Translations: The Bestest of the Best, TWENTY-SIX, Afanasy Fet, А. А. Фет, "Был чудный майский день в Москве," A WONDROUS MOSCOW DAY IN MAY

 

А. А. Фет
(1820-1892)

 

Был чудный майский день в Москве;
Кресты церквей сверкали,
Вились касатки под окном
И звонко щебетали.

Я под окном сидел, влюблен,
Душой и юн и болен.
Как пчелы, звуки вдалеке
Жужжали с колоколен.

Вдруг звуки стройно, как орган,
Запели в отдаленьи;
Невольно дрогнула душа
При этом стройном пеньи.

И шел и рос поющий хор, —
И непонятной силой
В душе сливался лик небес
С безмолвною могилой.

И шел и рос поющий хор, —
И черною грядою
Тянулся набожно народ
С открытой головою.

И миновал поющий хор,
Его я минул взором,
И гробик розовый прошел
За громогласным хором.

Струился теплый ветерок,
Покровы колыхая,
И мне казалось, что душа
Парила молодая.

Весенний блеск, весенний шум,
Молитвы стройной звуки —
Всё тихим веяло крылом
Над грустию разлуки.

За гробом шла, шатаясь, мать.
Надгробное рыданье! —
Но мне казалось, что легко
И самое страданье.

 

1857

---

 

                           Literal Translation

It was a marvelous day of May in Moscow,
The crosses on churches were sparkling,
Swallows outside my window were wheeling,
Venting their clear chirps.
 
I sat in love beside the window,
My soul both young and ill.
Distant sounds, like bees,
Were buzzing from [church] bell towers.
 
Suddenly [other] sounds, harmonious, like an organ,
Sang out in the distance;
My soul involuntarily shuddered,
Upon hearing that harmonious singing.
 
Walking and growing was a singing choir,
And with ineffable power
In my soul were melded heaven’s visage
And the quietude of the grave.
 
And walked on, growing, the singing choir,
And a long black line of people
Stretched out, bare-headed,
Steeped in piety.
 
The singing choir went past,
I followed it with my gaze,
And a small, rose-colored coffin went by,
After the resonant sounds of the choir.
 
A warm breeze wafted up,
Ruffling the cerement cloths [on top of the coffin],
And it seemed to me that
The young soul was faintly respiring.
 
The gleam of spring, the vernal hum,
The harmonious sounds of prayers—
Everything spread its quiet wing
Over the sorrow of parting.
 
Staggering behind the coffin, the mother walked,
Voicing her funereal lamentations!
But to me the very thing of suffering,
Seemed easy, light and airy.
 
d
 
                                            Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
A wondrous Moscow day in May,
Each cross on church aglitter,
Outside the swallows roundelay,
Their gurgle-chirp and twitter.
 
By window seated in love’s sway,
My young soul sick, besotted,
The belfies’ bee-buzz far away
The air with droning slarted.  
 
Then suddenly came one more sound,
Harmonic, distant, soulful,
I sensed the core of me resound
With music sweet and doleful.  
 
Drew near a marching, surging choir,
I felt the sounds my heart engrave
With blend of heaven’s blessèd fire
And dire corruption of the grave.
 
The surging choir sang on and marched,
Behind it, hatless, trudged along
Black line of mourners, bleak, soul-parched, 
But pious, fortified by song.
 
The choir went by, I watched it go,
And next in line, to death in thrall,
Behind the songs, the mourning flow,
A coffin passed, rose-colored, small.
 
A freshet-breeze arose just then,
Puffed up the pall on coffin’s top, 
As if that young soul breathed, “Amen,”
Respired out its last full stop.
 
The gleam of spring, the vernal hum,
The flow of prayers, the soothing tune,
All life spread wide its winged humdrum
O’er valediction’s murk and gloom.
 
Behind the coffin walked the mother,
She stumbled as she wailed her plaint,
But I perceived all pain as other;
My heart felt light, void of constraint.  
 

Translations: The Bestest of the Best, TWENTY-THREE, Afanasy Fet, "Ласточки," SWALLOWS

 

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

d

                                                                     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

 In the original (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 turn into immortal art—somehow stepping on the toes of 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.

 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.

Translations, The Bestest of the Best, EIGHTEEN, Afanasy Fet, "Бабочка," BUTTERFLY

 

Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)

 

Бабочка

Ты прав. Одним воздушным очертаньем
            Я так мила.
Весь бархат мой с его живым миганьем -
            Лишь два крыла.

Не спрашивай: откуда появилась?
            Куда спешу?
Здесь на цветок я легкий опустилась
            И вот - дышу.

Надолго ли, без цели, без усилья,
            Дышать хочу?
Вот-вот сейчас, сверкнув, раскину крылья
            И улечу.

(written no later than Oct. 25, 1884)

LITERAL TRANSLATION

 You’re right [butterfly narrator speaks to the poet]. It’s just that one outline I trace in the air
That makes me so dear (precious).
All of my velvet with its live (vivacious) twinkling (blinking)
Is just two wings.
 
Don’t ask from where I have appeared,
Where I’m rushing off to.
Here on this soft (light) bloom I have alighted
And now I breathe.
 
Is it for long that I aimlessly, effortlessly
Wish to breathe?
Any second now, with a flash, I’ll spread wide my wings
And fly away.

                                        

                                          Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

                  Butterfly
 
Look now: one bright flit in the air
And I flaunt my precious bling.
All of this velvet with its flicker-flair
Is only a wing, plus a wing.
 
Don’t ask from whence I’ve come,
Or whither I’m bound when I leave.
Here on this flower in blithe slumberdom
I perch, and breathe.
 
Is it for long, in aimless bliss, astride
My bloom I wish to suspirate?
Just watch: in no time now I’ll flash-flip wide
My wings, fly off,
And dissipate.

Translations: The Bestest of the Best, FIFTEEN, Afanasy Fet, "Шёпот, робкое дыханье," WHISPERING AND TIMID BREATHING

 

[Note from U.R. Bowie: I am re-posting what I consider the best of my translations of Russian poetry]

Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)

 

Шёпот, робкое дыханье,
           Трели соловья,
Серебро и колыханье
           Сонного ручья,

Свет ночной, ночные тени,
           Тени без конца,
Ряд волшебных изменений
           Милого лица,

В дымных тучках пурпур розы,
           Отблеск янтаря,
И лобзания, и слёзы,
           И заря, заря!..

 1850

                                                              Literal Translation
 
Whispering, timid breathing,
                The trills of a nightingale,
The silver and the swaying
                Of a sleepy brook,
 
Nocturnal light, the shadows of night,
                Shadows without end,
A lot of magical changes
                Of a dear face,
 
In the hazy clouds the purple of a rose,
                The reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
                And the dawn, the dawn!

Literary Translation/Imitation by U.R. Bowie

 

Whispering and timid breathing,

Nightingale’s trill,

Silver sheen of waters seething,

Sleepy brooklet’s dishabille.

 

Noctilucence, nocturne shades,

Lengthy shadows without end,

Alternating glow cascades,

Charm to dear face lends,

 

On hazy clouds a rose-pink stain,

In answer amber’s antiphon, 

And kisses, weeping, silent pain,

And then the dawn, the dawn!

 

Date of Translation: January, 2019

Translations: The Bestest of the Best: SEVEN, Afanasy Fet, "Только в мире и есть, что тенистый," DISTINCTIVE ON EARTH OF ALL THINGS THAT EXIST

 

Afanasy Fet
(1820-1892)

 

Только в мире и есть, что тенистый
Дремлющих клёнов шатёр.
Только в мире и есть, что лучистый
Детски задумчивый взор.
Только в мире и есть, что душистый
Милой головки убор.
Только в мире и есть этот чистый
Влево бегущий пробор.

 

3 апреля 1883

(April 3, 1883)

 

d

 

 Literal Translation

 

Existing alone in the world is the shady

Canopy of slumbering maples.

Existing along in the world is the radiant

Childlike pensive gaze.

Existing alone in the world is the fragrant

Headgear [head-dress/hat] of a dear little head.

Existing alone in the world is the pure [clean]

Slanting-to-the-left parting [of the hair].

 

d

                                            Literary Translations/Imitations by U.R. Bowie

      

1

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is a slumbering maple, its canopied shade.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is the gleam in the eye of a child, pensive-grave.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is the fragrance of hat worn on head that’s most dear.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is a hair-parting, left-leaning, pure and austere.

