I Sowed a Dove lyrics and meaning

Aš Pasėjau Balandėlį darželin
Aš Pasėjau Balandėlį darželin
Balandėlės nė dzygelis nedzygo
Balandėlės nė dzygelis nedzygo

Ir prijojo pilnas dvaras kazokų
Ir paėmė mano vyrą laidokų

Man negaila, kad jį jaunų paėmė
Man cik gaila, kad nedrūtai surišo

Ištrūks ištrūks mano vyras ir pabėgs
Dar ne rozų man galvelį sudaužys

Dar ne rozų man galvelį sudaužys
Dar ne rozų rozumėlį sumaišys

Dar ne rozų rozumėlį sumaišys
Dar ne rozų gelsvų kasų sutaršys

I Sowed a Dove: song interpretation

This song, recorded in Dzūkian dialect, can be understood as a bitter woman's song about the loss of a husband and an unhappy marriage. The opening image, where the sown dove does not sprout at all, creates a sense of barrenness and failure. The dove is usually associated with love, so its failure to sprout can be interpreted as a sign of unhappy love.

Then a full yard of Cossacks rides into the manor and takes the husband as a laidokas. This can be understood as an image of conscription or forced taking, characteristic of the village under tsarist rule. The woman's response is ambiguous: she does not regret that they took him young; she regrets only that they did not bind him tightly.

The final stanzas reveal the reason: she fears that her husband will break free, run away, and more than once smash her head, confuse her mind, and tear her fair braids. This bitter irony can be interpreted as a song about a violent or dissolute husband whose return the wife actually fears. This is a painful possible meaning, but the motif of an unhappy marriage is clear in the song.

A second interpretive possibility: the same text may be read not as hatred of the husband, but as the bitterness of a military-historical song expressed through contradiction. The Cossacks' arrival and the taking of the husband form an image of recruitment, while the woman's words that she "does not regret" it and that he should have been tied more firmly may be understood as ironic, self-consoling speech that hides the real pain of loss. Such rhetoric built on opposites is typical of songs about loved ones taken into a foreign army, where lament is often concealed beneath a mask of indifference or anger. This remains only one possible meaning, but it explains why tenderness and bitterness are so tightly interwoven in the song.

I Sowed a Dove: symbols and phrases

Little dove
The dove usually marks love and tenderness, but here it does not sprout. It can be understood as a sign of unhappy love or barrenness.
Cossacks
Cavalrymen of the tsarist army who take the husband in the song. They mark coercion and foreign power in the village.
Laidokas
A word for a dissolute, unreliable man, and at the same time someone taken into service. The term ambiguously describes both his character and his fate.
"Confuse my mind"
A phrase describing the mental harm caused by violence. It reveals the woman's fear of her returning husband.

I Sowed a Dove: song history

This song, recorded in Dzūkian dialect, can be connected with the layer of military-historical songs that reflect the forced taking of men into a foreign army: a "full yard of Cossacks" rides into the estate and takes the husband. The mention of Cossacks, cavalrymen of the tsarist army, dates such songs to the nineteenth-century period of imperial rule, when conscription painfully affected village families. At the same time, the song has a strong family and marriage layer: it is spoken in the voice of an unhappy wife.

The exact place and time of this song's recording are not given on the page, so it is presented by genre. The text is marked by bitter irony: the wife regrets not that her husband was taken, but that he was "not tied strongly," and she fears his return. This rhetoric of contradiction and bitterness is characteristic of the intersection between family songs and military-historical songs.

sources

  • Lietuvių liaudies dainynas, t. 1–23, Vilnius 1980–2011 (LLTI)
  • D. Krištopaitė. Lietuvių karinės-istorinės dainos, Vilnius 1956

I Sowed a Dove: sources