OSIP MANDELSTAM NEW TRANSLATIONS
Ugly D uckling Presse Eastern European Poets Series #13
osip mandelstam new translations edited by Ilya Bernstein
ugly duckling presse 2006 Eastern European Poets Series, number 13
ISBN 1-933254-23-8 Osip Mandelstam: New Translations ©2006 Ugly Duckling Presse 106 Ferris Street, Second Floor Brooklyn, NY 11231 www.uglyducklingpresse.org Designed by Vajra Spook Ian Probstein’s translation of “Hagia Sophia” was previously published in International Poetry Review. Andrey Gritsman’s translation of “Old Crimea” was previously published in Denver Quarterly. Seth Zimmerman’s translation of “You’re not dead yet, nor alone—somebody” was previously published in The Literary Review; “Alone, I look frost in the face” was previously published in International Poetry Review. Ugly Duckling Presse wishes to thank the New York State Council on the Arts for its continuing support of our Eastern European Poets Series.
contents Hagia Sophia page 6 Notre Dame page 8 “Sleeplessness. Taut sails. Homer. I have read” page 9 “As in the descant of a girlish choir” page 10 The Tortoise page 11 “Heaviness and Tenderness are twin sisters” page 13 Venetian Life page 14 Leningrad page 16 “For the deafening glory of forthcoming ages” page 17 “For the thundering glory of the coming ages” page 18 Impressionism page 19 Old Crimea page 20 “We live not feeling the earth underfeet” page 21 Octaves page 22 “I live among high-minded vegetable gardens” page 24 “Alone I stare out at the white frost” page 25 “I look out alone at the face of the frost” page 26 “Alone, I look frost in the face” page 27 “You are not dead yet, not yet alone” page 28 “Yet to die. Unalone still” page 29 “You’re not dead yet, nor alone–somebody” page 30 “You’re not dead yet, you’re not yet all alone” page 31 “You’re not dead yet, and you are not alone” page 32 “To my lips I touch” page 33 “Unwillingly limping on the hollow ground” page 34 Contributor Notes page 36
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editor’s note The translators whose work is collected here all live on different terms with Russian and English. Some are married for life to one and have a distant, though affectionate, acquaintance with the other. Others find themselves caught in a more intense triangle, consumed by their unequal but equally urgent attachments to both languages. Still others divide their commitment harmoniously and unconditionally between the two, as permanent companions within the same common household. It is to be hoped that, placed side by side, the translations in this book reveal as much about where each translator stands in relation to his or her two languages as they do about Mandelstam’s poems themselves. Using the translators’ varied positions as multiple points of reference, readers may be able to acquire a triangulated grasp of the complex outlines of Mandelstam’s work, which must necessarily become elusive in English translation. Ilya Bernstein
hagia sophia Hagia Sophia—it was commanded by the Lord That kings and nations halt in wonder here! Your cupola, in the eyewitness’s word, Seems raised towards heaven on a chain. Justinian has set a pattern for all ages When Ephesian Diana gave him leave To abduct for alien gods One hundred seven verdant marble columns. But what was your generous builder thinking When elevated both in mind and spirit He set out your apses and exedrae Pointing them to West and East? Beautiful is the temple bathing in the world, And its forty windows are the triumph of light, But the most beautiful of all are the four Archangels on the pendetives beneath the dome.
And the wise spherical edifice Will outlive nations, kings and ages, And even seraphim’s resonant sobbing Will not distort the dark gold leaf. 1912. Translated by Ian Probstein.
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notre dame Where Roman justice judged another race Stands a basilica, exuberant and primal, Like Adam once before, its nerves splash forth, Its muscles play inside the airy, cross-shaped dome. But from outside, a secret plan appears: Here the flying buttresses took care So that the heavy mass can’t crush the walls, So the cupolic battering ram is still. Metrical labyrinth, forest unfathomable, The Gothic soul—its rational abyss, Egyptian might, Christian timidity, An oak beside a reed, and the plumb is czar throughout. But the more carefully, oh citadel of Notre Dame, I learned your monstrous ribs, The more and more I thought: from unkind heaviness Someday I too might create loveliness. 1912. Translated by Val Vinokur.
