Tale of Robin Bobbin. Robin-Bobin

This English song about a glutton named Robin Bobin Barabek was translated into Russian by Korey Ivanovich Chukovsky and included in his collection “From Two to Five.” Today we’ll talk a little about the song about the glutton Robin. Let's start with the cartoon and end with the poem itself with amazing illustrations.

Robin Bobin Barabek ate forty people. Cartoon

Well, now the promised wonderful pictures. Since I was little, I have seen many illustrations of this poem. But the most fabulous impressions remained precisely from those first pictures drawn by the great A. Suteev. It is with them that I want to introduce your children today. 🙂

BARABEK
English song

(How to tease a glutton)

Robin Bobin Barabek
Ate forty people
And a cow and a bull,
And the crooked butcher,

And the cart and the arc,
And a broom and a poker,
I ate the church, I ate the house,

And a forge with a blacksmith,
And then he says:
“My stomach hurts!”

Here's a funny English song about Robin Bobbin. Or a poem - think as you want :) Well, I highly advise you to look at other poems from the book “From Two to Five” by Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky. The pictures are amazing too!

I wanted to somehow compare two translations of the English poem about Robin-Bobin - Chukovsky and Marshak.

And at the same time, I came across a good poem on a poetry forum - a rehash of this topic.
Author - Nika Nevyrazimova (real name - Ekaterina Bushmarinova)

Robin Bobin Barabek
Ate forty people
And a cow and a bull,
And the crooked butcher,
And the cart and the arc,
And a broom and a poker,
I ate the church, I ate the house,
And a forge with a blacksmith,
And then he says:
"My stomach hurts!"
(K. Chukovsky)

Become a Robin Bobbin pulling in your mouth
everything that your gaze falls on even for a moment...
You see, the crows have settled on the branches -
these crows you count “one-two-three”
push it down your throat. Deepthroat car service
along with the car - because inside -
a black funnel sucking gap.
Needs to be filled out. Eat the cake.

If life has already been cut out -
Is it a piece of heart, or a skein of intestines,
gain strength, try new dishes:
chew my porch and gnaw my threshold,
stock up for future use, like a camel,
eat this intelligent word "good"
once you believe in him... But you’re still not full,
the emptiness screams again in the guts!

“Yours with giblets” - that’s what you wrote to me.
Eat everything that is nearby - the market and the station,
eat bad news, video clips.
Melancholy howls like the wind in a chimney.
A handful of pills, a flu shot -
throw yourself into this hole too...
Eat your “Business Lunch” from the box.

Just don't cry for me, just don't cry...

About an angel in a white coat

An angel told me, breaking medical confidentiality:
“We know how to examine the soul with X-ray rays
And having learned that it hurts, we will eliminate the source of inflammation!”
He enlightened me. It was discovered (strange thing!)
That some foreign body is stuck in the soul,
And - who would doubt it! - it turned out to be yours.

The angel was upset, developed a plan of operations,
I was going to explain myself and even fight with you!
The harmony of the absurd flowed from Dali's paintings.
It seemed appropriate to the sound of valerian drops,
That my angel will take a sharpened scalpel from its sheath
And you, like a piece of glass, will be removed from your soul.

The angel suggested to me not to grieve about your body.
Although, in my opinion, such diseases are treated in bed,
He didn’t even raise the question of bed rest!
At the last moment I refused his intervention:
“Don’t cut someone alive, don’t, come to your senses, have mercy!”
You remained in the soul. And it seems that he has already grown into it.

Music-wind

That motive that now twists and turns us,
not predicted by any composer.
The wind is rising in my head
threatening to become a hurricane soon.

I try to cling to strong things -
cups, a table, the teapot has a curved spout -
Only the music-wind drags and whips us,
and both are carried away somewhere further and further.

This music is louder than teeth chattering
and more audible than the painful gnashing of teeth.
You cling to strong things, cling -
you see for yourself: they don’t hold you anymore.

Even if you call on deafness and mediocrity,
so as not to feel the rhythm, not to hear the motive,
this music takes us there like a whirlwind,
where one day your face will become happy,

where it rocks, like in the sea and in an old tram,
where they drink immortality from cups at dawn
with black coffee, forgetting to stir the sugar in it
and tirelessly listening to wind music...

Great ones about poetry:

Poetry is like painting: some works will captivate you more if you look at them closely, and others if you move further away.

Small cutesy poems irritate the nerves more than the creaking of unoiled wheels.

The most valuable thing in life and in poetry is what has gone wrong.

Marina Tsvetaeva

Of all the arts, poetry is the most susceptible to the temptation to replace its own peculiar beauty with stolen splendors.

Humboldt V.

Poems are successful if they are created with spiritual clarity.

The writing of poetry is closer to worship than is usually believed.

If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow without shame... Like a dandelion on a fence, like burdocks and quinoa.

A. A. Akhmatova

Poetry is not only in verses: it is poured out everywhere, it is all around us. Look at these trees, at this sky - beauty and life emanate from everywhere, and where there is beauty and life, there is poetry.

I. S. Turgenev

For many people, writing poetry is a growing pain of the mind.

G. Lichtenberg

A beautiful verse is like a bow drawn through the sonorous fibers of our being. The poet makes our thoughts sing within us, not our own. By telling us about the woman he loves, he delightfully awakens in our souls our love and our sorrow. He's a magician. By understanding him, we become poets like him.

Where graceful poetry flows, there is no room for vanity.

Murasaki Shikibu

I turn to Russian versification. I think that over time we will turn to blank verse. There are too few rhymes in the Russian language. One calls the other. The flame inevitably drags the stone behind it. It is through feeling that art certainly emerges. Who is not tired of love and blood, difficult and wonderful, faithful and hypocritical, and so on.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

-...Are your poems good, tell me yourself?
- Monstrous! – Ivan suddenly said boldly and frankly.
- Do not write anymore! – the newcomer asked pleadingly.
- I promise and swear! - Ivan said solemnly...

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"

We all write poetry; poets differ from others only in that they write in their words.

John Fowles. "The French Lieutenant's Mistress"

Every poem is a veil stretched over the edges of a few words. These words shine like stars, and because of them the poem exists.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

Ancient poets, unlike modern ones, rarely wrote more than a dozen poems during their long lives. This is understandable: they were all excellent magicians and did not like to waste themselves on trifles. Therefore, behind every poetic work of those times there is certainly hidden an entire Universe, filled with miracles - often dangerous for those who carelessly awaken the dozing lines.

Max Fry. "Chatty Dead"

I gave one of my clumsy hippopotamuses this heavenly tail:...

Mayakovsky! Your poems do not warm, do not excite, do not infect!
- My poems are not a stove, not a sea, and not a plague!

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

Poems are our inner music, clothed in words, permeated with thin strings of meanings and dreams, and therefore, drive away the critics. They are just pathetic sippers of poetry. What can a critic say about the depths of your soul? Don't let his vulgar groping hands in there. Let poetry seem to him like an absurd moo, a chaotic pile-up of words. For us, this is a song of freedom from a boring mind, a glorious song sounding on the snow-white slopes of our amazing soul.

Boris Krieger. "A Thousand Lives"

Poems are the thrill of the heart, the excitement of the soul and tears. And tears are nothing more than pure poetry that has rejected the word.