June, 2012

Anyone who plans on teaching and reforming the Kazakh must possess two advantages.

First of all, he must wield great power and immense influence that would enable him to inspire fear in adults and take away their sons to send them to school, where they would be guided along different paths of knowledge, with the parents shouldering the expenses. It would suffice if girls were taught Islam so as to make at least strong in their religion. In that case, when parents, grow­ing feeble with age, abandoned their regular pursuits, the younger generation would embark on the right path. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

One of the causes of people’s inclination to vice is indo­lence. If the Kazakh had worked the land or engaged in com­merce, would he have lived an idle life? But instead he rides from aul to aul on a horse he has begged from someone else, he sponges off other people, spreads gossip and rumours, by guile and duplicity he leads people astray or is himself un­der the thumb of other scoundrels; he drifts about and does nothing. Anyone who wants to live well and is accustomed to working will consider such life humiliating. Will this person abandon his business and live like a vagabond without any aim or purpose? &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Man is endowed by nature with a body and a soul. One should know which of their properties are innate and which are acquired by toil. The need for food, drink and sleep is natural, instinctive. The desire to see and learn something comes from a natural instinct, too, but intelligence and learning are gained through work. By hearing with his ears, beholding with his eyes, touching things with his hands, tasting with his tongue and inhaling through his nose, man gets an idea of the surrounding world. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Жүрегім менің қырық жамау

На сорок лоскутьев тоскою

 This harsh world has broken my heart

 Into forty pieces leaving just grief,

 My soul has been savaged and torn apart—

 Now ravaged it lies, deprived of belief. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Жаз

Лето

When summer in the mountains gains its peak,

When gaily blooming flowers begin to fade,

When nomads from the sunshine refuge seek &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Өлең – сөздің патшасы, сөз сарасы

Поэзия властитель языка

Poetic speech, the Queen of literature, implies

The finest words put well together by the wisest bards.

Words that a person easily can memorise,

Words that will smoothly flow and touch the heart. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Күшік асырап ит еттім

Собаку я выкормил из щенка

My puppy grew into a dog—

And my leg it bit one day.

I taught a youngster once to shoot

He may take my life away.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg

Жүрегім, нені сезесің

Одинокое, не ищи

Lonely heart, do not seek response

On your road with calamities lined.

My soul, do not wander, keep still for once

If no refuge from life you can find. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Нұрлы аспанға тырысып өскенсін сен

Рос ты, к небу устремляясь головой

Knowing naught of life’s consuming pain,

Children strain to grow and reach the sky.

So the shoots of spring stretch toward the sun

And the frosts of winter months defy. &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »

Өлсем орным қара жер сыз болма ма?

                 Когда умру, не стану ль я землей?

Is not the cold damp earth to enclose my clay when it dies?

Will not my fearless tongue become like a timid maid?

Will not my heart be frozen, turned into lifeless ice,

My heart, that fought against vice and the biddings of love obeyed? &#82&#101&#97&#100&#32&#109&#111&#114&#101 »