[CONSOLATION.] IV. 142 LIFE, — does it disappoint thee? Grieve not, nor be angry thou! In days of sorrow gentle be: Come shall, believe, the joyful day. In the future lives the heart: Is the present sad indeed? ’T is but a moment, all will pass; Once in the past, it shall be dear. |
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Past One O’Clock... Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. Why bother then to balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts. Behold what quiet settles on the world. Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars. In hours like these, one rises to address The ages, history, and all creation. Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, 1930 English translation by Max Hayward and George Reavey |
Attitude to a Lady Were we two to be lovers Would be fixed that evening: ’Twas dark, And no one could possibly see And I did lean over, And I did say, leaning, As good as any good parent might be: “Passion’s slopes are steep. You know it, too. The farther you keep, The better for you”. |
Marc Chagall, Drawing for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 70th birthday, 1963. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
Order No. 2 to the Army of Arts This is to you, well-fed baritones, from Adam to the present day shaking the dives called theatres with the groans of Romeo and Juliet or some such child’s play. To you, maitres painters fattening like ponies, guzzling and guffawing salt of the earth, secluded in your studios, forever spawning flowers and girlflesh for all you are worth. To you, fig-leaf-camouflaged mystics, foreheads dug over with furrows sublime, futuristic, imagistic, acmeistic, stuck tight in the cobwebs of rhyme. To you, who abandoned smooth haircuts for matted, slick shoes for bast clogs a-la-russki, proletcultists sewing your patches on the faded frock-coat of Alexander Pushkin. To you, dancing or playing the tune, now openly betraying, now sinning in secret, picturing the future as an opportune academic salary for every nitwit! I say to you, I, whether genius or not, working in ROSTA, abandoning trilles: quit your rot before you’re debunked with the butts of rilles! Quit it, forget and spit on rhymes, arias, roses, hearts and all other suchlike shit out of the arsenals of the arts. Whoever cares that “Ah, poor creature, how he loved, how his heart did bleed!” Master-craftsmen, not long-haired preachers, that is what we need. Hark! Locomotives groan, draughts through their floors and windows blow; “Give us coal from the Don, mechanics, fitters for the depot!” On every river, from source to mouth, with holes in their sides, river-boats too lie idle, dismally howling out: “Give us oil from Baku!” While we kill time, debating the innermost essence of life, “Give us new forms, we’re waiting!” everything seems to cry. We’re nobody’s fools till your lips come apart to stare, expectant, like cows chewing cud. Comrades, wake up, give us new art to haul the Republic out of the mud! Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, 1921 English translation by Dorian Rottenberg |
You Are Big in Love You are big in love. And bold. My every step is timid. I’ll cause you no harm, and can hardly do you any good. Seems you are leading me off the beaten path through a forest. Now we’re up to our waist in wild flowers. I don’t even know what they are, these flowers. My previous training is of no help here. I’m uncertain what to do or how. You’re tired. You ask to be carried in my arms. You are already in my arms. Ahead of us stretches all that is pure, early, young, and what bids us journey on. How quiet you are! As you breathe, your high bosom raises your dress. “Do you see? What a blue sky! Can you tell what birds sing in the forest? Well, what are you waiting for? Well? Carry me then!” And where shall I carry you? Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko, 1955 English translation by George Reavey |
People No people are uninteresting. Their fate is like the chronicle of planets. Nothing in them is not particular, and planet is dissimilar from planet. And if a man lived in obscurity making his friends in that obscurity obscurity is not uninteresting To each his world is private, and in that world one excellent minute. And in that world one tragic minute. These are private. In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. It goes with him. They are left books and bridges, and painted canvas and machinery. Whose fate is to survive. But what has gone is also not nothing: by the rule of the game something has gone. Not people die but worlds die in them. Whom we knew as faulty, the earth’s creatures. Of whom, essentially, what did we know? Brother of a brother? Friend of friends? Lover of lover? We who knew our fathers in everything, in nothing. They perish. They cannot be brought back. The secret worlds are not regenerated. And every time again and again I make my lament against destruction. Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko English translation by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi |
Talk You’re a brave man, they tell me. I’m not. Courage has never been my quality. Only I thought it disproportionate so to degrade myself as others did. No foundations trembled. My voice no more than laughed at pompous falsity; I did no more than write, never denounced, I left out nothing I had thought about, defended who deserved it, put a brand on the untalented, the ersatz writers (doing what anyhow had to be done). And now they press to tell me that I’m brave. How sharply our children will be ashamed taking at last their vengeance for these horrors remembering how in so strange a time common integrity could look like courage. Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko, 1960 English translation by Robin Milner-Galland and Peter Levi |
