Arrr me matey

How to Talk Like a Pirate: 20 Pirate Words

Diana Lăpușneanu in Language Tips | Sep 04th 2019

Ahoy, maties! Avast, ye! If it’s September 19, then it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here's everything ye' need to know about it.

Ahoy, maties! Avast, ye! Stop what you are doing. If it’s September 19, then it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day! The perfect excuse to drink industrial quantities of rum, grunt, growl, dress like Jack Sparrow, walk your parrot pet on the shoulder and call everyone you meet a scallywag. Blimey! That sure sounds like a lot of fun. Arr! So let’s walk the plank and see what’s this all about.

The origins of Talk Like a Pirate Day

It was June 6, 1995, when John Baur and Mark Summers – later known by their pirate names Ol’ Chumbucket and Cap’n Slappy – played racquetball. The story says one of them got injured during the game and reacted with an outburst of “Arrr!”. Thus the Talk Like a Pirate Day was born. Out of respect for the observance of World War II’s D-Day on the 6th of June, the soon-to-be world-renowned pirates decided to choose Summers’ now ex-wife’s birthday – September 19 – to celebrate pirate lingo.

At first, Baur and Summers celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day as an inside joke between two friends. But a few years later they sent a letter to Dave Barry, a syndicated humor columnist, who liked the idea and released it into the world. The rest… is history.

Over the years, the idea gained a lot of notoriety and is now celebrated internationally by people and brands everywhere. For example, in 2008, to celebrate the day, Facebook introduced a pirate-translated version of its website.

The pirate accent: how to talk like a pirate

Arr! All right, ye’ bilge rat! It’s time to teach ye’ how to talk like a real pirate!

“Ahoy, matey!” by Austin Neill©

All you have to do is talk in a deep, gravelly voice, grunt and growl a lot, use insults abundantly, yell “arr!” every now and then, mumble incoherently from all the rum you’ve drunk, slur your words, give up g’s and v’s in most words, and replace “you” and your“ with “ye” and “yer”.

Easy peasy, ain’t it?

Pirate lingo: useful pirate words and phrases

Here are some nautical pirate phrases to help you get into character easier:

bilge rat – an insult referring to a rat that lives in the worst place on the ship – the bilge
landlubber – a person unfamiliar with the sea or sailing
avast – stop; cease and pay attention
shiver me timbers – expresses shock, surprise or annoyance
ahoy – hello
aye – yes
aye aye – used by sailors to confirm they understood the orders
matey – a companion, a close friend
booty – treasure
buccaneer – pirate or free sailor known in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries
feed the fish – about to die
Jacob’s ladder – a rope ladder
old salt – experienced pirate
walk the plank – force someone to walk off a plank on a ship; to accept the consequences
lad, lass, lassie – a younger person
bucko – friend
cat o’nine tails – a whip with nine strands
dead men tell no tales – leave no survivors
yo-ho-ho – an expression of delight
weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen! – pull up the anchor and get the ship sailing

Arr! Is Talk Like a Pirate Day one of the best parodic holidays ever or what? Not even World Chocolate Day sounds as good as talking like a pirate all day long with ye’ maties.

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Why would anyone shiver their timbers? Here’s how pirate words arrr preserving old language

There’s no shortage of special days throughout the year. Some — like International Literacy Day — speak to important issues in society. Others speak to our inner dag.

Today marks one of the daggier days, International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It marks the occasion when Americans John Baur (aka Ol’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (aka Cap’n Slappy) first proclaimed in 1995 that everyone in the world should talk like a pirate.

Read more: The prosecution of pirates was a model for today's system of international justice

And so we thought we’d take the chance to answer a few pirate questions. Why do pirates say “arr”? What are timbers — and what happens when they get shivered?

Let’s get underway me language-loving ‘earties.

Who put the ‘arrr’ in pirate?

The modern-day fiction of pirate-speak emerged from pirate-themed amusement rides, books and films, especially the Disney classics like Treasure Island, the Pirates of the Caribbean series — and of course Australia’s own Captain Feathersword of the Wiggles fame.

You may already know how to talk like a pirate, but can you dance like one?

The signature pirate voice is West Country (or some version of it). But why West Country?

True, south-western England produced well-known pirates like “Black Sam” Bellamy and “Long Ben” Every, but famous pirates came from all over. Captain Kidd hailed from Scotland, Black Bart from Wales, William Burke from Ireland and Edward “Ned” Low from London.

Read more: Captain Kidd's 'treasure' found in Indian Ocean – but this is no haul in pirating terms

But it was Dorset-born Robert Newton – acclaimed actor and patron saint of Talk Like A Pirate Day – who set the fashion for pirate-speak. His portrayal of Long John Silver and Blackbeard in 1950s films set the gold standard for pirate voices on the screen – including the “arr”.

Together with the skull-and-crossbones logo, this accent built the pirate brand.

