Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry

by Konstantin Batyushkov

Deep in my soul, I see your smile, your eyes

  So full of joy…Maiden of love, I touched you,

  Drank honey and roses from your moistened lips.

  Is Zafna blushing?…Innocent companion,

  Quietly press your lips on mine, unsealed…

  And you, swift torrent of the wild expanses,

  Roar gently as you foam across the field!

  I sense the agitation in your bosom,

  The beating of your heart, your tearful eyes;

  How sweet the modest whispers of a maiden!

  Zafna, o Zafna! see how as it flies

  This fragrant flower is borne off by the current;

  The waters hasten on—the flower is gone!

  Time flows away more swiftly than this river

  That downhill through the thickets roars and foams!

  Time will destroy both youth and charming motion…

  A smile lights up your face, maiden of love!

  You feel your heart beat faster with emotion,

  Fierce raptures and the ardor in the blood…

  Zafna, o Zafna! the dove, all innocent,

  And his still-loving mate envy our kiss…

  Our sighs of love are borne off by the torrent

  Roaring and foaming through the wilderness.

  (Essays, 239–40)

  Translation and the reworking of foreign poems occupied much of Batyushkov’s time in these years, but he wrote many lyric poems of his own. One of his constant themes, from his earliest poems, is the elegiac lament for lost youth and beauty, a notable example being the short poem written in 1811 on the death of Varvara Kokoshkina, the wife of an actor, and a close companion of Pyotr Vyazemsky. Here Bayushkov uses an original stanzaic pattern with feminine endings to bring into Russian something of the suavity he so loved in Italian verse—emphasized here by the epigraph from Petrarch:

  ON THE DEATH OF THE WIFE OF F. F. KOKOSHKIN

  Nell’età sua piú bella, e piú fiorita…

  …E viva, e bella al ciel salita8

  (Petrarch)

  She is gone, our lovely Lila, sweet companion!

  All the world lies friendless!

  Weep then, love and friendship, weep for sorrow, Hymen!

  Happiness has left us!

  Friendship! every hour you filled her life with gladness,

  Flowers of celebration;

  Weeping and lamenting, now you lay your goddess

  Where the grave lies waiting.

  Now plant dismal yew trees, branches of sad cypress

  All around her relics!

  Let the young folk bring their tears of purest sadness,

  Flowers with azure petals!

  Everything is joyless, only the spring Zephyr

  Kisses her memorial;

  Now death’s quiet spirit, in this place of weeping,

  Steals the rose’s glory.

  Hymen, pale and mute here, in his long-drawn torment

  Is forever bound,

  At the tomb he quenches his resplendent torchlight

  With a shaking hand.

  (Essays, 241)

  Friendship was a never-failing value for Batyushkov; his short poem of that name (quoted in chapter 1) is a free translation of Bion’s Greek, made in 1811 or 1812. It is not surprising then that many of his poems are familiar verse epistles to friends, both male and female. The recipient of the following poem of 1809–1810 remains unknown—indeed it cannot be assumed that there was a real recipient, though the poem seems to carry genuine feeling:

  FOR N’S BIRTHDAY

  O you who were the soul

  Of happiness and pleasure!

  You flowered like a rose

  Shining with heavenly beauty.

  Now all alone, neglected, sad, you sit

  Quietly by the window,

  Your birthday sees no songs, no compliments.

  But feel the heartfelt sympathy of friendship

  And let your beating heart be still.

  What have you lost? A swarm of flatterers,

  Scarecrows in mind, in dignity, in manners,

  Pitiless judges, tedious declaimers.

  You had one true friend…he is with you still.