… Sleeplessness. Homer. Taut sails. I have read The catalogue of ships just halfway through: That lengthy brood, that cranelike retinue That Hellas once saw rising overhead. Like cranes in wedge to a distant destination— God’s foam is on the heads of kingly men— Where are you bound? If Helen had not been, What would Troy be to you, Achaean nation? The sea and Homer—it’s love that moves the whole. Which shall I listen to? Now Homer’s silent, And the black sea, declaiming, heaves in violent Crashes that reach my pillow with their roll. 1915. Translated by Alan Shaw.
… As in the descant of a girlish choir, With separate voice sings every tender church. Stone arches under the Dormition’s spire Bring visions of tall eyebrows in an arch. Here, where archangels man the battlements, I gazed on wondrous heights over the city. In the Acropolis pangs gnawed me once For Russian names and for a Russian beauty. Where pigeons reel in burning blue, dream plants The Garden—is it not marvelous somehow?— And that a nun sings Orthodoxy’s chants: Tender Dormition—Florence in Moscow. Moscow’s five-domed cathedrals, bathed in their Italian and Russian spirit, seem Like bright Aurora rising in the air, But in fur coat and with a Russian name. 1916. Translated by Alan Shaw.
the tortoise On the stony slopes of Pieria Nine muses circled in a dance So that their blind lyricists, like bees, Give us mellifluous Ionic honey. A breath of lofty air wafted from A virginal and convex forehead So that far-off posterity might open The tender coffins of the archipelago. Spring, stomping, runs down Helladic meadows, Sappho tries on polychromatic boots And with their ringing folksong hammers Cicadas forge a golden folksong ring. The carpenter raised up the roofbeams high And chickens’ necks were wrung for the wedding feast, The clumsy cobbler stretched out all five Ox skins to carve them into shoes. How sluggish is the lyre-tortoise! How barely, without feet she crawls. She lies under the sun of Epirus, And quietly her golden belly glows. O, who is going to be nice to her,
Who’ll turn her over as she sleeps? She even in her dreams awaits Terpander, Longing to tremble at dry fingertips. Oaks drink the chilly waters of a well Amid the noise of simplehaired grass And fragrant lungwort gladdens wasps. O where, where are you, blessed isles, Where no one breaks the loaf in two and bites, Where there are only milk, honey and wine, Where creaky labor doesn’t darken heaven And easily the wheel turns? 1919. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky.
… Heaviness and Tenderness are twin sisters: Bees and wasps both suck the heavy rose. Burning sand cools down. A man dies. And yesterday’s sun is carried off in a black cart. Ah, heavy honeycombs and tender nets. It’s easier to lift stone than to repeat your name. I have but one care left on earth: The golden need to ease the burden of time. I drink the cloudy air like muddy water. Time is turned over. The rose was once dirt. Tender roses spin sluggishly in thick whirlpools— Roses, heavy and tender, twined in twin wreaths. 1920. Translated by Kevin Kinsella.
venetian life Gloomy and sterile Venetian Life— The meaning is clear to me. Here: With a cold smile she looks Into the decrepit, blue glass. Delicate air. Blue, leathery veins. White snow. Green brocade. All placed on cypress stretchers, Warm and drowsy from the cape. Candles burn, burn in baskets. As if a dove had flown to the ark, At the theater and in celebration, A man is dying. Because there is no cure for love or fear, Saturn’s rings are heavier than platinum. Black velvet drapes the beautiful face And the block. In the cypress mirror frame, Venetsya, your heavy hair. Your air is cut glass. In the bedroom Blue mountains of cut glass dissolve.
Only an Adriatic-blue bottle and a rose Are in her fingers. Forgiveness! Why stay silent, Venetyanka? How can I escape this celebration of death? Black Hesper flickers in the mirror. Everything passes. The truth is dark. A man is born. A pearl dies. And Susannah must await the elders. 1920. Translated by Kevin Kinsella.
ďœąďœˇ
leningrad I’ve come back to my city, familiar to tears, To life’s little veins and puffed childhood glands. You’ve come back... Quick, open and swallow Your fish oil from the river lamps of Leningrad. Quick now, think of that Decembery day, The nasty tar with a bit of yolk whipped in. Oh Petersburg, I don’t want to die just yet: You still have my phone numbers. Petersburg, I still have the addresses— They could lead me to the voices of the dead. I live on the back stair, and the bell, Ripped out flesh and all, keeps beating in my head. And so I wait through the night for my guests to arrive, Rattling these door chains, these convict shackles. December 1930. Translated by Val Vinokur.
