FEMEN Tribute to Taras Shevchenko (If You But Knew))

Taras Shevchenko, Selfportrait, 1840
oil on canvas
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taras_Shevchenko_selfportrait_oil_1840.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

Taras Shevchenko, If You But Knew (Orenburg, 1850)
Declamation, Oleksandra Shivchenko
(video by Omar Haleem One)

If You But Knew

The tranquil cottage in the grove

Young gentlemen, if you but knew

Where people weep their whole life through

You'd not compose your rhapsodies

And God for nothing you'd not praise

- And mock our tears and twit the truth.

You call a paradise, I know.

In such a cottage once I dwelt

And there my first hot tears were spilt,

My early tears!

I know no vice,

No wrong or evil anywhere

That's not within that cottage fair ...

And yet they call it paradise!

I do not speak of that wee house

Beside the village, by the copse,

As though 'twere paradise on earth. '

Twas there my mother gave me birth

And, singing as her child she nursed,

She passed her pain to me ...

'Twas there, In that wee house, that Eden fair,

That I saw hell ... There people slave

Without a let-up night and day,

Not even given time to pray.

In that same village to her grave

My gentle mother, young in years,

Was laid by toil and want and cares-

There father, weeping with his brood (And we were tiny, tattered tots), Could not withstand his bitter lot

And died at work in servitude! . . .

And we — we scattered where we could

Like little field mice. I to school — To carry water for the class.

My brothers slaved on the estate

And then, conscripted, marched away!

And you, my sisters!

Fortune has Reserved for you the cruellest fate!

What is the purpose of your life?

Your youth in service slipped away,

Your locks in servitude turn grey,

In service, sisters, you will die!

My blood runs cold when I recall

That cottage in the village fair!

Such deeds, 0 God. do we do there

Where piety rules over all

And all in paradise should dwell!

Of heaven we have made a hell,

Yet for another heaven call.

We with our brothers live in peace,

We with our brothers plow the fields

And water them with brothers' tears.

And also, maybe . . . Nay, I fear,

But so it seems . . . perhaps, 0 God (Because without

Thy will divine We'd not in nakedness repine In paradise), perhaps

You mock Us also, Father, from the sky

And with the masters You conspire

On how to rule us here below.

For look: there smiles a verdant grove,

And from behind the grove a pool

Peeps shyly out, behind it stands

A row of willows washing hands,

Their branches, in the waters cool ...

Is this not truly paradise?

Look once again until your eyes

See what has made this heaven cruel!

You'll see rejoicing, songs of praise

To Him, our God above, alone

For all the marvels He has made!

No, not a bit! There's praise for none!

Just blasphemy and blood and wails

- All things are cursed, all is blasphemed!

There's nothing sacred left on earth ...

And even Thee, it seems to me,

The people have already cursed!

Translated by John Weir, Toronto
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzyiHiSrzk)

(Taras Shevchenko)