Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

by Irina Reyfman

  TVER

  “The art of writing poetry in Russia,” my dinner companion at the inn was saying, “understood in its various senses, is still far from greatness. Poetry had nearly awakened, but now once again slumbers; whereas versification had taken one step and then came to a standstill.109

  “Lomonosov, having perceived what was ridiculous in the Polish cladding of our verses, stripped from them their foreign doublet. After giving good examples of new verses, he fitted on his followers a great model that turned out to be a bridle, and nobody has yet dared to move a step away from it. It was unfortunate that Sumarokov happened to live at the same time and he was an excellent versifier. He practiced verse on the model of Lomonosov, and now all those who follow them cannot imagine that there could be meters other than iambics as practiced by these two famous men. Although both these versifiers taught the rules for other meters, and Sumarokov left behind examples of all types, they were too insignificant to merit from anyone imitation. If Lomonosov had adapted Job or the psalmodist in dactyls; or if Sumarokov had written Semiramis or Dimitry in trochees, then Kheraskov, too, would have thought it possible to write in meters other than iambs and would have attracted greater fame in his eight-year endeavor by having described the siege of Kazan in a meter suited to epic.110 I am not surprised that the ancient three-cornered hat fitted to Virgil was cut in the style of Lomonosov, but I would have preferred Homer to appear among us not in iambs but in feet similar to his hexameters; and Kostrov, albeit a translator rather than a poet, would have inaugurated an epoch in the history of our prosody, since he would have advanced the progress of poetry itself by an entire generation.111

  “But Lomonosov and Sumarokov were not the only ones to halt Russian versification. Trediakovsky, that tireless workhorse, contributed not a little to it with his Tilemakhida. It is very difficult at present to give an example of new versification, since models of good and bad prosody have put down deep roots. Parnassus is surrounded by iambs, and rhymes stand guard everywhere. If anyone took it into his head to write in dactyls, Trediakovsky was immediately assigned as mentor, and the most beautiful child long remained ugly in appearance until such time as a Milton, Shakespeare, or Voltaire were born. That is when Trediakovsky will be dug out from a grave overgrown with the moss of neglect, and good lines will be found in Tilemakhida and set as an example.112

  “An ear that has grown accustomed to rhyme will for a long time be an impediment to a beneficial change in verse form. After a long time hearing concordant endings in verse lines, unrhyming will seem crude, rough, and dissonant. So shall it be for as long the French language is in greater use in Russia than other languages. Our senses, like a soft and young tree, can be cultivated to be straight or crooked, as one wishes. Moreover, in a poem, as in all things, a fashion can dominate and if there is at least something natural, then that will be accepted without contradiction. But everything fashionable is ephemeral, especially in poetry. An external shine can become rusty, while genuine beauty will never fade. Homer, Virgil, Milton, Racine, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Tasso, and many others will be read for as long as the human race has not been destroyed.

  “I consider it unnecessary to converse with you about the different verse forms natural to the Russian language. What the iamb, trochee, dactyl, or anapest are everyone knows who has even the slightest understanding of the rules of versification. But what would not be superfluous is if I were to give sufficient examples of the different types. But my ability and insight are limited. If my advice were able to do anything then I would say that Russian, indeed even the Russian language, would be greatly enriched if translations in verse were not always into iambs. It would be considerably more suitable to the epic poem if a translation of the Henriade were not in iambs, and unrhymed iambs are worse than prose.”113

  All of the above my feasting companion uttered in one breath and so fluently that I did not have a chance to voice any objections although I had to say quite a lot of something or other in defense of iambs and all those who wrote in them.

  “I myself,” he continued, “followed the infectious example and composed verse in iambs, but they were odes. Here is a remaining fragment of one of them, all the others were consigned to burn in a fire; and indeed the very same fate that affected her sisters awaits the remaining bit. In Moscow nobody wanted to publish it for two reasons: the first was that the sense in the verse was unclear and many of the lines were hackwork; the second that the subject of the poem was inapplicable to our country. I am now going to Petersburg to ask about its publication, hoping, like a tender father of his little child, that because of the second reason for which it wasn’t published in Moscow, they will look indulgently at the first. If it’s no trouble to you to read some stanzas,” he said to me as he handed over a sheet.—I unfolded it and read the following: Liberty … Ode … “On account of the title alone they refused me the publication of this poem. But I remember very well that in the Instruction on the Establishment of a New Law Code, in speaking about liberty, it is said: ‘liberty ought to be called the fact that all must obey the same laws.’ It follows that it is appropriate to speak about liberty in our country.”114

  1

  O! gift of heaven beneficent,

  Originator of all great deeds,

  O liberty, liberty, gift munificent,

  Allow a slave to hymn as needs.

