Translation of Poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, Александр Пушкин, "Элегия," "An Elegy"

 

Александр Пушкин

 

Элегия

Безумных лет угасшее веселье
Мне тяжело, как смутное похмелье.
Но, как вино — печаль минувших дней
В моей душе чем старе, тем сильней.
Мой путь уныл. Сулит мне труд и горе
Грядущего волнуемое море.

Но не хочу, о други, умирать;
Я жить хочу, чтоб мыслить и страдать;
И ведаю, мне будут наслажденья
Меж горестей, забот и треволненья:
Порой опять гармонией упьюсь,
Над вымыслом слезами обольюсь,
И может быть — на мой закат печальный
Блеснет любовь улыбкою прощальной.

1830 г.

 

Literal Translation

Elegy

 

The burnt-out gaiety of [my] crazy years

Oppresses me, like some dull hangover.

But, like wine, the sadness of bygone days

Grows more potent in my soul as it ages.

Woeful is my path. The raging sea of the future

Foretokens toil and grief.

 

But, O friends, I do not wish to die;

I want to live on, in order to think and suffer [work];

I know that I shall find pleasures

Amidst the sorrows, cares and tribulations.

Sometimes once more I’ll feel the raptures of harmony,

I’ll shed tears over the creative fancies of my mind,

And perhaps, as my sad sunset wanes,

Love will flash at me its parting smile.

 

d

 

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

 An Elegy

 

My madcap years, one burnt-out useless spree,

Their crapulence weighs heavy-hard on me.  

But like fine wine the miseries of the past,

While sorrowful, grow yearly more steadfast.

Thorns strew my path. A sea of roiling rage

Foretokens future toil and grief with age.

 

But no, my friends, I have no wish to die;

I want to live, to suffer, think and sigh.

I know that joys are yet to be my lot,

Amidst the cares with tribulations fraught.

Once more I’ll bask in rhapsodies of art,

Pure tears I’ll shed when fancy grips the heart.

Mayhap, through waning sunset of my day,

True love will flash a parting smile this way.

 

d

 

Translator’s Note

It strikes one as odd that Pushkin, at age thirty, writes an elegy about himself—that he, in other words, seems already to anticipate his imminent death. But, after all, he lived only seven more years, dying in a duel in 1837. Here he bemoans the profligacy of his youth, the drinking, wenching and playing of cards. He anticipates his future as full of toil and grief, but the toil part will bring him his greatest satisfactions. He can bask in artistic creativity and shed pure tears at his own imaginative powers: “Над вымыслом слезами обольюсь (I’ll shed tears over the creative fancies of my mind).”

This short lyric poem contains several of Pushkin’s most memorable lines, familiar to practically any Russian. One is that just quoted in the previous paragraph. Or take the first two lines of the second stanza:

Но не хочу, о други, умирать;
Я жить хочу, чтоб мыслить и страдать;

(But I don’t wish, O friends, to die;

I want to live, to think and suffer;)

 

For today’s reader that “о други (O friends)” has an almost comic touch. The modern plural for friend is друзья, not други, and in reading that “O droogie,” I’m always reminded of Little Alex in Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, speaking of his fellow gang members, whom he calls his “droogies.”

 

As frequently occurs in Pushkin’s verse, the meanings of words as he wrote them in the early 19^th century may differ somewhat from their present meaning. The most common meaning of the word страдать in today’s Russian is “to suffer.” As we learn in Vladimir Dal’s monumental 4-volume dictionary of Russian—published in the mid-19^th century—the word already had the modern connotation then.

 

But страдать had/has a secondary meaning: “to work, toil, labor,” especially in reference to peasant labor in the fields to bring in the harvest. Although the idea of suffering is present in that Pushkin line, he also asserts here that he wanted to live on in order to use his creative talents, to think and work. The idea is reinforced two lines later when he mentions basking in the rhapsodies of art and shedding tears over the power of his own creative imagination.