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Хотят ли русские войны? Хотят ли русские войны? Спросите вы у тишины, Над ширью пашен и полей, И у берез, и тополей, Спросите вы у тех солдат, Что под березами лежат, И вам ответят их сыны Хотят ли русские, хотят ли русские, Хотят ли русские войны. Не только за свою страну Солдаты гибли в ту войну, А чтобы люди всей земли Спокойно ночью спать могли. Спросите тех, кто воевал, Кто вас на Эльбе обнимал, Мы этой памяти верны. Хотят ли русские, хотят ли русские Хотят ли русские войны? Да, мы умеем воевать, Но не хотим, чтобы опять Солдаты падали в бою На землю горькую свою. Спросите вы у матерей, Спросите у жены моей, И вы тогда понять должны Хотят ли русские, хотят ли русские Хотят ли русские войны. Поймет и докер, и рыбак, Поймет рабочий и батрак, Поймет народ любой страны Хотят ли русские, хотят ли русские, Хотят ли русские войны. Хотят ли русские, хотят ли русские, Хотят ли русские войны. Do Russian people stand for war? Do Russian people stand for war? Go, ask the calm on plain and shore, The wide expanse of field and lea, The birches and the poplar tree, The soldiers who once fought abreast, And near the birches lie at rest, Their sons will answer by the score, Ask them if Russians are, Ask them if Russians are, Ask them if Russians are for war. Not only for their country’s life Did soldiers perish in the strife — But that all human creatures might Sleep always peacefully at night. Ask those that fearful battles knew, Who on the Elbe rejoiced with you, We keep these memories evermore — And ask if Russians are, And ask if Russians are, And ask if Russians are for war. Yes, we indeed know how to fight, But do not want the same sad plight — That soldiers should be killed again And lie upon the blood-drenched plain. Ask mothers if we are for strife, Go ask this question of my wife, And you will need to ask no more If Russian people are, If Russian people are, If Russian people are for war. The working people of each land Will come, for sure, to understand Throughout the world on sea and shore — If Russian people are, If Russian people are, If Russian people are for war. Yevgeny Aleksándrovich Yevtushenko, 1961 English translation by Olga Moisseyenko |
Käthe Kollwitz, Nie wieder Krieg (Never Again War), 1924. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
Дружба Что дружба? Легкий пыл похмелья, Обиды вольный разговор, Обмен тщеславия, безделья Иль покровительства позор. Friendship What’s friendship, then? Inebriation, A liberal license to offend, A common indolence and vainness, Or shameful patronage, my friend? Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin English translation by James E. Falen |
Ты и Вы Пустое в ы сердечным т ы Она, обмолвясь, заменила, И все счастливые мечты В душе влюбленной возбудила. Пред ней задумчиво стою; Свести очей с нее нет силы; И говорю ей: как в ы милы! И мыслю: как т е б я люблю! You and Thou A casual slip — and she replaced The vacant “you” with “thou” endearing, Thus all glad dreams that I had chased To hopes of love quite firmly steering. In front of her I cannot budge; I feast my eyes till I am giddy, And then I tell her: you’re so pretty — But think indeed: love thee so much! Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin English translation by Yuri Menis |
Hans Bellmer, Untitled (Double-Sided Portrait of Unica Zürn) (verso), 1954. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
Маленькая балерина Я — маленькая балерина, Всегда нема, всегда нема, И скажет больше пантомима, Чем я сама. И мне сегодня за кулисы Прислал король Влюбленно-бледные нарциссы И лакфиоль... И, затаив бессилье гнева, Полна угроз, Мне улыбнулась королева Улыбкой слез... А дома, в маленькой каморке, Больная мать Мне будет бальные оборки Перешивать. И будет штопать, не вздыхая, Мое трико, И будет думать, засыпая, Что мне легко. Я — маленькая балерина, Всегда нема, всегда нема, И скажет больше пантомима, Чем я сама. Но знает мокрая подушка В тиши ночей, Что я — усталая игрушка Больших детей! Tiny ballerina I’m a tiny ballerina Always mute But pantomime will speak more clearly Than I can myself. Backstage, today In gifts by the king Love’s pale narcissuses And wallflowers... And, holding back a helpless rage, So silently threatening, The queen smiled at me A tearful smile... At home in a little closet, All my dancing ornaments For my sick mother To fix and mend. She will be sewing tirelessly My leotard, And will fall asleep thinking That my life is easy. I’m a tiny ballerina Always mute But the pantomime will speak more clearly Than I can myself. Yet my wet pillow And the silences of the nights know I’m just a tired toy Of big kids! |
Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky, dressed as Pierrot, the sad, naïve clown of the Italian commedia dell’arte, which gained him renown as a cabaret and theatre artist. Acrylic paints on silk fabric panel 30 × 40. Artwork © Платки и панно на шёлке (@magiiabatika). |
The Inexpressible
I want what’s inexpressible! Impudent, I play with fire without a queen My queen-reason is under the knight’s hooves What joy to lose to the fire! What flaming in the uncombed night From slender you, as from a candle! How you’ve fired-up The idea of sin! I writhe but the cry of my flesh is bliss The heretic is already freed by the fire Gul’ripshi New York Paris Madrid in flames And someone dear to me burns in them But if from the heretic’s fire The flame leaps to some poor bastard’s roof All the heretic burns for Shall be forever damned to hell For truth, when you burn down the scene of someone nearby, Is no longer truth but a lie.
