Translation of Poem by ANNA AKHMATOVA, "July, 1914" Июль 1914

Anna Akhmatova, 1921

Anna Akhmatova

(1889-1966)

Июль 1914

        

1

Пахнет гарью. Четыре недели

Торф сухой по болотам горит.

Даже птицы сегодня не пели,

И осина уже не дрожит.

Стало солнце немилостью Божьей,

Дождик с Пасхи полей не кропил.

Приходил одноногий прохожий

И один на дворе говорил:

«Сроки страшные близятся. Скоро

Станет тесно от свежих могил.

Ждите глада, и труса, и мора,

И затменья небесных светил.

Только нашей земли не разделит

На потеху себе супостат:

Богородица белый расстелет

Над скорбями великими плат».

2

Можжевельника запах сладкий

От горящих лесов летит.

Над ребятами стонут солдатки,

Вдовий плач по деревне звенит.

Не напрасно молебны служились,

О дожде тосковала земля!

Красной влагой тепло окропились

Затоптанные поля.

Низко, низко небо пустое,

И голос молящего тих:

«Ранят тело твое пресвятое,

Мечут жребий о ризах твоих».

20 июля 1914

Слепнево

Literal Translation

July, 1914

1

There’s a smell of burning. For four weeks

The dry peat of the swamps has been on fire.

Not even the birds have sung today,

And the aspen no longer trembles.

The sun has become [an instrument of] God’s disfavor,

No rain has sprinkled the fields since Easter.

A one-legged transient has arrived,

And alone in the courtyard he says:

“Terrible times are drawing near. Soon

Fresh graves will crowd out the earth.

Famine, earthquakes, pestilence are in the offing,

And the heavenly spheres will be in eclipse.

But the Evil One shall not dismember our land

For his own amusement;

The Mother of God will spread a white veil

Over all our great tribulations.”

2

A sweet smell of juniper floats

From the burning woods

Soldiers’ wives moan over the lads, 

Widows’ lamentations sound throughout the village.

For good reason were prayer services held,

The earth yearned for rain;

The trampled-down fields

Were warmly sprinkled with red moisture.

Low, so low hangs the empty sky,

And the voice of a prayer is soft:

“They wound Thy most holy body,

They cast lots for Thy raiment.”

                                                     July 20, 1914

                                                     (Village of) Slepnyova

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

July, 1914

1

The air reeks with smolder. For all of four weeks  

Dry peat in the bogs has been burning.

Even the birdsong is mute and discreet,

And the aspen tree’s tremble lacks yearning.  

Sunlight that sears speaks of Godly disfavor,

Not a sprinkle of rainfall since Easter.

In the courtyard alone stands a querulous raver,

A one-legged transient preacher.   

“Gruesome and hideous days are at hand;

The earth will be rife with fresh graves;

Pestilence, famine will lay waste our land,

Eclipses and earthquakes, pandemics in waves.

But the Foul Fiend who revels in earthly distress

Will not bring our homeland disaster.

The Mother of God in her grace and largesse

Will shelter us under Her veil alabaster.”

2

Smoldering juniper wafts its sweet scent

From woods that are burning nearby.

Soldiers’ wives tearfully weep and lament,

Widows-to-be raise a long keening cry.

Priests chanted evensong vigils of prayer,

For the dry earth was gasping with thirst.

Trampled-down fields lay wreathed in despair,

As a red-shrouded mist hung dispersed.

Low-hanging clouds in a sky dire and vacant,

A praying voice softly declaimant,

“They’ve ravaged Thy body so pure and complaisant,

And now they cast lots for Thy raiment.”

Translator’s Notes

King James Bible

Psalm 22: 18  “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.”

John 19: 23-24  “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat . . . They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots.”

Beginning of WW I

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo occurred on June 28, 1914, and this act set in motion events that inevitably led to the major European powers declaring war on one another.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia a month later, July 28, 1914

Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914

In notes on the internet, K.M. Polivanov (“Three Comments on Annotating A. Akhmatova’s Texts”) points out that the St. Petersburg newspapers for the end of June and beginning of July, 1914, made frequent mention of the drought, and of the problem of dry peat burning in the bogs.

On Aug. 21, 1914, only three weeks after the beginning of the war in the European part of Russia, the prophecy of the one-legged transient was fulfilled, when the sun went into total eclipse.

A THOUSAND HAIRY TOOTHLESS WEREWOLVES from "Bobby Goosey's Nonsense Verse"

Translation of Poem by NIKOLAI GUMILYOV, "ME AND YOU" "Я и Вы,"

Gumilyov Portrait by F.A. Malyavin

Nikolai Gumilyov

(1886-1921)

Я и Вы

Да, я знаю, я вам не пара,
Я пришел из иной страны,
И мне нравится не гитара,
А дикарский напев зурны.

