Tuesday, June 29, 2021

List of Translations of Russian Poetry Posted on Blog, "U.R. Bowie on Russian Literature"

 


Complete List of All Poems Translated into English on Blog, as of the End of June, 2021


Translations of Russian Poetry into English

Posted on Blog, “U.R. Bowie on Russian Literature”

 

 

Anna Akhmatova:

“Vse raskhishcheno, predano, prodano” (“Everything’s plundered, betrayed, in ruin’s jaws”)

“My ne umeem proshchat’sja” (“We don’t know how to say goodbye”)

“A ty dumal ja tozhe takaja” (“So you took me for some kind of wifey lightweight”)

“Ja nauchilas’ prosto, mudro zhit’” (“Now I’ve learned simply and wisely to live”)

“Iul’ 1914” (“July, 1914”)

“Bezhetsk”

 

Nikolai Aseev:

“Khor vershin” (“Choirs in the Heights”)

 

Eduard Bagritsky:

“Ja sladko iznemog ot tishiny i snov” (“So sweetly enervated I, by silence and by dreams”)

“Arbuz” (“The Watermelon”)

 

K.D. Balmont:

Translation of Shelly sonnet “Ozymandias” (“Ozimandija”)

 

Aleksandr Blok:

“O doblestjakh, o podvigakh, o slave” (“While that chaste picture frame”)

“Noch’, Ulitsa, Fonar’, Apteka” (“Night. Street. Lamplight. Pharmacy”)

“Devushka pela v tserkovnom khore” (“In the choir of a church a young girl was singing”)

 

Ivan Bunin:

“Na rasput’e” (“Where Paths Diverge”)

“Skazka o koze” (“The Tale of the Goat”)

“L’et bez konsta. V lesu tuman” (“My Dear Lord God [“Endless rain, and forest fog”])

“Ritm” (“Rhythm”)

“Portret” (“The Portrait”)

“Temdzhid”

“Les shumit nevnjatnym, rovnim shumom” (“An even, hazy hum runs through the glade”)

“Parus” (“The Sail”)

“Shestikrylyj” (“The Six-Winged Seraph”)

“Khudozhnik” (“The Artist”)

“Spokojnyj vzor, podobnyj vzoru lani” (“The tranquil gaze, your eyes so like a doe’s”)

“Val’s” (“The Waltz”)

“Nastanet den’, ischeznu ja” (“The day will come, I’ll disappear”)

 

Igor Chinnov:

“Disney World”

“Kazhdyj sgniet (i gnienem ochistitsja)” (“Each of us rots, and through rotting is cleansed”)

“Zhil da byl Ivan Ivanych” (“There walked this earth one Clyde B. Wright”)

“Ne kazhetsja li tebe” (“Don’t you feel”)

“Serdtse sozhmetsja, ispugannyj ezhik” (“Our hearts will cower, frightened hedgehogs”)

 

Sergei Esenin:

“My teper’ ukhodim ponemnogu” (“One by one we all are now departing”)

 

A.A. Fet:

“Ne vorchi, moj kot murlyka” (“Stop your purring, grumbler cat”)

“Eshe vesny dushistoj nega” (“In rapture steeped, sweet fragrant spring”)

“Burja na nebe vechernem” (“Storm in the sky of the gloaming”)

“Ja prishel k tebe s privetom” (“I come to you at break of day”)

“Kakaja kholodnaja osen’” (“How cold are the woods in the fall”)

“Lastochki” (“Swallows”)

“Byl chudnyj majskij den’ v Moskve” (“A wondrous Moscow day in May”)

“Shopot, robkoe dykhan’e” (“Whispering and Timid Breathing”)

“Tol’ko v mire i est’, chto tenistyj” (“Distinctive on earth of all things that exist”)

“Chuja vnushennyj drugimi otvet” (“Sensing that loved ones have told you, ‘Say no’ [Portents])”

“Babochka” (“Butterfly”)

 

Zinaida Gippius:

“Neljubov’” (“Unlove”)