How pirate-speak preserves language

The books and movies that launched the pirate brand all those years ago have acted like artificial life support systems for expressions that otherwise would have long bitten dust.

Making many regular appearances on September 19 are expletives like “timbers”, “shiver me timbers” and “sash me timbers” – all nautical exclamations from the late 18th century.

Read more: Oi! We're not lazy yarners, so let’s kill the cringe and love our Aussie accent(s)

Timber was a slang term for “wooden leg” (“timber toe” meant “man with a wooden leg”). It was also a nautical expression for the pieces of wood making up the ribs or frames of a ship’s hull. The term “shiver” meant “to splinter” (by happy coincidence, English has another verb “shiver” with equally appropriate “quiver, tremble” senses).

There was undoubtedly a bit of word play going on with these mock oaths — the idea being something like “may my wooden leg (or ship) fly into small pieces!”. They are modelled along the lines of frightful curses like “Gorblimey” (a truncated version of “May God blind me”) and “Drat” or “Rats” (innocent sounding expressions until you realise they’re disguised forms of “God rot them”).

Acclaimed actor Robert Newton built the pirate brand in films like Treasure Island and Black Beard. IMDb

Like “(God) strike me dead” and “blow me down”, shiver me timbers was rare by the mid 1800s and is never encountered these days – except on September 19.

We see a similar pirate-specific support of nautical terms like “hearty” and “lubber”. When pirates say “me hearties”, they’re giving due respect to a person for bravery or other admirable qualities. “Hearty” was even another word for “sailor” from the 18th to the early 20th century.

Read more: 13 'ye olde' phrases that would be far better in the workplace

“Lubber” has been around since the 14th century and referred to a clumsy and idle person. In fact, before becoming part of sailor parlance, people spoke scathingly of the “abbey-lubber” (monks living in idleness or self-indulgence).

And from the 16th to the 19th centuries, we see the “lifting” hearties speaking of the “leaning” lubbers, especially those land-lubbers.

Tracing sea lingo from travel logs to sluiced gobs

Our knowledge of sea-faring lingo comes from early manuals like seamanship writer Samuel Sturmy’s Compleat Mariner (1669). Some of this nautical jargon made it into ordinary language and survived — “by and large”, “taken aback”, “underway” and “go by the board”.

The so-called golden age of piracy (late 17th and early 18th centuries) happened to coincide with the golden age of travel literature, and it became the fashion of the time for writers to pepper their memoirs and travelogues with nautical words. This was so much the case that philosopher George Campbell described the practice as a “source of darkness in composing”.

The Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, 1718 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Blackbeard is one of the world’s most famous pirates. But did he really say ‘arrr’? Wikimedia commons, CC BY

Early slang dictionaries are another source of “tar phrases”, tar being an early appellation for a sailor. Early lexicographer Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue groans with 18th century nautical gems like “shipshape” (orderly), “junk” (pieces of old rope and, later, “pieces of salted pork”), and lashings of terms for food and drink — “belly timber”, “slush and tack” (food), “grub-spoiler” (cook), “flash the hash” (to vomit), “grog” (rum and water), “sluice the gob” (to drink) are some of the success stories.

Those who see scruffy slang as a shortcoming of modern times might be surprised to encounter in Grose’s dictionary entries like “Vice Admiral of the Narrow Seas”, which he defines as “a drunken man that pisses under the table into his companions’ shoes”.

Read more: Dinky-di Aussies: how slanguage helped form a new national identity

In fact, many current terms around drunkenness hail from this time: “slewed”, “(well) spliced”, “listing to starboard”, “three sheets to the wind”, “legless”, “keel over” and “guzzle-guts” (“one greedy of liquor”). Even the phrase “name your poison” as an invitation to drink was early sailing slang. It seems the expression “drunk as a sailor” is well founded.

So go ahead and enjoy International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s the one day when all around the English-speaking world, you can hear “shiver me timbers” and a flourishing of picaroon “arrrs”!

And if our short introduction has whet your appetite, check out the talk like a pirate website or use a pirate translator. These ‘ere translatin’ contrivances be fer turnin’ decent English into the lingo of sea-dogs. At this point we’ll sling our hook…

Caspian - Built Like This (Feat. Snak The Ripper)

Lyrics
Caspian
Built Like This (Feat. Snak The Ripper)

Built Like This [Translation]

[Intro]
Okay, listen to this, because I'm not going to fucking repeat.
I'm going to expand.
Do you hear? Look at me
Gonna expand our horizons,
Gonna do business for Canada.
This dude is already here.
He's in touch, our friend
Named Caspian!
A very talented guy.
I know this guy, he has connections and wants to work with us on projects.
And if you have any fucking problems, come to me.

