"The jasmine at your door, my jasmine,
oh and I came to prune it, my little bird.
And your mother thought, my Yasemin,
that I came to take you away.
The black eyes, which are sweet, my Yasemin.
Oh, the brows, which are long, my little bird.
Made me forsake ~my Yasemin~ oh, my mother's milk, my little bird."
Thus runs this Cypriot folk song which plays with the double entendre of the word jasmine: the wonderful trellis that grows upon doors and windows of course, but also the traditional Eastern Mediterranean women's name, Yasmin/Yasemin (which means of course Jasmine). So the poet is in turn speaking of the flower and of the woman, the two becoming one and the same...
Savina Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico perform the traditional Cypriot folk song The Jasmin from the album "Mediterranea: Songs Of The Mediterranean" (1998)
Translation author's own.
Related reading on Perfume Shrine: the Jasmine Series
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This Month's Popular Posts on Perfume Shrine
-
How many times have you heard that line in one variation or another? Or are you one of the sufferers who feels like you're going to erup...
-
Andy Tauer of Tauer Parfums is having his Advent Calendar again this year for the length of December, countring down till Christmas. For the...
-
“She is the embodiment of grace. She flows like water, she glows like fire and has the earthiness of a mortal goddess. She has flowers in h...
-
Andy Tauer, enfant gaté of the niche universe, and deservingly so, excells in three things in his fragrant sonatas: hesperidia, rose and res...
-
It's our pleasure to announce Tauer Perfumes is giving away two bottles of his latest fragrance, Carillon pour un ange ! So leave a comm...
-
Koto by Shiseido was issued launched in the international market in 1985 which makes it a fairly recent vintage, yet in hindsight one can ...
Thank you for sharing this beautiful song. I have loved it that much that I'm already looking for the album :)
ReplyDeleteA beautiful song to fill my heart...that was just what I needed.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
This is absolutely lovely - so melancholy, and it was great to see the musicians. What a beautiful voice, and what descriptive words. Thank you, this will stay with me for a long long time...
ReplyDeleteHow lovely, thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDelete