Translation of Poem by Nikolai Gumilyov, Николай Гумилев, "Мужик," THE MUZHIK

 

Николай Гумилев

(1886-1921)

 

Мужик

 

В чащах, в болотах огромных,

У оловянной реки,

В срубах мохнатых и темных

Странные есть мужики.

 

Выйдет такой в бездорожье,

Где разбежался ковыль,

Слушает крики Стрибожьи,

Чуя старинную быль.

 

С остановившимся взглядом

Здесь проходил печенег…

Сыростью пахнет и гадом

Возле мелеющих рек.

 

Вот уже он и с котомкой,

Путь оглашая лесной

Песней протяжной, негромкой,

Но озорной, озорной.

 

Путь этот — светы и мраки,

Посвист разбойный в полях,

Ссоры, кровавые драки

В страшных, как сны, кабаках.

 

В гордую нашу столицу

Входит он — Боже, спаси!-

Обворожает царицу

Необозримой Руси

 

Взглядом, улыбкою детской,

Речью такой озорной,-

И на груди молодецкой

Крест просиял золотой.

 

Как не погнулись — о горе!-

Как не покинули мест

Крест на Казанском соборе

И на Исакии крест?

 

Над потрясенной столицей

Выстрелы, крики, набат,

Город ощерился львицей,

Обороняющей львят.

 

«Что ж, православные, жгите

Труп мой на темном мосту,

Пепел по ветру пустите…

Кто защитит сироту?

 

В диком краю и убогом

Много таких мужиков.

Слышен но вашим дорогам

Радостный гул их шагов».

 1916

 

d

 

Literal Translation

 

The Muzhik

In thickets, in enormous swamps,

By a river the color of tin,

In moss-bedecked dark hovels

Live strange Russian peasants.

 

Such a one stands in the trackless wastelands,

Where the feathergrass has run rampant;

He listens to the cries of [the pagan god] Stribog,

Sensing the legendary times of old.

 

His gaze fixed ahead of him,

The Pecheneg tribesman once passed this way . . .

The smell of dampness and reptiles

Hangs over rivers growing ever more shallow.

 

Now he has a knapsack slung over his shoulder,

And his song rings out over the forest pathway,

A song not loud, long drawn out,

But malign and roguish, roguish.

 

His path is both light and sheer darkness,

With a highwayman’s whistle over the fields,

With quarrels, bloody brawling

In hideous, nightmarish lowlife taverns.

 

He makes his way—Lord preserve us!—

Into our proud capital city,

He bewitches the wife of the Tsar

Of boundless Rus’.

 

With the gaze of his eyes and his childlike smile,

With that roguish way he has of speaking,

And on his gallant breast

There glimmers a golden cross.

 

The cross on Kazan Cathedral—o woe!—

The cross on St. Isaac’s as well,

How could they not bend crooked in place,

How could they still stand there tall?

 

All over the astonished capital

The tocsin sounds, gunshots, shrieks,

The city bares its teeth

Like a lioness protecting her young.

 

“Well then, you Orthodox Christians,

You can burn my corpse on a dark bridge,

Let my ashes fly to the winds . . .

Who will stand up for a poor orphan?

 

“In our wild and squalid land

Many are the peasants like me.

All over your roads can be heard

The joyous tramp of their footsteps.”

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Muzhik

 

In thickets, in bogs of enormity,

By rivers the color of tin,

In moss-bedecked hovels’ deformity,

Dwell peasants bizarre with their kin.

 

Such a one stands in the wilderness

Where feathergrass spreads neath dark skies,  

Sensing times olden and villainous,

Listening to pagan, Stribogian cries.

 

Gaze firmly fixed on the distance,

The Pecheneg passed through these lands,

Where dry rivers eke out subsistence,

As fetid smells soak through the sands. 

 

And now he’s tramped off with a knapsack,

His song tells of gore and rapine,

Long drawn out this song made of gimcrack,

But roguish and O so malign.

 

His path through the woods is dark/light,

With the sound of a highwayman’s whistle;

He joins in a bloody good fight

At a hideous roadhouse abysmal. 

 

He finally arrives—Lord help us, we pray!—

In our capital city resplendent,

All too soon has vast Rus in his sway,

O’er the wife of the Tsar he’s ascendant,

 

Beguiling with gaze of his eyes,

With smiles, with words that transfix,

Seeking his farce to legitimize 

By wearing a huge crucifix.

 

The cross on Kazan, on St. Isaac’s,

How could they not bend askew?

How could they cope with demoniacs,

How consternation eschew?

 

The tocsin, the gunshots and shrieks,

Petersburg stunned and dumbfounded,

Hackles raised, baring sharp teeth,

Like a tigress with her cubs surrounded.

 

“Orthodox Christians, my corpse

You can burn on a bridge, have your way;

Watch ashes blow off in the wind . . .

Poor waif of an orphan at bay!

 

“Holy Rus is awash in malaise, 

Muzhiks just like me vast in numbers  

March in jubilant tramping these days,

Rousing philistines from slumbers.”