Forked Tongues

The poem Hachnisini tachat k'nefech ("Bring me under your wing", female addressee) is one of the better-known poems by Haim Nachman Bialik, an early Hebrew poet often considered Israel's national poet. (I cannot in good conscious fully get behind this title, because we had no-less-good ones after him, as seminal as Bialik's corpus is.) One of the primary reasons that Hachnisini is so well-enough is that it's been set to music a dozen-plus times and recorded about a gazillion; suffice to say, it's popular enough that musical reality shows contestants will pick it for their auditions. (I'm partial to Nechama Hendel's version from the 1950s, which tune - like so many Israeli songs - is ripped off Eastern European folk melodies; the best-known one is arguably Arik Einstein's from the 1980s. It's also worth noting that the tradition of setting poetry to music is primarily associated with Israeli-Hebrew rock, not folk.)

The poem is brought below in Hebrew, with translations into English and Russian. These translations were rendered in by Ze'ev Jabotinsky (born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky). Jabotinsky was himself a complex figure, best known as a political leader and visionary. The Russian translation is earlier, and was published in 1916 as part of an anthology of Russian-translated Hebrew poetry. The English translation is later, presumably 1920s, and was given as a gift to Ronald Storrs, then the British Military Governor of Palestine.

I cannot evaluate the Russian translation as I do not speak or read the language, but the English translation is exquisite. The translations and their background were found via this blog post (in Hebrew).



Приюти меня под крылышком,
Будь мне мамой и сестрой,
На груди твоей разбитые
Сны-мечты мои укрой.

Наклонись тихонько в сумерки,
Буду жаловаться я:
Говорят, есть в мире молодость –
Где же молодость моя?

И ещё поверю шёпотом:
И во мне горела кровь;
Говорят, любовь нам велена –
Где и что она, любовь?

Звёзды лгали; сон пригрезился –
И не стало и его;
Ничего мне не осталося,
Ничего.

Приюти меня под крылышком,
Будь мне мамой и сестрой,
На груди твоей разбитые
Сны-мечты мои укрой…