A FAREWELL TO GREEK TRAGEDY: TWO POEMS BY OSIP MANDELSTAM

O never shall I see the fervid “Phèdre”
Inside an olden, many-tiered theater,
From the soot-mantled heavens of high gallery,
Illumined by the light of melting candles.
And, to the actors’ vanity indifferent,
To the fruition of applause they’re harvesting,
I shall not hear the splendid, doubly-rhymed,
Declaimed towards the limes, dodecasyllable:

“How these vain ornaments, these veils encumber me!”

The theater of Racine! A veil mysterious
Divides us from the world of orphic otherness;
With wrinkles deep, profoundly bestirring,
The curtain lies before and in-between:
Ionic shawls fall down from the shoulders,
An utterance like molten lava burns,
Tempered in torment, indignation grows
And reaches its crescendo bitter…

I’m never to behold Racine triumphant!

A scent of orange peel whiffs through the air
And, once again, worm-eaten playbills rustle;
As if aroused from lethargy aeonic,
A fellow playgoer confides in me:

“Exhausted by Melpomene’s delirium,
There’s nothing I desire more than quietude;
Away from here, lest those vulture-spectators
Swoop down and devour the poor Muse!”

If only the Greeks had seen our spectacles…

Я не увижу знаменитой “Федры”,
В старинном многоярусном театре,
С прокопченной высокой галереи,
При свете оплывающих свечей.
И, равнодушен к суете актеров,
Сбирающих рукоплесканий жатву,
Я не услышу, обращенный к рампе,
Двойною рифмой оперенный стих:

— Как эти покрывала мне постылы…

Театр Расина! Мощная завеса
Нас отделяет от другого мира;
Глубокими морщинами волнуя,
Меж ним и нами занавес лежит:
Спадают с плеч классические шали,
Расплавленный страданьем крепнет голос
И достигает скорбного закала
Негодованьем раскаленный слог…

Я опоздал на празднество Расина!

Вновь шелестят истлевшие афиши,
И слабо пахнет апельсинной коркой,
И словно из столетней летаргии
Очнувшийся сосед мне говорит:

— Измученный безумством Мельпомены,
Я в этой жизни жажду только мира;
Уйдем, покуда зрители-шакалы
На растерзанье Музы не пришли!

Когда бы грек увидел наши игры…

IMITATIONS IN ROMAIC GREEK

Pitying the girl in a maiden, the youth had timidly waited
And, after seventy years, uttered his love to the crone.

Pitying the boy in a man, the maiden had lividly waited
And, after seventy years, spat in the senex’s face.

ПОДРАЖАНИЕ НОВОГРЕЧЕСКОМУ

Девочку в деве щадя, с объясненьями юноша медлил
И через семьдесят лет молвил старухе: люблю.

Мальчика в муже щадя, негодуя, медлила дева
И через семьдесят лет плюнула старцу в лицо.

Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam (1891-1938) was a major Russian poet, prose writer, and literary essayist. Most of his works went unpublished in the Soviet Union during the Joseph Stalin era (1929–53) and were almost unknown to generations of Russian readers until the mid-1960s.

Victoria Chernyak is a healthcare modeling analyst, theatre dramaturg and literary translator. She has translated and adapted plays by Alexander Pushkin, Evgeny Schwartz and Daniil Kharms. Her work appeared in On the Seawall and has been performed at poetry readings, Valdez Theatre Conference and theatre workshops. A new anthology, Conversation Piece, of selected Russian poetry in translation that spans from the early 1800s to late 1900s, has been accepted for publication in Somerville, Mass.