Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. A Ballad of Love.

Commentary to the song “People at parting said good-bye to the sea-wizard...”

This poem calls to mind Gaius Petronius Arbiter’s words: “Qui solas extruere divitias curant, nihil volunt inter homines melius credi, quam quod ipsi tenet.” (“Those who only trouble about heaping up riches do not want anything to be considered better than what is in their own hands.”)

The poem was written in 1962.

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