Thursday, March 31, 2022

Translation of poem by Boris Pasternak, Борис Пастернак, "Земля," THE EARTH

 


Борис Пастернак

(1890-1960)

Земля

В московские особняки
Врывается весна нахрапом.
Выпархивает моль за шкапом
И ползает по летним шляпам,
И прячут шубы в сундуки.

По деревянным антресолям
Стоят цветочные горшки
С левкоем и желтофиолем,
И дышат комнаты привольем,
И пахнут пылью чердаки.

И улица запанибрата
С оконницей подслеповатой,
И белой ночи и закату
Не разминуться у реки.

И можно слышать в коридоре,
Что происходит на просторе,
О чем в случайном разговоре
С капелью говорит апрель.
Он знает тысячи историй
Про человеческое горе,
И по заборам стынут зори
И тянут эту канитель.

И та же смесь огня и жути
На воле и в жилом уюте,
И всюду воздух сам не свой.
И тех же верб сквозные прутья,
И тех же белых почек вздутья
И на окне, и на распутье,
На улице и в мастерской.

Зачем же плачет даль в тумане
И горько пахнет перегной?
На то ведь и мое призванье,
Чтоб не скучали расстоянья,
Чтобы за городскою гранью
Земле не тосковать одной.

Для этого весною ранней
Со мною сходятся друзья,
И наши вечера прощанья,
Пирушки наши завещанья,
Чтоб тайная струя страданья
Согрела холод бытия.

 

d

 

Literal Translation

 

The Earth

Into the Moscow domiciles

Bursts impudent spring.

Behind the wardrobes moths flutter

And crawl along summer hats,

And fur coats are hidden away in trunks.

 

In the wooden mezzanines

There are flower pots with

Wallflower and gillyflower,

And the rooms breathe free

And the attics smell of dust.

 

And the street is all buddy-buddy

With the purblind window pane,

And the white night and sunset

Won’t not meet by the riverside.

 

And in the passageway can be heard

What’s going on in the great outdoors,

[Or] what in a casual chitchat

April has to say to driblets of thawing snow.

He [April] knows a thousand stories

About human grief,

And along the fences the gloaming chills

And drags out that tedious old yarn.

 

And there’s the same blend of fire and trepidation

Both outside and in the comfort of the home,

And everywhere the air is beside itself.

And the same fretwork look of willow withes,

And the same tumescence of white buds

On the windowsill and at crossroads,

On the street and in the workshop.

 

So then why does the distance weep in fog

And give off a bitter smell of humus?

After all, it’s my calling

[To see that] distant expanses don’t pine,

And that beyond the city limits

The earth need not grieve alone.

 

For that reason in early spring

My friends and I get together,

And our evenings are partings,

Our little feasts are testaments,

So that the secret stream of suffering

Might warm the cold of existence.

 

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Earth

 

Into the Moscow domiciles

Comes bursting rude and loudmouthed spring.

The moths in flutter, on the wing,

Crawl on our hats and summer bling;

Fur coats heaped up in trunks form piles.

 

And in the wooden mezzanines

Pots hold gillyflowers and stock,

Could be carnations; by all means

The rooms breathe free unfettered dreams,

And attics smell of dust and rot.

 

The street’s all buddy-buddy now

With purblind blear of windowpane,

The white night and the sun somehow

Can’t fail to meet by creekside lane.

 

What’s going on in great outdoors

Resounds through indoor two-by-fours,

And April has a brief chitchat

With snow-thaw drips from eaves and doors,

For April knows a thousand stories,

Of human sorrows, griefs and glories,

While gloaming keeps repositories

Of old wives’ tales and crude backchat.

 

And warmth with trepidation merges

Inside the home, on snowy verges,

The vernal air feels out of sorts.

Most everywhere the willow withes,

The white buds swollen lie surprised

On windowsills, where authorized,

On streets, in workshops, even courts.

 

So why then does the far haze weep

And why does humus smell so bitter?

