Николай Гумилев
(1886-1921)
Мужик
В чащах, в болотах огромных,
У оловянной реки,
В срубах мохнатых и темных
Странные есть мужики.
Выйдет такой в бездорожье,
Где разбежался ковыль,
Слушает крики Стрибожьи,
Чуя старинную быль.
С остановившимся взглядом
Здесь проходил печенег…
Сыростью пахнет и гадом
Возле мелеющих рек.
Вот уже он и с котомкой,
Путь оглашая лесной
Песней протяжной, негромкой,
Но озорной, озорной.
Путь этот — светы и мраки,
Посвист разбойный в полях,
Ссоры, кровавые драки
В страшных, как сны, кабаках.
В гордую нашу столицу
Входит он — Боже, спаси!-
Обворожает царицу
Необозримой Руси
Взглядом, улыбкою детской,
Речью такой озорной,-
И на груди молодецкой
Крест просиял золотой.
Как не погнулись — о горе!-
Как не покинули мест
Крест на Казанском соборе
И на Исакии крест?
Над потрясенной столицей
Выстрелы, крики, набат,
Город ощерился львицей,
Обороняющей львят.
«Что ж, православные, жгите
Труп мой на темном мосту,
Пепел по ветру пустите…
Кто защитит сироту?
В диком краю и убогом
Много таких мужиков.
Слышен но вашим дорогам
Радостный гул их шагов».
1916
d
Literal Translation
The Muzhik
In thickets, in
enormous swamps,
By a river the
color of tin,
In
moss-bedecked dark hovels
Live strange Russian
peasants.
Such a one stands
in the trackless wastelands,
Where the
feathergrass has run rampant;
He listens to
the cries of [the pagan god] Stribog,
Sensing the
legendary times of old.
His gaze fixed
ahead of him,
The Pecheneg
tribesman once passed this way . . .
The smell of
dampness and reptiles
Hangs over
rivers growing ever more shallow.
Now he has a
knapsack slung over his shoulder,
And his song
rings out over the forest pathway,
A song not
loud, long drawn out,
But malign and
roguish, roguish.
His path is
both light and sheer darkness,
With a
highwayman’s whistle over the fields,
With quarrels,
bloody brawling
In hideous,
nightmarish lowlife taverns.
He makes his
way—Lord preserve us!—
Into our proud
capital city,
He bewitches
the wife of the Tsar
Of boundless Rus’.
With the gaze
of his eyes and his childlike smile,
With that
roguish way he has of speaking,
And on his
gallant breast
There glimmers
a golden cross.
The cross on
Kazan Cathedral—o woe!—
The cross on
St. Isaac’s as well,
How could they
not bend crooked in place,
How could they
still stand there tall?
All over the
astonished capital
The tocsin
sounds, gunshots, shrieks,
The city bares
its teeth
Like a lioness
protecting her young.
“Well then, you
Orthodox Christians,
You can burn my
corpse on a dark bridge,
Let my ashes
fly to the winds . . .
Who will stand
up for a poor orphan?
“In our wild
and squalid land
Many are the
peasants like me.
All over your
roads can be heard
The joyous
tramp of their footsteps.”
d
Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
The Muzhik
In thickets, in
bogs of enormity,
By rivers the
color of tin,
In
moss-bedecked hovels’ deformity,
Dwell peasants
bizarre with their kin.
Such a one stands
in the wilderness
Where
feathergrass spreads neath dark skies,
Sensing times
olden and villainous,
Listening to
pagan, Stribogian cries.
Gaze firmly
fixed on the distance,
The Pecheneg
passed through these lands,
Where dry
rivers eke out subsistence,
As fetid smells
soak through the sands.
And now he’s
tramped off with a knapsack,
His song tells
of gore and rapine,
Long drawn out
this song made of gimcrack,
But roguish and
O so malign.
His path
through the woods is dark/light,
With the sound
of a highwayman’s whistle;
He joins in a
bloody good fight
At a hideous
roadhouse abysmal.
He finally
arrives—Lord help us, we pray!—
In our capital
city resplendent,
All too soon
has vast Rus in his sway,
O’er the wife
of the Tsar he’s ascendant,
Beguiling with
gaze of his eyes,
With smiles, with
words that transfix,
Seeking his
farce to legitimize
By wearing a
huge crucifix.
The cross on
Kazan, on St. Isaac’s,
How could they
not bend askew?
How could they cope
with demoniacs,
How consternation
eschew?
The tocsin, the
gunshots and shrieks,
Petersburg stunned
and dumbfounded,
Hackles raised,
baring sharp teeth,
Like a tigress
with her cubs surrounded.
“Orthodox
Christians, my corpse
You can burn on
a bridge, have your way;
Watch ashes
blow off in the wind . . .
Poor waif of an
orphan at bay!
“Holy Rus is
awash in malaise,
Muzhiks just like
me vast in numbers
March in jubilant
tramping these days,
Rousing
philistines from slumbers.”
