He wakes, his senses in confusion …
But all around is quiet still;
The marble-bedded fountains trill,
270And, boon companion to the rose,
The nightingale makes darkness peal;
At last the eunuch finds repose,
And once again his tired eyes close.
Those splendours of the Eastern night
That give the Mussulman delight
And make the fleeting hours the fewer!
His house’s open luxury,
His garden’s magical allure,
His harem solid and secure
280Beneath the moon’s serenity,
Alive with murmured confidences
And inspiration of the senses!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Among the women one, awake,
Sat up and, with the lightest breath,
Rose from her bed, began to walk
The darkness with the softest step …
Before her on the threshold stretched
The grizzled eunuch in a doze,
Menacing still in his repose –
290His baleful heart would never rest!
But she was past him like a ghost.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Her walk was brought soon to a halt
Before a door; then what surprise
When, trembling, she drew back the bolt
To see what lay before her eyes …
An inner dread pervaded her.
An icon-light’s sad lonely flare
Played on the pure and simple face
And holy symbol of the cross.
300O Georgian maid! The scene you see
Is native to your very soul,
To your forsaken self it all
Speaks of the things that used to be. –
Before her, peaceful as a child,
The princess lay; a virgin dream
Brightened her cheek where tears had been
And warmed it to a gentle smile:
Thus the moon lights up a flower
Left hanging heavy from a shower.
310It seemed, an angel sent from heaven
Not long ago alighting there
Had lain to rest with many a tear
For that poor prisoner of the harem.
Zarema, what is this despair?
With burning breast and breath held tight
She fell upon her knees, and cried:
‘Take pity on me, and hear my prayer …!’
Her passionate entreaty broke
Upon the maiden’s sleep; she woke.
320And there before her frightened eyes –
A stranger down upon her knees;
With trembling hand she helped her rise,
Then said, a little more at ease:
‘Who are you? … In the night, so late
And quite alone – Why have you come?’
‘Help me; in my unlucky fate
One hope is left me – only one …
Long did I live a life of bliss, and
Every day was free from care,
330Happiness was everywhere …
Now I can only die here. Listen.
‘The land where I was born is far
Far away … but to this day
Nothing can destroy or mar
The pictures in my memory.
Mountains rising in the sky,
Hot alpine streams that never dry,
Impenetrable oaks and bays,
Other laws and other ways;
340But in what circumstance or woe
I left my home I do not know;
All I remember is the sea,
A man high up above the sails …
And after that, no griefs or ills
Ever came to trouble me.
I blossomed in tranquillity;
Long did I keep myself apart;
I waited in the harem’s shade.
I found the yearning of my heart
350Fulfilled at last. Girey had stayed
His hand from bloody war, to cease
His fearsome raids and turn to peace,
And see his beauties didn’t fade.
Before him, fearfully in line,
We waited. Then his radiant gaze
Lighted on me; no word of praise,
He called me to him … From that time
We breathed unclouded ecstasy;
No doubt, or spite, or jealousy
360Troubled either him or me.
Mariya! You appeared before him …
At once you bore his soul away,
And then how many times I saw him
Consumed by treacherous thoughts – Girey
Shuts his ears to my reproaches;
He finds the heart’s groans wearisome;
Those feelings, confidences, touches
We once exchanged – now he knows none.
You are incapable of wrong;
370I can lay no blame on you …
I am beautiful; among
All others here, no one but you
Can rival me; but I was born
For passion, not your kind of love:
Then why disturb a helpless heart
With your impassive grace? Enough!
I am the one he’s set apart;
Still I feel his burning kisses
And hear his awe-inspiring vows,
380All his thoughts and all his wishes
Shared with me in precious hours;
I shall die if he betrays me …
Weeping on my knees before you
I don’t accuse you, I implore you –
Give me back my joy, and raise me
From my knees to be Girey’s:
For he is mine; you blind his eyes.
Disdain him, beg him, bore him, puzzle him,
Employ whatever means you can;
390Swear … (of course I am a Muslim,
Like all the captives of the Khan,
Although my faith was once another,
And that one, taught me by my mother,
Was yours) … An oath then; don’t abuse it:
Return Zarema to Girey …
I have a dagger, I can use it
In my own Caucasian way.’
And on the instant she was gone.
The princess dared not follow her.
400The language of tormenting passion
Was alien to her, but she heard
The murderous accents of obsession.
Where were the prayers and words to aid her
After such humiliation?
