Vahan Teryan
As a flower withers meekly
Where the shadow is an icy grave
Let the sprout of my love perish
So that she does not darken your days.
And I will endure the oppressive pain
Smiling with a clear smile:
Let me hide my darkness today
I want to hide that my heart is unhappy.
So that, in a hurry to a beautiful life,
You did not hear my sobs,
So that your young soul
I knew boundless joy.
Dusk
Through the clouds are sowing gold,
And the waves gently tell tales
And the heart longs for words that are fiery, while
A tired soul begs for a quiet affection.
The peace of the fields rings, and the firmament pours
The inexhaustible light of sadness and silence.
In the diamond mirror of unmoving waters
Clouds shine with living outlines.
And in my heart, where there is only one haze,
Longing is so sweet in its sultry anxiety, -
Desires there the lamp is lit ...
How the heavens burn on calm waters!
Oh, sweet pain in my mind
In a bottomless world, you alone are like a miracle
Your love burns and shines in everything
Crazy longing is silent everywhere.
Irreversible
We parted, but the dust of time
Your pale face is still sparing,
And I'm not deceived by the past -
I'm used to living without magic dreams.
And I look with a gloomy gaze
i'm on the madness of the old days
As if I follow the song
That was no longer mine.
We parted without saying: I'm sorry!
"Why is this hell in the heart?"
And our paths went our separate ways
We cannot go back.
I don't want to live in the past anymore
I don't think about you
Like a slave, I drag the fetters,
Submissive to a woeful fate.
And if your call resounds
And you will come to me again ...
Alas! - my soul is silent,
And I will never be the same.
I will never name you ...
The name of the sweetheart is like the moans of lyre ...
I will never name you.
Your fire fell on my head,
You are my love and my idol.
I will never name you -
This dusty world is too dark ...
They lit the fire and call each other.
I am a prisoner, I am a prisoner, abandoned here ...
And there are shepherds on the free mountains ...
To the wanderer, I have no peaceful shelter,
I'm in someone's power, I'm in someone's hands ...
And there are shepherds on the free mountains
They lit the fire and call each other ...
Yeghishe Charents
Our language
Our wild tongue and rebellious,
Courage and strength breathe in him,
It shines like a mountain lighthouse,
Through the centuries the darkness of living fire.
From antiquity to deep masters
Our mighty tongue was,
Then he was coarse with mountain layers,
That crystal did not dare to compare with him.
We then distort and choke
The language that is cleaner than springs
So that for today's souls
The rust of centuries has not settled.
Soul boundaries expand
And they won't express what the century breathes,
Neither Teryan's sonorous yards,
No parchment Narek.
Even the rural dialect of Tumanyan
We cannot be carried away these days,
But we'll find it sooner or later
The most intense speech.
January 28, 1933
My mother's gazelle
I remember my face, my dear mother,
Under the net of light wrinkles, my dear mother!
You sit in front of the house; spring green here
Cast a shadow over you, my dear mother!
You sit silently and remember those sad days;
They came and went, my dear mother!
Do you remember the son who left you long ago
Where did he go then, my dear mother?
And where does he live now, is he alive or dead long ago?
What doors is knocking on, my dear mother?
When he was tired, deceived in love, in whose
Then he sobbed in his arms, my dear mother?
You are in sad thought; lulls gentle here
Your holy sorrow, my dear mother!
And tears are bitter, behold, they flow one after another
On your hands, on your hands, my dear mother!
1920
At home
Ice peaks and blue lakes
Heaven, like the dreams of a dear soul,
With the purity of a childish gaze.
I'm alone; but you were with me.
I heard the murmur of the lake waves
And looked into the mysterious distance -
Awakened with force neoblichno
Age-old star sadness.
Called me to mountain peaks
Someone loudly at the end of the day,
But the night was already descending into the valleys,
By introducing me to the starry sadness ...
The writing
There is a side in the multifaceted and original work of Anna Akhmatova that deserves special attention. This is her translation activity. Akhmatova's translations are a unique anthology of world poetry. Knowledge of several foreign languages and her poetic talent allowed Anna Andreevna to translate more than two hundred poetic works. Among them are the poetry of Victor Hugo, Henrik Ibsen, Rainer Maria Rilke.
Akhmatova translated from the most different languages the world: Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, French, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, etc. A special place in Akhmatova's translation lyrics is occupied by oriental poetry, which was consonant with the poetess's emotional makeup and appearance. Anna Andreevna knew and loved ukrainian language... She brilliantly translated the book by Ivan Franko "Ziv'yala leafy". This translation was highly appreciated by Maxim Rylsky: "Akhmatova's translations really excite me." It is known that Rylsky even had an idea to write an article "Franko in Akhmatova's translation", which, unfortunately, did not come true.
