How Bitter Is the Wine — Lina Kostenko

Skipping ahead a few pages, here’s the tenth poem in Lina Kostenko’s Three Hundred Poems, originally untitled and found on page 17.

I translated most of this on my lunch break at work today, after eating an excellent panini and before meeting a very interesting stranger. Such are the things that happen when one runs out of bread and thus goes to Starbucks instead of having a sad desk lunch.

Яке гірке вино

Ліна Костенко

Кохання, вірність —
істини одвічні.
Створили їх іще до нас, давно.
А ми…
Що ж ми?
Лиш випадкові стрічні.

Яке гірке,
яке гірке вино!

А треба пити. То хороший звичай.
Його створили теж для нас, давно…
За нашу зустріч!
За прощання наше!

Яке гірке,
яке гірке вино!

How Bitter Is the Wine

Lina Kostenko

Devotion, loving —
truths that are primeval.
They were invented long before our time.
And we…
Are what?
Just two colliding people.

How bitter, oh,
how bitter is the wine!

But we must drink. It is a useful habit.
It, too, was made for us before our time..
To our meeting!
Our separation!

How bitter, oh,
how bitter is the wine!

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