Original subtitles

The wine one drinks through the eyes

The moon pours down at night in waves,

And a flood tide overflows

The silent horizon.

Desires, gruesome and sweet

Countless swim across the flood.

The wine one drinks through the eyes

The moon pours down at night in waves.

The poet, slave to devotion,

Drunk on the sacred liquor,

Enraptured, turns his face to Heaven

And staggering sucks and slurps

The wine one drinks through the eyes

The moonlight's pale blossoms,

The white wonder-roses,

Bloom at night in July.

O could Ipluck but one!

To soothe my deepest sorrow,

Through darkening streams I search

The moonlight's pale blossoms,

The white wonder-roses.

All my longings would be satisfied,

Dared las gently

As a fairy sprite to scatter

Over your brown hair

The moonlight's pale blossoms.

With a ghostly light ray The moon illumines the crystal flasks

Upon the black, holy Washbasin

Of the silent Dandy from Bergamo.

In the resonant bronze basin

The fountains laugh a metallic clangor.

With a ghostly light ray The moon illumines the crystal flasks.

Pierrot with waxen complexion

Stands deep in thought:

What makeup for today?

He shoves aside the red and orientalgreen

And paints his face in lofty style

With a ghostly light ray.

A pale washerwoman

Washes bleached garments at nighttime.

Naked, silver-white arms

She stretches down into the flood.

Breezes tiptoe through the clearing,

Lightly ruffling the stream.

A pale washerwoman

Washes bleached garments at nighttime.

And the gentle maid of heaven, Softly fondled by the branches,

Spreads her linen spun from moonbeams

A cross the dusky meadows-

A pale washerwoman.

Like a pallid drop of blood

Colours a sick man's lips,

So lurks within this music The lure of annihilation.

In untamed strains the chords disorder Despair's icy dream-

Like a pallid drop of blood

Colours a sick man's lips.

Fierce, exulting, sweet, and yearning,

Melancholy dismal waltzes,

You cling to my consciousness, You are borne on my thoughts

Like a pallid drop of blood.

Ascend, O Mother of All Sorrows

The altar of my verses!

Blood from thy meager breasts

Has spilled the sword's anger

Thy eternal open wounds

Are like eyes, red and open.

Ascend, O Mother of All Sorrows

The altar of my verses!

In thy emaciated hands

Thou holdest thy Son's body,

Revealed to allmankind-

But mankind's gaze is turned away

From thee, O Mother ofAll Sorrows.

You dark moon, deathly ill,

Laid over heaven's black pillow,

Your fever-swollen gaze

Enchants me like a strange melody.

Of insatiable pangs oflove,

You die,

Suffocated in longing,

You dark moon, deathly ill,

Laid over heaven's black pillow.

The hotblooded lover

Slinking heedless to the beloved

You hearten with your play of light,

Your pale blood wrung from torment,

You dark moon, deathly ill.

Obscure, black giant moths

Have blotted out the sunshine.

A closed book of magic spells,

The horizon sleeps-silent.

From the mist of lost depths

An odour rises, murdering memories.

Obscure, black giant moths

Have blotted out the sunshine.

And from Heaven to Earth

Gliding down on leaden wings

The invisible monsters

Descend upon our human hearts...

Obscure, black giant moths.

Pierrot! My laughter I've unlearned.

The image of splendour Dissolved-Dissolved!

To me the flag waves black Now from the mast.

Pierrot! My laughter I've unlearned.

O give me back Horse-doctor to the soul,

Snowman of Lyric,

Your Lunar Highness,

Pierrot! My laughter.

Red, princely rubies, Bloody drops of ancient glory,

Slumber in the coffins, Down there in the catacombs.

At night, with his drinking buddies, Pierrot climbs down-to steal

Red, princely rubies,

Bloody drops of ancient glory.

But look-their hair stands on end, Pale fear roots them to the spot:

Through the darkness-like eyes! Out of the coffins stare

Red, princely rubies.

At the gruesome Last Supper, Under the blinding gleam of gold,

In flickering candlelight, To the altar comes-Pierrot!

His hand, consecrated to God,

Tears open the priestly robes

At the gruesome Last Supper,

Under the blinding gleam of gold.

