Adio Kerida -- Goodbye Dear Love

My wife loved Ruth Behar. We saw her documentary. But we also had her songs. My wife loved to play our copies of her records, and truth is I love the music too. A trilling, lamentation about home, and lost loves. My wife sponsored and we saw "Adio Kerida" when it came to the Washington Area. But for years, we lived to the lamentation of the Sephardi, who after 5 centuries still lamented the lost of their homes in "Sepharad" -- Golden Age Spain.

http://www.ruthbehar.com/AdioKerida.htm

The song:

Adio,

Adio Querida,

No quero la vida,

Me l'amagrates tu

 

Refrain Translation:

Goodbye,

goodbye beloved,

I don't want to live

You made my life miserable.

 

Tu madre cuando te pario

Y te quito al mundo

Coracon ella no te dio

Para amar segundo

 

Translation:

When your mother delivered you

and brought you to the world

she did not give you a heart

to love with....

 

Adio,

Adio Querida,

No quero la vida,

Me l'amagrates tu

 

Refrain

Va, busacate otro amor,

Aharva otras puertas,

Aspera otro ardor,

Que para mi sos muert

 

Translation:

I'll go look for another love,

knock on other ports

in hope there is a true hope,

because for me you are dead.

The song has layers, like all good songs from the heart. On the surface level the person is singing about a spurned love, maybe a child who is ungrateful, maybe a lover. On a deeper level the song refers to Spain, which drove Jews out of their country and brought to a close their golden age when they did. Spain discovered Gold, and many "Nuevo Christianos", some of whom were genuine converts, some trying to be both Jewish and Christian, but many of them converting only because the alternative was murder, wound up being the energy behind discoveries such as the great silver mountain of Potosi. Jews would look for far away outposts of the Spanish empire where they could speak Ladino freely and practice freely as long as they were quiet. And the Inquisition would pursue them to the ends of the earth. This song laments the ungratefulness of Christians, who received a lovely set of myths and principles from the Jewish Teachers Jesus and Paul, and turned it into a horror for Jews.

Taken from http://lyricstranslate.com/en/adio-kerida-goodbye-my-beloved.html

Documentary:

About:http://www.ruthbehar.com/AKAboutEnglish.htm

Poetry: http://www.ruthbehar.com/Poetry.htm

Lyrics: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/adio-kerida-goodbye-my-beloved.html

Essays: http://www.ruthbehar.com/Essays.htm

Reactions

The Song blares in my mind right now. And I don't even need the translation or to put the CD on play. For some reason even though it's not my wife's voice in the CD, I hear my wife's voice.

Joy and Sadness!

 

Joy and sadness,

Reason and Madness,

Are conjoined in this world of travail

Where we journey from hilltop to hilltop,

through vale after vale.

 

When we think we have arrived,

The host says Goodbye!

When we think we've reached a new height

We find ourselves falling down.

 

We are walking, we hope towards the light

Yet sometimes the light is too bright

It blinds us like the night.

and when we think we are finally arrived

We are done.

 

Christopher H. Holte