… For the deafening glory of forthcoming ages for that noble tribe: humankind. I was robbed of my place at the feast of the sages, my happiness and my honor, denied. My age, the wolfhound, goes straight for my throat. But no wolfblood flows in my veins. Won’t you tuck me inside (like hat into sleeve) the hot fur of Siberia’s plains. Away from the bloody bones caught in the wheel, cowardice, slushy filth—out of sight. So that blue arctic foxes may shimmer for me, their primordial grace—fill my night. Take me into the night where the pines touch the stars, to that night where the Yenisei flows. Because I am no wolf—not by blood—and I know, I will only be killed by my own. 17-18 March 1931, end of 1935. Translated by Lev Fridman.
… For the thundering glory of the coming ages, For the tall race of men, I’ve given up my cup at my fathers’ feast, And my joy, and my honor. The wolf-fanged century leaps at my shoulders, But my blood isn’t a wolf’s blood, So, like a crumpled hat, stuff me into the sleeve Of a Siberian sheepskin, So I won’t have to see the cowards, nor the bits of gristle, The bloody bones stuck in the wheel, So all night the polar foxes may shine On me in their primordial beauty. Take me into the night where the Yenisei flows, Where the pine tops touch the stars, Because my blood isn’t a wolf’s blood, And only an equal will kill me. 17-18 March 1931, end of 1935. Translated by Alex Halberstadt.
impressionism The artist painted How deeply lilacs fainted, And ringing colors, layer over layer, He dabbed like scabs on canvas. He grasped the thickness of oil: His patched summer boils Heated by a violet brain Dilated in a sultry air. And a shade, shade grows more violet, A whistle or a whip dies as a matchstick— You’ll say: chefs in the kitchen Are cooking fat pigeons. There is a hint of a swing, Veils are vague, I guess, And a bumblebee, a king, Reigns in this summer mess. 23 May 1932. Translated by Ian Probstein.
old crimea Cold Spring. Hungry Old Crimea, As it was under Wrangel—still to blame. The sheep-dogs in the yard, patches on the tatters, Still the same grayish, stinging smoke. Still beautiful is the dissipated distant land— The trees with buds, swollen a little bit, Are standing strangers, and the almonds Framed by yesterday’s stupidity are wretched. Nature does not recognize its own face. And fearful shadows of the Ukraine, Kuban… In their felt slippers the hungry peasants Are guarding the wicket-gate, not touching the ring. May 1933. Translated by Andrey Gritsman.
… We live not feeling the earth underfeet Our words aren’t heard at a range of 10 feet. When something is left from a talk of halfears, They mention the Kremlin’s best known mountaineer. His unwieldy fingers are greasy like worms. His words are as staunch as the weights made of lead. Like roaches his whiskers lengthen in laugh. And teasingly shine, his polished boot-flaps. Some are whistling, some whimpering, while others meow. He alone is allowed his cackling and pokes. And fasten like horseshoes, decrees for an eye: In the groin who’ll receive, in the forehead or brow. There’s no other laugh but the rifle’s loud bang. The Ossetian’s broad chest expands like a plank. November 1933. Translated by Luba Ostashevsky and Martin Bidney.
octaves 3. O butterfly, o Muslim, In a split shroud of muslin, So living, so dying, So giant, so as you are! Your burnoose is over your head With its large, hairy proboscis. O shroud spread out like a flag, Fold your wings—I’m frightened! 7. And Schubert on the wave, and Mozart in the aviary, And Goethe whistling on a twisting path, And Hamlet cutting thoughts with timorous steps Counted the masses’ pulse and believed the many. Perhaps the whisper came before the lips And leaves had spiraled in the treelessness, And those to whom we consecrate experience Formed features prior to experience.
8. The toothy paw of the maple Goes plunging in round corners, Draw your finger on butterfly speckles To make figures appear on walls. Some mosques are composed of the living And I now hazard a guess: All we are is Hagia Sophia With an infinite many of eyes. 9. Tell me, surveyor of deserts, Geometer of Arabic sands, Is the license of lines Stronger than billowing wind? “I do not care for its shuddering Nervous Judaic patter: It molds matter out of mutter And drinks mutter out of matter.” November 1933-January 1934. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky.
