Go to sleep, little baby, go to sleep! May your dreams erupt in flowers!
Lord, protect those, whose path has led them to the seas!
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
When you get on the ship — then you can frolic!
The wind will make a cradle from the waves to rock you.
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
The song troubles your soul, the song endless, like the sea.
To the sons’ delight, to their mother’s grief.
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
A furious wave buried your father in the fiords!
You were being born just then, my son – but I did not sob.
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
The storm gathers monstrous clouds above the fiords.
It lulls black corpses to your rocking cradle.
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
Go to sleep, little baby, go to sleep! May your dreams erupt in flowers!
Lord, protect those, whose path has led them to the seas!
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...
But we give birth to you – o scorn! – and the depth will swallow you!
Whoever has been born a Breton – will have to die a sailor:
Sing, old woman, pour your heart’s pain into boundless, tender songs,
About the sea that glimmers in the moonlight: oh hush-a-bye...