Translation of Poem by EVGENY EVTUSHENKO, Евгений Евтушенко, "Дай бог," "GOD GRANT"

 

Евгений Евтушенко

(1933-2017)

Дай бог

Дай бог слепцам глаза вернуть
и спины выпрямить горбатым.
Дай бог быть богом хоть чуть-чуть,
но быть нельзя чуть-чуть распятым.

 

Дай бог не вляпаться во власть
и не геройствовать подложно,
и быть богатым — но не красть,
конечно, если так возможно.

 

Дай бог быть тертым калачом,
не сожранным ничьею шайкой,
ни жертвой быть, ни палачом,
ни барином, ни попрошайкой.

 

Дай бог поменьше рваных ран,
когда идет большая драка.
Дай бог побольше разных стран,
не потеряв своей, однако.

 

Дай бог, чтобы твоя страна
тебя не пнула сапожищем.
Дай бог, чтобы твоя жена
тебя любила даже нищим.

 

Дай бог лжецам замкнуть уста,
глас божий слыша в детском крике.
Дай бог живым узреть Христа,
пусть не в мужском, так в женском лике.

 

Не крест — бескрестье мы несем,
а как сгибаемся убого.
Чтоб не извериться во всем,
Дай бог ну хоть немного Бога!

 

Дай бог всего, всего, всего
и сразу всем — чтоб не обидно…
Дай бог всего, но лишь того,
за что потом не станет стыдно.

                                                                 1990

 

d

 

Literal Translation

 

God Grant

 

God grant to the blind that they get their eyes back

And that the hunchbacked have spines made straight.

God grant [one] to be in some small degree a god,

But in no small degree need one be crucified.

 

God grant us not to blunder into power [roughly: get mixed up in politics]

And not to play the phony hero,

And to be rich—but not to steal,

If, of course, that’s possible.

 

God grant [us] a freshly grated loaf of bread (roll)

Not chomped on by anyone’s gang,

[God grant us] to be neither a sacrifice (victim) nor a hangman,

Neither a nobleman, nor a panhandler.

 

God grant we end up with few lacerations

When we get in a big fight.

God grant there be more of all different countries,

Assuming we don’t lose our own, that is.

 

God grant that your own country

Not kick you with a big clodhopper.

God grant that your wife

Love you even if you’re destitute.

 

God grant that liars keep it quiet

When they hear the voice of God in the cry of a child.

God grant that the living get to see Christ Himself,

If not in the face of man, then in the face of woman.

 

We bear not a cross; we bear crosslessness,

But how wretchedly it bends us down.

In order not to lose faith in everything,

God grant [us] at least a little bit of God!

 

God grant everything, everything, everything

And immediately to all; so as not to offend anyone . . .

God grant everything, but only the sort of things

For which later on we won’t feel ashamed.

 

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

God Grant

 

God grant to the blind their sight to return,

To the hunchbacks straight spines, sans afflictions.

God grant some small godliness humans may learn,

But spare us the whips, crucifixions. 

 

God grant that we lord over none, nobody,

And not play the hero, or flaunt fakery,  

Make lots of money—but honest still be,

Or does money come only with dishonesty?

 

God grant us a nice slice of freshly baked bread,

Not chomped on by vile creeps and goonies,

And spare us beheading, but let’s not behead, 

Be neither a grandee, a beggar or loonie.

 

God grant when involved in a nasty melee

We come out with only a few lacerations.

As long as we have our own dam and spillway,

May rivers and spillways flow on in all nations.

 

God grant us not to be kicked in the butt

By the boot of our homeland (a great big clodhopper).

God grant that your wife learn to keep her mouth shut,

And love you and cherish, even if you’re a pauper.

 

God grant that the liars don’t set the zeitgeist,

Let’s hear God’s sweet voice in a child’s galimatias.

God grant that we mortals can somehow see Christ,

If not in men’s faces, then womanly faces.

 

Though we bear not a cross we bear crosslessness,

Which bends us and weighs us most wretchedly down.

So as not to lose heart and feel lostlessness,

God grant us a wee bit of God in the round.

 

God grant us our wishes, our all, everything,

And so’s to be fair, may He grant grace to all . . .

But please God, don’t grant us some vile anything

For which later on we’ll lament, moan and bawl.

