What does ¨libres de sentir que les envidien¨mean?

Question

....Ahí fuera entre el lechero, el tejedor y su mujer y saber cómo hablan, cómo viven esas gentes que desde el tejado puedo ver libres de sentir que les envidien son libres sin saber que tienen un tesoro. Dame un amanecer junto a ellos ......

They´re lyrics to the Spain-Spanish translation of ¨Out there¨ from the Hunchback of Notre dame. The rest of the lyrics can be found here

Please and thank you :D

Answer 1

The key bit seems to be the third line of this excerpt "libres de sentir" which I think of as:

"free from feeling(s), how I envy them. They are free but don't know they have a treasure. Let me awake (literally "give me a dawn") by their side (literally "next to them")"

Maybe I should look out the English/French whatever lyric and crib that but this is the best I can do off the top of my head.

That didn't work - the translation from English is a whole lot freer than mine or even what I contemplated.

The infinitive of a verb is regularly used as a substantive in all the languages I know. As for the subjunctive mood of "envidien", I suppose I could go looking for a translation with a subjunctive in it. Question is does it matter? I say again that translation is about facilitating communication, not about looking for word to word equivalence. But no matter - if you don't like my version that's fine. I enjoyed working it out.

Sentir is a Verb, so it can´t work. And Les envidien is subjunctive for ¨they envy them¨ I don´t understand that much of it. - Gaspard, Apr 24, 2010

Sentir may be a verb, but it is connected by the preposition de. I may be mistaken but I believe doing this can change its value to an adjective. - Fredbong, Apr 24, 2010

Answer 2

Hmm, I thought this meant free spirited. Like he is talking about these men on the rooftops looking down on everyone, the people they see as free spirited and he says, like them, "I am able to see the free spirits that they (the men on the rooftops) envy."

But I'm probably mistaken, I don't have as much time as I would like to disect this. However a facebook page by the name of "libres de sentir" has this as its first description

"somos libres de ser lo que queramos ser."

---

"Somos libres de amar…"

Which means We are free to be what we want to be and we are free to love.

So this makes me think that I must be somewhat correct on the free spirit bit.

Edit: I used google translator on the whole page. Google translator seems to be saying that the author can see the men on the rooftops looking down at the milkman, etc., and the men on the rooftops feel free to envy them without recognizing their own treasures. Probably in reference to CEOs or something.

I understood that line to be ¨I can see those people from this roof¨ - Gaspard, Apr 24, 2010