be so easy,
for me to be yours
You were the one used to
playing with another one’s heart
Don’t come asking me
What’s the best way to leave
I suffered a lot for love
And now I’m going to enjoy life
Cry, call, beg
for my kiss again
Ask for my help
Who knows if one day I’ll save you
Cry, call, beg
for my love
Say please
Who knows if one day I’ll come looking for you
Considering the theme of the forró song, one would think women wouldn’t be singing along…
I was perusing the site Proz (the Translation Workplace), when I came across these words/phrases as a way to say “all easy street”, or as I would rather put it, easy as pie (or even ‘piece of cake’).
moleza (weakening) / sopa no mel (soup in the honey*) / mamão com açúcar (papaya with sugar)
“I wrote this one eight years ago; I was impressed by those women in Kabul who lived at home like recluses. I’ve done a lot of work on it; we didn’t record it on the first trip to Rio either, I had to go back just to do this one.” It’s an afoxé, an Afro rhythm from Bahia over a cushioned tempo, a singular option for such a serious subject.”
In Portuguese, the Middle East is called Oriente Médio. When thinking of this song, given the context from Faraco himself, I take it to refer to the East, not specifically the Far East.