Signing the cross,

He shows the frightened souls

The dripping red Host:

His heart-in bloody fingers-

At the gruesome Last Supper.

The scrawny wench with the long neck Will be his last lover.

In his brain Stuck like a nail

The scrawny wench With the long neck.

Thin as a pine tree, Pigtail down her neck-

Lustfully she'll Embrace the rascal,

The scrawny wench!

The moon, a shining scimitar

On a black silk cushion,

Ghastly huge-glowers down

Through the painfully dark night.

Pierrot wanders about restlessly And stares aloft in deadly fear

At the moon, a shining scimitar On a black silk cushion.

His knees tremble, He collapses and faints.

He fancies it's already whistling down On his guilty sinner's neck,

The moon, the shining scimitar.

Holy crosses are the verses

On which the poets bleed silently,

Struck blind by phantom swarms

Of fluttering vultures.

Swords have feasted on their bodies, Revelling in the scarlet blood!

Holy crosses are the verses

On which the poets bleed silently.

Dead the head,

The curls stiffened,

Far away the noisy rabble.

Slowly the sun sinks,

A red royal crown.-

Holy crosses are the verses.

Sweetly lamenting-a crystalline sigh

Out of the oldltalian pantomime,

Echoes over: Why's Pierrot become

So wooden,

So sentimentalmodern?

And it sounds through his heart's wasteland,

Sounds an undertone through all his senses,

Sweetly lamenting-a crystalline sigh

Out of the oldltalian pantomime.

Then Pierrot forgets the sad faces!

Through the moon's pale fireshine,

Through the sea's light-tide- sails his yearning

Bravely forth, aloft to home's heaven

Sweetly lamenting-a crystalline sigh.

Into Cassander's shiny head, Whose cries pierce the air,

Pierrot drills with a hypocritical face,

Gently, with a trepan!

Then tamps in with his finger

His genuine Turkish tobacco

Into Cassander's shiny head,

Whose cries pierce the air.

Then screws a cherry pipestem

Into the bald spot behind

And smugly puffs away on

His genuine Turkish tobacco

From Cassander's shiny head.

Knitting needles gleaming and flashing

In her gray hair,

The duenna sits there muttering

In her little red dress.

She's waiting in the arbor;

She loves Pierrot painfully,

Knitting needles gleaming and flashing

In her gray hair.

Suddenly-hark!-a whisper!

A breath of wind softly snickers:

The moon, the wicked mocker,

Taunts and scoffs with its rays-

Knitting needles gleaming and flashing.

A white fleck of bright moon

On the back of his black coat,

Pierrot sets off one balmy evening,

To seek adventure and fortune.

Suddenly something's amiss in his clothing;

He casts about untilhe finds it-

A white fleck of bright moon

On the back of his black coat.

Wait! he thinks: a fleck of plaster!

Wipes and wipes, but-can't get it off!

So on he goes, filled with fury, Tillbreak of dawn, rubbing and rubbing

A white fleck of bright moon.

With a grotesquely giant bow

Pierrot scrapes on his viola.

Like a stork on one leg, He dully plucks a pizzicato.

Suddenly here's Cassander-raging At the nighttime virtuoso

With a grotesquely giant bow

Pierrot scrapes on his viola.

He tosses the viola aside:

With his delicate left hand Takes Sir Baldy by the collar-

Dreamily playing on the bald head

With a grotesquely giant bow.

The moonbeam is the rudder,

The water lily serves as boat:

Thus Pierrot sails southward

On a fair following wind.

The stream hums deep scales

And rocks the fragile craft.

The moonbeam is the rudder,

The water lily serves as boat.

To Bergamo, to Homeland,

Pierrot now returns;

Faintly gleams in the east

The green horizon.

The moonbeam is the rudder.

O sweet fragrance from fairytale times,

Bewitch again my senses!

A foolish swarm of mischief

Buzzes down the gentle breeze.

A happy impulse calls me back

To joys I have long neglected:

O sweet fragrance from fairytale times,

Bewitch me again!

All my ill humours I've renounced;

From my sun-framed window

I behold untrammelled the beloved world

And dream beyond to blissful vistas...

O sweet fragrance

from fairytale times.

[Subtitling by Alexandra Demetriou]