Translation of Poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, "Mal'aria," ("Miasmas")

 

Fyodor Tyutchev

(1803-1873)

 

Mal’aria

Люблю сей Божий гнев! Люблю сие, незримо
Во всем разлитое, таинственное Зло —
В цветах, в источнике прозрачном, как стекло,
И в радужных лучах и в самом небе Рима.
Все та ж высокая, безоблачная твердь,
Все так же грудь твоя легко и сладко дышит —
Все тот же теплый ветр верхи дерев колышет —
Все тот же запах роз, и это все есть Смерть!..

Как ведать, может быть, и есть в природе звуки,
Благоухания, цвета и голоса,
Предвестники для нас последнего часа
И усладители последней нашей муки —
И ими-то Судеб посланник роковой,
Когда сынов Земли из жизни вызывает,
Как тканью легкою свой образ прикрывает,
Да утаит от них приход ужасный свой!..

 1830

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Literal Translation

 

Mal’aria

 

I love this wrath of God! I love this something, invisibly

Poured out into everything, this mysterious Evil—

In blossoms, in a wellspring transparent as glass,

And in rainbow rays and in the very sky of Rome.

Still the same is that high cloudless firmament,

Still the same your breast lightly and sweetly breathes—

Still the same warm breeze makes sway the crowns of trees—

Still the same is the smell of roses, and all of this is Death!

 

How can we know, could be nature also has sounds,

Fragrances, flowers and voices,

Harbingers for us of the final hour

And mitigators of our final torments—

By means of which the fateful envoy of Destiny,

When calling forth from life the sons of Earth,

Screens, as with a gauzy fabric, his image

And conceals from them his hideous arrival!

 

 

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Miasmas

 I love this wrath of God! I love the thing unseen,

Which flows, envelops all, this enigmatic Evil,

In flowers’ blooms, in wellsprings crystalline, primeval,

In rainbow rays and in the very Roman sky serene.

That high cloudless firmament still breathes the same breath,

Your breast heaves the same way, so tenderly, soft,

The same lovely freshet makes trees sway aloft,  

Aroma of roses is always the same; and all of this is Death!

 

Are nature’s emollients designed to placate,

With fragrances, flowers and voices demure,

The heralds foretelling that last hour obscure,

Our final afflictions are they meant to abate?

So that Fate when she sends the envoy we abhor,

To summon from life flesh on earth’s progeny,

As with gossamer fabric She drapes what we see,

Conceals from us the dread ghoul at our door!

 

 

Translator’s Notes

 

Tyutchev’s title, the Italian “Mal’aria,” means, literally “bad or foul air.” The name of the disease, malaria, came later, based on the erroneous notion that the fevers of the illness were a direct consequence of breathing bad air.

 According to a note in the two-volume Tyutchev collection (Moscow: Nauka Publications, 1965, I, 353), this poem was inspired by a passage in a novel published in 1807 by Madame de Staël, Corinne, ou l’Italie (V, 3):

 “Unhealthy air is the scourge of the inhabitants of Rome. Its deleterious influence is not manifested by any external signs. You breathe in air that seems pure and, in fact, very pleasant; the earth is flourishing and fecund; the marvelous cool of the evenings refreshes you after the searing heat of the day. But meanwhile all of this is death. ‘I love,’ said Oswald to Corinne, ‘this mysterious, invisible danger, a danger hidden beneath an exterior of charm. If death, as I am convinced, is merely a summons to a more happy existence, then why would the fragrance of flowers, the shade of lovely trees, the cool breath of evening not be for us harbingers of that beatitude?’” [translated here from the Russian translation of the original French]

 

a

Translation by Frank Jude

 

Infected Air

I love God’s wrath, this Evil!
Invisible, mysterious, poured through everything:
in the flowers, in the glass-clear stream,
in the rainbow-rays, in the very sky of Rome.
The same high, cloudless sky,
your breast's same sweet breath,
the same warm wind rustling tree-tops,
the same scent of roses.... All of this is death!

Who knows, perhaps nature has her sounds,
aromas, colours, voices
presaging our final hour,
sweetening our final torment,
and as the fates encroach
and call earth's sons from this life,
perhaps their messenger uses them,
weaving a veil to hide his face
and his fearsome approach!