Tag: 1961

Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине… (Every Store…) by Yevgeny Vinokurov

Every store keeps a book for complaints
And, if you ask for it, they have to give it to you!
It wouldn’t be a bad idea, I think,
If eternity had a book like that.
Then people wouldn’t have to keep silent about their sorrow.
…Timidly, cautious at first, they would all come, bringing
The griefs they endure, the wrongs they are made to suffer
To universal attention and judgement.
How we should then be struck, I know,
By one entry of half a line
written
By that woman who, slumped against its railings,
Was crying in the park last night…

.

by Евгений Михайлович Винокуров (Yevgeny Mikhailovich Vinokurov)
(1961)
Translated by Albert C. Todd

Additional information: He served in the artillery during the Second World War, studied at the Gorky Literary Institute and published his first poems in 1948. As co-editor of the poetry section of the journal Октябрь (October) he published Boris Slutsky, Nikolai Zabolotsky and the young Bella Akhmadulina amongst many others.

Beneath is the original Russian version of the poem in Cyrillic.

.

Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине…

Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине,
Требуйте её, – должны подать!..

Предлагаю вечности: отныне
Завести подобную тетрадь,

Чтоб о боли люди не молчали,
И тогда-то на вселенский суд
Все свои обиды и печали
Люди осторожно понесут…

Как тогда б, я знаю, поразила
Надпись в полстроки из-под пера
Женщины, что павши на перила,
Ночью в парке плакала вчера.

1961

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Если б все, кто помощи душевной (‘If all who have begged help…’) by Anna Akhmatova

If all who have begged help

From me in this world,

All the holy innocents,

Broken wives, and cripples,

The imprisoned, the suicidal –

If they had sent me one kopeck

I should have become ‘richer

Than all Egypt’…

But they did not send me kopecks,

Instead they shared with me their strength,

And so nothing in the world

Is stronger than I,

And I can bear anything, even this.

.

.

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)

(1961)

from the time Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book) was published but not present in that collection

translation by D. M. Thomas

.

A line omitted in this translation is ‘… as the late Kuzmin would say.’ referring to Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin (Михаи́л Алексе́евич Кузми́н) . I don’t know why it was omitted except in an effort to not distract a reader, one unfamiliar with the poet Kuzmin, from enjoying the poem.

Below is the original Russian version in Cyrillic.

.

Если б все, кто помощи душевной

Если б все, кто помощи душевной
У меня просил на этом свете, —
Все юродивые и немые,
Брошенные жены и калеки,
Каторжники и самоубийцы, —
Мне прислали по одной копейке,
Стала б я ‘богаче всех в Египте’,
Как говаривал Кузмин покойный…
Но они не слали мне копейки,
А со мной своей делились силой,
И я стала всех сильней на свете,
Так, что даже это мне не трудно.

Judgement Day by R. S. Thomas

Yes, that's how I was,
I know that face,
That bony figure
Without grace
Of flesh or limb;
In health happy,
Careless of the claim
Of the world's sick
Or the world's poor;
In pain craven -
Lord, breathe once more
On that sad mirror,
Let me be lost
In mist for ever
Rather than own
Such bleak reflections,
Let me go back
On my two knees
Slowly to undo
The knot of life
That was tied there.
 
By R. S. Thomas
from Tares (1961)

‘Услышишь гром и вспомнишь обо мне’ a.k.a. ‘You will hear thunder and remember me’ by Anna Akhmatova

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
 
That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
When, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.
 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1961 - 1963)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas

Below is the original Russian version in cyrillic.

Услышишь гром и вспомнишь обо мне,
Подумаешь: она грозы желала...
Полоска неба будет твердо-алой,
А сердце будет как тогда - в огне.
Случится это в тот московский день,
Когда я город навсегда покину
И устремлюсь к желанному притину, 
Свою меж вас еще оставив тень.