 

 

декламирует Евтушенко:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRegLrn2Enw&ab_channel=MikhailMorgulis

Translation of poem by EVGENY EVTUSHENKO, Евгений Евтушенко, "Тайны," "MYSTERIES"

 

Евгений Евтушенко

(1933-2017)

Тайны

Тают отроческие тайны,
как туманы на берегах…
Были тайнами — Тони, Тани,
даже с цыпками на ногах.

Были тайнами звёзды, звери,
под осинами стайки опят,
и скрипели таинственно двери —
только в детстве так двери скрипят.

Возникали загадки мира,
словно шарики изо рта
обольстительного факира,
обольщающего неспроста.

Оволшебленные снежинки

опускались в полях и лесах.

Оволшебленные смешинки

У девчонок плясали в глазах.

 

Мы таинственно что-то шептали
на таинственном льду катка,
и пугливо, как тайна к тайне,
прикасалась к руке рука…

Но пришла неожиданно взрослость.
Износивший свой фрак до дыр,
в чьё-то детство, как в дальнюю область,
гастролировать убыл факир.

Мы, как взрослые, им забыты.
Эх, факир, ты плохой человек.
Нетаинственно до обиды
нам на плечи падает снег.

Где вы, шарики колдовские?
Нетаинственно мы грустим.
Нетаинственны нам другие,
да и мы нетаинственны им.

Ну, а если рука случайно
прикасается, гладя слегка,
это только рука, а не тайна,
понимаете — только рука!

Дайте тайну простую-простую,
тайну — робость и тишину,
тайну худенькую, босую…
Дайте тайну — хотя бы одну!

1960

d

Literal Translation

Mysteries

Adolescent mysteries are melting,

Like mists on riverbanks . . .

There were mysteries—Tonyas, Tanyas,

Even with chilblains on their legs.

 

The stars, the wild animals were mysteries,

Under the aspens the clusters of honey agaric mushrooms,

And mysteriously doors would creak—

Only in childhood do doors so creak.

 

Enigmas of the world emerged,

Like little balls from out of the mouth

Of a seductive conjuror,

Who seduces to some devious end.

 

Enchanted snowflakes

Drifted down on the fields and the woods.

Enchanted specks of laughter

Danced in the eyes of the girls.

 

Mysteriously we whispered something

On the mysterious ice of the rink,

And timidly, like a mystery to a mystery,

We touched hand to hand . . .

 

But suddenly (unexpectantly) adulthood came.

Having worn down his frockcoat to tatters,

The conjurer absconded, went off on a gig

Into someone else’s childhood, as if to a far-off province.

 

We, as grownups are forgotten by him.

Hey, conjuror, you’re a bad guy.

Non-mysteriously to a fault

The snow falls on our shoulders.

 

Where are you, little magic balls?

Un-mysteriously we grieve.

Others are not a mystery to us,

And we are no mystery to them.

 

And if by chance a hand touches,

Lightly caressing another hand,

That’s only a hand, and not a mystery,

You understand? Only a hand!

 

Give me a garden-variety mystery,

A mystery—shyness and silence,

A puny, barefoot little one . . .

Give me a mystery—at least just one!

 

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Mysteries

 

They liquesce, mist away, the secrets of youth,

Like riverbank haze in late sun’s twilight . . .

Lasses mysterious—Tashas and Ruths,

Chilblains on their legs and a slight overbite.

 

Some of the secrets were stars or wild beasts,

Or agaric mushrooms in clusters ’neath aspens,

And O so mysterious were the door-creaks,

In childhood only do doors make such raspings.  

 

This world’s secret riddles were all put on show,

The spheroids he juggled with legerdemain,

That spellbinding wizard whose act reeked of faux,

His wizardry tasting of fake frangipane.

 

Soft clumps of snow steeped in rapturous sigh

Floated, alighted on woodlands and prairies.   

Enraptured specks of laughs danced by

In eyes of girls, our contemporaries.  

 

On reticent ice at mysterious rinks

We whispered our secretive soft billet-douxs,

And timidly, miming its cryptic lip syncs,

A hand touched a hand with sheer mystery suffused.  

 

But all of a sudden we came out adults.

His frockcoat worn down to threadbareness,

Absconded the wizard, from our world avulsed,

Went off on a new gig, left us unawareness.

 

Now that we’re grown he’s a show-biz no-show.

Hey, wizard, you mean scalawag!

Insipid are flakes of derapturized snow,

On our shoulders trite snow, what a drag.

 

Little spheroids of magic, where are you?