Не по залам и по салонам
Темным платьям и пиджакам —
Я читаю стихи драконам,
Водопадам и облакам.

Я люблю — как араб в пустыне
Припадает к воде и пьет,
А не рыцарем на картине,
Что на звезды смотрит и ждет.

И умру я не на постели,
При нотариусе и враче,
А в какой-нибудь дикой щели,
Утонувшей в густом плюще,

Чтоб войти не во всем открытый,
Протестантский, прибранный рай,
А туда, где разбойник, мытарь
И блудница крикнут: вставай!

July, 1917

Literal Translation

                              I and You

Yes, I know you and I are not compatible, 

I come from a different country,

And I like not the guitar,

But the savage tune of a zurna [folk instrument like clarinet].

I don’t hang around drawing rooms and salons,

Reading poetry to dark gowns and suit jackets;

I read my verse to dragons,

Waterfalls and clouds.

I love when an Arab in the desert

Falls down to the water and drinks,

And not when a knight in a painting

Looks at the stars and waits.

And I’ll die not in bed,

With a notary and a doctor in attendance,

But in some wild ditch

That’s drowning in thick ivy,

So as to go not into some broad

Protestant, well-tidied paradise,

But to a place where the brigand, the tax man [publican],

And the harlot will cry: Get up!

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

Me and You

(And the Didgeridoo)

Yes, I know, I’m not for you,

I come from a different land,

I prefer the didgeridoo,

For guitar twangs are far too bland.

I don’t hang with the lit-set crowd,

Where fops in weird outfits spout hoity-toit verse,

I read my poems to a passing cloud,

With dragons and waterfalls I converse.

I love watching an Arab drink,

When he proffers his lips to a desert oasis;

Some paladin painted in blues and rose-pink,

And ogling the starlight, is louche and mendacious.  

I’ll croak when the time comes with boots on my feet,

No notary public or doc by my side,

In an ivy-splashed ditch on a ne’er-do-well street,  

And I’ll thank the Lord God for the wild blissful ride,

Then I’ll float off to dwell not in Protestant bliss,

Not to philistine-friendly, well-ordered Cloud Nine,

But to realms where the brigands and prostitutes hiss:

“Get up, dead poet; stand tall and shine!”

May 11, 2019

                                                                 
                                                                 Translator's Note

Gumilyov wrote this poem in July, 1917. Four years later, in August, 1921, he died with his boots on, shot by a Bolshevik firing squad, after he was implicated with several others in a (what was probably nonexistent) conspiracy to overthrow the Communists and bring back the Romanov Dynasty.

                                                     



 Marc Chagall, "Window," 1924

Jeremy Donovan, Aboriginal Artist, Plays the Didgeridoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g592I-p-dc

Masha Matvejchuk declaims "Я и Вы"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xJ_TnAUnk

Translation of Nikolai Gumilyov, "Bоин Агамемнона" "AGAMEMNON'S WARRIOR"

                                                           Bоин Агамемнона

Смутную душу мою тяготит
        Странный и страшный вопрос:
Можно ли жить, если умер Атрид,
        Умер на ложе из роз?

Все, что нам снилось всегда и везде,
        Наше желанье и страх,
Все отражалось, как в чистой воде,
        В этих спокойных очах.

В мышцах жила несказанная мощь,
        Нега — в изгибе колен,
Был он прекрасен, как облако, — вождь
        Золотоносных Микен.

Что я? Обломок старинных обид
        Дротик, упавший в траву.
Умер водитель народов, Атрид, —
        Я же, ничтожный, живу.

Манит прозрачность глубоких озер,
        Смотрит с укором заря.
Тягостен, тягостен этот позор —
        Жить, потерявши царя!

May, 1909

Nikolai Gumilyov

(1886-1921)

Literal Translation

Agamemnon’s Warrior

My troubled soul is oppressed

By a strange and fearful question:

Can one go on living if Atrid has died,

Dead on a bed of roses?

All that we dreamed of, always and everywhere,

Our wishes and fears,

All was reflected, as in pure water,

In those calm eyes.

Ineffable might dwelt in his muscles,

Lavish grace in the bend of his knees,

He was as lovely as a cloud,

The leader of the gold-bearing land of Mycenae.

What am I? A fragment of ancient wrongs [grievances],

A javelin, fallen in the grass,

The guide of all nations, Atrid, has died,

While nonentity I go on living.

The transparency of deep lakes beckons to me,

The dawn looks on with reproach,

This shame is hard, so hard,

To live, having lost one’s king!

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie 

Agamemnon’s Warrior

A stark barren fact that all logic opposes,

Bare truth that oppresses my soul:

Atrid lies dead on a bed of red roses,  

So how can I live, how my grief to condole?

