hello again!

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

Two questions about the Vysotskij song Инструкция перед поездкой за рубеж.
http://www.bards.ru/archives/part.php?id=15647. I understand the words, I just don't understand the meaning.

1. Там шпионки с крепким телом, ты их в дверь - они в окно.

and the last sentence:

2."На кого ты нас покинул, Николай!"

Comments

[pro100-petrov.livejournal.com]

Dont try to translate poetry. It has its own logic

[shota-kitten.livejournal.com]

Ты их в дверь - они в окно means that they are too insistent. the whole phrase is like ты их выставляешь за дверь, а они обратно через окно лезут. it's an idiom.

На кого ты нас покинул - it's a phrase that people usually say at the funeral. It means that they don't know how to live without the dead person. Here на кого ты нас покинул? is like кто теперь будет о нас заботиться?

I try to translate

[pro100-petrov.livejournal.com]

1. ты их в дверь - они в окно
If you tell them to get out of here, they wouldnt obey
2. На кого ты нас покинул
Get back for good sake, we missing you

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

Da, ja ne perevozhu - ja proshu objasnjat'!
Mogu otochnyat' voprosy:

1. "Ty ix v dver' - oni v okno"
a) eto vyrazhenie takoe est'?
b) Imeetsya vvidu chto shpionki cherez okno k nemu budut lezt'?

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

Thanks,

1. So i guessed right ;-).
2. Ah, thanks, I would have never figured it out myself! So the last phrase yet one more time underlines how frightening and far away the zarubezh'e is perceived?

Re: I try to translate

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

1. Well that is understood from the contex :-). Do they mean taht they willclimb in through the window, right?
2. Thank you!

[pro100-petrov.livejournal.com]

а) Да, это такое выражение.
б) Имеется в виду, что шпионки нахальные и упрямые. Их выгонишь - они опять придут.

[shota-kitten.livejournal.com]

I guess that the meaning is that his wife worries about how SHE will live without her husband for a long time. She worries about herself.

Re: I try to translate

[pro100-petrov.livejournal.com]

1. No! It means that they are arrogant and stuborn. You are telling them: "good buy, girls! I dont wanna see you!" But they are getting back again and again.

[huzhepidarasa.livejournal.com]

«На кого ты нас покинул» literally means something like this: "now that you have left for good, who will take care of us". (На кого = on whose devices). It is usually said about someone who's died. Nikolai's co-workers, anticipating mortal dangers that await him abroad, are already starting to lament him, just in case.

But there's another, hidden meaning. Back then, a person travelling abroad might decide to stay in the West (see невозвращенец). Then he was treated very much like a dead man too.

[olydiagron.livejournal.com]

spasibo!

[mithrilian.livejournal.com]

Both phrases are not Vysotsky's creation but well-known old idioms.

1. Ты его/её/их в дверь, он/она/они в окно.

If you kick him out the door, he will crash/slip/burst through the window. The meaning is the person in question does not conform to the usual social norm and is very tiresome guest that you can't get rid of by the usual means of hinting politely.

2. На кого ты нас покинул, name!

This is an old ritual phrase used while wailing around the dead person from the moment of death until the end of the funeral. I've never heard or read it used towards a woman, but it's common to use while wailing for the dead man of the house, the male/provider. I am sure it was used as long ago as the second half of the XIX century, but it could well be much much older.

На кого ты нас/меня покинул -- in whose care have you left us? The meaning is that now there is no one to care about us (the family) or me (the wife) now that you are gone. Sort of a rhetorical question. Such questions are common in Russian life when emotions run high:

Ну и кто теперь это исправит, а?! Кто? Who will fix it now, huh?
Meaning that the thing in question cannot be repaired.

Зачем ты это принёс?! Кому это нужно?!! Why have you brought it? Who needs it?
Meaning that no one in the world might need this obviously useless object.

There is a variation: На кого ты нас покидаешь! A wife/mother might say it to the male leaving for war or something obviously dangerous. The meaning is you are leaving us quite possibly forever because I don't hope that you will return. Just like wailing for the dead except the person is still alive but going possibly to his death.

I've never read or heard of such wailing directed towards dead or leaving women, but these days it's quite possible.

Didn't I tell you you need a Russian sitting next to you?

[lion-casserole.livejournal.com]

(1) There is a Latin proverb: Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret, meaning (in Russian): "Гони природу в дверь, она войдет в окно". I guess this is enough to explain what this Vysotsky's line is about.

Update:
Read that in the context, the instructor's suggestion is: "Get ready to tell them [you don't have the prime instinct, since] in our country we won the battle against the human nature long ago."

BTW, a way later in Gorbachov's time there was a funny coincident. Let me provide its description in Russian:
>>
[...] интервью [Владимира] Познера, того самого, который в восьмидесятых [годах] вёл телемост, в котором прозвучала скандальная фраза "У нас в стране секса нет...". Так вот, оказывается та женщина на самом деле сказала: "У нас в стране секса нет... на телевидении." Но после слова "нет" она запнулась и в зале успели заржать, а в результате фразу целиком услышал стоявший рядом Познер и ещё пара людей. Переводчик смог услышать лишь начало фразы и перевёл буквально, и за океаном тоже заржали. [...] Так вот из недоразумения сделали анекдот.
<<


(2) "На кого ты нас покинул..." is a sentence from the last cry over the husband's coffin going into the grave. So his way to the aircraft's ladder for his wife is the end of their marriage or his life's last steps. For her he is stepping down to the Kingdom of Death... Compare that with Ostap Bender's sentence (re "Золотой теленок", Илья Ильф и Евгений Петров): "Заграница — это миф о загробной жизни. Кто туда попадёт, тот не возвращается."

[oryx_and_crake]

http://multitran.ru/c/m.exe?l1=2&l2=1&s=%E3%EE%ED%E8+%EF%F0%E8%F0%EE%E4%F3+%E2+%E4%E2%E5%F0%FC%2C+%EE%ED%E0+%E2%EB%E5%F2%E8%F2+%E2+%EE%EA%ED%EE

[oryx_and_crake]

oh, lion_casserole already quoted that

[annanlj.livejournal.com]

+1

Re: I try to translate

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They will climb in through the window after you have explicitly shown your attitude to them by turning them out through the door. They may not exactly climb in through exactly the window, but they definitely won't leave or otherwise obey your wishes. It's an idiom.

The explanation given below regarding невозвращенец is very good too.