[Verse 1: Caspian]
All you bastards better stay calm!
Finger itches on the trigger, I'll pull it if you act stupid.
I'm not weak at all!
You all know where I'm from,
Middle East, fuck the world! (1)
That's where the killers paint their guns, huh.
I'm either in a lowrider with a pistol (with a pistol), (2)
Or in a Maseratti with a rocket (with a rocket). (3)
Bitch, it's official, look at your bitch's ass
And you'll see my initials there.
SLANG! (4)
Forgot about me? Damn it!
Me, me, me for three fucking nights
Muted business with my accomplices.
We all live our lives in a ski mask. (5)
You can hate all you want, but suckers don't hang out with me.
Forgetting about us, you will pay twice.
You're involved with real bastards in this game.
SLANG!

[Chorus: Snak The Ripper & (Caspian)]
You fuck around a lot, but you can't take it back.
(No, buddy, you're not made like us.)
We're slippery in these things, and it pisses you off.
(No, buddy, you're not made like us.)
Called bandits with him, we'll put the club on the ears.
(No, buddy, you're not made like us.)
Say what you want, bitch, we don't give a fuck.
(I will kill you, you are not created like us.)
(You're not made like us, no buddy, you're not made like us)[x3]
(You're not made like us, no, I'll bang you, you're not made like us)

[Verse 2: Snak The Ripper ]
Yes!
Sitting in the back seat,
I've been missing all week, they think I'm dead.
Fuck your opinion, I speak with my mind.
I drink this shit until I'm blind.
I am free from plans
Increasing crime rate.
I keep what I have.
Now you couldn't think that this dude would be famous.
Open your mouth, I'll throw you a bone.
I'll burn down your house when I know you're there.
This is the most real shit you've ever heard.
I'll take a bat and break your nerves.
I'll leave you with the fucking rats and birds.
Hanging out with Caspian and Snak is well deserved.
Every verse is wild.
I am a versatile person.
I write, I write with a pen in cursive style. (6)
Every minute of listening is worth your time.
I am made of the body, I have a perfect smile.

[Chorus: Snak The Ripper & (Caspian)][x2]

[Outro]
Stealth bomb bitch! (7)

(1) Peace - meaning the absence of war.
(2) Lowrider - a car that has a number of distinctive features, primarily a very low, "creeping" landing. Such cars are designed to impress, to achieve a spectacular, memorable appearance, sometimes even to the detriment of driving performance.
(3) Maserati is an Italian car.
(4) Slang / Felix Slang is one of Caspian's nicknames. That's the name of the EP this track is from.
(5) Caspian and Snak are members of the Stompdown Killaz. The members of the party, as a rule, either rap or draw graffiti. Ski masks (simply speaking, balaclavas) are used to prevent the police from noticing their faces while painting graffiti.
(6) Cursive writing (shorthand) is a way of writing using special characters and a number of abbreviations, which makes it possible to quickly record oral speech.
(7) Stealth Bomb Records is the studio where Caspian, Snak The Ripper and other members of the SDK coterie record.

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Guy de Maupassan "I", where no one has access.

No one can find it, penetrate it, because no one is like me, no one understands anyone.

Do you understand me even now? No, you think I'm out of my mind! You are watching me from the side, you are afraid of me! You think, "What's wrong with him today?" But if someday you comprehend, unravel to the end my terrible refined torment, come and say only: "I understood you!" And you will make me happy even for a moment.

Women especially make me feel lonely.

Woe is me! Woe! How much I suffered because of them, because more often and more than men, they created the illusion that I was not alone! When love comes, the soul seems to expand, filled with unearthly bliss. Do you know why? Do you know why this feeling of great happiness? Only because we imagine that the end of loneliness has come. We think that we will no longer be abandoned, lost in the world. What a delusion!

Even stronger than us, than our lonely hearts, is tormented by the eternal thirst for love of a woman - a woman, this great deception of a dream.

You yourself experienced wonderful hours next to these long-haired seductresses with charming eyes. What nonsense clouding our minds! What self-delusion captivates us!

Isn't it true, it seems that now, this minute, we will be one with her? But that moment never comes, and after long weeks of waiting, hoping, deceitful pleasures, the day comes when I am even more alone than before.

With every kiss, with every hug, the alienation grows. And how painful, how awful!

After all, one poet, Sully Prudhomme, wrote:

Oh, the thrill of human caresses! How pitiful is your fate,

Helpless love is a fruitless attempt

To achieve the merging of souls in the plexus of our bodies.

And then goodbye! Its end. And you can hardly recognize that woman who was everything to us at some point in our lives and into whose secret and no doubt vulgar inner world we did not manage to look! Even in moments of a mysterious merging of two beings, a complete mixture of feelings and desires, when I seemed to penetrate to the very depths of her soul, one word, a small word, showed me how mistaken I was, and, like lightning in the darkness, illuminated the gaping abyss. between us.

Still, the best joy on earth is to spend the evening near the woman you love, saying nothing and feeling almost happy from her mere presence. Let us not demand more, for the complete merging of two human beings is impossible.

