leqsebi

VIOLET ON THE MOUNTAIN
8. A, is ghrubelni miq’varan (“Ah, how I love those clouds”). Sources: LP 132; Ko 31; Go 19.
Recorded by Tedo Razik’ashvili in the province Pshavi, ca. 1910. Mount Borbalo (or Borbala) is a
3300 meter mountain at the head of the Alazani and Iori rivers, about 80 km north of Tbilisi. The
poem’s meaning hinges on a play on words: The word manana is used in the sixth line (mananas
chamaq’riano) to denote a fine summer drizzle. It is also a common female given name, and this sets
up the interpretation of the “us” of the final line as “(my girlfriend) Manana and me.”
9. Ts’itel ghvinos migagvane (“I’ve likened you to red wine”). Sources: Ko 34; Go 25. Recited by S.
Gachechiladze in the Imeretian village Shorap’ani. Variants in LP 46, 163-164.
10. Ts’q’alsa mohkonda napot’i (“The stream bore me a wood chip”). Source: LP 149. Recited by
Gvaramadze in the Meskhetian village Khizabavra in 1884. Longer variant in Ko 37; Go 19-20.
Musical settings: GFS (three voices, 4/4 meter); HGF #77 (Kartlian-Kakhetian; solo with three-voice
choir, in 4/4 meter). Throughout most of its recorded history, Georgia has either been under foreign
domination, and struggling to free itself; or independent, and fighting to maintain its freedom. Times
of peace have been few and far between. These circumstances have given rise to a series of songs
detailing the attempts of women to receive word concerning their menfolk gone off to war.
Invariably the news they receive is bad. The best known example of this genre is the song Gaprindi
shavo mertskhalo, one of the jewels of Georgian polyphonic folk music. (“Fly away, black swallow,
follow the course of the Alazani; Bring back news of my brother who has gone off to war”). The
theme of the floating wood chip as a bearer of news about an absent lover is also employed in the
tale of Tristan and Iseult [Ko 345].
11. Shens loq’as vardi hq’vaoda (“A rose blossomed upon your cheek”). Sources: LP 50-51, Ko 42;
Go 25-26. This poem, from the Kartlian village Ertats’minda was recorded by I. K’argareteli, ca.
1913. Variant in LP 176. The inventory of feminine beauty given here makes use of a lexicon of
similes common to most Georgian love poems. Some of these expressions can also describe
masculine beauty (for example in “The knight in the leopard’s skin”: Tariel and Avtandil’s lightshedding
teeth [VT 279], Avtandil’s eyelashes of jet [VT 1250]). The women whom the addressee of
the poem outshines are: Tamar (see poem #22); (?) Queen Ketevan, mother of King Teimuraz I and
a martyr for the Christian faith (17th century); and the legendary beauty Eteri, a shepherdess whose
ill-starred relationship with a prince (Abesalom) is the topic of a well-known poem .
12. Rad ginda kali lamazi (“Why do you want a beautiful woman?). Sources: Ko 42; Go 28.
Transcribed by Mikh. K’avsadze. This song is from eastern Georgia (Kartli and Kakheti), and is
performed as follows: The soloist declaims, in a sort of recitative, a line of the poem, in alternation
with the chorus (which sings the nonsense syllables “He-e-e va-ra-lo”). As the song progresses, the
tempo becomes faster and faster [Ko 352] .
13. Mtieli (“The mountaineer”). Source: Go 57. Recorded in the province of Khevi. Q’azbeg is a
celebrated 5000-meter mountain in Khevi, along the Georgian Military Highway. The mountain
Q’uro forms part of the border between Khevi and the North Caucasian province of Kist’eti. The
sentiments expressed in this poem are echoed in a variety of poems and stories written by patriotic
mountaineers, such as the following lines by the poet and ethnographer Raphael Eristavi:
I prefer the black cliff,
Covered with snow and ice,
Where the hawk nests, and where
The crystalline waterfall thunders:
Where ibex and chamois abound;
Their salty meat suits me just fine.
I would not trade these sheer cliffs
For the tree of eternal life;
I would not trade my homeland
For another land’s paradise!
123