The only reliably known translation of Akhmatova, created even before the First World War, is Rilke's six-line, published many years later. In the post-war years (from the early 50s to her death) she published a lot of poetry translations. As recorded in February 1964 by L.K. Chukovskaya, Akhmatova called translations "a very laborious form of idleness." Maria Petrovykh wrote down in the drafts of her memoirs: “In translations of lyric poems by An. An. did not believe. She was, after all, a literalist in translation. She translated a lot, but she was never a translator. " N. Ya. Mandelstam expressed herself even more concretely in “Book II”: “Someday Akhmatova’s translations will be collected, where there are no more than ten lines translated by herself, and everything else is done with just anyone on a half basis”. Secretary Akhmatova A.G. Naiman in the Knizhnoe Obozreniye newspaper categorically refuted the words of N. Ya. Mandelstam: “I affirm that in the quotation given at the beginning, the words of N. Ya. "With just anyone" written with undoubtedly malice<...>... The circumstances of life in those years were such that she actually shared the work that was offered to her with a few close people who knew how to do it and were in need. I have already written that the translations made by Akhmatova should be treated with caution and, in any case, not published among her own works. I translated with Akhmatova - Leopardi, Tagore, several other poets - and I am one of the five, perhaps six translators who have ever translated for Akhmatova. (I will make a reservation that this “for” is always to some extent conditional, because, strictly speaking, I have no right to call the translation completely mine, in which Akhmatova corrected at least a line.) I dare not speak for the others - N. I. Khardzhiev and Lev Gumilyov, who confessed this, and two others, known to me, but, naturally, to them, as well as to me, Akhmatova gave every penny written out in her name. Only those who admit that he himself could have done so can think otherwise. " Thus, when it comes to poetry translations, Anna Akhmatova is the collective pseudonym of six, perhaps seven translators, one of whom was the poet herself. In the publishing world, translations with this signature have always been quoted very highly, and there is no desire to find out exactly who is behind which poem. In any case, these translations are a significant phenomenon. However, we will postpone the assignment of co-authors in a row to Leopardi or Tagore. Her translations of the 1950s, primarily the book of the Korean six-verse, seem to have been made without "co-authors"; it is more difficult to say this with full confidence about the later ones. According to indirect data, at the beginning of 1965 Akhmatova was involved in the work on ancient Egyptian lyrics; in the so-called "Notebook No. 20" has an entry in two lines (apparently from the beginning of April 1965 ":" SS Narovchatov calls on Monday evening. Yulia brings Egyptians from the Young Turk. " everything is clear: it was with Narovchatov's preface that the transcriptions of Akhmatova from ancient Egyptian poetry in the Literary Gazette were first published on May 29, 1965 (on the eve of Akhmatova's departure to London). “Julia” - Julia Moiseevna Neiman, “Young Turk” - Alev Shakirovich Ibragimov, who worked the eastern edition of the publishing house Fiction", Both are poets and translators. On the 20th of May L.K. Chukovskaya wrote: “The Egyptians have already passed. Waiting for money. - Egyptians are delicious. The earliest known poetry in the world: two thousand years before the birth of Christ”(My italics, words belong to Akhmatova - E.V.). T.N. Notebook No. 21 contains hundreds of lines of ancient Egyptian lyrics, and when compared with later published texts, it is clear that these are drafts. So, at least as the discoverer of this ancient, along with the Sumerian, poetry Akhmatova the translator in Russian literature is unconditional. The translations of Vera Potapova, who worked on the ancient Egyptians at the same time as Akhmatova, are also good, but Potapova belonged to Marshak's school, Akhmatova only to herself.
Secrets of the craft. Akhmatov's readings.
Issue 2.M., 1992.S. 230-232.
About translations in the literary heritage of Anna Akhmatova
There is a brief mention of my participation in the translation activity of A.A. Akhmatova in the commentary to the poet's letters to me. Some memoirists of the "jubilee period" also mention this. Therefore, I felt it necessary to provide more details here.
I am not professional translator... My translations are very far from perfect, and I do not want them to be included in the literary heritage of a poet like Akhmatov.
At the end of the 40s. Anna Andreevna invited me to be her employee in this rather boring and exhausting business. To her proposal to sign the translations with two names, I replied with a resolute refusal. I would refuse even if I was a so-called "poet".
