Dagon Taya (8)

This post covers page eight of Dagon Taya's short story "A fragrant hazy night" (မွှေးမြရီဝေသောညတစ်ည). The translation begins from the first sentence at the top of the page, which begins on page seven with the word "သူတို့သည်", and continues to the last sentences at the bottom of the page, which ends on page nine with the words "ကင်ကို မော့​ကြည်မိလေသည်။"

Vocabulary:

ပွင့် ။ to blossom, bloom
ဖောင်းကြွ ။ to swell up
အိ ။ soft, tender
လွှမ်း ။ to spread out
ရီဝေ ။ hazy
မွှေးထုံ ။ be enduringly fragrant
မျော ။ to float, drift
စီး ။ to flow
ရွေ့လျော ။ change (in circumstances); pass (as of time)
လွင့်ပါး ။ to be blown away
မြို့ရိုး ။ city wall
တိုင်ပင် ။ to consult, ask for advice
နှီးနှော ။ to discuss, consult
မျက်လှည့် ။ magic; sleight of hand; legerdemain
ဖန် ။ numerical classifier denoting frequency
ချား ။ a merry-go-round
ပါး ။ cheek
ပြယ် ။ to wear off, fade
ပြာ ။ to dim
လင်းကွင်း ။ cymbals
အက် ။ to crack
နှဲ ။ oboe
နှာစေး ။ to catch a cold
ပြုံး ။ to proliferate, grow
ငုံ့ ။ to hold one’s head down
ငြိမ်သက် ။ to be still, quite
ယိမ်းထိုး ။ to stagger
ရွဲ ။ bright gem; coloured glass ball
ကျန်ရစ် ။ to remain, be left behind
ငတ် ။ to starve; be famished; be hungry or thirsty
ဂယက် ။ small waves or ripples
ဖြူး ။ to sprinkle
မီးကျည် ။ rocket, fireworks
ကုံးသီ ။ to compose

Translation:

They were competing in beauty with the blossoming diamond stars from the sky. While their entire little bodies, which were soft swollen circles, were spreading out the colour of stars, [I was] hazy and intoxicated.

In my eyes everything was beautiful. [Everything] was so sweet. [Everything] was enduringly fragrant. I changed [the situation] and was blown to where a big group of people was flowing. I went to the magic that was leaving from the theater show of the ministers who were asking for advice. On one occasion of magic I arrived at a marionette. Under the silver colour of the moon from behind the closed movie screen I went back to the pavilion advertising Quaker cigarettes. At that time, while riding horses, after the merry-go-round went around, I went back into the theater show.

In the morning the people dispersed. The fragrances from a young lady’s cheek had started to wear off. The red lips had started to fade. The sound of the cymbals had started to crack. The sound of the oboe had entered into the cold and had started to catch a cold. The waves of water were no long rising much. While the aura of the moon was growing, it dropped its head. The stars were still and quiet.

I went into a shop and tipped up a glass. A big group of people who were actively standing staggered and ran close to me. A big tree came quickly and hugged me. In the big tree, round glass balls colourful as fruits hit against each other and while producing a sound of “khwin khwin” were left behind.

Since I was dying of thirst, I walked to the edge of the lake. While getting into Inya Lake, a person ran up to prevent me and with small waves of his water jug he sprinkled me. While the water was composing like fireworks it flew through. Jewels radiated out. However, they were very cool.

After I finished drinking water, when I ascended from the bank of the lake I happened to tip up [my head] and look at the sky.