Suma de las sumas

Source

Summa Summarum

Wilhem Busch

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Sag, wie wär es, alter Schragen,
Wenn du mal die Brille putztest,
Um ein wenig nachzuschlagen,
Wie du deine Zeit benutztest.

Oft wohl hätten dich so gerne
Weiche Arme weich gebettet;
Doch du standest kühl von ferne,
Unbewegt, wie angekettet.

Oft wohl kams, dass du die schöne
Zeit vergrimmtest und vergrolltest,
Nur weil diese oder jene
Nicht gewollt, so wie du wolltest.

Demnach hast du dich vergebens
Meistenteils herumgetrieben;
Denn die Summe unsres Lebens
Sind die Stunden, wo wir lieben.

Wilhelm Busch

Tell how it was, you silly old fool,
When you wipe off your filthy lenses,
And think a little more clearly now
That in youth you had lost your senses.

Often you could have quite happily
Found yourself sweetly bedded,
But you stood off sullen, apart and cold,
Unmoved and chained, but not wedded.

Often it seems you threw life away,
Detached from the loveliest of hours.
Only because you would not dare love
And turned love into pain which devours.

Accordingly, and wholly in vain
Has all been so deeply repressed;
The sum and the end of living, old fool,
Is love, not a life time depressed.

Paraphrase by GB

This "sum of sums" is a dark review from the perspective of age -- being old and perhaps wiser -- that a life was spent without profiting from love, from affection and from the succor of a worthy relationship. For this the snap rhythms punctuate the lower sevenths in these harmonic minor chords, F sharp coloring G minor tonic and C sharp coloring the dominant. The augmented triads as at measures 5-6 yield a sense of unease and the marcato gestures a sense of displeasure. Over this the vocal line cries out in a despairing retrospective to capture the text.