Lectura in limbi straine

 

Prima pagina

 

1. Dylan, Bob
Blowin’ in the wind
How many roads must a man walk down
continuare
2. de la Fontaine, Jean
La cigale et la fourmi
La Cigale, ayant chanté
continuare
3. Kipling, Rudyard
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
continuare
4. Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
She sat on a corner bench in the jolting streetcar, her face sullen, closed, surprisingly old.
continuare
5. Sainte-Marie, Buffy
Universal soldier
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
continuare
6. Waters, Roger
Hey You
Hey you, out there in the cold
continuare
   
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Oferite de : Sorin Corbu (1, 4, 5, 6), Florin Romila (2), Horia Corceovei ( 3 ).

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Blowin’ in the wind

 by Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
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La cigale et la fourmi
The cicada and the ant

 by Jean de la Fontaine

La Cigale, ayant chanté
Tout l'été,
Se trouva fort dépourvue
Quand la bise fut venue :
Pas un seul petit morceau
De mouche ou de vermisseau.
Elle alla crier famine
Chez la Fourmi sa voisine,
La priant de lui prêter
Quelque grain pour subsister
Jusqu'à la saison nouvelle.
"Je vous paierai, lui dit-elle,
Avant l'Oût, foi d'animal,
Intérêt et principal. "
La Fourmi n'est pas prêteuse :
C'est là son moindre défaut.
Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud ?
Dit-elle à cette emprunteuse.
- Nuit et jour à tout venant
Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.
- Vous chantiez ? j'en suis fort aise.
Eh bien! dansez maintenant. 

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The Cicada, having sung
All summer long,
Found herself wanting
When the north wind came.
Not a single morsel
Of fly or tiny worm.
She went begging for food
To her neighbour the Ant,
Asking her to lend her
Just a few grains to get by
Until the next season.
"I will pay you back, she said,
Before August, animal's honor,
Interest and principal."
The Ant is no lender:
This is the least of her faults.
"What were you doing during the warm days?
She said to this borrower.
--Night and day no matter what
I was singing, like it or not.
--You were singing? I'm very glad:
Very well, start dancing now."
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If

 by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! 

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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

by Milan Kundera

translated by Aaron Asher

She sat on a corner bench in the jolting streetcar, her face sullen, closed, surprisingly old.  When he asked her why she was so silent she told him she had not been satisfied with their lovemaking.  She said he had made love to her like an intellectual.In the political jargon of those days, the word “intellectual” was an insult.  It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people.  All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse.  Unlike those who had their feet solidly on the ground, they were said to float in the air.  So it was fair, in a way, that as punishment the ground was permanently pulled out from under their feet, that they remained suspended a little above the floor.

 

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Universal soldier

 by Buffy Sainte-Marie

I wrote "Universal Soldier" in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war
and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. Donovan had a hit with it in 1965.

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill 
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada, 
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians 
and he's fighting for Japan, 
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide 
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have 
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body 
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he 
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
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Hey You

 by Roger Waters

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old,
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles,
Can you feel me?

Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
Don’t give in without a fight.

Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone,
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with your ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out,
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open you heart, I’m coming home.

But it was only fantasy,
The wall was to high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free
And the worms ate into his brain.

Hey you, out there on the road
Always doing what you’re told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?

Hey you, don’t tell me there is no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.
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