 

2

 

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the shade-dappled maple of canopied trees.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the lost-in-thought gleam of a child’s gaze at ease.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the hat on the fragrance of dear head distressed.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the pure of a hair-part askew, leaning left.

 

3

 

There’s only one thing in this world that is:

The dapple of slumbering maples in shade. 

There’s only one thing in this world that is:

A radiant spark in a child’s brooding gaze.

There’s only one thing in the world that is:

The fragrance of cap on a dear head at rest.  

There’s only one thing in the world that is:

A clean part in hair, just askew, leaning left.

 

4

 

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the maple of drowsing-in-canopy trees.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the pensive of childlike eye-gleam in the breeze.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the fragrant of scarf on dear head debonair.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is that pure slanting-left of the part in the hair.

 

 

AFANASY FET, Translations into English of "Только в мире и есть..." Four Variants

                                               Nesterov, "Bouquet of Flowers," 1896

Afanasy Fet

(1820-1892)

Только в мире и есть, что тенистый
Дремлющих клёнов шатёр.
Только в мире и есть, что лучистый
Детски задумчивый взор.
Только в мире и есть, что душистый
Милой головки убор.
Только в мире и есть этот чистый
Влево бегущий пробор.

3 апреля 1883

(April 3, 1883)

Literal Translation

Existing alone in the world is the shady

Canopy of slumbering maples.

Existing alone in the world is the radiant

Childlike pensive gaze.

Existing alone in the world is the fragrant

Headgear [head-dress/hat] of a dear little head.

Existing alone in the world is the pure [clean]

Slanting-to-the-left parting [of the hair].

Literary Translations/Imitations

      

                                     1

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is a slumbering maple, its canopied shade.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is the gleam in the eye of a child, pensive-grave.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is the fragrance of hat worn on head that’s most dear.

Distinctive on earth of all things that exist

Is a hair-parting, left-leaning, pure and austere.

            2

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the shade-dappled maple of canopied trees.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the lost-in-thought gleam of a child’s gaze at ease.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the hat on the fragrance of dear head distressed.

Unique amidst mirth of the things on this earth

Is the pure of a hair-part askew, leaning left.

                                    3

There’s only one thing in this world that is:

The dapple of slumbering maples in shade. 

There’s only one thing in this world that is:

A radiant spark in a child’s brooding gaze.

There’s only one thing in the world that is:

The fragrance of cap on a dear head at rest.  

There’s only one thing in the world that is:

A clean part in hair, just askew, leaning left.

4

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the maple of drowsing-in-canopy trees.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the pensive of childlike eye-gleam in the breeze.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is the fragrant of scarf on dear head debonair.

The only thing in the world that is . . .

Is that pure slanting-left of the part in the hair.

All translations (with embellishments) from the Russian by U.R. Bowie

Sculpted Thoughts (Monument to Ivan Bunin, Yelets, Russia Sculptor: Yury Grishko)

In his poem "Бюст" A.A. Fet peers at the bust of a genius, "gazes at the flow of sculpted curls on your crown, at the motionless sculpted thoughts inside that sculpted head." What a wonderful image: sculpted thoughts inside the head of a statue. See Night of Denial.

U.R.Bowie, Kiev, 1991

Afanasy Fet: Gogol's Verdict on His Poetry

                                                          Artist: Bato Dugarzhapov

A.A. Foethe (Fet), Russian Poet, 1820-1892

Some of his best poems don't use any verbs. Like this one:

Чудная картина, Как ты мне родна: Белая равнина, Полная луна, Свет небес высоких, И блестящий снег, И саней далеких Одинокий бег. Young Fet once asked the historian and publicist Pogodin to read his poems and tell him what he thought. This was in late 1839 or early 1840, when Nikolai Gogol was living at Pogodin's house in Moscow, as freeloading boarder. Fet would have been only about twenty years old. Pogodin said, "Ja vashu tetradku, pochtennejshij, peredam Gogolju. On v etom sluchae luchshij sud'ja (I'll pass your notebook, my most esteemed dear fellow, on to Gogol. In this case he's a better judge than me.)" Just imagine the trepidation on the part of Fet, while he waited for the verdict from the man who at that time was the most famous writer in Russia. And just imagine the joy, the untold bliss when the verdict  came back: "Gogol skazal, eto--nesomnennoe darovanie (Gogol said that this poet is indubitably talented)."                      Isaac Levitan, Birch Grove