The meaning of the lyrics of the song "Oriole" (Ivolga) the performer of the song "Vladimir Vysotsky"

Like an oriole by the Volga, like meadowsweet by the Volga,

A nettle's burn brings back a recent memory:

How I walked with you, so happy, leading you by the hand through the meadow,

Humming along with the oriole, picking meadowsweet.

I remembered by the riverbank that little house with the garden.

Why didn't we cherish what we had found?

Could it be that we were the ones who found it,

And could it be that we were the ones who painted it all?

Where are you, red summer, where are you, swift nights?

Autumn ripens with asters, showers the ground with leaves,

Autumn again, stormy, and you are unkind,

And it's like your thoughts are not with me, but with the leaves.

Fields soaked by the rains, hardened by the grasses,

I hear the oriole less often, and the meadowsweet has withered,

Is all this recent, or is it all ancient history,

Like meadowsweet by the Volga, like an oriole by the Volga?

Как у Волги иволга, как у Волги таволга,

Обожгло крапивою, вспомнилось недавнее:

Как тебя, счастливую, вел по лугу за руку,

Подпевая иволге, обрывая таволгу.

Вспомнил я над берегом домик тот с усадьбою.

Отчего ж не бережно берегли, что найдено?

Неужели нами же это было найдено,

И неужели нами же это все раскрадено?

Где ж ты, лето красное, где ж вы, ночи быстрые?

Осень зреет астрами, обсыпает листьями,

Осень вновь ненастная, да и ты неласкова,

И как будто мыслями не со мной, а с листьями.

Поле взмокло ливнями, почерствело травами,

Реже слышу иволгу, и завяла таволга,

Это все недавнее или все старинное,

Как у Волги таволга, как у Волги иволга?

Vladimir Vysotsky's song "Oriole" hides a deep sorrow about lost love, lost through the lyrical hero's own fault, behind a seemingly simple description of nature.

The very first lines, filled with images of Volga nature - the singing of the oriole, the scent of meadowsweet - awaken memories of a happy past in the hero. He recalls walks with his beloved through a flowering meadow, the carefree times when life seemed as harmonious as the singing of birds.

However, the idyllic picture of the past is replaced by bitterness in the present. The rhetorical questions "Why didn't we cherish what we found?" and "Was it really us who found it, and was it really us who squandered it all?" speak of the hero's deep remorse. He realizes that he himself destroyed the happiness he once had.

Images of autumn - "asters are ripening," "showering with leaves," "stormy," "unkind" - symbolize the fading of feelings, the onset of coldness and alienation between the hero and his beloved. He feels her indifference: "And it's as if her thoughts are not with me, but with the leaves."

Nature echoes the hero's mood: the field is "soaked with rains," "hardened with grasses," the oriole has fallen silent, the meadowsweet has withered. The final lines - "Is all this recent or ancient, like the meadowsweet by the Volga, like the oriole by the Volga?" - sound rhetorical. The hero seems unable to believe that happiness has passed so quickly and tries to find solace in the permanence of nature, in the eternal cycle of the seasons.