# מטפטף לי דרך



## airelibre

:בהשיר זכיתי לאהוב ע"י עברי לידר
והלב מטפטף לי דרך העניים החומות
What is the meaning of this sentence? 
Many thanks.


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## arielipi

i wonder to the possible varieties, as it can be several, ill write it down tomorrow, too tired, but its a love song so...


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## Albert Schlef

It means: "My tears (heart) are dripping from (through) my brown eyes."

But he uses "heart" instead of "tears". In literature/rhetoric this technique is called "metonymy" (google it up): when you use one word to mean a related thing. Again, use google to find many nice examples (in English).


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## origumi

Albert Schlef said:


> It means: "My tears (heart) are dripping from (through) my brown eyes."


Not sure whose brown eyes.


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## arielipi

his(the singer). albert gave a good translation +1


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## Albert Schlef

origumi said:


> Not sure whose brown eyes.



You have a point here. I've looked at the whole lyrics. Perhaps its her eyes. So "heart", in this case, isn't tears.

(It makes sense, because why on earth would anybody mention his/her own eye color? He/she doesn't see it.)


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## airelibre

Albert Schlef said:


> You have a point here. I've looked at the whole lyrics. Perhaps its her eyes. So "heart", in this case, isn't tears.
> 
> (It makes sense, because why on earth would anybody mention his/her own eye color? He/she doesn't see it.)


Would that be why there is a לי - the tears are dripping * for me * ?


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## arielipi

Background info flashnews: ivri lider is gay, this song is meant to be sang about his boyfriend.
really - hes gay,homosexual, no pun intended.


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## airelibre

OK well unless it affects the meaning of the sentence I don't see the relevance.


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## JaiHare

airelibre said:


> Would that be why there is a לי - the tears are dripping * for me * ?



This happens a lot in Hebrew. It might be similar to how we say "I ate me a sandwich." Why do we add that extra "me" in there? This "me" is thrown in all over the place in Hebrew, even when we think it's the opposite in English!

הוא גנב לי את הכסף. - "He stole my money."

He didn't really steal the money to me, but actually he stole it from me! But, it pops up all over the place like this.

I guess you could think of it as "with reference to me" in some weird way. :shrug:


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## JaiHare

arielipi said:


> Background info flashnews: ivri lider is gay, this song is meant to be sang about his boyfriend.
> really - hes gay,homosexual, no pun intended.



_And?_


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## arielipi

you were troubling with the sentence, and i thought this info might shed some understanding upon you.
add that to your post and you have the answer


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## JaiHare

arielipi said:


> you were troubling with the sentence, and i thought this info might shed some understanding upon you.
> add that to your post and you have the answer



Whether he's singing to a man or to a woman, how is this reflected in the language of the song? There's nothing in this line that would change if it were to a woman. Calling his personal life into question seems out of place, since it isn't relevant to the question.


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## arielipi

posts 6 and 7.
plus their difficulty is inunderstood to me, the lyrics mean that he is probably crying out of <feeling> 
lit translation: and the heart [is] drip[ping] [from] me through [my] brown eyes.


in any case their argument is invalid as you can hear many times self-actions with own-eyes of jon doe.


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## JaiHare

More of the lyrics from the first verse:

וכשהשמש נמחקת בשמיים 
והלב מטפטף לי דרך העיניים החומות 
אז אני זוכר שיש ידיים שרוצות אותי קרוב 
אני יודע שזכיתי לאהוב

It seems that he's pictured as alone and feeling lonely when he remembers that there are (somewhere, not with him) hands that want him close. Since the person that he loves is clearly not with him, it seems that the brown eyes mentioned here are _his own_ rather than those of his lover - whether male or female.

Harel Skaat is gay, too, but that doesn't mean that he sings his song ואת as if written to a boy. I still don't really see the relevance of mentioning the performer's sexual orientation. It just seems odd. Maybe it's just me.


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## arielipi

thats what i said, its his eyes and they were wondering to whom the eyes belong.
harel skat sang that song before he came out so back then people thought he was straight, :myworkhereisdone:


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## JaiHare

arielipi said:


> thats what i said, its his eyes and they were wondering to whom the eyes belong.
> harel skat sang that song before he came out so back then people thought he was straight, :myworkhereisdone:



מצוין. תודה, אחינו.


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## OsehAlyah

airelibre said:


> והלב מטפטף לי דרך העניים החומות


So is the final translation: "And the heart drips [to me] through the brown eyes"?


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## arielipi

[from me]
yes,if you want a word-to-word translation.


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## origumi

OsehAlyah said:


> So is the final translation: "And the heart drips [to me] through the brown eyes"?


Any other translation would contain translator interpretation, so your version seems the best.


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## amikama

*The discussion about Hebrew-English literal translations is now in a thread of its own.*


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