Oh Sun, Dear Sun lyrics and meaning

Oi tu, saulė, sauliulė
Oi tu, saulė, sauliulė
Ka tu žemėj vaikščiaji

Ka tu žemėj vaikščiaji (x2)
Už marelių neužeini

Vai tu brali, bralali (x2)
Tu kelaliu važuoji

Tu kelaliu važuoji (x2)
In mani neužvažiuoji

Atvažiuoju tu verki (x2)
Išvažiuoju dar gailiau

vai tu brali, bralali (x2)
Paimk mano vargelius

Paim mano vargelius (x2)
Ir nuneškie aukštan kalnan

Ir nuneškie aukštan kalnan
Ir nuneškiek kalnely
Ir pasėkie aukštam kalny

Oh Sun, Dear Sun: song interpretation

This song can be understood as a song about separation and sorrow. At the beginning, the speaker addresses the sun, the dear little sun, which walks the earth but does not go beyond the seas. This image can be interpreted as a boundary that even the sun does not cross.

The speaker then addresses a brother who travels along the road but does not stop by, and who weeps when he arrives and even more sadly when he leaves. These images can be understood as painful separation from close kin.

At the end, the brother is asked to take the speaker's troubles, carry them to a high hill, and sow them there. This request can be interpreted as a wish to get rid of suffering by handing it over to a distant height. This is one possible meaning, but the motif of separation and grief is clear in the song.

A second interpretive possibility: the song can also be read through a mythic-cosmic lens. The sun here is not merely a natural phenomenon, but a familiar, living being, "sauliule," who walks the earth, yet even she has a boundary and does not go beyond the sea. This link between the sun, the sea, and a journey is close to older mythological imagery. The request to carry troubles to a high hill and "sow" them there then takes on an almost ritual tone, as though grief were a seed that could be given to a height in order to rid oneself of misfortune. This remains a hypothesis, but it explains why the complaint is addressed to the sun and why trouble is "sown" like grain.

Oh Sun, Dear Sun: symbols and phrases

Sun walking the earth
The sun that does not go beyond the seas. It marks a boundary and an unbridgeable separation.
Brother on the road
The brother who travels the road but does not stop. He marks a close relative who remains distant and hard to reach.
Weeping when arriving and leaving
The sorrowful weeping at meeting and parting. It marks the pain of separation.
Carrying troubles to the hill
The request to sow troubles on a high hill. It marks the desire to be rid of suffering.

Oh Sun, Dear Sun: song history

"Oi tu, saule, sauliule" belongs to family lyric, songs about the separation of kin and about hardship. The song is built as a chain of addresses: first the speaker addresses the sun, which walks the earth but does not go beyond the seas, and then the brother, who travels the road but does not stop by the speaker. Such address to the sun and to forces of nature, and images of transferring sorrow, are characteristic of family songs close to laments.

The exact place and time of recording are not given on this page, so the song is presented according to genre features. The final request to take the "troubles," carry them onto a high hill, and sow them there turns hardship into an object and then into an action; such images of personified hardship and its removal are frequent in folk songs, with variants found in various Lithuanian regions.

sources

  • Lietuvių liaudies dainynas, t. 1–23, Vilnius 1980–2011 (LLTI)
  • Lietuvių liaudies dainų katalogas, 6 t., Vilnius 1972–1986

Oh Sun, Dear Sun: sources