Shed of mystery our pale facial features.

The creatures around us no mysteries accrue,

And we’re no more mystery to creatures.

 

A hand comes in contact with some hand perchance,

Say, touches that other hand, stroking;

That’s only a hand, not a sweet circumstance,

You get me? Pedestrian poking!

 

So bring me a volatile mystery, you hear?

Send me one secret, clandestine and diffident,

Just a puny and furtive one, barefoot, austere,

Small potatoes but somehow munificent!

 

 

PUTTING FEET IN FRONT OF FEET: The Octogenarian's Prayer

 

Bobby Goosey

 

The Octogenarian’s Prayer

Dear Lord, help me to go on forward in Life, putting one foot in front of the other as I walk. And when the time comes to stop putting feet in front of feet, please send me a quick and painless Death. Amen.

Putting Feet in Front of Feet in the Age of Covid: Tightrope Walker in a Dream

                                                                 Tallulah Gorge in Autumn

What The Age of Covid Feels Like

In the Time of the Great Plague of 2020 we have all begun feeling like tightrope walkers in a dream, say, Wallenda, making his slow perilous way, step by tiny step, over Tallulah Gorge, leaning slightly left, then slightly right, stopping to readjust the tilt of the pole we carry, stepping out once more, one step, two step, right step, left step—when suddenly, halfway across, high up over the churning whitewater far, far below, we realize we’re naked, we’ve left our pants at home, and all the spectators are laughing and pointing at our grotesque danglers—the testicles that just do not hang down in a proper way—and, worst of all, we’ve forgotten, utterly and irrevocably forgotten, how to put one foot in front of the other.

 

Reminds me of my days in U.S. Army basic training, Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, spring of 1963. Large numbers of my fellow recruits could never learn to march, unable as they were to distinguish right foot from left.

 

Concentrate on Your Feet and All Will Be Well

Pascal says what people need is “a violent and vigorous occupation to take their minds off themselves.” This is especially good advice in the year 2020. “When dancing,” opines Pascal, “you must think where to put your feet.”

                                                                Blaise Pascal, Penseés

[excerpt from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]

                                                                         Max Ernst

"Gogol-Mogol’s Ogre" Mandelstam Poem Freely Translated and Updated to the Year 2022

                                                       Illustration to Gogol story "Вий"

Osip Mandelstam

(1891-1938)

 

Как по улицам Киева-Вия

Ищет мужа не знаю чья жинка,

И на щеки ее восковые

Ни одна не скатилась слезинка.

 

Не гадают цыганочки кралям,

Не играют в Купеческом скрипки,

На Крещатике лошади пали,

Пахнут смертью господские Липки.

 

Уходили с последним трамваем

Прямо за город красноармейцы,

И шинель прокричала сырая:

"Мы вернемся еще - разумейте..."

 

May, 1937. Voronezh

d

 

Literal Translation

(The Russian original is rhymed and metered, all feminine rhymes a/b/a/b)

As along the streets of Kiev-Vij

Some wifey, I don’t know whose, searches for her husband,

And onto her waxen cheeks

Not a single tear flowed down.

 

The gypsy lassies aren’t telling fortunes for the floozies,

The fiddles aren’t playing in the Kupechesky Gardens,

On Kreshchatik Street horses have fallen,

And affluent Lipki smells of death.

 

They’ve departed along with the last tram car,

The Red Army soldiers have absconded from the city,

And a damp greatcoat screamed out:

“We’ll be back again; count on that.”

 

d

 

U.R. Bowie

Mandelstam’s Poem Freely Translated and Updated to the Year 2022

Gogol-Mogol’s Ogre

In Kiev-town, now Vyiv monstrous,

Where Gogol-Mogol’s ogre reigns,

Some little wifey, don’t know whose,

In search of hubby wanders lost.

While down her cheeks, her waxy cheeks,

Trickles not one tiny teary wetly.

 

No more floozies getting fortunes told from gypsies.

No more fiddles twanging tunes around Kupechesky.

On the main drag of Kreshchatik fallen horses,

In environs what was tanks is now scrap-metal; rusting.

There’s a smell where rich folks live in Lipki:

Of Death.

 

Russian soldiers blew their campaign to take Kyiv.

They’re making tracks for some spot nearer Mother Rus,

While a greatcoat that came straight from Gogolmogol Land,

Rumpled up and soaked with kerosene,

Shrieks:

“Make no mistake, you Ukies; we’ll be back!”

