Translations: The Bestest of the Best, TWENTY, Vladimir Mayakovsky, "TO RUSSIA (THE OVERSEAS OSTRICH)"

                           Mayakovsky the Ostrich, with Red Army Soldiers

 Несет он яйца?

Уйти б, не кусается ль?

("Does it lay eggs? Might it not bite?")

Vladimir Mayakovsky
(1893-1930)

России

Вот иду я,
заморский страус,
в перьях строф, размеров и рифм.
Спрятать голову, глупый, стараюсь,
в оперенье звенящее врыв.
 
Я не твой, снеговая уродина.
Глубже
в перья, душа, уложись!
И иная окажется родина,
вижу —
выжжена южная жизнь.
 
Остров зноя.
В пальмы овазился.
«Эй,
дорогу!»
Выдумку мнут.
И опять
до другого оазиса
вью следы песками минут.
 
Иные жмутся —
уйти б,
не кусается ль?—
Иные изогнуты в низкую лесть.
«Мама,
а мама,
несет он яйца?»—
«Не знаю, душечка.
Должен бы несть».
 
Ржут этажия.
Улицы пялятся.
Обдают водой холода.
Весь истыканный в дымы и в пальцы,
переваливаю года.
 
Что ж, бери меня хваткой мерзкой!
Бритвой ветра перья обрей.
Пусть исчезну,
чужой и заморский,
под неистовства всех декабрей.
 
1916

                                                    Literal Translation

 

To Russia

Here I come,

an overseas ostrich,

in feathers of stanzas, meters and rhymes.

I try, stupid me, to hide my head,

by burying it in ringing plumage.

 

I’m not yours, snowy monster.

Deeper

into feathers, soul, burrow in!

And a different homeland will show up,

I see—

a scorched southern life,

 

Island of white heat.

Ovationed [neologism, mixture of “ovation” and “vase”] in palms.

‘Hey,

make way!’

They crumple my creative thought

And again

to another oasis

I weave in sands the footprints of minutes.

 

Some shrink back,

“shouldn’t we go,

doesn’t it bite?”

Others are bent down into base flattery.

“Momma,

Say, Momma,

Does it lay eggs?

I don’t know, dearie,

It should lay.”

 

The stories [of buildings] whinny with laughter.

The streets stare with popped-out eyes.

Frigidities drench me in water.

All studded [pierced, as with nails] in smokes and in fingers,

I transport years.

 

All right then! Take me in your icy-vile [neologism: mixture of “vile” and “frozen”] grasp!

With razor of wind shave off my feathers.

Let me disappear,

alien and overseas I,

beneath the fury of all the Decembers.

 

                  Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

To Russia
(The Overseas Ostrich)
 

Here I come,
in feathers of stanzas, meter and rhyme,
an overseas ostrich, in sum,
is what I’m.
Trying, do I, my poor noggin to hide,
to deep under jangling of plumage abide.
 
I’m not yours, you snow-smothered monstrosity!
Deep, burrow deep
into feathers’ loquacity,
deep, o my soul, and what do I see?
A new native land
with a dearth of ferocity,
A scorched southern beastliless
Realm of whoopee.
 
Isle of white heat,
Ovations of palms, clapping their fronds, yea!
But then, “Hey,
Make way, deadbeat!”
They crumple and stomp creativity.
And on again off am I’m,
bound for oasis, my locomotivity,  
weaving in sandiness footsteps of time.
 
Some shrink away,
seem ready for flight.
“Hadn’t we better go?
Might it not bite?”
Others kowtow and suck up to and fro.
“Momma,
Say, Momma,
does it lay eggs, poop doo?
I don’t know, smoochikins;
I’d bet that it do.”
 
Floors let out whinnies and hootikins,
Alleyways pop out their eyes into stares,
Frigidness drenches me wet with arrears,
While fingered by smokiness, bristling with cares,
I keep loading
and transporting years.
 
Go on! Grab me in your vile-ice grip!
Shave off my plumage with razor of wind.
Let me just blow away—
alien-ostriched, overseazed
scrap of scrip—
into your raving Decemberness freezed.    

 

Translator’s Note

A founder of the Futurist movement in Russian poetry, Mayakovsky was known before the Revolution for his wild antics and hooliganism. In the early days of the Soviet Era he was the most vociferous and best spokesman of the Revolution. He is still known largely for his thunderous declamations of revolutionary poetry, with his macho-man stance, and his condemnation of the whole 18^th century/19^th century lyrical tradition in Russian poetry.

But somewhere beneath all the bluster there was a truly lyrical poet, a “cloud in trousers.” 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.”

Tentatively dated 1916, “To Russia” expresses the alienation of the poet in Russia’s pre-revolutionary world. In his literary biography, Mayakovsky: A Poet in Revolution, Edward J. Brown stresses one persistent theme: “the loneliness of the poet among philistines.” As for the image of the ostrich, Brown writes that “Mayakovsky’s animals are all alter egos of the poet himself, and each one expresses some aspect of his own alienation.”

Using near-rhymes and neologisms typical of his style, in “To Russia” the poet portrays himself as a large flightless bird wreathed in southern plumage, alien to the frigidity and snows of Northern Russia, while simultaneously alien to petty bourgeois life. In what seems the manifestation almost of a persecution complex, the poor ostrich tries desperately to escape the vulgarities of the quotidian: hiding his head in his plumage, seeking out a more amenable desert homeland.

But there is no escape, and the persecuted bird—whose poet-feathers consist of stanzas, meter and rhyme—must trudge on, enduring the abuse. At one point the imagery suggests that of a turkey or chicken, being prepared for roasting; at another point the ostrich appears to be in a zoo, tormented by the alien gaze of the zoogoers. The end of the poem suggests a kind of surrender: “let me just blow away;” literally, “let me disappear.” The ostrich is roasted and ready to be gobbled up by the frenzies of frigid Decembers.

In embracing wholeheartedly the revolution of the workers and peasants, Mayakovsky may have assumed that, finally, he could make an accommodation with the accepted norms of the common man—who was now the New Soviet Man. He produced propaganda for the revolutionary cause, ditties and poster art that always bore the mark of his unique creative impulses. He went out among the people; his poetry readings were vastly popular. But even amidst the people he was still, in many ways, that oddball and persecuted ostrich, penetrated by alien eyes. And the kind of revolutionary poetry that Mayakovsky wrote--modernist poetry full of “difficult” imagery--сould never be any more amenable to ignorant Soviet workers and peasants than it was to the unversed bourgeoisie of Tsarist Russia.

[Note by U.R. Bowie: I am re-posting on my blog what I consider the best of my translations of Russian poetry into English.]