It’s my job, after all, to keep

The distances well-pleased, asleep,

To see that out past city streets

The earth need not lament or witter.

 

That’s why when times reach early springs

My friends and I throw convocations;

Our soirees bid farewell to things,

At revelries we pledge heartstrings

To float our pain on water wings,

And take the chill off life’s privations.








Saturday, March 26, 2022

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant, Translations of Untitled Poem by Fyodor TYUTCHEV, Written in French, "Vous, dont on voit briller"

                                  Jean-Léon Gérôme “Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant”


 

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant

 

Translations of Untitled Poem by Fyodor Tyutchev Written in French

 

Vous, dont on voit briller, dans les nuits azurées,
L’éclat immaculé, le divin élément,
Etoiles, gloire à vous! Splendeurs toujours sacrées!
Gloire à vous, qui durez incorruptiblement!

L’homme, race éphémère et qui vit sous la nue,
Qu’un seul et même instant voit naître et défleurir,
Passe, les yeux au ciel. – II passe et vous salue!
C’est l’immortel salut de ceux qui vont mourir.

1850
Фёдор Тютчев

Exact date of poem (Tyutchev note on original text): “August 23, 1850. Night walk with Nesti.” Nesti was his nickname for his second wife Ernestine F. Tyutchev.

Translation into Russian by M.P. Kudinov


Вам, изливающим из глубины ночной
Свой непорочный свет, чья сущность неизменна, –
О звезды, слава вам! Сияя красотой,
Не ведаете вы ни дряхлости, ни тлена.

А люди призрачны… Топча земную твердь,
В один и тот же миг живя и умирая,
На вас глядят они, идущие н
a смерть,
Бессмертный свой привет вам, звезды, посылая.

d

Translation from the Russian Translation into English

Literal Translation

To you, who pour out from the depths of night

Your chaste light, whose existence is unchangeable,

O stars, glory unto you! Shining with beauty,

You know neither decrepitude, nor decay.

 

But people are transparent . . . Tramping the ground of earth,

Living and dying in one and the same instant,

They gaze at you, while walking toward death,

Sending their immortal greeting to you, o stars.

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

O stars who pour your benefaction

From depths of night, e’er fixed and static,

Immune to rot and putrefaction,

We praise your chaste light charismatic!

 

A human life, a flip of dice,

Is past in what’s but one brief trice,   

We walk toward death and gaze on high,

And send our best to nebulae!

 

d

Translation into Russian by V.A. Kostrov

Когда в ночной тиши лазурью дышит воздух,
Сиянием стихий волнуются сердца,
Вовеки слава вам, божественные звезды.
Священный ваш огонь да длится без конца!

И человечий род, страдающий и тленный,
Рожденный лишь на миг и гибнущий тотчас
Проходит, устремив глаза к огням вселенной:
– Идущие на смерть приветствуют вас!

 

Translation from the Russian Translation into English

Literal Translation

When in the hush of night the air breathes with blueness,

Hearts are stirred by the glitter of nature’s elements,

Glory to you for all time, o divine stars.

May your sacred flames live on without end!

 

 

And the human race, suffering and transient,

Born for but a moment and immediately perishing,

Passes on, training its eyes on the flames of the universe:

“We who are about to die salute you!”

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant

 

When midst the hush of night the very air breathes cobalt blue,

Our hearts are stirred by heaven’s grand décor,

O stars divine, we glorify your scope and vast purview,

May your flame blessed and sanctified burn on forevermore!

 

All mortal creatures writhe on earth in transience and shame,

Our lives are but begun and then are through,

We pass along to nowhere bound, our eyes fixed on the flame,

And say, “We who are about to die salute you!”





Friday, March 25, 2022

The Fruiterer and the Fluterer, from "Bobby Goosey's Nonsense Verse for Kids"

 



The Fruiterer and the Fluterer

A fruiterer selling fruit

Met a fluterer tooting flute.

The fluterer tooted a tune for the fruiterer.