 

Nikolai Gumilyov:

“Ja i Vy” (“I and You”)

“Voin Agamemnona” (“Agamemnon’s Warrior”)

 

Georgi Ivanov:

“S bezchelovechnoju sud’boj” (“In any polemic with inhuman fate”)

 

Vladislav Khodasevich:

“Pered zerkalom” (“Standing in front of a mirror”)

“Vesennij lepet ne razlezhit” (“If verses’ teeth are tightly clenched”)

 

Mikhail Lermontov:

“Parus” (“The Sail”)

“Predskazanie” (“A Portent of Calamity”)

“Angel” (“The Angel”)

“Nebo i zvezdy” (“Sky and Stars”)

“Gornye vershiny” (“Alpine peaks quiescent”)

 

Osip Mandelstam:

“Skripachka” (“Violinist”)

“Na strashnoj vysote bluzhdajushchij ogon’” (“Petropolis Dying”)

“Mne kholodno. Prozrachnaja vesna” (“I’m cold. The season of transparence”)

“V Petropole prozrachnom my umrem” (“In transparent Petropolis we all will die”)

 

Samuil Marshak:

Translation of Robert Burns, “Honest Poverty” (“Chestnaja bednost’”)

Translation of Shakespeare Sonnet No. 116, “To part the meld of two hearts intermingled” (“Meshat’ soedinen’ju dvukh serdets”)

Translation of Robert Burns, “Coming Through the Rye” (“Probirajas’ do kalitki”)

 

Vladimir Mayakovsky:

“Rossii” (“To Russia [The Overseas Ostrich]”)

“Khoroshee otnoshenie k loshadjam” (“Treating Horsies Nice”)

 

Boris Pasternak:

“Gefsimanskij sad” (“The Garden of Gethsemane”)

“V bol’nitse” (“In the Hospital”)

 

Aleksandr Pushkin:

“Pora, moj drug, pora” (“Now is the time, my friend”)

“Vospominanie” (“Remembrance”)

“Otsy pustynnyki i zheny neporochny” (“The anchorites in deserts and the women pious, chaste”)

“Dar naprasnyj, dar sluchajnyj” (Based on pure chance, a useless gift”)

 

Konstantin Sluchevsky:

“Posle kazni v Zheneve” (“An Execution in Geneva”)

 

Fedor Sologub:

“Vysoka luna gospodnja” (“High in the sky is God’s moon”)

 

Nikolai Tikhonov:

“Veter” (“The Wind”)

 

A.K Tolstoy:

“Ballada o kamergere Delarju” (“The Ballad of Chamberlain Delarue”)

“Tropar’” (“Troparion from  the Poem ‘John Damascene’”)

 

Fedor Tyutchev:

“Pesok sypuchij po koleni” (“Up to our axles in crumbly sand”)

“Silentium”

“Ot zhizni toj chto bushevala zdes’” (“The life that once in these parts teemed”)

“Nakanune godovshchiny 4 avgusta 1864 g.” (“On the Eve of the Anniversary of Aug. 4, 1864”)

“Slyzy ljudskie, o slyzy ljudskie” (“O tears of humanity”)

“Vesennjaja Groza” (“Spring Thunderstorm”)

 

Marina Tsvetaeva:

“Uzh skol’ko ikh upalo v etu bezdnu” (“So many have been swallowed up and perished”)

“Popytka revnosti” (“An Attempt at Jealousy”)

“Mne nravitsja, chto Vy bol’ny ne mnoj” (“I’m glad that you’re not indisposed with feelings steeped in me”)

 

Evgenij Vinokurov:

“Vesna” (“Spring”)

 

Maximillian Voloshin:

“Svyataja Rus’” (“Holy Rus”)




 

Saturday, June 26, 2021

ROZANOV, VASILY VASILIEVICH, Introduction to "Solitaria" Васи́лий Васи́льевич Ро́занов, «Уединённое»

 




