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“Rusalka” by Antonín Dvořák libretto (English)
| Contents: Characters; Act 1; Act 2; Act 3 |
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Rusalka: Oh insensitive watery power, you’ve dragged me back down into the deep. Why in this chill, hopeless, don’t I perish, oh, why don’t I perish? Deprived of my youth, without the joy of my sisters, condemned for my love, I pine in the cold currents. Having lost my sweet charm, cursed by my beloved in vain I long to return to my sisters, in vain I long for the world. Where are you, magic of summer nights, over the chalices of water lilies? Why in this chill, helpless, don’t I perish, oh, why don’t I perish? Ježibaba: What, what? You’re back already? Well, you didn’t stay there long! And what pale cheeks you have, and how you’re grieving here all alone! What, were the kisses not to your taste, and didn’t a human bed warm you? Rusalka: Oh, alas, dear auntie, everything betrayed me, everything is lost! |
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Ježibaba: Short was the loving, long will be the moaning, after kisses from a man’s lips endless, eternal fasting! Humans are humans, cast out by the elements, long ago torn from the roots of the earth. Wretched the one who wanted to know human love, the one whom human betrayal has now damned! Rusalka: My wise auntie, tell me auntie, is there no hope for me? Ježibaba: Your sweetheart rejected you, stopped loving you, and now Ježibaba is to help you again? After worldly adventures, dear girl, you’d now like to return to your sisters? Well, I do have advice, good advice I have, but whether you’ll listen, the devil himself knows! With human blood you must wash away the curse of the elements for the love you wanted to have in a man’s embrace. You’ll be again what you were before, before the world deceived you, but only the heat of human blood can cure you. Freed of all torments, you’ll be happy at once, if your hand kills the one who deceived you, seduced you! |
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Rusalka: Ježibaba, alas, what are you saying? Ježibaba: Take this knife and promise you’ll obey! Rusalka: You horrify me; let me be, let me be! I want to suffer eternally in anguish, to feel forever my curse, my whole rejected love. I want to see all my hopelessness, but he, he must be happy! Ježibaba: To the human life of deceit your longing enticed you and now you haven’t the strength to spill human blood? Humans are not humans until they’ve wet their hands in another’s blood, when, incited by passion, they have become drunk on the blood of a neighbour! And you wanted to be a human and intoxicate a man with passion? You empty little water bubble, you moonlit, pale good-for-nothing, go, suffer for ever and ever and shrivel up with longing for your human! |
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Rusalka: Torn from life into deep solitude, without companions, without sisters I’m to live. Oh my love, I know, I know, I’ll never see you. Oh, woe is me a hundred times! The Nymphs: You went away into the world, fled from our fun and games, you sister accursed, don’t come to us! Our dances are off bounds to one whom a human has embraced, we’ll run away, run away if you come near! Your sadness wafts fear into our happy playing, with will o’ the wisps in marshes in the night you should play! Lure people with your glow, at forks in paths you should move about now, with your little blue light enticing them to the grave! On graves and forks in paths you’ll find the dancing and playing of other sisters, to the games of your watery sisters don’t return! |
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The Gamekeeper: Scared, you say? Chatter, babble! After all, others have been here! Knock and say nicely, what they told you at home to say: that the prince is tormented, that he’s lost his wits, that some accursed creature from hell came to our castle, and that the old woman Háta begs Ježibaba for advice! The Pantryboy: My legs are paralyzed, I can’t see clearly. For the living God, uncle, go there yourself! Gamekeeper: How many times I've passed this way; sometimes it was already dark. You're a real scaredy cat, that you're afraid of an old woman! The Pantryboy: Once when you were visiting us, you yourself, uncle, frightened me, so don't be surprised, dear comrade, that in the forest I'm filled with fear! Gamekeeper: Jabber, jabber, sometimes I spice it up. But now quickly try to get an answer! Be a man, hey, knock, ask the hag for advice! |
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The Pantryboy: I’d surely jabber, I’m so scared. You’d better ask her about it yourself! The Gamekeeper: Ashamed I’d be, ashamed, if I were your father! But just so you can see I’m not afraid! Ježibaba, Ježibaba! Hello, hello! Ježibaba: Who’s making that noise? Who’s calling? The Gamekeeper: Old Háta is sending us, Ježibaba, for your advice! Ježibaba: In exchange for that advice, for a pinch of wisdom, she’s sending me this puny boy to munch on? As soon as we fatten him up, the pitiful thing, he’s make a nice little roast! The Pantryboy: Let me go, let me get out of here! Uncle, she wants to eat me! |
