Франц Кафка - Городской герб - текст песни, слова, перевод, видео

(read: Alexander Dubina)

In the building of the Tower of Babel everything was at first more or less in order; the order was even, perhaps, too large, too much thought was given to road signs, interpreters, housing for workers and means of communication, as if ahead of a century of quiet work. Then even the opinion prevailed that it was necessary to build as slowly as possible; this opinion did not need to be exaggerated so much in order to abandon laying the foundation altogether. The argument was this: the most important thing in this whole enterprise is the idea of building a tower that will reach the sky. Compared to this thought, everything else is secondary. This thought, having appeared once in all its grandeur, can no longer disappear; as long as there are people in the world, there will be a strong desire to complete the tower. In this sense, therefore, there is no need to worry about the future, on the contrary, the knowledge of mankind is growing, architecture has made progress and will continue to make progress, the work for which we need a year, in a hundred years, perhaps, will be done in six months, moreover better, stronger. Why go out of your way today? It would only make sense if one could hope to build a tower in one generation. But this was by no means to be expected. Rather, it could be assumed that the next generation, with its more perfect knowledge, would find the work of the previous generation bad and tear down what had been built in order to start anew. Such thoughts fettered forces, and more than about building a tower, they cared about building a city for workers. Each community wanted to have the best housing, because of this, disputes arose that escalated into bloody skirmishes. These skirmishes did not stop; for the leaders, they were a new argument in favor of the fact that, due to the lack of the necessary concentration, the tower should be built very slowly, and even better - only after the conclusion of a general peace. However, time was spent not only in skirmishes, during breaks the city was decorated, which, however, caused new envy and new skirmishes. So the time of the first generation passed, but all the next ones were not different, only skill grew, and with it militancy. In addition, already the second or third generation understood the pointlessness of building such a tower, but everyone was already too tightly connected with each other to leave the city.

All the legends and songs that arose in this city are full of longing for that predicted day when the city, with five blows following at short intervals, will destroy the gigantic fist. That is why the fist is depicted on the coat of arms of the city.

(translated by S.Apta)