Where did I, U.R. Bowie, get the idea of putting together my latest book--HERE WE BE. WHERE BE WE?-- a book out of aphorisms, quotations, bits and pieces of wisdom and silliness, idle thoughts? From the Russian writer, philosopher, gadfly, eccentric, Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov (1856-1919), whom I first encountered in a graduate seminar at Vanderbilt University in 1969. In addition to his many works on philosophy and religion, Rozanov published several such small books of sententiae: Solitaria, Mortality, Fallen Leaves I, and Fallen Leaves II. In my novel Hard Mother I first used the form—see the sections titled “Ruminations of Ivanushka the Shoot”—and later in Sama Seeker in the Time of the End Times: the parts titled “Prof. Benson’s Ponderings.”

 Here are the opening lines from Vas. Vas. Rozanov’s Solitaria («Уединённое»):

                “The wind whistles at midnight and blows leaves about . . . So does life in the swiftness of time tear exclamations from our souls: sighs, half-thoughts, half-sensations . . . Which, in that they are acoustic fragments, are significant because they have ‘stepped straight out’ of our souls with no prior processing, with no aim, with no premeditation—devoid of anything extraneous . . . Simply, ‘the soul lives,’ i.e., ‘lived,’ once ‘breathed’ . . . For a long time now I for some reason have been fond of these ‘involuntary ejaculations.’ The fact is they flow within you incessantly, but you don’t manage (no paper is within reach) to write them down—and they die. Later on, you can’t for the life of you remember them. I have managed, however, to jot a thing or two down on paper. The stuff has accumulated now. So I’ve decided to rake up those fallen leaves.

                Why? Who needs them?

                Well, it’s just that I need them. Oh, my dear kind reader, it’s ages now that I’ve been writing ‘without a reader’—simply because I like to. And I’m not going to cry or get angry if a reader buys my book by mistake and then throws it in the trash (of course, it would be more to your advantage to take a look at it, leaf through it without cutting the pages, and then sell it at a discount of 50% to a used book store).

                Anyway, reader, I won’t stand on ceremony with you, and you can feel free not to stand on ceremony with me:

                --Screw it (you).

                --Screw it (you)!

                So then it’s au revoir until we meet again in the next world. Actually, with a reader it’s a lot more boring than writing alone. He’ll gawp open his mouth and stand waiting for you to put something in it. In such a case he looks like a mule right on the verge of braying. Not the most lovely spectacle imaginable . . . Well, the heck with him . . . I’ll write for some sort of ‘unknown friends,’ or even ‘not for nobody whatsoever’. . . .”

Excerpt from Here We Be. Where Be We: In the Shitstorm Year of 2020



Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Sunday, June 20, 2021

New Book by U.R. Bowie, "Here We Be. Where Be We? In the Shitstorm Year of 2020"

 


https://www.amazon.com/Here-Where-Shitstorm-Year-2020/dp/B0975ZQ7LR/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=U.R.+Bowie%2C+%22Here+We+Be%2C+Where+Be+We%22&qid=1624225488&s=books&sr=1-1

HERE WE BE, WHERE BE WE?

IN THE SHITSTORM YEAR of 2020

 

(Musings, Ruminations, Bits and Pieces of Wisdom and Nonsense)

 

 

 

U.R. Bowie

 

Series:  The Collected Works of U.R. Bowie, Volume Seventeen

Ogee Zakamora Publications, 2021

 

A potpourri of thoughts, ruminations on life as it is lived in the coronavirus year of 2020. A kind of diary of the Covid Year, complete with cogitations on any number of things, by the author and by great thinkers throughout history. Among other things, the book includes commentary on the American political morass of our time, quoted poetry, nonsense verse, philosophical musings, and analysis of literary works.



Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Translation of Poem by IVAN BUNIN, "НА РАСПУТЬЕ," "Where Paths Diverge (The Quandary)"

                Vasnetsov,  «Витязь на распутье» ("Knight Where Paths Diverge"), 1882


Ivan Bunin

(1870-1953)

 

НА РАСПУТЬЕ

 

На распутье в диком древнем поле
Чёрный ворон на кресте сидит.
Заросла бурьяном степь на воле,
И в траве заржавел старый щит.

