Vladislav Khodasevich
(1886-1939)
Весенний
лепет не разнежит
Сурово стиснутых стихов.
Я полюбил железный скрежет
Какофонических миров.
В зиянии
разверстых гласных
Дышу легко и вольно я.
Мне чудится в толпе согласных —
Льдин взгроможденных толчея.
Мне мил
— из оловянной тучи
Удар изломанной стрелы,
Люблю певучий и визгучий
Лязг электрической пилы.
И в этой
жизни мне дороже
Всех гармонических красот —
Дрожь, побежавшая по коже,
Иль ужаса холодный пот,
Иль сон,
где некогда единый,-
Взрываясь, разлетаюсь я,
Как грязь, разбрызганная шиной
По чуждым сферам бытия.
March
24-27, 1923
Saarow
Literal Translation
The babble of Spring will not make
tender
One’s severely clenched verses.
I’ve come to love the iron-like grinding
Of cacophonous worlds.
In the gaping of yawning-wide
vowels
I breathe lightly and freely.
In crowds of consonants I sense
The crush of piled-up blocks of ice.
It’s dear to me when, out of a tin
cloud
Comes the blow [lightning strike] of a broken arrow,
I love the melodious and squealing
Whine of an electric saw.
And in this life more dear to me
Then all the harmonious beauties
Is the tremor that runs across my skin,
Or the cold sweat of horror,
Or a dream, in which I, once
whole,
Have exploded and fly asunder in bits,
Like mud spattered by a tire
Across the alien spheres of existence.
One’s severely clenched verses.
I’ve come to love the iron-like grinding
Of cacophonous worlds.
I breathe lightly and freely.
In crowds of consonants I sense
The crush of piled-up blocks of ice.
Comes the blow [lightning strike] of a broken arrow,
I love the melodious and squealing
Whine of an electric saw.
Then all the harmonious beauties
Is the tremor that runs across my skin,
Or the cold sweat of horror,
Have exploded and fly asunder in bits,
Like mud spattered by a tire
Across the alien spheres of existence.
Literary Translation/Adaptation
by U.R. Bowie
If verses’ teeth are tightly
clenched
Spring babbles won’t render them tender.
Steely-rasped grating is lovely, tight-wrenched
When worlds in Cacophonous show off their splendor.
If vowels with their mouths opened
wide are agape
I suspirate lightly and feel at my ease.
When masses of consonants grimace and scrape,
I see ice-floes in April that abrogate freeze.
How precious to me when a tin-tinctured
cloud
Sends down booms and a frazzle of lightning;
I love the whines when, travailed but unbowed,
A buzz saw in pain goes on fighting.
And more dear, more entrancing than
peace on this earth,
Than all of bright harmony’s blooms
Is the tremor of gooseflesh so empty of mirth,
Or the cold sweat when Hideous looms,
Or that dream in which I, once an integral
whole,
Blow to pieces and fly off asunder,
Like mud-spattered bits from a passing tire’s roll,
That blast into Nescience and fadeaway wonder.
Spring babbles won’t render them tender.
Steely-rasped grating is lovely, tight-wrenched
When worlds in Cacophonous show off their splendor.
I suspirate lightly and feel at my ease.
When masses of consonants grimace and scrape,
I see ice-floes in April that abrogate freeze.
Sends down booms and a frazzle of lightning;
I love the whines when, travailed but unbowed,
A buzz saw in pain goes on fighting.
Than all of bright harmony’s blooms
Is the tremor of gooseflesh so empty of mirth,
Or the cold sweat when Hideous looms,
Blow to pieces and fly off asunder,
Like mud-spattered bits from a passing tire’s roll,
That blast into Nescience and fadeaway wonder.
Ice-Floes on Ob River
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