The Dancer / Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas

A famous conductor
And an unknown dancer
Who came from somewhere to the great stage.

The Conductor:

I will play for you one single dance.
Memorize that dance
And don't look for any other.
And don't think of anything else,
Just dance and dance and dance.
Perhaps your head will spin
And the spotlights will dim –
Don't pay attention,
Just dance and dance.
And when the new dawn begins to break
You, too, will be another.
But today don't think of anything else,
Just dance, just dance
That one single dance.

The Dancer:

Good. We are both prepared.
Let them raise the black curtain!
Play for me Saint-Saens'
Danse macabre.

Danse Macabre / Henri Cazalis

 Translator: unknown

Tap, tap, tap - Death rhythmically,
Taps a tomb with his heel,
Death at midnight plays a gigue,
Tap, tap, tap, on his violin.

The Winter wind blows, the night is dark,
The lime-trees groan aloud;
White skeletons flit across the gloom,
Running and leaping beneath their huge shrouds.

Tap, tap, tap, everyone's astir,
You hear the bones of the dancers knock,
A lustful couple sits down on the moss,
As if to savour past delights.

Tap, tap, tap, Death continues,
Endlessly scraping his shrill violin.
A veil has slipped! The dancer's naked!
Her partner clasps her amorously.

They say she's a baroness or marchioness,
And the callow gallant a poor cartwright.
Good God! And now she's giving herself,
As though the bumpkin were a baron!

Tap, tap, tap, what a saraband!
Circles of corpses all holding hands!
Tap, tap, tap, in the throng you can see
King and peasant dancing together!

But shh! Suddenly the dance is ended,
They jostle and take flight - the cock has crowed;
Ah! Nocturnal beauty shines on the poor!
And long live death and equality!