Fedor Tyutchev
(1803-1873)
От жизни той, что бушевала
здесь,
От крови той, что здесь рекой лилась,
Что уцелело, что дошло до нас?
Два-три кургана, видимых поднесь…
Да два-три дуба выросли на них,
Раскинувшись и широко и смело.
Красуются, шумят, — и нет им дела,
Чей прах, чью память роют корни их.
Природа знать не знает о былом,
Ей чужды наши призрачные годы,
И перед ней мы смутно сознаем
Себя самих — лишь грезою природы.
Поочередно всех своих детей,
Свершающих свой подвиг бесполезный,
Она равно приветствует своей
Всепоглощающей и миротворной бездной.
Second half of
August, 1871
Literal Translation
Of the life that raged here,
Of the blood that flowed here like a river,
What has survived, what has come down to us?
Two or three burial mounds, visible to this day . . .
And two or three oaks have grown on top of them,
Broadly and bravely
spreading wide their branches.
They flaunt their
beauty, they hum-sough—and are not concerned
Whose remains, whose
memory their roots dig up.
Nature is totally
indifferent to the past,
Our phantasmal years
are alien to her,
And when faced with
her we are vaguely conscious
Of our very
selves—as only nature’s reverie.
One by one, all of her children,
Who have completed their useless feats,
She welcomes equally into her
All-consuming and pacific abyss.
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Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
The life that once
in these parts teemed,
The blood that here
in rivers streamed,
What’s left of that,
what do we see?
Just burial mounds,
some two or three . . .
On top of them a pair of oaks
Spread branches
wide, nurse oaken hopes.
They sough oak
songs, care not a jot
Whose bones they dig
at, roil the rot.
Don’t try to tell
cold nature of the past,
For human fates
she’s no enthusiast,
When face to face
with her we grasp the theme
That we are naught
but nature’s fickle dream.
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