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko
English translation by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Anthony Kahn |
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko † (Gangnus, Zima junction, Siberia, USSR, July 18, 1932 – Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, April 1, 2017). Photo: irkipedia.ru.
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Saint Petersburg, Russia: People place flowers on the monument to Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, marking the 180th anniversary of his death. Photo: Dmitri Lovetsky/AP.
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Do I hear once more your choir sing?
See a Russian Terpsichore wing Her way again in soulful flight?
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
English translation by A. S. Kline |
This vastness of white has me dazed!
From the frost, my blood starts to surge. I just want to reach out and embrace The bare naked breast of each birch.
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin, I trample the first fallen snow
English translation by Andrey Kneller |
In Russia we do not keep spring maidens
Chained like dogs We learn to kiss for free Without dagger tricks and duels.
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin, My wound has stopped hurting
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The goddess of beauty will be beautiful forever;
The offense of grey-haired time is no terror to her. She is not a mortal person.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, To a Painter
English translation by William E. Brown |
Good fortune doesn’t shine on all,
Not all were born to wear a wreath, But blest who hears the subtle call Of loufty thought and poet’s speech!
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, To Zhukovsky
English translation by James Falen |
The Conclusion
Love won’t be washed away by quarrels or miles. It’s been thought through, verified, tested. Solemnly raising my line-fingered verse, I swear— I love unchangingly and faithfully! Conclusione Non cancelleranno l’amore né le liti, né le distanze. È pensato, provato, riprovato. Innalzando solennemente i versi come le dita, lo giuro: amo di un amore immutabile e fedele. |
Bring out the future!
The future will not come of its own accord, unless we take measures. Komsomol, get it by the gills, Pioneers, grab it by the tail! The Commune is not a fairy-tale princess to dream of in the night. Calculate, think, observe, and advance, even though in little things. Communism does not live only in the ground, in sweat factories. It also lays out in homes, on eating tables, in relationships, in family, in the way of life. Who all day screeches with filthy and colorful rants, like a badly oiled wagon, who falls into delight when a balalaika sweeps, is not ready yet for the future. Bursts of machine gun fire on front lines: but war is not only one! The attack on families and the housing crisis are not a lesser threat to us. Who is not able to resist domestic pressure, and sleeps comfortably among paper roses, is not ready yet for a strong future life. Just like an overcoat so too can time be eaten away by the moths of byt. The unworn clothes of our times shake up, Komsomol! Tirate fuori il futuro! Il futuro non viene da solo, se noi non ci diamo da fare. Acchiappalo per le pinne, komsomol! Acchiapalo per la coda, pioniere! La Comune non è una principessa da fiaba per sognarsela la notte. Calcola, rifletti, osserva, e avanza, anche se in cose da poco. Il comunismo non vive soltanto nella terra, nel sudore delle fabbriche. È anche nelle case, a tavola, nei rapporti, nella famiglia, nel modo di vivere. Chi tutto il giorno stride in sozzi e coloriti improperi, come un carro male oliato, chi va in estasi quando geme una balalajka, non è ancora pronto per il futuro. Sui fronti scariche di mitraglia: non sta in questo, soltanto, la guerra! L’attacco delle famiglie e quello degli alloggi non è per noi una minaccia da meno. Chi non resiste alla pressione domestica, e dorme comodamente tra rose di carta, non è ancora pronto per la possente vita futura. Come una pelliccia è anche il tempo: se lo mangia la tarma del nostro modo di vivere. Scuotilo tu, komsomol, l’abito polveroso di questi nostri giorni! |