На распутье люди начертали
Роковую надпись: «Путь прямой
Много бед готовит, и едва ли
Ты по нём воротишься домой.

Путь направо без коня оставит —
Побредёшь один и сир и наг, —
А того, кто влево путь направит,
Встретит смерть в незнаемых полях…»

Жутко мне! Вдали стоят могилы…
В них былое дремлет вечным сном…
«Отзовися, ворон чернокрылый!
Укажи мне путь в краю глухом.

Я покинул остров Царь-девицы,
Сине море, терем и сады.
Не ищу я по свету Жар-Птицы, —
Укажи мне ключ живой воды!»

Дремлет полдень. На тропах звериных
Тлеют кости в травах. Три пути
Вижу я в желтеющих равнинах…
Но куда и как по ним идти?

Где равнина дикая граничит?
Кто, пугая чуткого коня,
В тишине из синей дали кличет
Человечьим голосом меня?

И ужели нет пути иного,
Где бы мог пройти я, не губя
Ни надежд, ни счастья, ни былого,
Ни коня, ни самого себя?

Веет поле тишиной великой!
Мертвецы в могилах древних спят.
Очарован красотою дикой,
Опускаю я покорно взгляд.

И один я в поле, и отважно
Жизнь зовёт, а смерть в глаза глядит…
Черный ворон сумрачно и важно,
Полусонный, на кресте сидит.

 

1900

 

 

Literal Translation

 

Where Paths Diverge

 Where paths diverge in a wild, ancient field

A black raven perches on a cross.

The steppes are overgrown with tall weeds,

And an old shield lies rusted in the grass.

 

Where paths diverge people have written

A baleful message: “The straight path

Prepares [for you] much calamity, and not likely

You’ll return home if you take it.

 

The path to the right will leave you horseless,

You’ll wander alone, orphaned, naked.

And he who sets out on the path to the left

Will meet his death in unknown fields.”

 

I’m terrified! In the distance there are graves . . .

Within them what has been now drowses in eternal sleep . . .

“Answer me, black-winged raven!

Point me out the way in this desolate land.

 

I’ve just left the island of the Tsar Maiden,

The blue seas, the terem towers, and the gardens,

I’m not wandering the earth in search of the Firebird—

But show me the source of the Water of Life.”

 

The midday drowses. Along the byways trodden by wild animals

Bones lie rotting in the grass. Three paths

I spy amidst the yellowing plains . . .

But how and where to go, which path?

 

Where is the border of the wild plain?

Who is it, spooking my sensitive horse,

That cries out to me in a human voice

From the silence of the azure distance?

 

And is there really no other path

That I can take without destroying

My hopes, my happiness, all my past,

My horse, my very self?

 

A deep silence wafts over the field,

The dead men sleep in the ancient graves.

Enchanted by the wild beauty,

I humbly lower my gaze.

 

And I am alone in the field, and Life

Bravely calls to me, and death looks me in the eyes . . .

The black raven gravely and gloomily

Sits half asleep on the cross.

 

 

 

â


                                            Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

The Quandary

 Where paths diverge in field all parched, primeval,

Upon a cross a coal-black raven perched.

The steppes are lush with weeds and bristly teasel,

A rusted shield lies in the grass, besmirched.  


Where paths diverge upon a sign aglow,

A baleful message stares me in the eyes:

“If you take the straight way you’ll find woe,

And no plan leading home will you devise. 

 

“Choose the path to right, you’ll be unhorsed,

Alone you’ll wander naked and bereft, 

And if you leftward go, then you’ll be forced

To slog through barren fields till you meet death.”

 

My fearful eyes see graves in distant haze,  

Where those who lived now drowse in endless sleep.

“Black raven, palliate my dread malaise,

Please show me egress from this vile glebe.

 

I’ve left behind the Isle of Tsar Queen-Maiden,

The Ocean-Blue, Elysian parks, and strife;

I seek not now The Bird with Fire Emblazoned,

But show me the source of the Water of Life.”