All that we dreamt of, always and ever,

Longings and yearnings and fears,

All was made flesh in his purest endeavors,

His eyes where sereneness inhered.

Puissant like wind were his muscles of might,

Lissome with grace were his legs at knees’ bend,

He was as lovely as clouds at first light,

The leader of gold-laden Argos: Godsend.

And I, what am I? A shred from old lesions,  

A javelin lost in the greenness of lawn,

The shepherd lies dead, the chieftain of legions,  

While I, a mere nothing, breathe on.

The depths of lake waters are calling my name,

Rebuke gleams in sheen of each dawn,

Leaden, like rocks in my soul, is the shame,

Losing one’s king, to live on!

Translator’s Notes

From Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology Agamemnon was a king, the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same region. When Helen, wife of Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War.

According to the Odyssey (11:409-411), upon Agamemnon’s return from Troy, he was killed by Aegisthus, lover of his wife. In variants of the tale, the wife herself, Clytemnestra kills him, or they act together as accomplices, murdering him in his own home.

According to Russian sources on the Internet, the Атриды (Atridy) are the sons of Atreus—Agamemnon and Menelaus. So the Atrid referred to in Gumilyov’s poem is actually Agamemnon.

                                                                  Mask of Agamemnon

Bobby Goosey's Nonsense Verse: "HIPPOPOTAMUS"

From Bobby Goosey's Nonsense Verse

(Silly Rhymes for Kids)

On Literary Influences: NABOKOV AND UPDIKE

ON LITERARY INFLUENCES: NABOKOV AND UPDIKE

“Writing shows its influences by the contagion of rhythm and pacing more often than by exact imitation or ideas. We know that Updike read Nabokov in the nineteen-sixties by the sudden license Updike claims to unsubdue his prose, to make his sentences self-consciously exclamatory, rather than by an onset of chess playing or butterfly collecting.”

Adam Gopnik

Caricatures by David Levine

Nonsense Verse: Selections "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"

Fuzzy-Wuzzy was a bear.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy had no hair.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy,

Was he?

                                    Anonymous folk ditty

d

                     Wishes

Fuzzy-Wuzzy was a werewolf.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy drank blood brew.

Fuzzy was a tough (yes, sir) wolf!

Wish I were a werewolf too.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy was a werewolf.

Fuzzy roamed the dark night through.

Fuzzy was no cuddly-bear wolf!

Wish I was a werewolf too.

Fuzzy really was a waswolf.

One waswolf in the werewolf crew.

Waswolves are the meanest werewolves!

Wish I was a waswolf too.

Spending the Night with Pushkin, or with Lee Harvey Oswald

Gogol and Pushkin in a Beer Bar, Brainstorming New Ideas for Plots

drawing by Yevgenia Dvoskina

Spending the Night with Pushkin, and with Lee Oswald

Interesting, how our paths sometimes cross those of the famous or notorious. In reading a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, I learned that in October, 1959, on his way into the Soviet Union—where he defected and requested Soviet citizenship—Oswald passed through Helsinki, Finland, and stayed at the Hotel Klaus Kirki. I myself stayed at this hotel several times in the 1990s, when I was taking students from Miami University in and out of Russia on study tours.

As for Aleksandr Pushkin, in 1829, on his way to the Caucasus, Pushkin passed through the ancient city of Yelets—located in Lipetsk Oblast’ and extant as early as 1146 AD. In his travel account, A Journey to Arzrum, Pushkin complains about the muddy roads near Yelets. Since he approached the city from the direction of Oryol, historians and amateur Pushkinists hypothesize that he spent the night at an inn located at the entrance to the city from that direction.

To commemorate the overnight stay of the great Pushkin, Yeletskian authorities placed a memorial plaque on the inn in 1949, but the plaque apparently disappeared when the building was torn down in the 1980s. On that site the Hotel Yelets was built and remains standing.

I made two trips to Yelets, in April and September of 2000. At that time I was a Fulbright Scholar in Russia, and was giving talks on the writer Ivan Bunin in several Russian cities. Bunin is the most renowned favorite son of Yelets; there are statues and memorials to him all over the city. In April the subject of my talk was Bunin’s most famous, and probably best story, “Light Breathing,” at the Yelets Pedagogical Institute—now upgraded to Yelets State University.

When my wife Natasha and I arrived by train we asked people at the station to tell us where the hotels were in Yelets. They corrected us: “the hotel—there is only one.” This, of course, turned out to be the Hotel Yelets, a thoroughly freezing Soviet-style establishment. But my memory of my stay there is warmed by the possibility that the immortal Pushkin snoozed through at least one earthly night on the same premises.

Information on Pushkin in Yelets comes from Yulia Skopich, “Pushkin Was Here (Perhaps),” in Russian Life, May/June, 2019, p. 44.

Bunin Caricature by Levine