Now I have withdrawn into myself and do not tell anyone what I believe, what I think, what I love. Knowing that I am doomed to cruel loneliness, I look at the world around me and never express my opinion. What do I care about human opinions, strife, pleasures, beliefs! I have nothing to share with others and have grown cold towards everything. My inner invisible world is inaccessible to everyone. I answer mundane questions with generalities and a smile that says yes when I don't feel like wasting words. You have understood me?

We walked all the way to the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de la Star, then back to the Place de la Concorde, because he spoke very slowly and said many other things that I did not remember.

Suddenly he stopped and pointed with his hand to a high granite obelisk, standing in the middle of the Parisian square and with its long Egyptian profile reaching into the starry sky, to a lonely monument, torn away from the homeland, whose history is imprinted on its faces with strange writings.

- Look, we are all like this stone, my friend said.

And left without saying a word.

Was he drunk? Was he insane? Or a sage? I still can't decide. Sometimes it seems to me that he was right, and sometimes that he lost his mind.

Guy de Maupassant — Loneliness: A Story

We just had a merry dinner with a group of men. One of the participants in the dinner, an old friend of mine, said to me:

— Let's walk along the Champs Elysees. And we walked at a slow pace along a long avenue, under trees, barely pubescent with leaves. There is no sound around, only the usual deaf and relentless rumble of Paris. A fresh breeze blew in my face, and myriads of stars were scattered across the black sky with golden dust.

My companion spoke:

— I don't know why, I breathe more freely here at night than anywhere else. And it's easier to think. Here I have moments of such enlightenment, when it seems that you are about to penetrate into the divine secret of the universe. Then the light disappears. And everything ends.

At times, two shadows glided past us, hiding under the trees; we passed benches where two people, sitting side by side, merged into one black spot.

My friend sighed:

— Poor people! They inspire me not with disgust, but with immense pity. Of all the mysteries of human existence, I solved one: we suffer most in life from eternal loneliness, and all our actions, all efforts are aimed at escaping from it. And they, these lovers, sheltered on benches under the open sky, like us, like all living creatures, strive for at least a moment not to feel alone; but they, like us, have always been and will always be alone.

Some feel it more strongly, others less - that's the whole difference.

For some time now I have been tormented by the cruel consciousness of the terrible loneliness in which I live and from which there is no, you hear, there is no escape!

No matter what we do, no matter how we rush about, no matter how passionate the impulse of our hearts, the call of our lips and the fervor of our embraces, we are always alone.

I persuaded you to go for a walk so as not to return home, because now the desertedness of my dwelling is unbearable to me. But what have I achieved? I say, you listen, and we are both alone, we are close, together, but we are alone. Do you understand this?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the scripture says. They seem to be happy. They, this poor spirit, do not understand our lonely longing, they do not wander through life, like me, not knowing any other closeness, except for fleeting meetings, not knowing any other joy, except for dubious satisfaction, what exactly I saw, understood, unraveled and suffered through the consciousness of our irreparable eternal disunity.

Do you think my head is wrong? Listen to me. Since it became clear to me how lonely I am, it seems to me that every day I go deeper and deeper into a gloomy dungeon, I can’t find its walls, I don’t see the end of it, and it doesn’t have it, perhaps the end! I walk and no one walks with me, next to me, no other person makes this gloomy path. This dungeon is life. At times, I hear noise, voices, screams... I feel my way towards these indistinct sounds, but I do not know where they come from; I meet no one, no one in these darkness holds out his hand to me. Do you understand me?

There were sometimes people who guessed this unbearable torment. Musset exclaimed:

Someone is calling me, whispering dejectedly...
Someone has entered. My cell is empty.
There is no one, midnight has struck...
O loneliness! O poverty!

But with him it was only a random guess, and not an irrevocable certainty, as I have. He was a poet; he peopled life with visions and dreams. He has never been truly alone. Here I am - I'm alone! No wonder Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest unfortunates in the world, because he was one of the greatest clairvoyants, wrote such hopeless lines to a woman friend: "We all live in the desert, no one understands anyone."

Yes, no one understands anyone, no matter what people imagine, say or try to do. After all, the earth does not know what is happening over there, on the stars, scattered by a fiery grain in such a distant space that the radiance of only a few of them reaches us, and countless hordes of the rest are lost in infinity, and so close to each other that, perhaps, they form a single whole, the molecules of one body.

So, a person knows just as much about what is going on in another person. We are farther apart than the stars of heaven, and most importantly, more divided, because thought is incomprehensible.

What a torture it is to constantly come into contact with those whom we cannot understand!

And we love as if we were chained side by side, to the same wall, and we stretch out our hands to each other, but we cannot unite. The painful need for complete merging torments us, but all our efforts are useless, impulses are in vain, confessions are fruitless, hugs are powerless, caresses are futile. In an effort to merge together, we rush to each other and only hurt each other.

