Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)
Ласточки
Природы праздный соглядатай,
Люблю, забывши все кругом,
Следить за ласточкой стрельчатой
Над вечереющим прудом.
Вот понеслась и зачертила -
И страшно, чтобы гладь стекла
Стихией чуждой не схватила
Молниевидного крыла.
И снова то же дерзновенье
И та же темная струя,-
Не таково ли вдохновенье
И человеческого я?
Не так ли я, сосуд скудельный,
Дерзаю на запретный путь,
Стихии чуждой, запредельной,
Стремясь хоть каплю зачерпнуть?
1884
Literal Translation
Swallows
Nature’s idle spy,
I [the poet] love, forgetting all around me,
To follow the arrow-like [movements of a] swallow
Over a pond as twilight approaches.
There it went rushing, and sketched out its pattern,
And you fear that the smooth glassy surface,
With its elemental force, might seize
The lightning zig-zag of the wing.
Then once again comes the same daring [swoop]
And the same dark spurt [of flight].
Does not inspiration work like that
Within the human soul?
Do not I, a clay vessel, in the same way
Dare to venture onto a forbidden path,
With its elemental force, beyond the pale,
Striving to scoop up at least one small drop?
d
Literary Translation by Vladimir Nabokov
The Swallow
When prying idly into Nature
I am particularly fond
Of watching the arrow of a swallow
Over the sunset of a pond.
See—there it goes, and skims, and glances:
The alien element, I fear,
Roused from its glassy sleep might capture
Black lightning quivering so near.
There—once again that fearless shadow
Over a frowning ripple ran.
Have we not here the living image
Of active poetry in man—
Of something leading me, banned mortal,
To venture where I dare not stop—
Striving to scoop from a forbidden
Mysterious element one drop?
Date of translation: 1943. From Vladimir Nabokov, Verses and
Versions (compilation published by Harcourt, Inc., 2008), p. 307
d
Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R.
Bowie
Swallows
I love to play the idle spy,
And watch, oblivious to all,
A swoop-flit swallow on the fly,
O’er pond as evening nears nightfall.
Look there, see how she darts and skims
Along the lip of glazed-smooth mere;
I’m worried lest a ripple’s whims
Snatch up her blitzwing on the veer.
But she dares more exuberation,
Pursues her games of dark spurt-swoop;
Is this not much like lucubration,
Inspired poets’ loop-de-loop?
Is this not how I soar where banned,
O’er God’s wild seas with my tin cup,
Illicit veers through barred dreamland,
In hopes one drop I can scoop up?
Date of translation: March 30, 2020
Translator’s Notes
On swallows. What sounds do swallows make? I found this on the Internet: "The swallow songs are high-pitched and liquid, composed of three sounds--a chirp, a whine, and a gurgle--which they mix and match in a variety of patterns. Both males and females sing." The marvels of the Internet also allow us to listen to the exact sounds these birds produce.
Fet makes no mention of swallows' songs in "Swallows," but another of his more popular poems, "A Wondrous Moscow Day in May," (also translated on my blog, see below), begins like this in my translation:
In the original text of "Lastochki" (last stanza, first line), the poet refers to himself as “sosud skudel’nyj,” which is a Biblical phrase, meaning “earthen vessel” or “clay vessel.” Now archaic, the phrase appears in the works of many Russian writers of the nineteenth century, in reference to the limits on man, his transient nature; it is an allusion to human weakness in the face of universal forces.
Fet makes no mention of swallows' songs in "Swallows," but another of his more popular poems, "A Wondrous Moscow Day in May," (also translated on my blog, see below), begins like this in my translation:
A wondrous Moscow day in May,
Each cross on church aglitter,
Outside the swallows roundelay,
Their gurgle-chirp and twitter.
As long as poetry has existed, writers have tried to describe the flight of swallows in metaphorical terms, but, as far as I know, nobody has ever captured the picture in perfect metaphor.
In the original text of "Lastochki" (last stanza, first line), the poet refers to himself as “sosud skudel’nyj,” which is a Biblical phrase, meaning “earthen vessel” or “clay vessel.” Now archaic, the phrase appears in the works of many Russian writers of the nineteenth century, in reference to the limits on man, his transient nature; it is an allusion to human weakness in the face of universal forces.
Fet’s first-person poet takes this “earthen vessel,” or “clay pot”—the embodiment
of his mortal self—with him when inspiration sends him off on a flight like a
swallow over a universal pond, or over the seas of God’s vast universe. He
strives to scoop up at least a meager droplet of the liquid of Ultimate
Reality, which he will then turn into immortal art—somehow infringing on territory belonging to the deities
in his illegal quest. We are reminded of Prometheus.
The best I could do with this phrase in translation was “tin cup.” After all, the poet on his quest flight needed something to do the scooping with. Also apparently stumped, in translating “sosud skudel’nyj,” Nabokov gave up on referring to any kind of vessel or container; he settled on “banned mortal,” a different paraphrase.
The best I could do with this phrase in translation was “tin cup.” After all, the poet on his quest flight needed something to do the scooping with. Also apparently stumped, in translating “sosud skudel’nyj,” Nabokov gave up on referring to any kind of vessel or container; he settled on “banned mortal,” a different paraphrase.
But then, any attempt to translate rhymed and metered poetry, while
retaining the meter and rhymes, amounts to paraphrase. When I go through the
process, I hope to come up with a good new poem in English. I don’t pretend
that my poem (translation/adaptation) is an exact, word-to-word transcription
of the original in Russian. I do hope, however, that the new poem in English captures
the gist and spirit of the original Russian poem.
In 1943, when Nabokov translated this Fet poem, “Lastochki,” he
was still trying to do the same thing I’m doing now. Later, after his struggles
with translating Pushkin’s great narrative in verse, Evgeny Onegin, he
gave up on this kind of translation altogether, stating in his usual peremptory
way that such paraphrase is illegal, an affront to the original poem and poet.
The best we can do with poetry, he said, is make a literal translation, such as
the one I have provided for “Lastochki” above. Take a look at it. It’s
not poetry, is it?
Or take a look at Nabokov’s translation of Eugene Onegin. That
may be an accurate effort, but it’s not poetry either. Of course, his
four-volume translation of Pushkin’s immortal work is magnificent, a genuine
tour de force; not for the first volume (the pony translation), but for the
remaining three, the voluminous scholarly notes and articles.
Avenue of the Baobabs, Morondava, Madagascar, Photo by Thomas Pakenham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5jPjJBypII
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