Translations: THE BESTEST OF THE BEST: Eleven, Ivan Bunin, "Настанет день — исчезну я," THE DAY WILL COME

                                                        Image by Jorg Hempel: Tortoiseshell

[Note: I am reposting the very best of my translations of Russian poetry, URB]

Ivan Bunin

(1870-1953)

 

Настанет день — исчезну я,

А в этой комнате пустой

Все то же будет: стол, скамья

Да образ, древний и простой.

 

И так же будет залетать

Цветная бабочка в шелку —

Порхать, шуршать и трепетать

По голубому потолку.

 

И так же будет неба дно

Смотреть в открытое окно

И море ровной синевой

Манить в простор пустынный свой.

 

                                                     August 10, 1916

 

f

 

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Upon its first publication the poem had a title: “Без меня (Without Me).” In his Speak, Memory (p. 128), Vladimir Nabokov mentions “Bunin’s impeccable evocation of what is certainly a Tortoiseshell.” Nabokov translates the second stanza literally as follows:

And there will fly into the room
A colored butterfly in silk
To flutter, rustle and pit-pat
On the blue ceiling . . .

 

LITERAL TRANSLATION
(by U.R. Bowie)
 
The day will come; I will disappear,
And in this empty room
Everything will be the same: the table, bench,
The icon, ancient and stark.
 
And in just the same way will fly in
That colored butterfly in silk,
To flit, to rustle, to pitter-pat
Against the light-blue ceiling.
 
And in just the same way will the bottom of the sky
Gaze into the open window,
And the steady blue of the sea
Will beckon into its empty expanse.

 

d
 
                                                  Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

The day will come; I’ll disappear,
While in this selfsame empty room,
That table, bench, icon austere
The same contours of space consume.
 
And just as now will flutter in
That silken butterfly serene,
To rustle, palpitate and ding
Against the ceiling’s bluish-green.
 
And the sky’s horizon, cerulean glow
Will peer in, gaze through this window,
While the steady unruffled blue of the sea
Beckons toward emptiness: “Come. Follow me.”