Tuesday, January 9, 2024

On The Way To Mandalay

 


ဗြိတိသျှ ဝတ္ထုရေးဆရာ၊ ကဗျာဆရာ စာပေနိုဘယ်ဆုရှင် ရုဒ်ယတ် ကပ္ပလင်(၁၈၆၅-၁၉၃၆) က ၁၈၉၀ ပြည့်နှစ်တွင် ရေးဖွဲ့ခဲ့သော ထင်ရှားသော ကဗျာတစ်ပုဒ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ကဗျာဆရာ၏ ငယ်ဘဝကို အိန္ဒိယ၌ ဖြတ်သန်းခဲ့သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ဗမာပြည်နှင့် သိကျွမ်းရင်းနှီးသည်။


ဤ "မန္တလေးဆီသို့" ကဗျာကို ၁၈၉၂ ခုနှစ်တွင် ထုတ်ဝေခဲ့သော   Barrack-room Ballads ကဗျာစာအုပ်မှ ထုတ်နုတ်ထားသည်။ မူရင်းကဗျာခေါင်းစဥ်မှာ "မန္တလေး" သာဖြစ်သည်။ မန္တလေးဆီသို့ ခေါင်းစဥ်ဖြင့်လည်း လူသိများသည်။ ကဗျာတွင် ဗမာပြည်ရောက် ဗြိတိသျှအရှေ့ဖက်စွန်းစစ်သားတစ်ဦးက ဗြိတိန်မှနေ၍ ဗမာပြည် မင်းနေပြည်တော်၌ ချစ်ကျွမ်းဝင်ခဲ့သော သူ့ချစ်သူ ဗမာမလေးကို လွမ်းဆွတ်တမ်းတနေသော မေတ္တာဇာတ်လမ်းကို ဗမာပြည်၏ ရေမြေသဘာဝပေါ်လွင်အောင် ဖွဲ့ဆိုထားသည်။ 

On The Way To Mandalay


By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,

There's a Burma girl (broad) a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"

    Come you back to Mandalay,

    Where the old Flotilla lay:

    Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?

    On the road to Mandalay,

    Where the flyin'-fishes play,

    An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!


'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat — jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
    Bloomin' idol made o'mud —
    Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd —
    Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
    On the road to Mandalay . . .


When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "~Kulla-lo-lo!~"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the ~hathis~ pilin' teak.
    Elephints a-pilin' teak
    In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
    Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
    On the road to Mandalay . . .


But that's all shove be'ind me — long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
    No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
    But them spicy garlic smells,
    An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
    On the road to Mandalay . . .


I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
    Beefy face an' grubby 'and —
    Law! wot do they understand?
    I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
    On the road to Mandalay . . .


Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be —
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
    On the road to Mandalay,
    Where the old Flotilla lay,
    With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
    On the road to Mandalay,
    Where the flyin'-fishes play,
    An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

By Rudyard Kipling