… I live among high-minded vegetable gardens, where Vanka the steward might have roamed by…. The wind serves the factories for a bargain, And the wood-planked road disappears outside. Black furrowed night, the steppe’s edge is frozen Into tiny-beaded distant fires. Behind the wall the surly landlord skulking Russian boots pacing to and fro nearby. And a floorboard sumptuously crooked into the coffin lid of a wooden deck— I sleep poorly among strangers, And even my own life is not my own. April 1935. Translated by John High.
… Alone I stare out at the white frost: the face—going nowhere, and I—I came from nowhere, And everywhere everything ironed flat, pressed to the last hair, Miraculous, the breathing plain. And so the sun squints at our starched poverty— The squint itself soothing, at ease... The forest’s ten-folds of meaning, almost the same, And snow crunches in the eyes like clean bread, innocent. 16 January 1937. Translated by John High.
… I look out alone at the face of the frost. It’s going nowhere, I’m not from anywhere, And everything’s being ironed, smoothed free of wrinkles. The plains breathe and are a miracle. But the sun is squinting in starched-stiff need— Its squint is tranquil & consoled. The ten-digit forest—almost just so... And snow crackling in my eye, like new bread, blemishless. 16 January 1937. Translated by Ian Dreiblatt.
… Alone, I look frost in the face: It—goes nowhere, I—come from no place. As ever the plain is a breathing miracle, Ironed flat, smooth, without a wrinkle. The sun squints in starched indigence, Tranquil and consoled… likewise The vast forests… and with the innocence Of fresh bread, snow crunches in the eyes. 16 January 1937. Translated by Seth Zimmerman.
… You are not dead yet, not yet alone, While with a beggar woman-friend You are delighted by the greatness of plains, By darkness, snow blizzard and by the cold. In luxurious poverty, in powerful destitution Live on all calm and all consoled. Blessed are those days and nights, And sinless is your mellifluous work. The one who is scared by the bark and cut by a wind Is like a shadow, unhappy. And pitiful is the one who, half alive himself, Goes begging from a shadow. 15-16 January 1937. Translated by Andrey Gritsman.
… Yet to die. Unalone still. She is with me, hands opened, begging. We delight in the plain’s infinity, the grandeur, Its different shades, hunger, white snows. This excellent poorness, splendid destitution, I live alone in it, somewhere—quiet, consoled— The days and nights blessed. The sweet voice of labor, guiltless. Misery comes to the one frightened by a dog’s barking, the sharp overwhelming wind—who himself, more than half-dead ask alms from a ghost, a shadow. 15-16 January 1937. Translated by John High.
… You’re not dead yet, nor alone—somebody Delights in the vast majestic plain With you—your friend the beggar lady— And in mist, hunger, blizzard, rain. Live calm and self-possessed, In beautiful poverty, humble opulence. These days and nights are blessed, And sweet-voiced work is innocence. Unfortunate is one who feels the chill Of his own shadow, fears a dog’s bark, or succumbs To the wind’s scythe—but unhappier still Is one who, half-alive, begs the shadow for crumbs. 15-16 January 1937. Translated by Seth Zimmerman.
… You’re not dead yet, you’re not yet all alone, As long as with your beggar lady-friend You take delight in the greatness of plains And in the cold, the snow, and the darkness. In splendid indigence, in mighty poverty, Live in tranquility and contentment. Those days are blessed, blessed are those nights, And the sweet labor of song is blameless. He is unhappy who is cut down by the wind And fears the barking of dogs like his own shadow. And he is poor who, half alive himself, Goes begging for alms from a shadow. 15-16 January 1937. Translated by Ilya Bernstein.
… You’re not dead yet, and you are not alone, With a gamine by your side You breathe the open plain, its howling cold, its mists. In sumptuous poverty, in potent need, You shall be peaceful and contented. Blessed are these days and nights, And sinless are your silver-throated labors. Unhappy is he who fears the dog’s bark And the slicing wind, like his own shadow, And poor is he who, half-alive, Comes begging kindness from a shade. 15-16 January 1937. Translated by Val Vinokur.