  (Essays, 230)

  By contrast, everything suggests that “Elysium,” written at about the same time and in the tripping trochaic meter used for many of the relaxed epistles to friends, is in fact a dream vision addressed to a woman of the poet’s imagination, an imagination haunted by Horace and the French poets. Rather than talking to a real person, Batyushkov is weaving a variation on his theme of Epicurean enjoyment of life:

  ELYSIUM

  O, until your youth, so precious,

  Like an arrow flies from you,

  Drink joys from a brimming beaker,

  And, when night falls, with the lute

  Blend your voice in a sweet anthem,

  Praising love and shunning care!

  But when in our little cabin

  Death comes for us, on our hour,

  Then embrace me, hold me tightly

  As the tendrils of the vine

  Round the slender elm go winding—

  So embrace me one last time!

  Let your hands then, white as lilies

  Bind me in a tender chain,

  Bring your lips and mine together,

  Pour your soul out like a flame!

  By an unfamiliar pathway

  Down there by the quiet shore

  The good god of love will lead us

  Through the meadows thick with flowers

  To Elysium, where a blending

  Of love and pleasure melts the soul

  And once more the lover rises

  With a new flame in his blood,

  Where the nymphs, singing and wheeling

  In a graceful choral dance

  Gladden Horace, who for Delia

  Still composes loving songs.

  There, beneath the shifting shadow

  Of the myrtles, love will braid

  Wreathes for us, and tender poets

  Greet us in the genial shade.

  (Essays, 341–42)

  As for male friends, apart from Gnedich, Vyazemsky, and Zhukovsky, there was his companion-in-arms, the young Ivan Petin, with whom he had already served in Prussia and Finland. In his letter of February 1810 (discussed earlier in this chapter), evenings by the fireside with Petin figured as Batyushkov’s “only consolation” in an unfamiliar Moscow. Looking back on these days in his 1815 “Memories of Petin” (who had been killed in battle in 1813), he paints a homely scene:

  After the Swedish war was over, we both found ourselves in Moscow (1810). Petin, under treatment for serious wounds, devoted his spare time to the pleasures of society, whose charms are more intensely felt by military people than by others. Many an evening we spent by the fireside, deep in the satisfying conversations to which frankness and jollity give a particular charm.

  (Essays, 401–2)

  This is the background to an epistle to his friend, where Batyushkov embroiders memories of the battle of Indesalmi in Finland, before dwelling again on his failures and disappointments and concluding with the two comrades’ remedy for all ills:

  TO PETIN

  Favorite of the god of battle!

  Comrade in the ranks of Mars!

  More than once we’ve paid a double

  Tribute to glory in the wars:

  Laurel on your noble helmet

  Was intertwined with myrtle leaves,

  While in a solitary corner

  I picked forget-me-nots of love.

  Do you remember, child of glory,

  Indesalmi? Night of dread!

  “Not for me such entertainments,”

  I said—and with the muses fled!

  While with bayonets you were driving

  The Swedes beyond the distant wood,

  I was heroically striving

  To find for your return…some food.

  Joking, you were always happy />
  In Aphrodite’s lovely games,

  But I am equally unhappy

  In love and war, and wear away

  My days of life in constant boredom

  (O for a flash of happiness!).

  I yawn at night, but in the morning

  Weep for dreams and their caress.

  Pointless tears! A chain awaits me

  Woven from a skein of cares;

  From my homeland I am driven

  Once again on dangerous seas.

  Blind Cupid steers my little vessel

  Over the waves with a light hand,

  And yawning indolence will settle

  Herself beside me on the planks.

  Perhaps one day, as youth too early

  Races away from us, I may

  Come to reason, but can joy really

  Live with reason for a day?

  But why am I in such a hurry,

  Good friend, to sink behind a cloud?

  My fate lies in the bottle, surely!

  Let us drink and sing out loud:

  “Happy the man who has made lovely

  With flowers his love-haunted days,

  Singing with carefree friends and comrades,

  And found contentment—in his dreams!

  Happy that man, his lot is better

  Than all the tsars and their grandees.

  Let us scorn slavery and fetters

  And live in sweet obscurity,

  Get through life one way or another,

  Taking the rough days with the smooth,

  Fill up our glass with wine, dear brother,

  And laugh out loud at all the fools!”

