Легенда | Был у Христа-младенца сад

by Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 - 1903)

Translation by Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825 - 1893)

Roses and thorns

Language: English

The young child Jesus had a garden,
 Full of roses, rare and red:
And thrice a day he watered them,
 To make a garland for his head.

When they were full-blown in the garden,
 He called the Jewish children there,
And each did pluck himself a rose,
 Until they stripped the garden bare.

"And now how will you make your garland?
 For not a rose your path adorns."
"But you forget," he answered them,
 "That you have left me still the thorns."

They took the thorns, and made a garland,
 And placed it on his shining head;
And where the roses should have shone
 Were little drops of blood instead!

Text Authorship:

by Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 - 1903), "Roses and thorns", written 1857 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

[ None yet in the database ]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Schmidt (1854 - 1923) ; composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Adolf Strodtmann (1829 - 1879) ; composed by Margarete Voigt-Schweikert.
Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825 - 1893) , "Легенда", first published 1877 ; composed by Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov, Vladimir Ivanovich Sokalsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-01-22
Line count: 16
Word count: 110

Легенда

Language: Russian (Русский) after the English

Our translations: FRE

Был у Христа-младенца сад, 
И много роз взрастил он в нём;
Он трижды в день их поливал,
Чтоб сплесть венок себе потом.

Когда же розы расцвели,
Детей еврейских созвал он;
Они сорвали по цветку,
И сад был весь опустошён.

«Как ты сплетешь теперь венок?
В твоём саду нет больше роз!»
-- «Вы позабыли, что шипы
Остались мне», - сказал Христос.

И из шипов они сплели 
Венок колючий для него,
И капли крови вместо роз
Чело украсили его.

Show a transliteration: Default | DIN | GOST

Note on Transliterations

Text Authorship:

by Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825 - 1893), "Легенда", first published 1877 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in English by Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 - 1903), "Roses and thorns", written 1857
- Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov (1866 - 1920), "Легенда" [sung text not yet checked]
by Vladimir Ivanovich Sokalsky (1863 - 1919), "Легенда" [sung text not yet checked]
by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893), "Легенда", op. 54 (Шестнадцать песен для детей = Shestnadcat' pesen dlja detej (Sixteen songs for children)) no. 5, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 75