And I myself, no matter how hard I try to give myself all, wholly, to open wide the doors of my soul, I cannot open up to the end. Somewhere in the depths, in the very depths, there remains that secret place of my “I”, where no one has access. No one can find it, penetrate it, because no one is like me, no one understands anyone.

Do you understand me even now? No, you think I'm out of my mind! You are watching me from the side, and I am a stranger to you! You think: "What's wrong with him today?" But if someday you comprehend, unravel to the end my terrible and refined torment, come and say only: “I understood you!” And you will make me happy even for a moment.

Women, like no other, make me feel lonely.

Woe is me! Woe! How much I suffered because of them, because they more often and more than men created the illusion that they were not alone! When love comes, the soul is filled with unearthly bliss. Do you know why? Do you know why this feeling of great happiness? Only because we imagine that the end of loneliness has come. We think that we will cease to be abandoned, lost in the world. What a delusion!

Even more than we, than our lonely hearts, is tormented by the eternal thirst for love of a woman - a woman, this great deception of a dream.

Isn't it true, it seems that now, this minute, we will be one with her. But that moment never comes, and after long weeks of waiting, hoping, deluded pleasure, the day comes when I am alone, more alone than before.

After all, one poet, M. Sully Prudhomme, wrote:

O thrill of human caresses! How pitiful is your lot.
A fruitless attempt of helpless love
To achieve the merging of souls in the plexus of our bodies…

And then — goodbye! Its end. And already with difficulty you recognize that woman who was everything to us at some moment of our life and into whose secret and no doubt vulgar inner world we did not manage to look! Even in moments of a mysterious merging of two beings, a complete mixture of feelings and desires, when I seemed to penetrate to the very depths of her soul, one word, a small word, showed me how mistaken I was, and, like lightning in the darkness, illuminated the gaping abyss. between us.

Still, the best joy on earth is to spend the evening near the woman you love, saying nothing and feeling almost happy from her mere presence. Let us not demand more, for the complete union of two human beings is impossible.

But now I have withdrawn into myself. I don't tell anyone what I believe, what I think, what I love. Knowing that I am doomed to cruel loneliness, I look at the world around me and never express my opinion. What do I care about human opinions, strife, pleasures, beliefs! I have nothing to share with others and have grown cold towards everything. My inner world, invisible to everyone, is inaccessible to everyone. I answer mundane questions with generalities and a smile that says yes when I don't feel like wasting words.

We walked all the way to the Arc de Triomphe, then returned to the Place de la Concorde, because he spoke all this very slowly and said many other things that I did not remember.

Suddenly he stopped and pointed with his hand to a high granite obelisk, standing in the middle of the Parisian square and with its long Egyptian profile going into the starry sky, to a lonely monument, torn away from its homeland, whose history is imprinted in strange letters on its faces.

“Look, we are all like this stone,” said my friend.

Was he drunk? Was he insane? Or a sage? I still can't decide. Sometimes I think he was right; and sometimes - that he lost his mind.

Helpless love a fruitless attempt

December 17, 2016 at 00:09 am

Women, like no other, make me feel lonely.
Woe is me! Woe! How much I suffered because of them, because they more often and more than men created the illusion that they were not alone! When love comes, the soul is filled with unearthly bliss. Do you know why? Do you know why this feeling of great happiness? Only because we imagine that the end of loneliness has come. We think that we will cease to be abandoned, lost in the world. What a delusion!
Even more than we, than our lonely hearts, is tormented by the eternal thirst for love of a woman - a woman, this great deception of a dream.
You yourself experienced wonderful hours next to these long-haired seductresses with enchanting eyes. What nonsense clouding our minds! What self-delusion captivates us!
Isn't it true, it seems that now, this very minute, we will be one with her. But that moment never comes, and after long weeks of waiting, hoping, deluded pleasure, the day comes when I am alone, more alone than before.
With every kiss, with every hug, the alienation grows. And how painful, how awful!
After all, one poet, Monsieur Sully Prudhomme, wrote:

O thrill of human caresses! How pitiful is your lot.
A fruitless attempt of helpless love
To achieve the merging of souls in the plexus of our bodies. [1]

[1] Translated by B. V. Gornung.

And then goodbye! Its end. And already with difficulty you recognize that woman who was everything to us at some moment of our life and into whose secret and no doubt vulgar inner world we did not manage to look! Even in moments of a mysterious merging of two beings, a complete mixture of feelings and desires, when I seemed to penetrate to the very depths of her soul, one word, a small word, showed me how mistaken I was, and, like lightning in the darkness, illuminated the gaping abyss. between us.
Still, the best joy on earth is to spend the evening near the woman you love, saying nothing and feeling almost happy from her mere presence. Let us not demand more, for the complete union of two human beings is impossible.

