definitions, please

[Stuart H. Goldberg]

>KEVIN CHRISTIANSON wrote:
>
>> Dear Polishlangers:
>> I cannot find the definition of this word in any of my dictionaries:
>>
>> z'renic
>> ["Ja z'renic mam sto na sko'rze mych ra,k"]
>>
>> and I'm having trouble translating these phrases:
>>
>> "jak wiatr w skroniach wierzb"
>>
>> "Nim odejde, sta,d po s'ladach twych sto'p
>>
>> The word and lines quoted above come from the song "Zanim zasne," sung
>>by Anna
>> Maria Jopek
>>
>> Would someone help me? Bardzo dziekuje.  Kevin
>>

Yurij Lotoshko adds:

>
>zrenicz - old Slvanoc - 'glaz., oko'
>

Zrenica is contemporary Polish for pupil (of an eye), but is also used as a
metonym for eye (compare Mickiewicz:  "Jako trzy slonca blyszcza jego trzy
zrenice").  Christian's line would thus read:  I have one hundred eyes on
the skin of my hands.

Preobrazhenskii gives Old Russian "zenitsa" (pupil or eye) and Slavonic
"zenitsa" (pupil) and makes the claim that the Polish form (as opposed to
Ukranian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Czech, etc.) is a result of folk etymology
introducing the "r" from "zret'."

I would translate the next line, "like wind in the willows' temples" or
maybe "like wind in the crowns of the willows" and the last "until I set
out from here in your tracks."

Stuart Goldberg
UW-Madison