Selected Poetry (Penguin)

by Alexander Pushkin

  Somewhere in the Thrice-Ninth Clime

  In the Thrice-Eleventh Time

  Reigned the glorious Tsar Dadon.

  Fearsome from first boyhood on,

  He would unrelentingly

  Cause offence and injury;

  When, however, he grew old,

  His campaigns were not so bold,

  He desired a rest from war.

  10Then his neighbours by the score

  Shook the tsar from his repose,

  Dealt him many fearful blows.

  Every outpost sent alarms;

  Men in thousands under arms

  He was forced to keep on hand

  Guarding his invaded land.

  Generals did what they could do;

  Hopeless, they were far too few.

  Danger from the south they guessed –

  20In came raiders from the east;

  Saved from one calamity –

  Evil visitors by sea.

  Tears of rage shed Tsar Dadon,

  Sleepless nights went on and on.

  What a life! And what despair!

  Seeking guidance everywhere,

  One astrologer the monarch

  Chose from his wise men, a eunuch;

  Sent for him by messenger.

  30When the wise astrologer

  Came before Dadon, he pulled

  From his bag a cock of gold.

  Boldly he addressed his sire:

  ‘Set this cockerel on a spire;

  There he’ll keep good watch for you,

  This my golden bird and true:

  When he sees it’s quiet all round

  He will sit without a sound;

  But should ever foe be spied

  40Creeping up on any side,

  Threat of any dangerous course

  From some unexpected source –

  Then my golden bird will rise,

  Raise his comb toward the skies,

  Ruffle up his plumes and crow;

  He will turn towards the foe.’

  Tsar Dadon, at last consoled,

  Promised quantities of gold.

  ‘For the service you have done,’

  50To the eunuch glad Dadon,

  ‘Whatsoever is your will

  As my own I shall fulfil.’

  So the cock with faithful eye

  Watched the frontiers from on high.

  Danger spied, he’d stir and shuffle,

  Face the foe – cry, plumes a-ruffle:

  ‘Now, sire – cock-a-doodle-do!

  What an easy life for you!’

  And the neighbours of Dadon,

  60Soundly beaten one by one,

  Once more held the tsar in awe:

  By and by they gave up war.

  Two years passed; without a sound

  Sat the cockerel; calm all round.

  Then one day a mighty rumpus

  Roused the ruler from his slumbers.

  ‘Father of the people! Save us!’

  One of his best generals quavers.

  ‘Sire! Wake up! Calamity!’

  70‘What d’you want, good man, of me?

  What calamity?’ Dadon

  Answers slowly with a yawn.

  ‘Listen, sire – the cock is crowing:

  In the city fear is growing.’

  To the window! Facing east,

  See! the cockerel swells its breast.

  ‘Warriors – no time to waste!

  Every man to horse! Make haste!’

  Eastwards with his elder son

  80Moves the army of Dadon.

  Now the cockerel’s cries have ceased;

  Peace; the tsar retires to rest.

  Seven days and not a word

  From his army to be heard;

  Was there, was there not, a battle?

  No word ever reached the capital.

  Once again the cockerel crows.

  Off a second army goes;

  Now his younger son Dadon

  90Sends to save the elder one.

  Soon the cockerel crows no more.

  No word back, just as before!

  Seven days again go past,

  All the city is aghast.

  Once again the cockerel crows;

  Off Dadon’s third army goes:

  Praying to heaven for the best,

  This one he leads toward the east.

  Night and day his men of war

  100Marched till they could march no more:

  Not a sign of battle found,

  Bivouac or burial-mound.

  Tsar Dadon, in puzzlement

  As to what this mystery meant,

  Passed through uplands near the sky.

  Seven days again went by,

  And upon the mountainside –

  See – a silken tent is spied.

  All is silent, all serene;

  110Close by, down a deep ravine

  Lie the armies he has sent.

  Tsar Dadon draws near the tent …

  Horror! Both his sons lie dead,

  Armourless, with naked head,

  Plunged in each the other’s sword.