Novel by Guy de Maupassant
framed by poems by Paul Verlaine

Preface to the publication

One of the most famous classics of French literature of the 19th century, Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850, received a secondary education, began writing at the age of thirteen. He was a participant in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, then an employee of two ministries, he studied writing with Gustave Flaubert and Ivan Turgenev. The short story "Dumbnut", published in 1880, brought literary fame to Maupassant. Devoting himself entirely to writing, he published two or three books every year and traveled extensively. Unfortunately, a severe hereditary illness led to 1892 to a mental illness, and in July 1893, Guy de Maupassant died.

Short stories brought him the greatest success with readers. Over the eleven years of his life devoted to literature, he wrote over three hundred stories, six novels, three travel books, a large number of essays and articles.

We invite you to read the lyrical short story "Loneliness", written in the first person - a monologue full of passionate inner drama, highly appreciated by Leo Tolstoy.

We know about this assessment of him, for example, from the memoirs of Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky (1866-1921), author of Yasnaya Polyana Notes, friend and associate of Tostoy, doctor and family of the writer, and Yasnaya Polyana peasants. D. P. Makovitsky (diary entry dated August 7, 1909) recalls that Lev Nikolaevich read this story aloud. Makovitsky remembered how Tolstoy read the words: “No one understands anyone. Yes, no one understands anyone; no matter what they think, no matter what they say, no matter what they do, no one understands anyone…”

When he finished reading, Makovitsky continues, it became quiet… After a moment of silence, LN said: “Well done. "

“If I could speak,” Maupassant wrote in one of his letters, “I would someday express all the sad thoughts lurking in me, which I always pushed away without delving into them. They fill me up and poison my soul, as bile poisons liver-sick people. But if I could sometime express them, they would perhaps dissipate, and my heart would feel light and joyful. Thinking becomes a terrible torment when the whole brain is like a solid wound. My whole head seems to be broken, and the slightest movement of thought makes me scream in pain. Why? Why? Dumas would say I have poor digestion. But it seems to me that I most likely have a proud and bashful heart, an old human heart. It is often laughed at, but it is very sensitive and causes suffering. And in my brain I have the soul of the Latin race, very tired. There are days when I don't think so, as now, but even then I suffer because I am one of those who have been skinned alive. But I don’t say it, I don’t show it, and even, it seems, I hide it very well. I am probably considered one of the most indifferent people. But in fact, I'm just a skeptic, which is not the same thing. I am a skeptic because I have a clear eye. My eyes say to my heart: hide yourself, old man, you are ridiculous! And the heart hides.

It was after dinner with a group of men. Dinner was a lot of fun. One of those present, my old friend, said to me:

- Let's walk along the Champs Elysees.

And we walked at a slow pace along a long avenue, along the trees, almost not yet covered with leaves. There is no sound around, only the usual deaf and relentless rumble of Paris. A fresh breeze blew in the face, myriads of stars scattered like golden dust across the sky.

— I don't know why, I breathe easier here at night than anywhere else. It is as if my consciousness expands its limits, illuminates for a moment with such light that it seems: now the divine secret of being will be revealed to me. And suddenly the window slams shut. Its end.

Sometimes two shadows glided under the trees in front of us; we passed a bench where two creatures, sitting side by side, merged into one black spot.

My friend muttered:

“Poor people! Not disgust, but immeasurable pity they inspire me. Of all the mysteries of human life, I managed to comprehend one: the greatest torment of our existence is eternal loneliness, and all our actions are aimed at getting away from it. Here they are, these lovers on the benches under the open sky, like us, like all living creatures, strive not to be alone even for a moment; but they were and always will be lonely, and so are we.

Some feel it more strongly, others less - that's all.

For some time now I have been suffering cruel torture because I have understood, come to know in what terrible loneliness I live, and there is no way to escape from it.

No matter how hard we try, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how passionate the impulse of our hearts, the call of our lips and the fervor of our embraces, we are always alone.

I took you away with me this evening so as not to return to my place, because now I am suffering excruciatingly in the loneliness of my house. But how can you help me? I speak, you listen, and we are both alone, we are close, together - but we are alone.

Do you understand me?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, says the scripture. They have the illusion of happiness. They do not languish in our lonely longing, they do not wander, like me, through life, knowing no other communication than fleeting meetings, knowing no other joy than selfish satisfaction, what exactly was given to me to understand, see, comprehend our eternal loneliness and suffer his consciousness.

Do you think I'm talking? Listen. Ever since I felt my estrangement from others, it seems to me that every day I go deeper and deeper into a gloomy dungeon, I don’t grope for its walls, I don’t see an end to it, and indeed it has no end, perhaps! I walk, and there is no one next to me, and no one around me, and no one else makes this gloomy path. This dungeon is life. From time to time I hear noise, voices, screams... I feel my way towards these vague sounds, but I do not know where they come from; I never meet anyone, I never find a human hand in the midst of the surrounding darkness. You understand me?

There were sometimes people who were conscious of this unbearable torment.