 

Midst midday drowse along the savage byways

Men’s bones lie rotting in the dry foul air.

Three paths on yellowed plains my eyes appraise,

Which one to take, and how to go, and where?

 

Does this wild plain have limits, ends or border?

Who spooks my touchy steed, my nerves abrase

With human cries that reek of doom, disorder,

From silence of the azure distant haze?

 

Could it be true there is no other path

That I can take without annihilating

My horse, my hopes, all human trace, my past?

The dreams of my long life obliterating?

 

O’er the fields there wafts a sombre hush,

Asleep they lie, the dead men in their graves.

Enchanted, numbed by beauty feral, lush,

I slump in saddle, humbly lower my gaze.

 

Alone I am out in the field, “Be brave,”

Calls Life, but Death stares straight into my eyes . . .

Still half asleep he’s perched on cross o’er grave,

The baleful raven, framed against the skies.

 

d

 

Note

The title, “Na rastput’e” is sometimes translated “At the Crossroads,” but the expression indicates not crossroads, but a place where all different paths diverge. First published in the journal “Books of the Week,” St. Petersburg, No. 10, October, 1900, Bunin’s poem is based roughly on a famous painting by V. M. Vasnetsov (1848-1926), “A Knight Where Paths Diverge,” to which it is dedicated. In Bunin’s final published variant of the poem, which has only seven stanzas, he apparently omitted several stanzas from the original poem. These include three that appear in my translated variant (Stanzas No. 5, 8, and 9 above). For a full listening of all the stanzas in the original, see Bunin’s Russian-language Collected Works, Vol. 1 (1965), p. 124-25; p. 482-83.

 



Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Translation of Poem by Boris Pasternak, "Гефсиманский сад," "The Garden of Gethsemane"

                                       Polenov, "Olive Tree in the Garden of Gethsemane"


Boris Pasternak

(1890-1960)

 

Гефсиманский сад

Мерцаньем звезд далеких безразлично
Был поворот дороги озарен.
Дорога шла вокруг горы Масличной,
Внизу под нею протекал Кедрон.

Лужайка обрывалась с половины.
За нею начинался Млечный
 путь.
Седые серебристые маслины
Пытались вдаль по воздуху шагнуть.

В конце был чей-то сад, надел земельный.
Учеников оставив за стеной,
Он им сказал: «Душа скорбит смертельно,
Побудьте здесь и бодрствуйте со
 Мной».

Он отказался без противоборства,
Как от вещей, полученных взаймы,
От всемогущества и чудотворства,
И был теперь, как смертные, как
 мы.

Ночная даль теперь казалась краем
Уничтоженья и небытия.
Простор вселенной был необитаем,
И только сад был местом для
 житья.

И, глядя в эти черные провалы,
Пустые, без начала и
 конца,
Чтоб эта чаша смерти миновала,
В поту кровавом Он молил
 Отца.

Смягчив молитвой смертную истому,
Он вышел за ограду. На
 земле
Ученики, осиленные дремой,
Валялись в придорожном ковыле.

Он разбудил их: «Вас Господь сподобил
Жить в дни Мои, вы ж разлеглись, как
 пласт.
Час Сына Человеческого пробил.
Он в руки грешников Себя предаст».

И лишь сказал, неведомо откуда
Толпа рабов и скопище бродяг,
Огни, мечи и впереди —
 Иуда
С предательским лобзаньем на
 устах.

Петр дал мечом отпор головорезам
И ухо одному из них
 отсек.
Но слышит: «Спор нельзя решать железом,
Вложи свой меч на место, человек.

Неужто тьмы крылатых легионов
Отец не снарядил бы Мне
 сюда?
И, волоска тогда на Мне не тронув,
Враги рассеялись бы без
 следа.

Но книга жизни подошла к странице,
Которая дороже всех святынь.
Сейчас должно написанное сбыться,
Пускай же сбудется оно.
 Аминь.

