Translation of Poem by Aleksandr Blok, "Благовещение," ANNUNZIAZIONE

                                                                   Leonardo da Vinci

                                                    Perugia Griffin Clawing at Calf

                                                               Giannicola di Paolo

Aleksandr Blok

(1880-1921)

 

Благовещение

 

С детских лет — видения и грезы,
Умбрии ласкающая мгла.
На оградах вспыхивают розы,
Тонкие поют колокола.

 

Слишком резвы милые подруги,
Слишком дерзок их открытый взор.
Лишь она одна в предвечном круге
Ткет и ткет свой шелковый узор.

 

Робкие томят ее надежды,
Грезятся несбыточные сны.
И внезапно — красные одежды
Дрогнули на золоте стены.

 

Всем лицом склонилась над шелками,
Но везде — сквозь золото ресниц —
Вихрь ли с многоцветными крылами,
Или ангел, распростертый ниц…

Темноликий ангел с дерзкой ветвью
Молвит: «Здравствуй! Ты полна красы!»
И она дрожит пред страстной вестью,
С плеч упали тяжких две косы…

 

Он поет и шепчет — ближе, ближе,
Уж над ней — шумящих крыл шатер…
И она без сил склоняет ниже
Потемневший, помутневший взор…

Трепеща, не верит: «Я ли, я ли?»
И рукою закрывает грудь…
Но чернеют пламенные дали —
Не уйти, не встать и не вздохнуть…

 

И тогда — незнаемою болью
Озарился светлый круг лица…
А над ними — символ своеволья —
Перуджийский гриф когтит тельца.

 

Лишь художник, занавесью скрытый, —
Он провидит страстной муки крест
И твердит: «Profani, procul ite,
Hic amoris locus sacer est».

 

Май — июнь 1909
Perugia — Spoleto

 

d

Literal Translation

 

Annunciation (The Good News)

From her childhood years—visions and reveries,

The caressing haze of Umbria.

Along the fences sparks of roses are flashing,

The faint dinning of bells.

 

Too sportive were the dear girls around her,

Too bold were their open gazes.

Only she alone in that sempiternal circle

Went on weaving, weaving at her silken pattern.

She languished in timid hopes

Dreaming unrealizable dreams.

And suddenly—red vestments

Were quivering on the gold of the walls.

 

She bent down the whole of her face over the silks,

But everywhere—through the gold of her eyelashes—

Was it a vortex with multicolored wings,

Or an angel lying prostrate?

 

A dark-visaged angel with his insolent twig

Exclaimed: “Greetings! Thou art full of loveliness!”
And she trembled at the news full of passion,

From her shoulders two heavy braids fell.

 

He sang and whispered, closer, come closer,

Now above her there was a canopy of rustling wings . . .

And weakly she inclined still more

Her darkened clouded gaze . . .

 

Quavering, she cannot believe it: “Me, is it me?”

And covers her breast with a hand . . .

But the fiery distant vistas are blackening—

She cannot leave, can’t get up, cannot sigh . . .

 

And then—with a pain not recognized,

The bright oval of her face lit up . . .

And above them—symbol of willfulness—

Was the Perugian gryphon clawing at a calf.

 

Only the artist, hidden by a curtain—

He foresees the cross of passionate torment

And repeats the words: “Profani, procul ite,

Hic amoris locus sacer est.”

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Annunziazione

 

Since childhood years the visions, vague effulgence

Caressing misty Umbria’s breezeways;

Roses scintillate along the fencing,

And dinning bells sound faintly through the haze.

The girls, dear playmates all too sportive were,

Audacious were their eyes, sans abnegations;

She alone amidst that girlish blur

Did needlework in silken tessellations.

 

All languid with her timid wants, all quavers, 

Her dreams of things that had no hope to be.   
Then all at once a reddish vestment wavers

On walls by gilded cloth of her settee. 

 

She bends down low her face above silk stitching,

But through the golden lashes of her eyes

An iridescent whirl of wings bewitching:

An angel at her feet prostrated lies.

 

A brazen twig that dark-faced angel waving:

“Hail, favored one, the Lord above is with thee!”

 She trembles at the news impassioned, scathing, 

Two marriage braids most heavily fall free.

He sings and whispers, “Closer now, come closer,”

A canopy of rustling wings above her head . . .

Devoid of strength, she bends her gaze still lower,

Her eyes gone dark and clouded, hands dispread.

 

A-tremor, disbelieving: “Me? Not me, oh gracious.”

Trembling palm upon her breast she places . . .

Distant blazing vistas darken, growing nigh,

She can’t get up, withdraw, or even sigh.

Then pain assails her, sharp, without surceaseance,

Her facial features glow, her radiant eyes . . .
Above this scene, symbolic of sheer puissance,

Perugia’s gryphon claws at calf that helpless lies.

 

Lone witness, the artist, by arras hid away,

Foresees the Passion’s cross, the torment blessed,

And utters, “Profani, procul ite,

Hic amoris locus sacer est.”

 ["Begone, ye profane ones, for here is the locus of a sacred love."]

                                                                                  d

                                                                     Translator’s Note

 

A lot of secondary sources exist, literary interpretations, some of them available online.  

Part of Blok’s cycle of Italian Poems (1909), this one uses for its title the Russian word for the Annunciation, Благовещение, literally “The Good News,” but concentrates on Italian Renaissance paintings depicting the Biblical event—not on the many Russian or Eastern Orthodox icons of the Annunciation. That’s why I have chosen the Italian title for my translation. Blok’s poem is set in the city of Perugia, capital city of the province of Umbria.

 

Perhaps the most famous depiction of the Annunziazione is by Leonard da Vinci. Annotations to Russian publications of Blok’s poem, however, inform us that it was written under the influence of a fresco of the Annunciation by Giannicola di Paolo (1460-1544), which Blok viewed in the cathedral of Perugia. This painting, which dates to the mid 1490s, is now held in London. Here is a description of it from the catalog of the National Gallery:

“The scene shows the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she would conceive a son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost. Gabriel holds a lily, a traditional symbol of the Virgin’s purity, and points upwards to the golden rays which are directed towards Mary. These rays originally emanated from a dove, a symbol of the Holy Ghost, which is no longer visible as the picture was cut down before it entered the National Gallery’s collection.”

The di Paolo painting, obviously, lacks much of the specific imagery featured in the Blok poem. Emblematic of the city of Perugia, the gryphon clawing at a calf, is not in the painting, nor is the artist depicted hidden behind a curtain. Italian Renaissance painters often painted themselves into a corner of their painting, as implied witnesses, or even participants in the action. The “distant fiery vistas” of the seventh stanza are missing as well. I doubt that there is one Italian Renaissance painting that includes all of Blok’s details.

 

Many critics have commented on the possible sacrilegious nature of the poem, comparing it to Pushkin’s openly blasphemous “Gavriliada.” Something resembling a rape is in fact depicted, and the artist figure behind the arras seems complicit in the rape. His words, quoted in Latin in the concluding stanza, translate as “Begone, ye profane ones; for here is the locus of a sacred love.” I have not been able to locate the source of the Latin citation.

 

In the fifth stanza the mention of two heavy braids falling from her shoulders is apparently an allusion to Russian folklore. In Russian peasant tradition girls wore a single braid as maidens, but re-braided their hair into two braids at the time of their marriage.

 

                                         Annunciation Icon, Serbia, Fourteenth Century