  With ardor fill my heart replete,

  The dark of slavery will to light retreat

  When by your muscles strong is stirred,

  That Tell and Brutus may yet arise

  That kings enthroned in power’s guise

  Will by your voice be perturbèd.

  “This stanza has been faulted for two reasons; for the verse ‘The dark of slavery will to light retreat.’ It is stilted and hard to utter because of the frequent repetition of the letter T and because of the frequent collocation of consonantal letters, bstva t’mu pretv—for ten consonants there are three vowels, yet in the Russian language it is just as possible as in Italian to write harmoniously…. Agreed … although others considered this line to be successful, finding in the roughness of the verse an evocative expression of the difficulty of the very act. And here is another: ‘That kings will by your voice be perturbèd.’ To wish a Tsar perturbation is the same as wishing him ill; consequently…. But I do not want to bore you with all the comments made on my verses. Many of them, I admit, were fair. Allow me to be your reader.

  2

  I came into the world, and you with me….

  Let us go past this stanza. Here is its content: Man is free in every way at birth….

  3

  What hindrance is there to being free?

  Limits to my wishes everywhere I see,

  Shared power has arisen in the polity,

  A common curb on powers has come to be.

  To it society obeys in everything,

  Everywhere unanimous agreeing.

  The common good has no anxiety.

  In the power of all I see my fate,

  In the will of all my will partakes,

  This is what the law is in society.

  4

  Amidst a lush and grassy valley,

  Among fields bowed with harvest crops,

  Where flourishes the tender lily,

  Among the peaceful shade of olive groves.

  Than Parian marble even whiter,

  Than luminous days yet brighter,

  A temple stands, its sides diaphanous,

  No sacrifice burns there in falsity,

  A fiery note hangs there, we see:

  “An end to woes of innocence.”

  5

  With branch of olive crowned,

  On hardened stone there seated,

  Remorseless and cold-blooded,

  A deaf divinity…………

  and so on—law is portrayed as a divinity in a temple whose guards are truth and justice.

  6

  He elevates his steely gazes,

 
Joy and awe about him pouring,

  Fairly looks on all the faces,

  Neither loving them or hating.

  To flattery alien, and deception, withal,

  He ancestry, eminence, wealth reviles,

  Material sacrifice is nothing fine,

  To kinship and attachment blind,

  Reward and punishment do not him bind,

  For on this earth his image is divine.

  7

  Behold this monster terrible,

  A hydra with its hundred heads,

  In tears, insistent to implore,

  Rife with poison in his jaws.

  It tramples hard on earthly powers

  Its head as high as heaven towers,

  Proclaims that region as its sphere

  Phantoms, darkness, everywhere it sows

  To flatter and deceive is the thing it knows,

  Obedience from all is what’s held dear.

  8

  With darkness reason dimming,

  And spreading widely lowly venom …

  A depiction of holy superstition depriving man of sensibility, dragging him into the yoke of servitude and error, dressing him in armor:

  To fear the truth was commanded ….

  Power calls this a slander of divinity; reason, a deception.

  9

  In regions wide we do survey,

  Where stands a throne of slavery darkly….

  In a period of peace and tranquility, sacred and political superstition, the two reinforcing one another,

  Together by them society is hassled.

  One takes aim to pin down reason,

  T’other strives free will to pinion,

  For the common good this is declared.

  10

  In the shade of servile rest,

  Crops will never be their best,

  Where hindrance slows down very thought,

  Grandeur’s bound to come to naught.

  And all the evil consequences of slavery, such as: carelessness, indolence, cunning, hunger, and so on.

  11

  His arrogant brow uplifted,

  The Tsar a steely scepter prizes,

  Upon a thund’rous throne ensconced

  The people like some vermin he despises.

  Life and death are within his grasp:

  ‘A villain I can spare,’ he spake,

  ‘Power I am able to bequeath,

  When I laugh everyone laughs too

  When I in menace frown, all feel rue

  You will live if I order you to live.’

  12

  And we harken calmly …

  how a hungry serpent, reviling all, poisons days of joy and merriment. But, whilst around your throne all kneel—tremble, now an avenger advances, prophesying liberty….

  13

  The martial host arises, widely bristling,

  Hope her arms on all does fasten,

  In blood of crowned tormentor glistening,

  To wash away one’s shame they hasten.

  The sword is sharp, I spy it widely gleams,

  In many guises death flies down, it seems,

  Above the prideful head it holds.

  Exalt you nations now in fetters,

  By right of nature avenge tormentors

  And lead the king up to the scaffold.

