Translations: The Bestest of the Best: SIX, Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Хорошее отношение к лошадям," TREATING HORSIES NICE

 

Vladimir Mayakovsky
(1893-1930)


Хорошее отношение к лошадям 

 

Били копыта.
Пели будто:
- Гриб.
Грабь.
Гроб.
Груб.-

Ветром опита,
льдом обута,
улица скользила.
Лошадь на круп
грохнулась,
и сразу
за зевакой зевака,
штаны пришедшие Кузнецким клешить,
сгрудились,
смех зазвенел и зазвякал!
- Лошадь упала!
- Упала лошадь!-
Смеялся Кузнецкий.
Лишь один я
голос свой не вмешивал в вой ему.
Подошел
и вижу
глаза лошадиные...
Улица опрокинулась,
течет по-своему...

Подошел и вижу -
за каплищей каплища
по морде катится,
прячется в шерсти...

И какая-то общая
звериная тоска
плеща вылилась из меня
и расплылась в шелесте.
"Лошадь, не надо.
Лошадь, слушайте -
чего вы думаете, что вы их плоше?
Деточка,
все мы немножко лошади,
каждый из нас по-своему лошадь".

Может быть,
- старая -
и не нуждалась в няньке,
может быть, и мысль ей моя казалась пошла,
только
лошадь
рванулась,
встала нa ноги,
ржанула
и пошла.
Хвостом помахивала.
Рыжий ребенок.
Пришла веселая,
стала в стойло.
И все ей казалось -
она жеребенок,
и стоило жить,
и работать стоило.

1918 

                                                       Literal Translation (U.R.Bowie)
 
                                                  A Good Attitude Toward Horses (Treating Horses Well)
 
Horseshoes were pounding,
Seemed to sing:
Mushroom.
Plunder.
Coffin.
Coarse.
 
Drunk on the wind,
Shod in ice,
The street skidded.
Onto his croup
Came crashing
A horse,
And immediately,
One gaper after another,
Their trousers walking in to bell-bottom Kuznetsky [Kuznetsky most, major street in Moscow],
They came in throngs,
Their laughter rang and clattered.

“A horse has fallen;
“A horse is down,”
Laughed Kuznetsky.
I alone
Did not blend my voice into that howl of his.
I walked up
And I saw
Equine eyes…
The street tipped over,
Flowed along on its own… [street as if reflected upside down in the horse’s eyes]
 
I walked up and saw:
One huge drop, then another huge drop
Down the snout dripping,
Hiding itself in the hair…
 
And some kind of universal
Animal anguish,
Splashing, flowed out of me
And went running and rustling.
“Horse, don’t [cry].
Horse, listen [using the polite ‘you’ in addressing the animal].
Why do you think that you’re worse than them? [substandard: How come you think you’re worsen…]
Kiddo,
We’re all at least a little bit horses;
Each of us is in his own way a horse.”

Maybe
She was old
And did not need a nanny;
Maybe my very thought she took as vulgar,
Only
The horse
Lurched,
Got up on her feet,
Whinnied,
And set off.
Swishing her tail,
A red-headed kid.
Merrily she arrived,
Stood in her stall.
And all the time it seemed to her
That she was a colt,
That life was worth living,
And work was worth working.

 

 

d

                                                                 Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
                                                                                     Treating Horsies Nice
 
Hoofbeats were pounding out,
Seeming to sing:
Grip
Grab
Rude
Rip.
 
Shit-faced on wind,
Brogans in ice,
The street lost its grip
On the ground.
Down on his rump
Came crashing a horsie,
Gapers and lollygags
Gathered around,
Their trousers bell-bottomous
Sweeping the street.
Guffawers, hehawers,
Jack-assèd grin-jawers:
“What a lark!
It’s a gas!
A horse done fell down
On his ass!”
 
I was the onliest beast in the pack
Who eschewed sneeriness,
Lewd smirks and leeriness.
Strolls up, does I,
Takes a look in the eye
Of Horsiemus fallimus…
The street in that eye
Upside-down rolled awry.
 
Walked up, does I
And I seen:
Horsie-tears, big and hot,
Down the snout dribbly-drop,
Damping the horsie-hair wet…
 
And some sort of generalized
Animal anguish
Came rustling and
Splashing
From out of my
Sanguinished
Soul:
 
“Listen now, horsie,
Kiddo, don’t cry.
You’ll have your neigh
At the sky by and by.
How could you think
Your life’s badder than theirs?
Horsiekins, all of us
Have in us dorkiness;
Humanness often is worsen
Than horsiness.”
 
Could be he was old,
And in need of no nanny,
Could be that my plea
Was insulting to he.
Anyways.
That horsie
Lurched up and
Stood tall
On his leggywegs,
Whinnied out sweet
And set off down the street.
Swishing his tail, well!
Don’t he look swell!
Happily made it home,
Stood in his stall,
Forgotten the fall,
Feeling a colt again,
Crunching his oats again:
“Ain’t life a ball

In spite of it all?”

                                                                                   Translator’s Note

Written one hundred years ago, on the eve of the Soviet Era, this poem about the fallen horse in some odd way foreshadows Mayakovsky’s tragic suicide in 1930. A founder of the Futurist movement in Russian poetry, known before the Revolution for his wild antics and hooliganism, Mayakovsky accepted the new Soviet Union with alacrity, became its best spokesman. He is still known largely for his thunderous declamations of revolutionary poetry, with his macho-man stance, his condemnation of the whole lyrical tradition in Russian literature.

But somewhere beneath all the bluster there was a truly lyrical poet, a “cloud in trousers” with a sensitive soul and a love for animals. He wrote poems in which he portrayed himself as a kind of freak, an animal tormented by the crudity of humankind. His letters to his mistress, Lilya Brik, are full of his childlike adoration of animals, and he signed off with drawings of small creatures, including himself as “puppy dog.”

Despite his position as champion of the U.S.S.R., he could not have failed to notice that the workers and peasants exalted in the age of the “New Man” were no less crass and cruel, no less ignorant than they had ever been. His famous play, “The Bedbug,” makes that point clearly. Critics have surmised that the poet actually witnessed the scene on Kuznetsky Most, described in the poem, and that he took the side of the horse, as does the poet.