by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)
Translation by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)
In the morning I cast my net into the...
Language: English  after the Bangla (Bengali)
Available translation(s): GER
In the morning I cast my net into the sea. I dragged up from the dark abyss things of strange aspect and strange beauty -- some shone like a smile, some glistened like tears, and some were flushed like the cheeks of a bride. When with the day's burden I went home, my love was sitting in the garden idly tearing the leaves of a flower. I hesitated for a moment, and then placed at her feet all that I had dragged up, and stood silent. She glanced at them and said, "What strange things are these? I know not of what use they are!" I bowed my head in shame and thought, "I have not fought for these, I did not buy them in the market; they are not fit gifts for her." Then the whole night through I flung them one by one into the street. In the morning travellers came; they picked them up and carried them into far countries.
About the headline (FAQ)
Authorship:
- by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), no title, appears in The Gardener, no. 3 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Bangla (Bengali) by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ann Marie Callaway (b. 1949), "Unspoken things", 2001 [ soprano, bass, chorus, and piano ], from Songs From the Gardener, no. 3, note: this may be the wrong text for this title [sung text not yet checked]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2016, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2010-11-07
Line count: 18
Word count: 162