  (Essays, 280–81)

  The sentiments expressed in the epistle to Petin are echoed in one of Batyushkov’s most celebrated poems, “My Penates.” Written in Khantonovo in the autumn of 1811, it is in part an apology for not accepting Vyazemsky’s pressing invitations to return to Moscow for his wedding. The obstacle was of course a shortage of money, and Batyushkov replied very prosaically to Vyazemsky: “Alas! Like it or not, I must read my Horace and feed on hope, since the present is boring and stupid. I am living in the forests, deep in snow, surrounded by priests and Old Believers, weighed down with business” (WP, 125). But if he could not go to the city, he could imaginatively invite his friends to the country. The result was a poem of some three hundred lines, celebrating once again the pleasures of a visibly idealized humble home; the very place where Batyushkov suffered the agonies of skuka is transfigured, as if in a dream, into the refuge of friendship.

  “My Penates” is written in the short rhyming lines favored by Batyushkov for this type of poem, in this case iambic trimeters. Like many of his poems, it combines different styles and tones, seeking for a personal voice rather than conformity to a set genre. Subtitled “An Epistle to Zh[ukovsky] and V[yazemsky],” it begins with an address to the classical household gods:

  Penates of my fathers,

  And household gods for me!

  You own no golden treasures,

  But you are content to be

  In the dark cells and corners

  Where here for my homecoming

  I’ve quietly set you down

  In places of your own;

  Where I, a homeless wanderer,

  Modest in what I wish for,

  Have sought refuge from care.

  You gods, receive my prayer

  And give to me your blessing!

  As a poet I bring no present

  Of fragrant wines for you,

  No cloud of incense, no!

  But tears of soft emotion,

  The heart’s secret commotion

  And the sweet songs that come

  From the nine sisters’ home.

  O Lares! find a home here

  In this unshowy house,

  Smile kindly on the poet

  And grant him happiness!

  Here in this humble hovel

  By the window, all forlorn,

  Stands a three-cornered table,

  Its cloth tattered and worn,

  And, hanging in the corner,

  A witness to old wars,

  There is the blunt, half-rusted

  Sword of my ancestors.

  Here are some chosen volumes

  And a bed rigid and hard,

  The plain kitchen utensils

  And cracked old pots and jars.

  Cracked! but to me they’re dearer

  Than chaises longues draped in velvet

  Or the vases of the rich!…

  The quiet country house is not a place for rustic labor, of course, but for love, friendship, and poetry. The poet’s imagination peoples his solitude. He dreams of a visit from the enchanting Lila or Lileta, whose love and caresses make up for his failure to achieve glory. Friendship too is represented, especially the companionship of poets. Great figures from the past and present appear at his summons: Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Karamzin, Krylov,…Less conventionally, Batyushkov places at the end of his poem a direct address to his young poetic friends, once again rehearsing the Epicurean vision of life and death:

  O Lares and Penates

  Of this, my humble dwelling,

  Conceal from envious eyes

  The happiness I cherish,

  Conceal my deep contentment,

  The peace and joy I prize!

  Fortune, take back your presents

  Of cares that dazzle sight!

  With eyes full of indifference

  I look at your swift flight;

  Into a sheltered harbor

  I’ve brought my little boat

  And left the sons of fortune

  To their unhappy fate…

  But you, the sons of honor,

  Companions of enjoyment,

  Of love and poetry,

  Carefree in all your pleasures,

  Philosophers of leisure,

  Who scorn the society

  Of court slaves, come, dear comrades,

  Come at a carefree moment,

  Visit my little house—

  To argue and carouse!

  Lay down your load of sorrows,

  Zhukovsky, my good friend!

  Time flies by like an arrow,

  Stealing our revelry.

  Allow a friend to comfort

  Your bitter woes, your tears,

  And let Love reawaken

  Enjoyment’s withered rose!

