Translation of Poem by NIKOLAI GUMILYOV, "ME AND YOU" "Я и Вы,"

Gumilyov Portrait by F.A. Malyavin

Nikolai Gumilyov

(1886-1921)

Я и Вы

Да, я знаю, я вам не пара,
Я пришел из иной страны,
И мне нравится не гитара,
А дикарский напев зурны.

Не по залам и по салонам
Темным платьям и пиджакам —
Я читаю стихи драконам,
Водопадам и облакам.

Я люблю — как араб в пустыне
Припадает к воде и пьет,
А не рыцарем на картине,
Что на звезды смотрит и ждет.

И умру я не на постели,
При нотариусе и враче,
А в какой-нибудь дикой щели,
Утонувшей в густом плюще,

Чтоб войти не во всем открытый,
Протестантский, прибранный рай,
А туда, где разбойник, мытарь
И блудница крикнут: вставай!

July, 1917

Literal Translation

                              I and You

Yes, I know you and I are not compatible, 

I come from a different country,

And I like not the guitar,

But the savage tune of a zurna [folk instrument like clarinet].

I don’t hang around drawing rooms and salons,

Reading poetry to dark gowns and suit jackets;

I read my verse to dragons,

Waterfalls and clouds.

I love when an Arab in the desert

Falls down to the water and drinks,

And not when a knight in a painting

Looks at the stars and waits.

And I’ll die not in bed,

With a notary and a doctor in attendance,

But in some wild ditch

That’s drowning in thick ivy,

So as to go not into some broad

Protestant, well-tidied paradise,

But to a place where the brigand, the tax man [publican],

And the harlot will cry: Get up!

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

Me and You

(And the Didgeridoo)

Yes, I know, I’m not for you,

I come from a different land,

I prefer the didgeridoo,

For guitar twangs are far too bland.

I don’t hang with the lit-set crowd,

Where fops in weird outfits spout hoity-toit verse,

I read my poems to a passing cloud,

With dragons and waterfalls I converse.

I love watching an Arab drink,

When he proffers his lips to a desert oasis;

Some paladin painted in blues and rose-pink,

And ogling the starlight, is louche and mendacious.  

I’ll croak when the time comes with boots on my feet,

No notary public or doc by my side,

In an ivy-splashed ditch on a ne’er-do-well street,  

And I’ll thank the Lord God for the wild blissful ride,

Then I’ll float off to dwell not in Protestant bliss,

Not to philistine-friendly, well-ordered Cloud Nine,

But to realms where the brigands and prostitutes hiss:

“Get up, dead poet; stand tall and shine!”

May 11, 2019

                                                                 
                                                                 Translator's Note

Gumilyov wrote this poem in July, 1917. Four years later, in August, 1921, he died with his boots on, shot by a Bolshevik firing squad, after he was implicated with several others in a (what was probably nonexistent) conspiracy to overthrow the Communists and bring back the Romanov Dynasty.

                                                     



 Marc Chagall, "Window," 1924

Jeremy Donovan, Aboriginal Artist, Plays the Didgeridoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g592I-p-dc

Masha Matvejchuk declaims "Я и Вы"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xJ_TnAUnk