  Back and forth upon the sward,

  On the trampled bloody grass

  Their abandoned horses pass …

  Wailed the tsar: ‘My sons – my sons!

  120Our two falcons both at once

  Fallen to the snare! Oh woe!

  Now my hour has come, I know.’

  All lamented for Dadon,

  Valleys groaned with heavy groan

  And the mountain’s heart was rent.

  Suddenly the silken tent

  Opened wide its flaps, and ah! –

  Slowly, softly toward the tsar

  Walked a maiden like the dawn,

  130Walked the Queen of Shamakhan.

  As in sun the bird of shade

  He was mute before the maid;

  Gazing long upon her eyes

  He forgot each son’s demise.

  She with bow and smiling face

  Led him to her resting-place,

  Set before him fare untold,

  Bade him eat all he could hold,

  Then lay down his weary head

  140On a rich-brocaded bed.

  Seven days passed by again;

  Willing slave in her domain,

  With the maiden queen Dadon,

  Charmed, in rapture, feasted on.

  Then the tsar, so long delayed,

  With his warriors and the maid

  Set off on his journey home

  By the route that he had come.

  All the way before him flew

  150Rumour true and not so true.

  From the town gates with a shout

  All the people hurried out,

  Hailed the chariot from afar –

  Ran behind the queen and tsar;

  All were greeted by Dadon …

  Now he sees amidst the throng,

  In the wise man’s hat and tunic,

  All swan-white, his friend the eunuch.

  ‘Father! What have you to say?

  160Closer … What’s your business, pray?’

  Thus the wise man to the tsar:

  ‘Let us clear accounts now, sire.

  Long ago you promised me,

  For my services in fee

  Whatsoever was my will

  As your own you would fulfil.

  Give me therefore, sire, the queen,

  Give me the Shamàkhan queen.’

  Answered Tsar Dadon in thunder:

  170‘Are these ears my own? – I wonder,

  Has the Devil seized your wits?

  So, I promised … It befits

  Age and wisdom to maintain

  Limits. You – to ask the queen?

  Don’t you know, then, who I am?

  Ask for gold, a noble name,

  Horses from the royal stud,

  Half my kingdom if you would!’

  ‘No, sire, none of these – the queen,


  180Give me the Shamàkhan queen,’

  Said the wise man to the tsar.

  ‘Devil take you! You, I swear,’

  Spat the tsar, ‘will never win her.

  You torment yourself, you sinner –

  Off, while you possess your soul!

  Take away this doddering fool!’

  Still the old man would persist;

  Best with some though not insist –

  Prompt the rod upon his brow:

  190Down, but this time not to bow,

  Dead he dropped. – The people shuddered …

  No lament the maiden uttered:

  ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ and ‘He-he-he!’

  Unafraid of sin was she.

  Tsar Dadon, alarmed the while,

  Turned on her a tender smile.

  On he drove towards the town …

  Came a gentle ringing: down –

  Full in view of all the people –

  200Flew the cockerel from its steeple,

  Met the chariot as it sped,

  Perched upon the tsar’s bare head,

  Pecked it, plumes a-ruffle, flew

  Up and off into the blue …

  On the instant Tsar Dadon

  Fell – and perished with one groan.

  Wholly vanished was the queen,

  Quite as if she’d never been.

  This our tale, though far from truth,

  210Holds a lesson for our youth.

  1834

  Abbreviations

  Abbreviated references are made to the following in the Notes, in the notes accompanying the Introduction and in the introductions to the narrative poems and fairy tales:

  Annenkov P. V. Annenkov (ed.), Sochineniya Pushkina [Works of Pushkin], ‘with materials for his biography, a portrait, and reproductions of autographs and drawings’, 7 vols (St Petersburg: published under the name of P. V. Annenkov, 1855–7)

  Arndt Walter Arndt (ed. and tr.), Alexander Pushkin: Collected Narrative and Lyrical Poetry (Dana Point, CA: Ardis, 1984)