The first shared experiences was the translation of a poem by the Azerbaijani poet Saryvelli. The many hours of work turned out to be so difficult and painful that Akhmatova decided not to translate anymore.
But her poetic activity (after Zhdanov's speech) actually stopped. Translations were the only livelihood available. Then they paid 15 rubles per line. The work on translations was resumed and after a while it somehow got better. A certain professional level has been achieved.
In this matter, the advice of BL Pasternak, burdened with translations, also helped, who, with unique whirlwind intonations and not without slyness, prophesied: "Well, it's very simple: first you need to somehow see the whole, and then everything will go well."
Many translations were made by Akhmatova alone. Not less belongs to me. It should be borne in mind that many translations have been co-edited.
Unfortunately, I did not compile a bibliography of Akhmatov's translations, and therefore I can only mark those of my translations that are published in the collections in my library.
I'll start with a collection of works by Qu-Yuan (1954), where Akhmatova's name appears under two translations.
The translation of the famous poem Lisao (The Sorrow of the Exiled) is entirely mine.
Recently ("Sov. Culture", 1989, 13. VI) the Chinese literary critic Chao Man quoted the statement of a Moscow Sinologist who asserts that the translation of the poem "is possible (!), ... not inferior to the original." Even a prudent "maybe" does not diminish this overly enthusiastic assessment. Translation of another work of Qu-Yuan "Calling the Soul" - Akhmatov (with my participation).
In the collection "Chinese Classical Poetry" (1956, 1958) I own most of the translations. I have preserved copies of both editions with my numerous corrections for the failed third edition.
The two-volume collection "Serbian Epic" (1960) published four of my translations "Feast at Prince Lazar's", "Ivan Kosanchich in the Turkish camp", "Death of the Yugovich's mother", "Death of Ilia Smilyanich".
In the collection of works by S. Galkin "Poems. Ballads. Dramas" (1958) I own all four "Akhmatov's" translations.
A year before the death of A. A. Akhmatova, in 1965 her collection of selected (previously published) translations "Voices of Poets" was published.
The collection was compiled and published in a hurry. I did not participate in the compilation of this collection (due to illness). It turned out that 10 of my translations were mistakenly included in the collection: three poems by Jiri Volker, three poems by Stanislav Neumann, two poems in the "Serbian epic" section: "Feast at Prince Lazar's", "Death of the Yugovich's mother", Ibsen's poem "In this house they are ... "and the poem" Gerd "by Nurdal Grieg.
Perhaps the collection was compiled with the participation of the author of the foreword A. Tarkovsky, who introduced the "amendments" without referring to the interlinear translations.
As a result, textual distortions appeared in several of my translations.
In Ibsen's poem, the last stanza should be read like this:
She will not find her faith burnt out,
He will not find burnt happiness.
And they find, these two people,
Necklaces, pendants, wrists, -
She cannot find only her burned out faith,
and to him - his former happiness.
In N. Grieg's poem, the last stanza is not separated.
In the poem "The Death of the Yugovich's Mother", a gross error of the author of the interlinear translation (N. Kravtsova) remained uncorrected.
Next to them are nine fierce lions,
The field was announced with a lion's roar.
(Lions in Yugoslavia!)
Near them are nine fierce dogs,
The field was announced by their growl.
"Love" is not a lion, but a dog, a dog (husky).
Especially crippled is the translation of I. Volker's poem "In the Park at Noon". After the first stanza, the fifth line fell out, rhyming with the eighth line:
I am a boy today, clinging to joy ...
Correct reading of the syntactically related sixth line is not
I can love
And I can love.
After the eighth line, the ninth line, rhyming with it, disappeared:
But prayer also grows stronger, ripening like an apple in the leaves thicker ...
Finally, the rhyme in the penultimate line is destroyed.
Printed:
I must become one;
A warrior prays with a saber.
Correct reading:
I am worthy of them;
A warrior prays with a saber.
In the recently published book of translations of Akhmatova "Breath of Song" (1988), in addition to the poems Ibsen, N. Grieg, S. Neiman and S. Galkin I mentioned, I own the entire cycle of poems by the Tatar poet G. Tukai.
I cannot enumerate here all the "Akhmatov's" translations made by me and found in various collections and periodicals.
Some of my translations are included in the collection "Masters of Russian Poetic Translation (Tuvim, Bronevsky, etc.), published in 1968, as well as in the author's collections" Poems and Poems "by Markish (1969) and Charents (1973).
I translated poems by Mahi, Kvitka, Baumvol and others, which I have not noted here.
Collaborative work on translations ceased in the early 60s.