Quote:
Originally posted by licorne
Thank you so much for your efforts!
This IS my poem (written by Tsvetaeva in 1934 in France). Dare I ask you to help me with the translation of the rest of the poem (especially the two so problematic strophes - the 7th and the 8th starting "A block of wood abandoned on the alley" etc)? And could you tell me what's the poem's title in russian (if there is one - in some of the translations I have the poem has no title).
Yours,
Licorne
|
Hi Licorne,
Okay, my English is far from perfect, but I'll try. Here it goes (things in square brackets are my clarifications that don't exist in the original text; the numbers in brackets refer to my comments at the end):
Craving for homeland
[1]! The long ago
Exposed ordeal!
I absolutely do not care
Where absolutely lonesome
I am to be, what stones I am to tread on
While lagging home carrying a market bag,
Towards a house that does not know it is mine
Like a hospital or a barracks.
It’s all the same -- among what
Faces I am to bristle like a captive
Lion, from what society
I am to be displaced – without fail –
Into myself, in a dictatorship
[2] of feelings
Like a Kamchatka
[3] bear with no ice
Where not to get along (nor am I trying to)
Or where to grovel – it’s all the same to me.
Nor shall I be seduced by native tongue,
Its milky call.
It makes no difference to me in what [language]
I am to be misunderstood by a stranger.
[4]
( [The stranger, who] reads, and swallows
tonns of newspapers, and preys on gossip
[5])
He is of the 20th century,
And I am from before time
[6]
[While I am] Dumbfounded like a log
That remains of an alley
Everything seems equally insignificant
[7],
But perhaps most valuable
Is the past that is dearer to me than anything else.
All patterns, all markings
All dates have been removed from me
[I am] A sole that has been born – somewhere.
Thus my land couldn’t preserve me
Just like a sharpest sleuth
Could not find a birthmark
On a sole – all of it.
Every house seems strange, every temple seems empty
And all seems equally meaningless
[7]
Except [when I see] a shrub along the road
Especially a rowan-tree
[8] ...
Footnotes:
[1] The Russian word (
"rodina") doesn't have an exact equivalent in English. It's a noun derived from a word meaning "related by blood" or "very closely tied", i.e., "the revered native land". They frequently translate it as "Motherland" in English.
[2] "Dictatorship", literally "the exclusive rule of".
[3] "Kamchatka" is a place at the Russian Far East.
[4] "... to be misunderstood by a
stranger", literally "passer-by".
[5] "preys on gossip", literally "milks gossip"
[6] "I am from before time", literally "I am from before all centuries"
[7] "Everything seems equally insignificant", literally "all is equal". This one is somewhat vague and therefore hard to translate, but I think "equally insignificant, meaningless, worthless, unappealing, unengaging, disintereting" is what she means.
[8] "Rowan-tree" is a type of plant that is very common in Russia; considered to be distinctively Russian (along with a birch-tree).
As for the title, this poem is listed by it's first line in the book where I read it: "Craving for homeland! The long ago..." ("Òîñêà ïî ðîäèíå! Äàâíî...").
Hope this helps,
davlet
[Edited by davlet on 21st May 2003 at 10:37]