Ты видишь, ход веков подобен притче
И может загореться на
 ходу.
Во имя страшного ее величья
Я в добровольных муках в гроб
 сойду.

Я в гроб сойду и в третий день восстану,
И, как сплавляют по реке
 плоты,
Ко мне на суд, как баржи каравана,
Столетья поплывут из темноты».

 

 

Literal Translation

The Garden of Gethsemane

 

The bend in the road was illumined

By distant stars that glittered indifferently.

The road wound around the Mount of Olives,

Down beneath it flowed the Cedron River.

 

Halfway across the meadow broke off.

Beyond it began the Milky Way.

The gray-haired silvery olive trees

Were trying to stride on air into the distance.

 

At the far end there was someone’s garden, a plot of earth.

Leaving the disciples outside the wall,

He said to them: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death:

Tarry ye here and watch with me.”

 

Unresisting, as if rejecting

Things received on loan,

He renounced both omnipotence and miracle-working,

And was now like mortal men, the way we are ourselves.

 

Now the far reaches of the night seemed at the brink

Of annihilation and nonbeing.

The vast space of the universe was uninhabited,

And only the garden was a place for life.

 

And gazing into these black chasms,

Empty, without beginning or end,

In a bloody sweat He prayed to the Father,

That this cup of death might pass from Him.

 

Having assuaged through prayer his mortal languor,

He emerged from inside the enclosure.

His disciples, overcome by drowsiness,

Lay all around on the ground, in the grass by the roadside.

 

He woke them: “The Lord hath bestowed on you the honor

Of living in My time; yet you are sprawled here flat on the ground.

The hour of the Son of Man is struck.

He will betray Himself into the hands of sinners.”

 

No sooner said, than, as if out of nowhere,

There appeared a mob of churls, a throng of rogues,

Torches, swords, and at their head was Judas,

A traitorous kiss on his lips.

 

Peter confronted the blackguards with his sword

And cut off the ear of one of them.

But then he heard, “One must not resolve a dispute with steel,

Put your sword back in its place, O man.

 

“Could not my Father provide 

A multitude of winged legions [to defend me] here?

Then, without touching a hair on my head,

My enemies would be scattered without trace.

 

“But the book of life has come to the page

That is dearer than all things holy.

That which is written must now come to pass,

Let it be realized. Amen.

 

“You see, the course of ages is like unto a parable,

And may burst into flames on the way.

In the name of its terrible majesty

I shall descend in voluntary agonies into the tomb.

 

“I shall descend into the tomb and on the third day will rise,

And as rafts float along down a river,

So unto me to be judged, like barges in a caravan,

Centuries will float up out of the darkness.”

 

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

The Garden of Gethsemane

 

The distant stars shed apathetic rays

That lit the bend the thoroughfare turned on.

The road wound round the Olive Mount in haze,

Beneath it flowed the river called Cedron.

 

Sere meadowlands stretched halfway out, then broke.

Beyond them rose the glow of Milky Way.

The gray-haired olive trees, their silver smoke,

Tried hard to blow where distant warmth held sway. 

 

By someone’s plot of earth they stopped for breath.

He left his men by garden wall, vain solace sought.

“My soul aggrieves me, even unto death:

Tarry here and watch, and sleep ye not.”

 

Abstaining from resistance, docile, meek,

As if rejecting things received on loan,

Rebuffed he did omnipotence, was weak,

As we ourselves, mere mortal, flesh and bone.

 

The night expanses now were on the verge

Of stark obliteration, with nothingness were rife.

Of human life the vastness of the cosmos had been purged;

This garden held the final hope for life.

 

And as He gazed into the blackness drear,

Without beginning-end, abysmal, grim,

He sweated blood, beseeched his Father dear

That this dire cup of death might pass from Him.

 

The throes of death assuaged by fervent prayer,

Disciples he emerged to find at rest;

Spread far and wide on meadow grasses spare,

They drowsed or slept, ignoring his behest.