The fruiterer handed a prune to the tooterer.








Sunday, March 6, 2022

Translation of Poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, "На холмах Грузии лежит ночная мгла," "The hills of Georgia lie quiescent, swathed in night"

 


Aleksandr Pushkin

(1799-1837)

 

На холмах Грузии лежит ночная мгла;
Шумит Арагва предо мною.
Мне грустно и легко; печаль моя светла;
Печаль моя полна тобою,
Тобой, одной тобой… Унынья моего
Ничто не мучит, не тревожит,
И сердце вновь горит и любит — оттого,
Что не любить оно не может.

1829

 

d

 

Literal Translation

 

Upon the hills of Georgia lies the murk of night;

Before my eyes the Aragva River roars.

I feel sad and at ease; my sorrow is bright;

My sorrow is full of you,

Of you, you alone . . . Nothing torments

Nor troubles my melancholy,

And my heart burns and loves anew—because

It cannot help loving.

 

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The hills of Georgia lie quiescent, swathed in night;

Tallulah River’s rapids in the gorge below are raging.

I feel at ease with anguish; my melancholy’s bright,

Suffused with you, the anguish is engaging.

So full of you and you alone that sorrow

Seems not the least aggrieved by pain or woes,

My love flames up, will burn still on the morrow, 

For love cannot but burn when in love’s throes.                                                                                       

                                                                                            Date of translation: March, 2022

 

                                                              Tallulah Gorge in Autumn



Declamation of the poem in Russian:



Friday, March 4, 2022

ON BLURBERY Apropos of George Saunders, "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline"

 

                                          Back Cover Blurbs on Paperback, CivilWarLand



On Blurbery

A spot replete with fakery is the back cover of any book, where the blurbers hold sway, trying to say only good things, often lying through their teeth about what they really think of the book. Why lie? Because these guys are writing books themselves, and when the time comes they will need favors returned, i.e., more lying blurbs for the backs of their books.

 

Here are some of the blurb-lies—annotated by me, with rebuttals—on the back cover of the paperback of the book by George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (first published in 1996):

 

“George Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice” …Tobias Wolff

 

Well, Saunders went on to become a writer of arresting brilliance; he probably is the best living American short story writer today. But back when he published CivilWarLand he still had a long way to go. His “sure sense of his material” was far from sure. The narratives of this book are often lacking in a sense of structure and the writing is ragged.

 

Saunders himself, in looking back years later (2012), at this, his first book, is aware of its faults. In his afterword to the paperback he tries to be kind to his former self. But interesting phrases slip into his afterword, ways of characterizing these stories: among others, “abrupt and telegraphic, truncated and halting.” He even suggests, at one point, obliquely, that the book is “a failed attempt.” As for the voice, yes, its resources are already apparently inexhaustible, and the Saunders voice will grow in power and assurance with each new book he writes.

 

“Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.” …Jonathan Franzen

 

See the comment about the raggedness of narrative above. It took Saunders—as he admits in the afterword—“seven long years” to write the stories of this book, stories that often have the same setting and the same identical narrator. Readers in reviews on Amazon often complain that he writes the same story over and over. In reading this collection one has no sense of effortlessness whatsoever. On the contrary. The narratives are belabored.

 

“An astonishingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.” …Thomas Pynchon

 

The voice may be astonishing, but it is not yet tuned. That will come later. That “just the kinds of stories we need to get us etc., etc.” sounds like total fakery. In other words, BS. There is a certain kind of comic writer whose comedy, even when dark, uplifts us by the force of its art. Flannery O’Connor is such a writer. So is Raymond Carver, and so is Isaac Babel. In his afterword Saunders mentions each of these writers as models in great writing. He also notes that you must give up on imitating the greats and find your own unique way. I think that in the year 2020, George Saunders has found his way and has become that kind of writer. But not with this, his first book, far from it. You want to experience a bad dream, read CivilWarLand all the way through, cover to cover.

[Excerpted from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]