What was the best that could await her?
Lost wasted bloom, the sorry station
Of a neglected concubine?
If Khan Girey – O God! – forgot
His captive beauty at her shrine
410For ever – or one day cut short
The wretched years of her decline?
Then with what delight Mariya
Would take her leave of worldly strife!
The dearest moments of her life
Were over, nothing would be dearer!
What was there left for her to do,
Lost in the wasteland of this world?
Mariya’s time had come below;
The heavens smiled, and from her woe
420To peace eternal she was called.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mariya gone, the days sped by.
At rest she would forever lie.
The long-awaited world she lit
As, angel-like, she entered it.
What brought her life to its sad close?
Despair consuming her heart’s core?
Some sickness? … Something else? Who knows?
Gentle Mariya was no more!
The gloomy palace was forlorn;
430Girey was absent; now he made,
With his new-gathered Tatar horde,
Many a further deadly
raid.
Black of brow, athirst for blood,
He rode the battle’s stormy flood,
But in his inmost heart the flame
Of other feelings burned its pain.
From time to time, his sabre raised,
He checked his sweep and seemed quite dazed,
Gazing at nothing, motionless;
440Then paled – was he benumbed by fears? –
And whispered something none could guess;
His cheek would show hot sudden tears.
The harem is without its khan,
Languishing in sad neglect;
The eyes that constantly suspect
Still oversee with cold command
Those fading maidens, and among them
Long has the Georgian been unseen:
The silent guardians of the harem
450Have plunged her in the deepest stream;
Her torment ceased at just the time
The princess met her sudden end;
Whatever could have been her crime,
Fearful was the punishment! –
Giving up his ravages
Through peaceful Russian villages
And lands below the Caucasus,
The Khan returned to the Crimea,
And to the memory of Mariya,
460Never ceasing to adore her,
He had a marble fountain raised
In a remote and tranquil corner.
Over it, high in a recess,
A cross was given pride of place
Above the Muslim moon (of course,
A solecism one ignores);
Also an epigraph – the years
Have not erased it from this marvel:
The water warbling over marble
470Falls on the script in cooling tears,
And they will flow for evermore.
Thus a grieving mother weeps
Over a son who fell in war.
There a passing maiden keeps
Acquaintance with the ways of old;
A spot on which grief never sleeps –
The Fount of Tears, it is now called.
Cut off from all society,
For northern friends and feasts I long;
480I’ve visited Bakhchisaray,
Its palace in oblivion.
Along the silent passageways
I’ve wandered where the Tatar scourge
Was wont to feast and take his ease,
Returned from raids, campaigns and such.
And there still, all combines to please
Throughout the empty courts and halls;
The waters run and roses glow,
And everywhere vines thickly grow,
490And gold gleams bright upon the walls.
There I’ve seen many a latticed chamber
Where, in the springtime of their years,
Fingering rosaries of amber,
The women sighed and hid their tears.
I’ve seen the graveyard of the khans;
Those columns, for each potentate,
Topped with their spiral marble crowns,
Seemed the ordinance of fate.
The khans – the harem and its guard –
500Where were they? All was silent, sad,
All changed … But no, it wasn’t that
That in this moment filled my heart:
The roses’ breath and fountains’ spill
Had led me to forget all else,
And all at once my heightened pulse
Leapt with a mysterious thrill:
A shade – a maiden passed before me!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
My friends, whose image did I see?
Whose shade pursued and haunted me,
510So boldly, ineluctably?
Was it Mariya’s gentle soul
Or did Zarema hurry by,
Consumed with furious jealousy,
Alone in an abandoned hall?
Other eyes now come to mind,
Beauty belonging to this world,
And in my banishment I pine,
A living form I long to hold …
Madman, no more! You’ve long since paid
520Your tribute to unhappy love,
Do not renew vain vows you’ve made,
And dreams on which you’ve fed enough –
Come to your senses: will you long
Embrace your chains, poor prisoner,
And on your unembarrassed lyre
Announce your madness to the throng?
Peace and the Muses’ devotee
Am I: forgetting love and fame,
Soon, O Salgir, I shall be free
530And happy on your shores again!
And I shall see those once-dear slopes
Arise from memory’s fond haze;
As the Crimean coastline swoops
The sea will cheer my hungry gaze.
Enchanted region! Living dream!