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Ježibaba: Ha, ha, you little runt, stupid creature. You’d make a fine roast to eat! May your accursed race grow ripe for hell! And now say quickly what you’re supposed to tell me! The Pantryboy: Our prince is very, very ill, his heart bewitched by some sort of enchantress. He brought her to the castle, gave her everything, loved her like his very own life. She would have become his wife, but the lovely enchantress didn't stay for the wedding. When she had him thoroughly confounded, that unfaithful enchantress vanished. The whole castle is in a magical stupor to this day. The devil himself took that enchantress and carried her off to hell! The Watersprite: Who do you say carried her off? Whom do you say she betrayed? Accursed the breed that sends you here! Wretched creatures! He himself betrayed her, cast her into damnation! The Gamekeeper: The water gnome! The Pantryboy: Uncle, for God’s sake, uncle! |
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The Watersprite: I’ll take my revenge, I will, wherever my realm extends! Ježibaba: Ha, ha, ha, ha! The 1st wood nymph: I have golden tresses, yes I do. The fireflies fly down to them. My white hand has let my tresses down. The moon is combing them with its silvery light. I have golden tresses, yes I do! The 2nd wood nymph: I have white feet, yes I do. I ran through the whole meadow. I ran barefoot and the dew washed them. The moon shod them in golden slippers! The 3rd wood nymph: I have a lovely little body, yes, I do, and on the meadow at night it shines with its charm. Wherever I run, my white limbs are clothed in silver and gold by the moon. |
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The wood nymphs: Let’s dance, sisters, let’s dance into the gentle night breeze! In a moment from the reeds we’ll hear calling the green water gnome! Here he is, here he is, mending his nets, here he is! Vodník, come on, hey, quickly catch us! The one you catch, dear man, will give you a nice kiss. But your wife, ha, ha, ha, Vodník, will pull your ears! Vodník, come on, hey, quickly catch us! The Watersprite: Don’t tease me coyly, golden-haired children. Our native waters have clouded with human grief. The wood nymphs: What’s spoiling our merry games? Tell us, dear man, tell us! The Watersprite: Deep on the bottom is moaning, rejected by her sisters, poor, pale Rusalka! Oh, alas! |
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The 1st wood nymph: I feel a tear in my eye; a chill has suddenly blown on me. The 2nd wood nymph: In gray clouds the moon has hidden. The 3rd wood nymph: Darkness is pressing into me. Sisters, let’s flee! The Prince: My white doe! My fairy tale! My mute vision! Will my lamenting, my constant rush never end? From day to day driven by longing, I seek you, panting, in the woods. If night approaches, I sense you in it, I grasp at you in the moonlit mist, I seek you all over the earth! My fairy tale, come back to me! This is the place, speak, silent woods! Sweet vision, my love, where are you? My white doe! Where are you? By everything I have in my dead heart, I invoke both heaven and earth, I invoke both God and the demons! Show yourself! Where are you, my love? Rusalka: My love, do you recognize me, do you? My love, do you still remember? |
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The Prince: If you’re long since dead, destroy me at once! If still alive, save me, save me! Rusalka: Neither alive nor dead, neither women nor nymph, accursed, I wander as a phantom. In vain, for a moment in your arms I dreamed of my pitiful love. Your lover I was, but now I’m only your death! The Prince: Without you life is not possible anywhere! Can you forgive me? Rusalka: Why did you call me into your arms? Why did your lips lie? Now I’m a moonlit apparition for your eternal torture! Now I deceive you in the dark of night; my womanhood is defiled and with the will-o’-the-wisps on the waters I entice you into the depths. Why did you call me into your arms? Why did your lips lie? You sought passion, I know, I know, which I lacked. And now if I kiss you you’re lost completely! |
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The Prince: Kiss me, give me peace! I don’t want to return to the merriment of the world! Keep kissing me till I die! Rusalka: And you, my lad, gave me so much, why, my lad, did you deceive me? Do you know, my lad, do you know? That from my arms you’ll never return? That with this annihilation in my arms you’ll pay for it? The Prince: I want to give you everything, kiss me a thousand times! I don’t want to return, I’ll gladly die, kiss me, kiss me, give me peace. I don’t want to return, I’ll gladly die, I’ve no thought of returning! Rusalka: My love will freeze all your senses! I must destroy you, I must take you into my icy embrace! The Prince: Kiss me, give me peace! Your kisses will absolve me of my sin. I die happy in your embrace! |
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The Watersprite: In vain he’ll die in your arms, futile are all sacrifices, Oh poor, pale Rusalka! Alas! Rusalka: For your love, for that beauty of yours, for your inconstant human passion, for everything by which my fate is cursed, human soul, God have mercy on you! |
| libretto by David R. Beveridge |
| Contents: Characters; Act 1; Act 2; Act 3 |