… To my lips I touch this green, this sticky oath of leaves, this evasive earth: mother of snowdrops, of maples, oaks. See how I go blind, become strengthened bowing to the smallest of roots? Are my eyes not blown apart by the exploding trees? And the little frogs, like spheres of mercury, roll their voices into a ball, twigs become branches and steam—a white fiction. 30 April 1937. Translated by Christian Hawkey and Natasha Randall.
… i. Unwillingly limping on the hollow ground With an uneven sweetness in her steps She walks—running a little bit ahead Of her quick girlfriend and the young man, her equal. She is carried forward by a constrained freedom Owed to an animating shortcoming And it may well be that a lucid guess Would like to linger for a while in her steps— About the fact that this springtime weather For us—is the mother of the tomb, And that it will begin again forever.
ii. There are women who belong to the damp earth, Whose every step is like resounding sobbing. To escort the resurrected and to be the first To greet the dead is their calling. To demand tenderness from them is a crime, And to part with them exceeds our powers. Today, an angel, tomorrow, a worm from the grave, And the day after—nothing but a shadow...
All that was moving once will be removed... Flowers are immortal, the sky is all-embracing, And what will be is no more than a promise. 4 May 1937. Translated by Ilya Bernstein.
ďœłďœˇ
contributor notes Ilya Bernstein’s book of poems is called Attention and Man (UDP, 2003) and his translations of Mandelstam have appeared in Ars Interpres, Circumference, and Persephone. Ian Dreiblatt is a poet, translator, critic, & musician; he has done Dragomoshchenko, Leskov, & Catullus. With artist Kerry Downey, he is the author of hoc me fefecit. Lev Fridman is a recent graduate of CUNY Queens with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Russian. This effort, his first publication, is dedicated to Professor Thomas Bird, for his support and enthusiasm. Andrey Gritsman, a poet and essayist, was born and raised in Moscow and now lives in the New York area. He runs the Intercultural Poetry Series at Cornelia Street Café and edits INTERPOEZIA. Once Alex Halberstadt completes a biography of rock and roll songwriter Doc Pomus, he’ll begin work on a family memoir. He writes for various magazines, accompanies himself on ukulele, and makes his home in Brooklyn. Christian Hawkey is the author of The Book of Funnels (Wave Books/Verse Press, 2004) and the chapbook HourHour (Delirium Press, 2005). He lives in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. John High is the author of seven books, including the award-winning trilogy, The Desire Notebooks. A translator of several books of contemporary Russian poetry, and edited Crossing Centuries: The New Russian Poetry. HERE is forthcoming from Talisman House. Kevin Kinsella is a writer and translator living in Brooklyn. His translation of Tristia, Mandelstam’s second collection of poems, is forthcoming from Green Integer Books. Eugene Ostashevsky wrote Iterature and Infinite Recursor Or The Bride of DJ Spinoza, two books of poems available from Ugly Duckling Presse. These translations are dedicated to Oya Ataman, with love. Luba Ostashevsky completed her translation as an undergraduate at SUNY Binghamton, under the supervision and with the aid of Professor Martin Bidney. Ian Probstein is the author of seven books of poetry in Russian, and one in English. He has compiled and edited more than 20 books and anthologies of poetry. Natasha Randall’s work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The New York Times, The St. Petersburg Times and on National Public Radio. Her translation of the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is forthcoming from The Modern Library. Alan Shaw has published translations of Griboyedov’s The Woes of Wit and Pushkin’s Mozart and Salieri. His poems have appeared in Grand Street, Partisan Review and Ars Interpres. He is also a playwright and composer. Val Vinokur is an assistant professor of Comparative Literature at The New School. His work has appeared in The Boston Review, McSweeney’s,and New American Writing. Seth Zimmerman is a professor of mathematics in the Bay Area, researching number theory, combinatorial geometry and evolutionary simulation. His rhymed translation, The Inferno of Dante Alighieri, is available in book form and on the web.
Ilya Bernstein Ian Dreiblatt Lev Fridman Andrey Gritsman Alex Halberstadt Christian Hawkey John High Kevin Kinsella Luba Ostashevsky Eugene Ostashevsky Ian Probstein Natasha Randall Alan Shaw Val Vinokur Seth Zimmerman
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