Translation of Poem by Aleksandr Blok, Александр Блок, "Есть игра: осторожно войти," THE STALKING EYE

                                         

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Александр Блок

(1880-1921)

 

Есть игра: осторожно войти,
Чтоб вниманье людей усыпить;
И глазами добычу найти;
И за ней незаметно следить.

Как бы ни был нечуток и груб
Человек, за которым следят, —
Он почувствует пристальный взгляд
Хоть в углах еле дрогнувших губ.

А другой — точно сразу поймет:
Вздрогнут плечи, рука у него;
Обернется — и нет ничего;
Между тем — беспокойство растет.

Тем и страшен невидимый взгляд,
Что его невозможно поймать;
Чуешь ты, но не можешь понять,
Чьи глаза за тобою следят.

Не корысть, не влюбленность, не месть;
Так — игра, как игра у детей:
И в собрании каждом людей
Эти тайные сыщики есть.

Ты и сам иногда не поймешь,
Отчего так бывает порой,
Что собою ты к людям придешь,
А уйдешь от людей — не собой.

Есть дурной и хороший есть глаз,
Только лучше б ничей не следил:
Слишком много есть в каждом из нас
Неизвестных, играющих сил…

О, тоска! Через тысячу лет
Мы не сможем измерить души:
Мы услышим полет всех планет,
Громовые раскаты в тиши…

А пока — в неизвестном живем
И не ведаем сил мы своих,
И, как дети, играя с огнем,
Обжигаем себя и других…

December 18, 1913

 

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Literal Translation

 

There’s this game: to enter circumspectly,

So as to lull people’s attention to sleep;

And find your prey with your eyes,

And begin unperceived to stalk him/her.

 

No matter how insensitive and coarse

The person whom you are stalking,

He’ll feel that intense stare,

Even if only in the corners of his barely trembling lips.

 

And some other one will seem to understand at once:

His shoulders, or a hand will twitch;

He will turn around [to look]; and there’s nothing there;

But all the same his unease will grow.

 

What makes an invisible gaze so frightening

Is the impossibility of grasping it;

You sense but cannot comprehend

Whose eyes are stalking you.

 

It’s not a matter of selfishness, of being in love, of vengeance;

It’s something that’s “just because,” a game, like children playing,

And in any gathering of people,

These secret private eyes are to be found.

 

Sometimes you yourself cannot grasp

Why it is that it sometimes happens

That you arrive as yourself where people are gathered

And depart from that gathering as someone else.

 

There are both evil eyes and good eyes,

Only it would be best if no one’s eyes stalked [others];

In each of us there are too many

Unknown and playful forces…

 

O, grievous thought! In a thousand years

We still will not be able to measure a soul;

We’ll hear the flight of all the planets,

The thunderclaps sounding in silence.

 

And meanwhile we live on in the unknown,

And we cannot account for our powers,

And, like children, we go on playing with fire,

Burning ourselves and others…

 

                                                                                  d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Stalking Eye

 

A game: with circumspection enter,

Trying your best all awareness to block;

Lay eyes on your prey, all attention concenter,

As, unnoticed, you start your clandestine eye-stalk.

 

Be he insensitive, crude may he be—

The person you have in your sights—

He’ll all the same feel that staring intensity

On timorous lips where it clings and affrights.

 

Some other, it seems, will twig on straightaway,

His shoulders will twitch and his hand slightly shudder;

He’ll turn to look back and there nothing discover,

While deep in his soul holding unease at bay.

 

What makes an invisible gaze so alarming

Is the way you can never grasp eyes, pin them down;

That eye-stalk you sense in your innards disarming,

But whose are the eyes, are they light-blue or brown?

 

The eye-stalk concerns neither gain, love, nor vengefulness;

The stalking’s a “just because” game, child’s play.

But where humankind gathers, its brains soft and nebulous,  

Private eyes will appear, dancing gumshoe ballet.

 

You yourself are at times quite confused,

Cannot fathom how your soul is undone.

You come as yourself to where eyes are misused,

Departing a totally different someone.

 

There’s the good eye and evil eye too,

But best not engage in the eye-stalk;

Each of us has in us much that’s askew,

Forces mysterious, mischievous rot.

 

Lackaday! Though a thousand years pass,

We’ll still not be able to measure the soul;

Although we have knowledge of planets en masse,

Although we hear thunderclaps’ silent drum roll. 

 

But for now in our witlessness we must live on,

Unaware of inimical forces inside us,

Like children, with fire we play, singing songs,

Burning ourselves and the others beside us . . .