  Vyazemsky, scatter flowers

  On your friends’ troubled brows,

  Pour out the foaming goblets

  That Bacchus fills for us!

  The Muses’ true disciple,

  Grandson of Aristippus,

  You love a tender song,

  The glasses’ clash and clang.

  In the refreshing coolness

  Of suppers at your place

  You love it when some beauty

  Shoots you a tender glance.

  You would abandon gladly

  Fame and its sad cohort

  Of noise and frantic folly

  For just one moment’s sport.

  Friend of my idle moments,

  Give me your hand once more,

  And let us drown old tedium

  In a golden goblet’s foam!

  While after us he chases,

  The gray-haired god of time,

  And strips the flowery meadows

  With his unyielding scythe,

  My friend, let’s boldly venture

  In search of happiness,

  Drinking our fill of pleasure

  Before the hour of death,

  Secretly plucking flowers

  From under time’s sharp knife,

  And spinning out the hours

  Of our short-lasting life!

  And when the gaunt-faced Parcae

  Cut off that life’s short thread,

  And carry us to our fathers

  In the night of the dead,

  Then, my beloved comrades,

  Do not
bewail our fate!

  What use are tears and sobbing

  Or mercenary chants?

  What use the smoking incense

  Or the bells’ dismal sound?

  What use the mournful music

  When we lie in the tomb?

  What use…? But then together

  Under the moon’s bright beams,

  Come all, and scatter flowers

  Where our dust lies in peace;

  Or lay upon our tombstones

  Figures of household gods,

  A pair of flutes, two goblets,

  Shoots of convolvulus,

  And with no gilt inscription

  The traveller will guess

  That here those young companions

  Are dust of happiness!

  (Essays, 260–69)

  The poem enjoyed immediate success and was much imitated, its form providing a model followed by many others. One of these, the schoolboy Pushkin, echoed the sentiments, the tone, and the form of “My Penates” very effectively in one of his first published poems, “The Little Town” (1815), accompanying it with an epistle to Batyushkov (in the same meter) wittily declining to follow the older poet’s advice that he should write more serious poetry.

  Eventually, at the beginning of the fateful year 1812, Batyushkov was able to heed the call of Gnedich and move to St. Petersburg in hope of government service. He was followed by the mocking letters of the young Vyazemsky, who poured scorn on the literary circles of the capital, notably on the Shishkov camp whose Circle (beseda, literally, “conversation”) of Lovers of the Russian Word had its headquarters there. Batyushkov was happy enough to join in the mockery, replying: “I have to admit, dear friend, that our Petersburg originals tend to be even funnier than the Moscow ones. You can’t imagine what goes on in the Beseda! What ignorance, what shamelessness!” He was particularly outraged by their criticism and mockery of Karamzin, “the only writer that the fatherland can take pride in” (SPP, 257). But against this ignorance he found allies in a group of clever young writers, including Dmitry Dashkov, a connoisseur of French literature and sharp-witted critic, to whom he was shortly to address one of his most important poems. Batyushkov joined in Dashkov’s scandalous abuse of the ungifted writer Khvostov (see the end of the epistle to Zhukovsky given below), and when Dashkov was expelled from the Beseda, Batyushkov left with him (for which Vyazemsky unexpectedly scolded him).

  All this was trivial literary politics, but eventually, thanks to Olenin’s protection, Batyushkov obtained a government post (verging on a sinecure) as assistant keeper of manuscripts in the Imperial Library. Here he worked with Gnedich, Dashkov, and Krylov—congenial company indeed. This same period saw the beginning of his lasting love for Anna Furman, a poor and beautiful young woman who had been taken in by the Olenin family and with whom Gnedich had been in love three years earlier. She was never to respond fully to Batyushkov’s love, but he carried her image in his heart when he went off to the wars, and once he was back, his feelings for her seem to have dominated his life for a number of years (see chapter 5).