A help in translating from French

[yevgeny]

Dear Forum ! I like songs of Mireille Mathieu.But my limited knowledge of French gives me no possibility to understand some things relating to language phraseology and idioms.Please,help me to translate and understand one line from Mireille Mathieu's song called "Tu n'as pas quitte mon coeur" : " Tu etais le deuxieme l'autre me cachait le jour a te voir si fidele tu etais la pour toujours". Are here two lovers she had at the same time,or it was the only one guy whom she loved? Who hid whom? The lover Mireille,or Mireille hid the lover? Does "deuxieme" refer to one lover and "l'autre" to another one? What does the expression " me cachait le jour " mean? Merci beaucoup! Sincerement Yevgeny

[Frank]

Hi Yevgeny,

" Tu étais le deuxieme l'autre me cachait le jour. À te voir si fidèle tu étais là pour toujours"

"Tu étais le deuxième" is straightforward. You were the second one. So, yes, there were two lovers.

"L'autre me cachait le jour". This is a metaphor. "The other one was obstructing the daylight". It probably means that he was cheating on her, or that he was telling her a big pile of lies.

"À te voir si fidèle tu étais là pour toujours". Seeing how loyal you (the first one) were, you should have been mine forever.

[yevgeny]

Hi,Frank! As I've understood "A te voir si fidele tu etais la pour toujours" was said by Mireille and may be interpreted as a kind of conditional sentence and can be constructed this way: "Si je savais quel fidele tu etais,tu aurais ete mon amour la pour toujours". Before your explanation I thought that the previous phrase belonged to another lover who "cachait le jour" and that namely this another guy("l'autre") kept her in his house from seeing by others,not letting her out. But this was my mistake. Thank you for your precious help,indeed . Yevgeny