Václav Neckář & Helena Vondráčková - Znám jednu starou zahradu (I Know an Old Garden)

I've realized that I haven't yet posted a single song from a "pohádka" - fairy tale; what a blunder that needs to be rectified!

Fairy-tale films, filmové pohádky, hold a special place in Czech culture. It started in the 1950s when filmmakers turned to adapting fairy tale stories into films as a way to escape the harsh censorship of the Communist Party. The first feature-film fairy tale was Pyšná princezna (The Proud Princess) from 1952, directed by Bořivoj Zeman. Even though it was highly ideological, it became the most-watched Czech film of all time. 

In the 1960s, the censorship was growing more lenient, and the Czechoslovak New Wave affected fairy tales, too. Directors were experimenting with genre and playing with established tropes. Many popular fairy-tale films implement elements of comedy. It has become a tradition to watch these classic pohádky during Christmastime, and since 1993, the Czech public-service broadcaster Česká televize releases a new fairy-tale film every Christmas Eve (and there would probably be public outrage if they didn't).

This song comes from the comedy musical fairy tale Šíleně smutná princezna (The Insanely Sad Princess), written and directed by the same Bořivoj Zeman who directed The Proud Princess. Ivo Fischer wrote the text, and the music was composed by Jan Hammer, Jr., who received several Grammy Awards after he emigrated to the US shortly after the invasion, and is known for theme music of the TV series Miami Vice.

The film was released in June 1968, and stars two of the biggest pop-culture idols of the time, later members of the group Golden Kids, Helena Vondráčková and Václav Neckář (whom you may know from the Oscar-winning film Closely Watched Trains). They play Princess Helena and Prince Václav, who were promised to each other as babies by their fathers, King Dobromysl and King Jindřich, to ensure peace between the two kingdoms. Both Helena and Václav despise the idea of an arranged marriage, and on the way to King Dobromysl's castle, Václav escapes his father's entourage. He accidentally enters the castle garden and meets Helena, but because they're both dressed plainly, it doesn't occur to them that the other may be the king's child.

They fall in love, and in an effort to make her father change his mind about the arranged marriage, they conspire on a plot inspired by a classic fairy tale, The Sad Princess (sometimes called How Honza Made the Princess Laugh). Unfortunately, the King has not read it...

The film creators took quite a few jabs at the regime, which were then disappeared for twenty years. For example, this exchange between the two kings' respective advisors, Iks and Ypsilon:

Y: We must take further...
I: Intrigues?
Y: Yuck! Steps in the common interest.
I: That's the same thing.
Y: But it sounds better.

Their duet Kujme pikle (Let's Conspire) was among the things that were cut out during the post-1968 "normalization", and it only returned after 1989.

You can read more about Czech fairy-tale films here; there's a Czech, Simple Czech, English, and Russian version of the article. The whole website is worth taking a look at; it collects information about Czech cultural and linguistic heritage and is funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Znám jednu starou zahradu

Znám I know

jednu one, "a" (acc.)

starou old (acc.)

zahradu, garden (acc.)

¹

I know an old garden

kde where

hedvábná silky

je is

tráva. grass

Where the grass is silky

Má [it] has

vrátka little gate (dimin., acc.)

na pět západů, [~it locks by turning the key 5 times]

Its gate locks fivefold,

a and

mně [to] me (dat.)

se [reflexive pronoun]

o about

ní her (loc.) (zahrada=F)

zdává. [often] dream

²

And I often dream of it.

Tam there

žije lives

krásná beautiful

princezna, princess

There lives a beautiful princess,

má has

opálenou tanned, sun-tanned (acc.)

pleť. skin, complexion

Her skin is tanned.

Jen only

já I

vím, [I] know

jak how

je is

líbezná. lovely, sweet

Only I know how lovely she is.

Tak so/well (interjection)

neblázni don't fool around / act silly

a and

seď. sit (imper.)

Don't fool around and sit.

V in

té that, the (loc.)

zahradě garden (loc.)

je is

náhodou by chance, by accident

In the garden, there happens to be

i and, also

studna well

s with

černou black (instr.)

mříží lattice (instr.)

Also a well with a black lattice

a and

stará old

vrba willow

nad above

vodou, water (instr.)

And an old willow above the water

co that, which

v in

hladině water level, surface (loc.)

se zhlíží. looks at itself³

That mirrors on the surface.

Ten that, the

rybník pond, fish pond

s with

loďkou boat (instr.,diminutive)

dřevěnou wooden (instr.)

The pond with the wooden boat

tu here

čeká [is] waiting

na for

nás us (acc.)

dva. two

Is awaiting us two,

Tak so/well (interjection)

pojď come (imper.)

a and

hraj si play (imper.)

s with

ozvěnou echo (instr.)

So come and play with the echo

a and

zpívej sing (imper.)

to that

co which

já. I

And sing what I am [singing].

1. "Znám jednu... (starou zahradu, jedno království etc.) is one of the ways how Czech fairy tales start, though less common than "Bylo, nebylo" (There was, there wasn't), "Byl jednou jeden..." (There was once a...), or "Za devatero horami a devatero řekami" (Beyond nine mountain ranges and nine rivers).↩

2. In the song Já budu chodit po špičkách, we saw that in Czech, the phrase "I had a dream" is passive with a reflexive pronoun: "Zdál se mi sen." This phrase, "zdálo se mi o zahradě," is a subjectless clause "[it] was dreamt to me about a garden". "Zdává", instead of "zdá" is to suggest a repeated action; compare "je"-"bývá", "dělá"-"dělává", "říká"-"říkává".↩

3. This one was difficult to translate! English, to my knowledge, doesn't quite have an equivalent to the word "zhlížet se", for example "zhlížet se v zrcadle". It means to be looking at oneself (and maybe admiring as well) in the reflection of a mirror or, as in the song, in the water. It's a poetic way of saying that the willow mirrors in the water of the pond, a personification, as if the willow was admiring its majestic reflection.↩