Friday, April 17, 2009

A Felicidade / Happiness

I have a friend who does these translations every now and then. And I figured I would want to try my hand at them too. I mean, why not right? It'll help with my learning of Portuguese, which is the closest thing I've got to a second language. I don't want to remain monolingual all my life!! MOM, Why didn't you teach me Tagalog growing up!?!?!?

Anyways, translating Portuguese is so great because there are so many awesome Brazilian songs from which I can choose! But the only thing about this is that a lot of these have already been translated into English by their composers, lyricists, etc. I mean, I guess that's okay. That shouldn't stop me, right? They usually change up the verses and stuff so they aren't really direct translations, right? Whatever, I'll still do it anyways. And yes, I acknowledge that there are some awkward lines. I did the best I could. (Also, I wish there was a way to put these up side by side)

A FELICIDADE
Lyrics: TOM JOBIM

Tristeza não tem fim
Felicidade sim

A felicidade é como a gota
De orvalho numa pétala de flor
Brilha tranqüila

Depois de leve oscila
E cai como uma lágrima de amor

A felicidade do pobre parece
A grande ilusão do carnaval
A gente trabalha o ano inteiro
Por um momento de sonho
Pra fazer a fantasia
De rei ou de pirata ou jardineira

Pra tudo se acabar na quarta feira

Tristeza não tem fim
Felicidade sim

A felicidade é como a pluma
Que o vento vai levando pelo ar
Voa tão leve
Mas tem a vida breve
Precisa que haja vento sem parar

A minha felicidade está sonhando
Nos olhos da minha namorada
É como esta noite
Passando, passando

Em busca da madrugada
Falem baixo, por favor
Prá que ela acorde alegre como o dia
Oferecendo beijos de amor

Tristeza não tem fim
Felicidade sim
____________________________________________

Sadness has no end
Happiness does

Happiness is like the drop
Of dew on a flower petal
That shines serenely
Then dangles weightlessly
And falls like one love’s tear

The happiness of the poor seems like
The grand illusion of Carnaval
People work the entire year
For one moment to dream
To create a fantasy
Of kings or pirates or gardeners
For everything to end on Wednesday

Sadness has no end
Happiness does

Happiness is like a feather
That the wind carries through the air
That flies so lightly
But has a brief life
That needs to have a wind that does not stop

My happiness is shining
In the eyes of my sweetheart
It is like this night
Passing, passing

In search of the dawn
Please talk quietly
So that she agrees happily with the day
Offering kisses of love

Sadness has no end
Happiness does

____________________________________________


In other words, I don't really have a picture that goes along with this so I decided I'd just rummage through my old images. I came across one I took on Sept 7, 2008, the day I first got my camera, and it totally could've worked had I known what I was doing. I didn't even expose correctly or anything. I took the image at 1/3 of a second -- why!? HAHA. So since it was really bad, I decided I'd mess around on Lightroom. Here's what turned out. Do you see the motion blur? Mmhmm.

3 comments:

  1. I actually haven't figured out how to install lightroom yet, but I didn't figure out how to fix my itunes.

    Yep I remember this day, breaking in our new used cameras.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the translation.. It is exactly how it means in Portuguese! FYI: When he mentions Wednesday, it is not like any Wednesday. What it means is Ash Wednesday! Carnaval in Brasil ends on that day.. Every year!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this! I am a vocalist (and a preacher) and have been looking for a version of these lyrics in English. There is another version that includes the Ash Wednesday reference, which I like a lot. I will probably adapt these lyrics to merge your words and other translation by Joel Sattler. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.

    ReplyDelete