  14

  And now the vail of lying night,

  With mighty crash is sorely pierced,

  The idol huge of stubborn might,

  Of might conceited—it lies trampled;

  A giant hundred-armed in chains

  Is, like a citizen, dragged back again

  To face the throne the people claim:

  “You violator of power granted me!

  Tell, you villain, crowned by me,

  How dare you rebel and inflame?

  15

  I clothed you in a cloak of porphyry,

  Equality in society to oversee,

  To keep the widow and the orphan ever free

  From woe, their innocence yours to foresee.

  To innocence a father, child-loving,

  But as avenger implacably unbending

  ’Gainst falsehood, vice and calumny;

  Deeds with honor given to rewarding,

  Evil by good planning given to preempting,

  Morality preserved in all her purity.

  16

  I covered the sea in ships….

  Gave a means to the acquisition of riches and well-being. I wished the landworker to be not captive in his field and would bless you….

  17

  In the shedding of blood unstinting,

  A thunderous host I mounted,

  Canons, huge, of bronze, by casting,

  Evildoers from abroad I punished.

  Obedience to you was decreed,

  Pursuit of glory was our ardent need.

  Anything goes for everyone’s advancement,

  The depths of earth I excavate,

  Metal, gleaming, I amalgamate

  For your enhancement.

  18

  The oath you gave me now forgotten,

  You forgot that I it was who chose you;

  For your pleasure you think the crown begotten,

  And who is Lord, who subject, misconstrue.

  My statutes with a sword you’ve smashed,

  All rights to silence you’ve reduced

  And ordered truth to feel ashamed.

  You’ve cleared a way for depredations,

  Appealed to God, but I was not named,

  And treated me like abomination.

  19

  Procuring by sweat and blood

  The fruit for food I planted,

  Crumbs were shared for chewing cud,

  And effort was not stinted;

  But treasures will never you suffice!

  Did they really fall so short in price

  That off my back you tore my shirt?

  Shower with gifts your favorite kiss-ass!

  And the lady whose honor suffered mishaps!

  Is gold the only God to whom you now revert?

  Have you recognized gold as your God?

  20

  An insignia devised for excellence

  You awarded as a badge to arrogance.

  A sword sharpened for an enemy’s defense

  You began to aim against innocence.

  Troops as bulwark have been marshaled—

  Do you lead them into splendid battle,

  Humanity to punish?

  You fight in bloody valleys,

  So that the drunks in Athens

  Shall, yawning, ‘A hero!’ admonish.

  21

  Villain, most horrid of all the villains …

  You conjoined all atrocities and directed your stinger at me….

  ‘Die! Die, you, and a hundredfold!’—

  The people declared….

  22

  O great man, in treachery abounding,

  Hypocrite, blasphemer, flunkey!

  Alone you give the world so resounding

  An example, one for posterity.

  A villain, Cromwell, I do you hold

  Since with your power bold

  Freedom’s stronghold you destroyed.

  But by the generation from you they learned

  How peoples can themselves be avenged:

  You Charles, on trial, executed.

  23

  And this is the voice of liberty resounding to all the ends of the Earth….

  To the veche115 the nation flocks;

  The cast-iron throne they bring down;

  Like Samson of old they shake down

  The palace full of nasty plots.

  By law is nature’s fortress firmed,

  How great you are, spirit of freedom,

  Of founders, just like God himself!

  24

  The next eleven stanzas contain the description of the kingdom of freedom and its effects; that is, safety, tranquility, well-being, greatnes
s….

  34

  But passions, sharpening malice …

  turn the tranquility of the citizenry into ruin …

  Turn father against son,

  Tear apart marital bonds,

  and all the consequences of the limitless desire to exercise power….

  35, 36, 37

  Description of the fatal consequences of luxury. Internecine strife. Civil war. Marius, Sulla, Augustus….

  He sedates anxious liberty.

  He wound round the cast-iron scepter with flowers …

  as a result—enslavement….

  38, 39

  Such is the law of nature: from torment arises liberty, from liberty slavery….

  40

  Why one should wonder at this,—and man too is born to

  The next eight stanzas contain prophecies of the future fate of the fatherland, which will be divided into parts.116 The larger it is, the quicker this comes about. But the time has not yet come. Indeed, when it does come then

  The door bolts of the awful night will crack.

  Resilient power at its extinction will set a guard on speech and will gather all its strength so as with one final blow to crush liberty as it arises….

  49

  But mankind will howl in chains and, guided by the hope for freedom and the indestructible right of nature, will act…. And power will be brought to tremble. At that time the consolidation of all forces, at that time heavy power

  Will be dissipated in a single second.

  O day most sought of all days!

  50