The Black Raven

The black raven, why are you hovering over me?
You won't get your prey.
The black raven, I am not yours!

What for do you push out your claws over my head?
Whether you expect your prey?
The black raven, I'm not yours!

I'm going to tie my fatal wound with a gift handkerchief,
and then I'll be talking with you about the same thing.

Would you mind flying into my native country.
Could you tell my mommy, the dearest
that I fell in the battle for the Motherland.

Will you please bear away
the bloody handkerchief to my sweetheart.
Could you tell her - she is free.
I married someone else.

I was married to a quiet modest bride
in an open field under the willow bush.
My saber was for me as a matchmaker.

The tempered arrow got married me
during mortal combat.
Now I see my death is coming.
The black raven, I am at your service!

The Quartet

Both a rogue of monkey, a donkey, a goat and a bruin bear decided to play a quartet. They got some music, a bass, a viola, two violins and sat in the meadow under the limes, aiming to captivate the world with their art. They took up fiddlesticks and bows, proceeded to scrape away, but it was all for nothing.
"Stop, guys, wait a minute!" yelled the monkey: "What sort of music can it be, if we sit in the wrong manner? You bruin with the bass sit down, please, against the viola, and I, the prima, am going to sit against the second; we are sure to make both the forest and hills dance!"
They sat themselves down in that way, began playing, but all the same it was no good at all.
"Hang on, I found the secret", shouted the donkey: "we are sure to succeed, if we sit in a row".
They obeyed the ass and sat sedately in a row, yet as before the music was of the nasty kind and sort. Then, more than ever, they started to wrangle to whom and how to sit. It turned out that having paid attention to their racket a nightingale came flying. There and then all of them inquired it:
"Would you mind telling us only one thing, how we are to sit so that to play in a nice way?"
-"To be a musician, one ought to have ability and skills", the nightingale said to them in reply:
"Whereas you, my friends, no matter how you sit, are not suited to be the ones".