 

d

 

Translator’s Notes

Place names. The Kupechesky Gardens is now Kreshchaty Park. Kreshchatik (now spelled Kreshchatyk by Ukrainians) is the main street of Kiev (Kyiv). On Lipki (Lypky) from Wikipedia:

Lypky (Ukrainian: Липки) is a historic neighborhood of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv located in the administrative Pecherskyi District. The name is derived from a lime tree (linden tree, Lypa). Lypky is the de facto government quarter of Ukraine, hosting the buildings of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament), Presidential Administration and Government. In the nineteenth century Lypky was already known as an elite district. Geographically Lypky is considered to be part of Pechersk, yet it is located between the Old Kyiv neighborhood (bordering by Khreshchatyk) and the Pechersk neighborhood across the Klov descent and Mechnikov Street. The streets of Lypky were the scenes of the most bloody episodes of the Euromaidan revolution (2013-2014).

d

Nikolai Gogol is the most famous Ukrainian firmly ensconced in Russian literature. In the first line of Mandelstam’s poem Vij—often spelled Viy in English translations—is the monster in Gogol’s ghost story of that title. The greatcoat in the final stanza is another allusion to Gogol, to his most famous story of all: the phantasmagoric tale “The Greatcoat,” sometimes translated as “The Overcoat.”

This poem, apparently the last written during Mandelstam’s exile in Voronezh, describes what was going on during the Civil War—in Kiev in 1919—when he was in the city with his future wife Nadezhda. In her memoir, Hope Abandoned, she describes the situation as follows. “One day, just before we left, when they were shooting hostages, we looked out of the window . . . and saw a cart piled with naked corpses. Some matting had been carelessly thrown on top of them, but limbs were sticking out in all directions.”

In his memoir, People, Years, Life, the writer Ilya Ehrenburg, writes, “I saw him on that day (in 1919) when the Red Army was evacuating Kiev (later he was to write about how ‘no more floozies were getting fortunes told by gypsy women . . .’). Together with him I survived a pogrom one night.”

Mandelstam and Nadezhda made it out of Kiev safely in 1919, but a perilous future awaited them. He was an “internal émigré” almost from the very beginning of Soviet times. In 1934, after someone denounced him for his poem criticizing Stalin—an act so reckless that Pasternak called it suicidal—Mandelstam was arrested for the first time. After his release the brutal interrogations had so unsettled his psyche that he twice attempted suicide.

A three-year exile in Voronezh ended in May, 1937—Nadezhda was still with him. He had only a year and a half to live. Re-arrested in May, 1938, he was sentenced to five years in a concentration camp. He died in December of 1938 at a transit camp in the Far East, near Vladivostok.

d

Now, in the year 2022, when we were naïve enough to think that such horror, violence and repression of innocents would never happen again in Russia or Ukraine, this, and even worse, is happening all over again. It’s almost as if the Deity above had sent down some decree: Russian and Ukrainian history will be, perpetually, drenched in gore and blood. Or is it, rather, human history?

                               Illustration by Mikhail Mikeshin to the Gogol Story "Вий"

BOBBY GOOSEY, On The Prospective Acquisition of a Pet

 

Bobby Goosey

 

On The Prospective Acquisition of a Pet

or

Bobby Goosey Needs a Dog

 

Everybody’s got a doggie,

A bow-wow doggie,

A wow-bow,

Arf and arfing

Woofy-woof hound.

All the world’s got a doggie,

A bow-wow doggie;

But old Bobby ain’t no doggie don’t got.

 

Everybody and his buddy’s got

A tail-wagging doggie,

A smiley-eyed doggie,

A tongue-drooling doggie.

Bobby needs a smiley-eyed

Tail-flapping doggie;

Old Bobby ain’t no doggie

Don’t got.

 

Got to get old Bobby,

Smiley-eyed Bobby,

Wrinkle-butted Bobby,

Got to get old Bobby,

Creaky-boned Bobby,

A slobber-drooling doggie,

A barky-wark doggie,

A wow-bow doggie,

 

Got to get old Bobby,

Old tail-dragging Bobby,

Snaggle-toothed Bobby,

Slobber-drooling Bobby

The doggie that

Old Bobby don’t

Got.

Arf.

 

June 30, 2022

 

[from Bobby Goosey’s Compendium of Perfectly Sensible Nonsense]