But with him it was only a random guess, and not an irrevocable certainty, as I have. He was a poet; he peopled life with visions and dreams. He has never been truly alone. And I, I'm alone! No wonder Gustave Flaubert, the great sufferer of our world, because he was a great seer, wrote such hopeless lines to a woman friend: "We all live in the desert, no one understands anyone."

Yes, no one understands anyone, no matter what people imagine, no matter what they say, no matter what they do. Does the earth know what is happening over there, on the stars, scattered by a fiery grain across the universe, so far away that the radiance of only a few of them reaches us, while countless hordes of the rest are lost in infinity, and so close to each other that, to be maybe they are just parts of one whole, molecules of one body?

And so, a person knows just as much about what is going on in another person. We are farther apart than from the heavenly bodies, and most importantly, more disunited, because thought is incomprehensible.

There is nothing more terrible than constant contact with living beings that cannot be comprehended!

And we love each other as if we were chained to the wall very close, and we stretch out our arms, but we cannot reach each other. An agonizing thirst for connection torments us, but all our efforts are useless, impulses are in vain, confessions are fruitless, hugs are powerless, caresses are futile. In an effort to merge with each other together, we only hurt ourselves against each other.

And I myself, no matter how much I try to give myself completely, wholly, to open all the windows of my soul, I fail to trust completely. Somewhere in the depths, in the very depths, I keep the secret of my "I", where no one penetrates. Nobody can find it, look into it, because nobody is like me -- nobody understands anybody.

Do you understand me even now? No, you think I'm crazy! You watch me, avoid me! You think, "What's got into him?" But if someday you comprehend, unravel my cruel and refined torture, come and tell me only: “I understood you!” And you, even for one second, give me happiness.

Woe is me! Woe! How much I suffered because of them, because more often and more than men, they made me believe that I was not alone! When love comes, you feel that the soul is filled with unearthly bliss! Do you know why? Why this feeling of immense happiness? Yes, only because it seems as if the end of loneliness has come. As if there is no alienation, isolation. What a delusion!

A woman is a great deception of a dream, and more than us, her eternal thirst for love torments the human heart.

After all, you know wonderful hours alone with her, with a long-haired enchantress, whose eyes cloud the mind. What nonsense is spinning our heads! What self-delusion captivates us!

So it seems that she and I will merge now. But that hour never comes, and after weeks of waiting, hoping, deceitful happiness, I suddenly find myself even more alone than before.

With every kiss, with every hug, alienation grows, so hopeless, so terrifying!

No wonder the poet Sully Prudhomme ***) wrote:

And then goodbye! Its end. And that woman becomes almost unfamiliar, who for a moment was everything to us, although we never penetrated into her hidden and, probably, vulgar thought!

Even in the hours when, in the mysterious union of two beings, in the complete confusion of all desires, all aspirations, it seemed that the very depths of her soul had already been reached, one word, one single word revealed to us our mistake and, like lightning in the night, illuminated dark abyss that gapes between us.

Still, the best joy on earth is to spend the evening near the woman you love, saying nothing, enjoying only the feeling of her presence. Let us not demand more, for the merging of two beings is impossible.

But now I have closed in on myself. I don't tell anyone what I believe, what I think, what I love. Doomed to cruel loneliness, I look around, but I never express my opinion. What do I care about ideas, disagreements, beliefs, pleasures. I am unable to share anything with others and have lost interest in everything. My thought is invisible and incomprehensible. I answer mundane questions with generalities and a smile that says "yes" if I don't feel like wasting words.

We walked the whole avenue up to the Arc de Triomphe and returned to the Place de la Concorde, because he expounded all this slowly, adding much more that I had already forgotten.

Suddenly he stopped and, pointing with his hand at a tall granite obelisk that stood in the middle of a Parisian square and with its long Egyptian profile stretching into the starry sky, pointing to a lonely monument, torn away from its homeland, the history of which was imprinted in strange letters on its faces, my friend exclaimed:

— Look, we are all exactly this stone!

And he left without saying a word.

Was he drunk? Was he insane? Or a sage? I don't know myself yet. Sometimes I think he was right; sometimes he seems to have lost his mind.

*) Printed in Gaulois on March 31, 1884. Translation by N. G. Kasatkina (Guy de Maupassant. Selected novels. Goslitizdat, 1946).

**) The above quatrain is taken from the poem "May Night" by the French poet Alfred de Musset (1810-1857).

***) Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907) was a French Parnassian poet.

A few words in conclusion

My friend's mother died. She did not get sick, death was instantaneous, and they buried her the next day in the presence of her next of kin. Three years earlier, her father died, and she endured this death quite calmly, although she was the only beloved daughter - unfortunately, she became seriously ill in early childhood, and therefore there were no other children.

But it was the second funeral and the modest commemoration that made me think of Maupassant's short story.