The eye’s delight – whether you choose
The vineyards’ ruby-amber gleam,
Or hills and woods of all the hues,
Or poplars sheltering a stream …
540All beckons to the traveller
When at the quiet morning hour
He takes an upland path to urge
His old mount on with bridle slack,
And there before him, forth and back
The greening waters swell and surge
Beneath the crags of Ayu-Dag.
1823
The Gypsies
The transitional character of this poem in Pushkin’s development may explain some hesitation on his part in the manner and timing of its publication. He delayed the first edition in its entirety for more than two years; it appeared in a small paperbound book on its own in 1827, after his return from exile, without his name as author and with a note on the cover that it had been written in 1824. Pushkin’s farewell to Romanticism is enacted in the poem itself, which is a new beginning in the genre of the poema. In his Romantic quest for ‘freedom’ from the shackles of urban life, Aleko doesn’t Romantically melt into gypsy society and relish its free-and-easy values; his unattached vagueness is set amid the ever-active, vibrant day-to-day life of the ‘migratory horde’ (line 18). His behaviour is sharply at odds with the values of the gypsy community that takes him in; this is reflected in the language of the narrative and the individual voices of Aleko, the old gypsy and his daughter, and it leads to tragedy.
The Gypsies has been the subject of much debate among Russian thinkers and critics, Aleko being seen as a new kind of character in Russian literature, representing the played-out values of Enlightenment civilisation in contrast to those of primal, innocent, rural society (see more on this in the Introduction under ‘Narrative Poems’). Dostoyevsky put Aleko and Onegin at the centre of his famous ‘Pushkin speech’ of 1880, considering Aleko ‘a stranger in his own land’ and representative of the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia cut off from the people.
In this poem, the flexibility of Pushkin’s favourite iambic tetrameter, which is kept in the translation, makes it the ideal vehicle for conveying dramatic dialogue and stylistic contrast.
A noisy band of gypsies roams
Through Bessarabia far and wide.
Tonight their worn and tattered homes
Are pitched above the riverside.
Joyful their encampment feels,
Carefree their sleep beneath the skies,
Like freedom; screened by wagon wheels
Half overspread with canopies
A fire burns bright; a family
10Prepares its supper; on the lea
The horses graze; a bear lies free
Behind a tent. On every side
Life sounds: the cares of families thinking
Of next day’s short and early ride,
The cries of children, women singing,
And the travelling anvil ringing.
But now the hush of slumber drops
And in the steppe’s vast solitude
20Neighs of horses, barks of dogs
Are all the sounds that can be heard.
Everywhere the fires have died;
All is tranquil, and the moon,
High up in the heavens alone,
Shines down upon the quiet site.
Inside his tent an old man sits,
Warmed by the lingering glow of ashes,
And doesn’t sleep; instead he watches
The far expanses wrapped in mists.
30Somewhere on the lonely steppe
His daughter is off wandering; she
Enjoys a life of liberty,
She will be back; but night has crept
Apace, and in a little time
The moonlight will not be so bold,
And of Zemfira not a sign;
The old man’s meagre meal is cold.
But here she comes, and following her
A youth no one has seen before.
40‘Father,’ declares the girl, ‘I found
Our guest out there beside the mound;
I’ve asked him in to stay with us.
He wants to be a gypsy too;
The law is after him, he says,
But I shall love him and be true.
Aleko is his name – I know
He’ll go with me wherever I go.’
OLD MAN
I’ll be most glad if you will spend
The night with us – or longer if
50You wish, and share our food, our tent.
Be one of us, and live our life –
The threadbare freedom of the road.
We’re off tomorrow with our load;
Pick your trade if you’ve a flair:
Singer, smith, or dance the bear.
ALEKO
I’ll stay with you.
ZEMFIRA
He shall be mine.
No one shall take him from my bed …
Out on the steppe tonight you’re blind:
It’s crescent moon and it has set.
60Sleep weighs heavy on my head …
*
Day comes. The sun shows through the mist.
The old man takes the morning air;
‘Zemfira, wake! Your day is fair –
Children, leave your couch of bliss!’
People pour forth noisily;
Tents are struck, and presently
The carts move off as one. Now see,
The throng of gypsies fills the plain:
In baskets slung across their backs
70Donkeys carry children playing;
Closely following in their tracks
Men, wives, girls, brothers, all together,
Young and old; din everywhere,
Songs, the roaring of the bear,
The jingling of its iron tether,
Selected Poetry (Penguin) Page 12