Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. There Was Once a Man.
Commentary to the song “Paradise Apples”.
This song says about the reiteration of the crucifying of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him — what is, of course, a parable — but this time the crucified will be the Mahdi. According to the Hadiths, the awaited messenger will be moved away from the people twice, and the hero of the song died a violent death and rose from the dead two times. He became a witness of the interrogation, which is conducted to the deceased by Munkar and Nakir — they are “the two ones in green vestments”, and saw the judgment of Allah over the sinners who are shown as vagrants. And both times he came back from the other world with the paradise apples, that are treasures.
One of the literary heroes symbolizing the Mahdi, David Balfour, whose adventures was narrated by Robert Louis Stevenson, was also moved away from the people (kidnapped) two times, and his homecoming was accompanied with a profit both times — for the first time he restored his rights to the family estate, and for the second — got married to his beloved girl.
And Little Bear from Jack Schaefer’s novel “The Canyon”, which was mentioned in the commentary to the poem “The Messenger”, was also moved away from the people two times.
Two other literary heroes, who symbolize the Mahdi, are the Connecticut Yankee arrived to King Arthur’s court, whose adventures was narrated by Mark Twain, and the Little Prince from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale of the same name.
The presented text is adapted from Sergey Roy, George Tokarev and Alec Vagapov’s translations.