A friend who often and not unreasonably complained about her mother's insufferable temper, drank heavily and silently at the table, and then, when her son and wife had gone home, she shouted in my kitchen: “At least someone have pity on me! Can anyone take pity on me? Just hug, just cuddle… Is there really not a single person left in this life who loves me?”

Her husband and I were silent, we didn't know what to say. This went on for two days. She did not sleep and did not eat, she only drank and cried, and I, putting aside my business, brewed coffee for her and listened to what she was talking about. By the end of the second day, I finally figured out what was going on.

“Darling! You're not crying for your mother, you're crying for yourself. You have a pronounced complex of a beloved child!

At that moment I realized what kind of loneliness some of my acquaintances are afraid of...

Probably, with the loss of support, the walls behind their backs in the face of loving parents or spouses, such people experience the same feelings as the hero of Maupassant's short story.

I am grinding a diamond.

Russian women love deeply and leave suddenly without explanation.
In Russia, to love meant to regret. If such a woman leaves you, it does not mean that you are bad.
Women of Central Asia love sincerely and never leave.
And in order for a Persian woman to love you, in addition to everything else, you must be a poet.
I am a BYZANTINE and rarely write. But in the crown of HER poems will be my diamond!

The answer of the Byzantine Persian

"Before your tenderness
knees, the night of
on the heavenly sheets"
already fanned the coals of the dawn
Wind of the day
In my hand, in my hand, your
I admire you
and I waited not in the throat

when a WOMAN is a true portrait of her MAN

open soul
this is the quality
when I tell a woman
that she is good
and if she is smart
then her beauty
is only my business
and my art

is not the light of your smile never forget
and your own smile
never forget
and never forget you
never, never

fill you with delight
passing by
men's hearts
women's hearts - you torment

life is not in vain
here is a girl -
smart, gentle
beautiful!

In response "Two letters - name, three letters - full name. "

I saw you
looked back after
where there was emptiness
it is no longer there

Smiling, mother said:
girls will love you.
Her prophecy did not come true
- only one WOMAN.

A beautiful flower
you are like
Half-open bud
dew on the petals
Becoming a bee
and penetrating inside
to your fragrance
I add the taste of honey

I recognized the taste of honey on your lips
when I kissed them
Without missing anything
fresh milk was added to it

I cut the velvet of the night
by 13 with scissors of hands and sew 900 I will dress my dear
as a QUEEN
when at her feet the KING

I will throw on velvet of the night
with my hand, cutting
with a warm wind scarf
I will wrap my shoulders
You are my QUEEN,
and not long before the meeting!

What an adornment worthy of you.

In my product
, what material
is worthy to serve as your decoration
?
In Priam pendants
or with a gold comb.
purple amethyst
and red almandine,
tiger's eye,
Taimyr carnelian
Pamir turquoise il,
Midendorf birches
uvarovita greenery,
rowan pyrope,
elegant chrysoprase,
Baltic amber,
Ural emerald,
Indian lal,
Siberian charoite.
Who among them is worthy
I haven't decided yet
And you
In your very nature
you are my adornment!

Evening blue velvet
Black velvet of the night
Red satin of the dawn
Golden silk of the day
- here are your clothes

With my line
I answer your
I write to you
I love

I will give you transparency 9 and 39013 for silk
0013 cool autumn
only you
shine for me
kind eyes
your blue.

Insidious and pure
your lips are sweet
I carry you along the road of days

and you
kiss or speak

What words are needed?
Beautiful
Smart
Clean

we are sitting at the same table
we look into each other's eyes
I have told you so little.

Came in
didn’t knock
I opened the door myself
you settled in my heart
without asking
and still
there and stayed

Taking off to heaven
And falling again
Tone in your eyes
9013 half-opened smile smile on lips
inviting intermittent breathing
hot wave over trembling hands
and numbness in delight of anticipation

Sorceress
slipping your hand
awakening with delight
silk of your skin
and a delicate fragrance
can I forget them
falling down with my mouth

I touch your heart
with my heart
there are no more awards
than to feel like this

Your crown of wild flowers
I fasten them with thoughts

poems

steps
and hips magic
trembling of hands
radiant smile
smiling, kissing the breeze
silk hair
in a crown of flowers

I am named beloved
Oh, dear!
A cup full of love
We drink to the bottom!

Two poisons in that thicket
What will be called love
With you we will merge them
With you we will drain them
Magic poison
Dangerous drink
Not everyone can drink it

when your whiskey decorates me with silver
and you will become your muse
a poet
holding hands right now
we are just silent about it

whispering poetry
barely touching my hands
inhaling the aroma
tone in my eyes
remembering the look
I say goodbye

Sergey, I liked it very much! Especially this one:

/ I touch your heart
with my heart
there is no more reward
than to feel like this /

Oh, weakness of passions, how miserable is your lot!
A fruitless attempt of helpless love
To achieve the fusion of souls in the plexus of our bodies.

Magnificent lines, damn true to their sadness.

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