definitions, please

[Alexander Boguslawski]

Stuart H. Goldberg wrote:

> >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

  The last line, "nim odejde stad po sladach twych stop" should be translated
as "until (or before) I depart  (leave) from here, following the tracks of your
feet".

Alexander Boguslawski, Rollins College