Ter Vogormia

Տեր, Ողորմեա

Տեր, Ողորմեա, Տեր, Ողորմեա

Տեր, Ողորմեա, Տեր, Ողորմեա

Տեր, Ողորմեա

"The Dance"

By Siamanto (Atom Yarjanian).

(Translated by Peter Balakian and Nevart Yaghlian)

In a field of cinders where Armenian life

Was still dying,

A German woman, trying not to cry

Told me the horror she witnessed:

"This thing I'm telling you about,

I saw with my own eyes,

Behind my window of hell

I clenched my teeth

And watched the town of Bardez turn

Into a heap of ashes.

The corpses were piled high as trees,

And from the springs, from the streams and the road,

The blood was a stubborn murmur,

And still calls revenge in my ear.

Don't be afraid; I must tell you what I saw.

So people will understand

The crimes men do to men.

For two days, by the road to the graveyard ...

Let the hearts of the world understand,

It was Sunday morning,

The first useless Sunday dawning on the corpses.

From dawn to dusk I had been in my room

With a stabbed woman —

My tears wetting her death —

When I heard from afar

A dark crowd standing in a vineyard

Lashing twenty brides

And singing filthy songs.

Leaving the half-dead girl on the straw mattress,

I went to the balcony of my window

And the crowd seemed to thicken like a clump of trees

An animal of a man shouted, "You must dance,

Dance when our drum beats."

With fury whips cracked

On the flesh of these women.

Hand in hand the brides began their circle dance.

Now, I envied my wounded neighbor

Because with a calm snore she cursed

The universe and gave up her soul to the stars ...

"Dance," they raved,

"Dance till you die, infidel beauties

With your flapping tits, dance!

Smile for us. You're abandoned now,

You're naked slaves,

So dance like a bunch of fuckin' sluts.

We're hot for your dead bodies."

Twenty graceful brides collapsed.

"Get up," the crowed screamed,

Brandishing their swords.

Then someone brought a jug of kerosene.

Human justice, I spit in your face.

The brides were anointed.

"Dance," they thundered —

"Here's a fragrance you can't get in Arabia."

With a torch, they set

The naked brides on fire.

And the charred bodies rolled

And tumbled to their deaths ...

I slammed my shutters,

Sat down next to my dead girl

And asked: "How can I dig out my eyes?"