Beneath the high pass, where the passage for winds is so narrow, Amidst the dead silence of peaks that no soul has yet scaled, There lived in high spirits a jovial mountain echo, It always responded if someone would cry or would wail. In times when the loneliness forces to break down to pieces, A strangled soft moan gets emitted and falls from the cliff. This plea for assistance the echo would pick up with swiftness, Would add to its sound, and to where it’s most needed would bring. A wrong kind of people, so drunk on the liquids and potions, Have come to this canyon to slaughter and silence its crags. So that no one hears their loud snoring and thunderous stomping, They tied up the echo and also enforced a tight gag. And all through the night the uproarious laughter then bellowed, The echo was trampled, but no one did notice a thing. The next day they shot the inaudible mountain echo, And tears ran like stones from the faces of wounded cliffs.
© Kirill Tolmachev. Translation, 2022