  A. S. Pushkin A. S. Pushkin, Sobraniye sochineniy v desyati tomakh [Collected Works in Ten Volumes], ed. D. D. Blagoy et al. (Moscow: State Publishing House of Literature, 1959–62), vol. 1 (Lyric Poems, 1814–22), vol. 2 (Lyric Poems, 1823–36), vol. 3 (Narrative Poems and Fairy Tales), vol. 9 (Letters, 1815–30) and vol. 10 (Letters, 1831–7)

  Basker Michael Basker (ed.), A. S. Pushkin: The Bronze Horseman, with an introduction and notes (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2000) and including the original text edited by N. V. Izmailov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1978)

  Bayley John Bayley, Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971)

  Bethea David M. Bethea, ‘“Secular Power”: An Introduction to Pushkin’s “Mirskaia Vlast”’, Modern Poetry in Translation, New Series, no. 15 (1999)

  Binyon T. J. Binyon, Pushkin: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 2002)

  Briggs A. D. P. Briggs, Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1998), chapter 5

  Gillespie Alyssa Dinega Gillespie, ‘Sidestepping Silence, Ventriloquizing Death: A Reconsideration of Pushkin’s Stone Island Cycle’, Pushkin Review, vol. 6–7 (2003–4), pp. 39–83; quotations from this source here slightly emended and expanded for greater clarity, with the author’s permission

  Gorodetsky B. P. Gorodetsky, Lirika Pushkina [Pushkin’s Lyric Poetry] (Moscow and Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962)

  Herzen Alexander Herzen, Polyarnaya zvezda [Pole Star] (London: 1855 and 1856)

  Hoisington Sona Hoisington, ‘Pushkin’s “Golden Cockerel”: A Critical Re-examination’, in The Golden Age of Russian Literature and Thought, ed. Derek Offord (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992)

  Kahn Andrew Kahn, Pushkin’s Lyric Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)

  Ketchian Sonia I. Ketchian, ‘For Two Centuries We Have Cherished – Alexander Pushkin’, in A. D. P. Briggs (ed.), Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia’s Best-Loved Writer (London: Hazar Publishing, 1999)

  Lednicki W. Lednicki, Pushkin’s ‘Bronze Horseman’: The Story of a Masterpiece (Berkeley, CA, and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955)

  Lotman Yury Lotman, quoted in Boris Gasparov, ‘The Apocalyptic Theme in Pushkin’s Count Nulin’, in Peter Alberg Jensen and Barbara Lönqvist et al. (eds), Text and Context: Essays to Honor Nils Åke Nilsson (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1987)

  Nepomnyashchy Valentin Nepomnyashchy, ‘A Few Words about the Tale [of the Golden Cockerel]’, Soviet Literature, no. 1 (1987), pp. 115–19

  Simmons Ernest J. Simmons, Pushkin (New York: Vintage Books, 1964)

  Tsvetaeva Marina Tsvetaeva, Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry, tr. Angela Livingstone (Hexham: Bloodaxe, 1992)

  Vatsuro and Fomichev V. E. Vatsuro and S. A. Fomichev (eds), Pushkin v prizhiznennoy kritike [Pushkin in Lifetime Critical Responses], vol. 1 (1820–27) (St Petersburg: State Pushkin Theatre Centre, 1996)

  Vitale Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button, tr. Ann Goldstein and Jon Rothschild (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

  Wachtel Michael Wachtel, A Commentary to Pushkin’s Lyric Poetry, 1826–1836 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011)

  Wolff Tatiana Wolff (ed. and tr.), Pushkin on Literature, revised edition (London: Athlone Press, 1986)

  Wood Antony Wood, ‘Reading the Meter: Translating Two Lyric Poems by Pushkin’, Cardinal Points Literary Journal, vol. 7 (2017), pp. 202–5

  Zhukovsky Vasily Zhukovsky (ed.), collected edition of reprinted published works of Pushkin in eight volumes (St Petersburg: 1838), plus three supplementary volumes containing unpublished work (St Petersburg: 1841)

