previous
 
 
 

Çok seni severam
Ako ne dočekam Petrovdan
A ti
Ti udaj se ponovo
I svadba nek bude galička
Pa da te čujem ljepoto
Na groblju kad krene teškoto

Site momčinja pokojni
Ja možda mrtav možda pjan
Ležim tu pod lažnim imenom
Atanas Parahodotov

I dok mrtve svatove dozivaš
Ja ustat ću iz groba tuđega
Ako mi kažeš znaš ti već šta
Ako kažeš mi ko Nina Spirova
Ako kažeš mi
Çok seni severam
Çok Seni Severam
If I don’t live to see St Peter’s Day
You
Go and marry again
And may the wedding be galičko
So I can hear you, ljepoto,
At the graveyard when they launch into teškoto.

All those dead lads
And me, possibly dead, possibly drunk
Lying there under the false name of
Atanas Parahodotov

And as you gather the dead wedding guests
I shall rise from somebody else’s grave
If you tell me, you know what
If you tell me, like Nina Spirova
If you tell me
Çok seni severam. 
© 2007, Predrag Lucić
 
 
 
 
share
© Translation: 2007, Damir Šodan

Translator's Note: “Çok seni severam”: Turkish for “I love you a lot”, and used as a refrain in Macedonian folk song ‘Snoshti zaminav pominav’, sung by folk diva Nina Spirova Galičko: abbreviation of Galičko Wedding, a festivity held in Galičnik (1,600 metres above sea level on the mount of Bistra in West Macedonia) every St Peter's Day (12 July) when a “bride” walks along the graveyard calling on the dear departed to rise and join the “wedding”. Ljepoto: Croatian for “My fair one” Teškoto: a type of Balkan folk dance, a loud and a heavy reel Atanas Parahodotov: As the poem itself suggests, Atanas is an assumed name, whereas Parahodotov is a surname derived from the word “parahodot”, which in Macedonian means a steamboat, and refers to yet another Macedonian folk song, ‘Parahodot’.