 

Rousing them, He said, “The Lord hath honored you

To live with Me in time; yet you haphazard lie.

The prophesies of ancient yore shall now be proven true.

The Son of Man will yield Himself to sinners by and by.”

 

These words no sooner spoke than all at once

Appeared a mob of rogues, bedraggled, mean;

They torches held, waved swords, and at their front

Strode Judas, false devotion on his mien.

 

Peter, sword in hand, went at the rogues apace,

Smote off the ear of one amidst the hue and cry.

His master said, “Put up thy sword into his place,

For they that live by sword, by sword will die.

 

“Thinkest thou that I could not now pray,

And Father would send angels, legions ten?

No hair upon my head could they assay,

My enemies would all be dust again.

 

“But now the Book of Life has reached the page

Most precious and beyond all human ken.

As scriptures quoth, the Word has come of age,

So let it come to pass and be. Amen.

 

“Like unto a parable, you see, the ages course,

Before them conflagrations on the way may loom.

Now this pathway foreordained I tread without remorse,

I take of my free will the pain, descend unto the tomb.

 

“Descend unto the tomb, but on the third day I shall rise,

And just as rafts float down a river by the morning light,

So down to me in multitudes the centuries likewise

Will drift to my Last Judgment Day, come floating out of night.”

 

 

 

 

                                                                   From the Internet 


Анализ стихотворения «Гефсиманский сад» Пастернака

Стихотворение «Гефсиманский сад» вершина философской лирики Бориса Леонидовича Пастернака, крупнейшего поэта, прозаика, переводчика XX века. Это произведение подводит итог как роману «Доктор Живаго», так и размышлениям самого поэта о жизни, смерти, прошлом и будущем.

Стихотворение «Гефсиманский сад» написано в 1949 году. Оно завершает цикл стихотворений из романа «Доктор Живаго». Его автору 59 лет, он давно находится в немилости у советской власти, едва минул год, как был уничтожен тираж его сборника «Избранное». И в этот период Б. Пастернак, по сути, пересказывает вечное Евангелие, выводя земную историю за рамки идеологий, суеты, человеческих заблуждений и преступлений.

По жанру философская лирика, по размеру пятистопный ямб с перекрестной рифмой, 14 строф. По композиции его можно разделить на 4 части: в первой обманчиво мирный ночной пейзаж, во второй молитва Спасителя, в третьей арест, а четвертая перекликается со второй, и состоит из прямой речи Христа победителя смерти.

Основа стихотворения свидетельство апостолов Матфея и Луки о последних днях земной жизни Христа. Привычный ночной пейзаж, камерность лирического повествования сменяются картинами евангельских событий, предчувствием приближения Страшного Суда. Поэт как бы ведет своего читателя к вневременным событиям Нового Завета. Автор не только пересказывает, но и впрямую цитирует, чуть перефразируя, Евангелие. Гефсиманский сад начало крестного пути Спасителя, место предательства и, на первый взгляд, крушения всех надежд.

Стихотворение построено на контрасте, противопоставлении. Лексика возвышенная (скорбит, небытия, лобзаньем, восстану), нейтральная, просторечная (валялись, головорезам, скопище). Эпитеты: серебристые, страшного. Олицетворения: дорога шла, маслины пытались шагнуть. Сравнения: ход подобен притче, на суд, как баржи каравана, как смертные, как мы. Повторы: Я в гроб сойду.

Все произведение одна большая метафора. Ночная даль край уничтоженья и небытия, близящийся огонь, сожигающий Землю и все дела на ней, отражен в словах: и ход веков может загореться на ходу. Используется прием инверсии: протекал Кедрон, начинался Млечный путь. Один из смыслов стихотворения заключен в словах к человеку: спор нельзя решать железом. В последних строфах накал произведения поднимается до высоты эпоса.

Ключ к пониманию романа Б. Пастернака «Доктор Живаго» стихотворение «Гефсиманский сад». Поэт, сам осужденный и ошельмованный земными властями, создает эпическое произведение на основе Евангелия о судьбах мира.