  Glossary of Metrical Terms

  The following terms are used in the Introduction, ‘Translating Pushkin’, and introductions and notes to the poems.

  alexandrine line of verse consisting of six feet, usually iambic in Russian and English; in Russian often in rhymed couplets

  anapaestic syllabic sequence of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one

  caesura pause in the middle of a line of verse, usually marking a break in sense or phraseology

  elision suppression of a sound, syllable or letter, commonly a final e, to keep scansion in verse

  enjambement running over of the sense from one line to the next without punctuation

  feminine/masculine rhyme rhyme ending with an unstressed syllable (feminine) or a stressed syllable (masculine)

  foot (feet) unit(s) of verse consisting of two or three syllables of a given stress pattern

  hemistich half a line of verse

  hexameter line consisting of six feet

  iambic syllabic sequence of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable

  inversion reversion of stress pattern in a foot while otherwise keeping scansion

  ottava rima stanza of eight lines rhyming abababcc

  pentameter line of verse consisting of five feet

  reversed stress see inversion

  ring rhyme rhyme scheme abba

  tetrameter line consisting of four feet

  trimeter line consisting of three feet

  trochaic syllabic sequence of a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable

  Notes

  In these notes, differences from the metre of the original in translation are indicated; absence of comment indicates that the original metre is kept, with certain freedoms traditional in English verse (see ‘Translating Pushkin’). Pushkin’s verse apart from blank verse always has full rhymes; where these are translated in this book by half-rhymes, near-rhymes and rhymes in alternate lines only, or the rhyme scheme differs from that of the original, this has not been annotated. See the glossary on p. 227 for an explanation of terms regarding metre and rhyme used in this book.

  Poems are arranged in chronological order following the exact date of composition, as far as can be ascertained, within the year indicated. Where occasionally a poem was co
mposed over a longer period, only the year of completion is given. Transliteration of Russian names and words broadly adopts the British Standard system. Syllabic stress is indicated as necessary.

  First publication details of poems published in Pushkin’s lifetime are not regularly given in these notes. For the third or so of those here translated that were posthumously published, only first publication dates are given, with full identification of only the four most important sources – Vasily Zhukovsky’s editions of 1838 and 1841; P. V. Annenkov’s of 1855–7, the first comprehensive edition of Pushkin; and the Russian émigré Alexander Herzen’s almanac Polyarnaya zvezda (Pole Star), published in London in 1855 and 1856 – and in some cases special mention of locations of publication outside Russia.

  Translations of quoted material are by the present translator except where otherwise stated. For abbreviated references, see Abbreviations, p. 223.

  I

  LYRIC POEMS

  St Petersburg, 1814–20

  To a Young Beauty who has Taken Snuff (1814)

  Pushkin wrote this poem, which takes the form of a madrigal, at the age of about fifteen; it is taken to be addressed to the married sister of a school friend. Two centuries previously, under the first Romanov, Mikhail I (r. 1613–45), snuff-taking had been punishable in Russia by removal of the nose, and even when the practice later became fashionable, this draconian measure could have lingered in the folk memory in Pushkin’s time.

  The original varies hexameter with tetrameter, and exceptionally trimeter, with free rhyming. First published in Zhukovsky, 1841.

  5 Clementina: Original Klimena; a name of decorously chosen Classical origin.

  The Rose (1815)

  Written at the age of sixteen at the Russian and Latin teacher’s invitation to a Lycée class to write a poem on the theme after an early end to the lesson.

  To Baroness M. A. Delvig (1815)

  Written during a holiday spent at Tsarskoye Selo over Christmas 1815 at the house of the family of Pushkin’s friend the future poet and literary journalist Anton Delvig. The addressee was Delvig’s sister Mariya, to whom Pushkin addressed a second poem (‘To Masha’) the following year, set as a song which became popular in the Lycée community.

  First published in Annenkov, 1857.

  23 Hymen: God of marriage in Greek mythology.

  To Princess V. M. Volkonskaya (1816)